HL2

What's the system requirements for HL2? Where can I find a good "tester" or something to test my computer? I plan to buy a new graphic card... do you think a Radeon 9600 XT will be enough?

Hahaha, yes.

They said it would run absolutely fine on a GF2.

If you are buying it for HL2, why not wait till the game is out. Then you will be able to see benchmarks of the game with the revised code, and something like a 9600XT will probably be cheaper by the time HL2 is out as well. There are some benchmarks of the 9600 in HL2 at: http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1863 but bear in mind that the game is supposedly being recoded, so the results may no longer be 100% accurate.

I have GF2, so it had better.

watch, I bet HL2 is delayed because Microsoft bought it exclusive for the X-Box

Jinx said:
watch, I bet HL2 is delayed because Microsoft bought it exclusive for the X-Box

Or ninjas threatend to cut off pieces of Newell's bacon fat if he didnt delay it more.

Will there ever be a thread related to Valve without an obese joke? :razz:

I think they released the minimum specs a while back, but this is purely minimum. A safe bet is that if Unreal 2 runs on your computer, Half-Life 2 will run on it as well.

Kage_Prototype said:
Will there ever be a thread related to Valve without an obese joke? :razz:

I think they released the minimum specs a while back, but this is purely minimum. A safe bet is that if Unreal 2 runs on your computer, Half-Life 2 will run on it as well.

Yes, if Gabe newell did his job.

cant hold back..NEWELL IS FAT!!!!

I think the best was on the AHL boards, just after the HL2 code etc. was stolen. Someone said something along these lines:

<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
That sizzling sound you hear is Gabe Newell burning off his rolls of fat through the sheer force of hate.

[/quote]
Fat jokes are really cruel. Is that why they are so goddamn funny? I know I'm being a complete asshole but I just can't stop myself :sad:

It's like dead baby jokes. You know you shouldn't laugh at them, but you can't help yourself sometimes.

Fat jokes are a bit too 11 year old.

fetus handpuppets would rule!

Alien_Sniper said:
Fat jokes are a bit too 11 year old.

Agreed, fetal humour is a bit more mature though :biggrin:

My two favourites:

What's the difference between a garage full of dead babies and a porsche?

... I don't have a porsche

If a tree falls in the woods and lands on a baby, but nobody sees, is it still hilarious?

like the maps that are with the alpha doom3 thingy, i am assuming the alpha HL2 thingy will/IS similar.

what i am saying is, the maps are prolly not optimized very well, so it takes more to run them.

with that said, the maps that are with the alpha HL2 run for the most part, very well with a 2.6 celeron, and 384 megs of ram and a radeon 9000/64 meg card.

system specs will play a part in the playability of this game i am betting. if you have an elcheapo mobo and a great card, you will be no further ahead than having a great mobo and an elcheapo card.

IMO nothing less than a 2.0 something and at least an AGP 64 meg card is going to run this game upon release.

some of the maps are on par with unreal 2's in shear size, now imagine an engine, NOT AS GOOD running maps that large.

before you complain about the HL2 comparison i just made with U2, remember this, you cannot compare an alpha to a completed version, so at this point its all conjecture.

IMO HL2 is going to rock the house, but it will take a bigger pc than it took to get U2 to run smoothly.

/ 2 cents

sadly Unreal 2 was kinda like a supermodel- it looked hot, but it didn't have much going on upstairs. the -demo- was so boring I barely finished it. I mean, it wasn't really bad, just... not that interesting? From what I heard the rest of the game was about the same.

what U2 lacked in content, it more than made up with the factor.

if anyone is interested, i can show some screens of the "American Army" game, it shows what the unreal engine can really do.

or i can just look at them myself :wink:

If you have a GF2, then HL2 will run, it will just be using the DX7 rendering path, so everything won't look as nice. Even if you have a GF4, it will only be using the DX8 path, and so won't have all the graphical 'wow'-ness that you will get on a DX9 card, e.g. radeon 9600/9880 or GF FX. There will be a huge difference looks wise between a PC that can 'just' run the game, and one with a DX9 card.

