HL2 40% faster on X800 compared to NV40?

[Richard]

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...

Well, Valve sent out a press release saying CS:CZ went gold and the game only appeared on the shelves four bloody months later. If that isn't stupidity I really don't know what is.

I think what's going on is much more complex than "IHV paid them to delay". Valve wants to be independent. Unlike id they had to sign up with a publisher for their hit game. And now that they're too big they can't simply walk out of the deal. Vivendi is pissed at them because of the constant delay. HL2 could really help Vivendi's financial situation. But instead Valve is pushing for Steam because that's the modern-day equivalent of what id did with the shareware release of the original DOOM: get rid of the middle-man and receive the lion-share of the profit.

Of course, Steam wasn't/isn't ready (and neither was the game as Gabe has finally admitted). Valve letting ATi bundle HL2 is just more of them same. They get more profit out of those copies than if they had been sold in retailers.

Why wasn't the benchmark released? I don't know, but as sure as hell it wasn't because of the hack or of the game not being done. However, what good is a benchmark of a game that is probably only going to ship in a year's time?

Like I mentioned in the other thread there's plenty of things that don't add-up in a "IHV paid them to delay" theory but I agree with you that Gabe simply is not telling the whole story.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

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 actually agree with you. During the sourcecode leak, it was pretty clear that the video demos were all scripted and that little if any of the AI code was finished. I'm sure that they have the full intention of doing everything they claimed, but it would have taken the second coming of christ, allah, and possibly Xenu to get the game out on time. The sourcecode leak is a relatively convenient excuse, but I think as has been said already, their publisher knew more about when the game would be ready than Gabe (or atleast than Gabe was letting on).

Their problem is that now the game is going to have these incredibly high standards for the AI, phyiccs, and graphics that it may or may not be able to live up to. I imagine *that* is why it is taking so long to finish. They would have been a lot better off anouncing when they *really* were close to release and had an idea of what kind of cutbacks they'd need to make.

Nite_Hawk

 

[dksuiko]

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.

Personally, I think you are just giving nVidia far too much credit. I mean, come on.. it's nVidia. Does their track record speak of anything that shows they have the cleverness to successfully pull something off like this? Every cheat and deception they tried to pull in the past, they were called on and discovered.

Plus, if they could connive this sort of trick, why would they stop with just the HL2 & D3 when they can do far more damage? Why not find some other way to subvert ATI, one that'll deal an even harder blow? If nVidia got Newell to do all this, they could have made ATI's cards perform horribly on HL2. Or hell, hire a real-life Ruby look-a-like to sleep with Dave Orton and get some REAL information they can use!

And I don't think the theory fits as tight as you think it does. The whole source-code debacle pokes a lot of holes in it, among others. I'd spend the time to point out all the holes and the holes within holes of your theory, but that would be about as fun as it would be productive. Anyway, I think you might've read a bit too many Cold War novels. If not, you should read some - you might find the thick web of pawn moving and conspiracy theories to your liking.

 

[Sxotty]

Yeah walt I think that if id could have released Doom3 nvidia would have wet themselves with excitment b/c it would finally be a game that made the nv3X not look like crap. I think id just wasn't done.

Carmack has just messed around a bit though the artists and such are the ones working hard to finish D3.

Also JC always says something like that when a new card is released and it probably is true that he is excited to mess around and see what they can do.

edit:

WRT the topic, remember the D3 demo used to show how the nv35 was not crap the level was especially picked that would show the maximum difference, and the 40% number could be a similar thing.

 

[hstewarth]

My guess is that that Gabe is treating the 6800U as 1.x card as he stated he does with NV3x and also have special logic for ATI because of the deal with ATI.

It would be interesting to tweek the drivers and make NVidia look like ATI system and see what the results.. I would think this is pretty hard because it probably has logic to detected the differences between.


Of course this is just my guess - since HL2 is not out and neither the cards are in the stored.

With what Gabe as stated about NVidia in the past, do you think NVidia will give them a 6800 pre-release anyway...

Personally I am boycotting HL2.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

My guess is that that Gabe is treating the 6800U as 1.x card as he stated he does with NV3x and also have special logic for ATI because of the deal with ATI.

Makes no sense.

Gabe treated at least some NV3x cards as PS 1.1, because they couldn't handle his PS 2.0 engine with acceptabel speed. This shouldn't be a problem with the 6800 series. Apparently, it's not as good as the X800, but it should certainly be better than the R300 performance.

With what Gabe as stated about NVidia in the past, do you think NVidia will give them a 6800 pre-release anyway...

Because of what Gabe stated in the past about the NV3x architecture? That's exactly why nVidia SHOULD be getting him a 6800 dev board.

Personally I am boycotting HL2.

Why?

 

[AOS]

Yes, give us the demo please and thank you.

 

[Maintank]

Good to see those marketing dollars are still hard at work

Ill await to use my voucher that came with my 9600 Pro AIW. Maybe if I am lucky the R700 or NV70 will be running it

 

[Headstone]

The way I see things is they did not release the demo because if the did have to go back and change parts of the game due to the leak (and possibly adding or changing other things) then the benchmark is not indicative of actual game play making it moot.

 

[London Geezer]

:|
Wow, this forum is turning into the next generation of the Console Forum.....

How on earth would HL2 be 40% faster on one next gen card than another in the same "range" is beyond me. Come on, you clever geeks should know better than that....
Especially considering the "relationship" Valve has had with Ati for quite a while...

