Half-Life 2, CS:S

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:12 pm

I've been watching Half-Life 2 videos... its beeeaautiful...

/drool

Anyone have the minimum and recommended system specs for Half-Life 2? I know its not out until the end of November/beginning of December but I have to start planning my system upgrades so that I can be ready

theres no way I'm missing out on this!

Current System:

Windows XP Pro SP1
AMD Athlon 850
512MB SDRAM
80GB HDD
256MB ABIT 9600XT graphics card (AGP natch)
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Digital soundcard
Broadband - 512k - soon!

Obviously my graphics card is of a good enough spec to handle HL2, but needs a stronger system around it to work to it's full potential - atm its running on APG 4x because my motherboard can't support 8x

I should be OK with CS:S (CounterStrike Source for those who don't know

) when I get it and have enough disk space to install the game, but need a new case, power supply, mainboard, chipset and DDR RAM... not too much to ask lol

I was just wondering if my current machine could have a go at running HL2 without any major spending...

Help? Any suggestions for chipsets? I'd like to stay with AMD so was thinking Athlon XP 3200+ or similar plus 1024MB DDR RAM

plus the necessary supporting hardware, like a new mainboard and shiny new case

metz · Post by **metz** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:18 pm

oh i thought you were gunna say it was out then..i was ready for running out of work and heading to game to buy a copy.

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:20 pm

Sorry

CalvinGTI · Post by **CalvinGTI** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:26 pm

Si_Gti I know of a place you can already purchase CS:Source.

Its on my computer at home, you purchase it and download it there and then, and then they send you the original CD when it gets offically released !

pretty sweet eh ?

Ill link you up lateh if you wanna know where.

Calâ„¢

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:31 pm

Cheers Cal - you talking about Steam? I'm looking into getting that sorted by bringing my PC base unit into work and downloading it here - no broadband at home for a couple of weeks yet

www.steampowered.com I think?

CalvinGTI · Post by **CalvinGTI** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:51 pm

thats the one young padawan ! but bringing in your pc to work? lol how do u expect to play it at home online with a 56gay modem ?!?!?!?

If you do maybe you should put yr name as 'Sir-Lag-a-lot'

haha

The game is gonna rock everyones socks off though . .

Calâ„¢

polopowah · Post by **polopowah** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 5:35 pm

yup played cs:source to death, and have been playing cs for 4 years now

anyone heard of heaton?? played for nip and SK, well he's quite possibly the best player in the world online
slap me if im sounding too nerdy

-Ben-

mk4ads · Post by **mk4ads** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 9:04 pm

Well ive just recently upgraded my pc for the likes of doom 3 and hl 2 (havnt read anything about cs:s)

- Asus P5GD2 Deluxe 915P Motherboard
- Pentium 4 530 "LGA775 Prescott" 3.0GHz (800FSB) with HT Technology
- 2 x Crucial Ballistix 4200 533MHz 512MB DDR2 RAM
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus 160GB ATA-100 8MB Cache HDD
- Enermax Noisetaker 425W AX-VE(G) SFMA Power Supply
- Funcpad 1030 mousemat

2MB adsl will be here 24th novemember aswell

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:22 pm

i very seriously doubt an 850mhz machine could hack HL2

upping from that speed, to a 1600, vastly improved the play experience for half life 1... if you follow the law that has been laid down for every type of game in this area with the possible exceptance of Doom, the sequel will always require twice as many ponies.... dont accept less than a 1700, make a beeline for 3ghz if you can..?

Criz · Post by **Criz** » Wed Oct 13, 2004 11:36 pm

Im wanting to upgrade my pc soonish to handle these such games.

Anyone have any recomendations for a descent motherboard? And a good place to buy them from online?

Im after a 3.2gb processor and an extra 512mb of ram but aint got a clue on motherboards.

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 2:09 am

fifteen quid budget one from ebuyer, there you go

Si_GTi · Post by **Si_GTi** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:55 am

Cheers peeps.

got my new system lined up and will be abusing my credit limit shortly:

https://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/spe ... BB-XP30BUB

Optical drives and a hard disk from dabs won't cost much and I'll take the soundcard and graphics card from my current rig, which will then provide a stable fast machine

Problem solved! As per usual, I now have to wait 2 weeks to be paid...

Tahrey1043 · Post by **Tahrey1043** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 9:49 pm

things may have swapped ends of late without my knowledge (and im too lazy to check) but I do reccommend you check out EBuyer.co.uk if you're prepared to order things from Dabs. Service is about as good, but the prices tend to be a fair bit lower for the same kit.

Gareth_GT_Hatch · Post by **Gareth_GT_Hatch** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 10:27 pm

Well the minimum system requirements are 1.2Ghz processor, 256mb ram, and a directX7 or better compatible video card. Recommended is 2.4 GHz, 512Mb ram and a DirectX9 compatible video card. (taken from this months review in PCzone) Your weak link is the processor like you say But if you upgrade to a newer one youll probably have to change the motherboard and the memory as well as Im guessing the stuff youve got now is old-type SD-RAM.

I bought Half life 2 silver off Steam last week. Got counter strike; source straight away, You get a s**t load of other stuff too like a re-hashed half life coded with the source engine so it looks a million times better. Im hoping it comes out before HL2 so I can play them in the right order.

The new system youve specified is pretty much what Ive got now. Its more than adequate with your current vid card for HL2. Mines a 2800+ which runs at 2.25GHz and is actually faster than the 3200+ (dont ask me how) On a Asus A7N8X-X motherboard, which uses the nforce 2 (or maybe 3) chipset. with 1Gig ram. I think the whole lot cost about Â£200 this time last year, but you could have it for less these days. I buy my stuff from a computer market that runs every saturday near where I live and everything is very cheap. My weak link at the mo is my graphics card - Geforce FX5600. I ran the video card test that you get with counterstrike with everything on as high as it would go and It managed 22fps. My mate with a system half as good as mine but with a 9800XT managed 50+fps on the same benchmark.

Calvin - Im not sure they send you the CDs as well, although Im hoping they do!

GroovyCarrot · Post by **GroovyCarrot** » Thu Oct 14, 2004 11:04 pm

I've never used dabs as I've always been able to find better / cheaper components elsewhere, but I will say about ebuyer that although they may be wonderfully cheap and have a good range, they are run by a bunch of half trained monkeys and good luck should anything go wrong.. which it invariably does

I once spent 45 minutes on hold waiting for customer services after they ignored my emails for a week, finally got them to replace a faulty graphics card and they sent the wrong one back.. I have a friend who bought a wireless ADSL router from them, they sent him a cable modem and a wireless hub.. he sent it back and they sent him two cable modems instead.

Mind you, it might just be me being incredibly unlucky.. there are very few PC shops who I haven't had some kind of nightmare with..

On the topic of PC components, if anyone needs any random bits I've got half a loft full of disused components that I'm trying to clear at the moment

Currently got a couple of bits on ebay, stack of about 15 various cooling fans (I went through an overclocking phase..), a load of motherboards of various shapes and sizes, might have some case modding stuff somewhere if anyone's into that (I got a bit bored after I realised how little artistic talent I had when it came to chopping up cases..). Let me know if anyone's after any odd bits anyway