HardwareOC Half-Life 2 Benchmark

[roadside]

Download: http://www.hardwareoc.hu/index.php/p/news/cid/7/y/6994.html

[Lars]

Interesting. Did you make it or know the guys who did? Wonder if it'll work with the new enginge 7 update. Have you tried it yet?

I tried it, works just fine. Here are a couple of results:

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4×
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 8×
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 64 MB - default
Score = 85.1 FPS

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - d3c171
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4×
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 8×
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 64 MB - default
Score = 58.0 FPS

[Toss3]

Lars, I believe that hl2 uses a lot more of ur system ram than only 64mb :D so setting heapsize to 512 should increase ur performance somewhat :)

[Lars]

Lars, I believe that hl2 uses a lot more of ur system ram than only 64mb :D so setting heapsize to 512 should increase ur performance somewhat :)

Well you know that's exactly what I thought, but according to the benchmarks I get exactly the same results with a heapsize of 512...

Maybe it's because the system is entirely GPU limited @ 1600x1200 4xfsaa 8xaf I don't know, but I did find it rather odd.

[render]

Well you know that's exactly what I thought, but according to the benchmarks I get exactly the same results with a heapsize of 512...

heapsize is not the amount of memory the game will use, so you will not get a fps boost by changing this param.
Perhaps in some situations it will work fine, maybe someone tested it in details?

[PaiN]

here's mine:

Resolution: 1024×768
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4x
Filtering mode: 8x
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 512 MB
Score = 109.5 FPS

[play settings]
Resolution: 1280×1024
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4x
Filtering mode: 8x
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 512 MB
Score = 103.2 FPS

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4x
Filtering mode: 8x
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 512 MB
Score = 81.1 FPS

[PaiN]

Lars, I just looked at your system specs......What's up with the low scores? Seems like you should do better.
I haven't played HL2 in weeks....my systems been on all day, its not even freshly defragged, I dl'd the beanchmark and ran it.

[Lars]

Lars, I just looked at your system specs......What's up with the low scores? Seems like you should do better.
I haven't played HL2 in weeks....my systems been on all day, its not even freshly defragged, I dl'd the beanchmark and ran it.

Don't know what's up with the score really, other than I know the Sapphire x800xt pe card I have now is definetely faster than the Gainward 6800GT G/S GLH (400/1200 Mhz default) card I had before.

[PaiN]

Don't panic Lars.....late last night I ran a few more benchies ....and things looked more "appropriate".

[Clay]

I thought I'd try this benchmark out and am getting some odd results. HL2 is not a game that I've spent much time on so I'm sure there could be some potential things that I'm overlooking. I'd appreciate anyone's consideration of these results. The oddity occurs when I change between game controlled AA/AF and NVIDIA Control Panel controlled AA/AF.

The system I'm benching with is as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Socket 939 (Newcastle)
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
(2) eVGA 660GT PCI-E cards
Mushkin 1GB(512MBx2) PC-3500 Level One Dual Pack
Antec True Power 480W


I'm currently benching with the official NVIDIA 66.93 Forceware drivers.

SLI - Game Controlled AA/AF
-------------------------------------------
Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4×
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 8×
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 512 MB
Score = 71.5 FPS

SLI - NVIDIA Control Panel Controlled AA/AF
-------------------------------------------
Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: From System (<-- 4x set in NVCPL)
Filtering mode: From System (<-- 8x set in NVCPL)
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 512 MB
Score = 52.6 FPS

I must be missing something here. A ~20fps difference can't be right.

[Lars]

Those are very interesting results there Clay. There houldnøt be any difference in fps, if gfx settings are in fact identical. Makes you wonder whether it's a game issue a driver issue, a game/driver issue or an "optimization"... :confused:

I'll try benching with 4x fsaa / 8x af forced in the driverpanel on my system to see what happens on my x800xt pe.

