64mb video card???

S

shinythunder

Guest
Hey,
I think im going to get Half life 2 for my PC, but I've noticed thatI haven't got a very good video card. Its a Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 420 and its got a 64mb memory... Will half life 2 run properly on this? also my total RAM is 256mb i saw that thatwas the bare minimum would that be ok too?
Thanks.
 
i expect it will run, it's notorious for running on low spec machines, but don't expect the flashy reflecting water effects and other niceties you get with DX9 cards - as long as your processor is up to speed (physics requires a lot of processing power) i would have thought you'd be able to have fun:)
 
It'll probably work...but only with every setting on low. I'd recommend getting another 256 mb RAM and a new graphics card...preferably one with at least 128 mb RAM. Also..how fast is your cpu?
 
Cool, just 1 thing, if i go to Dxdiag it does says that my system has DirectX 9.0b, or is that somthing else?
 
My cpu is 2.4 Ghz and i have another computer with 256mb RAM
 
I had that card(128mb version), its so bad...and with that amount of ram expect long loading times. Seriously update it, helluva lot of people have had issues with it as well cos HL2 doesnt like it. If you wanna enjoy the game, or play online to a basic level you'll need to upgrade.
 
Ok, I dont have much money so i dont think i could upgrade my video card (im only 13), i have Halo for the pc and it worked fine, i didnt have any problems online either. Would counter strike work aswell... because im really looking forwards to palying it.
 
Cool, just 1 thing, if i go to Dxdiag it does says that my system has DirectX 9.0b, or is that somthing else?
Click to expand...
Yes your software is DX 9.0b
your hardware is
dx7\dx8 - dx8.1
 
If you have the newest drivers and a pretty quick and clean system you should be okay to run it on lowest settings though. I'd say HL2DM may be quite laggy for you, but you could get away with running Source on a low fps.
 
If i run source on a low fps, does that mean the graphics will be crap??
 
Yes, but bare in mind source looks beautiful anyways, as does all the games, just on your settings these will be considerably worse. As far as i believe your card doesn't have pixel shaders.
 
How much money do you have?...just so we can get a better idea of which parts to recomend.
 
But will the game still play without being laggy and slow?
 
i have 60 GBP which is 115 USD... I need to go, ill be bak soon. Thx
 
Yes you can run hl2, on high too! I can play mine on high, i have the same vid card you have, and a even weaker processer.

I love hl2 :E
 
Cool! does counter strike: source work fine on high aswell?
 
Yes, you can play CS:S on that card.

And in the future, if you're going to do two posts in a row, just use the edit button in the bottom right of the post.
 
It should run fine. I have a 64 mb card, and Hl2 looks quite nice, even though it is on low and medium settings. The only bad looking thing is the water.
 
Great Grizzly said:
Yes you can run hl2, on high too! I can play mine on high, i have the same vid card you have, and a even weaker processer.

I love hl2 :E
Click to expand...

Oh! Come on, what rubbish!
A 64mb Geforce4 420MX has barely enough power to run anything, It has maybe 5ns ram, No pixel shaders or vertex shaders and does'nt fully support direct x 8.x because of the lack of those shaders.

It may run HL2 but only on low settings, on high it would be like watching a slideshow, Someone else on another forum told me they get between 5-30fps on low settings playing CS source online on their Amd 1700XP, 640MB PC133 RAM and G4 420MX.

If you ran HL2 with that card on a 2ghz P4 with 256mb ram on high settings at a res of 1024*768, you would barely hit 20fps all the time, And if you say otherwise, your a liar!

Shinythunder...Your best bet, with your lack of funds, Is a Geforce 4 Ti4200, you could probably get one for £30 (second hand) Check out www.loot.com or the "quids in" paper, You may even find one in the back of micromart. I know even PC world had them on special offer at one time for £50 new.

Don't get a 128mb, cos they use slow memory, namely 4 or 5ns, Get a 64mb with 3.6 or 3.4ns memory and you should be ok.
You should be able to overclock it too, with its normal cooling.

Then save another £30 or so and get another 256mb of ram, You'll have a pretty decent system then.
 
It ran surprisingly well on my other computer that has that same card.

GeForce 4 MX 420... Yeah, thing is once again, not fancy graphical stuff at allll. DX7, no shading, no bump mapping, no fancy water, etc.

oni_666 said:
It may run HL2 but only on low settings, on high it would be like watching a slideshow...
Click to expand...

Thing is, that is actually does run a nice frame rate, because it has the potential to be a better card, but without the shaders, it's limited even lower than it's maximum power. Do run it at low settings for medium though, high will kick your ass. When I played with mine, I got fps of at least 60 pretty constantly (low settings, I believe, medium still ram okay), 'til the striders and big stuff of course, where it would drop 10-20-30, if lucky.

Then again, I also had 512mb ram memory in that computer aside from the card.

Just my experience.

But, if you're just going for the experience of the game. It should be cool.
 
