What is the best video card for half life 2?

[RogueShadow]

if i had the cash i'd go with this monitor:http://www.shopping.com/xPF-Mass_Multimedia_MASS_Trio_C3H_18_Horizontal_18_1_in

http://www.go-l.com/monitors/grand_canyon/features/index.htm

 

[Subatomic]

I haven't read all of the posts, but the X800 is best overall now, since the new nvidia takes up 2 slots, and you need a big power supply for it. stick with the radeon =D

 

[pc_anka]

well im going on radeon 9800

 

[h4vvok]

The Radeon 9800 XT is good, but if you are on a budget you might want to go for a BFG Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra....good for overclocking and cheap, also just a very nice card in general

 

[ailevation]

:dozey: From what we speculate, 9600 XT over the 5700 Ultra you mentioned. Because as WE HEARD ATi cards perform better than Nvidia in Half Life 2.

 

[merc]

i played half life 2 at valve on a radeon 9800 and it ran fine... im not sure what the other specs of the computer were, but i mean, thats gotta count for something!

-merc

 

[h4vvok]

Trust me on this, I test video cards pretty often (it's my job to benchmark, intern for a magazine lol) and the 9600 XT did do well but you can get more performance out of a 5700...then again there were some problems running halflife 2 on the FX cards I think, don't remember if I got an update on the situation...I'll see if I can dig up the write up

 

[lans]

FX 5200 is better I think

Not at all. Even the radeon 9000 beats this card, I'm talking about the non-ultra edition. It basically uses the same architecture as the old MX series. This and 5600.

 

[PatPwnt]

Why is the 9700 pro so unpopular? Is it worse than the 9600s?

 

[PatPwnt]

http://www.go-l.com/monitors/grand_canyon/features/index.htm

That black bar would cover the cross hair in the quad one.

 

[GRIMEY]

http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040628/index.html

 

[The_Don]

There have been many posts mentioning the 9600XT providing good performance, but what about the 9600pro? I would have thought it were capable of running the game with all eye-candy at 1024x768, considering benchmarks from earlier in the year. Is it likely that this may have changed as Valve altered the game?

 

[Tim W]

Seems like the most of you prefer ATI Radeon 9800 pro.
I will buy that card as soon as i can.

 

[Wolf]

Why is the 9700 pro so unpopular? Is it worse than the 9600s?

It's out of production. 9700 pro is a great card, much better than the crippled 9600 series but it has been completely replaced by the 9800 pro then 9800 xt.

 

[Rupertvdb]

on the more high end side of things it is looking like..dammit i lost the link...that the X800XT runs games with overall better results. Generally holding a higher FPS and in the case of it not winning it had such respectable results that it didn't really matter as across the board the FPS were really high.

To note it lost (for the majority of instances) in games with OpenGL running dirext X < 9

To add to this it is using Normal mapping which is ATI specific and is that funky method of taking a really high polygon model and creating a texture based off of this and then putting it onto a much lower polygon model. This then gives the impression of the high poly model on fairly basic structures. They react to lighting in exactly the same way.This was a not useful before because the size of Normal mapping textures was so big but ATI have cut this down by 75% apparently and on top of all of this HL2 uses this feature heavily.

I think i am going to stick with an X800XT as my huge purchase for these 4 years of computing (as well as a gig of ram and a P4 3.0) because at this level it doesn't really matter which you get and i hear the ATI will be cheaper, plus it wins in more instances of games i shall actually be playing. The only incentive i will have to change my mind is if the Geforce benchmarks show it to be as good or better at running HL2. I don't intend to keep buying games, i am becoming a student and i want to enjpoy what i have to the limit and get a few here and there when i get a bit of spare money.

Cards are always going to be getting better and better, you may as well get what is top draw for the moment and if it isn't the greatest thing within a couple of months just go, hell i don't care i still got all my games running with delicious quality. Then if you feel the blues ina few years time you could always either cross upgrade to the Geforce 6800 Ultra top fury card if it has proved to have more longetivity or get the next generation card after that which shall probably be a bit cheaper.

There has got to be a point where everyone stops worrying, draw a line in the sand dammit.

 

[Slime]

My friend wanted to ask this (His writing from now on):

I have a GeForce 5200 FX 128 DDR. So many people say that it's not compatible with HL2. Has Valve fixed it yet or do I have to buy a new card?

 

[Axyon]

My friend wanted to ask this (His writing from now on):

I have a GeForce 5200 FX 128 DDR. So many people say that it's not compatible with HL2. Has Valve fixed it yet or do I have to buy a new card?

It's compatible, but don't expect to be running the game on high details or anything.