Current System Specs

[griffineng]

Hey everyone. I've been out of the Half Life 2 loop for some time now, only recently have I started to read up on some recent press releases regarding the game. Before that, I think the last time I read or saw anything about Half Life was the 2003 E3 video. Working and being a full time student kind of shrinks the time available for dedicated gaming!

As a result, I consider myself a more casual player nowadays. However, with the impending release of Half Life 2, I am wondering if it would be economical to plunk down for a new graphics card. I was a fan of the first game and played my fair share of Counter-Strike, and I don't know if I want to miss the new game. I don't have the detailed specifications of my motherboard (at work currently) but here are my basic specs:

P4 2.4 ghz
512 2700 ddr ram (probably picking up another 512 stick soon for other purposes)
geforce 4 Ti4200 64mb

The rest of the computer is just run of the mill and isn't that important for gaming. Any idea on how well my current hardware would perform? I was thinking of purchasing the Ati Radeon 9800 Pro, but I'd take any and all advice that I can get.

Thanks!

 

[TheRook]

9800pro sounds good and at current prices you cant fault it

 

[GPRT]

Welcome to the forums,

You will be able to play HL2 with that spec, but dont expect all the bells and whistles. If your after a budget card you really can't go wrong with the 9800 pro as they are dirt cheap at the mo. If you have a bit to spend the ati x800 pro is a good buy as anything higher will be severely bottlenecked by your other specs.

Please do search the forums as well as there are a million and one threads on this topic.

 

[Asus]

Your 4200 should hold up decently in HL2 with the DX8 effects.

If you would like DX9 effects and better frame rate or even being able to play at higher resolution then the 9800Pro 128MB (200$ USD) would be your best buy by far. Performance and a great price. Remember when that card first came out as the top of the line 400$ card? Yeah, it's dropped a lot in price.

 

[bosox188]

9800 pro is good, get the MSI 9800 pro from newegg.com. It's really an underclocked 9800xt.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-127&depa=0

It also has good cooling.

 

[griffineng]

Thanks for the info!

9800 pro is good, get the MSI 9800 pro from newegg.com. It's really an underclocked 9800xt.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewProductDesc.asp?description=14-127-127&depa=0

It also has good cooling.

I appreciate the information. I just might have to do that. Any tips on overclocking or is there a prepackaged program that lets me tweak clock speeds (my Ti4200 had such a feature too)?

Is the 9800xT a significant bump from the 9800 Pro? Are there any comprehensive guides other than tomshardware.com and firingsquad.com that have tips and tweaks for these cards? Thanks again!

 

[bosox188]

It's not a significant bump, the 9800xt is way overpriced so nobody buys them. But if you can get a 9800xt for 9800 pro price, it's a nice deal. It doesn't come with a program for tweaking clock speeds, but you can get a program called ATi Tool which tests your video card and overclocks it as far as it can go without any problems. It's only for ATi cards, so it wouldn't work with you current 4200, but it would be great for the 9800 pro. And then you flash the card's bios so it's recognized as a 9800xt and there you go.

 

[griffineng]

Motherboard for 2.4ghz P4?

Alright, a lot of you guys seem very knowledgeable about lots of hardware, so I'm going to toss out this question.

Can anyone recommend a good motherboard that has a good share of gizmos and is tailored towards a Pentium 4 2.4ghz?

thanks again.