I see over at ShackNews a few screenies from the Half-Life 2: Lost Coast add-on, which I figure is being published by GNA soft although I have never heard of em before.

Interesting bit is the project will add high-dynamic range rendering to the Source engine. As long as the level of HDR is adjustable as it was when introduced to the Far Cry engine this should make some add ons and mods look even better in the Source engine.

http://www.users.on.net/~dwegner/Pics/coast1.jpg

http://www.users.on.net/~dwegner/Pics/coast2.jpg

Holy s***balls that looks sweet

mmm pretty =)

f*** that looks awesome.

Hope the add-on is better than the normal game.

Time to upgrade my GeForce 6800Ultra

second picture looks awesome

Yeah, but they said that in order to run it well, you pretty much need top of the line everything... I don't think me Radeon 9600 with quite cut it... Depressing :'(

Time to upgrade my GeForce 6800Ultra

TOOO?!?

Edit1: Added quote
Edit2: Holly f***. That second picture is stunning.
Edit3: Omg their both goooood!

last edited by Ecstasy at 23:38:54 26/Apr/05

Ecstasy I think thats his point.

Clearly valve are trying to make up for the lack of graphics technologies in there upcomming patches. This is a cop out if you ask me, although its better then never getting it at all or waiting for HL3 or there next game.

They may have a screenshot looking good but I would want to see the framerates on most cards even my 6800 Ultra will probably chug.

even my 6800 Ultra will probably chug.

I dunno, my Asus 6800 Ultra ran HDR in Far Cry just fine and dandy. I think you might be surprised just how well a high end card with the right cpu would run HDR in Source.

HDR certainly looks sweet in Far Cry and if its anything to go by then I reckon it would run at a pretty fair clip in Source. It certainly adds to the 'immersion' factor that's for sure.

that looks swoit! I bet it kills my gf4 4200 :(

I just downloaded and watched the 174MB zip of the video of it in action.

Really, it wasn't very impressive. The screenshots did it more justice, assuming they tweak it to make it look better. Towards the end of the clip, the whole scene was just saturated and looked like arse.

Think Anti-Doom3, where you also can't see anything because it's too f***ing bright.

dont you find that you can never seem to recreate the same level of beauty that thay show you in these "screen-caps", ... no mater the level of deatail you set your options to.

the whole scene was just saturated and looked like arse

yeh HDR can do that, the 'bloom' effect can make scenes way too over exposed, but if they make it configurable (like in Far Cry) you should be able to just add enough and get your settings just right, to make it look great. It will still be interesting to see how it pans out.

HDR certainly looks sweet in Far Cry

Psycho! Its the 1.4 patch that enables that isnt it? Doesnt that patch also nuke multiplayer?

u can see a vid at gametrailers.com - looks very nice

last edited by ravn0s at 08:33:15 27/Apr/05

thats amazing, crazy how game graphics keep getting better and better.

I might have to upgrade my 32 meg geforce 1........actually f*** it cant be assed playing HL, and it handles wow just fine :D

So my poor old 9600xt won't be able to play this game? :(

What I find amusing/weird is that they showed off demos of the HDR rendering before HL2 was released (remember the penis monster on the roof?) What the heck happened that they cut it out and held it back till the addon? Wonder whether the implementation was dodgy, or whether they just ran out of time trying to implement everything they wanted, or whether it's just been held back as a sweetener to encourage people to buy the addon.

The shots do look nice though. And I agree with Parabol, I hope they allow it to be adjusted. Too much bloom makes it look like arse just as much as too little light. Who cares if it looks more realistic? If I can't see anything it's not fun.

I’d agree with you EviL, they always look stunning in the screenies, and then in game, fall short. Setup renders

Also agree with sKryBe. I noticed that they cut some light effects and shinny iron effect too; that slimy penis monster effect was there (hard to see in the dark of the prison), but seemed very scaled back and done cheaply.

Finally
You’re an idiot Ecstasy, so obvious I was joking. Don't even have an Ultra, just a GT.

Looks pretty damn stunning, looking forward to it

I’d agree with you EviL, they always look stunning in the screenies, and then in game, fall short. Setup renders

Not to mention a bit of the ol'
http://mc.clintock.com/first_floor/study_1/bookshelves_1/ICON-images/CDroms/photoshop_v7.jpg

Too true unfortunately
There is always perfect AA an AF

Erm... You do know that you could upgrade from a Ultra to something more like Quadro or a ATi FireGL right?

Not like the Ultra is the best/fastest card on the market or anything, heck you could even go SLi!

It's when you try upgrading from SLi Quadro FX 4400 512Mb that it makes things harder.

d*******

Who has a big epenis?

i have eTIT

quadro's aren't faster than normal gaming cards.. they just have different optimizations.. namely for high poly counts and better stencil buffers, etc to name a few.. but most will fall short in benchmarks involving games.. but leap up and run so nicely in 3dsmax or maya.

http://auscube.ausgamers.com/quake-4-20050429041346310.jpg

the guys right hand (the one on the gun) looks retarted 0.o

Yea the guy on the right hand side of the picture looks really bad and the guy on the left, his hand on the gun looks kinda unnatural and mong.. but nice detail all the same :P

that screenie is from quake4?

Dont waste your time with a game like this which is obviously pure make believe.....WOW is much more realistic,plus,the screen shots on the box look exactly like what it does in game.I pity all those who havn't experianced the world that is WARCRAFT!