the early birds got screwed

[wbcninjaofmist]

HI all! I know many of you viewing this post have built a pc to be able to play half life 2. The problem Im starting to notice is that the early birds who were quick to build their systems before the (original) release date over a year ago have systems that at the time were top of the line while at this present day arent very powerful. Im seeing athlon 2200 and p 2. gig processors and radeon 9700/ 96oo etc etc Catch my point? Now that the system requirements have changed some of these early bird half life 1 fans are pretty much getting shafted. thats my view of it. Personally im just happy I waited until recently to build my system. I figured the game would be pushed back but never in my wildest dreams could i imagine that it would take this long.

in August (04) I built a athlon xp 3200 1 gig ram ati radeon 9800 pro so hopefully my system wont be shabby when the game finally releases.

btw: 2 good games to get while waiting for hl2 in my opinion are farcry , and more importantly battlefield vietnam. Sims 2 is also releasing in a day ill probably pick that up. -peace :E

 

[poseyjmac]

thanks for that

 

[cylyk]

i just ordered my system:

athlon 64 3500+ processor
nforce 3 motherboard (didn't wanna wait for nforce 4s to come out)
1 gig of corsair pc3200 ram
gainward golden sample 6800GT factory overclocked under warranty
etc etc etc

i hope it runs games >_<

 

[Nightmare]

Isnt HL2 more optimised and running faster now on the same hardware that it was a year ago?

 

[Chris D]

thanks for that

poseyjmac, you're forever turning into a troll, pack it in please.

 

[UndercoverBob]

you make me feel sad ;(

 

[Geno]

i hope my laptop can play this game!

*dead serious, sadly*

 

[Chris D]

HI all! I know many of you viewing this post have built a pc to be able to play half life 2. The problem Im starting to notice is that the early birds who were quick to build their systems before the (original) release date over a year ago have systems that at the time were top of the line while at this present day arent very powerful. Im seeing athlon 2200 and p 2. gig processors and radeon 9700/ 96oo etc etc Catch my point? Now that the system requirements have changed some of these early bird half life 1 fans are pretty much getting shafted. thats my view of it. Personally im just happy I waited until recently to build my system. I figured the game would be pushed back but never in my wildest dreams could i imagine that it would take this long.

in August (04) I built a athlon xp 3200 1 gig ram ati radeon 9800 pro so hopefully my system wont be shabby when the game finally releases.

btw: 2 good games to get while waiting for hl2 in my opinion are farcry , and more importantly battlefield vietnam. Sims 2 is also releasing in a day ill probably pick that up. -peace :E

Welcome to the forums

I've had this computer system for about two years now, and it can run CS:S on max settings (apart from AA and AF) with a framerate of 60. The only thing I upgraded was to a Radeon 9800, and even though it's not the fastest anymore, it still does the job I need it to.

The system requirements haven't changed at all for HL2, so those people that bought top of the line computers last year are likely to be at or above the recommended spec, so nothing has changed. It might run a little slower than the people who have x800 XTs, 3.2GHz processors and lots of fast RAM, but it will still run and it will still run at the highest settings.

 

[RussianEmpire]

HI all! I know many of you viewing this post have built a pc to be able to play half life 2. The problem Im starting to notice is that the early birds who were quick to build their systems before the (original) release date over a year ago have systems that at the time were top of the line while at this present day arent very powerful. Im seeing athlon 2200 and p 2. gig processors and radeon 9700/ 96oo etc etc Catch my point? Now that the system requirements have changed some of these early bird half life 1 fans are pretty much getting shafted. thats my view of it. Personally im just happy I waited until recently to build my system. I figured the game would be pushed back but never in my wildest dreams could i imagine that it would take this long.

in August (04) I built a athlon xp 3200 1 gig ram ati radeon 9800 pro so hopefully my system wont be shabby when the game finally releases.

btw: 2 good games to get while waiting for hl2 in my opinion are farcry , and more importantly battlefield vietnam. Sims 2 is also releasing in a day ill probably pick that up. -peace :E

Welcom to the forum and thats not a good reason for a post :dozey:

 

[poseyjmac]

poseyjmac, you're forever turning into a troll, pack it in please.

i show my gratitude and where does it get me? well i never!

