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Half-Life 2 RTX

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Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#21

Post by josteink »

klaussilveira wrote: post #16

It's funny how, in my opinion, whenever the RTX On/Off comparison shows up, the older has better mood, atmosphere and design. The "RTX On" almost feels like "Generic UE5 pseudo-realism On". Based on other comments, I'm not the only one. Is "RTX On" the "bloom/motionblur/green filter" of this generation?

While I think the ray-traced version looks better in a technical sense, it seems to me that they have completely forgotten to apply darkness and shadow appropriately in the scenes to create an immersive atmosphere.

Keep all the new tech and dial the ambient lighting down. That would look way better.

Make it feel dark, uncertain and risky again. You’re not supposed to know what’s in that corner or that room before it comes lounging at you.

In the RTX version you can see everything in every location, completely killing any sense of suspense.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#22

Post by the__alchemist »

HelloUsername wrote: post #11

The trailer ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j31ISEd8xRM ) actually shows the old lighting has much more mood and atmosphere.. RTX is far too bright. Ravenholm is supposed to be scary!

I thought its mood was more fun grav-killbox. Relative to contemporary games and sections re scare factor.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#23

Post by pawelduda »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #12

Does this require an NVIDIA GPU to run? Or is a comparable AMD GPU sufficient?

According to one of the Steam reviews, it ran horrible on RTX 4070 due to insufficient VRAM. The trailer shows FPS counter with 4x framegen, which is exclusive to 50xx series, also most likely relies on Nvidia upscaling. I wouldn't be too optimistic for AMD GPUs here

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#24

Post by smallmancontrov »

olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

Can someone who has played it tell me if they really lit up most/all of Ravenholm like this or if they are just showing us a few lights cranked to 12 in the promotional material?

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#25

Post by Joker_vD »

klaussilveira wrote: post #16

It's funny how, in my opinion, whenever the RTX On/Off comparison shows up, the older has better mood, atmosphere and design. The "RTX On" almost feels like "Generic UE5 pseudo-realism On". Based on other comments, I'm not the only one. Is "RTX On" the "bloom/motionblur/green filter" of this generation?

Personally, the two most alluring things about RTX for me is a) better global illumination, none of that silly "you can see sunrise shining through the mountain/cave's ceiling" stuff; b) better local illumination: a glowing object should be an actual light source and make its surroundings brighter, dammit.

Everything else, including insanely accurate shadows and reflections, weird lenses/out-of-focus effects, etc. is much lower on my list.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#26

Post by whalesalad »

olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

On the contrary I find OG HL2 to be one of the ugliest games of all time. It's so dark and gray and flat.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#27

Post by jorvi »

bl4ckm0r3 wrote: post #7
olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

I thought exactly the same things about the illumination, i feel like it's too much "look how cool rtx is" and not enough "this should be scary and dark". In this, and other demos, i also felt like refractions are exaggerated, like floors that seem like mirrors is not really realistic to the end user. Sometimes it reminds me of when hdr pics came out and everyone was overdoing it. (But it should be a settings problem…

> Sometimes it reminds me of when hdr pics came out and everyone was overdoing it.

Or old games that oversold insane amounts of bloom[0] as HDR..

[0]https://i.imgur.com/NdgHLCy.jpg

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#28

Post by roboror »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #24
olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

Can someone who has played it tell me if they really lit up most/all of Ravenholm like this or if they are just showing us a few lights cranked to 12 in the promotional material?

The concern is overblown. The lighting doesn't seem out of place when you're playing, just in A/B testing. It's way better and more accurate overall.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#29

Post by crest »

olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

Some of the new scenes are just too damn bright, but the few that preserved the atmosphere looked really good in the trailer.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#30

Post by accrual »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #24
olivierestsage wrote: post #2

I know it's a bit silly to criticize something offered for free -- I'm glad it's there for those who want it! -- but I really feel like something of the original aesthetic has been lost in translation here. The before-and-afters aren't always flattering to the new version; everything is glowing orange. Darker atmospheres have become brighter.

Can someone who has played it tell me if they really lit up most/all of Ravenholm like this or if they are just showing us a few lights cranked to 12 in the promotional material?

I just played it a bit - IMO it's plenty dark.

I used Alt + X to get into settings and decrease the brightness from 50 to 40, but even without that it felt dark, dark enough that I couldn't see anything down an unilluminated hallway.

It looks and feels great though, I'm excited for the full release.

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