HalfLife2 RTX Demo Is out!

[AusWolf]

Those are fair points. However, those say that RT is a fad that will go away are just silly and short-sighted to fault. Those folks can't see the writing on the wall.

The reason why people say that is that RTRT has been "the future of game graphics" for a solid 7 years now without too much sign of improvement. You couldn't play new games with RT on a midrange card back then, and you still can't. People are tired of giving into slogans without seeing anything with their own eyes, which I find totally fair.

The future becomes the present when it's available for the masses. RT is not. People rightfully doubt at this point whether it's ever gonna be.

 

[JustBenching]

The reason why people say that is that RTRT has been "the future of game graphics" for a solid 7 years now without too much sign of improvement. You couldn't play new games with RT on a midrange card back then, and you still can't. People are tired of giving into slogans without seeing anything with their own eyes, which I find totally fair.

The future becomes the present when it's available for the masses. RT is not. People rightfully doubt at this point whether it's ever gonna be.

That's the same with raster? You can't play the heaviest games all maxed out with a midrange card and raster has been around for 20 years. Why the double standards?

 

[AusWolf]

That's the same with raster? You can't play the heaviest games all maxed out with a midrange card and raster has been around for 20 years. Why the double standards?

Maxed out graphics have always been a privilege for those with high end hardware. However, you cannot even enable RT at any quality level on midrange cards in most modern games without tanking your performance.

 

[JustBenching]

Maxed out graphics have always been a privilege for those with high end hardware. However, you cannot even enable RT at any quality level on midrange cards in most modern games without tanking your performance.

Of course you can. Games with light rt or games with heavy RT but with said rt set to medium or low run perfectly fine. You are just making things up my man. Resident evil village runs better with RT on (lol), farcry 6 only lowers performance by 20%, hogwarts or cyberpunk with only a few effects enabled run great.

You need a high end gpu to enable everything rt related at high resolutions which isn't really all that different to raster. Nobody said raster is an issue cause midrange cards can't max games out. Suddenly with RT it's a problem, lol.

 

[AusWolf]

Of course you can. Games with light rt or games with heavy RT but with said rt set to medium or low run perfectly fine. You are just making things up my man. Resident evil village runs better with RT on (lol), farcry 6 only lowers performance by 20%, hogwarts or cyberpunk with only a few effects enabled run great.

You need a high end gpu to enable everything rt related at high resolutions which isn't really all that different to raster. Nobody said raster is an issue cause midrange cards can't max games out. Suddenly with RT it's a problem, lol.

I don't know how Wizz tested the 9070 XT with RT, but if I enable all RT effects on low in Alan Wake 2, it stutters on my card at 3440x1440, whereas it does over 80 FPS with RT disabled.

And this is not even a truly midrange card in my eyes - those are your 4060 Ti and 7700 XT (and below), imo.

 

[JustBenching]

I don't know how Wizz tested the 9070 XT with RT, but if I enable all RT effects on low in Alan Wake 2, it stutters on my card at 3440x1440, whereas it does over 80 FPS with RT disabled.

And this is not even a truly midrange card in my eyes - those are your 4060 Ti and 7700 XT (and below), imo.

And how is that a proof of anything? Heavier settings are...heavier. That was always the case. Raster was super heavy on the GPUs not more than 10 years ago. A 1080ti couldn't max the heaviest of raster games even at 1080p. And that was the good era of video cards, go back to the 2012-2015 games and midrange cards would struggle at or below 30 at heavy games maxed out. Did anyone EVER make the argument you are making, that raster is going nowhere cause midrange cards can't max out games? I don't think so. The only reason we are hearing this for RT is because nvidia introduced it.

 

[AusWolf]

And how is that a proof of anything? Heavier settings are...heavier. That was always the case. Raster was super heavy on the GPUs not more than 10 years ago. A 1080ti couldn't max the heaviest of raster games even at 1080p. And that was the good era of video cards, go back to the 2012-2015 games and midrange cards would struggle at or below 30 at heavy games maxed out. Did anyone EVER make the argument you are making, that raster is going nowhere cause midrange cards can't max out games? I don't think so. The only reason we are hearing this for RT is because nvidia introduced it.

I wasn't talking about maxing out. I was talking about RT on low which is against your argument that you can run RT on low on a midrange card no problem.

 

[JustBenching]

I wasn't talking about maxing out. I was talking about RT on low which is against your argument that you can run RT on low on a midrange card no problem.

