Joe DeFuria
Legend
HL2 40% faster on X800 compared to NV40?
- Thread starter Joe DeFuria
- Start date
Figured I'd be an ******* and mention this is a semi-repost.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12139
Reported on the same thing but it's a different site.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12139
Reported on the same thing but it's a different site.
Joe DeFuria
Legend
IST said:
Not being an ass at all...sorry for the repost!
Shaky cam vidstEd said:
Joe DeFuria
Legend
AlphaWolf said:
Right.
Considering the early build of the engine being very shader limited in certain tests, combined with the fact that it's DirectX....HL2 is basically the poster-boy app for the Radeon XT.
The opposite is pretty much true for Doom3, of course.
IST said:Hahaha. It's a semi-repost.
Seriously though, 40% faster? I thought the register issues and whatnot with the NV40 were largely fixed?
Two things to think about: the nV40 and R4x0 architectures are not the same, and the clockspeeds are different as well. nVidia may have fixed some things relative to its own architecture, indeed, but that still doesn't in itself mean anything pro or con in relation to R4x0. You can only divine things like that from direct comparisons of the two products running the same software in the same systems.
Still, with respect to this issue, I can't quite accept as mere coincidence that both D3 and HL2, both blockbuster games originally slated for a 2003 release, were pushed back to '04 unexpectedly--which just so happens to coincide with nV40 being the first ps2.0, full precision gpu with power enough to run both games well that nVidia's been able to produce (at least in prototypes at this time.) I'll concede, however, that it is possible that ATi preferred Valve to hold up for x800, and nVidia preferred ID to hold up for nV40. I consider it less likely for ATi, though, since it doesn't make much sense for them to have shipped HL2 coupons with the 98/9600XTs in that case. Whatever actually happened, there's too much here to be explained away by coincidence.
Both ID and Valve have too much invested to delay for Nvidia or ATi. They might time a release by a few weeks but there is no way they are delaying by many months to fit an IHV. We are talking about games that are going to be worth $100+ million once shipping. I just don't see either IHV paying either of them enough for that kind of service.
I'll believe it when I get to try a benchmark....
DID YOU HEAR ME GABE?!?! WHERE IN THE HELL IS OUR BENCHMARK?!?!!??!?
Hey, I don't expect the game to ever really come out...but I really wish they'd at least put out one benchmark. (Yeah, but I also think it would be a good idea to put out "DNF:A Work In Progress" which contains all the previous beta versions they've scrapped over the years. )
DID YOU HEAR ME GABE?!?! WHERE IN THE HELL IS OUR BENCHMARK?!?!!??!?
Hey, I don't expect the game to ever really come out...but I really wish they'd at least put out one benchmark. (Yeah, but I also think it would be a good idea to put out "DNF:A Work In Progress" which contains all the previous beta versions they've scrapped over the years.
)AlphaWolf said:
But isn't this a circular argument? I mean, the fact is that they did delay their games, so obviously they believed they could afford it, regardless of the reasons. I don't think the delays will cost them anything--which is why they were agreeable to delay in the first place, right?
The case for Valve is certainly interesting, as despite Vivendi saying in early summer that the game might not ship in '03, Valve was quick to counter that suggestion and insist on the '03 ship date, and then Vivendi backtracked and said that it was really up to Valve as to when the game would ship after all. Pretty odd, if you ask me. And Carmack and ID--well, Carmack spent most of his time last year criticizing or apologizing for nV3x--D3 gets delayed with ID saying they'd never announced a release date in the first place--but shortly after the nV40 prototypes hit the review circuit, suddenly Carmack is all excited about "having fun with fragments and figments," etc., and is all jazzed up publicly about shaders for D3, after near silence on the subject as it might relate to D3 for the span of the 19-20 months R3x0 had been shipping.
You could be right of course and it could all be just one big coincidence. Just doesn't seem likely, but of course I have no proof that it was anything but pure coincidence...
Just seems odd, that's all, and sends up a reg flag, at least for me.Why would Valve delay a game that a) cost them $40 million to develop and b) would make their IHV partner look extremely good? If HL2 had been shipped on September 30th, it would have sold alot more ATI cards over the past year, since they ran PS2.0 best and you'd need an R300 based card if you wanted HL2 to run nice with all the bells and whistles. It would have given them an effectively monopoly platform on the #1 game of the year.
There's a very simple reason HL2 was delayed: it wasn't done.
There's a very simple reason HL2 was delayed: it wasn't done.
WaltC said:
I wasn't suggesting they couldn't afford to delay. I was suggesting that the possible benefit for delaying a finished product would have been insignificant compared to the benefits of releasing it.
<edit>I mean benefits for the developer obviously
DemoCoder said:
Well, OK, but then that means Newell's an idiot, doesn't it?...
It also has to mean that Vivendi knows more about Valve than Newell knows about Valve, and more about HL2 than Newell knew about HL2 when he swore up & down it would ship 9/03 despite Vivendi's quickly retracted protestations to the contrary. Do you consider that likely? I don't, and that's what bothers me...because...It means Newell has reasons he hasn't divulged. As Dig points out in large type above, the benchmark thing has always troubled me. Unless Valve decided at the last minute to do some big changes to the rendering engine for HL2, then even considering the questionable source-code theft account, it shouldn't have delayed the release of the benchmark Newell had promised the people of Earth.
In fact, I can't think of a single reason the "source-code theft" should have delayed the benchmark. But I can think of a darn good reason to delay the benchmark as well as the game--changes to the rendering engine of the game. Such changes would make any HL2 benchmark purporting to measure rendering speed invalid, would it not, if Valve was going into the rendering engine and making substantial or fundamental changes? Since I can't think of any excuse for delaying the benchmark which might relate to the purported source-code theft, I'm not surprised that Newell has said nothing (to my recollection) about the benchmark delay in all of these many months. It is as though he'd never said anything at all about such a benchmark in the first place.
So I consider it possible, unfortunately, that Newell is being clever and playing both sides of the IHV fence, and doing it privately without the knowledge of ATi or Vivendi, and that nVidia paid him to delay HL2 until it could begin shipping nV40s, even while ATi is paying for Valve's sponsorship and currently getting lip service from Newell. Not saying it is likely or even probable, just that it seems possible as one of many explanations that is congruent with the events. The whole "source-code theft" story has bothered me ever since the first day I heard it.
I agree the source code theft is not the major reason behind the delay, but I highly doubt NVidia could pay Valve enough to justify the delay.
I think the reality is that Valve bullshits too much. They did the same thing with HL1 and TF2. Gabe is following in the footsteps of John Romero, the only difference is, eventually Valve releases something good.
But before then, they bullshit too much about releases. The simple reason for the delay of the Benchmark is that they knew it would show they were lying about the state of the game and about the E3 demo. People would undoubtably unpack all the graphics, shaders, and scripts, and figure out that they weren't telling the complete truth at E3.
I think the reality is that Valve bullshits too much. They did the same thing with HL1 and TF2. Gabe is following in the footsteps of John Romero, the only difference is, eventually Valve releases something good.
But before then, they bullshit too much about releases. The simple reason for the delay of the Benchmark is that they knew it would show they were lying about the state of the game and about the E3 demo. People would undoubtably unpack all the graphics, shaders, and scripts, and figure out that they weren't telling the complete truth at E3.
Y'know what? That really remains to be seen, doesn't it?DemoCoder said:
Yeah Valve is batting a thousand, but they've only had one at bat....no matter how good they are they're still technically a "one-hit wonder".
Until they start delivering on all this hype that they themselves induced than they ain't really a whole lot of squat to me. (Yes, I'm bitter.
)Similar threads
- Locked