Athlon 1.4 needs new card to play HL2, which?

Pollywoggle

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I have been out of gaming for a while and see that my ageing pc is going to need an injection to play Half Life. I can't afford a new pc for 1 game so what can I get?
Current spec is Athlon 1.4, Geforce 2 GTS and 256mb.
What graphics card will give me the oomph to be able to play HL2?
I have seen some of the other similar threads and they mention US cards, I just want something I can buy easily on the net (suppliers please?)
Cheers
 
You are going to run into trouble I think with that spec.

You will definately need to upgrade the RAM and I am not sure your CPU will deal with the game that well.

The HL2 engine has been built to heavily utilise other components other than graphics cards, hence why all the people with lower end graphics cards but decent motherboards/CPU and RAM still get good framerates.

I have seen plenty of people running fine with lower end graphics cards but decent CPUs. I haven't seen many trying to run a fast graphics cards with low end CPUs.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/half_life_2_cpu_shootout/page5.asp

One set of benchmarks, that shows a huge difference between processors.
 
whats your max budget. as there are options including cpu (m/b & BIOS dependant), RAM, and the graphics upgrade of course. i use DABS.com as they are cheap and reliable (my firm has an account too... hence i just ordered today a shed load of components for a new ninja(ish) home machine :D)

Will be away from pc now so sorry if i dont reply until tonight - others will help i am sure

cheers
Dave
 
Radeon 9800Pro? Usually available for around the £100 mark, probably the best card for the price, and not overkill for your CPU. Have a look at THG or Firing Squad for some ideas. :thumbsup:
 
Most I can spend on any upgrade at the mo would be about £150, don't want to have to wait for xbox port! urghhhhh!
 
Your CPU would probably be a bottleneck for Radeon 9800 Pro.

Check out this article http://firingsquad.com/hardware/half-life_2_athlon_xp/ explaining how even AMD XP 2100+ gives 60% of the frame rate of 3200+ with same graphics cards.

You could be better off with an even cheaper card, and just run in DirectX 8 mode, HL2 is very good at scaling.

But if you want DirectX9 loveliness that Radeon 9800 Pro will give you; you will also need faster processor and more RAM.

StooMonster
 

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