Half-Life 2 Upgrade Analysis

RaidRaider writes "Hardware Analysis makes a good effort at answering the question that has been on every enthusiast's mind; what are the specs for a baseline system I need to enjoy Half-Life 2 to the fullest? They take a good hard look at the Steam survey results and work their way up from there, replacing CPUs, graphic cards and add more memory. They back it all up by offering the demos used up for download so you yourself can gauge exactly what kind of upgrade you need."

Comments

Works fine for me...

[omeglidan]

Will upgrade when Duke Nukem Forever comes

Don't forget Gamespot

[f4llenang3l]

Gamespot had a comprehensive article in which they did thorough bottlneck benchmark testing to determine what you should replace to get the most bang-for-your-buck for HL2 out of a hardware upgrade. They cover everything, from different DirectX modes, to onboard sound vs. sound card, and of course processors, RAM, and video cards. It's a great way to figure out how to best spend a hundred bucks to make HL2 a much better game for you.

Don't Forget

[Mr.Dippy]

You also need an internet connection. If you want to install the game on a box that doesn't have a connection to the internet you are screwed.

Re:Don't Forget

[10537]

And also don't forget that if you bought the retail boxed version, not only must you have an internet connection to authorise/decrypt the files, but you still need the disk in the frickin drive to play. And woe betide anyone who uses a no-CD patch, for you shall be cast in to the fiery pits of hell...

Re:Don't Forget

[Rico_Suave]

Flamebait? This just as relevant as the parent post's nonsense.

Re:Don't Forget

[pluke]

I hate to think of those people on their 14.4k modems receiving the latest patches. Also if i had a computer fast enough to run the game, alas my gforce 2 can hardly handle DoD, i'm behind a big old university firewall, does that mean i'd be more or less forced to hack the game to play it, and get my head bitten off if i my machine ever wanders outside my dorm? I don't believe there is any other way to deactivate it bar lugging it round a friends who has a dsl line. Seeing as studies have shown that most people who pirate stuff never had any intention of paying for it in the first place doesn't this piss a lot of legitimate people off?

Re:Don't Forget

[Sentry21]

I will admit, I downloaded the game off the internet. Here are a few things I noticed as a result:

1. The game itself runs amazingly well on my system - the recommended settings not only look better, but also play much smoother, than Halo PC on minimum detail at 640x480. I never would have purchased the game because of the assumption that my system would almost, but not quite, be able to handle it. Now I am thinking otherwise.

2. The physics engine is amazing. If this engine will run on my friends' PCs, and if Counterstrike: Source is as open an environment as Half-Life 2 is, then we will definitely all buy a license to it for use as our latest LAN game. I never would have considered this without playing it first.

3. The gameplay is very well done, except for the three hours I spent in that goddamn airboat thing. It's freaky.

4. Before playing the game, I was very doubtful, even after all the good things I'd heard. Now, I am raving about all the cool things to my friends, who DO want to buy the game. I've probably made a few sales already, and will likely add myself to the list.

Finally, here are my specs:

Dell Inspiron 5150 Laptop
P4 2.8HT
512 MB / 60G 5200RPM HD
Nvidia GeForce Go FX5200 64mb

As I said, this system will not run Halo smoothly (I blame Halo - everything else runs fine), but Half-Life 2 was not only smooth, but beautiful as well. I can't imagine what it would look like at full detail at 60fps. Because it is capable of this, I will likely buy a copy soon, if only to show my support for a game so well-coded.

Re:Don't Forget

[xeyr]

Fact Check - Valve requires you to activate retail boxes of Half-Life 2 over Steam. This requires an internet connection. Not exactly something you'd assume for a game sold on its single player campaign.

DVD Statistics...

[Spuffin]

I would like to point out that the DVD statistics may be a bit skewed. I took the hardware survey twice and both times it detected I had a DVD drive which is not the case. Apparently the scanner detects the Daemon tools drive and concludes you have a DVD drive. It also fails to detect that you also have a CD drive. Not that I'm against putting more games out on DVD, I just think these statistics should be taken with a grain of salt.

