[Kamikaze]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1261767,00.asp

This is a benchmark test with Half Life 2, apparently the Radeon 9800 is superior at the moment (pulled in about 60 fps) to the FX 5900 (about 30 fps) in Half Life 2. I thought this may be a deciding factor in gamers. (Though these stats could improve with new drivers and such)

[mikhael]

That's only a DX9 benchmark. For us non Windows people, did they even bother with, say an OpenGL benchmark?

DirectX performance doesn't generally indicate how well Lightwave or my own OpenGL apps will perform. That's pretty much the only important 'benchmark' from where I sit.

[YodaSean]

There are some games that I prefer run in OpenGL even for Windows, I think there are a few games being developed or that were developed recently specifically for OpenGL(there was some shooter?).

[mikhael]

Originally posted by YodaSean
There are some games that I prefer run in OpenGL even for Windows, I think there are a few games being developed or that were developed recently specifically for OpenGL(there was some shooter?).

Quake2. Quake3 Arena. Pretty much everything by Id. If I remember correctly HalfLife1 supported OpenGL  (and looked better for it). Homeworld used OpenGL too, I think. I could be wrong.

[Admiral LSD]

John Carmack historically had a real thing against Direct3D so that's why his stuff has only ever supported OpenGL. Given his plans to port Doom 3 to the Xbox I'd say that stance has softened somewhat in recent times either that, or MS have given him an offer he can't refuse if anyone can afford his price, it'd be MS.

Homeworld did support OGL but it was fairly buggy, at least on my old RivaTNT under Windows 2000 or XP, it used to flicker (not low refresh rate flicker though) so bad I was forced to revert to Direct3D. My new Radeon 9500 Pro doesn't seem to have that problem though, I can use OGL just fine there.

[CP5670]

Interesting, but they need to use more than one game to properly gauge these things. I would like to see how Deus Ex 2 and Doom 3 perform in particular.

[Liberator]

It looks to me like Valve should spend as much time optimizing their engine for Nvidia as they did for ATI, that way they can split the difference and both cards can get about 45 fps.

Seriously, this is a very ATI biased benchmark, something is rotten in the State of Valve methinks.

[Kosh]

Or it's nVidia's fault for not optomizing their drivers and their card for DX 9 in the first place.

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Liberator
Seriously, this is a very ATI biased benchmark, something is rotten in the State of Valve methinks.

It's no worse than those nVidia biased Doom 3 benchmarks a while back...

[Nico]

Or maybe it's that ATI sponsored Valved for HL2, so Valve optimized the code for ATI.
Oh, wait, there's no maybe, I'm 100% sure it's that! how odd

[Turnsky]

ahh... the ever venerable OpenGl API...

Half-life and homeworld both supported Directx and OpenGL, but ran far better in the latter of the two..

all next-gen video cards support OpenGl anyway, particularly the ati cards, in which my 9000 has separate settings for OpenGl just make sure you switch the Z-buffer off before you run Homeworld 2, otherwise it won't run...(learnt that the hard-way)

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Venom
Or maybe it's that ATI sponsored Valved for HL2, so Valve optimized the code for ATI.
Oh, wait, there's no maybe, I'm 100% sure it's that! how odd

...and nVidia sponsored HardOCP (the [H] even made a big deal about it in the articles opening  statements) when they did those Doom 3 tests so your point is?

[Nico]

my point is that if a videocard company puts money in your company, you're obviously gonna work more on the performances of your videogame with their card, and not another one. Kapiche?

[Ryx]

Originally posted by Liberator
It looks to me like Valve should spend as much time optimizing their engine for Nvidia as they did for ATI, that way they can split the difference and both cards can get about 45 fps.

Seriously, this is a very ATI biased benchmark, something is rotten in the State of Valve methinks.

From Tech-report:

[Ulundel]

Hmmm...let's pretend for a moment that I don't give a **** about Half Life FPS. In that case, would it be worth to buy an FX5600 card for ca. 140 bucks?

[Fineus]

Well, remember that if this benchmark has any truth to it - it may affect other games you want to play as well.

[Ulundel]

Well yes. But I don't have money to buy FX 5900, Radeon 9600 or 9800.

So I guess that leaves me with FX5600?

[Admiral LSD]

Dude, you can get a 9600 for roughly the same price as that 5600 (CAD$147)...