Half Life 2 Performance

by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 1, 2003 11:48 PM EST
So of course the one thing everyone asked for was something I couldn't deliver for the first part of the Fall 2003 Video Card roundup - Half Life 2 performance. Of course there were requests for Doom3 performance and believe me, if we had the benchmarks we would definitely have included them. As you can guess, Valve has not released the Half Life 2 benchmark as originally expected and thus we don't have updated Half Life 2 numbers for you. The conclusion of the recent article did reference Doom3 and Half Life 2 performance however, and believe me I wasn't just pulling numbers and thoughts out of the air - I've got some basis for what I've said.

Here are some Half Life 2 numbers for you to look at; they were provided by a reliable source, but I could not verify anything myself so take them with a grain of salt. ATI was running in their DX9 codepath and the mixed mode codepath was used for NVIDIA. No AA/AF was enabled and we're looking at 1024x768 scores:

Half Life 2 Demo
Radeon 9800XT
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
e3_bugbait
71.4
73.9
e3_c17_01
57.6
57.5
e3_c17_02
49.9
49.3
e3_phystown
74.5
77.2
e3_seafloor
53.9
53.3
e3_techdemo_5
83.5
64.5
e3_techdemo_6
76.9
71.7
e3_under_02
77.3
71.1

If those numbers hold true then things definitely look better than from Half Life 2 day, but we'll reserve judgement until we get the benchmark in house. I just thought you'd like to see what we're seeing, I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this data yet, just wanted to share :)

Tomorrow is my 8AM day again, and maybe I'll get those tests back that I took on Monday (hopefully not...I'd like tomorrow to be a good day :)...). I'm off to sleep, have a good night everyone. Derek and I will be back to work on Part II tomorrow; I'll update you as soon as I can.

Comments Locked

102 Comments

View All Comments

  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Wrong. Fanboys don't shut up on either side regardless of the facts, as demonstrated several times in this thread.
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    #65, you're a true idiot. Repeat that as much as you like, you look dumber each time you do it. The 9800XT review was posted BEFORE Anand received the benchmark numbers he posted. Christ, get a clue you dope.

    Oh, and I really hope that these numbers turn out to be true and that the IQ is at least close to ATI’s. That would make a lot of FX owners much happier, and it would of course shut the annoying ATI fanboys up.
  • experienced one - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    I bet half the ATI fanboys never used a GeForceFX 5900 card. You guys prolly sound like the review sites and wouldn't be bitching and moaning about poor image quality...
    Gabe Newell said himself that going from DX8.1 to DX9 would look 95% the same. Going from DX9 FP24 to FP16 would probably look 99.99% the same judging from what he said...

  • experienced one - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    lol @ #68...
    I have the exact same experience... I went out and bought an ati 9700pro(based on ati fanboy's recommendations... same experience as you... traded it for a geforcefx 5900... everything running without a single hitch...

    yayaya.. go on fanboys, go call me an idiot, cuz it worked perfectly for you.... i bet you have the same setup as me too :roll: and i bet you love to go through all the extra hassle just to get your ati shit working...

  • StormGFX - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Why do you people become fanboys? You spend 200 to 300 dollars on a video card to then sit and spew out how good you're new video card is and how bad X-card is. The joke is on you. I read all reviews with a grain of salt. I go out and buy all the video cards that are out and try them out in my system. Then I keep the best card. I went out and got a ATI card and put it in my system and it didn't even turn on my 23" tft display. I was like god damn it... Then I had to go get the Nvidia card and it worked just fine. I can run all my 3d program and games just fine.. Buying a 300 dollar video card just to play 1 fucking game is just lame. As for the nvidia dx9 problem I ran aquamark with the current drivers and was getting 14 to 20 fps.. I was like shit...WTF I'm taking this nvidia card back.. then my friend gave me some leaked drivers and the FPS went up to 36 to 47 FPS. So things can be fixed just in drivers.

    My point is we need to be on the side of the gamer not on the side of the people that make the hardware. They don't give a shit about us. They pimp us out like little bitches and watch us fight amongst ourselfs. I can see if ATI or Nvidia sent out checks to people who got other people to buy their products. For the people that run out and by an ATI card just to get ready to play Half Life... Don't wait until the game comes out and you have more video cards to pick from. I remember when Nvidia and HALO got me to buy a GeForce 3 card. I ran out, got my video card like a good liltte sucker and got bitched slaped when halo turned into a x-box game only. And what happens if Half Life 2 turns out to be a bad game? What happens if someone else comes out with a video card that blows away both the Nvidia and ATI line of video cards. Don't be a fanboy you will always lose in the end.. I know I was a VOODOO fan boy for a long time... Ouch... Never again..

    What we need to do is come up with a way to tell both ATI and Nvidia that paying 300 bucks or more for a video card that out dates in 6 months is just wrong. I can get a game cube for 100 bucks... damn!!
  • Jaiph - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    I don't think it's entirely fair flaming Anand for posting this as it's not the main page, -however- it wasn't exactly that smart a move as without further details and IQ samples the flame war evident here could have been seen coming a mile off.

    Sharing is cool and all, but when the information is so incomplete it just feeds the fanboy fires.
  • Gouhan - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Okay people, Its still clear the radeon cards are faster. If you have one good for you. If you want to buy one, even better. But for fucks sake stop stuffing ATi down everybody's throats. Yes yippee doo day the Radeon's faster, no shit people.
    You'll get a Noddy badge for stating what everybody knows.

    At least nVidia's doing something about it and believe it or not, they don't owe you an apology since you're not buying their graphics cards anyway. (So F**K off!)

    Thanks for the unbias Anandtech, good on you. And no I actually do trust your site somewhat more than Extreme, Toms or the Inquirer.
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Again:

    This post says:
    "I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this data yet, just wanted to share :)"

    The CONCLUSION of the 9800XT review says:
    "and although the latest drivers have closed the gap significantly, ATI is still ahead in Half Life 2. The numbers we’ve seen indicate that in most tests ATI only holds single digit percentage leads (< 5%)"

    Anyone else find this ironic?
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Most claims of nvidiots usually come from another kind of idiot. Judging from this thread, well, you get my point.

    Look, are we even remotely on topic or is this going to be another flamefest?
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Again:

    This post says:
    "I wouldn't draw any conclusions based on this data yet, just wanted to share :)"

    The CONCLUSION of the 9800XT review says:
    "and although the latest drivers have closed the gap significantly, ATI is still ahead in Half Life 2. The numbers we’ve seen indicate that in most tests ATI only holds single digit percentage leads (< 5%)"

    Anyone else find this ironic?

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now