Maybe you can't on the 9070xt, dunno, but obviously if you cared about RT you wouldn't have bought that card so why does that matter? We know nvidia is better at RT, using amd cards as an example that aren't' good in RT doesn't really make for a great argument. But regardless of that, i've seen 10 youtube videos running alan wake 2 on 9070xt just fine, it seems to be a you issue.

I have run every single game with RT on the planet on a 3060ti so yeah, you can.

 

[stahlhart]

Of course you can. Games with light rt or games with heavy RT but with said rt set to medium or low run perfectly fine. You are just making things up my man. Resident evil village runs better with RT on (lol), farcry 6 only lowers performance by 20%, hogwarts or cyberpunk with only a few effects enabled run great.

You need a high end gpu to enable everything rt related at high resolutions which isn't really all that different to raster. Nobody said raster is an issue cause midrange cards can't max games out. Suddenly with RT it's a problem, lol.

I had trouble getting this demo to work on a 3070Ti, to the point that the original rasterized version looked significantly better at the monitor's native resolution (1440p). To be honest I did not experiment with the settings enough, or even tried to run it at 1080p, so perhaps I didn't spend enough time on it. But I could imagine a lot of folks, after downloading a 40Gb game, just firing it up at the default settings and rendering their initial judgement based on that.

I might give it another shot here if I'm bored, but it runs and looks so well on the 4090 at 4K that I'll probably just stick with that. Already I have to do that with several newer titles, probably more because of the 8Gb VRAM limitation than anything else, which is a shame because the 3070Ti is built like a tank in spite of that.

 

[AusWolf]

Maybe you can't on the 9070xt, dunno, but obviously if you cared about RT you wouldn't have bought that card so why does that matter?

I didn't say it matters. I just gave my opinion on @lexluthermiester's point. I understand people with lower-end and midrange cards doubting the future of RT. Once we see mass adoption and affordable RT-capable cards, I'll jump on the bandwagon myself. Until then, I'll see it as a curiosity.

We know nvidia is better at RT, using amd cards as an example that aren't' good in RT doesn't really make for a great argument. But regardless of that, i've seen 10 youtube videos running alan wake 2 on 9070xt just fine,

It's still AMD's most RT-capable card.

it seems to be a you issue.

Perhaps it is, I don't know. Avatar: FoP runs fine with maxed out graphics, that's for sure, although it's a lot lighter on RT. I'm gonna try Cyberpunk next.

 

[Aquilino]

Played HL2 from 2004 and played it multiple times every year ever since. This RT mod is nothing special to me and perf hit is too great to celebrate it as a great mod. Cinematic mod changes the game and it gives the game different touch which I like. Yes, atmosphere is a little different but if I compare "eye-candy" stuff, Cinematic mod beats this RTX Demo, IMHO. Really cannot understand why someone here cannot accept that, it is my opinion and I do not need someone to explain me how am I wrong. Also, you can see GPUs I have in my rigs and that I'm well equipped for RT/PT + DLSS4 excursions, but I have to say that SOMEWHERE RT perf hits are not worth the looks. I hope this is clear now.

And you can add to that: that mod is pretty customizable. If there is something you don't like, most likely you can disable it.

 

[JustBenching]

I had trouble getting this demo to work on a 3070Ti, to the point that the original rasterized version looked significantly better at the monitor's native resolution (1440p). To be honest I did not experiment with the settings enough, or even tried to run it at 1080p, so perhaps I didn't spend enough time on it. But I could imagine a lot of folks, after downloading a 40Gb game, just firing it up at the default settings and rendering their initial judgement based on that.

I might give it another shot here if I'm bored, but it runs and looks so well on the 4090 at 4K that I'll probably just stick with that. Already I have to do that with several newer titles, probably more because of the 8Gb VRAM limitation than anything else, which is a shame because the 3070Ti is built like a tank in spite of that.

These types of remakes are tech demos really, so they shouldn't be compared to normal games with RT. HL2 Portal quake etc are just to show what will eventually be possible on normal games as well.

 

[stahlhart]

Those are fair points. However, those say that RT is a fad that will go away are just silly and short-sighted to fault. Those folks can't see the writing on the wall.

When we started seeing still photographs of ray traced images in forums about 20-25 years ago, the implication was that someday we would see games with full motion photorealistic graphics that more or less looked like film or video. Fast forward to now, and we're still not there yet, and connectors on GPUs are melting from the power draw.

We're moving in that direction; it's probably just not happening as fast as some might have expected or wanted.

 

[lexluthermiester]

because their cards can't actually run RT

That's not true at all. Why would you say that? It's absolutely false.

EDIT:
To go along with the above statement, I offer the following from someone trustworthy for consideration.

