Is it good enough?

[MindCrafter]

Will this Computer play HL2 without lag/should i upgrade?


OS: WinXP home

CPU: 1,40 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP +1600
SocketA
133 mhz clock
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

RAM: 640 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DIMM2' has 128 MB
Slot 'DIMM3' is Empty
Slot 'DIMM4' is Empty

HD: 1 120gb and 1 40gb

CD-rom: 52x cd-rom 48x cd-burner

VIDEO-CARD: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600
256 ddr ram
325 mhz core clock


The motherboard is almost new, it's at max 3.5 ddr ram!
The rest is pretty old,one of my ram chips are over 3 years old

 

[Marik]

um...i dont think it will but..no-one knows yet untill the game gets released

 

[Asus]

You should be OK.
Probably run it on medium quality 1024x768 fine.

 

[Marik]

didnt think anyone knew the specs?

 

[sharp]

Its good enought I think.

 

[blahblahblah]

That rig sounds fairly respectable. It should be able to handle HL2 and most games coming down the road. Just don't expect to run every game at "high" quality.

 

[Marik]

well this machine can run UT2k4 and this machine runs at 1ghz lol

 

[ComradeBadger]

It's the graphics card that matters.

 

[MindCrafter]

Thanks for the help people!

 

[Maxi]

According to dated information provided at a ATI event the older series Nvidia cards (Nv3x) performed VERY poorly in HL2 compared to ATI, also they were forced to run in a sorta dx 8 mode with some dx 9 features. So i'd say youre Graphics card is your main bottleneck, also your cpus low FSB might affect performance somewhat, same with cpu speed.

 

[MindCrafter]

Damn, 3d card AND cpu? That'll cost alot.


Strange, it says on my fx card that it supports dx9 but...
Edit: What is FSB?

 

[ComradeBadger]

However Maxi, they have been working on nVidia performance.

 

[MindCrafter]

Good to know!


Nighty nighty :thumbs:

 

[Maxi]

Yeah, that's why I said it was based on old info. Performance could have improved but the fact remains that NV 30 cards suck at dx9 (specifically SM 2.0). But Mind-Crafter, I would wait untill the game releases untill you buy anything, to see how it really performs, since noone really knows how it's going to perform. We can only guess.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Yeah, all this is is educated guesswork based on old data ;(

 

[Maxi]

Especially since that data was before the additio of HDR into the game. And they might have added new visual features over the past 6 months to make it more competative. So it might run worse actually.

 

[MindCrafter]

But what is "FSB"? :afro:

 

[ComradeBadger]

Front Side Bus. It's todo with the CPU and Motherboard, sorry, thats not my area of expertise

 

[psyno]

FSB == Front Side Bus. It's the physical link between your CPU and northbridge, which links to your memory, AGP/PCI, and other things depending on your chipset. Your FSB is clocked at 133 MHz. This isn't really all that slow. The fastest ones come at 200 MHz.

 

[MindCrafter]

psyno, what? I've seen expensive P4 CPU's with 800mhz FSB.

I was thinking of buying one with 366 or something, that's pretty fast for AMD.

 

[psyno]

'fraid it doesn't exist. Those are marketing terms. Technically, they mean about zilch. You're referring to a quad-pumped 200 MHz FSB. No FSB actually operates at 800 MHz. While your FSB is 133 MHz, it's dual-pumped, so in these marketing terms, it would be considered "266 MHz." 366? Never heard of it... Marketing or technical terms...

Anyway, a processor doesn't have a front side bus; it's linked to one. A motherboard has a front side bus, however, the processor must support it.

 

[MindCrafter]

You obviously know what you're talking about :thumbs: