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Actually half-life 2 is giving me a head-ache, but i suspect it has something to do with my current ati drivers... other then that my system is working 100% fine
I read an article about movie stealing and it being the fault of insiders (who would make more money if they didn't leak copies first...), but this is moving a little off topic...
Nah, sorry. It was in my local paper some months ago. I don't even know if the newspaper is archived online, or if it costs anything. I doubt you'd be able to find the article, either.
So, after an hour of installing, updating, upgrading, and general PC misery, I've got HL2 running
But the characters are all messed up and are just massive blocks of jumbled polygons -- looks pretty freaky and is very disappointing. I got the same thing on Unreal 2 a year ago but a patch fixed it.
I have an older machine, 2½ years old, an AMD Athlon XP1800 with a GeForce 4600 Ti, 512MB ram. I upgraded the video drivers to the latest nVidia ref drivers (66.93). I know the game isn't going to run great on this spec, but I would at least expect the characters to look right!
Anyone got any tips to fix this? Did some searches on google, but it's early days and I couldn't find anything useful.
Very strange: I ran dxdiag to check my version of DirectX and after that, the game played fine -- all the freaky polygons were gone!
So far, not especially impressed on the graphics front.... I know I don't have a state of the art card, but it doesn't look a great deal better than graphics from 3 or 4 years ago. There's simply no depth to it compared to Doom 3. By that, I mean in the overall environment textures -- the characters and animation are pretty good.
As for the game, hasn't really grabbed me yet either and there are some serious bugs. I got killed by the combines just as Alyx found me and revived me; but even though I was revived and she beckons me into the lift, I'm dead, the screen is red and I can't move. Pretty laughable really for a game that's been in development for so long.
Hope it turns out to be better than this -- it's just pot shots, barrel chucking and run and hide at the moment...
you all worry too much about comp speed....
Half Life 2 & Doom 3 have to be played on a pentium I 200 Mhz, so they have step movement like Dungeon Master!
P.S. i have a 2.4 ghz comp with a 4 mbyte graphic card ( the geforce I died )..so i guess i am all set, eh guys?
I guess you didn't escape damage before that point. I was "knocked out" by them and the screen turned white.. your's was red I take it? They need to hit you twice I think. So if you are already wounded.. well.. you're toast.
As for your impression of the graphics not being better than Doom. not sure if you are playing the same game here. I suppose it's hard to tell if you are still in the city. but the real time radiosity and normal mapping and the real time reflections and refractions wooooo.. if you were to put these levels into Doom 3 you would notice the difference.. ever notice how Doom is so claustraphobic? all the rooms are so small and so few things are around at one time.. bet you it chokes on larger scenes.
The other thing I noticed is looking at the characters and "Oh look! they are normal mapped but *DON'T HAVE SEAMS DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THEIR FACES!*".. sorry.. that really bothered me in Doom3. I mean you are making a game that people are paying a lot for.. and then not even bother finishing them characters up so they look nice.. WTF?!! Lazy ass mofos..
Anyway, I've the same card as you do Gambit.. runs fine for me.. with everything on and at 1280x1024. but I have 512 more ram than you on my computer, and about 1 ghz faster CPU but I don't know if any of that would make a difference big enough on your performance visually.
So I tried turning everything on: OK, so the game looks better with higher res textures, more detailed actors and lovely water reflections. But the graphics *still* don't have the depth of Doom 3, and with those settings it runs like a dog on machine. No good for serious gameing, I have go back to medium settings.
Yes, I know D3 has tighter maps and can shove more detail in smaller spaces, but I would still have expected more form HL2 gfx. The lighting isn't especially interesting, and I really can't see much of an application of normal maps -- at least, not to the degree they're used in D3.
It doesn't matter though; having played for the last few hours, I have revised my opinion of the game itself (gfx notwithstanding): it's getting great. Two lots of two words changed my mind:
Water Hazard
Gravity Gun
I loved the sheer terror and fun of Water Hazard: pure adrenaline gaming. That's what I was waiting for and I got it in buckets.
we don't go to ravenholm anymore.. (preparing 3 spare pairs of underware)...
the gravity gun becomes very important. ...very..
the lighting in Halflife engine is more complex than in doom. Doom has projection lights.. it means the have to paint the shadows if they want them soft. Halflife 2 however,, has realtime radiosity.. that bounced light.. it's all being done real time.. on the fly.. The normal maps you can see much better in the water hazard but I guess you were like me.. to busy running away from the big nasties. The normal mapping in doom 3 is more prominent because of what they have there.. large rounded panels and what not. there is none of that in hl2.. just cobble stone walkways and the odd door lock etc. you don't see that as much because there is no reason for them to put it there.. however in the lab.. did you see the real time refractions in those big tubes.. the bubbles going up and ohhhhh pretty... droools..
just so much more this engine is capable of. You really don't see the extent of it's powers.. but someone will show it off more..
ok, i bought HL2 finally, i will either install it tonight, or have a clean run up tomorrow...
*rubs hands*
since i don't play that many games, i am in the totally enviable position of not having other games to compare it to of the same ilk...not a huge gamer, lots of these fancy graphics FPSs i just see for like half an hour on a friends machine
besides, its not my fault that cracked and hacked versions of games are so easy to get...