Undetermined 80,081 6.23 %
CD-Rom 194,344 15.12 %
DVD 1,011,326 78.66 %

Average Sucks?

[th3walrus]

I find it disturbing that performance on the average system (according to Steam stats) is considered unacceptable.

Re:Average Sucks?

[Citoahc]

I'm running the game on a system slightly below the average stats and it is easily the best visuals I have seen in a PC game.

My question which all these reviews ignore is what upgrades are needed to lessen the lag between levels.

Citoahc

Re:Average Sucks?

[Anonymous Coward]

More RAM + disk with faster spindle.

Re:Average Sucks?

[Napalm Boy]

I find it disturbing that they consider 45 fps to be "unacceptable." I know we can see the difference between 30 fps and 45, but come on; 30 fps is still playable.

Re:Average Sucks?

[Ford Prefect]

I'm running the game on a system slightly below the average stats and it is easily the best visuals I have seen in a PC game.

My terrible, built-on-the-cheap PC is over three years old now, and I'm utterly amazed how well Half-Life 2 runs on it.

1.1GHz Athlon XP (chip capable of 1.4GHz or something, but it was an emergency replacement after the old one toasted itself - don't ask). 512MB PC133 memory. 20GB main hard disk, mostly used for Linux, and an 8GB pile of rubbish I fished out a skip for Windows games' drive D:. Win98SE. 128MB Nvidia GeForce 4200Ti, or whatever it's called. Somewhat elderly Soundblaster PCI card (probably from 1999 or so).

And, bizarrely, I've been steadily turning the graphics options up (quite a few things are already on 'High'), and it's still completely playable...

There's the stuttering problem (I was playing without Steam having finished downloading the game, so I may not have the latest patches yet) and maps do take ages to load, but it's not nearly as painful an experience as I thought it would be. Actually, it's rather enjoyable. :-)

Re:Average Sucks?

[wheany]

Hey, even 15 fps is playable, it the framerate is constant.

Where hasn't this been asked?

[dhakbar]

Seriously, man... why is this on Slashdot now? People have been discussing how to upgrade on message boards all over the net since before this damn game was even released. Why must the Slashdot games section look like planethalflife, with all these ridiculous HL2 "stories?"

Stupid

[AvitarX]

Doesn't even check proc vs Graphics card upgrade.

How is that helpful at all?

I would think the 2.4Ghz Pentium is not as new as the card, but I could be wrong their.

My friend has a Pentium in the low 2's and the best card at the time (nvidia anyway) was still a gForce 4.

This was a rather lacking article.

[TellarHK]

After reading through the linked pages, I really didn't come away thinking I'd learned anything of value from this site other than the fact the CPU bottleneck is pretty large. The comparison really lacked in depth and breadth, as they only appear to have used two video cards, 4 processors and a couple variations on RAM. Also, the qualification for "acceptable" seemed a little arbitrary as it wasn't the 30 or 60 fps I usually see used as a rating of acceptability. (100 fps for the psychotic benchmarkers)

Also, the structure of the article could definitely have used some help. There was no clear delineation between the various tests, such as each page being used to display one processor with multiple card benchmarks. The information was largely there, but it definitely wasn't all that clearly stated. Maybe this was due to the extremely limited number of cards they were able to test with, but it still leaves me wanting to know more.

My own experience with Half-Life 2 would lead me to saying that running it is no problem, and that running it with a 2Ghz (core clock) processor and a Radeon 9800 Pro in 1024x768 should be just fine. Just keep the textures at Medium and it'd be all set. High detail textures seem to be the system killer on machines such as those.

Wow...

[Anonymous Coward]

What did I just read? Barely playable on mid-range system, upgrading won't help?
Don't they know how to pimp hardware? Their sponsors are probably not happy...

Well duh

[SmallFurryCreature]

The daemon tool is a dvd drive just a virtual one. If it was easily detectable that it was not a real drive then it wouldn't be half as usefull.

