Shocked at how well it works with Geforce 3. [Archive]

Gatinater

12-29-2004, 07:40 PM

I just returned my 6800 Ultra for replacment. So I had installed the good ole Geforce 3. I was suprised how good it can look and how well it runs with a geforce 3. Has me convinced that an upgrade from a geforce 3 for Half- Life 2 alone would be a waste of money.

Setting all medium with 2x Antistrophic and 2x FSAA @ 1600x1200. 40-60 FPS. Comparing it to when I played through it with the 6800 Ultra, Anyone who thinks they're missing a lot playing it with a Geforce 3 Card is mistaken. You'll miss out on some details such as reflective water, lighting andother special effects, but aside from that the game still looks great.

DudeMiester

12-29-2004, 09:36 PM

Yeah, but only HL2 will look great, on account of it using no so advanced graphics. What looks like per pixel lighting is no more then a cubemap projected onto the surfaces with a modulation texture. So sure it works fine on a Geforce 3 or 4, but next-gen games will humiliate you. See www.humus.ca (http://www.humus.ca) and www.delphi3d.net (http://www.delphi3d.net) to try out some demo programs for next-gen real time graphics effects. Trust me, you won't get very far at all with that Geforce 3.

Enragiated

12-29-2004, 10:30 PM

pwnt

Phait

12-29-2004, 11:28 PM

I was very pleased with the demo's performance. Doom 3 demo wasn't nearly as pleasing, I had to drop to 640x480, medium detail to play best. Bump mapping turned off helped alot, but no one wants to play like that. But with HL2, 800x600, high... I kinda wish I bought it, I had the money recently but instead I got a DVD and clothes... :P I just didn't think it'd run this well.

2 Ghz Celeron
512 MB RAM
256 MB GeForce 5600XT (No idea if that's GF 3, 4, whatever)...

Enragiated

12-30-2004, 12:31 AM

Ran like crap for me because my computers old

1.5ghz amd
512 mbddr
radeon 9600

Nessus

12-30-2004, 12:50 AM

When I had my geforce 3 it could barely run games from 2001 at 1600x1200 with 2xaa and 2xaf.

Warmaster129

12-30-2004, 01:02 AM

DudeMiester said:
Yeah, but only HL2 will look great, on account of it using no so advanced graphics. What looks like per pixel lighting is no more then a cubemap projected onto the surfaces with a modulation texture. So sure it works fine on a Geforce 3 or 4, but next-gen games will humiliate you. See www.humus.ca (http://www.humus.ca) and www.delphi3d.net (http://www.delphi3d.net) to try out some demo programs for next-gen real time graphics effects. Trust me, you won't get very far at all with that Geforce 3.

The demos there are cool-looking demonstrations of graphics programming, but they aren't quite as GPU-raping as you say they are.

Micki!

12-30-2004, 12:55 PM

My brother tried the game on his PC...

GeForce 2 MX ???
256 SD RAM
Pentium 4
etc... = very bad PC...

But it plays smoothly anyways....
http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/eek.gif (True)

Orochi Avlis

12-30-2004, 01:27 PM

OK, so we have people bitching how games don't run on their PC because they have slightly outdated hardware, but when a game can run on an older system, it's ridculed because it's considered outdated as well (that's the implication I'm getting from Dudemeister's post.).

DudeMiester

12-30-2004, 01:43 PM

Orochi Avlis said:
OK, so we have people bitching how games don't run on their PC because they have slightly outdated hardware, but when a game can run on an older system, it's ridculed because it's considered outdated as well (that's the implication I'm getting from Dudemeister's post.).

Well it is.

DudeMiester

12-30-2004, 01:44 PM

Warmaster129 said:
The demos there are cool-looking demonstrations of graphics programming, but they aren't quite as GPU-raping as you say they are.

Well performance wise they aren't very stressful, but feature wise they are GPU raping.

FireFly

12-30-2004, 01:49 PM

DudeMiester said:
Well it is.

It's a good thing Valve aren't afraid to use old technology to get the best compromise between performance/compatibility and image quality.

DudeMiester

12-30-2004, 01:50 PM

That's their choice, I'm not saying it was necessarily a bad choice, I'm just saying that it's not next-gen or anything like that.

Orochi Avlis

12-30-2004, 02:21 PM

Have you ever thought that, I don't know, Source is meant to be flexibel? It has Direct X 9 effects (and some nice ones at that), and it's environments look better than any other game that I've seen (STALKER has some pretty damn realistic settings, but I'll wait for the game before I come to any final conclusions).

