System Specs for Half Life 2

[Shockwave]

I just thought I would mention that even though valve says the minimum system requirements are a 700mhz processor and a equivalent of a tnt2 graphics card, dont expect the game to run at more than 10-20fps. Valve has said that the game will respond to a systems configuration but there are games out there already that do this and it just doesnt work. If you play Half Life 1 and its mods right now and suffer from poor fps it will just get worse with Half Life 2. You will most likley suffer a %50 fps drop from HL2 compared to HL1.

In multiplayer HL2 expect to lose %75 of your fps of what you have now in HL1, because as we should know single player and multi player are two different worlds. Multi-Player has more action and usually more things happening on your screen than singleplayer does. Multiplayer puts alot more stress on your system and needs more speed.

This is not %100 accurate information but is a guideline to follow since specs that are included on games really only give the minimum needed of what the game will run at. 10-15fps is playable that is why they can post such low specs for games and get away with it.

DDR RAM is extremley important in newer games
At least 512 megs to run your OS/backround apps/games at one time.

If you have a 1.3ghz system or under I recomend upgrading your CPU before your graphics card. Because your system will bottleneck your $400 graphics card and it will only achieve half of what it can do. Motherboard and processor combos can be had for $200 for a 2ghz amd athlon or maybe a Pentium4 2ghz.

Anything else to prepare you for HL2 lemme know and ill try to help.

 

[Kyle]

I can't upgrade my cpu anymore. Only thing I can do is add more ram and it already has 512 mb. Hell if I wanted to I could go up to 3 gb with only a 1.6ghz processor. Go figure.

 

[neva]

How about a P4 2GHz @ 2,5GHz, 512 DDR RAM, Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB ??? Do you think its gonna run smoothly ?

Im thinking of upgrading my GPU to a Radeon 9800 PRO...

 

[Shockwave]

Originally posted by Laguna
How about a P4 2GHz @ 2,5GHz, 512 DDR RAM, Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB ??? Do you think its gonna run smoothly ?

Im thinking of upgrading my GPU to a Radeon 9800 PRO...

It should run pretty decent in single player..multi will still give ya problems though. The only thing i see wrong with your system is your vid card.

 

[SilentKilla]

Im not interested in multiplayer unless it has some sorta co-op, my system should run fine, by then it will have more ram.

 

[Apos]

His vid card? Give me a break: DOOM3 is supposed to be able to run well on a card half as expensive and advanced, and it's more ambitious polygon-wise and lighting-wise.

Fact is, we don't know what the bottleneck would be. I bet memory IS a good bet, and that physics stuff must be fairly CPU intensive.

But somehow, I can't see how MP is going to be that much worse in this case, unless they have the same number of objects strewn about the levels as they do in the SP demos. It's the net code that makes most of the difference: how much stuff they can put client side. I mean, the demo had like six soldiers running around (all their AI), and then tons and tons of barrels, boards, other junk lying around, etc. If DM levels are just bare corridors, I can't see much of a problem on the hardware end.

 

[Shockwave]

Windows® 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0
Pentium® 133
24 MB RAM
2X CD-ROM drive
Mouse and Keyboard
640x480 SVGA high color (16-bit) display
Windows-compatible sound device
Recommended System Requirements

You go run Half Life 1 in single player and multiplayer mode and tell me what you get with these specs(retail box half life 1998 minimum system requirements)

I know what the answer is cause i was there...the game would run, but at like 10fps.

If you think DOOM3 is gonna run on a Geforce 2(half the technology half the speed) then your nuts. The main thing holding the game back is that there are no cards capable of running it at least 2x AA with 4x AF. They carmack has said this plenty of times, yes the game will support older generations of cards(5-10fps) but the game wont be released until a card can run it with AA and AF on

 

[dagz]

Originally posted by Laguna
How about a P4 2GHz @ 2,5GHz, 512 DDR RAM, Geforce4 Ti 4200 64MB ??? Do you think its gonna run smoothly ?

Im thinking of upgrading my GPU to a Radeon 9800 PRO...

It might run a little choppy in medium detail since you only got 64mb in your video card. If its choppy then my only guess is go with a geforce 4 or a geforce fx in September/October.

 

[neva]

Im gonna buy myself a Radeon 9700 Pro at the end of this summer !!

So ill think that it would run PRETTY much better !!!

 

[SilentKilla]

Lag, If i win the Raven-Shield tourney this week, ill either sell you a 9800 (i think it is a 98, maybe 9700) Or the card i have now Geforce 4 ti4600. Cause i wont need two.

 

[MiSA]

As I said in another thread, I hope it will run on my athlon xp 2200+, 512 ddr, gf4 ti 4600 oc'ed.

 

[Shockwave]

i think that 9800 should be sold to me

 

[swayzor]

What will be the lowest resoloution? Because i used to play on 640x480 on my old comp for cs and it ran fine... and also, Will there be a command such as fps_max?
And for my last question, what were the specs of the systems that they made those hl2 vids 1-9 off of?

oh yes and also, isn't an athlon 2000+xp practically a p4 2.2? I thought that amd's were better for gaming?

