Half-Life: Alyx (formerly: Half Life 3 is coming??)

mrcheez

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

Cool post bro.

Ah I think you deserve more of the credit

Potential-Monke

While it is disappointing that it will be VR only, it's still more Half-Life so yurt! But, it will be PC only which is a shame. Unless the PSVR2 on the PS5 has the finger tracking sensors, it will never come to console, so I most likely won't ever be able to play it, as I certainly don't have upwards of €3k to buy everything needed. I'd love to play it, but not that much... And I've no doubt it will bring VR to the forefront.

Edit: Will it work on the Quest with the Index controllers? That would be affordable-ish.

mrcheez

It would work on Quest with the Link cable and Touch controllers (same as it would work with Rift)

dreamers75

Absolutely

Those VR game rooms will make a few quid out of this I reckon.

B.A._Baracus

Absolutely

mrcheez wrote: »

Ah I think you deserve more of the credit

Whatever.

lmimmfn

Looks fantastic, will be sooo good in VR, can't wait

Dr Bob

mewso wrote: »

Is that Rhys Darby's voice I heard in the trailer?

yep.

fergus1001

lmimmfn wrote:

Looks fantastic, will be sooo good in VR, can't wait

to bad us commoners wont be able to play it cant even for half life invest 3k in equipment to play one game

lmimmfn

fergus1001 wrote: »

to bad us commoners wont be able to play it cant even for half life invest 3k in equipment to play one game

While I understand the argument having played HL2VR before valve busted it was an amazing experience, proper physics in VR is absolutely amazing.

On the price point, 3k is a stupid argument, 800-900 for second hand gaming PC and 400 or less for a rift. PC gaming is cheaper overall( because its a pc and has other uses) so not getting into that argument, so that argument fails.

fergus1001

lmimmfn wrote:

On the price point, 3k is a stupid argument, 800-900 for second hand gaming PC and 400 or less for a rift. PC gaming is cheaper overall( because its a pc and has other uses) so not getting into that argument, so that argument fails.

I have a pc at this point in time i would have to upgrade to rtx2080 (800) and steam index (800) so 1600 for someone who already has a PC ! madness.

lmimmfn

fergus1001 wrote: »

I have a pc at this point in time i would have to upgrade to rtx2080 (800) and steam index (800) so 1600 for someone who already has a PC ! madness.

Why index, why 2080? I have a nearly 3 year old oculus cv1 and 2+ year old 1080Ti and I'm fine with this
There are a lot cheaper options.

Icyseanfitz

fergus1001 wrote: »

I have a pc at this point in time i would have to upgrade to rtx2080 (800) and steam index (800) so 1600 for someone who already has a PC ! madness.

you don't need a 2080 or Index for vr, anything over a 1070 will probably be perfect. then get a rift cv2 for 400

fergus1001

fergus1001 wrote: »

I have a pc at this point in time i would have to upgrade to rtx2080 (800) and steam index (800) so 1600 for someone who already has a PC ! madness.

Yes, those are the minimum requirements and it only works with the marginally better and twice as expensive Index. If you want to play, you "have to" get them.

Sucks I know. Probably best to just unsubscribe from the thread so us rich folk can talk in peace.

Potential-Monke

Jesus, you'd swear that money just grew on trees for some people. Buying a VR headset for PC alone is too much for some people to justify, get down off your high horses there people.

If I wanted to upgrade my PC to be able to play this, to the minimum required, I'd need to change/upgrade the following (as per the min spec, so not even recommended):

Have: Core i5 3570k
Have: 8GB RAM
Have: HD Radeon 7850

Need: Core i5 7500 (€200)
Need: 12GB (€50 for same card, or €70 for different 16GB)
Need: GTX 1060 (€170+)
Need: VR Headset (as above, €400)

So in order to make my PC ready for min spec HL:A, I need to spend ~€800. That's just too high. Not that I can't afford it, but I can't justify it for 1 game. You could say it's upgraded for other games then, but until when? Nearly every article with a Google result from 'Half Life Alyx Min spec' returns loads of results stating that up to 45% of the Steam playerbase don't have the min required. If I wanted the recommended, throw another few hundred at least onto that, and as someone said in the VR thread, if you're going to do VR on PC, do it right. Min, imo, won't be enough for a proper enjoyable experience.

mrcheez

lmimmfn wrote: »

Looks fantastic, will be sooo good in VR, can't wait

Indeed, and wireless VR via Quest and Virtual Desktop will make it even better. This and Last of Us Part 2 will be instabuys for me in 2020.

