Depicted from left to right in the picture above are: Gary McTaggart/Software Developer, Dr. Paul Debevec from the University of Southern California, Gabe Newell/Founder and Managing Director of Valve, Chris Green/Software Engineer, and Ken Birdwell/Senior Software Development Engineer.

At the end of the day, I asked Gabe to do some gaming in his office and took several pictures of him at home, in his gaming environment he helped to ultimately create.

The most pleasing photograph I shot on the entire Valve excursion, was the one that you'll see below. In it, you will see Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve and current Managing Director, with a look of pure joy on his face as he enjoys something he helped create. It is a classic picture of Gabe at his finest.

In this DriverHeaven forum thread I began before my trip to Valve, I asked for questions from the gaming community. In this section of the article I will present the answers I got from Valve.

#1. Will there be an auto-updater soon for video drivers? "We are working with ATI and nVidia but we are not anywhere near it now" "Consumers want it and are frustrated with low long it is taking in reality" -question answered by Gabe Newell

#2. After the game engines evolve into something more dynamic and shader intensive, will that exclude the vast multitude of enthusiasts who cannot afford the $600 hundred dollar video cards and tricked out systems? "There are options for tuning off and on HDR within the game options." "We need to take advantage of the latest technology, while at the same time shipping products to the vast majority" - Quotes from Gabe Newell

#3. Are there any other plans to support other features like 3Dc and even higher quality texture maps? Are the rumors of Shader Model 3 true? "All the improvements you mentioned are currently on our road map." "Shader Model 3.0 was used in a couple scenes in Lost Coast." - answered by Chris Green.

#4. What would you say you are most proud of, about the development of Lost Coast? "High-Dynamic Range" - answered by Gabe Newell.

#5. Are the stuttering and hitching problems which have been reported in HL2 and CS: Source expected in future releases? How will Valve fix the stuttering and hitching bugs that get blamed on drivers but could be source code related? We'd really like Valve's comments on this. (addressed by a forum thread on DriverHeaven here after returning from the demo).

"You know, that's how we make ourselves better, by listening to others." - Gabe Newell

Erik Johnson, Program Manager at Valve answered: "We would like to work with individuals and start with that. We've seen hitching caused by overheating GPU's, and also some bugs in the sound area that were our fault. Valve would like email from all concerned parties addressed to Erik Johnson."

Note by author: This is where I began publishing Valve's responsiveness to this issue upon my return home - we at DriverHeaven certainly appreciate their responsiveness and willingness to listen to the end user, the consumer.

#6. What is the estimated cost of Aftermath? Is it going to have multiplayer functionality? Is the voice at the end of the video teaser Gman's? "Aftermath will be available in single player mode only at an estimated cost of $12.95. Yes, the voice is from Gman on the video". - Gabe Newell

I'd like to take this opportunity to personally thank the following people at Valve for their assistance during and after my visit.

Thanks to Kathy Gehrig and Doug Lombardi for making all the arrangements, Gabe Newell for answering my concerns and letting me into his office, Chris Green and Gary McTaggart - 2 most excellent engineers who stepped off in style at this event, and Erik Johnson for his responsiveness in dealing with customer concerns. My personal thanks are also extended to Dr. Paul Debevec, who came up to me after the presentation and thanked me for the questions I asked, and emailed me later that evening asking if I had other questions for him. We continued an email correspondence which greatly aided in producing this piece.

Driverheaven Contacts: Writer: Steve "WxChaser" Carmel (USA Hardware Editor)
Design: Allan "Zardon" Campbell (Site Owner)

 

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