Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 1 - DirectX 9 Shootout
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 17, 2004 11:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
How about a walk on the beach?
Just like in the original Half Life, Half Life 2’s levels are split into multiple parts and are loaded as you encounter them in order to make the game flow more like a story rather than your average first person shooter. Our next benchmark is a continuation of the d2_coast levels: d2_coast_12.
This particular demo takes place on a beach during the early morning. In the demo, our player walks along the beach only to be ambushed by a few soldiers, which he mows through with ease. Here’s where things get interesting though; one of the most stressful shaders in the entire game is located in the d2_coast_12 level. There are a couple of huts armed with machine guns placed on the beach, but to protect the operator of the gun there’s a bit of protective glass much like a windshield at the front of the huts. The glass shaders end up severely reducing frame rate, although with all of the cards we have here the game is still playable.
While it doesn't look like much here, the glass in front of our player causes a pretty decent frame rate drop
Our player stares at the glass of one of these huts for a bit before moving on, finally coming across a couple of enemies in an elevated hut. The player fires a few rockets at the hut, which produce explosions that are also fairly GPU intensive, while being shot at from above. The demo closes with our player tossing a grenade at the enemy hut as a last resort.
We chose this level and section of the game for two reasons: 1) The GPU intensive glass shader we mentioned earlier intrigued us and slowed down even the fastest GPUs, and 2) the level had a lot of good combat which we were lacking from some of the other demos. Once again, you can see how this demo is also typical of Half Life 2 gameplay.
Here, business is as usual with ATI’s X800 XT at the top of the charts, but once again only outperforming the 6800 Ultra by 5%, which is consistent with our first demo. The 6800GT and X800 Pro offer basically identical performance, and the same can be said about the 6800, 6600GT and X700 XT.
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alexlck - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
In map AT_coast_05.dem, GF6800U have no performance penalty with 4xAA@1024x768?HardwareD00d - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
hey, #27, I was gonna say that ;)jediknight - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Well, it's obvious from the benchmarks. They don't lie.ATI RULZ NVIDIA SUXORZ!!
(lol@#3)
bob661 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Do you need HL2 to play CS: Source? Thanks.wien - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
#24 There is.. It's called Counter-Strike: Sourcebob661 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Anyone know if there's multiplayer support in HL2? Thanks.L1FE - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Nice and thorough comparison. That 6600GT looks more and more enticing...Rekonn - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Great article, looking forward to reading the next one with slower cpus. Being cpu limited with an A64 4000+ is a little scary, I wonder what kind of fps an XP3200+ gets when paired with an AGP 6600GT. (still running an overclocked Barton 2500+)Jalf - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
I'm surprised at how well NV stacks up... And good to see the 6800 GT beat the X800 Pro. Not because I'm an NV fan, but simply because it makes it easier to choose. When the 6800 GT wins over the equivalent ATI card, even in an ATI-optimized game, then it's kinda easy to choose what to buy... :DIt's a lot harder with the other cards, where both companies scores some wins in different games.
Regs - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link
Yeah, I'm hoping a CPU round up will come after part two! I can afford a 400 dollar video card but not paired with a 700 dollar AMD CPU.I did notice a lot of stuttering in my gaming experience with a A64 3000 + 6800 GT/1024 MB pC3200. I was playing at 1280x1024 with 4x/8x max details. So likely I would have to cut out the 8x Aniso to have smooth gameplay. I don't know if that was what Anand was mentioning about with the "Shimmering" of textures with the Manhatten calculations.