If tomorrow John Carmak comes out saying "Doom3 40% faster on NV40" (which i wouldn't be too surprised with to be honest), this place would explode.

 

[PatrickL]

The place is not exploding because noone really trust Gabe and are just in the wait an see mood.

JC is an other story or did you forget the infamous special doom 3 benchmark with Nvidia last may ?

 

[London Geezer]

The place is not exploding because noone really trust Gabe and are just in the wait an see mood.

JC is an other story or did you forget the infamous special doom 3 benchmark with Nvidia last may ?

My point is that i will never trust someone who GETS PAID by advertising his game as "running better" on a specific card, by the vendor of that specific card.
Even JC.

 

[Evildeus]

The place is not exploding because noone really trust Gabe and are just in the wait an see mood.

JC is an other story or did you forget the infamous special doom 3 benchmark with Nvidia last may ?

Well, i think the HL2 debacle is not really helping Gabe, moreover his stance over Nv doesn't give him much love from Nv fans (Nvidiots?). As for JC, i would say that taking all he says with some 2nd degree would be great, and at least he didn't make that benchmark test ( )

 

[Evildeus]

The place is not exploding because noone really trust Gabe and are just in the wait an see mood.

JC is an other story or did you forget the infamous special doom 3 benchmark with Nvidia last may ?

Well, i think the HL2 debacle is not really helping Gabe, moreover his stance over Nv doesn't give him much love from Nv fans (Nvidiots?). As for JC, i would say that taking all he says with some 2nd degree would be great, and at least he didn't make that benchmark test ( )

 

[Althornin]

:|
Wow, this forum is turning into the next generation of the Console Forum.....

How on earth would HL2 be 40% faster on one next gen card than another in the same "range" is beyond me. Come on, you clever geeks should know better than that....
Especially considering the "relationship" Valve has had with Ati for quite a while...

If tomorrow John Carmak comes out saying "Doom3 40% faster on NV40" (which i wouldn't be too surprised with to be honest), this place would explode.

wow, you've got it all wrong.
We full expect HL2 to be shader limited, and thus we fully expect the X800 to whip the 6800 in it.
I also expect Doom3 to run better on the 6800 because of the lighting algorithms used, where nVidia has an advantage.

 

[London Geezer]

:|
Wow, this forum is turning into the next generation of the Console Forum.....

How on earth would HL2 be 40% faster on one next gen card than another in the same "range" is beyond me. Come on, you clever geeks should know better than that....
Especially considering the "relationship" Valve has had with Ati for quite a while...

If tomorrow John Carmak comes out saying "Doom3 40% faster on NV40" (which i wouldn't be too surprised with to be honest), this place would explode.

wow, you've got it all wrong.
We full expect HL2 to be shader limited, and thus we fully expect the X800 to whip the 6800 in it.
I also expect Doom3 to run better on the 6800 because of the lighting algorithms used, where nVidia has an advantage.

I'm sure they will be faster in their respective game, but 40%...? :?

 

[Evildeus]

wow, you've got it all wrong.
We full expect HL2 to be shader limited, and thus we fully expect the X800 to whip the 6800 in it.
I also expect Doom3 to run better on the 6800 because of the lighting algorithms used, where nVidia has an advantage.

If HL2 is shader limited, wouldn't the difference be much higher? :?

 

[termikk]

ah nvidia AND ati paying off gabe!
you people are just craaazy!

Well of course if you ask a developer he won't say that he is biased, but if they have special relations with ati or nvidia they "tend" to favour them anyway. Besides, they can be personal relationships too.
Carmack was with the guys from voodoo and now is with those same guys in nvidia.
Valve is aligned with Ati and Epic is going with Nvidia, that is clear.
Rival companies, enemy of my enemy is my friend.

TWIMTBP and such are just marketing gimmicks, but unfortunately we all have seen hoe much shenanigans can be going on beyond reason (detecting hardware and cripping it some).

At last, I'll just say that all those guys said things that were much talked about, but in the end, they were just WRONG.
Let´s wait and see...

 

[Althornin]

I'm sure they will be faster in their respective game, but 40%...? :?

Look at the shadermark results.

If HL2 is shader limited, wouldn't the difference be much higher?

look at the shadermark results.

 

[MrBond]

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 must say, I gotta agree here. The Sept 30 date was all hot air and fluff. In fact, Valve would have done themselves a tremendous service if they had said two weeks earlier "we don't think it's looking good at this point." Even if they had still gotten hacked, it would have not looked anywhere near as suspicious.

Here's the way I see it right now: The sept 30 date was BS to begin with. The game was obviously not done by then, and there were probably still many nv30 improvements to be worked on, among many other things. The engine itself was probably not polished or finished. And then the code leak/hack was released, which may or may not have been everything they had at that point. Doesn't matter. At this point, Valve *has* to rewrite major portions of the code anyway, so they decide to take advantage of the situation and continue to land big changes to the engine (If you look back, in pre-Sept 30 interviews/emails Gabe was talking about how someone was only thinking/looking at implementing soundscapes for HL2 and it wasn't likely, and a couple months ago I saw something that mentioned soundscapes is a new feature in HL2 now).

If you look in halflife2.net, there's a couple emails on there that seem to suggest most of the work being done now is level balancing and single player work, and that the source engine itself is complete. That is, of course, if you believe Gabe or Doug Lombardi anymore.

I'll preorder HL2 when a concrete date is set, and it has gone gold. Not a moment sooner.