Dont listen to them you should be able to play HL2 just fine on that card. Check this site out:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281&p=10

As you can see your card is a bit slower than this one but not by much and they are getting approx. 45-50 FPS at 1280X1024! You should be able to play the game just without any advanced graphical effects like pixel shaders or bump/normal mapping. You can see the difference in quality here:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2281&p=9

Also your CPU is fine but you might want more RAM eventually but you should be fine now.
 
So, how about a geforce mx 440... i got two coputers and but the one im gonna put HL2 on has a much faster processor but a worse(i think) vid card, will a geforce mx 440 make any difference?
 
Nice one! thx soo much! i wont bother buying more hardware then, cheers!
 
Look at my post above. They were using a Geforce 4mx 440 as the videocard in the test. It runs the game fine just without most of the graphics features (still looks good though). What are the specs of the 2 machines especially processor and RAM. If your computer with the better processor is using integrated graphics you are probably better off with the mx 440.
 
Ok,
The pc i want to run HL2 on has a 2.4 Ghz processor and ithas 256mb of RAM, Video card is MX 420 (64mb)

The other pc has a 733 mgz processor 256mb RAM, and the MX440 with "AGP8X" (which i can always switch with the MX 420 on the other pc)
If u need moe ill tell u
 
HL2 runs pretty well on my ATI Radeon 9000 with 64mb. I have a 1.6ghz Athlon and 512mb ram.
 
733 Mhz is not enought for half life 2 so I would go for the 2.4Ghz machine. Even if it has the slower graphics card it would run a lot faster. You might see some improvement with the new card but probably not a lot.
 
my freind had a an geforece 4mx card with 64 megs of ram...

hl2 ran, yes. and it did get a decent frame rate at 50fps on average (good computer too)...

But boy, compaired to my 9600xt, it looked like CRAP. (compaired is the key word here)

The shadows are awful, the draw distance is crap, there is virtually no normal mapping, and the reflections are next to null. you might aswell be playing quakeIII graphics wise.

Ps... just because you are running on "HIGH", doesn't mean is looks as good as my "HIGH".
 
HL2 will run ok in DX7 mode. I was playin HL2 on a GeForce2 MX 64mb no problem in DX7. But now I have a 6800 Ultra :D and it rocks.
 
shinythunder said:
Hey,
I think im going to get Half life 2 for my PC, but I've noticed thatI haven't got a very good video card. Its a Nvidia Geforce 4 MX 420 and its got a 64mb memory... Will half life 2 run properly on this? also my total RAM is 256mb i saw that thatwas the bare minimum would that be ok too?
Thanks.
Click to expand...

I have a GeForce4 MX 440 254 MB RAM, and with some tweaks (tweakguide.com) I can run this on Medium settings, although the draw distance is very short (distance in which objects fade out).

I love Valve...So optimized.
 
I'm running on a Geforce 3 ti 500 and is sucks balls. I get 30 fps max on lowest settings :(

$200 from a Geforce 6800gt and a Athlon 64 3500 :D
 
1 ghz celeron
64mb ati radeon 7500(dx7 level)
384.5 mb ram

And HL2 runs smoothly enough to be enjoyable on medium model detail and texture detail, except in the last few chapters of course. It automatically scales down texture quality from a distance and makes unimportant objects fade with distance.

I'm saving up money so I can get a new motherboard and processor(and eventually a new gfx card because my current motherboard doesn't support AGP cards, so I'm stuck at a 64mb dx7 card). Any recommendations on motherboard/processor combos?? I'd love to finally be able to play HL2 the way it was meant to be played.
 
As it happens....I have a Socket 478 board going spare at the moment - it's an MSI Neo 2 LS from a couple of years back. I was using it myself until quite recently with a P4 3.0Ghz Northwood CPU.

I was planning to save it for a spare system, but if you're interested I might be able to help out :)

Anyway, that aside - it all depends on what you're planning to spend really, but you're looking at a complete overhaul I'm afraid. You'll probably need a whole new system - the PSU won't stand up in a newer system, and that graphics card would just be a waste in a 3Ghz ish system...you'll probably need new memory as well mate.

I'd suggest looking to buy a whole new system, you could get a decent self-built one for about £5/600 which could be future proofed. (PCI Xpress, etc)
 
I have that same vid card, 512 mb of memory, and a 2.4 processor, and hl2 runs great on my comp. The graphics might not be really really good, but it still looks incredible.
 
Great Grizzly said:
Yes you can run hl2, on high too! I can play mine on high, i have the same vid card you have, and a even weaker processer.

I love hl2 :E
Click to expand...

Don't you hate it when people bullshit about their crappy hardware :/
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

bbson john
Hi everyone. I am new to this forum!
Replies
11
Views
6K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Community Interviews: Final Exchange development team
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
T
FunHaus' Thoughts On Half Life 3 Current Status
Replies
32
Views
6K
WEL$H_GANGSTA_99
WEL$H_GANGSTA_99
B
Marc Laidlaw releases Half-Life 2: Episode Three's plot
Replies
32
Views
39K
BabyHeadCrab
BabyHeadCrab
B
Community Interviews: Tony Newton, co-creator of Redemption
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
Back
Top