Painkiller physics slowdowns, same thing in HL2?

[DigitalAssassin]

I experienced pretty major slowdowns whenever barrels were blown up in Painkiller. My processor choked when a dozen barrels, all sitting on top of eachother, were blown to little bits and tossed around like confetti.

Half Life 2 will be very Physics dependant. Do you think we will experience the same sorts of slowdowns on slower computers, and will there be settings to decrease the accuracy of physics calculations for older computers?

I'd like education opinions if possible, and I want to know if I am alone in my Painkiller physics frustrations.

Here are my system specs for reference:
Northwood P4 2.53ghz
1gig DDR 333 PC2700
Radeon 9700 Pro

Discuss.

 

[Kyorisu]

Both games use Havok, howether we don't know how each company has modded it. I'd imagine there would be slow downs on older tech. Ie dropping a cargo container onto 10 barrels.

Well have to wait and see.

 

[poseyjmac]

I'd like education opinions if possible

im a firm believer in a good education. although learning trig and calculus in high school is useless for the majority of people taking it imo.

 

[Colonel Sanders]

I experience some slow down with Painkiller, but it wasn't enough to bother me. In CS:S I have noticed that when I shoot barrels, the reaction is slightly delayed, so I assume that both games share a similar problem when it comes to this implemenation of physics.

And for the record I have the same computer specs as you do Assassin.

 

[Wolfy Snackrib]

Yeah I hate those slowdowns, like when you hit an antlion with your car the first time it laggs for about 1 second.

 

[aeroripper]

Are you talking about a 1 sec delay from the videos? If you are that's just from the video playback and pretty normal its not 100% synced up

I'ld imagine the physics will be just like they should be in the singleplayer

 

[Sparta]

Thats the beta dude, and the CS:S lags when you shoot barrels because they are server side not client side

 

[Tiddalick]

My machine runs Painkiller pretty well.
There is only one level where it slows down and thats cause there is a billion men chasing me at once ( I forget the levels name )

I don't think that slow downs will be to much of a problem with HL2, not from the physics engine at least.
Both Painkiller and HL2 use the havoc engine in their core, so I would guess that you could expect a similar performace. Remember that valve took the engine and changed it to suit them more, it would be hard to say for sure until the game is out. They have had a while to tweak the engine though and as physics are such an intergral part of the game im sure they made sure that the minimum requirments machine plays it well.

 

[Ragnarokk]

I believe the barrel in CSS thing is related to it being mutiplayer. I think the client has to wait for the server to tell it where the barrel went.

On the first subject, I never experienced physics related slowdowns in painkiller. Graphical slowdowns in more than one way, but not any physics ones. Even on my old comp that was a ~2ghz athlon.

 

[ytinupmi]

yes hl2 will react the same if there are enough physics objects interacting together, as will doom3, or any other game using physics.

 

[obiwanquinobi]

im a firm believer in a good education. although learning trig and calculus in high school is useless for the majority of people taking it imo.

lol - am I the only one who appreciates this here quip?

:naughty:

 

[destrukt]

i'm trying to wonder why it was slowing down on your computer. . . your comp is fast enough to run it high detail, 1024, everything on.

 

[A.I.]

I think this would be an anwser to your worries:
http://bbspot.com/News/2003/12/valve_unified_theory.html

 

[Yogibbear]

well, I have a very average computer compared to yours, and I didnt experience any physics slow downs, or video rlated slow downs... it's like 1.2 ghz, P4, 256mb ram. So yeah, it's probably only something wrong either
- with your graphics card; which i highly doubt,
- or system resources were being used by something else
- or my computer fluked a perfect display of the video and subsequently will explode tomorrow. ????

 

[Dead-Inside]

Both games use Havok, howether we don't know how each company has modded it. I'd imagine there would be slow downs on older tech. Ie dropping a cargo container onto 10 barrels.

Well have to wait and see.

Actually we do.