....or you could run in OpenGL.... why is everyone neglecting this factor? Is it because most of the community uses DirectX for their video modes more often? or what?

However, Jeff is right that it wont look as nice, simply because anything before the FX in nVidias line don't have pixel shaders (It's just a register). And if I'm not mistaken they were scarce in ATI's until the 9600? I could be completly wrong though (probably am).

Crono said:
....or you could run in OpenGL.... why is everyone neglecting this factor? Is it because most of the community uses DirectX for their video modes more often? or what?

Maybe it's because HL2 is supposed to run only in DirectX?

Jinx said:
From what I heard the rest of the game was about the same.

For the most part, yeah it was pretty average, although it did have a few cool levels & moments

A bit like Halo really :/ It's the thing that make or break a "decent" FPS into something really great (like Half-Life) - an identity, a vibe.

There are too many games out nowadays which are just games for pick up/put down playing, a wasteful and lazy society taste which is pandered to more and more by the moneybags at the top.

Is it too much to ask for developers to make the areas indentifiable, original, "realistic" or give their game a storyline ? In these days, probably yes :sad:

or you could run in OpenGL

Have they said that there will be an OGL option? I prefer OGL, I just thought that it wasn't going to be an option...

Half-Life 2 is DX9 only, because all the fancy effects they've managed to get from DX9 will be incredibly difficult and/or impossible to recreate in the current OGL version (1.4 I think).

Well it certainly will run on non-DX9 hardware, just not with all the visual features enabled.

Maybe I should wait until the game release and buy a new card then... I have a feeling that I can't really trust the system requirements fully.

Kage, It's going to run on non-Windows platforms out of box, remember? For that to happen you need to be able to choose a video mode (and a different control set) other then DirectX.

It will have to support it. there are MANY gamers who love OpenGL(My self included). I know people who have ATIs and they use OpenGL most of the time, which is kind of weird because that's not what the card is Optimized for, but it works well nonetheless.

why is no one understanding what that means??

By the way I'm asking a real question, not being a smart ass.

[EDIT]
Jeff: No offense man, but what the F*ck are you talking about??? Valve is in love with DirectX, it will run with ALL the visual effects on a card that supports DX9 (What do you think they showed at E3, just because they're changing operation code doesn't mean they are changing the video modules).

Also, it would have all the fancy effects on an FX card from nVidia for OpenGL. That is the only nVidia card which even has pixel shaders, and nVidia are OpenGL freaks so, I'm sure Valve wont leave this little piece out of the puzzle.

Arguing the idea from what Valve said is pointless now anyway.
I agree with several of people who've said "wait for it to come out" because that is the only way you will know. I mean if you really want a shinny new video card just stop by a computer hardware store on your way home from picking up HL2 when it comes out, You'll know exactly what it needs at that point.
[/EDIT]

You'll need a cardboard box running 10 inch hole or high with the re-inforced sellotape patch.

Crono I think you need to re-read my post...

:kitty: @jeff

scary_jeff said:
Crono I think you need to re-read my post...

I swear I remember reading it was only DX-based. Meh, maybe they meant you should really run it with DX9, because OGL isn't going to give you all the fancy effects.

As long as my Geforce GO card can run it in 640x400 I'm set. :biggrin:

Yak_Fighter said:
As long as my Geforce GO card can run it in 640x400 I'm set. :biggrin:

laptop about to fail you bud? :wink:

Orpheus said:
like the maps that are with the alpha doom3 thingy, i am assuming the alpha HL2 thingy will/IS similar.
......

Orpheus?????

asterix_vader said:
Orpheus?????

yes sir?

close your mouth, people will notice :wink:

Orpheus said:

Yak_Fighter said:
As long as my Geforce GO card can run it in 640x400 I'm set. :biggrin:

laptop about to fail you bud? :wink:

:razz: I can always upgrade to the Geforce 4 GO... but that would require effort.

