Search Prices:

HalfLife2: Lost Coast

HalfLife2 Benchmark is not readily configured for consecutive run-and-average tests, and our Lost Coast tests were reported as the result of one run per resolution. Additional experiments suggested this was reasonable, as the results of separate runs fell within a 1fps band.

Unlike Far Cry, Lost Coast’s HDR settings are selectable only as ‘bloom’ or ‘full’. We used ‘full’ and maximum graphics settings everywhere else, and because both HL2 and the X1950 Pro support it, we added 16x AF tests. Since HL2 does not support the 1x AF mode, an AF setting of ‘1’ in our reported results, refers to trilinear filtering instead.

The results of our Lost Coast tests were as follows:

Frames per second: Higher is better. The change in results is balanced between changes in resolution and AF/AA settings. The Legend shows ‘AF + AA’, in that order.

If we change the orientation of the previous chart so that the trendlines show AF+AA progress, the progressive effect of the penalty becomes more visible:

Frames per second: Each trendline now follows the impact of AF+AA changes at a given resolution

In contrast to our FarCry results, adding AF/AA now show a difference at every resolution, although at the two lower resolutions, the small differences between 1+0 and everything else may be attributable to the reversion to trilinear filtering. This time, the 4+4 setting has a stiff penalty at both of the higher resolutions, and the 8+6 and 16+6 settings drop even further – but track each other. Interestingly enough, however, the initial penalty is the highest (that is going from no AF + AA to 4+4) whereas the additional increase in quality comes at a relatively small cost of frame rates.

In general, AF does not constitute that much of an extra workload, whereas AA involves the application of rather complex averaging algorithms that are particularly memory intensive. Sure enough, when we held the resolution at 1280x1024 and the filtering at trilinear, and then cycled through the 2, 4, and 6x AA settings, the transition from 2x to 4x cost us almost 10fps, and the 6x switch ate another five. By contrast, changes in the AF settings consumed just 1.5-2.5fps per step, suggesting that AA is accountable for about 85% of the very steep framerate penalty.

We’re not prepared to comment on why AF and AA behaved this way in Lost Coast while FarCry tootled merrily along, but the results were replicable. Both AF and AA are no longer free at any setting, but will invoke measurable decreases in performance in Lost Coast as the settings are increased.

Next Page:    => Final Thoughts =>