***Half Life 2***

[Avalon]

Just unlocked HL2 in my steam account this morning. Turned it on and started benching it right away. Looks cool as hell so far. System specs are as follows....

AXP Mobile Barton 2.16Ghz @ 216x10 w/1.475v
Epox 8RDA3i rev 3.1 NF2 400 Ultra motherboard
2x512MB Geil Golden Dragon @ 216FSB
Radeon 9500 unlocked to 9700 @ 275/270mhz
IBM Desktar 7200RPM ATA133 60GB HD 8MB cache
420w Enlight PSU
Generic case
Windows XP Pro SP1

Room temperature of 78F
Ambient case temp of 24C
Northbridge temp of 37C
CPU idle temp 39C, full load 45C

Playing at 1024x768 with all details set to high, vertical sync enabled.
Antialiasing set to 2X in the control panel, Aniso-filtering set to 4X quality in the control panel.
Using the Omega 2.5.90 driver set (equivalent to the ATI catalyst 4.10 betas)
A.I. set to normal.

Scene:
Trainyard in the beginning of the game

2004-11-16 10:30:56 - hl2
Frames: 4101 - Time: 80493ms - Avg: 50.948 - Min: 33 - Max: 82

This involved running and jumping around, taking wide sweeping looks at the trainyard, and getting into rustles with the security guard (combine soldier with the cattle prod).
I expect large battles to dip about 10FPS lower than my current Avg, Min, and Max.
Overall, runs pretty good I think for such a lowly video card.

City 17 Town Square

2004-11-16 11:27:07 - hl2
Frames: 5443 - Time: 115291ms - Avg: 47.210 - Min: 20 - Max: 85

Ouch...maybe I'll have to back off on the AA/AF
...Nah.

Canals

2004-11-16 12:52:03 - hl2
Frames: 9297 - Time: 216096ms - Avg: 43.022 - Min: 21 - Max: 86


Now here are some screenshots to keep you appeased for the moment.
More to come as I get further into the game.

Trainyard

Startup Screen
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6


City 17 Town Square

#1
#2
#3
#4

All hail Big Brother?

Canals

#1
#2
#3
#4

Again, more to come. Enjoy.

 

[gururu]

nice Avalon. very very nice. :beer:

 

[Avalon]

Did I get a pic of that elderly looking guy on the large television?
There are televisions of him everywhere, and he's constantly preeching propaganda.
If anyone is familiar with the book 1984 by George Orwell, this is EXACTLY what it feels like.
Big Brother.
lol.

Ugh...seems like HL2/Steam don't like it if you try to alt tab out of the game and tab back in. The game won't come back up.

 

[Spamdini]

noone else has benches...lol more please

 

[Avalon]

Updated, and out of webspace. Heh.

 

[ty1er]

thanks Avalon for the screenies!

-ty1er

 

[Dolly]

Time for a laugh,

I have a PIII-866 with 384 RAM, and a GF4-Ti4200,

In theory tha game will run on the system, is there however ANY point in installing it or will it run at 3 fps?

 

[Spike]

Man, I want to buy the game but do I wait for my replacement 6800 GT or try this out on my 9600 pro... It ends up I may not get to use the 6800 until Christmas so that would leave me with monthes of low-fps HL2 or monthes of waiting for high fps.... *sigh* why are my life choices so hard?

-spike

 

[Tiamat]

Originally posted by: Dolly
Time for a laugh,

I have a PIII-866 with 384 RAM, and a GF4-Ti4200,

In theory tha game will run on the system, is there however ANY point in installing it or will it run at 3 fps?

actually if you dont mind, please do install it. This will help everyone know that a system with minimum specs can actually run the game, or even allow the game to be fun and playable!!

Edit:

OP thanks for the screenies and some numbers!

 

[IceMole]

I saw screenshots from someone running it on a radeon 7000, looked prefectly normal to me

 

[Avalon]

I've got two more runs of fraps where I'm actually doing some combat. Finally got past the "intro" of the game, and I'm all suited up and kicking ass
Also have quite a few more screenshots to show, but it appears I can only fit 14 screen captures onto my webspace at the size they are at now. I will either have to find a way to get their file size down more, or take out a few pictures from the trainyard. Anyway, I'll have these new additions up later this afternoon, as I have to go to class now

 

[gururu]

does the game feel smooth, or are you getting hangups left and right?

 

[Tab]

What where your in game opitions? I wonder if I should play this on my own computer.

 

[Avalon]

Game feels very smooth. I actually get better min frame rates in combine battles than I do standing in the middle of the town square. Overall, I don't feel like I have to back down my details. As for the in-game details, I forgot to mention that! They are all set to high. I think there are a few options for very high, but I can't remember at the moment.

 

[Fern]

Great job man! Thanks

Fern

 

[Ackmed]

Ive got a ton of pics, but too lazy to post them with this forums annoying way of doing so. :/

 

[kki000]

cant wait to get home, the collectors edition is sitting under my desk.
Im just hoping to run at 1200x1600 with high details. (6800gt ocd 2 ultra, 3200 athlon)

oh as a side note, the collectors edition blows monkey a$$.
Its not the full prima guide inside, only an excerpt, no more than a couple of post cards stuck together.
What a rip.
K

 

[Viper96720]

Originally posted by: Spike
Man, I want to buy the game but do I wait for my replacement 6800 GT or try this out on my 9600 pro... It ends up I may not get to use the 6800 until Christmas so that would leave me with monthes of low-fps HL2 or monthes of waiting for high fps.... *sigh* why are my life choices so hard?

-spike

9600pro should run it fine. Did in the old pre release benches of the game.

 

[Avalon]

I suspect a 9600 pro would run the game just fine at 1024x768 medium details without the AA/AF.
Added more pics and a fraps run of the canals. I did get this one random drop in FPS down to 21 in this obscure corner of a canal, but the actual fighting was hovering around ~40FPS and was smooth.

Meh, the semester is almost over and we're doing nothing but review...who needs class?
*goes back to play HL2*

 

[James3shin]

NEED MORE!!! MORE!!!! please? :beer:

 

[Travis6586]

Installing Half-Life 2 as I write this...

Will follow with benchmarks after I get done marveling in Half-Life 2's beauty!

 

[CU]

Could someone run it with only 512meg of ram and report back how it runs?

 

[Elcs]

One idea Avalon....

Could you re-run your tests using different catalyst versions? We have the 4.11's and Ive heard about 4.12's which have HL2-specific optimisations. Perhaps this will give us a new angle on the impact of Drivers.

Gives you an excuse to replay

 

[Viper96720]

I hopefully will get it in about 6hrs. Got that much download time left. Get to see how it runs on a 9500Pro.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

Santa Claus is getting it for me but I don't think I have the patience to wait that long.