Look at the first CS, unchanged graphically for 5 years and still the most played game online. Also due to the fact that it ran on 99.9% of the PCs out there.

Rico

12-30-2004, 02:21 PM

I didn't know there was a judge out there who said which game is next gen or which isn't?

For all you know next gen is using a combination of existing and new technology to provide the consumer with awe-inspiring graphics without needing to buy a $3000 computer.

Mountain Man

12-30-2004, 02:22 PM

The Source engine is highly scalable. It has many "next generation" features while still being capable of running on last generation's hardware (granted, without all the "next gen" eye-candy).

DudeMiester

12-30-2004, 02:46 PM

Mountain Man said:
The Source engine is highly scalable. It has many "next generation" features while still being capable of running on last generation's hardware (granted, without all the "next gen" eye-candy).

Well in HL2 at least it had more of the last-gen then the next-gen.

Also, there is no single government body who decides what is an isn't next-gen. It's a judgement based on knowledge and experiance, like having an expert witness at a trial. Essentally it's a gut feeling backed with knowledge and experiance, which I have in much greater amounts then the average forumer and most modders. You're free to disagree. However, in regards to HL2 would would have a very hard time arguing that is next-gen. I would say it's a boarderline current/last-gen, not at all bleeding edge, with a big helping of old tech. Looks decent for sure, but not amazing.

As for it's scalability, I wouldn't say that it's "highly" scalable, more like "average". The only really significant thing it allows for is having arbitrary materials on surfaces. This is nothing new, the only thing that is new is the addition of custom hardware shaders. You can't change the shadowing methods and lighting system in any significant way, and there are numerous flaws with these systems that can't be removed (messy shadows, discontunities between environment map boarders, etc). This is not what I would call scalable.

Vexed

12-30-2004, 05:05 PM

DudeMiester said:
Yeah, but only HL2 will look great, on account of it using no so advanced graphics. What looks like per pixel lighting is no more then a cubemap projected onto the surfaces with a modulation texture. So sure it works fine on a Geforce 3 or 4, but next-gen games will humiliate you. See www.humus.ca (http://www.humus.ca) and www.delphi3d.net (http://www.delphi3d.net) to try out some demo programs for next-gen real time graphics effects. Trust me, you won't get very far at all with that Geforce 3.

What's your point? He was talking about HL2 and only HL2 right? http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

Damien_Azreal

12-30-2004, 05:13 PM

I was very surprised at how well HL2 ran as well. A bunch of people told me I shouldn't worry, but some said only having 128 MB vid card would almost kill me.

But I've been very happy with everything so far... and when I started up HL2 and it autoconfigured I was in bliss. Everything at high detail at 1024*768, 4x AA, 8x AF. I havn't tried turing anything up higher (like resolution or AA and AF), but it was a nice surprise.

Mountain Man

12-30-2004, 08:27 PM

DudeMiester said:
It's a judgement based on knowledge and experiance, like having an expert witness at a trial. Essentally it's a gut feeling backed with knowledge and experiance, which I have in much greater amounts then the average forumer and most modders.

Ah. So this would be a classic appeal to authority (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority). Fair enough.

Airtraffic

12-31-2004, 01:34 AM

Well,i saw HL2 run a p-3 1gig with a GF2 ultra and it not only ran fairly smooth it looked fairly sweet as well.

I would say thats "scaleable"

Rico

12-31-2004, 02:22 AM

I don't mean to be an ass but you yourself came off this way to me, but I'd like to suggest that if you plan to appeal to authority in the future by claiming you know more than the people you're arguing with that you at least put your post through a spellchecker to avoid any spelling/grammar mistakes.

I really won't argue with you because you've already stated that you think your opinion is infallible, whatever makes you happy, the earth is flat and dinosaurs aren't real. *shrug*

Kristian Joensen

12-31-2004, 10:47 AM

What are you talking about the earth isn't flat and dinosaurs are/where real and DudeMiester has not claimed otherwise.

Rico

12-31-2004, 12:28 PM

...

Do you really need me to explain this to you?

Ok, back in the day, people thought the earth was flat. See the maps? That's what they thought the world was like and they believed that if you sailed long enough, you'd reach the end of the earth and fall off.

The comparisons were made because these people were adamant in believing the earth was flat when it was truly round. I'm using a metaphor to compare these people and Dudemeister because he's assuming he *isn't* wrong and he's adamant in his beliefs that he's somehow superior to everyone else.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother...

Gatinater

12-31-2004, 02:23 PM

It ran fine for me with a Geforce 3. I just had to turn off water reflections and a few other minor details details.