Some guy, sorry I don't remember the name, figured out how to do the physical equation in one line (Instead of 3-4) which improves performance incredibly. Some guy at some university playing the HL2 ripped code said that he "Must release the code to the public" and shit. ****ing moronic ass.

Anyway, that's the deal.

I think this would be an anwser to your worries:
http://bbspot.com/News/2003/12/valve_unified_theory.html

^ What he said.

 

[MrMethane]

Um, I don't know if my sarcasm detector is out of order, but that article is a joke.

 

[poseyjmac]

lol - am I the only one who appreciates this here quip?

:naughty:

few can recognize my comic genius, but you sir, are one of them. :smoking:

 

[Yogibbear]

hm.... i was wondering if i need to upgrade my computer to play hl2;

i have a pretty average; p4, 512mb ram, 1.2 gHz, 64mb geforce 2,

and what should i upgrade to?? if i want to get the best out of hl2 and stuff and avoid these physics problems?? if there are any?

 

[poseyjmac]

hm.... i was wondering if i need to upgrade my computer to play hl2;

i have a pretty average; p4, 512mb ram, 1.2 gHz, 64mb geforce 2,

and what should i upgrade to?? if i want to get the best out of hl2 and stuff and avoid these physics problems?? if there are any?

it really depends on how much you are willing to spend, what framerate you want, and what visual quality you want. you might want to start a thread in hardware forum, so you can get some opinions, because this can escalate into many replies.

 

[Dilbert]

If theres anyone out there that really thinks they arent gonna get some slowdown in this game even if they have got the very latest cpu gfx and memory combo then they are gonna be severely dissapointed.

When HL1 shipped the most upto date computer available was a PII 450mhz with Voodoo2's in sli, I dont think many people would fancy playing HL1 on that kit now tbh .... but back then cos it was the most upto date system available it seemed good.

Same thing will apply with HL2, couple of years after its released there will be hardware available to play it with the optimum settings.... but certainly not when its initially released .... just the way games are tbh ... hardware is always playing catch-up with the latest games.

 

[poseyjmac]

dont be so quick to generalize. i would agree with you if hl2 came out last year, but with the speed of athlon 64 chips plus the newest video cards out, i think they will easily tame hl2, at high resolutions, AA, AF, and plenty of physics.

 

[Kyorisu]

I tried out Painkiller again after reinstalling it set everything on high at 1024x768 and experienced no slow downs. Even when I simultaniously blew up 10 or so barrels.

Specs

1.3ghz duron
256mb pc 333 ddr ram
Radeon 9600 pro overclocked core to 450 mem at 425 (no artifacts)
Windows XP pro with service pack 2 installed.

It's not strange to see this kind of behaviour for instance, I have a p90 laptop sitting under my desk with only 16mb of edo ram, which is running faster than a p200 with 32mb edo. It's all to do with what crap you have running/installed.

 

[poseyjmac]

It's all to do with what crap you have running/installed.

..and what your definition of a 'slowdown' is as well

 

[NeLi]

Try creating a level in DooM3 where you've built a house out of explosive barrels. THen you shoot the house.

My computer died when I did that.

 

[Kyorisu]

..and what your definition of a 'slowdown' is as well

Fps dropped by 10 when I blew those barrels.

 

[Dilbert]

dont be so quick to generalize. i would agree with you if hl2 came out last year, but with the speed of athlon 64 chips plus the newest video cards out, i think they will easily tame hl2, at high resolutions, AA, AF, and plenty of physics.

Its not a generalisation, its just being realistic based on my exeperience over the years .... hardware is always playing cath-up with the latest games.

I remember people very envious of my system when HL1 came out cos they were playing on lesser systems and perception and reality was that it was much better to play it on whta I had compared to what they had..... but like ive already said I wouldnt even try to play it on that now or even something a bit newer.

You may not notice it so much in single player where if your system slows down so does that of your enemy cos your playing the comouters AI but in online play where someone else may have a slightly better system or more tweaked settings than you so dont get the same amount of slow down you notice it a lot more cos you end up dead

HL1 came out nearly 6 years ago, I wouldnt fancy playing it on a computer 3 years old in online play let alone something even older.

