HL2 delayed again?

[Ruined]

Got this in my email this morning

Dear,
Thank you for your recent purchase from Walmart.com. We
are writing to let you know that the release date of your
item(s) has changed. Please see the information below to
find out when the new release date is, and when you can
expect to receive your order.

Half-Life 2: Collector's Edition PC
Original release date : 02 SEP 2004
New release date : 02 NOV 2004
Selected Shipping Method : Standard

Looks like Amazon, Best Buy, and Gamestop have also all switched to 11/1 dates now

[FamilyGuyfanBOY]

This game better not suffer the fate of Tomb Raider: AoD (multiple delays, kick ass trailers, screen shots and first looks and when it finaly came....the biggest turd on the planet)

[downhuman]

Hey, you know, source code can be a tricky thing to change. Especially since the game was for all intents and purposes finished. It's pretty much like starting from scratch in a sense. I think they've done a superb job if it's only delayed them a little over a year or so.

And does anybody really think this is going to be as bad as TR:AoD!!!??? Come on, there's not really much to improve upon here. As long as the basic mechanics are the same as the original, it will rock. But we already know that there is going to be so much more than that going on. Unscripted NPC interaction. Unprecedented facial animation. An incredibly advanced physics engine (check out those striders!!!). The most incredible water rendering that I've ever seen. And we know the story will be top notch. This is going to kick all kinds of major ass.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by downhuman

And does anybody really think this is going to be as bad as TR:AoD!!!??? Come on, there's not really much to improve upon here. As long as the basic mechanics are the same as the original, it will rock. But we already know that there is going to be so much more than that going on. Unscripted NPC interaction. Unprecedented facial animation. An incredibly advanced physics engine (check out those striders!!!). The most incredible water rendering that I've ever seen. And we know the story will be top notch. This is going to kick all kinds of major ass.

The plot will probably be good, but based on the screens and movies I've seen Doom3 looks to have a more impressive graphical engine. Hopefully the gameplay will live up to expectations.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

The plot will probably be good, but based on the screens and movies I've seen Doom3 looks to have a more impressive graphical engine. Hopefully the gameplay will live up to expectations.

Maybe, but I'll trade some of the pretty graphics for bigger maps and (in this comparison) the ability to play outside in the sunlight a bit.

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

Maybe, but I'll trade some of the pretty graphics for bigger maps and (in this comparison) the ability to play outside in the sunlight a bit.

Although if you REALLY want sunlight you should be playing FarCry

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

Although if you REALLY want sunlight you should be playing FarCry

Been there..done that.
Beautiful game. (Horrid...and I mean absolutly HORRID ending)

[Hollow Man]

And what honestly made you believe in a Sept 2 date, when Valve keeps saying that they haven't even submitted a release candidate to Vivendi yet? HL2, like all other games, will be out "When it's done".

I'm on Volcano for Far Cry and simply can't do it.

-HM

[Enzian]

They've just added the tagline.

The whole title is now Half Life 2: Forever

[downhuman]

Originally Posted by Ruined

The plot will probably be good, but based on the screens and movies I've seen Doom3 looks to have a more impressive graphical engine. Hopefully the gameplay will live up to expectations.

Agreed, Doom 3 is easily the most impressive game graphically that I've ever seen. But it does have it's weak points. Namely skin tones and visible polygons. Our hero looked like one of the undead. And any character who had a bald head, also had an odd little point on the top of their head where the polygons weren't smoothed out. The ragdoll physics weren't as pronounced as I thought they could be--also some(not all) of the larger creatures did not seem to move with the appropriate weight (especially the final boss). Sure, these are little niggling things but definitely noticeable. Where the game's graphics truly excel are in the lighting and texture department. An absolutely unprecedented use of lighting. And if you're a texture junkie (like me), the Doom3 engine is unmatched.

For me HL2's graphics look to be just as impressive, but for completely different reasons. Just from what I've seen the graphical focus for HL2 doesn't seem to be so much on lighting but rather on an ultra-realistic physics model. Examples of this can be found with the movement of the striders and the demonstrations of that tractor beam gun thingy (I don't know what it's friggin' called). Also environmental rendering looks to have taken a major step forward with the Source (HL2's) engine. Examples of this: Water looks more realistically rendered than ever before. And it looks like there will be an advanced sort of geo-mod system in place (destructable environments like Red Faction--only way better). And lets not forget that wicked facial animation. Weak points so far: some bland texturing and a reduced emphasis on dynamic lighting. (keep in mind, though, that I'm only judging this from relatively low-res movies and screenshots).

