ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon X1800 XL
Half Life 2
|
Thanks to the dedication of hardcore PC gamers and a huge mod-community, the original Half-Life became one of the most successful first person shooters of all time. So, when Valve announced Half-Life 2 was close to completion in mid-2003, gamers the world over sat in eager anticipation. Unfortunately, thanks to a compromised internal network, the theft of a portion of the game's source code, and a tumultuous relationship with the game's distributor, Vivendi Universal, we all had to wait until November 2004 to get our hands on this classic. We benchmarked Half-Life 2 with a long, custom-recorded timedemo in the "Canals" map, that takes us through both outdoor and indoor environments. These tests were run at resolutions of 1,280 x 1,024 and 1,600 x 1,200 without any anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering and with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled concurrently. |
The All-In-Wonder X1800 XL was able to outrun the XFX GeForce 7800 GT in every test configuration but one using our custom Half Life 2 benchmark. Both cards had no trouble tearing through this game though. As good as Half Life 2 looks, its simply no match for today's high-end graphics processors. We'll likely be updating our Half Life two tests with a custom demo from the "Lost Coast" level, which employs HDR (High Dynamic Range) rendering, though. With HDR enabled on a supporting level, Half Life 2 is far more taxing.
As it stands now, the XFX GeForce 7800 GT pulled ahead of the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL in only one test configuration - 1600x1200 with 4X anti-aliasing and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled. The performance deltas in this test were relatively small, however.