Half-Life 2 Hardware Q&A

[CSN NewsBot]

HL2Fallout.com has a descriptive article intended for inexperienced gamers in the hardware field to determine if your rig needs an upgrade or two to tackle Half-Life 2 head on. Everything from monitors to motherboards has been covered, where an excerpt of the latter from the excellent article is quoted as follows:

Q: Which motherboard should I buy?



I could recommend something, but half the online populace would disagree with me. Simply put, there are a number of quality products for both the AMD and Intel platforms and it's a matter of choosing based on your desired feature set, CPU and budget. All I can say is make sure you get something that is compatible with your other hardware -- don't buy something that is extremely cheap or indeed something that is over qualified for your purposes. Unless you like burning money, or something. Some motherboard's now come with decent enough 5.1 audio onboard but stay clear of any integrated video chipsets.

If you have lingering questions or concerns about your computer running Half-Life 2 or confused on which computer part(s) to upgrade, consult this guide right away.

[Mike424]

I built a whole new PC last year in September to play HL2. So far, it's been working fine with the current generation of games and I expect HL2 to run fine on my rig. Hopefully, I wont have to scale back any settings in the process.

[Urban Terror]

All of that info is old news. I have a Athlon xp 1800+, Radeon 9600 pro (tweaked and overclocked to perform nearly as well as a 9600xt), and 256mb DDR ram. I play pretty much whatever game I want right now, the only things I may have to upgrade to get 50-60 fps in HL2 are my RAM, and CPU.

[fodder0]

Edited by [user="123855"] @ [time="1089367382"]

yea, I'm buying a whole new PC, in a few months just for hl2.... lol.

getting, 2.8 ghz p4 hyper-threading, 1 GB ram, ati x800, and all the other good stuff. hope i can play :\

[SALAMIjedi]

im still choked at what G-Card (get it get it G-man.. G-Card... heh) to buy. i know the rest of my specs so im just waiting and looking at brands, prices, deals and types of Hard Drives.



btw what type of hard drives should i get (i want multiple Drives, 2 maybe)

[GFreeman]

I'm already prepared for Half-Life 2 for about, a month. But, yet, I will be more than prepared next month! 'Cause I'm buying ATI Radeon X800 next month. Well, here's my current PC spec.;



Pentium 4 CPU 2.69GHz

Windows XP Pro

1024MB DDR Ram

128MB ATI Radeon 9600XT

40 GB Hard Drive (22GB space currenty left)

50X CD-Rom

40X CD/RW

cmv 15' LCD Monitor

5.1 Surround System (with 5 speakers)



Well, I'm sure that's enough.

[Some_God]

Guess I better buy a 512mb stick of RAM...

[Vi3tSkl11]

I'm sure I'll have no problem running HL2.... Just need a faster processor, obviously.

1.8GHz P4 (the crappy kind with 400FSB & 256k of L2 cache)

768MB PC2100 DDR RAM

128MB Powercolor Radeon 9800 Pro (The crappy kind with Samsung memory)

40GB Maxtor/20GB Hitachi (both 5400RPMs, ATA100)

40x/16x DVD-ROM

52x32x52 CD-RW

Compaq MV720 17' CRT Monitor

SBLive! 5.1

Unknown set of speakers (They have no name...)



Now that I think about it, some faster RAM might do me some good...

[GameHopper]

Mike424 wrote..

I built a whole new PC last year in September to play HL2. So far, it's been working fine with the current generation of games and I expect HL2 to run fine on my rig. Hopefully, I wont have to scale back any settings in the process.

you got owned by valve + ATI marketing

guys. dont buy shit until you see the game in stores.

[Jatt Pride]

ALL I FUCKIN NEED IS A FUCKIN GRAPHICS CARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2.4GHz P4



1028MB DDR Ram



120GB HD About 40 GB left :) LOTS OF GAMES



17" LCD ADVUEU Moniter



Microlab 2.1 Speakers (ive never heard of them b4)



the shittiest mouse and keyboard u can ever have and i STILL OWN in CS!

no but seriously, ive never even heard of a fuckin WIRELESS BALL MOUSE?? and it doesnt even have a name. if i hold shift or ctrl too long it just stops pushing it and i start to run ro i get up from my hiding spot.



and my GFX CArd? I GOT NOOOO FUCKIN CLUE BUT FAR CRY LAGS ON THE LOWEST SETTINGS AND THE LOWEST RESOLUTION. so i think i need a new one but i dotn got cash so imma have to beg my parents for bout 500 bucks :) as if they would give it to me FUCK FUCK FUCK

[bozer]

Doom 3 = Nvidia

HL2 = ATI



=*(



I personally stay away from ATI due to always hearing about shitty driver problems.

[XanMas]

Processor = P4EE 3.4

Videocard = 9600XT oced to a 9800XT

HDD = one 250 gb (SATA)

Memory = 1.5 gb of DDR

Moniter = Viewsonic P810

CDRW = 52X36X52

DVD Burner

Sound card = Creative Soundblaster Audigy

Speakers = Audio .90s or 5.1 Cambridge Soundworks pos stuff.

MX510 and Logitech Corded Elite Keyboard



I am pretty sure I will be fine.

[JRules]

Processor = P4 2.53

Videocard = 9700 pro slightly overclocked

HDD = 1 80gb and 1 120gb

Memory = 1 gb pc800 rdram

Monitor = Benq fp767 lcd

CDRW, Dvd-rom

Sound card = Audigy gamer

Speakers = klipsch promedia 2.1's

keyboard/mouse = Logitech Dinovo bluetooth media Desktop



If I have any problems playing hl2 I will be pissed

[Deletable_Man]

GameHopper wrote..

you got owned by valve + ATI marketing

Lol that article was so "please buy ATI, pretty please! Nevermind that their cards get graphical glitches in loads of games; even CS."

[lopinboy]

Deletable_Man wrote..

Lol that article was so "please buy ATI, pretty please! Nevermind that their cards get graphical glitches in loads of games; even CS."

Haha, so true. Funny how Gabe said a year or so ago that they had to use special code for NVidia to keep up. Looks like ATI is going to need that special code, which basically nullifies the "ATI is the card to use" argument. Although, both cards are neck and neck in DX9 (half wins for ATI, other half for NVidia), the big test is going to be Doom3 and OpenGL.