# Half-Life 2 'designed' to be crippled on GeForceFX cards?



## svk (Dec 1, 2004)

Here's an interesting forum thread investigating how HL2 may potentially be detecting GeForce FX cards and crippling the game. A temporary workaround is detailed which will be most useful to owners to those struggling to play the game optimally. 

*www.warp2search.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21028


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## techno_funky (Dec 1, 2004)

well this is what we NVIDIans very well know 
HL 2 is optimised for ATI cards 
or rather sponsered 
but there are some tricks to fake your nvidia card to be indentified as a ATI card by the game which may push your framerate up a bit


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## Sourabh (Dec 2, 2004)

hmm well actually i wod love these things to happen more with nvidia coz i have a ATi card
so i really love as far as this goes on


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## gxsaurav (Dec 2, 2004)

This is something evident from a long time & compleately partial

It's like 6 years back, when each gfx card manufacturer like Diamond, Cirrrus, ATI, 3DFX, Nvidia had their own API for their cards, so game developer had to make games in multiple APIs to make it compatible with other cards

Now the same goes again, to solve that problem, we had OpenGL & DirectX, but this optimising is not a good thing, except for HL2, I have not seen a single game where ATI exceles to NVIDIA in ATI X series & Nvidia 6 series

Remember shader day last year, which started this all "FX is bad for DriectX 9" thing, all a hoax & bull****

a way to implement DX 9 in HL2 for FX Cards here

I mean, Far Cry is also a lot graphical game, Painkiller is also such game, they work fine on FX cards with all the settings at high etc, even the water quality is superb, there is no quality decrese in FX cards due to the usage with DX9 in these games, then Y can't HL2 water & other things work in FX cards

I m downloading tha packages to optimise HL2 for FX cards, & will get the game soon, to hell with ATI cheating


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## Nemesis (Dec 3, 2004)

*pc.gamespy.com/pc/half-life-2/566585p3.html
go here and read the bottom of the page...it sez how the game is running well on both ATi and NVIDIA cards....


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## grinning_devil (Dec 3, 2004)

*Ohhhhhh NOooooooooooooo*

i was just abt to buy a new rig....
AMD Athlon XP 2600+..."barton"...
ASUS A7N8X Mobo
with 1GB of DDR400 
and
*
GEFORCE FX 5700 Ultra..................
*

nd now according to posts it wont run HL2 **with all the bells attached** is it???
nyway will have to find a way out once i have the system nd d game!


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## DKant (Dec 3, 2004)

> Here's an interesting forum thread investigating how HL2 may potentially be detecting GeForce FX cards and crippling the game. A temporary workaround is detailed which will be most useful to owners to those struggling to play the game optimally.
> 
> *www.warp2search.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=21028



Interesting...very interesting..read all the 10 pages!


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## gxsaurav (Dec 4, 2004)

I should step in again

Valve, Liers, they said HL2 can't work with DX9 mode on FX cards, well, some one has just found a way to enable all the DX9 wuality effects in HL2 with FX cards, including Water reflection, something exclusive DX9 only

a few thjngs, to check FX users

First

& this

to download that DX 9 like water effects on DX 8.1 & FX cards , go here

*www.pcgamemods.com/8877/


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## tarey_g (Dec 5, 2004)

*Re: Ohhhhhh NOooooooooooooo*



			
				grinning_devil said:
			
		

> i was just abt to buy a new rig....
> AMD Athlon XP 2600+..."barton"...
> ASUS A7N8X Mobo
> with 1GB of DDR400
> ...



some guys on Guru3d figured out what Valve did to cripple nVidia cards.

Well, that's pretty easy to fix.here is a method of forcing lower precision levels in the DX9 shaders used in Half Life 2, thereby boosting performance and fixing any water bugs visible on some Nvidia FX cards when DX9 is enabled. Just have the :* 3DAnalyze* util report your card as an ATI Radeon instead of a GeForce FX.





The method involves downloading this program:* 3DAnalyze*, installing it and launching it and then following these instructions:



1. Select HL2.exe file in half-life 2 folder

2. Select any file inside the folder half-life 2\bin

3. select Steam.exe than check these options:

- Under the section Pixel and Vertex Shader: FORCE LOW PRECISION PIXEL SHADER

- Under the section Remove stuttering: PERFORMANCE MODE

- on the bottom left: FORCE HOOK.DLL


Type in the section DIRECTX DEVICE ID'S the ATI Vendor and Device ID.


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## Sourabh (Dec 6, 2004)

*lolz*

hehe i just can only laugh at NVIDIA now
ATi optimized one game and the whole nvidia community pressed the panic button
guyz y is it that nvidia optimizes so many games for itself?

wht does nvidia fear so much??   

nvidia are just not sure whether some third-party games wod perform well on it or not.

On the other hand look at ATi, no worries ... jUST play the game


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## gxsaurav (Dec 8, 2004)

for first, NVIDIA has the maximum ammount of users using FX5200 cards, which are the lowest cost DX 9 cards, now, even valve knows that HL2 won't give them money , Counter Strike will, thats y the requirments of CS:S is lower then HL2

However, many users of CS:S will use a FX5200 or similer card to play it nicely, for that the operformance has to be made better

There is a revised article on Guru3d.com about how to configure HL2 to provide better performance in FX cards here


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## liquid_nitrogen88 (Dec 9, 2004)

so is doom3 which runs well on geforce cards but not on costlier radeons.