Off-topic/video card prices

[dackroyd]

What the frick is happening to the prices of video cards?

In the old days (ie three years ago) the price of each card would fall over time, and then fall dramatically once a couple of video card 'generations' had passed.

Nowadays it seems that the price of existing video cards is stable and that newer cards are coming out at ever increasing prices.

For example the 9800 pro came out over a year ago but is still $350-400 dollars. The new ATI cards coming out are over $500...

This can't really represent the mass market for video cards can it ?

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[Babbster]

Actually, the 9800pro (ATI-branded, the most expensive version) with 128MB is currently at about $250 - that's boxed, relatively high retail (CompUSA). Hitting Pricewatch shows that you can get online deals for the 256MB version at about the same price (the 128MB version going to a little over half that). In other words, the price has come down by half or more since it was released.

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[aliens]

Those $500 cards are the Ultra Super Duper Can't Be Beat with A Stick cards. These types of cards are in rare supply and don't have many equivilants in past generations. It started to ramp up at the last generation (9800 XT's & 5900 Ultras) but those came out well after the initial 9800 Pros.

On this product launch there was the 6800 Ultra & the X800 XT and X800 XT PE.

They're not mass market, just like the Intel EE and the AMD FX CPU's aren't mass market. Really fast & really expensive.

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[ianpm]

"What the frick is happening to the prices of video cards?"

My theory on this is simply that there is no diversity in the market. Since Nvidia bought 3DFX I really have noticed that the cost of graphics cards go up.

When I bought my Voodoo3 I paid around £100 for it. It was pretty much the best graphics card at the time. Although I could have had one from ATI or Nvida, or at that time, even Matrox. 3DFX led the market, and still managed to provide fair value for money. My most recent graphics card was an ATI Radeon 9700 pro. Even when I bought it for £130 a year ago, it was far from the best, and now it only just handles modern games.

Now, we are left with two graphics card manufacturers who can really charge what they want.

Of course, the complexity of GPU's makes a huge difference. After all, Doom 3 isn't processor intensive in the way Quake was, becuase the majority of work is done by the graphics card.

I hope my rambling thoughts made some sense, really I just hate Nvidia for what they did to 3DFX :D

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[IncohereD]

Of course, the complexity of GPU's makes a huge difference. After all, Doom 3 isn't processor intensive in the way Quake was, becuase the majority of work is done by the graphics card.

Also keep in mind that there are now more transistors in the GPUs than CPUs. They are now using fabrication/memory technology that is at least a generation ahead of the CPU makers. This is expensive.

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[Finkbug]

"For example the 9800 pro came out over a year ago but is still $350-400 dollars."

Just checked Newegg. US dollars, PC 9800 Pro cards of various configurations are running $180-280. Lousy purchase. Spring for the 9800XT.

My 9700 Pro was $250 a year and a half ago. Best hardware purchase I ever made.

PS The mass market for video cards is integrated chipsets

Re:Off-topic/video card prices

[dackroyd]

"US dollars, PC 9800 Pro cards of various configurations are running $180-280."

Thanks for the link, I can see one card that is $200, but that appears to have a 128bit memory controller instead of the 256bit one, ie isn't actually a pro, but yes the next ones are >$270 not over $350. Funny how other sites are still selling at $350 (like insight.com) I guess it might be limited supply.

Now if only Newegg shipped internationally that would be great.

I told you so.

[Associate]

My boss insisted I download and try to play on my system. It's got plenty-o-RAM, an ok video card, and a Duron 900. He keeps saying just try it or to get a new video card. Despite my repeatedly telling him I only have a Duron 900 and it falls well below the minimal requirements. But I humored him. It took about five minutes to load up and got a few minutes into the Man in Black dialog, then rebooted. Big fat, I told you so.

Thanks!

[M.C. Hampster]

I think most surprising for me was how having a dedicated sound card, rather than using on-board sound really affects the performance. I've never been one to care for sound quality, so I haven't bothered with purchasing an actual sound card for my system, but I didn't realize that the onboard sound uses up CPU.

