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Sound wise, Half-Life 2 will be using the standard affair: Direct-3D sound accelerated sound effects with CD quality CD music soundtracks and surround sound support, and the physics will be powered by ragdoll havok physics, AI is also extrordinary, and has dramatically advanced. But this article mainly covers how Half-Life 2 is evolutionary visually, so.
In order to make the Source engine look fantastic on top-notch hardware and yet still run on the lowliest PCS, VALVe had to make some sarcrifises to get decent performance on the low-end hardware. In most other PC games, the final render looks the same basically regardless of what kinda computer you were running the game on, but in half-life 2, it's the exact opposite, Yikes! Kinda scares you, doesn't it?
The first time you run Half-Life 2, it's going to inspect your hardware and tailor its visual/audio quality settings for your video and sound card. This means the game is going to look vastly different when running the game on different types of graphics cards. In this section, I will explain the difference on a generation by generation basis. Don't worry if you don't know what generation your card fits in, because I've included a big list of cards from each generation. Of course, if your graphics card vendor has gone out of business, it's unlikely your graphics card will have the required up-to-date drivers that are current enough to run Half-Life 2. This means you, 3DFX graphics card owners. s for minimum CPU and RAM requirements, VALVe commented a 700-800 MHz CPU with 128-256MB of RAM, but I'd say a 2 GHz CPU with 512MB of RAM or more with a pretty decent video and sound card will be sufficient for running Half-Life 2 satisifyingly.
Below is a chart of what the the supported levels of DirectX render paths will enable (and disable) graphics quality wise in Half-Life 2:
| DX6-DX9 generation graphics rendering path comparison |
| Feature |
DirectX 7 |
DirectX 8 |
DirectX 9 |
| Radiosity-Based Diffuse Bump Mapping |
No |
World, Displacements |
World, Displacements, Viewmodel, Static Props, Dynamic Props, Non-Player Characters (NPCs) |
| Specular Bump Mapping |
No |
World, Displacements, Viewmodel, Static Props, Dynamic Props, NPCs (Reduced quantity than DirectX 9) |
World, Displacements, Viewmodel, Static Props, Dynamic Props, NPCs |
| Detail Props (Procedurally-placed grass, rocks, etc. based on material) |
No |
Only near |
Out further |
| Dynamic Shadows |
Blobby |
Sharp render-to-texture |
Soft render-to-texture |
| Static Props (instanced models) |
Medium Level-of-Detail (LOD) Some removed, No decals |
High LOD |
High LOD |
| Specularity |
No |
Yes (limited usage) |
Yes |
| Dynamic Refraction |
No |
Yes (limited usage) |
Yes (unlimited usage) |
| 3D Skybox |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
| Water |
Transparent Textures |
Pretty nice (with volumetric fog, advanced transparency, real-time limited refraction and real-time complete reflections) |
Very nice (with volumetric fog, advanced transparency, real-time unlimited refraction and real-time complete reflections) |
| High Dynamic Range Based Rendering |
Possibly(but probably not), with a couple of really cheap lighting gimmicks. Nothing spectacular, and no precision though. |
Faked with cheap light blooms w/64-bit limited, very narrow and notchy integer low-level precision support |
Complete in real-time with full HDR w/128-bit studio precision quality unlimited, wide-range floating-point precision support |
| Cameras/Monitors |
In scene (if render targets are supported) |
In scene |
In scene |
| Volumetric Effects (Any smoke or fog) |
Sparse |
Yes (per-pixel lit) |
Yes (per-pixel lit |
| Shader Function |
DX7 Fixed-Function (Hardware T&L) |
DX8 Assembly Vertex/Pixel Shaders (VS1.1, PS1.1-PS1.4) |
DX9 HLSL Vertex/Pixel Shaders (VS2.0, PS2.0) |
| Displacement Maps (Terrain, cave walls, etc) |
Medium res |
Medium-to-High res (with diffuse and specular bump-mapping) |
Full-res (with bump diffuse and specular bump mapping |
| Texture Resolution |
Medium (256x256) |
High (512x512) |
High (512x512) |
| Texture Variety |
Low-Medium |
Full |
Full |
With a Direct-X 7 graphics card(I.E, An NVIDIA GeForce 1/2/4MX, any ATI Radeon 7xxx series, any Matrox G400, any nvidia integrated nForce chipsets), you'll be able to turn on some effects in hl2 due to the small fixed-function Hardware T&L engine and medium level specification details, such as 3D skies, some volumetric effects, a medium range texture resolution, some texture variety, medium amount of static props, blobby shadows, some specularity, a little less ugly water, in scene(if render targets are supported) cameras and monitors, and medium-resolution displacement maps(IE to increase detail for terrain, cave walls, etc), because Direct-X 7 era graphics cards have a fixed-function hardware T & L engine, some effects in hl2 may be turned on and you can still maintain a decent frame rate.
With a Direct-X 8 graphics card(E.G Any Nvidia GeForce 3, GeForce 4 TI, Any ATI Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, 9200, any Matrox Pharhelia, any SIS Xabre), you'll be able to turn on most of the effects in-game, due to the Shader Model 1.1-1.4 support and high level specification details. These effects include a 3D sky, volumetric effects, such as smoke and fog, dynamic refraction(limited usage), radiosity based specular bump mapping(except on NPCS), bump mapping, normal mapping, full texture resolution, a full amount of texture variety, highly detailed static props, dynamic props,(but only near camera), sharp edged render-to-texture dynamic accurate projected shadows with self-shadowing and shadowmaps, specularity with normal mapping, bump mapping, and fresnel, pretty nice water with volumetric fog and limited fresnel reflection/refraction, in scene cameras and monitors, and medium to high res displacement maps with normal mapping and bump mapping. Because Direct-X 8 graphics cards were the first to include a programmable improved shader pipeline, with vertex and pixel shaders, ranging from revisions 1.1-1.4, most of the effects in hl2 can be turned on without a performance drop.
With a Direct-X 9 graphics card,(IE, Any nVidia GeForce FX-6xxx series, or ATI Radeon 9500-X800 series), you'll be able to turn on all effects in hl2 without a hefty performance drop, because of the Shader Model 2.0 and highest level specification details support. These effects include: 3D skies, dynamic refraction, radiosity based specular bump mapping & normal mapping, full texture resolution, variety, all over dynamic props, soft render to texture dynamic shadows, unlimited, fresnel reflection/refraction very nice water with volumetric fog, full HDR, cameras and monitors in scene, and full resolution displacement mapping.
Affording a system with top-notch performance to run HL2 at fullest extent is no easy task. These systems come with a hefty price tags, so you'll need a whole lotta money to afford one and it's coverage. Yet these systems will run half-life 2 the way they were meant to be run and seen. But these kinds of choices ain't you're every day options. They are a way of life. ~
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