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Half Life 2 with cheap system
Wednesday, Nov. 3 2004 | Author: barbuttiHalf Life 2 is less than two weeks away from hitting the streets and many of you are wondering how the game that is supposed to be the best game of all time is going to run on your current system (that is, of course, if your system is not an Athlon 64 / Radeon x800XT). The Inquirer made an article putting old systems to the test with the Source Engine and the results were very surprising (”stress test results” are the numbers that matter):
It is obvious that even running at a bearable frame rate, the game looks really bad on the GeForce 4 MX because of the DirectX 7 support, but if you already have an Athlon XP 1800+, all you will have to do to play HL2 is get a Radeon 9600 or a GeForce 6600.
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75 Responses for "Half Life 2 with cheap system"
November 4th, 2004 at 7:12 am
1Geforce 6600? Bullshit, The game will run well on the FX series too.
Although considering price/performance ratio of the 6600, if you can afford it and have a system that will run it, then the card is well worth the bucks.
(I don’t know anything about radeon cards, but all I ever heard about them is shit anyway)
November 4th, 2004 at 10:46 am
2Yep, I run cs Source on a Geforce FX (even the Go version) and it’s smooth.
November 4th, 2004 at 1:16 pm
3I’ve never tested it, but straight from the Inquire article:
November 5th, 2004 at 5:30 am
4In case you hadn’t noticed the 6600 is a PCI Express card, not all that great if you don’t want to swap out your entire motherboard.
Its a little irritating about the FX5* series, as I got a FX5700U.
November 6th, 2004 at 11:56 am
5Barbutti: That’s ridiculous. With the newest drivers, I can play fine on my GeForce FX 5350 Go (Oem laptop FX 5xxx series).
So the key is to update your drivers, but Steam already warns you about this when you try to play with the old ones.
November 6th, 2004 at 6:58 pm
6I don’t think he was saying it was unplayable, just there will not be full direct-x 9 support on cards below the 6600.
My friend is playing CS:S on an MX-440, and you can really see the difference between that and my FX card, and likely you can see another stunning visual quality increase going from an FX to a 6??? range card.
November 6th, 2004 at 8:21 pm
7Thanks Norgus for making everyone undestand my point clearer (The Inquirer’s point, actually). I’ve never said that the FX 5xxx wouldn’t run the game and neighter did The Inquirer. All that was said was that the DirectX 9 support from this cards is really not good, at least not for Valve.
November 9th, 2004 at 3:44 pm
8I have a geforce mx440 128meg how will half life 2 run on my computer? i am thinking of upgrading my graphics card to a 6600 but how do i fit it and how can i be sure my motherbaord will work with it? i have a p4 2.8ghz chip!! Can ne1 help me? Pleaz!!!!
November 15th, 2004 at 1:34 pm
9i run cs:source at 40fps with a p4 2.4ghz
786mb ram and a geforce fx5200 can you beleive that?
you’re run fine at dx7
November 16th, 2004 at 5:33 pm
10ok.. so the bottom line is that the HL2 will run ok on the FX series but not as good as with 6xxx ! am i right ?
I have FX go 5350 ! Is its worth buying the game?!! cause farcry laggs quite a bit
pls help !
November 16th, 2004 at 6:59 pm
11It’s not exactly that, Alex. The main difference between HL2 on a GF-FX and on FG-6xxx is the eyecandy; the newer cards do a much better job processing DirectX 9 graphics.
November 17th, 2004 at 2:28 pm
12ty ! at a rezolution of lets say 1024×780x32 will HL2 run smooth on the FX series ? Or is that too much for those cards ? thank you
November 17th, 2004 at 2:32 pm
13and 1 more thing ! Can anybody give me a link to the best drivers for a GF FX 5350 GO ? Im not sure wich drivers to pick !
thanks again !
November 17th, 2004 at 6:15 pm
14I’m not an expert or anything, but I believe that to run HL2 smooth at 1024×768x32 you will need at least a 6600GT or a X700Pro. And that is if you have an Athlon FX.