Anyway, that's my shorthand graphical analysis of these 2 games. In short, I think HL2 will be every bit the graphical powerhouse that Doom 3 is, just for different reasons.

[MooglePorn]

Wonder how long I'll have to wait for the XBOX (or XBOX2) release... *sigh*

And not all delayed games are crap... actually a lot of the time a delay is good for development. Halo 2 is one example of delaying until it's done, and I respect that attitude. Who wants to play a glitchy game?

[Ruined]

A Half Life 2 visual "stress test" was released today to showcase the graphical prowess of HL2 and what your card needs to power it. While some of the effects are neat, honestly Doom3 makes HL2 look like last year's game graphically. Now these aren't totally in context of HL2, but you will get an idea of what the graphics engine is capable of:

http://premium.uploadit.org/tork64/h...0-38-14-99.jpg
http://premium.uploadit.org/tork64/h...0-38-03-67.jpg
http://home.houston.rr.com/yevaud/VST0.jpg

Pretty nice looking, but not technically up to par with Doom3 from these screens. (especially lighting)

and yes before all the replies graphics aren't everything, etc

[Reaver]

Originally Posted by FamilyGuyfanBOY

This game better not suffer the fate of Tomb Raider: AoD (multiple delays, kick ass trailers, screen shots and first looks and when it finaly came....the biggest turd on the planet)

If you actually think this is even remotely possible, then you're even further off the ball than I thought.

[3DMan]

Here's a test of Counterstrike:Source preview(not HL2 but same engine). There are some humungous screenshots at the bottom. ATI whups da sheet outta NVIDIA, whaddaya think Ruined? :p

[Damian]

Originally Posted by 3DMan

Here's a test of Counterstrike:Source preview(not HL2 but same engine). There are some humungous screenshots at the bottom. ATI whups da sheet outta NVIDIA, whaddaya think Ruined? :p

Oh dear GOD do you know what you've done?

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by 3DMan

Here's a test of Counterstrike:Source preview(not HL2 but same engine). There are some humungous screenshots at the bottom. ATI whups da sheet outta NVIDIA, whaddaya think Ruined? :p

hehe, driverheaven is an ati site, and based on user benchmarks the general consensus is that their results are way off. (there is a discussion on beyond3d about this now - people with 6800GTs and slower CPUs are pulling higher benchmark scores). Driverheaven usually stacks the deck against Nvidia in their benchmarks (ie purposefully turning opts off for Nvidia but leaving them on for ATI), and I wouldn't be surprised if they did that here somehow. Even in that review where they claim they are being fair they compare supersampling aa to multisampling aa then wonder why it is slower, heh.

Will wait to see what neutral sites come up with (i.e. anandtech, hardocp, firingsquad, tomshardware, etc) before coming to a definitive conclusion.

From user benchmarks I have seen, it looks like the 6800U is approx. 10% slower than the x800xtpe when they are compared on equal ground with the latest drivers (65.62 vs 4.9). With older drivers (61.77 vs 4.8), the x800xtpe is about 20% ahead. The 65.62 drivers enable a new adaptive AF optimization similar to the one ATI's been using for a while now, giving the 6800 ~10% boost.

Also, it is worth keeping in mind that this is not an HL2 benchmark or even a Counterstrike Source Benchmark, but a "Videocard Stress Test" by Valve. As you can see from the benchmark it doesn't actually run anything from Hl2, just lots of pixel shader synthetic tests with a few HL2-like scenes thrown in. Its very possible (probable) it does not use partial precison which will be used in HL2, and therefore might not represent HL2 gameplay accurately.

You can see Counterstrike source benchmarks here:
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=1181&s=1
(note these are using the older 61.77 drivers)

As you can see, these real world tests of the source engine don't come anywhere near the results of DH's VST benchmarks.

[Hollow Man]

It's pretty simple. NVIDIA cares more about the OpenGL spec. and John Carmack's programming, which is why their cards perform better with Doom 3. ATI seems to care more about Microsoft and the DirectX specs, thus their stuff will probably run HL2 and Source engine games better.

