Gabe Newell comments on FX performance with HL2

[sbp]

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1862

Valve is pissed at all of the benchmarking "optimizations" they've seen in the hardware community;
- Half-Life 2 has a special NV3x codepath that was necessary to make NVIDIA's architecture perform reasonably under the game;
- Valve recommends running geforce fx 5200 and 5600 cards in dx8 mode in order to get playable frame rates.
- even with the special NV3x codepath, ATI is the clear performance leader under Half-Life 2 with the Radeon 9800 Pro hitting around 60 fps at 10x7. The 5900 ultra is noticeably slower with the special codepath and is horrendously slower under the default dx9 codepath;
- the Radeon 9600 Pro performs very well - it is a good competitor of the 5900 ultra;
- ATI didn't need these special optimizations to perform well and Valve insists that they have not optimized the game specifically for any vendor.

Best article. Goes into why FX architecture DX9 performance blows.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863&p=1

http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/...hmarks/001.htm
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/...llowup/002.htm
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030912/index.html
http://www.techreport.com/etc/2003q3/valve/index.x?pg=1

[Bires]

The more I hear about how HL2 won't work on this and will work on that, and how DOOM3 won't work on anything... The closer I get to buying a XBOX

[Realrammstein]

Originally posted by Bires
The more I hear about how HL2 won't work on this and will work on that, and how DOOM3 won't work on anything... The closer I get to buying a XBOX

Nothing wrong with an XBOX! Although the screenshots for HL2 are plain sick!

[Cantacuzene]

If they can barely get the fx5900ultra to run hl2, how do they expect to get a gf3 in the xbox to run it.

[sbp]

Originally posted by Bires
The more I hear about how HL2 won't work on this and will work on that, and how DOOM3 won't work on anything... The closer I get to buying a XBOX

If you have a reasonable enough modern videocard, they'll work-it just won't be a top of the line experience.

Originally posted by Cantacuzene
If they can barely get the fx5900ultra to run hl2, how do they expect to get a gf3 in the xbox to run it.

It'll be less graphical intense and rich. Just like running HL2 on a Radeon 8500, GF3, and GF4.

[sbp]

We knew the NV3X architecture had problems, but even this is a sorry performance. For it to use a special codepath and still not measure up...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1261770,00.asp

nVidia has been circulating its Det50 driver to analysts in hopes that we would use it for our Half-Life 2 benchmarking. The driver contains application-specific optimizations that will likely improve nVidia's overall performance picture, however Valve's Gabe Newell expressed concerns that some of nVidia's optimizations may go too far. Doug Lombardi of Valve has explicitly asked that beta versions of the Det50 drivers not be used for benchmarking.

Still at it.

Got to like Nvidia getting into a fit since the right drivers weren't run. Optimize better? *cough cough* cheat *cough* excuse me.

Please note the new Tomb Raider, which is an Nvidia "the way its meant to be played" game, also shows poor DX9 performance by Nvidia. And thats not the only benchie either.

The reality is Nvidia is unwilling to admit is its DirectX 9 implementation is lackluster.

So who is going to buy a 5900 now? *crickets chirping*
Yeah its a good card, just not as solid as 9800 pro.

Glad I stayed with the 4600 and didn't go for a FX.

I heard Nvidia is losing market share at the top end and the only reason their overall market share hasn't dropped is due to the ton of 5200's sold. Its like Nvidia is becoming SiS...one of these companies that produce low end videocards.

Nvidia is in deep sh1t. They need a winner with NV40.
As someone else said: "they're currently under the 3dfx curse"

Even after a year this line of videocards {R300 and derivatives) still continues to impress.

about HL2: Maybe additional performance can be wrung out. Even so, this generation of hardware won't be able to run with all the eye candy on. By that I mean high resolution with both fsaa and ani.

I don't believe upcoming R360 is going to offer much more performance over 9800 Pro.

[Cantacuzene]

Whats even funnier is that Nvidia says the det 5x.xx was going to solve all the problems. So today the Aquamark3 benches come out with the new Dets and lo and behold they ARE faster... only the IQ is noticably worse.

I think everyone can agree that the last overwhelmingly good nvidia products were the GF4ti series. Like most hardware review sites are saying: I cannot recommend and Nvidia card to anyone now.

Bottom line is that ATi is winning at every level of this generation's card in preformance and image quality, except the bottom level (ie 5200 and 9200.) But the bottom line of either series wont be able to play new games acceptably anyway so they are irrelevant.

Nvidia is currently surviving on the "ge-force" name, because that is the name that most non-entusiast people know. Nnvidia shouldnt rest on that, because word of mouth trickles down pretty quick. If things continue like this for much longer, your average person will equate "radeon" the way they think of "ge-force" now.

That said, I think Nvidia needs to ditch the ge-force for their next generation of cards. They've gotten rich of the name and now its dying (a la Voodoo.) Its time to make a new image for them.

All that said, I love my 9500pro, it hasnt failed me.

[slaus]

I love nvidia but its time for the diehards to realize that ATI is winning at every level. The ati mobile 9600pro is dominating the nvidia offerings by a huge margin.

http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/...titans/001.htm

[slaus]

Just found this also on the gamersdepot site. I found it funny

[Memo]

I will wait for the actual game to come out and see how it runs with the latest drivers. I really would rather have an Nvidia card, but the bechnmarks don't look promising

[thatonefilipinoguy]

The more I hear about nvidia having problems, the better I feel about accidently upgrading to ati 9500