 

[UndercoverBob]

WTF is with all the weclome to the forums i never got a welcome to the fourums...well noone seems to like meeee sooo. anywhey i got a new nividia card just like ten seconds before they announced HL2 sucks on nividia. it sucked i came home with my shiny new vidio card and whent on the enet and i read the benchmark things....there was alot of curses from my house that day

 

[JPack]

in August (04) I built a athlon xp 3200 1 gig ram ati radeon 9800 pro so hopefully my system wont be shabby when the game finally releases.

Should have gone for an A64 2800+. It costs roughly the same and it's faster.

Unless of course, your processor is an XP-M @ 3200+. You can't beat the price/performance of that.

 

[UndercoverBob]

shouldent this go in the hardware forum

 

[Yombi]

lol dont worry niether did i

BUt anywoo, you'r more lucky than me. I've got a cruddy fx5200 (er you didnt actually say what your card was). So i get around 46 fps on the stress test. Proabbly all the settings on low to med. :hmph:

 

[wbcninjaofmist]

WTF is with all the weclome to the forums i never got a welcome to the fourums...well noone seems to like meeee sooo. anywhey i got a new nividia card just like ten seconds before they announced HL2 sucks on nividia. it sucked i came home with my shiny new vidio card and whent on the enet and i read the benchmark things....there was alot of curses from my house that day

I was in the same position as you UndercoverBob. I purchased a (dont laugh) nvidia 5200 asylum card chrismas 03. The card was a huge jump from my ati 32mb previous card but by no means do i belive it was half life2 material. After getting the 9800 pro the difference between the cards on any games i play is extremely better with the 9800 pro. If you have the extra cash maybe a 9800 pro would be good ( 200$) or for even more $ a 9800xt.


Ty for welcoming me to the post everyone.

 

[UndercoverBob]

i got a 5600 its OK on most games but HL2 i dun noooo
OH soooo sorry i in my own ranting i forgot to welcome you welcome to the forums WELCOME

 

[M1RAG3]

First off, nVidia hardware doesn't "suck" at running HL2, it is just that the ATI architecture of the GPU's is better suited for running the source engine. At most it will be comparable to the whole "nVidia runs Doom III better then ATI". In the end buy whatever graphics card you so wish, as long as it is dx9 compliant.

P.S. I am a recently converted ATI fanboy myself.

 

[UndercoverBob]

im 13 unfortinatly i dont have 200$ so spend

 

[Yombi]

im 13 unfortinatly i dont have 200$ so spend

I'm 18 and i dont have the money to spend Just saving up so i can pay for hl2, luckly i got a bit of time hehe (studying sucks)

 

[poseyjmac]

6800gt and x800pro are neck in neck with hl2, the only noticeable advantage of ATI is at 1600x1200 4x 8xAF with an XTPE.

 

[UndercoverBob]

and where can i get a 9800 for 200 bucks?

 

[DarkSonic]

www.newegg.com Look around for an OEM version for around 190. Yeah, I just recently built my system:

Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis 128 overclocked to 9800XT speeds
1 Gig Mushkin PC3200
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ speeds
ABit NF7-S nForce 2
120 GB and 80 GB HDDs.

I'm happy because I got 85 on the stress test, and I average 60-80 FPS on source. I was getting over 150 on a 4 person server :-D

 

[UndercoverBob]

whoa i have a AMD athlon XP 3200+
120 GB Raid harddrive
512 kinston memery and
"sigh" nividia 5600 256mb

 

[ahardy668]

and where can i get a 9800 for 200 bucks?

I was in my local Best Buy today and saw the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb for $199. This is the retail version of course.

Regularly $249 but it had a $50 instant in-store rebate. Not mail-in.
I think it was good thru 9/18.

9800 Pro at Best Buy

 

[bam23]

Welcome to the forums

I've had this computer system for about two years now, and it can run CS:S on max settings (apart from AA and AF) with a framerate of 60. The only thing I upgraded was to a Radeon 9800, and even though it's not the fastest anymore, it still does the job I need it to.

The system requirements haven't changed at all for HL2, so those people that bought top of the line computers last year are likely to be at or above the recommended spec, so nothing has changed. It might run a little slower than the people who have x800 XTs, 3.2GHz processors and lots of fast RAM, but it will still run and it will still run at the highest settings.

That's one thing... I like to have at least 60fps when I'm being shot at though.

It sounds like too much to ask though.

 

[UndercoverBob]

thx il come back to the forums next year when i finish saving up for that card

 

[wbcninjaofmist]

www.newegg.com Look around for an OEM version for around 190. Yeah, I just recently built my system:

Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis 128 overclocked to 9800XT speeds
1 Gig Mushkin PC3200
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ overclocked to 3200+ speeds
ABit NF7-S nForce 2
120 GB and 80 GB HDDs.

