Grabbing eagerly onto every shred of information, hoping against hope that this time, no, this time, Half-Life 3 might actually be real. I’ve been doing this for 18 years, ever since the credits rolled on Half-Life 2 Episode Two, and like, I imagine, everyone reading this, I’m tired. I want to crawl into a Gordon Freeman-y stasis sleep – wake me up when Half-Life 3 actually happens. On the contrary, I still get a buzz whenever a fresh hint about HL3 slips into the gossip mill. You’ve likely heard of Half-Life X, the supposed codename for whatever it is Valve is working on. Based on some new, hidden code strings, there’s reason to believe HLX – which could well be Half-Life 3 – is already in the optimization stage.
You know the drill by now – take everything with an HEV-suitful of salt. But the latest Deadlock update, same as recent updates for Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2, contains a mention of ‘HLX,’ the in-development project that is thought to be the next Half-Life game, i.e. Half-Life 3. That in itself isn’t a huge deal. A lot of Source 2 updates over the last few years make reference to HLX. What’s different this time is that AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution 3, better known as FSR 3, also gets a mention.
This was discovered by Half-Life and Valve sleuth ‘Stannis Loyalist,’ who shares a huge list of code strings contained in the latest update for Valve’s hero shooter FPS game. Among these, one sticks out: “r_hlx_fsr3_min_reactiveness.” FSR 3 can improve a game’s frame rate and also generally upscale a game’s visuals. In some cases, it can be used to boost the frame rate on less-powerful hardware by creating new frames between existing ones.
This kind of performance improvement may often take place towards the end of a game’s development, once everything else is already in place, and therefore ready to be optimized. Stannis Loyalist says that the latest references indicate “late-stage development,” and that they are “extremely confident HLX will be announced this year.”
Naturally, we’re dealing with a lot of ‘what ifs?’ here. But if HLX is Half-Life 3, and if the mention of FSR 3 means that the game is using Super Resolution, and if Valve follows a typical game-making pipeline and implements a technology like FSR 3 towards the later stages of development, then, yes – this could be a very exciting time.
But we will have to wait and see. In the meantime, take a look at some of the best upcoming PC games, or maybe try the best zombie games, if you miss blasting headcrabbed scientists in Black Mesa.
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