Half-Life 2 benchmarks released, trailer inside.

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Sun Sep 14, 2003 4:20 pm

And all because nvidia can't make drivers like ATI

>=)

Killa-Killa · Post by **Killa-Killa** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 12:11 am

I would say that it's because Nvidia can't make Video Cards like ATI

Bottom line: ATI>Nvidia. There's a reason Nvidia cards need so much tech support. They don't even make video cards any more, so I say pffff to them.

axelgreese · Post by **axelgreese** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 12:18 am

steam am hax?

Briosafreak · Post by **Briosafreak** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 12:44 am

Kamakiri mailed Valve's Gabe Newell about those "pay to play" rumors, and received the following response (We at Half-Life Source has confirmed this as legit):

quote:
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As I'm sure you are aware the HL2 community is going crazy with the rumour that HL2 is going to be like a MMORPG and you will have to pay a fee each month via Steam to play HL2 multiplayer.

I don't believe this to be true but can you please put it to rest once and for all. PLEEEEEEASE.

Gabe Newell: Here's my current thinking: Some people want to buy Half-Life 2 in a store. Right now we have three SKUs planned at three price points. One will have single-player only and not play MODs and we think of that as the mass market SKU (sold mainly at the Costcos and Walmarts of the world). The second is our traditional single-player plus multiplayer SKU that runs MODs and is sold at places like EBX. The third is the collector's edition SKU with lots of cool bonus stuff for people who like cool bonus stuff.

In the Steam world, some people will want to buy it once, like the middle SKU above. Other people will want to buy the game on subscription (e.g. $9.95/month). The good news for the "buy it once" crowd is, well, they only have to pay once. The bad news is that when we come out with new content (expansion products, TF 2, and presumably other games) then they have to pay separately for those. We're pretty sure that the $9.95 guys are going to get the better value, as we've been pretty good over the years at generating a lot of content.

Now nobody has done this before, so we're scratching our heads and massaging the plans to make sure we've got the best set of options. We've had some feedback that we should sell the top SKU (single-player only no MODs) on Steam, and my reaction has been "yeah, right, for the three people in the world who have a broadband connection, are sophisticated enough to purchase software over the Internet, but DON'T want to play MODs and multiplayer". Some people have said "I want a subscription, but I think the box and the manual are cool, so what about sending me those" and I think that's pretty interesting and we're trying to figure out what to do for them (needless to say Sierra isn't exactly jumping for joy at the idea of selling us boxes so people don't buy Half-Life 2 in stores).

But nowhere has there been a suggestion that people pay in the store and then pay a monthly fee on top of that a la the MMORPG.
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And Gabe makes this follow-up response in this forum thread:

quote:
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The various SKUs will be available at the other stores. It's just how we think of them (we think of the lowest price one as the "Walmart" SKU even though Walmart will probably be the biggest single seller of all three SKUs given their volume).
TF2 isn't a MOD, correct. However the subscription will be for anything we make. So when TF2 ships, the subscribers get it as part of their subscription.

We've been talking with retailers about the retail SKUs for a long time. Steam pricing was what I was trying to explain. Steam options seemed to require an explanation of the retail SKUs.

Alphawulf · Post by **Alphawulf** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:02 am

What happened to you Valve? You used to be cool.

SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit and is a number associated with a product for inventory purposes. WebCommerce uses this number to identify an individual product. Because of this, each product must have a SKU, and each SKU must be unique.

If your products do not normally have a SKU, ISBN, or part number, you can invent your own arbitrary numbering system. The important thing is that you give WebCommerce unique numbers that it can use to reference each product.

Megatron · Post by **Megatron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:12 am

well you need version 534545 with the advanced sdha390453 capabilites but not seen if you dont have the sdofhsg plug-in? Also on the 3rd month of every monday you have to re-install the 3nj3jpap.exe patch else you only get half-life sub-pack pre-beta 2.5

I cancelled my order, they seem to be fucking around too much with how people buy things. What's next, a new currency?

Strap · Post by **Strap** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:34 am

Megatron wrote:well you need version 534545 with the advanced sdha390453 capabilites but not seen if you dont have the sdofhsg plug-in? Also on the 3rd month of every monday you have to re-install the 3nj3jpap.exe patch else you only get half-life sub-pack pre-beta 2.5

I cancelled my order, they seem to be fucking around too much with how people buy things. What's next, a new currency?

Shit! I ordered version 534544.9... :x

(Indeed... All I need as far as HL2 goes is: HL2 w/single and multiplayer+full mod capabilities.)
I never was a TFC fan... Stratagy+arcadism=headache.

