Half Life 2 -- Wow, just wow!

I finally got around to buying this game and must say I'm just stunned by it's beauty. I just finished FEAR which is a great looking game in it's own right but WOW does HL2 look great. Best water and HDR usage I've ever seen. For a two year plus old game I think it's easily the best looking game I've got right now. Oblivion is probably as goodbut I can't get over the incredible framerates I get in HL2 to boot.

The Lost coast timedemo gave me an average of 52 fps with all settings maxed except AA at none and AF at 4X and using 1680x150 resolution! That's incredible because none of my other games look this good and run that smooth at that resolution. With all the hype about DX10 I can't imagine DX9 looking any better than it does in this game.

Why did I wait so long? 8)

HL2 is quite innovative in the graphical and physical environments. Gotta love the new physics engine. :D Especially the puzzle where you stack the cement blocks on a platform to lower it.

It is a great game, plus the fact that it uses Steam, they can update the game consistently easier. As well they can add new graphic effects.

If your rig can handle it, I suggest trying out the Cinematic Mod. It overhauls much of the model and texture work in the game, along with an entirely new soundtrack and a few gameplay changes that make the game significantly better. Its over 3 gigs and requires a hefty gaming rig to look good, but its worth it.3SecondGrenade

Wow, I checked out the link you posted and must say that adds a whole new level of detail to it. Incredible Mod! At 3GBs though I might have to pass right now as my HD is getting full.

Yes Half Life 2 is an amazing game in every aspect, (even the recycled sounds from Half Life) especially how Valve made the engine so scalable. You might be a little late, which is really a shame to miss out on this game for so long, but better late than never.

P.S. - Wow I am going to have to try out the Cinematic Mod thanks for the link 3Second Grenade.

HL2 Episode One uses HDR, HL2 originally didnt support HDR but with the patch 1.1 HDR is also possible in HL2.

Cravenraptor

WOO grats

Now go buy Ep1 and 2 when it comes out.

HL2 Episode One uses HDR, HL2 originally didnt support HDR but with the patch 1.1 HDR is also possible in HL2.

Cravenraptor

Cravenraptor

Where do you get that patch from?

i origonally played this on a lappy with an amd64 3000+, 512MB of ram and a mobility radeon 9600 64MB. i played it at med details roughly and it looked pretty good. very enjoyable game (though it would randomly seez up for about 5 secs as the HDD cached some data....crappy 4200rpm HDD). im not a big FPS man but HL2 is the exception.

ive started to play this on my new rig (specs in sig) and the difference in graphics is absolutely staggering. the textures look much sharper, theres extra shader effects here and there and the game is much nicer to play since it know longer stops randomly on me. my only complaint is that the source engine doesent seem to like the nvidia 8800 drivers. theres a bit of fade in here and there that i didnt notice before. it improved alot with the 158.22 drivers but theres still a few niggles. hopefully nvidia and/or valve sort it out soon.

WOO grats

Now go buy Ep1 and 2 when it comes out.

FragMonkey09

Episode 2 is never coming out

[QUOTE="FragMonkey09"]

WOO grats

Now go buy Ep1 and 2 when it comes out.

bachilders

Episode 2 is never coming out

i origonally played this on a lappy with an amd64 3000+, 512MB of ram and a mobility radeon 9600 64MB. i played it at med details roughly and it looked pretty good. very enjoyable game (though it would randomly seez up for about 5 secs as the HDD cached some data....crappy 4200rpm HDD). im not a big FPS man but HL2 is the exception.

ive started to play this on my new rig (specs in sig) and the difference in graphics is absolutely staggering. the textures look much sharper, theres extra shader effects here and there and the game is much nicer to play since it know longer stops randomly on me. my only complaint is that the source engine doesent seem to like the nvidia 8800 drivers. theres a bit of fade in here and there that i didnt notice before. it improved alot with the 158.22 drivers but theres still a few niggles. hopefully nvidia and/or valve sort it out soon.

osan0

Osan0, you might be seeing the effects of the HDR settings. HDR simulates the iris of your eye by making the brightness fade in and out as you go from dark tunnels to bright sun. If you've got the HDR turned on you'll see that effect quite often. The commentary in the Lost Coast expansion explains it better.

[QUOTE="Cravenraptor"]

HL2 Episode One uses HDR, HL2 originally didnt support HDR but with the patch 1.1 HDR is also possible in HL2.

Cravenraptor

J-REAL

Where do you get that patch from?

