Source Engine HDR Review/Benchmarks (HDR+AA Possible)

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Shifra

Gawd
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Feb 13, 2005
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They seem to of implimented HDR superbly. Yep, it works with AA and AF on all cards that it supports. About time if you ask me.
IQ wise there is very little difference between HDR on an X850/X800 ATI card compared to the 6800 or 7800 series. That problably will surprise alot of you except for the tinfoil hat conspiracists.
It simply looks excellent, there is a video included as well as benchmarks with HDR on/off. All i can say is good job valve.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2005/09/21/lost_coast_benchmark/1.html


Just a teaser from it, below are two screen shots, one is done on an X850, the other on a 7800GTX, HDR is enabled. Can you tell a discernable difference?

eyecandy1.jpg

aticomparison1.jpg
 
Yeah I can see that the top picture is more "sharper" than the bottom picture. Either way though, both look sexy and is way above standards for me :D
 
Yeah the "Ammo" portion (actually the text in general) of the bottom picture looks kinda funky, like the top one is anti-aliased. Oh and the bottom photo seems to have more of the HDR effect to it.
 
http://www.gpureview.com/iq.html

I took the liberty of loading the two images into my iq comparison tool...

EDIT: Looks good, but you'd really have to see this in action to compare it to FP16 HDR...from just this screenshot, it looks awesome...but doesn't look as intricate as HDR in FarCry...but if the performance is there...I can't say I care much...
 
Banko said:
That is only because the pictures are jpegs.
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The quality of the rest of the image is fine, compression wont cause the letters to change that much.
 
IceWind said:
So the CPU isn't bottlenecking the results.
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Huh?

HL2 is CPU limited in all but the highest resolutions on the latest cards...I'd like to see if hdr is playable at 1600x1200...
 
^eMpTy^ said:
Huh?

HL2 is CPU limited in all but the highest resolutions on the latest cards...I'd like to see if hdr is playable at 1600x1200...
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You just answered your own question, it isn't. Far Cry with HDR is not playable on my machine at 1920x1200 so I either have to go to 1860x1050 or lower to get it playable. HL2 won't be any different.
 
IceWind said:
You just answered your own question, it isn't. Far Cry with HDR is not playable on my machine at 1920x1200 so I either have to go to 1860x1050 or lower to get it playable. HL2 won't be any different.
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No I didn't answer my own question.

From what they said in the article, HDR is playable at 1600x1200 on a GTX...so why did they benchmark it at 1024x768?

Who cares if it can get 80fps at 1024x768...the question is...can it get 45+ at 1600x1200?
 
Why didn't they test the 6800Ultra in the second benchmark thingy... grrr....
 
I was at first having doubts about whether buying the 850 was a good choice, but now I'm happier. ;)
 
I dunno... The bottom picture seems a lot less jagged than the top one. I'm lookin at the gun and the houses and wall furthest forward and to the right of the picture. The bottom one also seems to have just a tad more HDR than the top. Either way, both of them are beautiful. :D
I want to say the bottom is the 7800.
 
That's HOT! Daaaymn....I can't believe how awesome that looks. I thought the Source engine was already frikkin' incredible....but wow. That's just amazing.
 
HDR+AA, the way its supposed to be. I wish it was more than one level though. :(

Is the expansion supposed to be the same, HDR capable?
 
banGerprawN said:
Fixed :D
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Except it can do it on ATi and NV cards. All the while looking the same, from one static image. Its to be seen yet if its the same in motion.
 
fallguy said:
Except it can do it on ATi and NV cards. All the while looking the same, from one static image. Its to be seen yet if its the same in motion.
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It was a joke....I'll add more smilies next time.. :p
 
Those benchmarks warmed my heart. It's good to know that I will be able to enjoy HDR+AA on my machine - can't afford to upgrade.
 
I dunno... The bottom picture seems a lot less jagged than the top one. I'm lookin at the gun and the houses and wall furthest forward and to the right of the picture. The bottom one also seems to have just a tad more HDR than the top. Either way, both of them are beautiful.
I want to say the bottom is the 7800.
Click to expand...

bottom is the X850. Point is you cant tell a noticable difference, you honostly cant, if you think you do, you're mistaken. If it gets to the point where we have to zoom into areas 400% or something to see which is doing AA better, well i think we can say they're both doing it successfully enough, heh. You can call it objective opinion, but i think people are really over doing it, both images look amazing, and to the naked eye just about identicle.

fallguy said:
HDR+AA, the way its supposed to be. I wish it was more than one level though. :(

Is the expansion supposed to be the same, HDR capable?
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As far as im aware the whole engine is getting overhauled with a SM3.0 lay over, and they did say DOD will be launching HDR capable

Many gamers believe Lost Coast is resource hungry because of the HDR. This is not strictly the case. Lost Coast features very high resolution textures, and the infamous Fisherman character has double the number of polygons than a typical Half-Life 2 character does. It all adds up, in line with the design brief. We will see HDR next week Day of Defeat: Source, and that will be a clearer indication of the impact of HDR in a "normal" game, rather than a souped-up technology demo level.
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so i see no reason the expansion and the regular game wont benefit from HDR as well.