 

[InZaneFlea]

Athlon 64 2800+, Radeon 9800 Pro 256, 1 gig PC3200 DDR.

No slowdowns in Painkiller at all. on high detail it choked horribly, but that was because hwen I played it last I only had 256 pc3200 DDR. Since then I've gotten more -.-

 

[crownest]

I dont think HL2 will have the same slowdowns. Just ask yourself which is better an ordinary Havok 2.0 Physics engine or a Source engine with a heavily beefed up Havok 2.0 Physics engine?

 

[Mountain Man]

In CS:S I have noticed that when I shoot barrels, the reaction is slightly delayed...

That's server lag.

As far as I know Painkiller uses a canned Havok engine while Half-Life 2 uses Valve's own custom build based on the Havok code, so I would imagine Valve's is more highly optimized for their game.

 

[Mountain Man]

Try creating a level in DooM3 where you've built a house out of explosive barrels. THen you shoot the house.

My computer died when I did that.

That's because Doom 3 has terrible physics. All of Carmack's time was spent optimizing the shadow rendering.

 

[DarkStar]

Both games use Havok, howether we don't know how each company has modded it.

I'm pretty sure that Painkiller just used the vanilla Havok 2 engine with few if any modifications. Valve has said they've been working hard tweaking and patching up Havok, so it should be way more realistic/optimized.

 

[Ahnteis]

I dont think HL2 will have the same slowdowns. Just ask yourself which is better an ordinary Havok 2.0 Physics engine or a Source engine with a heavily beefed up Havok 2.0 Physics engine?

HL2 uses a modified Havok (not Havok 2) engine.

 

[ytinupmi]

That's because Doom 3 has terrible physics. All of Carmack's time was spent optimizing the shadow rendering.

keep telling yourself that, same thing will happen in hl2 i guarantee it.

 

[thefiznut]

To those who actually beleive that article, and that HL2 has a grand unified physics theory implemented, I salute you. (end sarcasm)

 

[poseyjmac]

.

HL2 isn't the latest technology though, doom3 and farcry are more strenous on the system than this. and its still a generalization even if you've based it off many games in the past. we will see soon enough. its just unwise to make such a generalization without considering specific current hardware or the source engine.

 

[Orange]

I got some long slowdowns when there were tons of guys.

But for the most part, the game looked incredible for how smoothly it was running on my radeon 9000 pro.
Yeah, not a great card, lol.
1.7 Ghz. intel 4. 512 mb memory.

Btw, did you know that the giga prefix was originally pronounced "jigga"
Proof: Back to the future series "1 point 21 jiggawatts!"

 

[DigitalAssassin]

Interesting, must have been something wrong with my system. It ran great (I'd estimate 40fps on average) except when I was blowing stuff up or plastering things to walls. It would literally drop to 2-3fps, and that was using the latest drivers.

Not a problem though, and I don't particularly want to install it again and see if it still does that.

Oh, and forgive that 'education opinions...' typo. It was late.

Thanks guys.

 

[Kiva128]

keep telling yourself that, same thing will happen in hl2 i guarantee it.

And since YOU gauranteed it, then it MUST be true. I guarantee it.

 

[ytinupmi]

And since YOU gauranteed it, then it MUST be true. I guarantee it.

mock all you like, when you have the game in your hands you will see for yourself.

 

[Ragnarokk]

Interesting, must have been something wrong with my system. It ran great (I'd estimate 40fps on average) except when I was blowing stuff up or plastering things to walls. It would literally drop to 2-3fps, and that was using the latest drivers.

Not a problem though, and I don't particularly want to install it again and see if it still does that.

Oh, and forgive that 'education opinions...' typo. It was late.

Thanks guys.

It was probably graphic slowdown, not physics related. That game has a lot of graphic problems, mine that would drive me down to single digit fps.