You automatically have it, assuming you don't use a cracked version. Steam auto-updates in the background whenever it detects a new update.

I played HL2 on the xbox at my friends house once and it was awsome.It's probobly better for Pc because of all the mods and stuff like that you can get. How much is HL2 for Pc now?mattpunkgd

Half Life 2 is pretty much a king among men when it comes to most other games. Love it almost 3 years later as much if not more than I did back then.

Orange Box: HL2, Ep1, Ep2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2... $50. Best deal in gaming... ever? I'm starting to think so.

Half Life 2 is pretty much a king among men when it comes to most other games. Love it almost 3 years later as much if not more than I did back then.

Orange Box: HL2, Ep1, Ep2, Portal, and Team Fortress 2... $50. Best deal in gaming... ever? I'm starting to think so.

Staryoshi87

Agreed if you haven't already gotten HL2 and eipsode one this package has a ridiculously good value.

[QUOTE="FragMonkey09"]

WOO grats

Now go buy Ep1 and 2 when it comes out.

bachilders

Episode 2 is never coming out

You joke, but actually......

I played HL2 on the xbox at my friends house once and it was awsome.It's probobly better for Pc because of all the mods and stuff like that you can get. How much is HL2 for Pc now?mattpunkgd

You can get HL2 and Episode 1 off of Steam for $25 right now. It also comes with HL2: DM.

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=package&SubId=310&cc=US

[QUOTE="mattpunkgd"]I played HL2 on the xbox at my friends house once and it was awsome.It's probobly better for Pc because of all the mods and stuff like that you can get. How much is HL2 for Pc now?ProudLarry

You can get HL2 and Episode 1 off of Steam for $25 right now. It also comes with HL2: DM.

http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=package&SubId=310&cc=US

That's what I did. Awesome deal for the price.

I'd always meant to play this game as I absolutely loved Half-life 1. But at the time this came out I was deep into running my NASCAR racing league and wasn't playing FPS games. After finishing FEAR recently I decided it was about time I took a look at that one. And I'm still stunned at how great it looks (even better than FEAR IMO) and it runs even smoother than FEAR. Source has got to be the most optimized game engine I've seen in a long while.

I think I'm nearing the end of my first run with the swamp boat thingy. Pretty cool bombing around in that dodging missles and stuff.

[QUOTE="Cravenraptor"]

HL2 Episode One uses HDR, HL2 originally didnt support HDR but with the patch 1.1 HDR is also possible in HL2.

Cravenraptor

J-REAL

Where do you get that patch from?

Steam of course!

I enjoy this game alot, getting over 100 fps is always nice too!

I said just like u "WOW!" , it's gameplay , graphics and the physics engine are awesome!!

I believe it's still hte best FPS ever

[QUOTE="osan0"]

i origonally played this on a lappy with an amd64 3000+, 512MB of ram and a mobility radeon 9600 64MB. i played it at med details roughly and it looked pretty good. very enjoyable game (though it would randomly seez up for about 5 secs as the HDD cached some data....crappy 4200rpm HDD). im not a big FPS man but HL2 is the exception.

ive started to play this on my new rig (specs in sig) and the difference in graphics is absolutely staggering. the textures look much sharper, theres extra shader effects here and there and the game is much nicer to play since it know longer stops randomly on me. my only complaint is that the source engine doesent seem to like the nvidia 8800 drivers. theres a bit of fade in here and there that i didnt notice before. it improved alot with the 158.22 drivers but theres still a few niggles. hopefully nvidia and/or valve sort it out soon.

Wedge598

Osan0, you might be seeing the effects of the HDR settings. HDR simulates the iris of your eye by making the brightness fade in and out as you go from dark tunnels to bright sun. If you've got the HDR turned on you'll see that effect quite often. The commentary in the Lost Coast expansion explains it better.

i dont think its HDR. it looks more like mist or like the game has a short draw distance on certain objects. for example at the start when u just leave the train station...all the combine gates look faded away...greyish...as if they were far away. the walls around those gates were fine though.

it was really bad with the 98.XX drivers for the 8800GTX but has improved alot with the 158.22 drivers. ill try it with HDR off to see if that makes a change but i dont think its related.

