Counter-Strike: Source Performance Explored

sand writes "While ATI has hooked up with Valve for Half-Life 2, a recent Firingsquad article gives the performance edge to NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 in Counter-Strike: Source. Six high-end cards are tested against CS:Source in four different maps under a wide variety of graphics settings with GeForce 6800 GT finishing ahead of X800 XT PE in some benchmarks."

Comments

Interesting Results

[whataboutMike]

Interesting results. The 6800 Ultra and GT take top in almost all the tests. I was expecting the X800 to preform a little better on Source.

Re:Interesting Results

[Ford Prefect]

People seem to reckon there's some evil conspiracy between ATI and Valve - while ATI has definitely helped Valve in various ways, it really doesn't sound like Valve has deliberately crippled performance of the Source engine if an Nvidia card is present.

Guess what brand of video cards the map designers for Half-Life 2 used?

I think it was just the bells-and-whistles DX9 stuff which was the major problem, and Nvidia's latest cards seem to have that sorted. I know what brand of card I'm getting next - the one with decent Linux drivers as well!

Flashbang!

[bryhhh]

This image showing the effect of a flashbang with the source engine, looks very much like one of the old 'wall hack' cheats.

Re:Flashbang!

[Anonymous Coward]

New flashbangs are insane!!!!

A direct hit with it completely makes your screen white and makes a "ringing sound" from both of your "ears" (Game has directional sound)

As it fades you slowly loose the white and the ringing and you start seeing "Double"

A near miss or a flash from a long ways away will just make you see "double"

Very very sick.

Just a note though. So far I prefer the old CS by far. And REALLY enjoy the new models I got from buying CS:S. I personally am very disappointed in the CS:S play/feel of the game. It lacks the addiction the old one has.

I would explain it better if I could... It's more of a feeling of how the characters move/react and how the guns feel when they fire. Can't explain exactly why though just really makes the game sorely lack on the Fun-O-Meter.

Fails to answer my question

[Prien715]

Even the lowest end card they tested was playable in most every resolution. What I want to know is whether I need a new GFX card for HL:Source at all.

What's the lowest level card you can play with and still get a decent gameplay experience for those of us without $300 to spend on a card that'll be obsolete in 2 years?

Rant of an NVIDIA fanboy

[spuzzzzzzz]

Nvidia seems to have thoroughly recovered from their 5xxx series. With doom3 and HL2 performing better on a 6800 than X800 there isn't much reason to buy an ATI card right now. Especially with the GNU/Linux driver issue.

I'll have a good laugh at the HL2 fanboy that mocked me for getting a 6800GT, saying that HL2 is going to be so much better than doom3 that we should all run out and get ATI cards.