Nuclear Gandhi · Post by **Nuclear Gandhi** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 6:18 am

http://home.comcast.net/~johngafnea1/steam1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~johngafnea1/steam2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~johngafnea1/steam.gif

Max-Violence · Post by **Max-Violence** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 6:55 am

Spazmo wrote:The fucking absolute top-of-the-line GeForce FX card runs Half-Life 2 at thirty three FPS. And that's with no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, something anyone who owns a high-end video card should damn well expect to use. HL2 is going to run like crap on nVidia's top of the line model while soaring on ATI's mid-range one.

*looks at his GeForce4Ti 4600*

...Shit.

...but, but 512 megs of RAM helps, right? Right? I can go up to 1024!!!

Anyway, I'm with Neon Dingo -- gameplay > graphics.

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 7:35 am

Nah Max, after about say two months Nvidia will have their "special" drivers for HL2.

About the "benchmark" or movie or whatever the fuck it is...

It sucks... good use of pixel-shaders and bumpmapping, especially on the creature, but otherwise... I dunno.... the textures are kind of... bleh.

Does someone know wether or not it *is* a real-time demo, or if it's a movie...?

It went perfectly smooth on my machine either way.

Bridgeburner · Post by **Bridgeburner** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:37 am

it's a very high-res movie.

and the texture suck indeed compared to stalker's. but the lighting is pretty much equal to stalker's i'd say. go stalker!

BlackDog · Post by **BlackDog** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 7:24 pm

Neon Dingo wrote:Steam needs to stop being buggy. It worked perfect in the days of beta. What the hell happened?

I dunno what YOU tested, but the year I was in the STEAM beta test from early 2002 till early 2003, it was always slow and buggy. It is STILL slow and buggy.

As for HL2, I cancelled my pre-order. I'm going to wait and see if there are any better benchmarks beforehand.

Also HL2 *is* delayed since the benchmark is supposed to be released on September 30th - and I highly doubt they count the full game as a "benchmark". But you never know. The way I see it though, it won't be out till Holiday 2003. That'd give nVidia time to get better work with Valve to optimize the NV3 code for better performance as well as a bit better graphics for nVidia users who can't really waste money on an ATI card b/c Valve and ATI are in bed in an underhanded deal.

spyder07 · Post by **spyder07** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:21 pm

Why the fuck can't they just sell one gotdamn game in one fucking box? It's stupid to sell different versions. People won't kmnow what they're buying and probably buy the wrong thing. Can't buying something just be simple anymore?

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:29 pm

Also HL2 *is* delayed since the benchmark is supposed to be released on September 30th - and I highly doubt they count the full game as a "benchmark". But you never know. The way I see it though, it won't be out till Holiday 2003. That'd give nVidia time to get better work with Valve to optimize the NV3 code for better performance as well as a bit better graphics for nVidia users who can't really waste money on an ATI card b/c Valve and ATI are in bed in an underhanded deal.

And why should *we* wait just because we weren't dumb enough to buy nvidia hardware?

If HL2 was released soon, then nvidia might get their fingers out of eachothers asses, because it seems that's all what they do, when they're not cheating in benchmarks that is.

Banko · Post by **Banko** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:34 pm

Smiley, as I recall ATi got busted for cheating in bechmarks too. Also if you notice, valve and ati are together. doom 3 and nvidia are together. If you look at the doom 3 benchmarks NVidia is out performing ATi in those, valve are just greedy whores.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 8:45 pm

Don't worry, Max. For some strange reason (or, perhaps, because the FX line flat-out sucks), the GF4 TIs do pretty well with Half-Life 2--a hell of a lot better than the FX. You ought to be okay.

BlackDog · Post by **BlackDog** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 10:02 pm

Smiley wrote:And why should *we* wait just because we weren't dumb enough to buy nvidia hardware?

B/c I'm not a fucking newbie who runs out to get a brand new video card just b/c ONE FUCKING GAME works really good with it. I make sure that several games run with a card well. I got my Ti4600 a year and a half ago, with nothing in sight from camp Valve. I currently have no plans to get a new video card till next year. Got a 3 year rule on video cards. That and not all of us are rich or can get mommy and daddy to buy us one.

Example of a newbie:

"OMG ATI CARDS RUN JUST HALF-LIFE REALLY AWESOME! GOTTA HAVE ONE NOW!"

*said newbie runs out to get a brand new top of the line ATI card*

*valve, ATI and Satan all cackle in delight at their craftiness*

Smiley · Post by **Smiley** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:32 pm

Smiley, as I recall ATi got busted for cheating in bechmarks too. Also if you notice, valve and ati are together. doom 3 and nvidia are together. If you look at the doom 3 benchmarks NVidia is out performing ATi in those, valve are just greedy whores.

afaik, it wasn't a benchmark, but rather an "optimization" of Q3.
Which reduced the quality drastically and gave them higher scores if somebody did a benchmark on it.

So yeah, they were cheating as well. But that wasn't exactly recently, and it seems ATI has actually pulled their fingers, since everything seems to be working pretty well on my machine.
I'm not hearing any halleluja's from nvidia users when new drivers come out.