And High detail doesn't look much different than medium.

DudeMiester

12-31-2004, 02:45 PM

I'm sorry but I don't bother to spell check my posts, because I am not so insecure that I worry about people picking out my spelling mistakes. Neither am I cowardly enough to use such arguments as an attack against someone.

Yes, I claim I know more about computer graphics then you, MM, and probably everyone else who's posted in this thread thus far. I challenge you to try and outsmart me in that regard. Give me some technical questions and I'll answer them in detail. Anything you want.

Next, might I suggest using your posts to add something constructive to the discussion. Something of actual content, rather then making immature comments on spelling and grammer, then dismissing facts based on flaws of an arguement that is totally independant of those facts. Try, for example, to reply with your feelings and opinions on the techniques the Source engine uses in it's rendering system and their quality in comparision to other readily available techniques, both old and new, on current hardware. Do not waste your time attacking an opinion with another opinion. Attack rather with facts, knowledge and insight that you can uniquely bring to the discussion. Tell me factually [u]why</u> you think HL2 and the Source engine is or isn't next-gen, instead of merely dismissing me as an idiot. If you cannot bring forth any arguements to counter mine, either you are lack the knowledge necessary (I can give you some references if you want), or there are no arguements to counter mine and clearly I am right.

Despite the sad fact that I need to overview these basic pricipals of a discussion, I sincerely believe that everyone here is perfectly capable of a civilised and reasonable discussion. I have good faith that this thread can continue responsibly without worry of a lock or deletion due to childish antics.

Finally, I would like to stress the question I have brought fourth, and has been unanswered the entire time this forum has existed:

What technical reasons make HL2 and the Source engine next-gen or not next-gen? The answer must use [u]factual</u> arugments, and not simply "because it's pretty".

PS: I didn't spell check this either, but if anyone still feels the compulsion to grammer-nazi this post, I request that you take the self-restraint to discontinue posting in this thread until the temptation passes.

Mountain Man

12-31-2004, 04:10 PM

DudeMiester said:
What technical reasons make HL2 and the Source engine next-gen or not next-gen?

You're the expert. You answer the question. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif

Warmaster129

12-31-2004, 04:13 PM

Er... He wasn't being a "grammar nazi". Grammar nazis are the people who will pick out any little thing anybody types that isn't grammatically correct and give them hell for it, regardless of how respected the person is in the community.

Rico here just told you that if you want people to view you as being more knowledgable than everybody else, you'd better not mispell anything. Note that it wasn't a flame and he wasn't giving you hell for it.

Rico

12-31-2004, 05:01 PM

I seriously don't know why I bother trying to be reasonable sometimes.

I was merely pointing out that your post was very out of place and I'd very much consider it flamebait. What sort of reply are you expecting from people when you say you're above them?

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."

As far as your beliefs about Source not being "next gen" tell me, what is an engine? Is it only pretty graphics and nothing else? Is it the base upon which you build your game? Graphics are only a minute part of what an engine, any competent programmer who has at least dabbled in the subject of game programming will tell you that, therefore, to say that an engine is not "next gen" simply because the graphics aren't is a conclusion only reached through ignorance.

In the end nobody can determine if an engine is "next generation" simply because it's an "award" based on opinion, there is no test used to determine if an engine is next generation is there? Appeals to authority only work when you can sucessfully prove you are more knowledgeable in the subject at hand, seeing as you don't know the details of how a game engine is created, seeing as you haven't created one yourself, and finally, seeing as you have absolutely no knowledge about what the people in these forums know and don't know, I'm inclined to say your argument failed at making it's point.

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge."

Now, don't think I'm trying to start a fight or anything, it seems as if most people think this whenever I post somewhere, no matter the content of said postings. I'm merely trying to help you see that perhaps you don't know EVERYTHING there is to know on the subject(nobody knows everything about anything), and that often trying to sound as if you're better than anyone else only succeeds in proving your ignorance.

"Where facts are few, experts are many."

Nessus

12-31-2004, 05:36 PM

Since "next-gen" is term thats been bandied about for the last 3 years I'm going to say that Doom3 amd HL2 were indeed next gen games.

Mountain Man

12-31-2004, 06:16 PM

That depends, of course, on whether or not one defines "next gen" to deliberately and specifically exclude the Source engine.

Damien_Azreal

12-31-2004, 07:16 PM

I honestly believe that now that we have HL2 and Doom 3 they are not next gen anymore. They are our current tech gen.