There are some benchmarks here (from ATI, so they’re probably tendentious:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19707
Here are some other ones, more thust worthy:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjkyLDM=
http://www.thetechlounge.com/article.php?directory=hl2_performance
November 19th, 2004 at 4:18 am
15Hi everyone! Could you give some links for a GeForce FX 5350 Go drivers. I’m begging You. Alex, Have you got some??
:((((( :(((( ;((((
November 21st, 2004 at 3:43 pm
16Yeah I realized the FX5xxx video cards don’t render the edges of the water to blend with the land. Even with the direct x 9 forced on it.
November 23rd, 2004 at 9:13 pm
17Well Frizic i actually got the drivers from nVidia site.. they seem to work pretty well ! They are the newest drivers ! go to :
http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
I dunno what OP u have so u choose and then DL !
hope this helps u !
November 24th, 2004 at 6:15 pm
18Thanks a lot. I’ll try but I belive it will help me. Very Very Very thanx
November 26th, 2004 at 3:18 pm
19I really want to get this game but I’m worried that it won’t run very well on my computer, here are my system specs:
Windows XP Pro
AMD Athlon XP 2.0 GHz 2400+
nVidia GeForce FX 5200 w/256 MB (8xAGP)
512 MB DDR Memory
What do you guys think? Any comments will be appreciated.
November 26th, 2004 at 7:56 pm
20Andrew, I think it will run ok on low quality and low resolution. But again, I’m no expert on this! Your Fx 5200 is what will hold you back. If you have some extra money, get yourself a Radeon 9600XT.
November 26th, 2004 at 11:15 pm
21how bout me???
Windows XP home
AMD Athlon 3200+
Geforce4 MX
512 MB DDR Memory
November 26th, 2004 at 11:23 pm
22Forget it joe. Practically impossible to play with GF4MX. The least you’ll need is a Ti 4200 or an FX. But, as I said before, a good choice is a Radeon 9600XT. That is, of course, if you’re thinking of buying a new one.
November 26th, 2004 at 11:43 pm
23Ok thanks.
November 29th, 2004 at 10:56 pm
24I just bought Half-Life 2 will it run on my system?
GeForce FX 5200
AMD Sempron 2800+ 2.0 GHz
512 MB RAM
Abit NF7-S2G motherboard w/ nForce 2
December 4th, 2004 at 3:28 pm
25will iut run on this system? im talkin MINIMUM SETTINGS. 640×480 all things turned off…..
AMd athlon 1.3 ghz
256 MB RAM
geforce mx 4000 gfx card
December 4th, 2004 at 7:26 pm
26i got a dell with a GeForce FX 5200
1000 mb ram and a pentium 4 3.0 ghz
will i play able to play game smoothly?
December 5th, 2004 at 12:36 pm
27hmm.. what Clock speed is your RAM ? It matters a lot ! The game might run smooth at LOW settings ! :(
December 5th, 2004 at 9:03 pm
28133 mhz? idk really
December 6th, 2004 at 11:55 am
29Chetan, yes, it will run smoothly as long as you 5200 is 128bits.
Josh, if your 5200 is 128bits, I believe you’ll be able to play it on medium-low settings smoothly.
Steve, 133MHz is too slow, but still I believe you can play the game on the lowest quality possible.
Here’s what I’m buying to play HL2:
Abit NF7
Sempron 2200+
512 DDR 400MHz
Radeon 9600Pro
I’m hoping to play the game at 1024×768 @ medium quality. Once I get everything, I’ll post some benchmarks here.
December 8th, 2004 at 8:22 pm
30I have a geforce 440mx directx8 64mb
512mb.
My friends say it should run smooth on 800×600 with shades off and low quality, but i just wanna make sure because im low on budget before i get a new Vcard.
December 10th, 2004 at 2:04 am
31What about on a P4 1.3ghz 640mb RDRam and 9800 pro?
December 12th, 2004 at 10:26 pm
32Last time I’ll comment on this post regarding the specs for Half Life 2.
Tiago, it depends (a lot) on the rest of your system. You need at least a 1.6GHz to run it smoothly and your RAM have to be fast.