For those that keep saying they want to see it in motion, you did notice the video at the end of the second page of that link right? ;)
 
It's very good...
and I'm quite pleased with the idea of AA+hdr
but (please don't flame) in the video the effects just don't look as great
as a farcry HDR, don't know why... to me those (from FC) look more impressive
at first glance...

very good job indeed valve, can't wait to see DOD
 
I mean I totally agree, they really do look awesome. I didn't zoom, just looked. Granted, I had to stare at it for a while, but there really aren't huge differences that makes one better than the other.
 
I have to say that I can notice a slight difference, although its hard to put my finger on it, its like the bottom picture looks just SLIGHTLY washed out compared to the top one.
 
I think the HDR shown here looks more natural than the the HDR in FC. Everything in FC was "glowing", even the ground outside! Just took away from the realism IMO
 
yes.. on the update where they say DOD:S will be out soon or w/e.. they said that they will update the source engine to teh same one running DOD:S.... which is HDR capable.. SWEET :p
 
It looks like Valve settled for a lesser quality HDR effect in tradeoff for AA and support from ATI cards (as opposed to offering both types of HDR as their original plan stated). The dynamic range doesn't appear as great as the HDR as in FarCry, but on the other hand AA is available to the end user. All in all looks better than no HDR, though it would have been nice if Valve put in support for their original "method 3" highest quality/dynamic range HDR in addition to this "method 4."

I'm also surprised Nvidia came out ahead (even in the 6800 series) on the HDR benchmarks as HL2 is generally more ATI friendly.
 
tranCendenZ said:
It looks like Valve settled for a lesser quality HDR effect in tradeoff for AA and support from ATI cards (as opposed to offering both types of HDR as their original plan stated).The dynamic range doesn't appear as great as the HDR as in FarCry, but on the other hand AA is available to the end user. All in all looks better than no HDR, though it would have been nice if Valve put in support for their original "method 2" highest quality/dynamic range HDR in addition to this "method 4."
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I think your trying too hard to bash value/ati. Given your track record is it any suprise? None the less we have what it looks to be a great implementation of HDR that works on many more cards and WITH AA. And thats a bad thing??? BTW the popular opinion is that Frycry's HDR was too over done in places and thus that accounts for the difference in DR.


tranCendenZ said:
I'm also surprised Nvidia came out ahead (even in the 6800 series) on the HDR benchmarks as HL2 is generally more ATI friendly.
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OMG its 3 freaking FPS like that makes any difference at all.. The two cards were always close and it was only the "water" levels that seemd to be ATI friendly...
 
Jbirney said:
I think your trying too hard to bash value/ati. Given your track record is it any suprise? None the less we have what it looks to be a great implementation of HDR that works on many more cards and WITH AA. And thats a bad thing??? BTW the popular opinion is that Frycry's HDR was too over done in places and thus that accounts for the difference in DR.

lol. Valve themselves said they sacrificed quality in their final method:
http://www.driverheaven.net/articles/ValveHDR/

See slides on technique #3 and #4. Technique #3 was the technique shown at E3 that was originally going to be implemented in Lost Coast and according to Valve the "best HDR quality." This is the same technique FarCry uses.

Slide #4 is the method they ended up going with. It sacrifices some HDR quality in turn for better support from ATI cards and AA support.

I guess Valve was trying too hard to bash Valve/ATI too, eh?

OMG its 3 freaking FPS like that makes any difference at all.. The two cards were always close and it was only the "water" levels that seemd to be ATI friendly...
Click to expand...

I don't recall the 6800U beating the X850XT in most cases playing HL2 as it does with Lost Coast, but I may be wrong.
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Jbirney said:
OMG its 3 freaking FPS like that makes any difference at all.. The two cards were always close and it was only the "water" levels that seemd to be ATI friendly...
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That's not the point. The point is that given ATi's dominance in HL2 benchmarks and their close ties to Valve it is just surprising that the Ultra is on top by even 1 fps.
 
Valve themselves said they sacrificed quality in their final method
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If there is a significant difference then it's unlikely to me that they simply flushed the other method through the toilet, because R520 most likely can do FP16 blending too. Why not give the option for diff rendering methods then?
So i think there is a difference, but only very small and only noticable under some circumstances and maybe only even noticed after some close screenshot comparisons.
But having FSAA with their final method makes the no-blending method simply a no brainer.
 
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