I'm happy because I got 85 on the stress test, and I average 60-80 FPS on source. I was getting over 150 on a 4 person server :-D

Darksonic I would love to overclock my 9800 pro to 9800xt speeds , I just have no idea how. I dont mind buying extra cooling. If you or anyone else has any helpful info about this i would really appreciate it. Also as stated earlier newegg.com has the oem 9800 pro for 190$

 

[UndercoverBob]

nividia cards have and overclocking utility its sorta weird

 

[poseyjmac]

try rage3d tweak program if you want to overclock an ati card

 

[Chris D]

The thing is, you have to think back about 6 years. Those top of the range OpenGL cards that were around back during the release of Half-Life. Do you reckon they had an fps of a constant 60 in OpenGL mode at 1024x768?

I very much doubt it, and I very much doubt that an x800 maxed out with give you a constant 60fps throughout Half-Life 2. But then there'll be x900s or DX10 cards that will and then some.

 

[UndercoverBob]

good point but i was alive when it first came out and i remember playing HL in 1998 pretey smooth dethmatch no slow framerates

 

[ShinRa]

Omg he's right...looks like I need to upgrade again. :stare:

 

[shaggy2039]

I have a p4 7GHZ with a custom made radeon 11000 and 17 gigs of DDR 400 Ram...

all for HL2...

and by the way, the real term is "early adopter".... :O

 

[Adidajs]

i bought a 9600pro for this game last summer. i should have saved my $200 for a 9800 this summer. i was pretty pissed at valve for that.

reminiscing: i remember buying a tnt2 32mb card and then trying the half-life. it was like night and day from a riva 9mb. the water looked so badass especially in mp bouncem.

 

[CyanEyed]

I don't really consider myself screwed. Although the computer I bought was primarily for HL2, I got it because I didn't even have one back then, besides there are so many other games out now and the 9800 pro is still an awesome card that can run basically all games at high settings. Not bad for being over a year old.

 

[smacky]

I got my system in november 2003

Pentium 4 3.0 ghz 800FSB
512 DDR400 Dual Channel ( 2 x 256 )
80GB HDD 7200rpm
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB

I think my system would run it just fine.

 

[Logic]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you bought an upgrade or an entire computer setup for one game, while it was still in development (before any gold announcement) then I'm afraid it's entirely your fault. Games miss their release targets all the time.

Personally, I've had the same computer since the beginning of 2002 (P4 2.4ghz, 512 ram, Geforce4TI 4600) and with some tweaking and settings changes I've had no problem playing any of the latest games. I'll be playing HL2 on this system and have no intention of upgrading this year. Those of you who bought upgrades\systems last year should rest assured that you will be able to run HL2 JUST FINE. Rather than being angry at Valve, or wishing you had saved your money, how about you spend your time tweaking what you've got and making sure you're getting the most out of the hardware you have. No amount of regret or anger towards Valve will change anything now.

Live and learn.

 

[Interl@ce]

What was said in the opening post isn't true at all - last years systems (or even a year before that) will be able to handle hl2 at medium to high detail just fine....

i bought my system june last year:
- XP 2600+
- 1024MB DDR
- 120Gb HDD
- Audigy2
- Radeon 9800 Pro (yes it was expensive back then)

Even though the card costed me around 400 bucks, i got to play all the games available at that time at insane high framerates with all eyecandy enabled, and the card still rocks. I think i'll be able to handle hl2 with 2xaf and 2xaa at highest details. So, if you bought a high end system back then (9700 pro's have been there even longer than the 9800's) you wouldn't have to worry.

Midrange systems though generally don't make sense to me as a gamer. when i upgrade, i take the best i can get so it lasts the longest.

 

[jimbones]

Well, what do we learn from that?

Impatience is the evil stepmother of your purse.

Or something like that...
*goes back to hide under the stairs*

 

[DarkSonic]

Darksonic I would love to overclock my 9800 pro to 9800xt speeds , I just have no idea how. I dont mind buying extra cooling. If you or anyone else has any helpful info about this i would really appreciate it. Also as stated earlier newegg.com has the oem 9800 pro for 190$

Well, you'll need some insane cooling. I don't have a thermal probe on my card, so I don't know how hot it is. All I know is that I don't get artifacting while playing Doom 3, or any of my games for that matter. The second I do see an artifact, I'm putting it back down to stock speeds...