Jason, you should be fine. You could try and overclock your CPU for a little more performance but that’s up to you. Perhaps get a new processor should do good, since you have a wonderful VGA.
December 31st, 2004 at 4:41 pm
33Hi
Sys specs
Amd Athlon XP 2600+ @ 2.20GhZ – Geforce FX 5600 ( tweaked a bit for better FPS) – Nforce2 with 768MB DDR400 – Audigy 2 ZS
And i want to say that the game works smoothly on 1024X768 with 2xAA
Frameratie is never lower than 20 and the avarage is 45 FPS (highest 85FPS ) what i want to say is that the Geforce FX Nice FPS gives
January 1st, 2005 at 2:08 am
34Yes, the FX series gives good FPS, but doesn’t play the game on full DirectX 9. Only the 6000 Series and the ATis.
I just bought HL2 and I gotta say I’m really impressed with the engine performance/efficiency. My system is a nForce2 motherboard, Sempron 2400+, 512MB DDR400. The video card is a tiny GeForce 4 MX440 64bits. The game’s running at an average 50-60fps, with highest up to 160fps! Notice that this VGA only supports DX7, so the graphics are nothing spectacular. But still, Valve did an amazing job on the engine. (a much better job than Id did with the Doom 3 engine, which produces worse overall graphics and requires a much more powerful system).
May 17th, 2005 at 6:01 am
35why does the game freezez in the main menu?
my system specs are:
intel p4 3.20 ghz extreme edition
1.0 ghz ddr (two 512 400mhz)
geforce 6600 256mb
board: photon 2 1000 mhz bus
still it freezes!
this game is to costy if you ask me.
i just recently upgraded my system!
my previous runs on a p4 2.80 single stick
512 ddr running in 400 mhz a geforce mx 4000 128mb so i thought my system is to slow so upgraded but still it has the same problem!
and my half life 2 is no pirated!
May 19th, 2005 at 4:38 am
36i have a nvidia fx 5200 with 28mb memory and 256 mb of ram and 1.8 ghz .can HL2 run smoothly on my pc on medium quality
May 19th, 2005 at 4:39 am
37128mb sorry!
June 7th, 2005 at 7:23 pm
38I have an Athlon XP1800+ and a Geforce 440 MX with 64MB, and 512MB PC2700, and Half-Life 2 runs fine on medium detail. Do you guys not optimize your systems, or something, that you think that HL2 will only run well on low settings, even with a Geforce FX card? Admittedly, I overclock my CPU to about 1650Mhz, and my video card by about 30Mhz, but that matters little.
June 7th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
39And I run the game at 1024×768x32.
But I did just buy an FX 5200 with 128MB, so I wonder how much better that will be. I bought it cheaply off Ebay because I can’t afford a 6800. At least not until they cost $50 to $100 on Ebay, too.
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:15 pm
40hi uhm, im gonna buy half life 2 later..but im still worried that it wont work…i got a GeForce 440 MX with 64MB, will it work well if i already got more than the minimum requirements for the game? thanks.
June 22nd, 2005 at 8:20 pm
41wait not just half life 2, i meant, all, games that come with the pack. sorry.
June 23rd, 2005 at 10:54 am
42I have a AMD Athlon 1.39ghz 1600+ XP and I run the game at the highest it can possibly run. I have 768mb of ram and a ATI Radeon 9250 with 256mb of video ram. My PC also runs Unreal Tourtament 2004, Far Cry, And DOOM 3 and the higest quality. This shows that you dont need a Pentium 4 with HT to run a good game. My computer runs a lot better than a pentium 4. My video card was only $70 on http://www.newegg.com . It runs games flawlessly.
July 25th, 2005 at 2:02 am
43hey can my comp run HL2, and CS Source?
1 gig RAM
GeFORCE FX 5500 Direct X9 128MB
Unsure about processor, although it’s an intel pentium 4 if that means anything
Cable Internet Connection
….anything else i should tell you?
will that work, or do i need something else.
i’m really not too good with comps so can somebody answer my question…PLEASE!?!?!?!?