Icyseanfitz

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Jesus, you'd swear that money just grew on trees for some people. Buying a VR headset for PC alone is too much for some people to justify, get down off your high horses there people.

If I wanted to upgrade my PC to be able to play this, to the minimum required, I'd need to change/upgrade the following (as per the min spec, so not even recommended):

Have: Core i5 3570k
Have: 8GB RAM
Have: HD Radeon 7850

Need: Core i5 7500 (€200)
Need: 12GB (€50 for same card, or €70 for different 16GB)
Need: GTX 1060 (€170+)
Need: VR Headset (as above, €400)

So in order to make my PC ready for min spec HL:A, I need to spend ~€800. That's just too high. Not that I can't afford it, but I can't justify it for 1 game. You could say it's upgraded for other games then, but until when? Nearly every article with a Google result from 'Half Life Alyx Min spec' returns loads of results stating that up to 45% of the Steam playerbase don't have the min required. If I wanted the recommended, throw another few hundred at least onto that, and as someone said in the VR thread, if you're going to do VR on PC, do it right. Min, imo, won't be enough for a proper enjoyable experience.

At 1080p a gtx1060 will run games very well, I mean it's half life and it's being released on pc, even if it wasn't vr you'd want a decent gaming pc anyway to run it. Your current GPU, 7850 was originally released in 2012, a gtx 1060 would be night and day compared to that.

Homelander

Absolutely

Also those specs are very outdated. The i5-7500 and GTX1060 are completely obsolete, a Ryzen 2600 is $120, Intel 9400F is $150, both are completely superior to the 7500, a GTX1660 is cheaper than the 1060 was and way faster too.

Also the 7850 was a mid-range card in 2012, at this point you would need to upgrade it to play any normal AAA games unless you are OK running at low resolution and settings/framerate, so that is not really a VR thing, your PC is just really outdated anyway. It is below the minimum specs for most big AAA games.

There are other options, a 2nd hand 3770 is about 60 euro, a new gtx1650 is 150, another stick of ram new about 30. So around 240 quid to run most of the latest games at high or ultra settings/high framerate, and it would be capable of vr if you went down that road.

mrcheez

also worth mentioning there will be a glut of second hand VR headsets when this launches as more people upgrade to latest Rift or Index, so could prob pick one up cheaply.

Potential-Monke

I do appreciate I have an old pc, and I don't use it much/at all anymore, so hasn't been upgraded since initial purchase. The ease and comfort of console gaming has brought me back to it.

And that's all well and good, and I consider myself of having a good overall knowledge of computing (I now work in networking, working towards Cisco certification, so I should have some bit of knowledge), but choosing the right parts is beyond me most times, as there's too many versions with the same names and different specs. I can't keep up with it. So add that on top of having to upgrade every few years if you want to play at mid-high (why aim to play at low?) and it's just restrictive for most people.

I honestly think GPU and CPU naming needs an overhaul to make it easier for most people to follow. For example, if you search GTX 1060 in Amazon, you have 67 results ranging from $130 to $1799! Without thoroughly understanding, how can the average person tell which of these 2 is better:

ZOTAC ZT-P10600G-10M GeForce GTX 1060 AMP+ Edition 9Gbps 6GB GDDR5 192-bit PCIe 3.0 Gaming Graphics Card VR Ready - $599.99
Gigabyte GV-N1060AORUS X-6GD AORUS Xtreme GeForce GTX 1060 6G 9 Gbps Computer Graphics Card - $1,799.00

On initial view, the one for $599.99 seems better, but only because it has more in the title. The Quest is an option, an affordable option, but is it powerful enough to have a good experience with HL:A? As mentioned in another thread, the last thing you want is a low frame rate and screen tearing in VR, so the more powerful the better. I don't know. Valve are obviously happy that they're releasing a game that only a few, in the grand scheme of things, will be able to play.

Edit: Sorry for bringing this off topic!

Get an RX 5700 instead

Homelander

Absolutely

Those are old listings, just random with no logic to them. Those cards would sell for about $100 2nd hand. A GTX1660 is a much faster card and costs $180-200 brand new, something like a GTX1650 is similar and is about $140. $500 would get you the cards that are aimed at 4K or 144hz gaming like 5700xt or rtx2070 super.

