Will any pci card run with half-life 2?

[onion88]

Heres my specs 2.2 ghz
p4
512 ram

anyway my computer only supports pci slots. i was wondering if the best pci card will run good enough with half-life 2?. If so, could you please post what card thanks!!

 

[synth]

you could use any graphics card as long as it's DirectX7 or better.

For a PCI card, I'd recommend the GeForce FX5200 or if you've got more money, the FX5600. Don't go for the ATI Radeon cards -- the newest PCI one I'm aware of is the 9200 which is way out of date.

Half-Life 2 will run fine with the cards I recommend, but you won't be able to have all the settings up all the way. Graphics won't be perfect, but the game will be able to run well.

 

[blahblahblah]

I would recommend the Nvidia Geforece FX 5200 PCI card. There are several different versions of the card floating around. There is a 128 bit memory bus and a 64 bit memory bus of the 5200 card available. You want the 128 bit memory bus as the 64 bit memory bus will give you horrible performance. There is also a 128 MB RAM version and a 256 MB RAM version. You want the 128 MB RAM version as the 5200 is not able to use the extra 128 MB of RAM properly. However, the 128 bit memory bus is very important, so if you can only find a card with 256 MB RAM and a 128 bit, I would get it.

I looked around on newegg.com, and found several FX 5200 PCI cards available for sale. However, some of them are 64 bit version and some of them labled as 128 bit version are really 64 bit versions (they are mislabled). Before you buy a specific card, go to the manufacturers website and find what memory bus (64 or 128 bit) the card uses. If the information is not available on the website, either send them an email or find another card manufacturer. At a quick glance, I could not confirm any of 128 bit cards that newegg sells at any manufacturers website. You will get a noticeable performance increase if you get a FX 5200 128 bit version over the 64 bit version.

As for performance, even though the 5200 brags about DX9 capabilities, it is really too slow to run games in DX9 mode. However, the 5200 will run good in DX 8 and DX 7 modes. That means you should be able to run HL2 at a decent resolution (1024 by 768) at a DX 7/8 quality (which still looks excellent in my opinion).

 

[dream431ca]

You should have absolutly no problem running Half-life 2. By the way Everyone will probably be changing over to what is called PCI Express which is SO much faster than AGP. PCI Express can go up to 16X while the AGP can only go up to 8X.

 

[onion88]

thanks

wow thanks for the in-depth reply guys! very helpful .

 

[onion88]

adsfasdf

first off, sorry for bumping up the thread thats a little old :/

ok my question is i have this card running on direct x 9.0 or better with counter-strike. If i change it to direct x 7/8 will it run better in cs?

Also, when hl2 comes out should i change my direct x to 7/8, if so how?

 

[SidewinderX]

ok my question is i have this card running on direct x 9.0 or better with counter-strike. If i change it to direct x 7/8 will it run better in cs?

Also, when hl2 comes out should i change my direct x to 7/8, if so how?

For CS, no you don't change anyhting. Yes you have directX 9 installed, but it's not using dx9 features. HL2 will most likley have an option on a menu that lets you choose dx9 v dx8 or whatever. But you still have dx9 installed, you don't need to actually change what direct x you have installed.

You should have absolutly no problem running Half-life 2. By the way Everyone will probably be changing over to what is called PCI Express which is SO much faster than AGP. PCI Express can go up to 16X while the AGP can only go up to 8X.

LMAO, that's be the "best" explanation of AGP and PCI-E I've ever seen! First of, it's not "16x" it's "x16" which refers to, phsically, the the size of the slot, and the power/data transfer. PCI-E has the potential to be much faster than AGP, but we're not at the upper limit of AGP 8x yet, so really the only current benifit of pci-e is fewer powe rconecters needed,

 

[blahblahblah]

Counter Strike and Counter Strike: Condition Zero does not use Direct X 9.0 features. Half-Life the game was based off of Direct X 6. There is no way to change the Direct X version to run better. If CS is running slower, there is something else slowing it down.

HL2 and CS:S will use Direct X 9.0 features. Most current games have a auto-detect feature that automatically configures settings. I would see what the auto-detect feature selects for HL2 and CS:S and then see if the game runs well. Most often a games auto-detect feature will select options for higher frame rates. If you don't mind lower frame rates (like 30 FPS) you can often turn up some options to increase visuals.

However, if those settings are not you liking you can change them further. Some games change the DirectX features used based off of in-game video settings. So selecting a Medium setting will select DX 8.0 features while select a high setting will enable Direct X 9.0 features. This is the most likely method of changing Direct X features in Half-Life 2 and CS:S.

Some games may require you to use command prompts to allow your graphics cards to use Direct 8.0 versions instead of Direct X 9.0 features. I highly doubt HL2 and CS:S will use this method of changing Direct X features.

Hope that explanation helps.