Half-Life 2: 64-Bit - Reason to get excited?

[Rob Williams]

Finally, a 64-Bit version of Half-Life 2! Is there any reason to get excited about this, or is it something you just want to bypass? We take both versions through a few quick tests to see if the 64-Bit has what it takes to be the preferred version.

Feel free to discuss the article here once you have read it!

Personally, I hope my results are going to be of the minority. I am sure that Valve would have at least tested the results to see if it was even worth releasing. At any rate, I look forward to seeing bugs fixed.

 

[Unregistered]

I am also seeing the strange over-bright water in 32-bit. I am seeing serious graphics anomalies that were not there the last time I played Lost Coast as well.

The 64-bit update seems to have broken 32-bit graphics, at least on my Athlon 3000+ 64 (running 32-bit Windows XP SP2) system w/ a GeForce 7800 GTX (running version 81.94 drivers).

 

[Rob Williams]

Aye, it seems many people are having the same issues. I have no idea why they would have to modify 32-Bit tho..

 

[madmat]

I never noticed that gawdawful glare before Rob asked me about it and the drivers I'm using are the latest WHQL Forceware release and were the last time I played HL2 32bit.

That said I know when I got my compairison screengrab for Rob that I had to wait nearly 20minutes for updates so that may have been the cause. Whatever it was it looks like heck in that spot now.

 

[Unregistered]

Seems weird that it's not going above 87 FPS, seems like something is bottleknecking, very weird.

 

[Unregistered]

The over-bright water is indeed a bug introduced to the 32-bit version when the 64-bit patch was released. It affects all video cards and drivers, as long as they are running in DirectX 9 (PS2.0) mode.

It also seems to affect more than just water, and messes up on just about anything that uses cubemaps for reflection effects.

Apparently, not only did Valve do a poor job at beta testing the 64-bit version, they also didn't take the time to make sure they didn't break the 32-bit version in the process...

 

[Rob Williams]

It also seems to affect more than just water, and messes up on just about anything that uses cubemaps for reflection effects.

Good to know. I am curious if they BETA tested it.

 

[Unregistered]

when i ran 64bit hl2 playing at 1920x1200 4xFSAA 16xFSAF supersampling transparent AA it ran incredibly smooth. I keep v-sync on and it didnt have any fps drops at all. i dont know what the max fps was as thats not as important as average or min, but playing for quite a while i didnt notice any frame drops at all was a very welcome change.

however the lost coast ran much much worse.
it seemed to be locked on 30fps didnt go above that at all. very odd.

and as for the mega shine in 32bit this has also effected counter-strike source and is most annoying!

 

[Unregistered]

the newest update has fixed the glare type in the games.....someone mentioned why valve messed with the 32bit version....Valve did not, they changed the source engine to enable 64bit

 

[Rob Williams]

the newest update has fixed the glare type in the games.....someone mentioned why valve messed with the 32bit version....Valve did not, they changed the source engine to enable 64bit

Deadly, I just tested this out and it works as normal. Glad to see it didn't take Valve *too* long to sort things out.

 

[Drew Davis]

I ran some benchmarks using the Lost Coast video stress test. I have Steam installed in two completely different locations for Windows XP and for Windows XP x64 just to make sure nothing interferes.

I ran the video stress test 3 times in each operating system. I used the following settings:
1600x1200, all in-game image quality settings on High, Full HDR/Reflections, 4x AA and 8x AF.

Results:
32-bit: 71.46, 70.92, 70.35 FPS. Average 70.91 FPS.
64-bit: 60.48, 62.72, 61.57 FPS. Average 61.59 FPS.
On my system the video stress test ran with 15.1% higher FPS in 32-bit mode than in 64-bit mode. As mentioned before the load times were noticably quicker with 64-bit mode.

My system:
DFI LANPARTY nF4 UT SLI-DR Expert
AMD Opteron 148 @ 2750MHz (250x11)
2x 1GB OCZ Gold GX PC4000 3-4-3-7
eVGA 7800GTX 450/1200MHz
Sound Blaster Audigy 2

Needless to say I am very dissapointed that running in 64-bit mode actually decreased FPS. If it had increased the image quality substantially I wouldn't really mind. I hope Valve can figure out ways to optimize the game for 64-bit or figure out if something went wrong.

 

[Drew Davis]

I recently got another 7800GTX and ran the test with SLI enabled. Same system and settings as <u><a href="http://www.forums.techgage.com/showthread.php?p=6139#post6139">before</a></u> but with two 256 MB 7800GTXs.

I ran the video stress test 3 times in each operating system. I used the following settings:
1600x1200, all in-game image quality settings on High, Full HDR/Reflections, 4x AA and 8x AF.

Results:
<b>32-bit</b>: 110.38, 109.90, 109.07 FPS. <b>Average 109.78 FPS</b>.
<b>64-bit</b>: 102.76, 103.52, 103.02 FPS. <b>Average 103.10 FPS</b>.

This time the 32-bit mode ran with only 6.48% higher FPS than 64-bit mode.

 

[Rob Williams]

So, SLi or not, the 64-Bit edition will give you lower FPS. Doesn't really seem like an even trade-off. I agree with you on the image quality bit: If it looked better, bring on the lower FPS, but it looks identical.

Thanks for the benches.. very interesting.

 

[liqnit]

hi
i just installed XP 64 bit and i am still in testing
i want to see if Oblivion will do good on both

 

[Michael_R.]

where can I downloiad the x64 Version of HL2?

Thx,
Michael

 

[Rob Williams]

where can I downloiad the x64 Version of HL2?

Thx,
Michael

You need to have a 64-Bit version of Windows. Just install HL2 like any other time, it will automatically use the 64-Bit version. You will know, because it will say "64-Bit" in the corner.

 

[Unregistered]

Is there any way to revert back to the 32-bit version of HL2 if you're using XP x64?

 

[Rob Williams]

Not that I know of, but what's the reason? The x64 version should essentially be identical to the 32-bit version now. Is there a specific issue you are running into?

 

[Unregistered]

Not that I know of, but what's the reason? The x64 version should essentially be identical to the 32-bit version now. Is there a specific issue you are running into?

Yes. Whenever I try to load a game, I always get the "A.I. Disabled" message, and all the NPCs just freeze. Apparently this occurs if you have a pirated copy of the game, but I got my game from Steam. I also get the "Node graph out of date" message every time a new area loads. The "AI disabled" issue is more severe, though.

I tried enabling the AI through the console, but loading the game just disables it again. I tried reinstalling HL2 many times, no luck. I'm reinstalling HL2 at this moment, but I also reinstalled Steam. This time, I put Steam in the Program Files x64 folder instead of Program Files x86. I'm hoping the problem was that the game was being downloaded to the wrong directory...apparently you aren't supposed to put Steam in the Program Files x86 folder if you're running 64-bit Windows, as that causes problems. If this doesn't do it, I'm out of ideas.

 

[Rob Williams]

I've experienced both problems as well, but luckily had them fixed with a simple restart of the game. One thing I normally try before re-installing the game completely is right-clicking the game, and inside the menu somewhere, clicking "Verify Game Integrity". I've never had that help, but it scans the files to make sure nothing is broken.

I am not sure I have any ideas either, but do you know if it's related to the 64-Bit version of the game only? I don't have x64 installed, but are you able to access your shortcut properties and change the compatibility to 32-Bit Windows? If so, it might be worth giving a try, to fool Steam into running the 32-Bit version.