HL2 at maxed settings...?

[pirahna1]

Hi everyone, new to the forums here. I need to build myself a new PC (mine is severly lacking), and I was wondering if the gamers who are running HL2 at MAXed settings could post their system specs.

Also, if you happen to be able to play other games such as Battlefield 2, Fear, Doom 3, or Quake 4 at maxed settings, please let me know. TYIA for any help you can offer!

 

[comradpoplin1]

well it all depends on how welll you whant your games to play at full settings.
quake 4 for instanse even with a amd athlon 64 3700+ -ati x800 gto -and 1gb ddr 400 wont run to smoothly in full detail it will run but not seamlasly.
for that you are talking some serious kit x1900/amd fx/1gb ot top brand ddr and your away but thats also very very expensive now a 3700+ and the gto is stilll a very good machine that will play games comfortably it will play battlefield 2 nicely with good detail same with fear and quake 4 but full detail is only achievable with good results if you start spending some nice money.
if this is no problem go buy the fx and the x19.
check benchmarks on the net its the same thing time and time again and it really does ring true.
unless you can find some serious bargains you get what you pay for.
theres a reason an x1900 costs £400 and a x800gto costs £135
thats because the x1900 bends the gto over and stick it to it good and proper. but im guessing that if you could just go buy the fx and the x1900 you wouldnt be in here asking what was the best to buy you allready have it.
of course there is a way to save a lot of money but your screwed if ya dont live in the uk.
buy in from america ,i dont mean go onto the uk ebay site and buy form a usa seller go onto the american ebay and find someone that will send from the states example x1900 on the uk ebay costs around £399 the exact same card on the american ebay costs $550 with exchange rates this would end up costong you shiped from the states £325 thats £75 along with the rest of ya parts you would end up amounting quite a saving and this is the privalige of having such a strong currency

 

[oMeSSiaHo]

Max is a very general term. Max resolution for somebody with a 15 inch LCD (1024x768) is different then max for someone with a 24 inch LCD (1920x1080).
There is also the difference in what people consider good framerates. Some people are ok with 30-40FPS but I get uncomfortable under 60FPS. The guy before mentioned looking and benchmarks and thats a good start. There will always be little differences as most benchmarks are designed to test just the card and dont take into count the many other factors that effect PC preformance. Since you asked what people use I'll list my specs and what I play games at.

Athlon 64 3700+
2gigs of XMS RAM
XFX7800GT
ASUS A8N SLI
74Gig Raptor
Audigy 2 zs platinum

I play Halflife2 at 1680x1050 with the AA and AF maxed with HDR on. My framerates dont dip below 60. I play Battlefield 2 at 1280x1050 (I wish it supported a higher res =() and all of the AF, AA and draw distance maxed and dont dip below 60. I cant remember what I played FEAR at but I think it was 1440xwahtever wide screen res and 4xaa and max AF and it dipped to 40 FPS every now and again but mostly stayed above 60.

Again this is how the hardware handels it on MY computer. Things like file compression, spyware, prefetch, and background software will effect the preformance to some degree.

Now that I think about it I sell many PC's that would run great with a graphics card upgrade that wouldnt cost more then $1000 with the card.

 

[M1CH43L]

I play everything at max (including audio) with 1680 x 1050 with HDR enabled-
Specs are:
Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.4 Ghz (HT)
256 nVidia 6800
1024 MB RAM
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Running on a XPS Generation 4

I also run Bf2 at 1680 x 1050 on all high except AA is at 2x (save Ultra High in audio, don't have X-fi)
@ 1680 x 1050

 

[supertrooper]

Hi everyone, new to the forums here. I need to build myself a new PC (mine is severly lacking), and I was wondering if the gamers who are running HL2 at MAXed settings could post their system specs.

Also, if you happen to be able to play other games such as Battlefield 2, Fear, Doom 3, or Quake 4 at maxed settings, please let me know. TYIA for any help you can offer!

friendly, i play these games too

my computer is windows, xp, with dsl accession and intel chip. i hope that is of usefulness to you.

 

[sinkoman]

friendly, i play these games too

my computer is windows, xp, with dsl accession and intel chip. i hope that is of usefulness to you.

What is DSL accession? In any case, DSL won't help with your settings.

Intel CHIPset, or processor?

To the thread starter, you're probably going to want to make a post in the Hardware Software section, you can get a lot more help there.

But really, with HL2, it isn't that hard to run it at max settings. Are trying to build a PC that will be good enough to run HL2 maxed? Or are you trying to build a PC that is the best of the best, and will cost a jewelry store?

You're going to get more refined answers in the Hardware Software section, but what you're generally going to want to get is an AMD processor, and at least 1gig of ram.

I'd reccomend the A64 3500+ if you're just looking to run HL2 maxed. Not too expensive, and it pulls like a horse. Love mine.

Now this is personal oppinion, but i'd say either a 6800gt or a 7800gt will do you good. If you have the money, go for a 7800gtx, but a 6800gt is enough to run HL2 maxed. Hell, a 9800 pro can run HL2 maxed

Oh, btw, if you're a bit of a nub, all but the last card I mentioned is/are nvidia cards.

 

[Sanada]

By maxed, do you mean having AA and AF enabled too?

I played HL2 with every setting maxed @ 1024x768x32 but had AA and AF disabled. This was with a Radeon 9700 Pro. I could've had them enabled but it probably would've suffered. I have a 6800GS now so I have AA and AF enabled by default anyway but I still run at 1024x768.

I think a 6600GT/X800 will do you fine for HL2 but I'm not sure about other games. I know FEAR needs a lot because of the lighting.

 

[supertrooper]

What is DSL accession? In any case, DSL won't help with your settings.

Intel CHIPset, or processor?

.

1.DSL accession is my internet IP creationer

2. intel processing

 

[giant384]

I play everything at max (including audio) with 1680 x 1050 with HDR enabled-
Specs are:
Intel Pentium 4 @ 3.4 Ghz (HT)
256 nVidia 6800
1024 MB RAM
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Running on a XPS Generation 4

I also run Bf2 at 1680 x 1050 on all high except AA is at 2x (save Ultra High in audio, don't have X-fi)
@ 1680 x 1050

i dont see how you can play that high with just a 6800 and 1gig of ram

 

[sinkoman]

1.DSL accession is my internet IP creationer

2. intel processing

Oh I see, you're austrian, so english isn't your strong point.

My bad

 

[Asuka]

I run Half-Life 2 @ 1600 res
Everything maxed full aa/af and r_lod -5 (its af but for models.)

FX55
7800 GTX 256 overclocked
1 gig 2.2.2.5
74 gig 10,000 raptor

 

[CyberPitz]

My mear 2.8 P4 2 gig DDR400 ram, X800GTO 256 runs HL2 on EVERYTHING maxed. No need for the most expensive stuff. Although with the new patch, I can't run BF2 on all high, though I used to be able to.

 

[Fastfwdd]

I have a amd 4000+, 2 gig ddr400 ram, and ati x1900xt.
I can run half life 2 at 1600x1200 with 6x aa and 16x af and the framerate stays at around 300 FPS. Getting anything dual-core will not really boost your half life 2 performance that much and is definitely not worth it if thats all your looking for out of it. The x1900xt is really sweet because I can turn on adaptive anti-aliasing, which is TRULY max settings. I can push FEAR at max settings at around 80 fps, and that means any other game will run only faster.