[Clay]

Thanks Lars, I really appreciate anything you can offer. It is puzzling. I even rebooted between each test and kept getting the same results. I should also note that I was experiencing major stuttering once I switched to NVCPL AA/AF settings. I was hoping this is a driver issue with the 66.93s that I'm just not aware of. Oh, and I also left the NV driver optimizations on during these tests.

[Sazar]

i'll run it tonite on my setup when I get home...

seems odd there is THAT big a difference :confused:

[Clay]

I know, it's got to be something obvious that I'm overlooking but, again, I've done very little with HL2 outside of playing for a few hours when I first got it.

[Sazar]

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 8×
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 4×
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 64 MB - default
Score = 81.7 FPS

now gonna do the other one :)

-edit-

updated info

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: From System (was @ 4x)
Filtering mode: From System (was @8x)
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 64 MB - default
Score = 79.4 FPS

seems like there is something fubar with your testing clay...

dbl check all your settings m8...

[Clay]

Hey Saz...you transposed the AA and AF ;) It's easy to do, they kind of list them in reverse of how we're used to. Also, are you running the 66.93s? Thanks for helping to compare.

[Sazar]

dangit... I just cut and paste... I didn't realise :eek:

lemme redo...

running I think 71.20 or something like that... installed last night... still new to this whole nvidia thing :confused:

-edit-

Resolution: 1600×1200
Demo: HardwareOC - Coast
Detail: Maximum quality
Antialising mode: 4×
Filtering mode: Anisotropic 8×
Hardware DirectX level: DirectX 9
Heapsize: 64 MB - default
Score = 81.1 FPS

seems odd that i have higher fps with 8x AA than with 4x AA :confused:
not by much but I woulda figured higher AA hits the system harder than AF?

[Clay]

No it's not a cut and paste error. You selected 8xAA and 4xAF on the in game settings from the benchmark. That's incorrect. I chose 4xAA and 8xAF. See?

[Sazar]

No it's not a cut and paste error. You selected 8xAA and 4xAF on the in game settings from the benchmark. That's incorrect. I chose 4xAA and 8xAF. See?

yah I know... thats what I was saying :cool: that I had cut/paste the data and I had selected it wrong... so I re-did it...

[Clay]

ah ok. Hmm..well this must be some problem with the 66.93s. There must be a known problem with them and HL2. Gah, I hate hunting for needles in haystacks with stuff like this. :) Thanks again for the comparison. :cool:

[Clay]

Now HL2 is stuttering badly with the game controlled AA/AF. Before it was working just fine that way and only stuttering when I controlled AA/AF with the NVCPL.

[Sazar]

I don't get any stuttering... might have to run with fraps, but it seems to have a min of around 45 or something like that... not below...

naturally I dunno if there is a spot it is dropping below that on, but I didn't experience any stuttering... heck my lowest frame rate was on the top of the pier thinger... not during the action

[Clay]

Ok thanks for that info. Well, I just got done going through that same area of the game on my own and I had no stuttering at all with either NVCPL controlled AA/AF or not. It ran just fine. So, I'm left suspecting that there's a potential bug in this benchmark program. Crap, I like this utility. Hopefully Lars can shed some more light on this.

[Sazar]

well if it makes you feel any better, I had a problem with the first coupla runs of the benchie..

for some reason it didn't start up properly and gave incorrect results (ie around 50fps or so) due to it...

[Clay]

Interesting. Yeah it's really strange because when I first started running it last night it worked great with the in-game AA/AF controlled settings. Only when I tried using NVCPL controlled AA/AF did I begin noticing stuttering and inconsitencies. Then, when I went back to having the benchmark util use in-game AA/AF settings the stuttering followed. Strange. This occurs with both single and dual GPUs enabled so I don't think it's directly SLI related. Their forums are only in German so it looks like I'm at a bit of a dead end here. Gah, this was going to save me a ton of time for what is to just be a smaller scale/concise review...

/bummed :D