Kage_Prototype said:
I swear I remember reading it was only DX-based. Meh, maybe they meant you should really run it with DX9, because OGL isn't going to give you all the fancy effects.

There's nothing DX9 can do that OpenGL can't. Now whether Valve chooses to make it the same for both is another matter. If they're smart, they will.

Oh, and OpenGL is 1.5 right now with 2.0 being adopted at SIGGRAPH this year, at least that's the plan. Basically 2.0 is everything that was optional for vendors to support in 1.5. The most important thing of course is the shader language which they have spent a year perfecting.

I have a fundamental objection to laptops for gaming. The keyboards are so unresponsive, the screens s**te and of course they have crappy hardware coz they put all the effort into sizing it down not making it actually perform ... GET A DESKTOP :razz:

That's the point of a laptop lol.

By the way Jeff, I could've sworn you said it won't run on DX9, sorry about that, I was probably really tired.

Edge is 100% right by the way.

Not to mention, some people keep going on about how nVidia is going away from standards . . . what do you think DirectX is? lol. It's like one huge standard deviation. The standard for 3d stuff is OpenGL.

2dmin said:
I have a fundamental objection to laptops for gaming. The keyboards are so unresponsive, the screens s**te and of course they have crappy hardware coz they put all the effort into sizing it down not making it actually perform ... GET A DESKTOP :razz:

...or buy a non-crap laptop? With a 3d card upgrade my laptop could run circles around your desktop... mainly because its portable so I could pick it up and actually run around your computer...

The only standard in the Game Development Industry is that there are no standards. The only standards are the illusion of standards that gamers create in their minds. Now if you're talking about the rest of the software industry, they do have some standards...wish we had some... :sad:

As for laptops, I rather like my laptop and it's great for gaming and it's great for moving between LAN parties.

yes cronos, I meant a laptop for gaming, they're great for portable work and multimedia etc..

Yak, that's why I get my Dad to carry my computer when I go to lans :biggrin:

Also, just a little note, my laptop is great, except for the video :sad: .

If that was the only thing changed it would be wonderful for playing Lan games. The keyboard rules.

I just wish the manufactures would concentrate on making them more dynamic and stop trying to make them as small as possible, they're pretty much as small as they're going to get just because of the screen. If the boarded area was about 1/2 an inch thicker there would be room to have cards you could interchange, but it wont happen :sad: at least not any time soon.

My new laptop is fantastic. Runs UT2K3 maxed at 1024x768 smooth as a [insert object of simile here]. Now just gotta get Maya and Radiant (and some Q3 engine game) installed on it and I've got me a solid portable workstation :smile:

Then there's the matter of upgrading my desktop system, which is now far behind except in memory and video... :-\\

/me pets my ubersmall wooden pc

It's perfect for LAN games, since its got all the power of a PC, all bundled into 990 cu. inches of wooden goodness.

Gotta watch out for magnets though...

Well, my laptop's working great for me right now, and it can run UT2k3 damn well. Had to get the Omega drivers otherwise Maya would go berserk if I turned on Grid Snap. Other than that, the thing works great, I can even run KotOR fairly well.

KungFuSquirrel said:
(and some Q3 engine game)

CoD!! great game that :smile:

/me pets my ubersmall wooden pc

It's perfect for LAN games, since its got all the power of a PC, all bundled into 990 cu. inches of wooden goodness.

Gotta watch out for magnets though...

And woodworm. :biggrin:

Edge Damodred said:
I can even run KotOR fairly well.

Love that game, but why did they have to make the NWN engine th?t heavy. The game runs, but on big open places like Taris and stuff, it's switching to brightness below zero and hoping I know where I'm going to get a decent framerate

I thought about buying that. After all JK2 is just exceelent.