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## grinning_devil (Dec 9, 2004)

THREE CHEERS FOR GeFORCE!!!!!


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## liquid_nitrogen88 (Dec 9, 2004)

hey say cheers to doom3 instead


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## grinning_devil (Dec 10, 2004)

THREE CHEERS FOR DOOOOOOOM 3!!!!

     


 oh by the way iam going to buy a graphics card today....
so lets see which one i go for!!! 9800XT/SE or 570ultra!....depending on the rates  get 2day nd card manufacturers...


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## Sourabh (Dec 10, 2004)

well facts speak for themselves

everyone realizes n is well-aware of both ATi and Nvidia capabilities in diifferent cards

so take it easy

u dun wann to compare 9xxx and 5xxx series again do u?


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## suave_guy (Dec 10, 2004)

guys suggest me a decently priced agp card which can run HL2 decently....

i've nforce motherboard whch supports only agp 4x....will it make a big difference??

thx in advance....

ENjoy


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## Sourabh (Dec 10, 2004)

agp 4x  isnt gonna b tht much of a bottle neck
all the agp 8x cards wod run well on ur 4x

as for a card for hl2 running descently on it

definately 9600PRO if budget is a concern
u can get a gigabyte 9600pro for rs 8000 or a lil less than tht

u can play hl2 on 800x600 descently

well else u can buy a 9800XT or 9800Pro


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## grinning_devil (Dec 11, 2004)

....in "asia's biggest IT market"...nehru place in delhi...
i cud not find radeon 9600pro or 9800XT in 256MB shade....
only one i cud find was 9600SE with 128   

so i went for geforce 6600 from XFX with 256MB DDR for 9500!!
dats in PCI E though!!...not in AGP...
dat in turn means i have to leave my loyalty with AMD nd go for intel!!!!!


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## siddharth_menon (Dec 12, 2004)

Well if at all U wana hav Dx 9 level do follow this steps


Open console & type
mat_dxlevel 90

*Then u must open da Video setting window & just change AA & apply & revert back da AA settings to wat u want & save*.Doing this will save da DXlevel to da registery once & 4 all. So next time u start its in dxlevel 9.0

Da game may appear Hanged or somthing!! Also da FPS will b too low, just quit da Game to desktop & start again, every things fine!!


Its better than using -dxlevel 90   in ur launch option cause da engine starts in Dx8.1 or 8.0 mode & then change to DX 90, & u may exp v low FPS!!

For me this is no FPS loss when i play in Dxlevel 8.1 or 9.0

Da setings r saved in registry, if u want i can giv u da codes 4 easy apply


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## DKant (Dec 12, 2004)

grinning_devil said:
			
		

> so i went for geforce 6600 from XFX with 256MB DDR for 9500!!



U serious abt the price devil?  

I'ld be grinning then..


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## grinning_devil (Dec 12, 2004)

DKant said:
			
		

> I'ld be grinning then..



keeeep grinning...dat was my reaction too when i heard d rate!!
i thought 6XXX series to be above 20k....
in all the budget i was having was 15K...
in dat i purchased 6600 for 9500/- nd creative 6.1 for 4500/-!!!!

but havnt played nything on it yet...
will be getting the foll components by monday

915G motherboard..intel
3Ghz processor
DDR400 1024MB RAM
SATA 120GB 7200rpm

 ...will have to wait to test it!!


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## DKant (Dec 12, 2004)

grinning_devil said:
			
		

> DKant said:
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Boy I feel like spaming this thread with smilies!!!


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## beaditya (Dec 14, 2004)

@ grinn

dude go for 180 gb hdd.....................did u forget about that??

well i did forget that there was a 180 hdd and went for 1200 sata hdd.....................now i regret it!!!!!!!!!

and get SATA over RAID

AND MY HDD MAKES A REALLY "GRINNING" SOUND WHEN I COPY MOVIES AND GAMES.....................................i dnt remember wht hdd i got...............think its segate


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## grinning_devil (Dec 14, 2004)

...my da will kill me if i go even 1rs over the  budget now!!!
nd to think of that theres a doiff of around 1400 between seagate 120gb SATA nd 180GB SATA....

even though 1400 is meager amount....if we go on increasing meager nd small amount on each component...at the end u'll face a NICE TOTAL!!


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## grinning_devil (Dec 14, 2004)

beaditya said:
			
		

> @ grinn
> 
> well i did forget that there was a 180 hdd and went for 1200 sata hdd.....................now i regret it!!!!!!!!!



   
WOOOOOW......1200GB HDD?????
then it sure will make grinning noise..!!!


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## blade_runner (Dec 14, 2004)

DKant said:
			
		

> grinning_devil said:
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No need to grin dude, its the 6600 not the 6600GT. The 6600GT costs 17K for the agp version while the PCI-E costs 15.5k. The agp version is probably costly due to the HSI chip. The best VFM card right now is the 9800pro for 13.5k frm ATi and 6600GT PCI-E frm Nvidia.


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