Hl 2 what system do i need

[yamangman]

If your monitors refresh rate is set at 85Hz, your framerate will be capped at 85fps. You get the tearing effect when your frame rate is above your monitors refresh rate, very simply, your getting frames quicker than the monitor can refresh the image, thus causing the image to 'tear' during scenes with a high degree of movement/action.

[alterion]

ok another question.. can you get odd amounts of memory and what would performance be like with it. My budget could strech too 768mb but is that even workable or just pointless

[myth]

ok another question.. can you get odd amounts of memory and what would performance be like with it. My budget could strech too 768mb but is that even workable or just pointless

with dual chanel you need to use two identical sized sticks... or 4... but if you have a 256 meg stick in one socket you'll need a 256 in the same socket on the other chanel... so 768 wont work unless you use 2 256s and 2 128's...

[yamangman]

The above is not entirely accurate, but the performance increase of Dual Channel is negligible anyway.

To answer your question - 768 RAM is an improvement over 512, but it's not 1Gb It's your decision.

[myth]

The above is not entirely accurate.....

To answer your question...

I did awnser his question, I showd him how it was workable! and what I said is corect...

My budget could strech too 768mb but is that even workable or just pointless

[Timmy!!!]

ok so here is what i have so far:Graphics card 6800 gt £256.98
Processor 64 3200 + 131.59
Ram 512 geil value 55
Motherboard 80
Hard drive 120gig –not worried so long as it’s a decnt size 45
DVD rom drive 14.99
Case and power supply 45 jeantec phong and 400W jeantec or antec case w 350W
Screen 210.31
OS- xp home OEM 57.53
Delivery 25ish
Cabels and stuff… what do I need??

i have foud all of these ofr around these prices.. But i now thinking of getting a 6800nu and 1gig of ram from reading your comments.. this would also allow me to budget in decont prephirals other than using stuff off an old gateway p166? decisions.. decisions

All the prices you have listed are extremly good, I cant find anywhere that has them that cheap! what site are you getting these really good prices from?

If you go to www.lowestonweb.com and tell them about these prices, they will beat them and you will get an even better deal!

As for cables most are included with the products. The only cable I can think of that might not be included is SATA cables. But the motherboard is more than likely to come with one or two. They are very cheap to buy - around a fiver: http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...Stockcode=sata

Both the 6800nu and 6800gt are great cards and will run HL2 in high detail very smoothly. Obioulsy the 6800gt is going to perform better. If I were in your situation I would go for the nu because the gt is actually too fast for the rest of the pc (the CPU bandwidth will cause a botleneck in some games because its the slowest part - even though that CPU is vey fast indeed)

[Wam7]

I concur with what Vaul says. Don't bother with the 6800nu go straight for the 6800GT. Pretty much all GT's will go to Ultra speeds and maybe beyond. Mine is running at 440/1220 and it's not that good a brand.

1 gig of ram is almost a prerequisite now for todays games. Kind of hard to believe but it can really make a lot of difference (UT2004, Far Cry etc all benefit greatly from the extra 512)

Save yourself some money and get the cheaper A64 3000 as there is only 3FPS difference between that and the 3200 at high res, plus it should overclock almost as well if you decide to do that.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...tout/page7.asp

[MiLaMber]

What a great article by firing squad..just goes to show theres still life in the Athlon XPs yet...pats mine

[Wam7]

I thought that might prove interesting reading Look at the difference between an A64 3000 and the FX55, 10 fps difference at the res I play at. Now find the difference in price.

It's sometimes hard not to get caught up on the upgrade hardware path but you need to check carefully the kind of improvement you're actually getting not the perceived benefits.

[MiLaMber]

Yeah i still got an old Barton 2800+, I find it amazing that an FX55 can only pull 20 more frames @ 1600x1200?!...
But then, in most other games..eg Far Cry the difference is a lot more pronounced...
A lot of time sites only show results with an FX53 or something which is just pointless for most

[Wam7]

I think it can often come down to whether the scene being rendered is more CPU or GPU dependant. It can vary throughout a particular game i.e in HL2 when there a lot of people involved in a firefight then this strains the CPU more.

[Timmy!!!]

Hmm maybe I was wrong earlier. If possible save up a little longer and go for the gt, as it performs so much better at high resolutions which is what you want when playing HL2. (The bottleneck slowness of the system is only apparent in older games or games in a lower resolution)

It might even be better to get an AMD64 2800 as this will only reduce fps by a tiny margain, much less than the nu would compared to the gt. Its also going to be very easy to get it to 3200 speeds.

[Applecrusher]

I think it can often come down to whether the scene being rendered is more CPU or GPU dependant. It can vary throughout a particular game i.e in HL2 when there a lot of people involved in a firefight then this strains the CPU more.

Also things like physics heavy areas would use the CPU more, like the crane part

But after seeing that link by firing squad, im considering buying a 6800GT and living off that untill it is forced to live off a frame rate link my 9600 pro is atm

[Wam7]

I have a 6800GT at 430/1200 and it plays HL2 fine at 1600x1200 4xAA 16xAF. It's a great card but I would say the better card is the X800pro VIVO as I don't know of one that does not go to 16pipes and then most clock to XT PE speeds. It has to be the VIVO one as the normal Pro rarely mods to 16 pipes and is no better than the 6800GT. (except in HL2 )

[alterion]

ok thanks for that.. i found most of my prices form pcworld microdirect lowestonweb and overclockers

[schmunk]

ok so here is what i have so far:Graphics card 6800 gt £256.98
Processor 64 3200 + 131.59
Ram 512 geil value 55
Motherboard 80
Hard drive 120gig –not worried so long as it’s a decnt size 45
DVD rom drive 14.99
Case and power supply 45 jeantec phong and 400W jeantec or antec case w 350W
Screen 210.31
OS- xp home OEM 57.53
Delivery 25ish
Cabels and stuff… what do I need??

alterion - you don't seem to have any CPU cooling included in the price. I assume the processor is OEM - i.e. it doesn't come with a heatsink and fan (HSF). You'll need to add £20 or so for that.