 

[Argyll]

I mentioned in another post that I have a fairly high-end system (Athlon 2200+ 512mb ram) but my low-end 32mb ATI Radeon 7000 slows gaming down a lot. I will buy a 9800 Pro after the summer, closer to the release of HL2.

 

[Shockwave]

amd 2000 is somewhere around 1.4ghz or something..the 2000 is just how it benches at(its a 1.4ghz but compares to a pentium 2ghz)

640x480 is a joke

 

[swayzor]

doh nm i just checked it out and amd 2000+ isnt a 1.4 but a 1.7 and is ranked just as powerful as a pentium4 2.2gig... =\

also for a better way of letting people that were fans of regular half life and dont have the greatest system, 640x480 would be an excellent choice... It decrease's graphics but speeds up their frame rate.

 

[Phoenix Down]

Well I know from personal experience (or is that personal mistake) that the bottleneck is most likely in the processor. Here are my specs:

1.4 GHz Intel P4 w/ 400 MHz FSB
1 GB RDRAM
ATI Radeon 9800 w/ 128 MB DDR

Even with the updated video card I still average about 25-30 fps in games like UT2003, and in some games like the new Wolfenstein ET demo I average about 15 fps.


Basically I'm waiting to buy a new PC solely because I'm not sure what the ideal specs would be for Half-Life 2. At this point I'll probably wait to buy a new one until early September once everything's been confirmed as to specs (assuming of course that the game really does ship on Sept. 30).

 

[aliencowboy]

I'll probably end up running it on my computer (1.4Ghz/512 MB RAM/64 MB GFX Card) how I run UT2003, 1024x768, no-antialiasing, full quality. Well, at least until I can gather up enough money for a new motherboard and 9800 Pro.

 

[h00dlum]

i really need a new computer!!!!

 

[xXSMGXx]

Damn i was about to buy Radeon 9700 pro for my Athlon 1.33ghz...now i have to upgrade the processor too..damn damn :flame:

 

[shawon]

hey guys wat about this system?
PIII - 800 MHZ, 786SDRam, Nvidia Ti 4800 128mb

 

[xXSMGXx]

Hey dont forget when HL1 was released...1998. I remember i had my high end PC, hehe
233pentium
whopping 32 ram
WHOPPING 3dfx Diamond Monster 4mb ..not monster or sumthing else..what ever and HL ran just fine for me, 15-20fps but long loading times

 

[Bad^Hat]

hey you say a AMD 2000+ is a 1.7, my 2200+ is running 1.8... any problem there? I thought I was getting a 2.2 when i got it

 

[skogum!]

My computer....

I have a athlon XP1700+, 256mb sdram and a new geforce4 ti4200 64mb 8xAGP...

Will it run on my computer at all or is it no idea!?:bounce:

 

[Ridic]

Originally posted by Shockwave
I just thought I would mention that even though valve says the minimum system requirements are a 700mhz processor and a equivalent of a tnt2 graphics card, dont expect the game to run at more than 10-20fps. Valve has said that the game will respond to a systems configuration but there are games out there already that do this and it just doesnt work. If you play Half Life 1 and its mods right now and suffer from poor fps it will just get worse with Half Life 2. You will most likley suffer a %50 fps drop from HL2 compared to HL1.

In multiplayer HL2 expect to lose %75 of your fps of what you have now in HL1, because as we should know single player and multi player are two different worlds. Multi-Player has more action and usually more things happening on your screen than singleplayer does. Multiplayer puts alot more stress on your system and needs more speed.

well u definitly wont loose %75 fps from hl to hl2.....that would mean no matter what system u have if u were at 100FPS u would drop to 15.....which just dosnt add up

 

[Ridic]

Re: My computer....

Originally posted by skogum!
I have a athlon XP1700+, 256mb sdram and a new geforce4 ti4200 64mb 8xAGP...

Will it run on my computer at all or is it no idea!?:bounce:

i think it will run fine for u on a medium, or low setting.....the only thing id do if i had ur system, was pop in another 256 sd ram stick, which is only like $20 or less

 

[Shockwave]

Re: Re: System Specs for Half Life 2

Originally posted by [Hunter]Ridic
well u definitly wont loose %75 fps from hl to hl2.....that would mean no matter what system u have if u were at 100FPS u would drop to 15.....which just dosnt add up

this is for people that have low end specs...If you actually do run at 99fps max then you will probably drop to 50 no matter what your specs are(in multiplayer HL2 this will happen)..As for me in half life and mods i run at about 195 fps..Ill probably lose about half of that also in HL2 multiplayer

these dont go for hl2 singleplayer...and speaking of multiplayer the mods for HL2 will have 5x more detail in multiplayer which will need some serious hardware to keep it smooth

 

[Hammer]

HL1 is not an effective guide for framerates in HL2. They are based on completely different technologies, and there are many factors that heavily influence framerate (such as AI and sound) that we know nothing about, really. Throw in the multiple level-of-detail adjustments Newell mentions in the GameSpot interview about HL2, and I think that there's too much going on that we don't know about to make any kind of guesses about relative framerates, loss from HL1, et cetera.

