Half Life 2: Episode 1

Half-Life 2 Episode 1 is the first in a series of games that chronicle events after the end of Half-Life 2. The game engine is Valves “Source” however unlike the original Half-Life 2 valve have progressed on to the more advanced level with the addition of some excellent HDR lighting which combines very well with the existing engine to produce some lovely looking visuals which are at times mind blowing.

For our first test we ran the game with all the eye candy maxed at the standard resolution of 1600x1200. We expected the card to have little to no trouble handling it and we were right. With an average frame rate of 52 no stuttering or lagging was noticeable. Taking it up a notch we figured that this time the frame rate would suffer at least slightly. We were proven wrong – the card had absolutely no problems displaying the game at 1920x1200 even though AF and AA were both enabled! Definitely a good start.