Half-Life 2 [Xbox] Preview

[Evil Avatar]

Continuing their Valve coverage, 1up.com has posted a preview (http://valve.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3143303) of the upcoming Xbox version of Half-Life 2.

The framerate, which used to suffer drastically during some of the more complex sequences, is now generally very smooth. Some of the most intensive areas, such as the train station's courtyard, still suffer from a bit of slowdown. To combat this, the developer has brought the original designers of each map for the PC edition back onto the project to make subtle changes to the levels to increase the framerate in problem areas.A video preview (http://valve.1up.com/do/download?cId=2018663) is also included.

[EvilBob46]

It's obvious from the video on 1UP.com that performance is still an issue, and a huge one at that. It appears as if some scenes, like the first view of City 17 after leaving the train station, went from something like 10 FPS at E3 to maybe a more bearable 15-20. This is still pretty shitty, especially for a FPS game. It seems like Valve is going through a lot of hoops in order to optimize the hell out of the title. Makes you wonder on why they didn't just make this an Xbox 360 title, but apparently Valve doesn't like the 360 for one reason or another. IMO, running the game at 720p and slapping high resolution textures everywhere thanks to the 360's 512 Ram would've made this title worthy and next gen, especially with some of that High Dynamic Range lighting.

The lack of multiplayer is a bummer also.

[TheKeck]

I'm just happy I got to play this game on the PC and don't have to worry about console crap.

[Bushido]

I bought it for my PC and it chugged. I have a respectable system but no amount of tweaking made this game work right, its a peice of shit.

[Groo]

I bought it for my PC and it chugged. I have a respectable system but no amount of tweaking made this game work right, its a peice of shit.

Sounds like your PC sucks shit.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

I'm just happy I got to play this game on the PC and don't have to worry about console crap.
That's just how HL2 runs dude. I've been in hundreds of discussions with valve fanboys about it, and they are all in denile. HL2 just isn't a very optimized engine. If my comp can't run it stutter free, then I really feel sorry for the budget PC gamers:

http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/8281/newcomp10ob.jpg
http://img363.imageshack.us/img363/6835/newcomp24bz.jpg

Antec Super Lanboy case
Thermaltake Silent PurePower TT-420AD (Dual Fan) ATX 420W PSU
Gigabyte GA-7N400 Pro2 (Rev 2.x)
Athlon XP 3000+ 2.16GHz
Thermaltake Silent Boost CPU Cooler
MSI ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Arctic Cooling AVC-1000 VGA Silencer
1GB of Corsair PC3200 running in Dual Channel
Two Western Digital Caviar SE WD800JD 80GB 7200 RPM Serial ATA150 HDDs in RAID-0
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
NEC Black IDE DVD±RW ND-3520AW
NEC Black Floppy Drive FD1231H-302
K-World Studio TV Terminator video capture card
Logitech MX510 Red Optical Mouse
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache HDD - Within a NexStar2 External Shell

[Madhatter45]

Half Life 2 just seems to be finiky (or maybe it's steam I don't know) but it runs fine on my middle of the road pc. The only thing that kills it for me is the load times, they break up the experience so much I can't stand to play it.

[FunkyPoopMonkey]

Half Life 2 just seems to be finiky (or maybe it's steam I don't know) but it runs fine on my middle of the road pc. The only thing that kills it for me is the load times, they break up the experience so much I can't stand to play it.
I totally agree. I went back to HL1 single player, because it's single second load points are all I can tolerate.

[TheKeck]

The game ran fine for me on my old AMD 2000+ with Radeon 8500. Now with my P4 3.0 and X700, it's just wonderful.

[thecrazyd]

Hell, it ran fine on my brothers shitty MX 400. The engine is crazy scalable.

[Deathbane27]

If my comp can't run it stutter free, then I really feel sorry for the budget PC gamers:

Athlon XP 3000+
MSI ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
1GB of Corsair PC3200 running in Dual Channel

Hate to be the one break it to you, but that (kind of) IS a budget gaming PC now. Right on the line between budget and middle of the road. The Ahtlon XP ain't what it used to be, and games are going well beyond 128MB of textures these days.

[Tennistoad]

Valve code is really finniky..also if the load times are seamless or really fast I as a pc owner am going to be really pissed@valve.. 2min for loading levels in boat and buggy is pure crap, takes you right outta the game. Also to the bozo from the other day who said valve doesn't care about consoles then why are they wasting time on this???

oh also This game still studders almost one year in the field and they still haven't fixed the stuttering..hang around the steam forums, seems hl2 only runs perfect on systems that have devine intervention.

And if they make money off of this (which I think they will).. You can bet your a$$ that they will have a live version of hl2+aftermath and a CSS Live360 version.

[Dracula-X]

HL2 ran pretty smoothly on one of my venerable rigs, 9700pro + 2ghz amd. No stuttering, but the load times could certainly have been better, though even that didn't take me out of the experience.

[TheKeck]

Hate to be the one break it to you, but that (kind of) IS a budget gaming PC now. Right on the line between budget and middle of the road. The Ahtlon XP ain't what it used to be, and games are going well beyond 128MB of textures these days.

Yeah, I didn't want to be the one to break it to him. :rolleyes:

[Orphiuchus]

The game runs fine on any pc, a lot of people just aren't willing to play with any setting off of max.

[Draft]

HL2 ran very, very well on my system, but the load times were pretty long. XP2500 overclocked to 2.2 gigs, 9500 Pro, gig'o'ram.