July 25th, 2005 at 2:20 am
44oh yeah, and my comp is only about 2 years old, it’s a Dell. if that has anything to do with my processor which i now think is at least 2ghz although i can’t tell because i don’t have any games on my comp now.
July 29th, 2005 at 12:19 pm
45I have a problem, i have:
Nvidia Geforce 5500 fx series 256mb
which i just installed. and it doesnt work. I download the lastest driver and have direct 9.0 and its saying i must have the mininum requirement of 7.0
something is wrong
September 13th, 2005 at 11:59 pm
46i have AMD ATHLON 2600+ AN ASUS A78VX MOTHER BOARD 256 MB RAM AND UNICHROME GRAPHICS CARD AS ONBOARD GRAPHIC CARD.I COULD NOT PLAY NFS 2 UNDERGROUND ,HL2,ETC.Would upgrading memory to 512 MB RAM SOLVE MY PROBLEM
October 17th, 2005 at 6:03 am
47I have a 256 mb geforce 6600 pci-e on p4 3ghz wit ht and 512 mb ram on a albatron intel 865pe pro 2 should i be able to play half life 2 smoothly on medium to high settings
November 15th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
48I am planning on getting a 3.4 Ghz Processor with 2GB of DDR2 533MHz, and for the graphics card a GeForce6600 512MB PCIe. I believe that the graphics card has 8 pixel pipelines and 128-bit memory interface, with a graphics clock speed of somewhere around 400mhz. Will Half-Life 2 run on full settings fairly smoothly with this?
November 16th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
49I have an athlon xp 2000+ (1.67 ghz) cpu, 512 MB of RAM(DDR 400) and a geforce 4 mx 440 with 128 MB memory. the operating system is windows xp pro. how will half life 2 run on my system?
please send the answer to bubba_ionut@yahoo.com
December 15th, 2005 at 10:39 am
50need to play hl2 on my dell inspiron 1200 thats all i have now.its got a 64 mb intel 915gml/gms graphics card.its got 256mb ram.basicly the game shuts every time an auto save point comes with message like valve/ram files… error. wats the problem the card memory or the system memory?
December 15th, 2005 at 10:44 am
51i can easily buy more ram if thats the problem.plz help. i totally in love with the game.
send any solution to rohit18_1987@hotmail.com
January 5th, 2006 at 7:32 am
52let me clear this up,
yes hl2 will run on any system, depending on the level of graphics u put,the higher u put the more it will lag, on any system of course i mean atleast a 5200 or a radeon 9200 and up, i had a radeon 9800XT worked Flawleslly now u dont need to have a top of the range card, like sed before the 9600’s are more than capable of doing the job right, as for the other dude ur computer will have sever problems running hl2 ona 1.3 ghz and 256 ram
January 5th, 2006 at 7:34 am
53oh and also NO a 6600 is not just pci-express it is also AGP but its worthless unless you are considering the GT or Ultra series
January 13th, 2006 at 10:23 am
54I have P4 proccessor 2.80 ghz and geforce fx 5200 graphics card and 512 MB ram.Does these support far cry?cause i have far cry and when i play the game ,everything ,absolutely everything looks white.Can anyone help?
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:30 am
55Whenever i run the game(hl2) it crashes to desktop twice as it tries different video settings. it is unable to run even in safe mode. help me. i have a geforce FX 5200 with 128MB RAM and a 2.o ghz 256MB system. I’ve been told its a bug. How can i get around it. PLEASE HELP!!
January 26th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
56Man im using a crappy dell dimension 2400 with rubish intel celeron 2.4ghz and 512mb pc2700 ram. I have a geforce FX5500 PCI (Not PCI express) And i can play with setting on High with shadows and everythin on with no lags. And a FPS of above 60+, so FX cards must be more than capable
February 8th, 2006 at 3:05 pm
57I have a AMD 64 3200+ @ 2.0Ghz, 1GB pc3200 400mhz, and FX 5500 256mb, i can play with shadow,texture,model on high settings, but reflections on simple and shader on low..I run it at 800×600 and get fps from 60-80 normaly, at best 100-170. I thought fx series was suppose to be all about shading…Why isnt it reccomended that i set shader detail to high?!?
