News It's Finally Here! - Half-Life 2 RTX Demo Hands On

roadrash99 said:

As someone who played none of the originals, I'm very excited to play this. A couple of years ago I played the Half Life remake Black Mesa and enjoyed it. The dated graphics were keeping me from trying out Half Life 2.
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Keep in mind it's just two levels that are playable currently.

Also, the OG HL2 is still pretty decent looking, relative to its release date.

Also, what GPU are you running?
 
roadrash99 said:
Oh I didn't know that, are there any timelines for when it will be complete.
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Hopefully they'll keep adding more levels, overtime. Also, this is a free add-on if you already own a copy of the OG HL2.

Also, it's shit hard to run on native, even at 1080P:

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Half life 2 and expansions were one of the best games ever made. They hold up well even now, perhaps they updated it over the years.
Would definitely recommend ignoring this and just playing the base game.

RT is not worth the performance cost most of the time for most of the gpus. Hardly something to get excited about imo.
Not many talk about HDR, which in my own experience is much more impactful and you don't really lose performance ( but need good monitor).
These days i almost always turn off RT. Much better performance with small graphics quality downgrade - most of the time or its anyway unplayable so it hardly matters.
 
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I think it's time people should realize (through this RTX demo) how bang average Half Life 2 was back in the day, despite the 'staged' universal acclaim, just because it was a Valve game. The game does not AT ALL hold up in 2025.

The original, released in 1998, was revolutionary for the time it came in. But HL2 was just more of the same, which was the primary reason why HL3 (or HL2 EP3) does not exist today (according to developer diaries). Valve didn't innovate and the series unfortunately suffered a fatal fall. It was clear the company focused more on Counter Strike as their opus magnum going forward.

We had Halo 2 come out in the same year as HL2 and that game was miles more enjoyable, even today. Not to mention, games released just a year later in 2005, such as FEAR and Call of Duty 2, are still revered for their gameplay and graphics. These three FPS games were far better and innovative than what HL2 could only dream to achieve.
 
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AINDRASIS_GUPTA said:
I think it's time people should realize (through this RTX demo) how bang average Half Life 2 was back in the day, despite the 'staged' universal acclaim, just because it was a Valve game. The game does not AT ALL hold up in 2025.

The original, released in 1998, was revolutionary for the time it came in. But HL2 was just more of the same, which was the primary reason why HL3 (or HL2 EP3) does not exist today (according to developer diaries). Valve didn't innovate and the series unfortunately suffered a fatal fall. It was clear the company focused more on Counter Strike as their opus magnum going forward.

We had Halo 2 come out in the same year as HL2 and that game was miles more enjoyable, even today. Not to mention, games released just a year later in 2005, such as FEAR and Call of Duty 2, are still revered for their gameplay and graphics. These three FPS games were far better and innovative than what HL2 could only dream to achieve.
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I played the three of them ( HL2 + ep ) few years back, much after release. They were great.
Loved the intro speech at the start. It was just running off speakers in game ..

I played halo 2 as well, much earlier. Was good, but definitely HL2 >>> Halo 2 for me.
COD - dont even care.
Loved Fear series, even the 3rd one which was just different.

Different people like different things i guess. That's fine.
I have not liked some other games with >90% ratings too.
Just like i think Indiana Jones movies and Die hard moves were all shit :)
 
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I suppose there will be a lot of pointless YouTube videos of people playing it but found the below video with the RTX Remix developer and project manager to be quite informative.

 
roadrash99 said:
Oh I didn't know that, are there any timelines for when it will be complete.

3060 right now, as the video shows it will be unplayable. Will need to upgrade. I'm only targeting to play this in the next year or two. I don't play a lot of games.
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I have a RTX 2000 Ada which trades blows with 3060 in other games. Here are the benchmarks

PRESETAVG FPS1%
1440p Ultra RT Ultra DLSS OFF108
1440p Ultra RT Ultra DLSS Performance (Transformer) FG OFF2617
1440p Ultra RT Ultra DLSS Performance (Transformer) FG ON4533
1440p High RT Medium DLSS Performance (Transformer) FG ON6253
 
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