Half-Life 2 RTX • Hacker News Board

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#31

Post by crest » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

thot_experiment wrote: post #20

dcan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Portal RTX on a 9070 XT and got 20 FPS at full resolution (no frame generation). There’s no driver limitations, but I have no idea what the expected FPS is

yikes that's dismal, I wonder what a 5070 gets

Depends if you count real or fake frames and if it fits in what little VRAM Nvidia gives their captive customer base.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#32

Post by bsimpson » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:46 PM UTC

I had Macs growing up and missed out on all the Half Lives until I finally got to play Alyx last year. I tried HL1 after that, but couldn't really get into it.

That said, Valve released the Anniversary Update for Half Life 2 a few months back which includes a bunch of quality of life improvements for modern setups.

There's also a VR mod for Half Life 2, which is supposed to make it one of the best games available in VR.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#33

Post by deadbabe » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:47 PM UTC

This seems like so much work, what motivates people to just give it all away for free? Are the devs independently wealthy or funded by a rich patron?

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#34

Post by robin_reala » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:48 PM UTC

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?

Digital Foundry have a side-by-side playthrough and discussion of Ravenholm comparing HL2 RTX and the launch-day HL2 from DVD on a period-correct machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHRS0TO89UI

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#35

Post by accrual » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #12

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

Doesn't directly answer your question as I don't have a modern AMD card to test with, but even with an RTX 5080 Super + 9800X3D, I was still only getting about ~45-55 FPS at 4K60. I left the default settings of High and DLSS enabled (Ultra was slower). Turning off DLSS tanked the FPS to like ~15-20 and ate up almost the full 16GB of VRAM.

Even so, it was still really cool to experience and was plenty playable as-is. I'm excited to see the full release.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#36

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

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?

[deleted]

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#37

Post by xattt » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:55 PM UTC

Funny to see this, given that HL2 was sold bundled with ATI cards in the early 2000s.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#38

Post by zokier » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

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 don't understand why they made everything have that weird sickly yellow cast. It's so weird.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#39

Post by gmueckl » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:56 PM UTC

deadbabe wrote: post #33

This seems like so much work, what motivates people to just give it all away for free? Are the devs independently wealthy or funded by a rich patron?

I would assume that nVidia financed this as a tech demo for their stuff. They did a similar thing with Quake 2 RTX a few years back.

Re: Half-Life 2 RTX

#40

Post by ericol » Tue, Mar 18, 2025, 2:57 PM UTC

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.

Most video games allow for configuring brightness right at the start.

My impression is that they were more interested in showing the improvements than being faithful to the original atmosphere.