Ultra settings and the Radeon was doing very well in most of those titles at all resolutions. Alan Wake 2 was a slideshow at 4k, but that was the exception. In BaldersGate3 and Resident Evil 4, the Radeon was ahead in all resolutions.

About a year ago, he did a similar set of runs with a 6800XT at 1440p to excellent effect.

He also did a run that included a card very similar to mine, but at 1080p instead of 1440p.

This proved to me that AMD has what it takes to compete and very well.

So as we can clearly see, Radeon's can do raytracing very well and have been for a few years. NVidia still has the edge, but not the dominant lead it had during the early days of RTRT.

without too much sign of improvement.

Disagree with this. The improvements have been made. They not as much or as quickly as many, myself included, were expecting but then again we can't dictate innovation.

Once we see mass adoption and affordable RT-capable cards, I'll jump on the bandwagon myself. Until then, I'll see it as a curiosity.

That's just it, we already have. The 3060, up until last month, was the dominant RT card and it was a very solid RT performer. Last month the 4060 took over that place and it's an even better offering for RT. Adoption is already there and has been for a while. And people are using it.

Fast forward to now, and we're still not there yet

If you think that, you either haven't tried it or are not doing it right. When community devs can make this very game mod demo look amazing and near photo realistic and can make even older games like Quake 1&2 look equally amazing, we've arrived. Is it perfect? No. Is it great? Hell yes!

 

[wolf]

I do not need someone to explain me how am I wrong.

Neither do I. And I remember saying to you:

Absolutely, personal preference reigns supreme as always. Nice to have a little balance.

I also just got to share my opinion and personal preference, and was not speaking to you directly any more or I would have quoted you. I hope this is clear now.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Neither do I. And I remember saying to you:

I also just got to share my opinion and personal preference, and was not speaking to you directly any more or I would have quoted you. I hope this is clear now.

And honestly the masses have already voted with their wallets it was the main Achilles heel for AMD the last couple generations and even without improving raster over pervious generations just improving upscaling and RT has their gpus flying off shelves and I believe that would be true even if Nvidia had more stock.


Amd is in its position due to shit upscaling and poor relative to geforce RT performance, raster they've been pretty competitive so that tells me more people care about it than not.

Now if someone doesn't like it that's fine what people like is their own business but had AMD addressed this deficiency sooner they'd be in a much better position.

 

[onemanhitsquad]

Nope, I didn’t troll anyone or call anyone anything. I simply used sarcasm to present performance metrics in 4K (high resolution for high-end GPUs). Then you came along and compared that to a 4060 running at 17 FPS in 1080p and 40 FPS in 540p, claiming it was the same thing. I don’t know if you just didn’t check properly or if you’re unintentionally spreading misinformation for no reason.


As for the artifacts and ghosting, those are caused by the temporal filter and can induce nausea:

My comment, sarcastic as it may be, doesn’t stop anyone from playing and enjoying the game—even though, logically, the hardware cost versus graphical quality is absurd.


Anyway, welcome to my block list. I have no interest in dealing with people who resort to attacks or name-calling over a game.

made me nauseous ...so did Alyx in VR...never had any other games do that...interesting

 

[stahlhart]

If you think that, you either haven't tried it or are not doing it right. When community devs can make this very game mod demo look amazing and near photo realistic and can make even older games like Quake 1&2 look equally amazing, we've arrived. Is it perfect? No. Is it great? Hell yes!

We're discussing photorealistic graphics, and you're citing ray traced Quake I and II to support your position?

Provide examples of games that can run on average PCs and have full-motion graphics similar to this:

 

[lexluthermiester]

We're discussing photorealistic graphics, and you're citing ray traced Quake I and II to support your position?

Context is important. What do you think you missed? Hmm?

Provide examples of games that can run on average PCs and have full-motion graphics similar to this:

Oh please.. If you didn't get the point of the response, you have problems. See to that.

 

[Flogger23m]

The reason why people say that is that RTRT has been "the future of game graphics" for a solid 7 years now without too much sign of improvement. You couldn't play new games with RT on a midrange card back then, and you still can't. People are tired of giving into slogans without seeing anything with their own eyes, which I find totally fair.

The future becomes the present when it's available for the masses. RT is not. People rightfully doubt at this point whether it's ever gonna be.

I agree. The problem is games have to be designed with ray tracing and raster lighting/reflections which is likely limiting what developers use it for (more work to add multiple options). I know Star Wars Outlaws was a ray tracing only game, but that probably did not help its slow sales seeing that you needed a high end system to get a good graphical to performance ratio. If you're on an older mid range GPU (like most gamers) you were out of luck and had to deal with low performance.

