Half-Life 2 Performance Preview: The Graphics Hardware Squeezer

What you have just read is a preview, so we can’t make any final verdicts yet. But still, some basic facts are already clear. This game evidently prefers graphics cards with graphics processors of the new generation developed by ATI Technologies. The RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition, X800 XT and X800 PRO GPUs run this game at the highest speed. On the other hand, graphics cards on the GeForce 6800 Ultra and GT chips from NVIDIA do not look completely hopeless against their competitors. Using such cards you will still have enough performance for a comfortable play. Moreover, the difference between the top-end solutions from ATI and NVIDIA depends heavily on the specific game scene. The gap is wider in scenes with water surfaces, and narrower in others, especially when there’s mass fighting onscreen and the main load falls on the central processor of the system.

Half-Life 2 Performance Preview:
The Graphics Hardware Squeezer @ X-bit labs