Oh dear for all of those with a 5900 : HL2

[HEADRAT]

www.anandtech.com

You'll see my own numbers tomorrow night at midnight, but we've been given the go ahead to reveal a bit of information about Half-Life 2. I'll keep it brief and to the point and will explain it in greater detail tomorrow night:

- 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.

Anybody that bought a 5900 Ultra thinking it would be a good bet for playing HL2 is gonna be

HEADRAT

[skirkham]

I want my money back

[skirkham]

I bought a direct x 9 card not the flipping direct x 8 card
i mean the 9600 pro beats it in quality settings !

[HEADRAT]

Originally posted by skirkham
I want my money back

I don't blame you !

If I had bought a 5900 I would be starting to ask questions about "mechantable quality" and "fit for purpose" !!

HEADRAT

[skirkham]

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardwa...preview_part1/

take a look at that actual benchmarks

[skirkham]

looks like the 9600 pro will fly off the shelves now

[no1sdn]

Valve recommends running geforce fx 5200 and 5600 cards in dx8 mode in order to get playable frame rates.

Now this must be a slap in the face for the 5600. Wonder if this includes the 5600 ultra v2 as well.

edit: heh just saw the firing quad link, and wow fxx is getting owned big time.

[CrimsonAvenger]

I think Nvidia have got a bit too big for their boots.

The dodgy 3dMark tests was just the start after the competition from ATI hotted up!

Can't see anything being done about it tho. Just means those who are able will buy another card, although it may not be Nvidia

[nichomach]

Fingers crossed that my 9700np will still cope marginally OK with HL2 (don't really fancy chucking it just yet)...

[Ozymandias]

So that's why Half Life 2 has take so long to come to market :

"So how much has Valve done to please its NVIDIA-based video-card-owning customers? It has spent 5 times the amount of time optimizing the NV3X path as they have the DX9 path."

All the ATI owners have been waiting Valve to sort out the optimisation for the lower end cards

[Axion]

Originally posted by nichomach
Fingers crossed that my 9700np will still cope marginally OK with HL2 (don't really fancy chucking it just yet)...

if 9600pro produce playable fps... in dx9... then a 9700np will do it easily

[th3 mol3]

Looks like my next gfx card will bee an ATI, then

[Kezzer]

/me looks at his 9800 pro

[SilentDeath]

beyond3d article shows the 9500 NON PRO to beat the fx5900u in TR:AOD. also not just that, there are bugs in TR:AOD, or more likely in fx drivers which have some scarry bluryness that only happends when u look form certain angles.

[Trash Man]

Looks like I moved to ATI just at the right time Got my 9800Pro on Tuesday

[th3 mol3]

Originally posted by Trash Man
Looks like I moved to ATI just at the right time Got my 9800Pro on Tuesday

u swine!