My system for running Half-Life 2

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Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy when
things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not too bad.
What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game smoother?

AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
Soundblaster Live! 5.1
Windows XP Home Edition SP2
21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:26:55 GMT, "Frank Bals" <fjb@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:

>Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy when
>things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not too bad.
>What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game smoother?
>
>AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
>512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
>ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
>Soundblaster Live! 5.1
>Windows XP Home Edition SP2
>21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor
>

Faster cpu - find out what your mobo can take.

--
steve <AT> steveevans <DOT> org

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Steve Evans wrote:
> On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:26:55 GMT, "Frank Bals" <fjb@worldnet.att.net>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy when
>>things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not too bad.
>>What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game smoother?
>>
>>AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
>>512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
>>ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
>>Soundblaster Live! 5.1
>>Windows XP Home Edition SP2
>>21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor
>>
>
>
> Faster cpu - find out what your mobo can take.
>
agreed, i'd upgrade CPU, then RAM and that'll help

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Forgot to mention:

40 GB Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 7200 RPM
(I have plenty of hard drive space left)



"Frank Bals" <fjb@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:zPdEd.89711$uM5.52340@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy
> when things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not
> too bad. What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game
> smoother?
>
> AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
> 512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
> ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
> Soundblaster Live! 5.1
> Windows XP Home Edition SP2
> 21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

Frank Bals skrev:
> Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy when
> things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not too bad.
> What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game smoother?
>
> AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
> 512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
> ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
> Soundblaster Live! 5.1
> Windows XP Home Edition SP2
> 21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor
>

You have very slow memory and a very slow CPU. I would not upgrade the
CPU in that mainboard, the difference in gameplay will be very small
even for the most expensive CPU your current mainboard can take.

You should really go for a new mainboard, new processor and new memory.
For the best price-performance right now choose a socket 754-mainboard,
an Athlon64 2800+, and 512M of PC3200-memory. For better upgradability
choose a Socket 939 mainboard and an Athlon64 3000+. This will be a
little bit more expensive, but future upgrades will be a lot cheaper.

--
Robert Aksland

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

"Frank Bals" <fjb@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:zPdEd.89711$uM5.52340@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy
> when things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not
> too bad. What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game
> smoother?
>
> AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
> 512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
> ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
> Soundblaster Live! 5.1
> Windows XP Home Edition SP2
> 21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor
>

Its all a bit long in the tooth really. The graphics card should be fine on
the levels it reccomends, as my mate has one of them in a p4 3.0 system. Ram
would make a difference to loading times, and the processor would speed
things up a bit, but you wouldnt want to upgrade either without the mobo, so
its a complete overhaul really or nothing

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.half-life (More info?)

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 17:26:55 GMT, "Frank Bals" <fjb@worldnet.att.net>
wrote:

>Seems to run pretty well. Does get a little jerky and sound gets choppy when
>things get intense, but very playable. Load times are long, but not too bad.
>What's the cheapest upgrade that I can add to make the game smoother?
>
>AMD Athlon 1.2 Ghz
>512 MB PC-133 SDRAM
>ATI Radeon 9600 (STD.) 256 MB
>Soundblaster Live! 5.1
>Windows XP Home Edition SP2
>21" Dell (Sony Trinitron) Monitor

Nice monitor at least!

Seriously though - you can pick up a semperon twice the speed of what
you have there for less than €50 and reuse the same components to get
a good while longer out of that machine.... and plenty more FPS to
boot.

While the memory is slow - its not a big deal for games - only really
for zipping and video editing and things like that..

Civilian_Target