ATTENTION: Read this before posting upgrade questions/'Will my PC run HL2?' questions

What I got:

Windows XP [Home Edition]
P4 2.26 GHz
768 MB DDR-SDRAM (PC-3200) [Corsair]
This awesome video card

In one word, describe its probable performance for Half-Life 2.
 
RussianEmpire said:
you will be fine 1024*768 everything high no aa af 70 FPS :thumbs:
Click to expand...
What if I enabled AA then? How much would my FPS drop?
 
RussianEmpire said:
4aa 8 af with everything on high 40 FPS
Click to expand...
What exactly is 4AA and 8AF? Does it enable more detail? Is it needed? And is 40 FPS enjoyable when playing a PC game? Is there a 2AA or 4AF or 2AA, or don't they exist?
 
AA stands for Anti Aliasing, which removes pixelated edges. The higher the number, the better. Most people do not use this, as it brings down your FPS alot.

AF is texture filtering, which greatly improves how good a texture will seem when looked at from far away. It will generally seem blurry and out of proportion without AF on. The same is true with this, the higher the number, the better.

40 FPS is fine for most people, as long as it is not dipping down to the 20's, where it will become choppy. I have a similar card to you, and I use 1280x1024, 4xAA and no AA, and I get a very good FPS (70-80). Turning on 2xAA, I get a pretty good framerate too. (50-70)

The different levels of AA and AF for HL2 are as follows:

Anti Aliasing (AA)
No AA - You will get pixelated edges
2x AA - Depending on resolution, it will get rid of alot of pixelation.
4x AA - Almost no pixelation
6x AA - No (visable) pixelation, this takes a crazy hit on performance.

Ansiostropic Filtering (AF)
Bilinear - Textures look very blurry at long range
Trilinear - Textures look fairly good at long range
Ansiostropic (AF) 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x - Textures will look very good at long range, and each increment will make it look even better. At 16x, you will see a noticeable performance decrease.
 
Subatomic said:
AA stands for Anti Aliasing, which removes pixelated edges. The higher the number, the better. Most people do not use this, as it brings down your FPS alot.

AF is texture filtering, which greatly improves how good a texture will seem when looked at from far away. It will generally seem blurry and out of proportion without AF on. The same is true with this, the higher the number, the better.

40 FPS is fine for most people, as long as it is not dipping down to the 20's, where it will become choppy. I have a similar card to you, and I use 1280x1024, 4xAA and no AA, and I get a very good FPS (70-80). Turning on 2xAA, I get a pretty good framerate too. (50-70)

The different levels of AA and AF for HL2 are as follows:

Anti Aliasing (AA)
No AA - You will get pixelated edges
2x AA - Depending on resolution, it will get rid of alot of pixelation.
4x AA - Almost no pixelation
6x AA - No (visable) pixelation, this takes a crazy hit on performance.

Ansiostropic Filtering (AF)
Bilinear - Textures look very blurry at long range
Trilinear - Textures look fairly good at long range
Ansiostropic (AF) 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x - Textures will look very good at long range, and each increment will make it look even better. At 16x, you will see a noticeable performance decrease.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much for that explanation and breakdown. :cheers:
 
More people need to report this kid. What a retard. Click the ! button to the far right of his name
 
How do you guys think my rig will handle half life 2:

Pentium 4 530 with HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB)

512MB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz (2x256M)

128MB PCI Express x16 ATI Radeon X800 SE

Sound Blaster Live 24-bit ADVANCED HD Audio

Should I expect to run it with settings on high and a decent fps?
 
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Gigabyte GA-7N400
1024MB DDR PC2700
ATi Radeon 9600SE 128MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum

it runs about 40-60fps at 800x600, medium settings. how much impact would it make to upgrade to a 9800Pro or XT? or what could i swap out to get the best performance increase? thanks for your help :D
 
l337vegeta said:
AMD Athlon XP 2800+
Gigabyte GA-7N400
1024MB DDR PC2700
ATi Radeon 9600SE 128MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum

it runs about 40-60fps at 800x600, medium settings. how much impact would it make to upgrade to a 9800Pro or XT? or what could i swap out to get the best performance increase? thanks for your help :D
Click to expand...
Well, I'd estimate you'd be able to whack the resolution up further for the 9800Pro/XT, with some consideration for AA. You should definitely go for the Pro though, as the XT gives only around 5fps more for a heck of a lot more money.
 
