So, is HDR present?

[felipaopl]

This was a topic discussed multiple times here...
Can someone that got the game here tell me if HDR is enabled in the game? Post SS if you wish, too

 

[Hyperion2010]

yes, overtly
walk through the shelled out houses in Follow freeman, and go to a window and youll see it, personally i think its really cool...

 

[KiNG]

i didnt think it was...

 

[shapeshifter]

its not in game yet, they said in the future a patch would come out to activate it.

 

[felipaopl]

Well, you must make sure that you're not thinking that "bloom"-like effects are HDR. They are 2 different things.

Could you guys post some screenies here, so we can say what kind of technique is used?

 

[guise]

from what i saw... the glow effect on the lights seemed to be a sprite or something

 

[felipaopl]

its not in game yet, they said in the future a patch would come out to activate it.

Wow, that's sad. Maybe 'cause it had a huge impact in performance? See FarCry's example, the 1.3 patch enabled HDR, it's really cool-looking, but the FPS drop is really huge.

Strange, 'cause in that DX9 Source showcase video HDR was enabled and it was running pretty well, and probably in a 9800 card, as X800 weren't available yet in that time.

 

[KiNG]

im pretty positive it isnt in felipaopl. there are only blooms and pretty normal effects. infact now that i think of it i know its not in.

 

[shapeshifter]

Wow, that's sad. Maybe 'cause it had a huge impact in performance? See FarCry's example, the 1.3 patch enabled HDR, it's really cool-looking, but the FPS drop is really huge.

Strange, 'cause in that DX9 Source showcase video HDR was enabled and it was running pretty well, and probably in a 9800 card, as X800 weren't available yet in that time.

yes, but knowing valve they may have had it working for all of ati's cards, but some of nvidia's might not be able to do it with out quite some tweaking (remeber they said the Fx series cards would never be able to do it without going down into single digit fps) mabye they found a way to get it to work on them, but are busy trying to get the fps better for it.

 

[The Dark Elf]

They probably removed it to keep the low end versions looking almost as good as the high end.. And I've played DX7 and DX9 versions and I have to say, Valve did an incredible job making the lowest end versions look almost identical to the best quality.

I do wish they'd kept HDR in somewhere, for the sake of atleast being able to screw around with it.. Same goes for parallax mapping, I don't think thats in there neither.. But wasn't it in CS:S as a console option?

 

[felipaopl]

yes, but knowing valve they may have had it working for all of ati's cards, but some of nvidia's might not be able to do it with out quite some tweaking (remeber they said the Fx series cards would never be able to do it without going down into single digit fps) mabye they found a way to get it to work on them, but are busy trying to get the fps better for it.

Perhaps, but think about it, that would be another great selling point for ATI. Imagine HDR available (only initially) on ATI cards?

And even if that wasn't the case, why don't just include an option to turn it on/off...

 

[2mass]

They probably removed it to keep the low end versions looking almost as good as the high end.. And I've played DX7 and DX9 versions and I have to say, Valve did an incredible job making the lowest end versions look almost identical to the best quality.

I do wish they'd kept HDR in somewhere, for the sake of atleast being able to screw around with it.. Same goes for parallax mapping, I don't think thats in there neither.. But wasn't it in CS:S as a console option?

Or maybe they did a terrible job on the best versions ?

 

[Cypher19]

HDR is NOT present in the game. Valve felt that floating point frame buffers (which is EXACTLY what HDR is and nothing more) was too performance costly to be used practically. Far Cry v1.3 is a perfect example of that, as a lot of people, even with high-end cards, had to lower their resolution to 1024x768 and still didn't get 60+fps.

Right now all the glows, which are one of the effects possible with HDR, are done by using particles, similar to the 'fog' you can see in de_dust_source.


Anyways, I repeat: HDR IS NOT IN HALF LIFE 2 RIGHT NOW, NOR ANY OF THE EFFECTS THAT ARE POSSIBLE LIKE REALISTIC BLOOMS AND TONE MAPPING!

(Btw, that one effect in "follow freeman" I think was done late in the development process as a test in simulating tone mapping. I know for a fact it does not use HDR and the post-processing effect for tone mapping because I see it on my GeForce4, but proper tone mapping requires SM 2.0)

 

[shapeshifter]

Perhaps, but think about it, that would be another great selling point for ATI. Imagine HDR available (only initially) on ATI cards?

And even if that wasn't the case, why don't just include an option to turn it on/off...

mabye valve doesn't want to alienate their coustumers who give them money?

Like all those other "The way its meant to be played" Nvidia companys do to ati users oh so often.

 

[felipaopl]

They probably removed it to keep the low end versions looking almost as good as the high end.. And I've played DX7 and DX9 versions and I have to say, Valve did an incredible job making the lowest end versions look almost identical to the best quality.

I do wish they'd kept HDR in somewhere, for the sake of atleast being able to screw around with it.. Same goes for parallax mapping, I don't think thats in there neither.. But wasn't it in CS:S as a console option?

If I remember well, some fellas told me that you cold enable it by changing an ini file I think... but the game is missing a DLL that is used to enable it (those guys know it 'cause they played the leaked version, where HDR was present).

 

[felipaopl]

(Btw, that one effect in "follow freeman" I think was done late in the development process as a test in simulating tone mapping. I know for a fact it does not use HDR and the post-processing effect for tone mapping because I see it on my GeForce4, but proper tone mapping requires SM 2.0)

Can someone post SS of this effect just to check out how it looks?

 

[shapeshifter]

If I remember well, some fellas told me that you cold enable it by changing an ini file I think... but the game is missing a DLL that is used to enable it (those guys know it 'cause they played the leaked version, where HDR was present).

grab the dll from the leak and see if you can force it on.

 

[Cypher19]

Felipaopl: It's almost impossible to just show screenshots of it, but what tone mapping does is simulate pupil dilation (i.e. you're in a dark room for awhile, and then you go outside on a bright sunny day. At first it's really bright, then it seems to dim, and vice versa). The effect in the follow freeman segment (which seems to only occur in that one spot) just has the screen as a little light for a little bit while you step out onto the roof of the building, and leaves it a little dark while you go back inside.

 

[felipaopl]

Oh, got it. Thanks!
Pretty cool indeed.