He's wearing glasses...

At first I didn't notice on the water and polygon balls, but it does show more of the high dynamic glow around the edges, like through the wood roof.

So are the two spinning disco testicles a new weapon???

I thought the video looked great. I loved the lighting effects at the very beginning with the light coming through the cracks in the roof. But I think that the shiny chrome effect is overused. They used it way too much. It made it look unrealistic.

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22

All that crazy high dynamic range light-flare stuff sure is cool to look at, but I can't help but feel bad for poor Gordon with his eyesight failing like it is..

I mean, I have cameras that I would expect to behave like that, but not eyeballs! Eyeballs gots the mad-wide dynamic range, yo! Or the brain does. Either way, this effect, while extremely pretty (no way in hell I'm turning it off, for example), is about as realistic as lens-flares are in an FPS featuring a main character who views the world through eyeballs.

"BTW, did the monster's head look like a giant 'dick' or what"

"It can go with the dangling testicle monster from HL1 "

That would be one hellva facial

My 4200 is doing fine - because it keeps telling me, "Screw shiny surfaces - what about GAMEPLAY???"

I don't care if HL2 will look less stellar on my system than others. Hell, I still play Deus Ex and love it.

#43 my 4200 too ... and myself.

originally I wanted to wait for Doom3 to upgrade my graphics card... hmm :/

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just because of Ray...

http://users.ign.com/collection/species8472

My 4200 is crying in a corner. Oh well.

-Nyl

It matters if you only have a 4600.

Haha.

I think the bigger problem is the PIII 933 with 384 meg RAM that it's attached to.

It really is time to upgrade that box. The earliest I can see being able to do that is late January.

As for the video, I installed the latest video drivers and the stutter in the Bink format went away. It looked real nice. I'm guessing I won't see half the details with my current set up.

-TPFKAS2S
http://www.braglio.org
And don't blame society, for all the evidence here, you are a sociopath.

The thing I hate...about Half-life 2 is how it makes every other game totally, completely suck.

Don't worry, the next big game will be out in 5 years: HL3

By that time S3 will be the leader of the graphiccard market...

(From UK PC Zone)

EXCLUSIVE: RETAIL CONFIRMS HALF-LIFE 2 SLIP!

Valve assurances looking shaky as UK retail informs of a late October release

19:28 Information received via e-mail from UK retailer GAME by customers who have pre-ordered Half-Life 2 at its online store has thrown a rather large spanner into the HL2 release date works, we can reveal.
Despite Valve Software's Doug Lombardi insisting: "The release date is unchanged" when we questioned last week whether Half-Life 2 would hit its original September 30 deadline, GAME has recently told its customers that the title will not arrive until November.

The email notice to customers reads:

"As you may already be aware, the UK release date for 'Half-Life 2' has changed to Nov-2003.

"Please don't worry, your order is still 'live' and will be despatched to you on the day prior to the revised release date, via your chosen method of shipping, unless you advise us to the contrary."

Speaking to us this morning, a spokesperson for GAME said: "The latest date we have for Half-Life 2 is late October, and that was the information we got through yesterday, but obviously the date could change again."

When we asked if GAME received the information from publisher Vivendi, we were told: "It comes direct from the publisher."

The GAME spokesperson went on to point out that customers had received the November date via e-mail because: "That [the e-mail] most likely went out to customers before we received this updated release date.

"We expect to have an exact release date at then end of the month, maybe," they said.

So what does Half-Life 2 publisher Vivendi have to say about this? Talking to the publisher's UK arm, we were told that the official line on Half-Life 2's release date is: "To be confirmed."

Just when the September 30 date looked safe, along comes this. Crunch time will be around the middle of the month, when many expect Half-Life 2 to go Gold, if it's to hit its original date. Unless, of course, Valve plans to release the game over its broadband delivery system Steam first...

Enema

--------------------------
In the first five minutes of this program, some of these people will have been Bum-raped, set on fire or burgled senseless by Britain’s marauding thugs.

This comment was edited on Sep 12, 04:48.

"BTW, did the monster's head look like a giant 'dick' or what"

It can go with the dangling testicle monster from HL1

ooooh, pweeettty....

-DSR

Why would it matter if AA or AF was on, it's just a video, not an actual realtime demo

It matters if you only have a 4600.

Is that what you were replying to? If so, that's what he meant made no sense... his point was that it's a video, not actual game code, so it shouldn't matter what kind of card you have.

~Steve

Er...what?

My post about Half Life 2 being amazing or my post about giving Mathew sheet?

Thinking NVIDIA has a lot of work to do,
Ray

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It is never wrong to care for somebody.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
I am not actually a wookiee; I just play one in Star Wars Galaxies

Ray, that made no sense.

It matters if you only have a 4600.

Looking at upgrading my 9700 Pro soon,
Ray

---------------------------------------------------------
It is never wrong to care for somebody.
http://users.ign.com/collection/RayMarden
I am not actually a wookiee; I just play one in Star Wars Galaxies

Why would it matter if AA or AF was on, it's just a video, not an actual realtime demo. The video quality is so high, it almost looks like it's actually playing on your computer. That's why the movie is 116mb for such a short vid. It's a .exe because it's a standalone program to run bink format.

Riker - do you have AA or AF turned on? Ran ok for me. While the haze and glare in the first room were nifty, and the monster was very nice looking (though i wonder what the detail is like when you're not right up close), the drawn detail in the city was what impressed me the most. Many buildings that all look different from one another, antenna, chimmneys. Is the 9900 out yet?!