HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

I've played HL2 now on my own computer, and i tried several settings. But i come to the conclusion... HIGH shaders kill ur computer dude!

I have a screenshot showing the differences; its helluva lot cooler with shaders on HIGH! Anyway, on LOW i can play on pretty decent resolution (1024x768), with HIGH shaders it will barely run on 800x600.. Without water it goes fine btw ;)

Find the shot at http://realbot.bots-united.com/images/hl2shader.jpg

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

looks nice, and that's why the new gfx chips have such high numbers of parallel working units. for each texel pixel, or vertex you are drawing, you can now write a little program to modify it. no question that takes a lot of processing time in times of million pixel resolutions, thousands of polygons and highdef textures :)

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

i dont wanne go with my inlines on those stones..

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

lol, especially not in city 17, with zombies 'n' what not... :P

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Heyyo,

Heh, even on that lower shader the game still looks nice. :)

All I can say is: if you think the shaders in HL2 kill your comp, you havn't seen HaloPC... I wish gearbox finished the optimizations before throwing it out on the market. :P

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

PC ports rarely run very well, they're optimized for consoles. Blood Rayne also ran pretty poorly. Theif 3 also ran poorly (it wasn't really a port, but it was still optimized for consoles).

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Heyyo,

Theif 3? really? cause I'm sure with patches I'd run great, it's on the same engine they used for Deus EX Invisible War, and that game ran bad, but once patched I could crank all the settings and I'd rarely have frameloss. Too bad it diddn't have gameplay like the original Deus EX, that game rocked... I wish someone completed the bot for it though, cause there was one in the makings before... :(

Well, gearbox tried to make this port run better by creating a whole new game engine... but due to deadline constrictions, the optimizations weren't complete... and same goes for the netcode, you get lots of warping, and have to aim ahead of the guy to shoot him down, or behind him if you're inna warthog to compensate for this incomplete netcode... oh well, with good training you can pwn pretty good. ;)

Ok, time to try to stay ontopic here. :P

I've tried HL2 coop. It's possible, just do what I said in the other thread and then once the main screen's loaded, go in the console and type disconnect, cause the main menu place where it shows a random part of city17 counts as the servers current map, and won't load other maps properly with it still going (yeah, odd how using the map command with already loaded maps doesn't work right with HL2, then again, built in MP was never completed...).

Well, anywho, it worked ok, diddn't lag down my comp too much, but you'll quickly see why MP wasn't complete... like, the model of gordon doesn't even have textures, it's just grey, and very low poly. I'm guessing they did this to lower the intensity that a an extra high poly model with full textures and stuff that you don't even see would lag down the game. So I'm guessing they just made it for hitboxes... anywho, in deathmatch/coop, it comes out cause like, everyone's this model, and all the guns aren't properly positioned to his arm... they're all sticking out from his well, crotch, lmao... I'll have to take a screenie of this next time. Watch the amazing crotch gravity gun lift stuff with ease... oh yeah, pure muscle baby.. LMAO! ;)

I'm gonna replace my gordon model with like, gman, so in MP I'd look cool. :D

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

i found some stuttering btw. I also have seen it on other computers. But according to several sources on the internet its a common problem. Should be fixed soon (tomorrow if i believe Valve).

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

I have a powerful machine which runs all other games well, but it just dont like HL2.

I have found that the following settings give the optimal results for my machine:
800*600
medium models - High really kills my machine
high textures - Medium is ugly and high dont require much more
high shader - Parallax&normal mapping is a must
high shadow
reflect world
2xaa - dont improve much and dont require much
2xaniso - dont improve much and dont require much

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

nvidia gfx card ? :P

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

turn off aa and that crap and yo urun it smooth on 1024x768..

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

although AA isnt a feature I'd like to turn off ... just played Colin McRae Rally 05 demo with 4x AA, looks awesome :)

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

i'm a get a gf6 6800GT :D

b4 i start playing


here's my current system spec's:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...cname=bph06831

i have done no upgrades to it.

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

man, AA is the least thing i look at. I love pixels :P

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Heyyo,

HuntKillaz, nice choice with HP, for a big company selling comps at least they're nice aboot 3rd party upgrades. ;)

but I checked the specs, that 128MB of ram won't cut it, I believe even with a new videocard like that. The cpu's a little weak too, just a little celeron.. might wanna upgrade that too if possible...

It also doesn't mention your power supply, make sure it's at least 300 - 350 Watts or it won't be able to hand that videocard and you'll need a new powersupply to go with it...

If I were you, for HL2 go ATI cause it's ATI Optimized. But if you're gonna get a big card like that? I'm pretty sure it won't matter too much. ;)

[EDIT]
Dudes, we should start a stress-tests thread, where we post our comp stats and our CS:S video quailty settings and our average framerate results so we can see how well different setups run on the source engine.. who's up for this idea? I am. :D

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

hehe, that system will be going to my sis (for internet only)

the new one i'm getting will be along the lines of:

amd athlon 64 socket 939 3500+
(haven't decided on mobo yet but will be agp since pci express hasn't come out yet)
200gb seagate 8.5ms 7200rpm sata150
400\450w powersupply
256 GF6 6800GT
1024MB Ram
Nec 3500A Dvd -\+ R & Rw DL


yeah a system specs and stress test thread for hl2\doom\farcry would be cool

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Only 128MB Ram?

Man, you're my hero. 8o

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Heyyo,

Heh, that's gonna be one buffed comp. :)

For a mobo, may I suggest an Asus? it's much better than MSI (I have one, it's not very good...) and those new deluxe one's are CRAZY. Like, the deluxe for a S748 is crazy man... you could throw in soo many HD's like, 6 in total I think (considering you're gonna want 2 CD/DVDrom/RW drives...)

check this one out, beaute, and pretty good price:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...nufacture=ASUS

of course the price will vary for you, NCIX is just a computer warehouse I shop at. ;)

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Hell yeah! I have a Ye Ol' ASUS A7A266-E, and it never broke down or anything. Never gave me one problem.

Long live ASUS and AMD!

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

/me taps in stefan's hand. dude! :D

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

Yep. Geforce FX 5700LE overclocked 70% on core and 56% on memory:)

Wrong. As I also wrote in my post AA&aniso dont take much as long as its only 2x. I could not feel the difference between with or without AA, I could just see a slight FPS drop.

On another note I am capable of running the Source engine video test in 800*600 with _everything_ set to highest at an average of 65 fps. Running it in 1024*768 with everything set to medium I get 62 fps. Resolution does indeed affect my FPS Stefan...

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

AA 2x will make a pretty big fps hit! Especially when you set a high resolution. Afaik the entire screen gets antialiased. So before a screen is drawed, some other processing is done. In my experience it cuts the fps down with 30% on 2x AA.

Its odd when it does not make a difference though.. :(

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

yeah 128mb sdram and running xp pro :D


i'm gonna be poor after that 2k upgrade :'(

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

that depends mostly on your RAM interface and the internal clock of your gpu. 2x AA isnt that expensive, because most data you need to calculate a pixel at a similar position to the old one is already cached.

Re: HL2 Shaders, killing ur computer
 

i have no knowledge of this. I only told you guys my experience ;)

Well so far i had that with 3 computers; especially my laptop is bad at antialiasing.