For more than 20 years, the monthly hardware survey on the platform, called the Steam Hardware Survey, was started for a reason…
Launched in April 2003, the Steam Hardware Survey is now a great way to gauge what the average PC is made of these days. But Jay Stelly, senior engineer at Valve, explained that the monthly survey was originally created for another reason. Half-Life 2, which received a developer commentary for its 20th birthday, also features him on the Route Channel level, where he explains that Gabe Newell’s reasons for starting the now-established survey were somewhat prosaic:
“During development, we faced many decisions that were influenced by our choice of the minimum spec – the least powerful CPU and GPU combination that would still provide a good experience for customers. In the early 2000s, there was a much wider variety of GPUs than there is today, with big differences not only in speed but also in fundamental approaches to rendering. But at that time, we had no real data about the hardware our customers were using. What CPUs and GPUs did they have? How much RAM? What version of Windows? We turned to Microsoft, hoping they might have answers to questions like, “How many DX7 cards are in use? Or DX8?”
Unfortunately, they didn’t have the data either. Realizing that we were at risk of making bad decisions without this insight, we built an analytics tool that allowed players to report their hardware specs to us and integrated it into the early version of Steam. The data was so useful that we decided to make it public, launching the Steam Hardware Survey in April 2003. It’s been helping us – and hopefully other developers – make informed decisions ever since,” said Stelly.
The field of view (FOV) in Half-Life 2 was 75° by default, not the usual 90°. The reason for this is also explained in the game’s new developer commentary, but this was explained by Kerry Davis: “In Half-Life 1, we used a 90-degree field of view, or FOV, which was fairly standard for first-person shooters at the time. But during the development of Half-Life 2, we became dissatisfied with it. With the game’s focus on characters, we’d put a lot of effort into detailed facial and body animation, but the 90-degree FOV didn’t allow players to get close enough to fully appreciate that detail.
So we started experimenting with a narrower FOV and eventually landed on 75 degrees. It took some adjustment for us and the players, and it required an additional FOV for the viewmodels, which are the player’s weapon held at the bottom of the screen. Their models were originally built with 90 degrees in mind, so they looked distorted at 75 degrees. But this change allowed us to do what we wanted: To put our characters at the center of the game,” Davis said.
It’s a good thing they made such a big change, because Half-Life 2’s scanned faces and detailed animations were revolutionary in 2004…
Source: PCGamer,
