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.

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  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    So you really think that nvidia pimps like Tom and Anand are trustworthy? Nvidia got them in their pocket, and that "gentlemen" is the whole issue! Nuff said
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Well there's clearly been some controversy around this stuff. Can you fanboy queers (ATI & NVIDIA) reserve judgement until some real numbers come out from Anandtech or Tom's Hardware; I don't understand why you'll so readily believe the first HL2 numbers that came out anyway.
  • 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

    Im sure all these intelligent half-life players know alot about hardware and 3d engines...
  • Benchmark Bob - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    Hi my name is bob and I like to do benchmarks. I am not an NVidia fan boy so by saying that I am objective and have nothing to gain from NVidia.

    Here are my numbers:

    Radeon NVidia
    e3_bugbait 71.4 123354.32
    e3_c17_01 57.6 123456789.10
    e3_c17_02 49.9 4564565.32
    e3_phystown 74.5 5555555.55
    e3_seafloor 53.9 l337l337.00
    e3_techdemo_5 83.5 13579.13579
    e3_techdemo_6 76.9 0101010101.01
    e3_under_02 77.3 455455455.455

    I assure you that these numbers are real and not falsified. Look at how much faster nvidia is!

  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    nVidia is the king oh the Hill.
    Once again.:-)

    David Kirk-BillytheKid has spoken.
  • Genx87 - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    "This is some dangerous marketing stuff, meaning some uninformed people that might buy an ATI card might now be confused or changing lanes to Cheatzilla.
    "

    Ya we never saw this before, like, um on Shader Day? Gabe Newell proclaiming Nvidia sucks, ATI rules, and we should all buy an ATI card to run HL2. Then he decides to not even release the game until any of the shader benchmarks are worthless and pointless. I would feel more sorry for people who ran out to get a 9800 Pro only to find out all they get a voucher for the game they bought the card for, and by the time they get the game they could of spent the same amount of money on an NV40 or R420 and got better performance.
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    its amazing how the nvidia fanboys say something to bash someone when the other party is just telling facts. Go get a real card ( ati ) nvidia is cheating crap
  • Anonymous - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    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?
  • bruno - Thursday, October 2, 2003 - link

    sounds alot like the same stuff we went through with the 5900FX nv35 lots of AIR alot of lies alot of trickery and when you want to use the card decently we'll end up with the same garbage.
    Scary stuff.and i wasted already 500$ on a Fx5900 ultra that gave cute performance tests too until you actually wanted to enable some quality and play some decent games and the card becomes worse then a geforce 4

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