[mister_slim]

HL2 doesn't run very well on my system (800MHz G3 iBook, 32MB VRAM), so I'm hoping the Xbox version will run pretty well. I doubt the slowdown will be worse than Geist.

[Fernie417]

HL2 doesn't run very well on my system (800MHz G3 iBook, 32MB VRAM), so I'm hoping the Xbox version will run pretty well. I doubt the slowdown will be worse than Geist.


You're running a mac? Hell, I'm surprised it's running at all.

And I'm using a Athlon XP 3000+ with a Radeon 9600xt and half a gig of ram and I get decent framerates with the game recommend settings (Medium detail and no AA, around 40-60 fps), Certainly didn't get any stuttering.

[Worldcrafter]

HL2 stutters on my PC too...if I crank the detail past the limits of what my comp can handle. Somehow I think Orphiuchus is right, people are pushing their systems too hard. I do have to agree that the increased load times between levels break up the action, but you also have to remember that HL had longer load times when it was being played on PIIs with 64MB RAM.

[Chris_D]

Hate to be the one break it to you, but that (kind of) IS a budget gaming PC now. Right on the line between budget and middle of the road. The Ahtlon XP ain't what it used to be, and games are going well beyond 128MB of textures these days.

Don't be a moron, it's not like he said he was running a top end pc, that setup is on the decent side of things and lots of new games will still do well on a 9800. HL2 is almost a year old too.

Of course you (and others) might be right, if he's trying to run at 1024x768 he might want to ease back a bit. To play on my old xp1700, 9600xt I had to drop down to 800x600 and turn a few things off.

[MasterKwan]

I replayed it the other day on my AMD64 3800 with NVIDIA 6600 video card. I was pretty pleased and actually enjoyed it more the second time around. I was running 1280x960 which is my normal screen size but, I didn't crank any of the settings up beyond recommended. Load times were bad while downloading porn (3 mbps), they sped up alot when not.

I am pissed at my new Creative Blaster XFi sound card. Every time my disks get busy I get static out of the card (music or games or anything, SPDIF and analog). It's like some coupling problem between the scsi controller and the sound card. I moved it as far away as possible but it still, does it. My old Audigy 2 doesn't have that problem. I'd avoid this card.

[Deathbane27]

it's not like he said he was running a top end pc, that setup is on the decent side of things and lots of new games will still do well on a 9800. HL2 is almost a year old too.

Of course you (and others) might be right, if he's trying to run at 1024x768 he might want to ease back a bit. To play on my old xp1700, 9600xt I had to drop down to 800x600 and turn a few things off.

Well, the fact that he bothered posting pictures of his case and listed his power supply and CD/DVD/Floppy drives as specs would seem to indicate he's proud of his system (and if I had that, I would be too, actually. Still going with a single IDE 40-gig drive and a 24xCD-ROM here). And yes, if he did the settings right, he'd probably run the game great.

But, with the current prices of his core gaming components (CPU, RAM, Vidcard), that's a budget or lower-mid-range machine. A very wise and price-effective budget machine that will meet the system requirements of most games with equally wise settings, but still a lower-mid-range machine by cost standards nonetheless.

Or maybe my standards are just too high? I consider the 9600/5700 cards to be at the bottom of "budget" and right above "slot filler". :p Maybe they're still good for another year.

[MrMeatshake]

That's just how HL2 runs dude.

meh, runs ok on mine. ive got a 2.6GHz with a radeon 9000 (not pro) and 512MB. i'm well impressed with it.

[Varsity]

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Stuttering

Read and learn. ;)

[Zeal]

I don't believe in playing games created for PCs on consoles and visa-versa. They never make the transition well either way.

[Morratut]

HL2 didn't run very good and the loading times was terrible on my AMD XP2000/9800 Pro 1GB ram PC. I actually got bored of HL2 because of all the varying framerates/steam etc.

People tell me after the boat sequence it gets better.

I will play it again after i get my Uber Dell :D

[Roc Ingersol]

So am I going to need an active XBL connection to play HL2 single player?
And am I going to get the 'Servers too busy' bullshit too?

I mean, it wouldn't be a fully featured port unless steam jumped in and pissed you off a bit.

[MasterKwan]

My experience with Steam lately's only been positive. Hard to believe you "gamers" are such ludites. Sure it had a rocky startup, if you haven't tried it lately though, you really have nothing to complain about.

I'm itching for Sin and other episodic content. I wouldn't mind seeing the game section of Walmart and Best Buy go the way of the record store.

[Knite]

HL2 ran on my system fairly decent. The occasional hitch used to drive me crazy, but I was amazed that I could run 1024x768 with 2xAA on my system and had good frame rates without hitches.
That was on a XP3200+ with 1G Ram, and a Radeon 9800Pro-128

Can't wait to try it with my new X800XTPE =)

[Dirty Harry]

I dunno about any of you but when i played hl2 it was on an amd tbird 1.2 with 512 sdr and a ati radeon 9000 pro/128 and it ran pretty well with everything on medium. I had no stuttering to speak of and well it was a pretty damn swell game, loading times were a problem though. I dont understand some people are these forums, the unfortunate thing is that a lot of people are idiots and dont understand that if your computer is running like ass the game wont run.

[F3nyx]

My home PC is 1.8GHz P4, 512 RAM, GeForce FX 5600 w/ 128 (I think) MB. I chose realistic (i.e. medium) detail settings, and it looked great and ran fine.

/testimonial