Errmm ive never been forced to watch the Video at the start, simply press esc every time and it takes me to the menu screen, possibly a compatability bug? I havent had any issues but then again I dual boot and play all my games bar bioshock on XP.
HL2 Hi res textures?
- Thread starter sulli
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Errmm ive never been forced to watch the Video at the start, simply press esc every time and it takes me to the menu screen, possibly a compatability bug? I havent had any issues but then again I dual boot and play all my games bar bioshock on XP.
It's probably a vista bug then. I googled it when i noticed and quite a few people had the same problem. Can't remember if they were all no vista though.
I've never been hugely impressed with the source engine and these high resolution textures don't change my opinion much.
Reasons why I don't like this engine (in Half Life 2): -
- Foliage and grass are static sprites and their rotation to face you is very obvious. On highest settings there is no difference
- No dynamic lighting / real time shadows
- Water looks grainy at times and is too flat
- Many human character models look no better than those found in enhanced Quake 3 engine titles (e.g MOH:AA)- Poor textures, lack of shaders (Alyx is an exception)
- Some very low Poly areas of the game, very blocky and pointy (e.g cliffs) Unreal 2's flowing landscapes look much better.
- Many of the shaders that are used such as those found on some of the surfaces of walls (particulary some of the wallpapered walls) are extremely over the top with specular highlighting.
Very good game no doubt about it, but I was never blown away by the graphics. I know many would disagree with me but the Doom 3 engine looks better to me and the technology behind it is more advanced.
Reasons why I don't like this engine (in Half Life 2): -
- Foliage and grass are static sprites and their rotation to face you is very obvious. On highest settings there is no difference
- No dynamic lighting / real time shadows
- Water looks grainy at times and is too flat
- Many human character models look no better than those found in enhanced Quake 3 engine titles (e.g MOH:AA)- Poor textures, lack of shaders (Alyx is an exception)
- Some very low Poly areas of the game, very blocky and pointy (e.g cliffs) Unreal 2's flowing landscapes look much better.
- Many of the shaders that are used such as those found on some of the surfaces of walls (particulary some of the wallpapered walls) are extremely over the top with specular highlighting.
Very good game no doubt about it, but I was never blown away by the graphics. I know many would disagree with me but the Doom 3 engine looks better to me and the technology behind it is more advanced.
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to be fair the game is very old
and at the time it was amazing, but as you say, its starting to show its age
Found a half decent server, I'm getting around 450k from this one:
http://games.internode.on.net/filelist.php?filedetails=7289
http://games.internode.on.net/filelist.php?filedetails=7289
I think Farcry and Doom 3 looked better overall. Doom 3 engine isn't showing its age as much as HL2 is and its been out longer. Just look at Prey. It looks great.
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oh yeah i do feel farcry on ultra in 64bit mode is fantastic, still good graphics compared to some new games.
and yeah ive got this cinematic mod, doesnt make that much of a different really. everything still looks flat
The amazing thing about the Source engine was and still is its scalability.
At no point have i seen a game which ran well and looked great on my friends DX8 Geforce MX440 / Duron system whilst looking even better and playing just as well on my (at the time) x800 / 3500+.
The physics found in the source engine was also ground breaking, genuinely. Its still one of the more accurate modelling environments in that respect. I know of a few people who have generated CGI scenes for testing purposes using the source engine purely to see how they should cause objects to scatter when they rendered it for real!
Of course its been surpassed technically since but I still think the Valve team are perhaps the most accomplished game programmers out there at the mo, their attention to detail is very nice to see in an industry that is currently demanding a pile em high sell for a lot of money mentality...
At no point have i seen a game which ran well and looked great on my friends DX8 Geforce MX440 / Duron system whilst looking even better and playing just as well on my (at the time) x800 / 3500+.
The physics found in the source engine was also ground breaking, genuinely. Its still one of the more accurate modelling environments in that respect. I know of a few people who have generated CGI scenes for testing purposes using the source engine purely to see how they should cause objects to scatter when they rendered it for real!
Of course its been surpassed technically since but I still think the Valve team are perhaps the most accomplished game programmers out there at the mo, their attention to detail is very nice to see in an industry that is currently demanding a pile em high sell for a lot of money mentality...
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If you click on the link to the mod i posted, theres a comparisson shot of Alex in the first screenshot top left, you can really see the difference
If you click on the link to the mod i posted, theres a comparisson shot of Alex in the first screenshot top left, you can really see the difference
Ok so perhaps the character models look a lot better but the environments still do look very planar.
Doom 3 does look better in some respects, its diversity in terms of what it renders isnt, Both doom 3 and prey were confined to the same tight corridor ship interiors that in all honesty got very old very quickly whilst hl2 had variation with regards its environments.
OK, downloaded and installed it and it does look fantastic, especially the character models. The amout of detail on faces is astounding 
Unfortunately the fact that it crashes whenever it loads a new area makes it completely unusable
Unfortunately the fact that it crashes whenever it loads a new area makes it completely unusable
Yeah all the time not sure why.
It's bugged with Vista x64 iirc as well as low memory systems. Something to do with memory management in source 2. There's a fix but it didn't really help me much.
Liking the look of this
Half Life source perhaps?
Liking the look of this
BLACK MESA
http://www.blackmesasource.com/
if they ever finish IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Half Life source perhaps?
I knew id seen that on my steam list way back when lol, its not there now..thought id dreamt it
I'm not entirely sure as I've never played it but I believe much of the game has been upgraded with stuff from the source engine, such as the water, physics etc. Not sure if the textures are improved or not. Would be interested to know actually what all the differences are. Perhaps someone who has played it could say