Half Life 2 GPU Roundup Part 2 - Mainstream DX8/DX9 Battle

In Jail, with Friends

Our Prison demo features a level that was a part of an older Half Life 2 showcase a year or so ago.  In this indoor level, a group of spider-like-creatures help our player fend off a large group of soldiers as well as automated gun turrets. 

There is a lot of gunfire in this level which makes this indoor level more GPU bound than it would have otherwise been.  Since Gordon doesn’t have a flashlight at this point in the game, we didn’t use it during our recording of the demo.  Despite the lack of flashlight and the fact that it’s an indoor level, we found that this demo was decently GPU bound. 

There are no surprises in DX9 mode, the 9700 and 9600XT continue to be the top performers out of this roundup. The 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro are obviously the faster cards but they were also in a much different price class upon their release.

Now on to DX8 performance: