Half Life 2 Lost Coast HDR Performance: Crossfire vs SLI

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ruiner5000

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Does ATI need a new driver?

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?...s&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=195&page=1

Valve released the extra Half Life 2 level Lost Coast yesterday evening, and with an 32X SLI setup, and Crossfire setup already humming we decided that some benchmarks revealing HDR on and off performance were in order. It was a bloodbath with our initial results. High Dynamic Range Lighting is a spectacle, and certainly Valve has implemented a much more advanced version that you will find in Far Cry.
 
How is HDR different from bloom lighting? I've read a little about it, but the most I really understood is that it uses color values outside of the range of what you can see, but I don't see how that's an advantage. I've also never seen it in action, only in screenshots, which is why I'm asking how it's different from bloom, which can be seen on hardware as old as the PS2.
 
CMAN said:
I'm wondering if Crossfire was even enabled...
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It's an X850 going against the 7800GT. Even if it were comparing single cards against each other it would be a blowout in favor of Nvidia.

Let them try SLI 7800GT against Crossfire X1800XT cards and see what you get.
 
ATI leading in Doom 3, and Nvidia in Half Life 2? Armageddon must be coming.

Seriously though, I don't believe these results.
 
Florin said:
ATI leading in Doom 3, and Nvidia in Half Life 2? Armageddon must be coming.

Seriously though, I don't believe these results.
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Why not believe them? Have a look at other replies in this thread, and you'll see why NV wins. Its a 7800GT SLI vs X850 Crossfire. Currennt gen, vs last gen, its obvious who is going to win.

I would like to see single card numbers. As I dont believe SLI or Crossfire speeds up HDR. At least SLI didnt in Farcry. I know its different.. but the same concept.
 
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fallguy said:
Why not believe them? Have a look at other replies in this thread, and you'll see why NV wins. Its a 7800GT SLI vs X850 Crossfire. Currennt gen, vs last gen, its obvious who is going to win.

I would like to see single card numbers. As I dont believe SLI or Crossfire speeds up HDR. At least SLI didnt in Farcry. I know its different.. but the same concept.
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Thats because Far Cry uses Split Frame Rendering. SFR is not compatible with HDR. Half Life 2, Splinter Cell CT, Age of Empires III, and Leg Star Wars use AFR 2 and even Nvidias Luna Demo. AFR2 is completely compatible with HDR rendering. Your quote would be correct if you said "I dont believe SFR will speed up HDR". And the same is probably said for tiling. I think you'll be hard pressed to find any future titles that will run HDR in SFR mode.
 
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Check the update, its a driver issue, or the Crossfire mode does not help HDR but the overhead is still there, therefore showing slower performance than a single X850.

I'm willing to bet its just the Crossfire method being used, and if they switched it, there would a performance gain.
 
Those are some amazing shots. Hope all the HDR nay-sayers give them a look.

Edit: Look how HDR gives the gun more "metalic" feel instead of plastic feel.
 
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Since Lost Coast is so demanding, it could make a good replacement for HL-2 in B3D's benchmarks. Particularly as there's HDR off, HDR bloom and Full HDR options to bench with, with AA supported too.

Jawed
 
oh, and believe it or not, these numbers are authentic, and we do know how to enable crossfire. it is easy. I am an original 3dfx sli user after all, and i posted some of the first quake sli numbers back in the day. Hopefully by December we will have 15 or more machines for testing of various specs which will certainly help us pump out numbers more quickly, and to be able to verify results more easily.
 
ruiner5000 said:
oh, and believe it or not, these numbers are authentic, and we do know how to enable crossfire. it is easy. I am an original 3dfx sli user after all, and i posted some of the first quake sli numbers back in the day. Hopefully by December we will have 15 or more machines for testing of various specs which will certainly help us pump out numbers more quickly, and to be able to verify results more easily.
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I didn't read and thought you were using a X1800XL :oops: That's why I thought Crossfire wasn't working.
 
clearly there is some sort of driver issue causing crossfire to not work correctly. ATI in their lack of wisdom decided to not provide us with one, and instead provide sites with less traffic, that have been around just a couple of years with cards. we have been online since 98, and we ran the lan party for their x800xl 512 back in february in dallas. that is how smart they are. and well, that is the appreciation we get. i have not seen things in pr there in this sort of shape since the driver fiasco after comdex 2001.
 
Sorry for sounding crass, but it's one of my pet peeves. ATI, or nVidia, or AMD or Intel...don't owe you or any other web site jack shit. (I'm quite sure you both mutually benefitted from whatever lan even you're talking about.) Every single web site has "their own reason" why "they" should get hardware X-Y-Z. You're not special.

He asked about an 1800...the answer is "they didn't give us one."
 
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