So, will Half Life 2 exemplify cheating in games?

[surfhurleydude]

I've been reading some stuff about HL2, and apparently not only does Valve provide easy ability to change shader routines in HL2, they actually ENCOURAGE IT to boost performance in the game! So what's going to happen? Even though HL2 is optimized from the start for Radeon 9800 Pro, will nVidia hack the hell out of it to perform much much better than the Radeon 9800 Pro...or will ATi hack away at it as well to KEEP the lead over the GeForce card? Hmmm...only time will tell, but I fear what Valve has done with Half Life 2...

[Matthyahuw]

don't be a hatah...

[reever2]

Originally posted by surfhurleydude
I've been reading some stuff about HL2, and apparently not only does Valve provide easy ability to change shader routines in HL2, they actually ENCOURAGE IT to boost performance in the game! So what's going to happen? Even though HL2 is optimized from the start for Radeon 9800 Pro, will nVidia hack the hell out of it to perform much much better than the Radeon 9800 Pro...or will ATi hack away at it as well to KEEP the lead over the GeForce card? Hmmm...only time will tell, but I fear what Valve has done with Half Life 2...

Im guessing they both will hack the hell out of it, but i doubt Ati is going to need to hack it to the extent of Nvidia. I would expect Nvidias drivers to balloon up 10 more megabytes of shader code when hl2 comes out

[GlowStick]

Originally posted by Matthyahuw
don't be a hatah...
Classic,

Dont make me get out the rules of aqusition, though i cant spell it!

[Nv40]

Originally posted by surfhurleydude
I've been reading some stuff about HL2, and apparently not only does Valve provide easy ability to change shader routines in HL2, they actually ENCOURAGE IT to boost performance in the game! So what's going to happen? Even though HL2 is optimized from the start for Radeon 9800 Pro, will nVidia hack the hell out of it to perform much much better than the Radeon 9800 Pro...or will ATi hack away at it as well to KEEP the lead over the GeForce card? Hmmm...only time will tell, but I fear what Valve has done with Half Life 2...

VAlve knows what they do. (well sometimes not,in the case of AA) :)
so if they see that Nvidia can get the same results ,with exactly the same Output ,i dont see a problem here with optimizations...

comparisons and benchmarking is the job of reviewers not of game developers,in games everything is about increasing the gamers experiences from all IHV ,with the best performance and IQ possible.very diferent to syntetic benchmarks like 3dmarks ,that force diferent aquitectures and diferent hardware with diferent pipelines configuration(but directx9 compliant) to do things in the same way.

[surfhurleydude]

in games everything is about increasing the gamers experiences from all IHV ,with the best performance and IQ possible. very diferent to syntetic benchmarks like 3dmarks ,that force diferent aquitectures and diferent hardware with diferent pipelines configuration(but directx9 compliant) to do things in the same way.

The problem is that the hardware of the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra actually limits it from being comparable to the Radeon 9800 Ultra when using same shader paths, with equal output... Its hardware simply can not perform to the same degree that the Radeon's can.

[Nv40]

Originally posted by surfhurleydude
The problem is that the hardware of the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra actually limits it from being comparable to the Radeon 9800 Ultra when using same shader paths, with equal output... Its hardware simply can not perform to the same degree that the Radeon's can.

comparisons and benchmarking is the job of reviewers not of game developers,in games everything is about increasing the gamers experiences from all IHV. :)

just think about it.. if you were a game developer ,what will be you -primary goal-? the good experience of millions of gamers or the comparisons that serve only for the marketing of video cards?

if the game you are working runs 100% in X hardware ,but 50% on Y hardware. but Y company manage to optimize the developer code/shaders even more..(since they have an army of coders )and have plenty or more time . if they manage to make card Y to Run at 100% too, and with the output that looks exactly as card X /as the Game developer wanted. will you allow the optimizations to be there or will you adopt a 3dmark 2003 aproach ->optimizations not valid ?

i bet that if you are a GD your bias will shift more towards the benefit of the majority of gamers ,(in the case of Hl2 ,we are talking about millions)and better sells for your games ,than bechmarking and comparisons .

[StealthHawk]

Let ActV begin! (or is this ActVI...VII...VIII?)

[scott123]

Maybe it's just time to look OUTSIDE of the square box.

[Mindriot]

I looked out there the other day.....

It scared me.

:scarey:

[GlowStick]

my box cant be opend!

[scott123]

Well if you think about it, optimizing has been going on forever. Quake3 is the king in that arena (no pun).

Now with DX9 there is a big deal being made about cheating, which is quite silly. Optimizing is not always cheating. If you can get the image to look the same and be faster, by bypassing bottlenecks (wheather hardware or software) who cares?