When all we could do was watch videos and view screens they were next gen... but now, it's the current state of PC graphics.

I would say that next gen now would be Unreal 3 type graphics.

Gryph

12-31-2004, 07:25 PM

Yes, I agree with Damien. The way I see it, the day next gen games come out, they cease to be next gen. They become current generation.

Mountain Man

12-31-2004, 08:42 PM

Like I said, it all depends on how you define "next gen".

Kristian Joensen

12-31-2004, 09:00 PM

DudeMiester has nothing against the art in HL2, he thinks it is amazing it is merely th Engine it self wich he is umimpressed with.

Dan the Man

01-01-2005, 08:19 AM

On a slightly different note, why should PC owners be expected to continuously be forking out on upgrading their machines to play games that work fine on an Xbox which is the equivalent of a 733MHz PC with a 64MB graphics card or a PS2 which has even lower specs?

Half-Life 2 is coming out on Xbox soon and at least Valve have made sure that the game is playable on PCs that have specs that are almost as low. To me it's lazy programming when PS2 and Xbox games require really high minimum requirements on the PC, but I'm glad at least Half-Life 2 isn't like this - maybe it's a little to do with it being a PC game first but also I think because Valve want their game and its mods to dominate the scene (as well as to maximise sales of course).

Phait

01-01-2005, 08:38 AM

It's easier in a sense to optimize for consoles because they have an unchanging set of hardware for each console system... with PC's, not everyone has the same specs, so they can't please everyone - but they try.

Kevin Wolff

01-02-2005, 04:21 PM

a PS2 which has even lower specs?

Gotta love that 233Mhz processor, 32MB RAM, and Voodoo5-style graphics card. Whoever programs for that thing is a genius.

avatar_58

01-02-2005, 08:17 PM

Kevin Wolff said:
Gotta love that 233Mhz processor, 32MB RAM, and Voodoo5-style graphics card. Whoever programs for that thing is a genius.

...and should be hired to make PC games.

bonch

01-02-2005, 11:23 PM

It runs on a GeForce 3? But I thought Valve was initiating a grand conspiracy against all NVidia owners to force them to either upgrade to the GeForce 6 line or buy ATI cards?

My belief system is shattered...

Kevin Wolff

01-03-2005, 01:55 AM

avatar_58 said:

Kevin Wolff said:
Gotta love that 233Mhz processor, 32MB RAM, and Voodoo5-style graphics card. Whoever programs for that thing is a genius.

...and should be hired to make PC games.

Wouldn't work as well as it should. That processor isn't an x86, so it's likely far more efficient and equivalent to a P2/400 or more...and, everything there is probably coded in pure assembly, whereas PC games aren't written that way any more. (It would help but it's harder than using a fully managed C++ IDE or something.)

Orochi Avlis

01-03-2005, 04:59 PM

bonch said:
It runs on a GeForce 3? But I thought Valve was initiating a grand conspiracy against all NVidia owners to force them to either upgrade to the GeForce 6 line or buy ATI cards?

My belief system is shattered...

BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Oh, the irony.

ewolf

01-06-2005, 08:44 PM

Should I risk buying HL2 with a NVIDiA geforce 5200 fx???????

Mountain Man

01-06-2005, 11:06 PM

It'll run, but it probably won't run terribly well on account of the fact that the FX5200 is a piece of shit. At the very least you'll have to turn off all the eye-candy to keep a playable framerate.

DudeMiester

01-07-2005, 01:28 AM

I never said I knew everything, nor is ever content with my knowledge, I'm only suggesting that of the people who post in this thread I am the one who can offer the most comprehensive opinion.

Now, you are correct that Source is better then most engines in some regards, but it is inferior is many others. Perhaps this is simply a personal bias, but the profileration of countless propertarity formats annoys me, especially when there are plenty of perfectly suitable industry standard formats. Source is full of these types of files, one need only to explore it's file tree. The facial animation system is nice, but it is nothing more then a detailed skeletal animation system located in the model's face. The physics is good, but I have to wonder how accurately it handles collisions, espically since intersection based detection is more prone to error. This is important, because non-trival mechanical devices and traps depend on simulation accuracy. Also, it should be noted that such physics have existed for a long long time, but HL2 was one of the first games to really make use of it, even if it was somewhat gimmicky, probably because of accuracy limitations preventing complex devices from working reliably. Scripting is nothing special these days. What are your opinions? Rico uses it directly more then I do, I imagine it can't be any more difficult to use then other engine, although I suspect it's not a great deal easier either. Personally I would consider Doom 3 superior in all the mentioned categories, even scripting as it's the first engine I've seen that includes a C++ compiler. However, DNF will own all, but this is an abitrary prediction. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Anyways, sorry for not being around for a while. I just moved to Ottawa for my co-op term programming taxation/pharmacare simulations for health canada, so my internet was out for a while.

