Hl 2 what system do i need

i am getting a new system at the moment but i thought id ask the BIG question for me. what do i NEED to be able to play hl2 at around 60fps with all the settings on max and full aa and filtering... is 1 gig of ram essential? what is the lowest priced GPU that will run this. my system is coming in at around £930 at the moment. i have on the specs- 6800gt amd 64 winchester 3200+ 512 mb geil value. Do people think that going pci-e is good or should i take advantage of lower prices and go AGP. thanks. we could also expand this thread into a general hl2 specs thread as i guess i'm not the only one who is geting a new rig on a budget who want's to play this game

For that system, 1Gb of RAM is a must - otherwise it would drag the whole system down.

Well, I can play Half Life II at 1600x1200, 8AA, 16AF, all settings on max. So, gig of decent RAM (It is a must, yes), overclock that GT, get some decent cooling (air colling, nothing more needed, but something decent like an XP-120 and a decent 120mm fan) and OC the CPU to, say 2.5-2.6ghz, like most of the Winchster cores have been doing, and the jobs a good 'un.

ATi cards are running Half Life II better at the mo, the gap will close as Nvidia release drivers to close the gap, but like Doom III will always run better on Nvidia, you can expect Half Life II to always run better on ATi.

Its not actaully that demanding a game, specwise - any of the big 4 GPUs (X800pro, X800XT, 6800GT, 6800Ultra), a nice 64bit overclockable CPU and a gig of decent RAM and it'll fly. I had more trouble getting Doom III and FarCry running super smooth on the highest settings.

I would also reccomend the 1Gb of RAM, but everything else looks pretty good to me. As for AGP vs PCI-E, not even the best graphics cards are utilising all of the agp8x speed so AGP would not cause any slower performance. However if you want to upgrade in the future PCI-E is the way to go as AGP will soon be phased out.

ok it looks like i'll hve to bite the bullet and get a gig of ram. However i so far have not been able to squeeze it into my budget so i may buy 512 mb and then upgrade once i'm up and running and have earnt a bit more

the only problem with buying ram modules seperately is that they are not guaranteed to run in dual channel mode. I would recommend getting 1Gb of ram and a slightly slower processor, and just overclock the processor to the speed you were going to get - or higher.

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Originally Posted by Timmy!!!

the only problem with buying ram modules seperately is that they are not guaranteed to run in dual channel mode.

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This may be true, but ive never herd of someone NOT being abl to run 2 sticks of the same brand, same model ram together..

Although it is rare it does happen sometimes, i think anyway. The memory modules on the RAM are sometimes made by different manufacturers, or the company that makes the RAM modules might change etc.

I would still recommend getting 1Gb of RAM. It has become pretty much the norm nowadays if you are into gaming. If you decide to go with 512 you may get stuttering and unsmooth game play in HL2, Doom 3 and Far Cry.

the problem i have with buying sticks at the same time is that a stick of giel value ram costs £55 but i can only save £30 by going for the 3000+ processor. Mind you im not getting the system for sevral weeks yet but thought it best to plan ahead (only have 700 at the mo need 930). If i buy branded geil value (heard good stuf about this ram) ramin two lots presumably i would be able to avoid compatability problems

alterion: If you list all the things you need to buy we can all help you find them for as cheap as possible, or better products for a cheaper price if you want.

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

HL2 is very easy on the specs, FarCry and Doom 3 are much more intensive. For example, on full details, 4xAA and 8xAF, 1280x960 it never dips below 30 fps on my 2500+, 1GB RAM, 9800Pro. Make sure you get 1GB of RAM however, coupled with a 6800GT and really no matter the CPU, HL2 will fly.

I was suprised by the needs of HL2, I have:

Shuttle SN45G
Barton 3200+ CPU
1GB Twinmos Dual Channel PC3200
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro
Audigy 2
L1710B TFT Monitor

It runs with all settings on full and looks great (only with 4 x AA and 4 x AF) It runs at smoothness that I have never seen a game with such graphics. By the way what doe verticle sync do?

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Originally Posted by alexander

By the way what doe verticle sync do?

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It syncs the video to your monitor so the images to apeare to be tearing... ;)

If you can't understand the previous post, it synchronizes the framrate to your monitors refresh rate, so that images will not tear.

Mind my newness, what does tear do? Does it take alot of GPU stuff up? Will it decrease my framerate? My monitor is a an LG 1710B TFT, should i enable it?

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.

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

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Originally Posted by 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

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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...

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.

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Originally Posted by yamangman

The above is not entirely accurate.....

To answer your question...

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

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Originally Posted by alterion

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

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by alterion

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

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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)

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

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

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. :eek:

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.

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

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.

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.

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Originally Posted by 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.

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

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 :rockon:

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 :))

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

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Originally Posted by alterion

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??

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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.

just checked the processor price and it is now at 133 from microdirect (retail so it inclues heatsink right??) but i think the 300+ is £102 so i'll probably go for that.

retail does include heatsink and also a 3 tr warranty as opposed to 1 year on the OEM ;)

Just to put things in perspective a bit.....

I am playing HL2 on the 'play' computer listed below. It runs super-smooth with everything on high (but no AA) at 1280x1024. OK, I'm sure those of you with 6800's and X800's are getting far superior graphics, but even my 2-year-old system gives a fantastic experience with HL2. Valve have done a brilliant job of optimising their game so that you don't need a cutting-edge system.