That's probably the only upgrade I'll really need to make before I get the game.

low end specs

[Anonymous Coward]

I can play it decently on a noname 1ghz/512meg/Matrox Millenium P750 box I have, other than around the highway level it starts constantly crashing with the error

failed to lock vertex buffer CMeshDX8::LockVertexBuffer

Great... The box lied!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does the Half-Life 2 box list a "2.4 ghz" and "Direct X 9" graphics card as RECOMMENDED if these aren't even adequate according to the articles mentioned in this thread?

Damn. Another upgrade!!!

Re:Great... The box lied!

[SScorpio]

Because it will fun just fine on that hardware configuration. You just can't run it at 1600x1200 8xFSAA with those specs.

It might not look the best, but it will run and play just fine.

Re:Great... The box lied!

[wheany]

I don't know what's their definition of adequate, but HL2 plays just fine on my machine at 800*600. I have an Athlon XP 2000+, Geforce 4 Ti4200 and 1GB of memory.

Authenticity?

[jm92956n]

I didn't take the survey (as I'm on a Celeron 500 with integrated video that's entirely incapable of playing games), but I'm curious to know if the detection tool allowed users to correct mistakes or otherwise alter the data. I wonder about the:

- 1,500 people still stuck on 14.4 modems.
- The 94 people who attempted to play the game with 32 megabytes of RAM or less.
- The 111 people with processors no faster than 200 mhz.
- The one person with a 4-CPU system!
- Lastly, both of the following screen widths had exactly one user: 5 pixels and 3,072 pixels.

Were people with these systems actually playing Half-Life 2, or can it be better explained as users with a sense of humor?

Need to buy the game to run demo????

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't the purpose of the demo to determine if your system is fast enough to play the game? Why do you have to buy the game before determining if your machine can play it? I don't get it.

Re:Need to buy the game to run demo????

[richy freeway]

Demo, like a recorded demo of the player running round the game doin' stuff. Not a playable demo of the game.

Surely you understand what a demo is? They've been around since at least Quake 1 days, if not longer!

Oh, and you don't HAVE to buy the game before determining if your machine can play it. That's what recommended specs are for.

Excellent Performance on low-end hardware

[mikeage]

I just wanted to post my experience.
I'm running HL2 on the following system:
AMD XP 2000+
512 PC2700
Geforce2 MX400
onboard sound (nforce)
and I get a great gameplay experience. Sure, the video quality isn't the stunning DX9 path that everyone is oohing and ahing over, but at the recommended settings, I get 40-50 fps on almost all levels, and the game looks very nice. The graphics are good enough, and the fact that it's playable is simply incredible. Kudos for making a game scale down so gracefully-- I haven't seen any programming that nice since Vice City came out, and ran better than GTA3, while adding more features.

My system

[Nosferatu Alucard]

I skimmed the article, and I noticed they didn't show any graphs from Nvidia based cards, just ATi. I also read it where they said that they couldn't get their hands on the Nvidia cards in time for the test. What im wondering is why they end up with your only option is an expensive card and a Socket 754 processor as the "best" option. I'm running HL2 just fine, I only got lag when the map loads ended, and from then on I never saw a bit of skipping. I'm running on a +2800 AMD Barton with a 6800 and 512MB RAM. I get 50-70fps with 4x Anti Aliasing, 8x filtering and all my settings at either high or medium. I don't think I'd consider this a fair article. TO quote them "An AMD Sempron 3100+, paired with a ATI X800 Pro videocard and a nForce3-250 motherboard offers all the performance you need to get started." My chip and video card cost over $100 less than their setup and it runs the game beautifully. I'd advise not paying much attention to this article.

Very true

[Spuffin]

That is true but not the point of my post. I am just saying that the number of users with dvd drives could possibly be severely overstated because of the use of drive emulators.

Re:Very true

[Cyno01]

I doubt its severe. Just about everyone i know has a DVD-ROM drive in their computer, but how many have drive emulators?