Proper PC parts sites are much easier to work out, like OCUK, SCAN, and so on. Amazon tend to have decent prices, but the organisation of their pc parts section is a total mess if you don't know what you are looking for.

The best value in a new PC on a budget is to build a good core with decent processor and low to mid range card, and upgrade graphics card every year or two, that way you are always running at high settings for fairly small money, and a well chosen processor should last about 8 years or so.

eg right now 600 would build you a Ryzen 3600 PC with a gtx1660, run all games on ultra settings, processor will be viable for a really long time, and in 2 years time the gtx1660 will still be worth say, 100-120 euro, while an improved replacement will cost about 200-250.

cnocbui

Now we know why the Xbox One Scorpio proxect Scarlet will have so much grunt - the penny drops. Also noting that Microsoft have started playing nice with Valve by putting the Masterchief collection on Steam and Valve in turn have recompiled the Orange box for the Xbox One X. It would seem MS and Valve have been getting together behind the scenes for a while now.

If the next Xbox can run Alyx and the Index, then that will drive Xbox sales and Valve gets higher sales of Alyx and Indexes.

mrcheez

Just remember regarding Quest, you still need the PC capable of running a Rift. When the PC is involved either wired using Link or wireless using Virtual Desktop (awesome btw) the processing is all done by a VR capable pc.

Only go for Quest if you want the wireless option.

You still need the video card etc as with all other headsets.

Potential-Monke

What? I thought that was the purpose of the Quest, standalone?

mrcheez

Potential-Monke wrote: »

What? I thought that was the purpose of the Quest, standalone?

The Quest is standalone for "Quest apps" developed for the headset's Android OS.

Half Life Alyx will be a Steam game. In this sense you run it via Steam, which means it runs on the PC.

The recent "Link" update for Quest essentially just allows you to connect to a VR-capable machine and run VR content that is designed to be used with a Rift / Vive / Index. It opens up all the VR content to Quest owners that don't have a Rift etc.

In this case, the Quest is simply a display headset.

Note: the "Link" cable isn't a necessity and you can connect to the PC wirelessly using Virtual Desktop, but again all processing for the VR game is done by the PC and Virtual Desktop just sends all image data to the headset via your local router.

Potential-Monke

I got ya! Thanks!

riclad

I read on kotaku today, the staff at valve were afraid to make half life 3,
its easier to make a prequel on vr,
Making a half life 3 is tough, it would have to be fantastic ,
it would take years to do it.it would be a very demanding project.
Like making a new god of war game for the ps4 was.
i think the way valve works is people can choose what to work on.
valve does not need to make a game to make money.
See the last of us 2, people have high standard,s now ,
characters have to look real,with realistic 3 d animation, hdr hi res graphics .
The article mention is modders, might be able to make a pc game from
Alyx that just runs as a pc game, with no vr headset needed .

https://kotaku.com/it-sucks-that-half-life-alyx-is-vr-only-but-im-still-1839987046

Going by the trailer it looks great like i imagine hl3 but with no gordon freeman .
At least it shows that people in valve care about half life .
I think half life 3 would make a great game for the new consoles ,
even if it was exclusive to sony or microsoft.
Its like valve does not like the no 3,
no portal 3 ,no sign of half life 3.

mrcheez

riclad wrote: »

i think the way valve works is people can choose what to work on.

Yup pretty much. People can join whatever project interests them, it's not like you are instructed from above to work on a specific project (as with most workplaces).

Must be so cool to work there

nix

The reason people are still "waiting" for half life 3 is because of have how half life 2 ended, if they had just wrapped it all up instead of leaving off where they did, there wouldn't be as much out cry.

I did want a half life 3 to wrap it all up at a time, but its been so long now and nobody seems to want to finish it, so its probably best left undone.

This VR game though is just gonna make it worse, why did they bother making it a half life game :rolleyes::pac:

B.A._Baracus

Absolutely

riclad wrote: »

I read on kotaku today, the staff at valve were afraid to make half life 3,
its easier to make a prequel on vr,
Making a half life 3 is tough, it would have to be fantastic ...........
Its like valve does not like the no 3,
no portal 3 ,no sign of half life 3.

Only my two cents but I think HL:Alyx, if successful, will lead on to HL3.
Very smart move by Valve. As you say the idea of making 3 was always going to be hard and as time goes by the bar will get higher. So why not just make a prequel using something new as VR and if they sells great and people love it... well hey here is HL3. Everything you loved about HL:Alyx and more!