Lost Coast quite smooth on my Athlon 64

[TaoFan]

Up until a week ago, I had an old Athlon XP which was about 1.4GHz, 512mb and a weedy 3D card (GeForce FX 5200), and I was always afraid of running Lost Coast because of the HDR stuff.

I upgraded to an Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2GHz) and 1gb and a higher-spec 3D card (GeForce 7300LE) and tried running it today, guessing it would choke my new system.

But it worked fine and smooth, and looked amazing, even though the HDR was fluctuating even when I wasn't looking around. Man, those water and shore effects, and the cute old man!

Also, I didn't get hurt by the Combine in this game, yet I didn't cheat. Was it not meant to be a game in the usual sense?

Either way, good fun, and the commentary balloons were interesting. I love technical stuff.

 

[giant384]

7300le is loadsssss better then the fx5200

 

[Solver]

It wasn't meant to be a real gameplay level, no - it was a tech demo. You can get hurt and killed, though, on higher difficulty. I tried playing it on Easy, and finished with 100 health/100 suit, not taking any damage. On Hard, though, the Combine seem pretty much as strong as in the regular game.

Still, I think Lost Coast was well done. While not really meant for gameplay, the gameplay was still Valve-quality. The one puzzle still required you to watch what's going on and interact with the world, as in HL2, and the firefights were fun. Though of course, the real point of it was to watch the graphics goodness. The church was awesome.

 

[TaoFan]

I've since found out that the 7300LE has HDR built-in, so it's no wonder LC ran so well.

 

[liPillON]

7300le is loadsssss better then the fx5200

or less shitty

 

[Solver]

Actually indeed, the 7300LE is a pretty poor card. I'm almost certain that a high-end 6 series card would perform better. This is the one thing I don't really like about nVidia cards - the low-end card in a new series is usually worse than a card from the previous series, while more expensive. For example, the FX5200 isn't better than a powerful GeForce 4 Ti. The 4Ti cards also support shaders, the FX5200 shader 2.0 support is on paper only.

The 6800 has 4 times as many pixel pipelines as the 7300LE. Okay, I looked the prices up, and the 7300LE is really cheap, so that's fine. And it's still more than enough to run HL2 games, so no problem here either - but generally speaking, it's not a great card, in relative terms.

 

[The Brick]

I've since found out that the 7300LE has HDR built-in, so it's no wonder LC ran so well.

Wait, what? lol.

 

[TaoFan]

I think Solver is an ATI fan, so I dislike him already. nVidia RULES!!

 

[xombine]

No, he's just stating the facts. The same thing irritates me too, about low end 7 series being worse than high ends 6 series.

 

[-Psy-]

I've since found out that the 7300LE has HDR built-in, so it's no wonder LC ran so well.

No card has built in HDR. They just support it :thumbs:

 

[giant384]

the hdr that is supported by the card isnt the hdr that is running in source though, but it is anothor form of hdr

 

[-Psy-]

True. That's why you can have AA + HDR with no problems on any card.

 

[TaoFan]

I thought HDR was extremely processor-intensive, and would choke older systems like my own older one I mentioned above. Well, if I'm using Source's HDR, all the better.

Anyone know if the card I've got has Shader 2.0 support? I really hope so. I don't care if it's slower, as long as it supports the latest 3D stuff.

 

[giant384]

I thought HDR was extremely processor-intensive, and would choke older systems like my own older one I mentioned above. Well, if I'm using Source's HDR, all the better.

Anyone know if the card I've got has Shader 2.0 support? I really hope so. I don't care if it's slower, as long as it supports the latest 3D stuff.

you have the latest 3d processor but jsut not the speed to run it. yes its supports 2.0 as well as shader 3.0

 

[Solver]

I think Solver is an ATI fan, so I dislike him already. nVidia RULES!!

Me an ATI fan ? Cracks me up. I've never had an ATI card on my computer, and hopefully never will - have used GeForce since the days of GeForce 2.

Still, my love for nVidia cards doesn't prevent me from stating facts . And two of those facts are, indeed, that the weakest card in a new nVidia series tends to be too poor, relatively, and the second fact is that the FX5200 was a very poor card as far as shaders go.

 

[TaoFan]

Oh. Apologies, Solver.

 

[Solver]

It's okay, fellow GeForce user .

 

[bigburpco]

You're invincible in LC when you turn on the commentary.

 

[TaoFan]

I did that, yes.

 

[Flynn(Snarkpit)]

Well...yay?