The worst part is the new Nvidia GPUs offered practically 0 ray tracing performance uplift. The ray tracing gains match the paltry raster gains, largely by pumping more power. We waited 2 years and did not receive any noteworthy advancement in ray tracing performance, though at least AMD isn't as far behind anymore.

If the Nvidia 6*** series takes 2 years and also only offers a 10-20% ray tracing performance uplift, we'll still be many, many years away from ray tracing being really viable.

 

[chrcoluk]

It would seem the demo for the HalfLife2 RTX mod is available. I know there are some HL2 fans here at TPU and thought this would be of interest!
Looks good! There are only two levels to play though..

Half-Life 2 RTX on Steam

Re-live the groundbreaking, critically acclaimed Half-Life 2 like never before, reimagined with RTX Remix. Featuring full ray tracing, remastered assets, and DLSS 4 with Multi Frame Generation, this DLC is free for Half-Life 2 owners.

store.steampowered.com

The minimum specs state a 3060, but a 2070/2080 series cards will work fine.
Here's a run on a 4060 and he starts out on ultra. He does tinker with the setting a bit as he goes through.

Edit: Based on the reviews in the Steam page it would seem Radeon RX7000 and RX9000 cards will work well too!
So it's not just NVidia riders that can enjoy this one!

What is it with all the youtubers scared of transformer and quality combo.

But anyway native, had tons of shimmering on the grass, sadly he barely stayed in grass area with DLSS on, but looked like shimmering was gone or almost gone.

 

[JustBenching]

I didn't say it matters. I just gave my opinion on @lexluthermiester's point. I understand people with lower-end and midrange cards doubting the future of RT. Once we see mass adoption and affordable RT-capable cards, I'll jump on the bandwagon myself. Until then, I'll see it as a curiosity.


It's still AMD's most RT-capable card.


Perhaps it is, I don't know. Avatar: FoP runs fine with maxed out graphics, that's for sure, although it's a lot lighter on RT. I'm gonna try Cyberpunk next.

Well if you can run all other games fine but you have an issue with alan wake RT there might be a different cause other than RT itself. But regardless my point is that until very very recently (and even today actually) a lot of midrange cards cannot max out raster games, even though raster exists for 20 years. I've never heard anybody say raster is DOA because cards can't max out these games, yet we constantly hear it with RT. It's the definition of double standards. If it was someone else that introduced RT to PC people would be very welcoming, but the hatred for nvidia doesn't let them.

 

[AusWolf]

Well if you can run all other games fine but you have an issue with alan wake RT there might be a different cause other than RT itself. But regardless my point is that until very very recently (and even today actually) a lot of midrange cards cannot max out raster games, even though raster exists for 20 years. I've never heard anybody say raster is DOA because cards can't max out these games, yet we constantly hear it with RT. It's the definition of double standards. If it was someone else that introduced RT to PC people would be very welcoming, but the hatred for nvidia doesn't let them.

I thought I answered that point... the problem isn't maxing out your quality settings, but even just being able to turn the feature on with an older, or lower-midrange card.

You can't turn raster off, but you can tune it down to a level where you can run it on a 6600 XT or 2060 with decent frame rates. That's not possible with RT in the vast majority of games.

People see your quality option scaling as "low -> medium -> high -> ultra -> RT" for the above reason.

 

[JustBenching]

I thought I answered that point... the problem isn't maxing out your quality settings, but even just being able to turn the feature on with an older, or lower-midrange card.

You can't turn raster off, but you can tune it down to a level where you can run it on a 6600 XT or 2060 with decent frame rates. That's not possible with RT in the vast majority of games.

But you really can. All spiderman games (3 of them) have RT slider from 1 to 10. Cyberpunk hogwarts and Alan Wake have options for gi shadows reflections etc. Ratchet has both sliders 1 to 10 and individual toggles. I can't really think of a game that doesn't give you options.

 

[AusWolf]

But you really can. All spiderman games (3 of them) have RT slider from 1 to 10. Cyberpunk hogwarts and Alan Wake have options for gi shadows reflections etc. Ratchet has both sliders 1 to 10 and individual toggles. I can't really think of a game that doesn't give you options.

Most games have RT as yes/no toggles. Then you have to figure out which gives you the least impact on your performance. You can't just simply "set RT to low" in most cases.

I guess Spiderman and Ratchet are good examples, but personally, I do not own any game where RT is a slider, and I couldn't think of any other. I didn't even know these had it.