New PC questions

[Times_Champion]

I bought HL2 last year and have installed it on my PC and installed steam, however I have never gotten around to play it too much as I wanted to experience it with top graphics etc (my old PC is an 2400+ with Radeon 9500). I have now ordered a new PC with much better specs (Pentium 4 840, 7800GTX, 1GB RAM) and want to play it on my new system. Will I need to buy a new version of the game and re-sign up for a new steam acc (will steam even let me?) or can I uninstall the game and re-install it on my new computer? What do I need to do regarding my steam account? Also, will my new system be able to play HL2 at 1200x1024 with max settings at a decent speed? Thanks for any help given.

 

[Link]

Once you have got your new PC set up, just download steam from here and login using your previous details. You can then install from disk, or, if you have a decent connection, download anything you own through steam.

As long as you know your login details, you can transfer your games to any PC you like, as many times as you like, there is no activation or any thing like that. Be advised, you can only be logged into steam on one machine at a time, so you can't have more than one person playing online on any given account, although you can for singleplayer.

 

[Times_Champion]

Excellent - so I dont have to uninstall steam from my old PC forst then or anything?

 

[Beerdude26]

although you can for singleplayer

But you have to be in offline mode then.

 

[Link]

Well, yeah, that was rather my point

Times_Champion - Nope, just make sure your old PC dosen't have steam connected with your old account, as, as I say, steam won't let you be logged into twice on the same account. But aside from logging it off, you don't need to touch your old account.

Edit - Fixed my complete gibberish into slightly more coherent giberish

 

[Times_Champion]

Cheers - how will the game run on my Pentium 4 840, 7800gtx, 1gb 533mhz RAM, 320gb stripe raid 0 HD? I like to run at 1200x1024 with max settings.

 

[Beerdude26]

Cheers - how will the game run on my Pentium 4 840, 7800gtx, 1gb 533mhz RAM, 320gb stripe raid 0 HD? I like to run at 1200x1024 with max settings.

It will run more than well enough

 

[Llama]

Cheers - how will the game run on my Pentium 4 840, 7800gtx, 1gb 533mhz RAM, 320gb stripe raid 0 HD? I like to run at 1200x1024 with max settings.

It'll run a hell of a lot better than mine :cheers:

 

[DrDevin]

Cheers - how will the game run on my Pentium 4 840, 7800gtx, 1gb 533mhz RAM, 320gb stripe raid 0 HD? I like to run at 1200x1024 with max settings.

You would have been better off with an Athlon 64 but you should have framerates like these:

Taken from anadtech. The article is here:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2451&p=13

 

[Times_Champion]

Thanks - the reason I havent got an anthlon board is because it is a pre-packaged PC through Dell and an offer at work. It is a dual core processor though, so hopefully should hold its own for a while yet.

 

[Times_Champion]

DrDevin - those benchmarks are at 2048x1536 arent they? I would only be running at 1200x1024 as this is the native resolution of my TFT and is comparable to hdtv standard and doesnt make my desktop miniscule! (seriously, does anyone actually use anything abouve 1200x1024?) Presumably the frame rates would then be even higher? Are those benchmarks with everything at max settings?

 

[DrDevin]

DrDevin - those benchmarks are at 2048x1536 arent they? I would only be running at 1200x1024 as this is the native resolution of my TFT and is comparable to hdtv standard and doesnt make my desktop miniscule! (seriously, does anyone actually use anything abouve 1200x1024?) Presumably the frame rates would then be even higher? Are those benchmarks with everything at max settings?

Yes those benchmarks are at 2048x1536 With 4X AA at max settings. Yes many people play at that setting and no things dont become really tiny.

So I suggest you just turn AA and AF to max. 1280x1024 is not a high enough resolution to test most games at. It does not stress a card like your enough.

If you do run at that resolution you will be getting even more FPS.

However with a system like your your monitor is too low resolution!

 

[Times_Champion]

I always thought that you were best to run at the native resolution of your monitor? Mine (a Dell 19inch TFT) is 1200x1024. At the moment I play games on my old PC at 1024x768 so anything that will be an improvement will be great! Do you have your desktop set to higher resolution as well then?

 

[Link]

From what I have been told, if the monitor is of good quality, running higher than the native resolution will be fine, you won't notice a problem with it.

You can set your desktop resolution to whatever you want, games will automatically reset the resolution to whatever they run in when they start, and set it back to your normal resolution when they close.

 

[Times_Champion]

So is there a real benefit to running in, say, 1600x1200 then? Would this be better resolution than an xbox 360 using 720p on an HDTV? Am I missing out if I only play my games at 1200x1024?

 

[Link]

Yeah, basically, higher resolution means more detail per inch, so the higher you go the better it will look. Not sure about a comparrison between PC res and hi def TV though.

 

[DrDevin]

720P on the XBOX is 1280x720. Your computer can play games at a lot higher resolution then that. :thumbs:

But your monitor can't. The higher the resolution the better (ovbiously)

So you want to play on the highest resolution your monitor supports.

On an average LCD monitor that would be 1280x1024.

LCD monitors have a native resolution, the one they look best at. Playing at a lower resolution will make everything look worse. The higher quality the screen the "less worse" it will look when you play games at anything less then your maximum resolution.

You can't go higher then your maximum defined resolution. So play at the largest screen resolution for the best picture.

 

[Times_Champion]

So I am best at playing games at 1200x1024 then? That will be OK for me if that is better than xbox 360 hi def quality, and it will be easier if I run my desktop at the same res anyway.