February 10th, 2006 at 11:09 am
58guys i am trying to play hl2 and having problems with stuttering i have downloaded the patch but still plays up seems to do it more when the game is busy ie lots going on
my system is amd 2600+ 1.9 ghz 512 ddr ram with a nvidia fx5200 128mb card.
i think to be honest the card is the main problem can anyone recommend a good one thats not 2 expensive also can you please tell me if my cpu is to slow for this game cheers Darz
February 11th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
59ok thanks but can you please tell me if i can play doom 3 with an ati 9800
February 11th, 2006 at 7:29 pm
60thanks
February 13th, 2006 at 6:36 am
61hi again got a 9800 pro 256 mb on the way but think i have dropped a bollock did not notice till after i paid 4 it but it only has a 128 bit memory interface will this be ok with hl2 and other recent games like doom3 seems a bit of a marketing trick did not know there were 9800 pros with 128 and 256 interfaces please advise cheers
February 14th, 2006 at 6:00 am
62ok thanks for the advice
February 21st, 2006 at 10:27 am
63system specs : athlon 1800+ 2.4 ghz, geforce 2 mx. can run hl2 on lowest settings. thinking about buying a geforce 6600. need it for dx9 support but will it make any differnce or even fit in my system? any advice appreciated. cheers
February 24th, 2006 at 9:25 am
64i have an 3.06ghz intel celeron d processer and 512mb ram with directx 9.0c and a 256 nvidia geforce 6200 turbo cache graphics card.
will half life 2 run on this mainly cause of my graphics card being 6200 and processer being celeron
April 7th, 2006 at 11:33 am
65my specs:
amd sempron 2400+ 1.7ghz, 448mb ram and a NVIDIA GEFORCE FX 5600. will half life 2 and counter strike source run on in. reply to jakefell@hotmail.co.uk. thx
April 14th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
66i have a hp a735w running on a athlon 3600+ and 512mb of RAM and i just upgraded my video card to a geforce 6600 Verto (AGP 2.0 8X), the only things you realy need to worry about is your power supply and the space inside your computer when you you a geforce, NVIDIA already has alot of instalation problems covered so that it is very easy and smooth to install
May 4th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
67I have a Ath XP 2600+ oc @ 2.13GHz, FX5200 128/128 and 768MB DDRAM 266… I think it’ll run OK. :D
May 15th, 2006 at 2:50 am
68ROFL u guys need 2 se my pc it is has a 1.8 amd and a gforce fx 5500 and the defalt drivers and 256 mb of ram and it run at 1280×1024 and all the settings on high AT 60 fps but farcry on low at 30 fps WTF LOL
May 20th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
69Sorry but reading that someone actually was trying to stick up for Nvidia’s poor range FX products is just plain funny. I just used a 9800se with r60 core, and added a really big heat stock, jammed up the core and mem had no problems,(and modded the bios) guess unlike Doom3 HL2 detects you’re system, Nice!
Hmm lets add the FX series to the forbidden list and let it join Windows Millenium in peice. Geforce 4 and 6 are great cards but they never perfected series 5,
May 20th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
70Ok that last posts 21/5/6
I am not taking ATI’s side because I love my 7900GTX SLI Rig and yes I still have that 9800 mod xt card n box.
September 16th, 2006 at 1:00 am
71I have a athlon 64 4.2ghz with 4gb of ram dd2
and Geforce 7950 1GB
i run hl 2 in max quality and 80fps
:P
October 28th, 2006 at 4:04 am
72Will it work on AMD sempron 2400+, 512mb,
256mb Ati Radeon Card?
December 10th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
73no
January 29th, 2007 at 8:24 am
74hya i managed to find a pny 6200 lmd edition pci slot card unlock piplines with riva tuner and bingo a 6600 card with a pci slot fitting
March 6th, 2007 at 8:29 am
75I’m getting a laptop with a 128MB Intel GMA950 Shared Graphics card, I already play half life 2 on my desktop but i’m going mobile :D will it work?
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