Connect 3D X850XT PE - 09 - Half life 2

Half life 2 is no doubt the most anticipated pc game of all times. Gamers keeping the excellence of Half Life 1 in their mind as well as the remarkable E3 demo preview, have been anxiously waiting for the much delayed release of HL2.

Regarding the storyline, the player again picks up the crowbar of research scientist Gordon Freeman, who finds himself on an alien-infested Earth being picked to the bone, its resources depleted, its populace dwindling. Freeman is thrust into the unenviable role of rescuing the world from the wrong he unleashed back at Black Mesa. And a lot of people he cares about are counting on him.

Characters - Advanced facial animation system delivers the most sophisticated in-game characters ever seen. With 40 distinct facial "muscles," human characters convey the full array of human emotion, and respond to the player with fluidity and intelligence.

Physics - From pebbles to water to 2-ton trucks respond as expected, as they obey the laws of mass, friction, gravity, and buoyancy.

Graphics - Source’s shader-based renderer, like the one used at Pixar to create movies such as Toy Story® and Monster's, Inc.®, creates the most beautiful and realistic environments ever seen in a video game.

AI - Neither friends nor enemies charge blindly into the fray. They can assess threats, navigate tricky terrain, and fashion weapons from whatever is at hand.

To measure performance we used the Video Stress Test(VST) that is available in the CounterStrike:Source beta available through Steam. We set all the details to the highest level and each time changed the resolution from 800x600 up to 1600x1200.

800x600 is too low for benchmarking such cards and all seem bound by our CPU. However, by increasing the resolution, the benchmark becomes more demanding and each card's true power begins to show. The X850XT PE from Connect3D could handle all resolutions perfectly and even at 1600x1200, it kept the framerate above 110fps.

Enabling the 3D quality options (Anisotropic Filtering and Anti Aliasing) for Half Life 2, for yet one more time the X850 doesn't seem to mind. Compared to the 6600GT and X700pro, it clearly stands out as these two drop to 30frames per second at 1600x1200 where the Connect3d card kept the average at 90fps.