Lost Coast was tested by running through the built-in flyby demo. The demo shows-off then entire suite of HDR functionalities features in HL2: Lost Coast.
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Settings
The recommended settings were used for testing performance on the XFX GeForce 8500 GT.
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast Performance Results
The card faired better than I thought it would through the fairly intense HDR test. Once again, enabling image quality enhancing features didn't cause a noticeable drop in performance at both 800x600 and 1024x768.
CONCLUSION
Overall the card is a fairly solid low-priced low-end mainstream option. While the performance wasn't stellar, it'll get the job done for the odd game. The card has a few solid selling points: it provides DirectX 10 capabilities and is fully capable of powering Vista's new graphical features, PureVideo2 support adds full decode capabilities for HD content, HDCP capabilities, Dual-Link DVI support for resolutions up to 2560x1600 and an awesome double lifetime warranty. Note that I've yet to test the DirectX 10 support or the PureVideo2 capabilities as I haven't upgraded to Windows Vista, but I will be doing so in the future, and thus the card's features met my requirements for future upgrades on my secondary system.