If this was never done, we would all be trapped inside the square box forever, and there would never be progress.

Scott

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by scott123
Well if you think about it, optimizing has been going on forever. Quake3 is the king in that arena (no pun).

While drivers were always tuned for Quake3 and other big benchmark names, I among others, assumed that global optimizations were always being not, not specific optimizations. An NVIDIA employee said the same thing in an interview a few years back.

With the current track record of NVIDIA, do you really trust them to make legitimate optimizations which do not affect IQ?

[Nutty]

With the current track record of NVIDIA, do you really trust them to make legitimate optimizations which do not affect IQ?

No, but they'll do it anyway, as the majority of consumers aren't us, the technically minded ppl, who scrutinize screenshots, etc..etc..

It wont be just nvidia doing it either, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.

[Dazz]

Originally posted by reever2
Im guessing they both will hack the hell out of it, but i doubt Ati is going to need to hack it to the extent of Nvidia. I would expect Nvidias drivers to balloon up 10 more megabytes of shader code when hl2 comes out lol yeah their drivers are pretty big compaired to ATi's, and don't say it's due to the TNT cards as they take up 3MB or so.

[StealthHawk]

Originally posted by Nutty
No, but they'll do it anyway, as the majority of consumers aren't us, the technically minded ppl, who scrutinize screenshots, etc..etc..

It wont be just nvidia doing it either, you can bet your bottom dollar on that.

Well, we will see who optimizes and who cheats, if anyone cheats. Obviously if we see any miracle drivers that increase performance by a huge magnitude those drivers should go under close scrutiny.

[Ady]

Lowering IQ to any degree cannot be considered a legitimate optimization. Isn’t this what the performance/quality setting in our driver control panels are all about? If the game doesn’t run fast enough on full quality settings then just turn it down to performance. If the full quality settings available to us in driver control panels are still delivering a lower quality of image, then we have no choice and that’s a disgrace.

Even you nv40 should be able to see that these “optimizations” should be available to us as an option under driver control panels if at all. In the end the extra few fps doesn’t help anyone with their 5900, it just helps nvidia by edging out their competition on the review numbers. All it does for the user is hurt them by giving them a lower than intended IQ.

[Hanners]

Well, the fact that the game is so shader-intensive leaves plenty of opportunity to detect and optimise (or replace) those shaders.

I'm sure there'll be some very interesting image quality comparisons being done after the games release, and we'll have to see what happens.

As long as the output isn't changed at all, I have no problem with either IHV playing around with the default in-game shaders really.

[RAY16]

Why do you people care about this crap so much? I just don't understand it, you complain about cheating, Image quality, and other minor things all the time. Do you really think you'll notice the small difference in image quality while you are runing around in a first person shooter with bullets and rockets flying all around you? Even in an RPG you wouldn't really notice it. As long as a game looks good and runs good whats the problem?

The whole 3DMark2003 cheating thing (as far as i can tel) was just about image quality and lower shader percision or something, i rmembber people talking about the sky being a litte dimmer. Dimmer sky?! Who cares? I mean seriously, you're saying that a slightly dim sky instantly makes the whole test look like crap?

I'll never understand you people. You buy a $400 video card and then you start complaining about very minor things that you wouldn't notice in a game unless you went looking for it.

[digitalwanderer]

If it's to improve gameplay rather than just how half-life2 benchmarks, I'd be leaning towards calling it an actual optimization over a cheat.

Cheat to me implies trying to fudge the truth to make themselves look better, optimization gives the user actual benefits in games. :)

[The Baron]

I'm down with the whole Uber-Shader-Replacement-Optimizations.

IF YOU CAN TURN IT ON AND OFF AT WILL, OF COURSE!

[Hanners]

Originally posted by RAY16
I'll never understand you people. You buy a $400 video card and then you start complaining about very minor things that you wouldn't notice in a game unless you went looking for it.

The fact it costs $400 is exactly the reason why people complain about this stuff. When you think you've bought the best product you can, and find that you've had the wool pulled over your eyes, it's disappointing to say the least.

Besides which, this is a forum for video card enthusiasts. If you aren't interested in image quality and the issues of the day, there isn't much point posting here.

[digitalwanderer]

Originally posted by The Baron
IF YOU CAN TURN IT ON AND OFF AT WILL, OF COURSE!
Yeah, that would definately take the wind out of the sails of the people calling it cheats if it was a user enabled/disabled option. :)

[Hanners]

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
Yeah, that would definately take the wind out of the sails of the people calling it cheats if it was a user enabled/disabled option. :)

It would... It's not going to happen though, you can almost guarantee it.

[The Baron]

Originally posted by Hanners
It would... It's not going to happen though, you can almost guarantee it.
Well, I can hope (and bitch and whine and moan ;) )