Half Life 2: Episode Two

Publisher: Valve

As one part of our game of the year 2007, Half-Life 2: Episode Two set a new high in narrative and gameplay for the series. Using Valve's widely used, albeit not overly hardware intensive, Source engine that also features as a part of legendary games like Counter-Strike, Team Fortress 2 and Portal, we were keen to feature its performance here too.

The Source engine is the most scalable engine we test. While it still supports only DirectX 9.0, it features effects like dynamic lighting with HDR effects, motion blur, advanced Havok Physics and high model details.

Episode Two took Half-Life outside into large open environments for the first time and we test with Gordon running through a large open level that combines forest and houses, with explosions and physics.

All in game detail settings are set to their highest levels, with HDR enabled, and for anti-aliasing MSAA was used where both settings were set from inside the game.








When 4xAA is enabled, the Radeon HD 4830 is faster than Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT, but slower than the GeForce 9800 GTX+; however, as soon as you turn 8xAA on, the 4830 manages to outclass even the GeForce 9800 GTX+ - a card that costs quite a bit more than it. The Radeon HD 4850 is around 15 percent faster, which fits in line with the price differential between the HIS Radeon HD 4830 and the cheapest 4850 available on the market.