Oh yes, and if you just ran through hl2 lost coast just to run through it, do it a second time with godmode on, just so you can take the time to look at everything wihout worrying about the people trying to shoot you.

I still think they could have made it a little less corny and demoed that whole map, but playing a second time to admire the new technology was worth doing.

I just bought FEAR last night. It looks like shit on my machine compared to HL2. I do have the settings on the medium-low end of the spectrum for FEAR though.

im running 640x480 with 2xaa, it looks decent enough, high processing settings and medium - custom video settings
it rarly falls below 25 fps but when it does its more of a system pause then a chug in the graphics.

where as with hl2 i could run at 1280x1024 high or almost high eveything and it ran fine

yeah I run 1024x768 with everything max, no AA, 4xAF. Usually stays around 50 FPS or so.

With HL2 I can run 1600x1200 2xAA 8xAF max everything else and it stays right around 70 FPS.

Yeah, that's right Will.

I haven't looked at my setup for HL2 in a while but I don't think I was using any AA in it. I'll check when I get home. But when I fire it (or CSS) up in 1280x1024 I don't say "wow, look at those jaggies!" nor "nice slideshow you've got here". When I run FEAR in 1024x768 those are two of the first things I say to myself.

yes... I've definitely noticed that all the wall corners are jaggy... I've messed with the settings a bunch and when I get to where the corners are no longer jaggy.. the game will hang up for like .5 secs every once and a while...

...

...

just beat fear.. perty good game

HL2 did use its engine to its full potential. I played Vampire: Bloodlines, which also uses the source engine, and it didin't come close in graphical prowess.

As for F.E.A.R., it emphasises different graphical effects. HL2 was all about dynamic lighting, open enviroments and physics. F.E.A.R. is all about partical effects and funcky shader routines(for the playable vision cutscenes). I don't think it's fairl to compare the two engines because they were designed with different purposes in mind-- F.E.A.R. is set in dark spooky indoor levels, while half-life took place mostly outdoors( a refreshing change from HL1 might I add).

As for how useable the engines are, the reason the F.E.A.R. doesn't run as well is due mostly to the insane amount of particle effects in the game.
My machine tends to do alright until I run into firefights, then it slows way down to like 20fps.