The Lost Coast Preview

[Chris D]

We received word from bit-tech.net earlier on today, notifying us of an interesting article overviewing Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast and the HDR technology being implented into the Source engine shortly.

Exposure Control is demonstrated by turning Gordon to the right, facing the wall: with the sunny doorway out of our field of vision, the aperture widens and our eyes adjust to the dark, revealing extra detail on the floor and walls of the tunnel. Turn again to peer out the door, and you'll find yourself wincing involuntarily at the light, and wishing Gordon had brought his sunglasses.

Additionally, here are some pictures from the article:[br]

​

[br]The article talks more technically about HDR as well as discussing the hardware requirements for The Lost Coast and much more. The full article can be caught here.

 

[daverince]

And if one ****ing person asks whether or not their computer will play this I'll eat dog food.

Looks good though. Actually, that fisherman looks like my girlfriend's dad. Quite scary when I think about it.

 

[RaBiD WeAzEL]

Sweeet.

Eyes adjust....?

 

[mortiz]

Looks great.

 

[Ames]

There's still time left until the R520 release. More optimization and detail!

Schnell schnell!

 

[dogboy73]

with the sunny doorway out of our field of vision, the aperture widens and our eyes adjust to the dark, revealing extra detail on the floor and walls of the tunnel. Turn again to peer out the door, and you'll find yourself wincing involuntarily at the light, and wishing Gordon had brought his sunglasses.

Oh good!

 

[homeobocks]

I'm disappointed. The fisherman's face looks like it's playdough. It looks flat. I can't really describe the exact characteristic of the face that is unapplealing, but I see that it hasn't been fixed in The Lost Coast.

 

[Smigit]

well its meant to be seen in motion so we'll just see.

I can guarantee you the day this comes out people will be so excited and then the next day we'll probably have complaints the level was too short. lol.

 

[Doppelgofer]

i think it looks stunning

 

[JNightshade]

some of those pictures are pants-wettingly pretty. There's one in particular that just blows my mind- that one where Gordon is holding the shotgun, and the light rays are filtering through the windows. Mmm.

 

[HybridM]

For $0.00 who could possibly find fault with it?

I mean apart from all the idiots that play hl2 and whinge about everything.

 

[WermerSkoch]

Beautiful! I've heard that they're going to release this only to people with certain specs on their computer. Any word on what they're looking for? Is it any one thing in particular? Video card? Proc.? Memory? Sorry if someone's asked this already.

 

[HybridM]

RTFA wermerskoch

 

[DarkStar]

I'm disappointed. The fisherman's face looks like it's playdough. It looks flat. I can't really describe the exact characteristic of the face that is unapplealing, but I see that it hasn't been fixed in The Lost Coast.

*yawn*

Good God man, if you're dissapointed with these graphics.....well.....maybe you should build a time machine and travel to the future.

Because these are the best you're gonna be seeing anytime soon.

 

[Dodo]

OMG I <3 HDR

looks fantastic

 

[flupke]

Beautiful! I've heard that they're going to release this only to people with certain specs on their computer. Any word on what they're looking for? Is it any one thing in particular? Video card? Proc.? Memory? Sorry if someone's asked this already.

ffs, read the damn article.

 

[BlackMesaDude]

15/06/2005 Update: as mentioned in the original story, the net is rife with speculation that ATI specifically asked Valve to hold back Lost Coast until the launch of their next-gen GPU, R520, reported to be on the 26th of July. We can now firmly dispell that theory, thanks to an email follow-up from Doug Lombardi:

On the release date, right now we're looking at some time in July. The only reason for the change in date was internal development - no external factors.

Meanwhile, this will run on the X800 as well as the 6800 line of cards, as well as the coming highest-end products from both ATI & NVIDIA - it was shown on dual 6800s at E3.

So there you have it folks - no conspiracy theories here!

 

[riles]

I'm disappointed. The fisherman's face looks like it's playdough. It looks flat. I can't really describe the exact characteristic of the face that is unapplealing, but I see that it hasn't been fixed in The Lost Coast.

some people actually have faces that may look flat or like playdough. plenty of people have unappealing characteristics in their facial structures. I bet he's just supposed to look like a weird looking fisherman; thats all. seems realistic enough to me

 

[WermerSkoch]

RTFA wermerskoch

Eh? I wasn't asking if it would run on mine - my biggest curiosity is if they're looking for a specific feature that only very new graphics cards will support. Or if what they're doing isn't dependant upon that, but on CPU. If they haven't said anything about it that's fine - I don't know 'cause I haven't been keeping up with it. : )

 

[Ames]

15/06/2005 Update: as mentioned in the original story, the net is rife with speculation that ATI specifically asked Valve to hold back Lost Coast until the launch of their next-gen GPU, R520, reported to be on the 26th of July. We can now firmly dispell that theory, thanks to an email follow-up from Doug Lombardi:

On the release date, right now we're looking at some time in July. The only reason for the change in date was internal development - no external factors.

Meanwhile, this will run on the X800 as well as the 6800 line of cards, as well as the coming highest-end products from both ATI & NVIDIA - it was shown on dual 6800s at E3.

So there you have it folks - no conspiracy theories here!

As long as it's released, I'm happy. Don't care if it's during R520 or not.

 

[Smigit]

For $0.00 who could possibly find fault with it?

ummm anyone? Not saying theres anything wrong with the lost coast but being free doesnt mean its faultless or that people cant say they think its poor for whatever reasons. All it means is they cant say it cost too much, besides that they may as well be comparing a retail product.

 

[WermerSkoch]

Thanks BlackMesaDude - good info!

 

[J_Tweedy]

any word on how big the download will be? If it's over a gig, NO BLOODY WAY!

 

[svet-am]

any word on how big the download will be? If it's over a gig, NO BLOODY WAY!

while I agree with you in principal, I wouldn't be surprised if it's size does approach that. After, think about all of the new textures that will need to be included and all.

 

[eklipse14x]

i wouldn't be surprised if it went WAY past 1 gig. not only will there be new textures, but plenty of new models AND a gigantic sdk update, like they said at E3.

i dont care if HDR doesn't turn out to be what we all expect. It's free, and we know valve has been working pretty damn hard on this along with all the other releases for the future.

i just bought a geforce 6800, not gt. so i dont know how itll be like on my system anyway.