As for D3, ATI were the ones to leak the alpha version. I guess Nvidia aren't the only ones working with id...

Don't worry, Max. For some strange reason (or, perhaps, because the FX line flat-out sucks), the GF4 TIs do pretty well with Half-Life 2--a hell of a lot better than the FX. You ought to be okay.

I haven't heard about that one.. got some doc's on it? I know a few people who'd sigh in relief.

B/c I'm not a fucking newbie who runs out to get a brand new video card just b/c ONE FUCKING GAME works really good with it. I make sure that several games run with a card well. I got my Ti4600 a year and a half ago, with nothing in sight from camp Valve. I currently have no plans to get a new video card till next year. Got a 3 year rule on video cards. That and not all of us are rich or can get mommy and daddy to buy us one.

Example of a newbie:

"OMG ATI CARDS RUN JUST HALF-LIFE REALLY AWESOME! GOTTA HAVE ONE NOW!"

*said newbie runs out to get a brand new top of the line ATI card*

*valve, ATI and Satan all cackle in delight at their craftiness*

1. I've only bought two cards seperately from a new computer. My first was a imported 8mb Voodoo 2 card...

basically, that puts a bit more than 3 years between cards.

My other, was my current ATI 9700 pro.

2. I, like the rest of the board, didn't hear about HL2 until a few months ago. I bought my ATI card because it was the state of the art at that time, and because I didn't want to buy a GF4 card since they were blasted off the charts at that time, by the new ATI cards.

3. ATI cards in general run things brilliantly, and are beaten only by Nvidia's current flagship, the 5900, of which I would gladly rather own than my current card, because it *does* perform better.

There are just some minor things bothering me about it... one, it picks up two extra slots, two, it makes more noise than my 6 cooling fans combined, three, it's way too expensive, considering the improvement, four, their drivers suck.

4. I paid out of my ass for all my components, and I've more than regretted it once for doing so, since I could've gotten my drivers license done.
(Because mommy and daddy don't pay the $2000 for that either, nor the $20.000 for a decent car either, and that's the cheap part, after that you pay insurance which is ridiculously high when you're under 30).

And to top it all off, maybe the n00b bought a 9800, but then at least he'd have about double the power than your card, and he'd not only be playing HL2 with about three times the frames-p-s, but just about any other game as well.

Neon Dingo · Post by **Neon Dingo** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:34 pm

anandtech.com wrote:ATI & Valve - Defining the Relationship
The first thing that comes to mind when you see results like this is a cry of foul play; that Valve has unfairly optimized their game for ATI's hardware and thus, it does not perform well on NVIDIA's hardware. Although it is the simplest accusation, it is actually one of the less frequent that we've seen thrown around.

During Gabe Newell's presentation, he insisted that they [Valve] have not optimized or doctored the engine to produce these results. It also doesn't make much sense for Valve to develop an ATI-specific game simply because the majority of the market out there does have NVIDIA based graphics cards, and it is in their best interest to make the game run as well as possible on NVIDIA GPUs.

Gabe mentioned that the developers spent 5x as much time optimizing the special NV3x code path (mixed mode) as they did optimizing the generic DX9 path (what ATI's DX9 cards use). Thus, it is clear that a good attempt was made to get the game to run as well as possible on NVIDIA hardware.

To those that fault Valve for spending so much time and effort trying to optimize for the NV3x family, remember that they are in the business to sell games and with the market the way it is, purposefully crippling one graphics manufacturer in favor of another would not make much business sense.

Truthfully, we believe that Valve made an honest attempt to get the game running as well as possible on NV3x hardware but simply ran into other unavoidable issues (which we will get to shortly). You can attempt to attack the competence of Valve's developers; however, we are not qualified to do so. Yet, any of those who have developed something similar in complexity to Half-Life 2's source engine may feel free to do so.

According to Gabe, these performance results were the reason that Valve aligned themselves more closely with ATI. As you probably know, Valve has a fairly large OEM deal with ATI that will bring Half-Life 2 as a bundled item with ATI graphics cards in the future. We'll be able to tell you more about the cards with which it will be bundled soon enough (has it been 6 months already?).

With these sorts of deals, there's always money (e.g. marketing dollars) involved, and we're not debating the existence of that in this deal, but as far as Valve's official line is concerned, the deal came after the performance discovery.

Once again, we're not questioning Valve in this sense and honestly don't see much reason to, as it wouldn't make any business sense for them to cripple Half-Life 2 on NVIDIA cards. As always, we encourage you to draw your own conclusions based on the data we've provided.

Moving onÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã‚Â¦

POOPERSCOOPER · Post by **POOPERSCOOPER** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:17 am

What ever happened to the idea of making HL2 run well on a big range of computer specs?