Although I've been thinking. Perhaps it's impossible for any engine to be next-gen, because as soon as it's finished, it's current-gen and while it was being finished many new developments arised and the frontier of next-gen was advanced beyond that engine's scope.

ewolf

01-07-2005, 07:48 PM

Mountain Man said:
It'll run, but it probably won't run terribly well on account of the fact that the FX5200 is a piece of shit. At the very least you'll have to turn off all the eye-candy to keep a playable framerate.

Well, at least it is an upgrade from my 8 mb graphics card a while ago. http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/dopefish.gif

Kristian Joensen

01-07-2005, 08:00 PM

Kevin Wolff said:

avatar_58 said:

Kevin Wolff said:
Gotta love that 233Mhz processor, 32MB RAM, and Voodoo5-style graphics card. Whoever programs for that thing is a genius.

...and should be hired to make PC games.

Wouldn't work as well as it should. That processor isn't an x86, so it's likely far more efficient and equivalent to a P2/400 or more...and, everything there is probably coded in pure assembly, whereas PC games aren't written that way any more. (It would help but it's harder than using a fully managed C++ IDE or something.)

What you gotta be kidding me, you really thing PS2 games are coded in assembly ?

DudeMiester

01-07-2005, 10:41 PM

A lot is, but you're right, not all.

Ninja

01-08-2005, 01:16 AM

The PS2 has a 300mhz 128 bit processor, not a 32 bit one. It's a fairly complicated and considering that it came out in 2000, a fairly powerful processor; Sony didn't just whack a P2 300 mhz in it.

Anyway, HL2 takes about 2-3 minutes for me to load up, and about 20-30 seconds for saved games to load, a little faster for quick saves. I have a 2.4 gig P4, 512 meg of RAM and a 128 meg Ti4200. I really need more RAM http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

DudeMiester

01-08-2005, 01:22 AM

128 bit just refers to the bus that suppies it with data. Now some of it's internal processing elements are 128bit to, but these are vector processors that operate on 4 32-bit numbers. Just saying 128 bit is meaningless, you have to attach that attribute to some specific part of the object.

Rico

01-08-2005, 02:19 AM

PS2 games are coded just like any other game, the only difference is that they are then translated into a language the PS2 can understand after they're done (which I doubt would be assembly, assembly is regularly used for compilers and hardware commands).

If people actually programmed any game in assembly these days they'd be out of their minds. It's a low level language, meant for efficiency not complexity.

Derwin

01-30-2005, 06:12 PM

My computer is screwy... I get a BSOD quite often due to some device driver (and I'm too lazy to seek it out, restarting works just fine http://forums.3drealms.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif ) and my specs are as follows:
Toshiba Satellite
P4 2.8 GHz (supposedly with HTT)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 IGP (oh yeah! integrated!)
512 megs of RAM (with 128 dedicated to the IGP- so 384 to system)
Creative Labs MP3+ USB Audio

And guess what... the game looks and runs fine. I have a widescreen display, so I was running at a 1280x800 res, many of the display options on high (except water) but no AA (that would have killed my system).
I was surprised... you should be too.

Mblackwell

01-30-2005, 10:51 PM

Iwolf said:
Should I risk buying HL2 with a NVIDiA geforce 5200 fx???????

I have such a card, I run at 1024x768 with everything up and no real slowdown, except when the game decides it needs to load randomly.

Poltergeist

04-07-2005, 05:02 PM

Gatinater said:
I just returned my 6800 Ultra for replacment. So I had installed the good ole Geforce 3. I was suprised how good it can look and how well it runs with a geforce 3. Has me convinced that an upgrade from a geforce 3 for Half- Life 2 alone would be a waste of money.

Setting all medium with 2x Antistrophic and 2x FSAA @ 1600x1200. 40-60 FPS. Comparing it to when I played through it with the 6800 Ultra, Anyone who thinks they're missing a lot playing it with a Geforce 3 Card is mistaken. You'll miss out on some details such as reflective water, lighting andother special effects, but aside from that the game still looks great.

Well, see, your PC is not good enough. How? HL2 running bad on a new card means that your PC needs more RAM or something.
On your GeForce, it runs good because there is barely anything to load, since the grapfics are shit.