Yes, it will help alot. The SE cards are usually horrible. You should be able to turn it on high settings, 1024x786. But I think you are better off getting a newer generation of cards, so you will not have to upgrade so often in the near future.
 
What do you guys think, is it wise to upgrade from r9600pro 128mb to r9800pro ? Would I get much higher FPS in HL2 etc ?
I'm not sure if to upgrade now or wait a bit, get some more cash and buy x800 or smth..
 
MadGuy said:
What do you guys think, is it wise to upgrade from r9600pro 128mb to r9800pro ? Would I get much higher FPS in HL2 etc ?
I'm not sure if to upgrade now or wait a bit, get some more cash and buy x800 or smth..
Click to expand...

I bought a 9800pro a month or two a go and wish i went for an x800... save for it, you'l thank yourself and me later :)
 
kindle said:
How do you mean? Would a 9800 pro have been better than my x800 se?
Click to expand...
i'm not sure if that's the case, but i think he mean that the SEs are worse than the other cards out of that same class (eg. 9800se<9800, x800>x800se)
 
Wouldn't normally write a post like this, but about to spend a ton o cash, so want as many peoples opinions as possible really.
Current system:
AMD 1700+ @1800+
Elite K7S5A mobo
768Mb SD PC133 Ram
128Mb GeForce 4Ti4600

Thinking of going to:
AMD 64 3200+ (or 3500+) socket 939
MSI neo2 Platinum mobo
1Gb DDR 400 GeIL value or Corsair Value
Same 128Mb GeForce 4Ti4600

In terms of HL2 (tho this upgrade is for more than just that 1 game) am i spending my money wisely? An argument could be get a socket 745 3gig with a radeon 9800 for the same price etc etc (I assume better for HL2, but not for generalness due to upgradeability probs)
Anyway, there ends my annoying "how good is my computer" thread. :rolling:
 
Here's a tip. Get a lower grade CPU, not the 3500+, and upgrade your Video card while your at it. A 9800Pro or X800Pro would be a great buy. So would a 6800 or 6800GT.

Even an Athlon XP 2500+ and X800pro or 6800gt would perform better than an A64 and GF4 in games, except some that are CPU limited like UT2004.
 
My Next Upgrade

Hello, for my next upgrade i'm lookin at a AMD 64 processor and a good motherboard to support it. I'm aiming for the cheaper ones like the AMD 64 3000+. I'm weak on motherboards and don't know what to look for in them besides the right socket of course, which is socket 754. Don't plan on buying these two items for a while, but it's one of my future plans and would like some tips on the right mobo for me.

Like to add one more thing, I see my current mobo can support up to a AMD XP 3200+, maybe this would be more convinient? But faster? Hmmm... what do you guys think?

current specs.
AMD Althon XP 2600+
512MB PC 3200 RAM
Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
K7N2 Delta L motherboard

Thanks :thumbs:
 
Long time lurker, first time poster. With the Gold Announcement seemingly imminent, I have a specific upgrade question. My current system is:

AMD 2400+
Asus A7V8X mobo
768MB PC2700 RAM
Geforce4 Ti 4600
WinXP SP2

While I used to be a heavy gamer, I am not any longer due to a lack of time. Half Life 2 will probably be the only system-taxing game I purchase in the next 6-9 months. However, I really want the best experience. I'm mainly aiming for 1024x768 at ~ 50 fps (I would be happy with 35-40 under heavy fighting conditions). Some AA would be nice, but is not necessary.

Money is a factor. I can't rationalize more than $200, although I do have someone willing to buy my 4600 for $50. So here's my question: trying to stay under $200, what would my best upgrade options be? Would a 9600 Pro/XT 128/256 get me where I want to be? Best Buy currently has an ATI 9800 Pro 128MB/256bit on sale for $200; should I go with this? Would I be ok if I just stuck with the 4600? Nvidia options are fine too, although cost/performance ratios seems to be on the side of ATI.

Thanks for the help, and the advice --
 
Spoonoop said:
Like to add one more thing, I see my current mobo can support up to a AMD XP 3200+, maybe this would be more convinient? But faster? Hmmm... what do you guys think?
Click to expand...
An Athlon 64 2800+ is faster than an Athlon XP 3200+, so no.

Any brand name Asus, Abit, or MSI board will be good. VIA has their 8KT800 chipset and Nvidia has the nForce3 250 and soon to be nForce4 boards coming out. Any of these will work great but some perfer the nForce series over VIA, as do I.

