Think your grfx card can handle HL2??

tony_j15 · July 12th, 2003, 06:25 PM

Usually, when you play a game with an older card, it displays everything at high detail, causing the fps to hit the dirt. It looks just as good(ok, not exactly) as your friends, it just runs slower. So you tweak around, finding that perfect spot between high detail and respectable frame rates thinking, I gotta get a better card. Now you do. Half Life 2 ditches the traditional user gets to pick the settings approach. Instead, it does it for you. And it will customize it to run the fastest on your hardware. What does this mean? Loss of quality. Before, if you want to play, say, JK2 with full details on a geforce2, itll do that. But it will crawl along at terrible speeds. With HL2, it will set the details for you, but they are not the same ones! Valve actually created different textures for different graphics levels. So that Ge2 will only do 256x256 textures, low variety, and medium res displacement maps. Whereas a radeon 9700 will give you 512x512 textures, high variety, full res displacement maps with bumpmapping. Feeling worried? If you have a older card, you should.

Creatures · July 12th, 2003, 06:37 PM

i feel worried! but i have no money for a new card and then for the game too! sucks a bit

sometimes i play games which need more resources than my PC has but it works perfectly not best graphic (i dont care about graphics) but it's enough for me

i still play UT2K3 and i'm surprised how good the graphic details look on my (not that good) PC

what are BTW the minimal system requirements for Half Life2? any idea?

Creatures

Nighthawk · July 12th, 2003, 07:56 PM

I think it sounds like a good idea to have the game itself change some of the video options, but there should be a way to turn it off.

I remember reading somewhere that it would run on either DirectX 7 or 8, since that's the majority of the system specs they've been getting from the survey-thing included in the last few patches.

Redwolf · July 12th, 2003, 08:59 PM

HL will ru nunder DirectX 6, 7, 8, or 9. However, under Directx 6 or 7, it will look more like Half-Life 1 than Half-Life 2 and the motion cameras will be inoperable. That according to Maximum PC (my last issue too, as I can't renew it...too broke

).

uncle_jimbo · July 13th, 2003, 03:07 AM

it can handle it...

Telexen · July 13th, 2003, 03:18 AM

I don't think you quite understand

You say it will optimize the game to run fastest on X computer, this is only half true though. Logically, fastest for EVERY system regardless would be 640x480 16bit colors and low quality all around...am I wrong?

It's not even like it's going to find a near mix between speed and quality...it will attempt to hit the highest quality at which a playable speed can be maintained.

This is probably a good move, because lets face it - there are some not-so-savy computer users out there who don't know what the resolution is, don't know how to tweak quality settings, and don't know how to tweak their system to push better quality out of games...these users get the games, and end up not being able to play them because they messed with something they didn't have...which waste's both our (meaning forum tech support) and corporate tech support's time.

operative x · July 13th, 2003, 03:20 AM

I'm sure my Radeon 9700 pro, Pentium 4 3GHz, Sound Blaster Audigy, 19" Monitor with a maximum res of 1700x1344, surround sound super computer can handle it

with 512DDR/SDRAM

Good Charlotte · July 23rd, 2003, 04:58 AM

My Alienware PC is kick a$$:

win xp
512mb DDR
P4 at 2 ghz
Radeon 9700 pro 128mb DDR
Audigy2 sound card
120gigs 7200 rpm hard drive
Asus mobo

My PC is going to burn the game of how much power it has!

Urban_Squrill · July 23rd, 2003, 05:03 AM

My Box might be able to.
XP PRO
768 DDR
2600+
Radeon 9700 128
2 80gb 7200rpm Stripping(RAID O)
nForce2

Good Charlotte · July 23rd, 2003, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Urban_Squrill
My Box might be able to.
XP PRO
768 DDR
2600+
Radeon 9700 128
2 80gb 7200rpm Stripping(RAID O)
nForce2

yes it is able.......u almost have the same specs i got, but u have athlon and i have pentium, ur memory is higher than mine..... don't worry, both of our systems will play not only Half Life2 but upcoming games like: Deus Ex2: Invisible War, Quake4, Doom III, halo, Thief III!