Half Life 2: Lost Coast RELEASED!

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i just want to scream: screens please.

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check another thread in the PC Gamer subsection

[The Jorge]

Someone want to get me a new PC for my birthday this year? :wacko:

HL2: LC rocks!

[Mx]

Was good, my 7800GTX made it look purrdeey. Shame it literally was only one mission. So short, but I enjoyed it.

[joeydoo]

I didn't think my 9800pro would be able to play this game with all the settings on high + HDR, but it did it. 1280X1024 - 4XAF as well. Only 20-30fps but that's ok for a wander round. I was thinking this would make my system a slide projector with all these insane HDR performance requirements that get talked about.

[ObiWanToby]

It looks really neat, and it plays fast still. They really know how to code efficiently, I wish all developers did!

[goatsniffer]

Hopefully it doesn't take them 6 months to make HDR levels for future releases...

[Symbiotic Hat]

I didn't think my 9800pro would be able to play this game with all the settings on high + HDR, but it did it. 1280X1024 - 4XAF as well. Only 20-30fps but that's ok for a wander round. I was thinking this would make my system a slide projector with all these insane HDR performance requirements that get talked about.

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Ummm ... Maybe I'm wrong but your card won't support HDR. HDR is a SM 3.0 feature. In fact, I don't think that the X800 series has the ability to do this either. So performance shouldn't have been much (if any) different than HL2.

Edited October 28, 2005 by jeavis

[sundayx Veteran]

i just want to scream: screens please.

[Xerus]

Hopefully it doesn't take them 6 months to make HDR levels for future releases...

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I'm assuming that most of the time was spent making the HDR rendering engine itself...... the level was probably the easiest part.

[joeydoo]

Well tell my graphics card that because it's doing it. I think the requirements for it here are Shader Model 2, HDR can be done on any shader model, but it's just a case of performance in newer cards, which happen to be a higher shader model, if that makes sense.

[Symbiotic Hat]

your card was only doing the HDR bloom effect which Valve found a way to do it through software.  yours is still not doing true HDR.

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Thanks for clearing that up. :yes:

[crimsonhead]

I want CTF on this map. That would be insane :blink: People fallin off cliffs

[joeydoo]

ah ok then. :( . Bit of a bummer. But it still looks pretty cool.

Edit:

Errr... Nope I was right, thought so because it looks like HDR and guess what, it's full HDR, looked at some pictures elsewhere and they aren't any different from mine.

Then I remembered I read this.

"The frame rate counter at the top of the last two images was taken when I had tons of background tasks running on my PC, and should not be taken as indicative of actual optimal frame rates on my hardware (Pentium 4, 2.4GHz, 1 gig RAM, ATI 9600 Pro 256 meg) I was, however, able to get a rough idea of the relative impact HDR had on performance. With HDR disabled, I had around 7-15% higher frame rates on average. According to Gabe Newell, cards like the 9800 and above, with many more simultaneous pipelines than my 9600, are much less affected by the addition of HDR."

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/lostcoast.ars/4

Edited October 28, 2005 by joeydoo

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

your card was only doing the HDR bloom effect which Valve found a way to do it through software. yours is still not doing true HDR.

[CoLdFuSi0n]

this game is preaty damn good :D

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

253 minutes.. no... :(

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Man, what a tease. Here is the best analogy I could think of.

Playing this is like hanging out with a girl you used to get down and dirty with a while back and it lasted for a few weeks. She calls you out of nowhere completely unexpected, says she is ready now to hang out, she will see you in 12 minutes, and you have not seen her in months. You are expecting it to be like the good old days, down and dirty once again. In your head, your thinking because of the past you can get a BJ out of her, at the very least. Well, it turns out all you get from her is a hand job. Sure, it still feels good, No Doubt, it is still lots of fun, but it just was not as much fun as you expected it to be. At the end, all it did was leave you wanting more. :laugh: :rofl: :p

[crimsonhead]

Its like this.

You're a mexican man who wants to get into America to find work. You meet some guys who'll smuggle you in their car. You pay them and get in the trunk. You nod off for a while, expecting them to wake you up, and you wake up completely naked on a cargo ship headed for cuba with birds pecking at your private parts.

[joeydoo]

Its like this.

You're a mexican man who wants to get into America to find work.  You meet some guys who'll smuggle you in their car.  You pay them and get in the trunk.  You nod off for a while, expecting them to wake you up, and you wake up completely naked on a cargo ship headed for cuba with birds pecking at your private parts.

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Yeah bird flu. I'm hearing ya.

[Flash]

ouch my 6800 is being killed by the lost coast :cry:

I need a ATi card now! I hope I can get a deal on a X800GTO^2

[G4M3R]

Downloading now, even though I was told I didn't meet the requirements :p

[Crazysah]

Even I don't meet the system requirements lol:

Can someone give me a link to update my graphics card please?

[dj6ross]

^I don't think you can. I sure don't meet the min. specs with only a 3000+XP and a 9800 Pro.

[Kupo-Cheer]

Trust me people... it ran fairly decently on my computer (Athlon XP 3000 with a measley Radeon 9550...), so I'm pretty sure a Radeon 9800 could do an even better job (You'll also notice that it says "reccommended requirements" and not "minimum"). I mean, its nothing I would want to actually play with turned on, but it was nice to see just how great HDR looks, and I have to say I am totally impressed. It brings the Source engine back into competition for best graphics, if for only a brief moment.

But the one burning question in my mind here is: Why the hell did it take, what, 6 months of development to create something that took me 15 minutes to finish even with listening to all the commentary and stopping to look at all the pretty graphics? If Valve really plans to make episodic content, they really have to step it up. At that rate, a new chapter to Half-Life 2 would probably take 10 years to finish... place priorities on your major projects and not on a little useless update here or there.

I was also dissapointed at the fact that it really didn't explain anything more to the story like Valve said it would. End Rant.

[Ryan Versaw]

place priorities on your major projects and not on a little useless update here or there.

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Why do you think it took so long? They wanted to finish up DoD:Source and get it out the door, likely the same with HL2 for the xbox, and if you listened to the commentary, you would know that they had to modify many of their materials to take advantage of HDR. It took so long because they put priority on more important projects, so I don't see your point.