Of course, as I've said before, if you get a top of the line card from either company, it'll run both games fine. I seriously doubt that my 6800 GT will run HL2 like ass.

-HM

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

It's pretty simple. NVIDIA cares more about the OpenGL spec. and John Carmack's programming, which is why their cards perform better with Doom 3. ATI seems to care more about Microsoft and the DirectX specs, thus their stuff will probably run HL2 and Source engine games better.

Very true

However I don't think the DH benchmarks give an accurate picture of HL2 performance.

edit: yep, looks like driverheaven was BSing as usual

Gamer's Depot shows that x800xtpe to be about 10-20% (not 40-65% like DH claimed) faster than the 6800U with 61.77 drivers, and the x800pro to be equal to the 6800GT. With the 65.62 drivers, the x800xtpe's lead will probably be cut to 0-10%, and the 6800GT will probably be ahead of the x800pro:

http://www.gamers-depot.com/hardware...source/002.htm

firingsquad also showing a 20% diff at the top end.

[MagicHat]

Wow..thats interesting..games always get delayed tho...doesn't surprise me....hope they fix whatever made it get delayed.

[Hollow Man]

a 40-60% bump over NVIDIA is preposterous. I expect ATI's stuff to run HL2 better, but not by that kind of margin.

-HM

[Ruined]

More info, apparently the benchmark is optimized for ATI's features, it uses 3dc compression and SM2.0b, but does not use Nvidia's SM3.0.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by Ruined

A Half Life 2 visual "stress test" was released today to showcase the graphical prowess of HL2 and what your card needs to power it. While some of the effects are neat, honestly Doom3 makes HL2 look like last year's game graphically. Now these aren't totally in context of HL2, but you will get an idea of what the graphics engine is capable of:

http://premium.uploadit.org/tork64/h...0-38-14-99.jpg
http://premium.uploadit.org/tork64/h...0-38-03-67.jpg
http://home.houston.rr.com/yevaud/VST0.jpg

Pretty nice looking, but not technically up to par with Doom3 from these screens. (especially lighting)

and yes before all the replies graphics aren't everything, etc

Ahhh..you're just saying that because Half Life is written more for Radeon cards and not nVidia. From everything I've seen about Half Life 2 it looks NOTHING like anything "last year".

[Ruined]

Originally Posted by Damian

Ahhh..you're just saying that because Half Life is written more for Radeon cards and not nVidia. From everything I've seen about Half Life 2 it looks NOTHING like anything "last year".

No, that is my opinion on the look of the engine. I made that post before any real performance numbers or info about the synthetic VST benchmark were available. If you look at the HL2 engine pics above, you will see that they don't really look that realistic. They look pretty, but when have you seen a room lit up like any of those HL2 pics? It just looks kinda cartoonish and less realistic, compared to Doom3, i.e.:

http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...01200/d3b1.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...01200/d3b2.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...01200/d3b3.jpg
http://www.reflectonreality.com/imag...01200/d3b4.jpg

Look at the lighting & shadowing differences in the above pics (especially this one which looks representative of a HL2 map) versus these Doom3 pics (which all are brighter Doom3 shots btw). Night and day differences - the HL2 shots have very nice textures and geometry, but the lighting just doesn't look like real life lighting, which makes it look far less convincing. If you notice in the Doom3 shots, virtually every object on the screen has a shadow. Not so in the Hl2 pics. Also, the way light radiates from lights and reflects on the environment also looks less realistic in the HL2 pics.

Besides, the site benchies are showing my 6800GT is on par or faster than the equally priced x800pro even without SM3.0 or the new 65.62 drivers, so it doesn't really make sense to say I don't like the way it looks because it was coded for ATI cards.

[Reaver]

I think the only thing more silly than those knuckleheads that gather around cars and try to one-up each other about horsepower are the knuckleheads that having pissing contests about video card performance. Seriously, guys, these aren't your dicks.

[3DMan]

But when ricers compete sometimes people DIE(and they spend WAY more). The worst that can happen with this shit is owning someone on LAN with a rocket launcher. Besides, with the upcoming SLI option, you can now have TWO dicks!!

That said, as long as the shit runs good and doesn't fuck my PC up, I'm happy.

[boddah]

I hope it's not delayed again