We do know that at least one site has seen it running smoothly with decent eye-candy on a 2.0Ghz P4 system with a GF4 (Ti) - that's from GamesDomain. So, that'll run the game decently well - at least, run the parts of it they'll demo now - and of course the 3.0Ghz / Radeon 9800 Pro box they used at E3 was quick - but with what? What kind of sound? What level of AI, and how many characters? Et cetera... It's all guesswork now.

 

[KiNG]

It's all guesswork

true as is with most things HL2 related we can only speculate on wut we've seen/heard but thats half the fun.

as of right now im going to get me a :
AMD 2800+
a7n8x-dx
1 gig of 2700
Sapphire 9700

thats all for around 550 so in 4 months i can replace many of these things for better parts and stiil retain some money. but then agin who the hell know

oh and the opteron series are starting to come out

 

[skogum!]

Re: Re: My computer....

Originally posted by [Hunter]Ridic
i think it will run fine for u on a medium, or low setting.....the only thing id do if i had ur system, was pop in another 256 sd ram stick, which is only like $20 or less

Thanks! I'm thining of buying a new motherboard and new 512 ddr.

 

[StinkyMojo]

What do you guys think of this config: AMD Athlon Xp 2000+, 512 pc2100, radeon 8500 128mb. Im thinking of adding another stick of 512 or upgrade to a 9700 pro? what do you think?

 

[Ridic]

i think you will be fine...another 512 stick is a good idea though. and maybe a new video card? maybe a 9700 pro, not to much $$$

 

[Ridic]

Re: Re: Re: System Specs for Half Life 2

Originally posted by Shockwave
this is for people that have low end specs...If you actually do run at 99fps max then you will probably drop to 50 no matter what your specs are(in multiplayer HL2 this will happen)..As for me in half life and mods i run at about 195 fps..Ill probably lose about half of that also in HL2 multiplayer

these dont go for hl2 singleplayer...and speaking of multiplayer the mods for HL2 will have 5x more detail in multiplayer which will need some serious hardware to keep it smooth

i dont think so.....dosnt quite matter though, i run at 100fps (or more i dont know but 100 is max in my eyes for hl) im getting a new (and much more powerfull) system, so i should still be at like 70-100 in HL2

 

[StinkyMojo]

cool, thx

 

[InFeRnO]

You guys are friggin retarded.

Okay, you DON'T need to ****ing upgrade to a ****ing $600 video card just because someone on this board says that you need it. Most of the people asking so far will be FINE. Yes that's right. You CAN'T judge your FPS in Half-Life2 by looking at your FPS in Half-Life1. You can get a general idea, but it's not going to be the same at all. I can guarantee most of you that your FPS will be the same IF NOT better in Half-Life2 simply because of the engine. If you've ever played Quake 3 and Quake 2, you'd have noticed how much the FPS improved.

Arg, some of you should be shot.

 

[Shockwave]

If you think your fps wont drop from HL1 to HL2 then you have problems. Yes the game is a new technology but the with that technology comes more detail and is more cpu and gpu dependent. you think the required minimum specs companys put on there box will make the game run smooth? 5-10fps is playable..thats what is technically playable. All of you should know this anyway from buying games in the past. The minimum specs are a joke, and the recommended ones usually only get you 30fps.

I recomend what I recomend so people can play the game with AA and AF on. If they dont use these two features of there cards then they wont get half the visual quality of HL2 with "max details" on.

 

[Ridic]

well he has a point...im not upgrading because of what some ppl said...iv been saving up money for months. i just need a new computer

 

[simmo]

InFeRnO: Ive been trying to say that for ages, for people saying things like:

What will happen if ?
Can I do this ?

For god sake people we havent played da damn game, how do we know!?, well....we know some things due to the tech demo.

If I have offended anypeople during this post, I am truely sorry, so please dont wine and have ago at me, its pointless

Have a nice day!

 

[Mark_Thomas]

Sytem Requirements???

So what would be the ideal system to ensure im playing Half-Life 2 and indeed 1 in all its glory and appreciate the game to its fullest. I have got a 3 year old pentium 3 so i know im gonna have to upgrade but im drowning in a sea of knowledge here everyone has ideas and i feel so lost. Help anyone please!! - Mark

 

[KagePrototype]

So what would be the ideal system to ensure im playing Half-Life 2 and indeed 1 in all its glory and appreciate the game to its fullest. I have got a 3 year old pentium 3 so i know im gonna have to upgrade but im drowning in a sea of knowledge here everyone has ideas and i feel so lost. Help anyone please!! - Mark

You shouldn't bump really old threads when there's a perfectly good thread on the same subject stickied to the top of the forum.