In Jail, with Friends

Our Prison demo features a level that was a part of an older Half Life 2 showcase a year or so ago.  In this indoor level, a group of spider-like-creatures help our player fend off a large group of soldiers as well as automated gun turrets. 

There is a lot of gunfire in this level which makes this indoor level more GPU bound than it would have otherwise been.  Since Gordon doesn’t have a flashlight at this point in the game, we didn’t use it during our recording of the demo.  Despite the lack of flashlight and the fact that it’s an indoor level, we found that this demo was decently GPU bound. 


The firing effects of the turrets are just beautiful

Once again we have the X800 XT at the top of the charts, with a 5% performance advantage over NVIDIA’s 6800 Ultra.  The 6800GT holds a similar 5% advantage over the X800 Pro. 

In the $200 - $300 range we once again see basically no difference between the 6800, 6600GT and the X700 XT. 

Half Life 2 AT_prison_05 Demo

How about a walk on the beach? The Slowest Level in the Game
Comments Locked

79 Comments

View All Comments

  • Kovie - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    Mis-type, meant to say 6600GT being gouged.
  • Kovie - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    "Recently a number of users have asked that we compare the $300 GeForce 6800 to the $200 GeForce 6600GT to see if the added cost is truly worth it."

    Actually we asked to compare the currently $245 6600GT (newegg) against the currently $250 6800 (outpost). Once the 6800GT stops being gouged and goes down to its supposed price then it will be a better buy. Right now the $5 difference between them and the ability to potentially unlock the extra pipes on the 6800 make it a better buy.
  • Le Québécois - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    For my part I'm more curious about Slower CPU, to see how much it affect the FPS.
  • mikecel79 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    Where's the ATI 9600 and 9500 series cards in this? The are DX9 cards also.
  • LocutusX - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    So... I wonder how all the poor souls who went with GF59xx's are feeling now... ;)


    But yes, both manufacturers' "current-gen" parts are doing very well.
  • ciwell - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    I find the 6800 vs the 6600GT results to be intriguing as the 6600GT stacks up very nicely. I wonder how the comparison is in other games though.
  • Akira1224 - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    I know the flames are going to start soon. I would like to say great job to both Nvidia and ATI. Both cards are spectacular this round and we should all be impressed with the tech being shown in this roundup. To anyone who is gonna start with the ATI RULZ NVIDIA SUXORZ or vice versa lets all just save it. The performance is so close either way you can't lose. For the record I have a 6800GT.
  • Jalf - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    Well, I can give you the results with my hardware. :)

    I'm running an ancient Geforce 2 GTS (32mb) and Athlon TBird 1400 MHz.

    I haven't noted down actual FPS values, but in 800x600, with medium-ish settings, it runs perfectly smoothly. That's impressive, if you ask me. :P

    So I doubt you'll have a problem. :)
  • ksherman - Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - link

    i wonder how old, old hardware will be... mabye theyll go as far back as the 8500 and Ti400's.... (cuz thats what i have ;)

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now