There are several versions of the same board but with extra features that you may or may not want. Like MSI has a Neo board based on the nForce3 250gb chipset priced less than 100$ and another version with Firewire and more features about 30-40$ more.
They will perform the same though.
 
Desirat said:
Can u give me some examples of a directx9 video card?
Click to expand...
DX9 GFX card models would be:
ATI (SE, base model, Pro, XT and XT PE suffixes)
9500
9600
9700
9800
X300
X600
X700
X800

Nvidia (LE, XT, base model, GT, and Ultra suffixes)
FX5200
FX5600
FX5700
FX5900
6200
6600
6800

Any I missed?
 
now dont laugh at my comp:celeron 900,512 mb ram,5200 video card...will ill be able to run at low resolutions?
 
The CPU is what is holding you back. GFX should not be a big issue.
General system lag especially with physics might hold you back a bit.
Should be 'playable' though.
 
People tell us to check http://www.halflife2.net/index.php?page=requirements , but really, that's wrong. Those aren't the real minimum specs, that's VALVe being cowards. Some people got Doom 3 running with a ~600 mhz computer and a Geforce. First the game wouldn't start, but they implemented some fixes so they could boot it up. They put everything on lowest and then proceeded to play. It started up and froze after 3 seconds. But who cares? Real gamers don't need any high-end computers; or moderate, for that matter! It's gonna be great pwning people when I've got a framerate of 0,5.
 
I'm at...

P4 1.8 Ghz
768 MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9600 128 MB

Will HL2 be alright for me...I'm worried about my poor CPU and am contemplating rebuilding a new rig.
 
Looks good for playablility in HL2. Upgrading would help more multiplayer though.
 
Sampson said:
Wouldn't normally write a post like this, but about to spend a ton o cash, so want as many peoples opinions as possible really.
Current system:
AMD 1700+ @1800+
Elite K7S5A mobo
768Mb SD PC133 Ram
128Mb GeForce 4Ti4600

Thinking of going to:
AMD 64 3200+ (or 3500+) socket 939
MSI neo2 Platinum mobo
1Gb DDR 400 GeIL value
Same 128Mb GeForce 4Ti4600

In terms of HL2 (tho this upgrade is for more than just that 1 game) am i spending my money wisely? An argument could be get a socket 745 3gig with a radeon 9800 for the same price etc etc (I assume better for HL2, but not for generalness due to upgradeability probs)
Anyway, there ends my annoying "how good is my computer" thread. :rolling:
Click to expand...
Asus said:
Here's a tip. Get a lower grade CPU, not the 3500+, and upgrade your Video card while your at it. A 9800Pro or X800Pro would be a great buy. So would a 6800 or 6800GT.

Even an Athlon XP 2500+ and X800pro or 6800gt would perform better than an A64 and GF4 in games, except some that are CPU limited like UT2004.
Click to expand...

Cheers Asus, now with an increased budget looking at going for:
AMD 64 3200+ Winchester socket 939
MSI neo2 Platinum mobo
1Gb DDR 400 GeIL value or Corsair Value
Gainward 6800LE 128 gfx card
OCZ Powerstream 420W PSU

Might think about softmodding gfx card to 6800 pipes, or 6800GT if it'll make it, as theres around a 90-95% success rate to 6800 and 50% to GT.
But considering it without the softmod, recon it'll manage HL2 with spinkee effects on and at least 1280x1024, preferably with FSAA on too. (i hate pixels, and have a 21" monitor, so need high resses)
 
Asus said:
Nvidia (LE, XT, base model, GT, and Ultra suffixes)
FX5200
FX5600
FX5700
FX5900
6200
6600
6800

Any I missed?
Click to expand...


well actually the FX series of nvidia cards are not 100% fully dx9 compatible. Nvidia admits it so dont argu with me. the 6 series are tho :p
 
How about this oldie?

Pentium 4 1.8 Ghz
256 megs rdram
Geforce 2 GTS 32mb
Windows 2000

I doubt this would run well, even with everything turned to minimum. My current budget would allow me to upgrade to either a Geforce FX 5200 with 128 megs or a Radeon 9200se with 128 megs. Which of the two cards would be a better upgrade? And with that card, would I be able to run in 800*600 with low settings and get around 30fps?

Thanks for the help!
 
Here is a mid range piece of crap....
AMD 2600+(Not bad)
512 MB RAM PC3200(Not Bad)
80GB 100ATA? 7200RPM(Not to bad)
GeForce MX 440 64MB RAM(Worthless piece of shiet)
 
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