i dont see what was so good about hl2. i beat it the day it came out. i was impressed then, but i was never compelled to go back to it after that first playthrough. the game is so easy most of the time(even on hard)and the ai is pretty crap; if they would have just made the AI a lot better it would have been a whole different experience. the zombies all had the same model.. wtf was that about? the game in development for however many years, yet there is only 1 zombie model? most of the game felt the same until you got the super grav gun, though contrary to what most people think, i think the driving parts were zome of the best because they got away from the constant linear 'shoot any guy that you see'(and the reason that wasnt fun was that most of the time the AI would just stand there shooting at you while you slowly pick them off) and had you explore some abandoned areas with just a few zombies.

i wont lie, i am definitely buying the orange box, but i am not hoping for much more than what i found in hl2. (didnt buy ep1 because it seemed like a huge ripoff; $20 for a 4-6 hour game that i will beat once and never come back to? no thanks)

[QUOTE="Wedge598"][QUOTE="osan0"]

i origonally played this on a lappy with an amd64 3000+, 512MB of ram and a mobility radeon 9600 64MB. i played it at med details roughly and it looked pretty good. very enjoyable game (though it would randomly seez up for about 5 secs as the HDD cached some data....crappy 4200rpm HDD). im not a big FPS man but HL2 is the exception.

ive started to play this on my new rig (specs in sig) and the difference in graphics is absolutely staggering. the textures look much sharper, theres extra shader effects here and there and the game is much nicer to play since it know longer stops randomly on me. my only complaint is that the source engine doesent seem to like the nvidia 8800 drivers. theres a bit of fade in here and there that i didnt notice before. it improved alot with the 158.22 drivers but theres still a few niggles. hopefully nvidia and/or valve sort it out soon.

osan0

Osan0, you might be seeing the effects of the HDR settings. HDR simulates the iris of your eye by making the brightness fade in and out as you go from dark tunnels to bright sun. If you've got the HDR turned on you'll see that effect quite often. The commentary in the Lost Coast expansion explains it better.

i dont think its HDR. it looks more like mist or like the game has a short draw distance on certain objects. for example at the start when u just leave the train station...all the combine gates look faded away...greyish...as if they were far away. the walls around those gates were fine though.

it was really bad with the 98.XX drivers for the 8800GTX but has improved alot with the 158.22 drivers. ill try it with HDR off to see if that makes a change but i dont think its related.

That's the draw distance.. there may be a config file you can edit to "force" it. I know I did that with Gothic 3.. but for HL2 it didn't really bother me. I am also using a 8800 but GTS 640

i dont see what was so good about hl2. i beat it the day it came out. i was impressed then, but i was never compelled to go back to it after that first playthrough. the game is so easy most of the time(even on hard)and the ai is pretty crap; if they would have just made the AI a lot better it would have been a whole different experience. the zombies all had the same model.. wtf was that about? the game in development for however many years, yet there is only 1 zombie model? most of the game felt the same until you got the super grav gun, though contrary to what most people think, i think the driving parts were zome of the best because they got away from the constant linear 'shoot any guy that you see'(and the reason that wasnt fun was that most of the time the AI would just stand there shooting at you while you slowly pick them off) and had you explore some abandoned areas with just a few zombies.

i wont lie, i am definitely buying the orange box, but i am not hoping for much more than what i found in hl2. (didnt buy ep1 because it seemed like a huge ripoff; $20 for a 4-6 hour game that i will beat once and never come back to? no thanks)

Crucifier

HL2 dragged on too much for me.. slow to start etc.. EP1 is totally different experience.. IMO it far exceeds HL2, both in graphical quality and fast action. Yes, it is short.. but GOOD.. Much like Extraction Point for FEAR, without every comp in the building a XPS system.. damn product placement :/

It is worth the download and play.. EP1 :)

Easily one of my very favorites this game, but I was completely hooked on HL1 so when HL2 came out I was already sold.

One thing that does come to mind is EP1...The first time I loaded that game was with my brand new X1900XT (at the time) and I remember my reaction was total and complete shock. The graphics looked so smooth and unbelievably good i remember simply sitting there in the main menu looking at the game engine running at the background. HDR was brand new and it was quite staggering.

Can't wait for EP2.....BRING IT ON!

That's the draw distance.. there may be a config file you can edit to "force" it. I know I did that with Gothic 3.. but for HL2 it didn't really bother me. I am also using a 8800 but GTS 640

Alkpaz

i dont think its draw distance. sometimes i can be pretty close to an object and itll still look faded and out of place (well it did with older drivers....mostly fixed now). if i can find a suitable pic ill plonk it up but itll be harder to track down now with the 158.22 drivers.

its not a very big deal anyway....the games still brilliant.