Whats the minimum spec for the latest games?

kazzer

Hi,

Im upgrading/building my machine soon. To play the latest/future games, like Half Life 2, what should the minimum spec of your machine be? Im more interested in what peoples experiences are, more than what the game makers suggest! Please be as specific as you can, i.e. which graphics cards, etc.

Thanks

tba

Im running Half Life2 on an AMD 1900+ (1.6 ghz) with 512mb Ram and a Radeon 9800 w 128mb.

It dosent run fantastic but it runs at almost medium settings with a 1280 x 1024 res.

chump

minimum ...
2.8ghz (amd2800)
9800pro
512ram

i'd say

kazzer

Thanks guys. When you say AMD, you mean AMD 64, yeah? What about a Sempron?

tba

kazzer wrote:

Thanks guys. When you say AMD, you mean AMD 64, yeah? What about a Sempron?

Nah thats a AMD XP not to sure about the semprons

pontovic

Half life 2 was released about 3 months ago, and shouldnt be used as a benchmark game for hardware. Select the components for your new machine so that it will be able to run Battlefield 2 reasonably. Use that game as a ballpark figure.

Ciaran500

chump an AMD 2800+ doesn't run at 2.8 ghz. The name means it will perform as fast as a 2.8ghz P4.

The very minimun would be AMD 1700+, 512mb ram and 9600 PRO. But if your building a new system you should aim for about 2800+, 1GB ram and 6600GT. This will give you perfect performance for the current gen of games and will still run the next gen of games well.

mobile04

ok so i know what processor power i need
im also building a new pc
but is there a difference with running on xp and
running on 2000pro because i find the 2000 uses less ram for the os..

tba

mobile04 wrote:

ok so i know what processor power i need
im also building a new pc
but is there a difference with running on xp and
running on 2000pro because i find the 2000 uses less ram for the os..

Defo, although Win 2K is supossed to run all win 9.x games it doesnt. This is a real crippler if you want to play your collection of old games again.

mobile04

im getting a 200 gig hdd
would you recomend a duel os xp pro and 2000

chump

aye Ciaran500 I know... I meant 2.8gig (or equiv AMD2800)

tba

Your going about this in a very complicated manner.

RAM is cheap, if you think that the loss of 32mb from using XP is going to cripple you then buy an extra 512mb for the machine.

It all depends on what OS you have to buy and currently have of course (economics and stuff)

Khannie

mobile04 wrote:

im getting a 200 gig hdd
would you recomend a duel os xp pro and 2000

No, I'd recommend one or the other. Dual boot windows = pain in the hole and not much benefit TBH.

I use Win2K at home. It's grand for me, but XP seems to boot (to a usable state) a lot faster on my work machine. Personally, my trend has been to stick with the older OS until there's an obvious reason to upgrade because the older OS has tended to use less system resources.

On the subject of a minimum spec, I have a 2800+, 768MB and a 9800 pro. I reckon it's gonna last me another 6 months before I want to upgrade to what would currently be considered a high end system (3800+, 1.5Gig, 6800GT).

Civilian_Target

No. But if you do, make sure you format the drives with 2000, not XP, because Windows XP's version of NTFS isn't backwards compatible with 2000's.

Seriously - if you're buying a gig of RAM (and I recommend you do) the difference in the OS's is minimal, so you might as well go for XP.

gamer

get amd 64 cpu at least 3200mgz best for gaming.

airetam_storm

If this is ment to be MINIMUM then a XP2600\2800(but an A64 can be got for 150€ nowadaz) - 512MB(but just get the gig anwway) - and a 9800pro(but for an extra 50€ a 6600)

Mickie M

hard to tell minimium specs for all games since hl2 is highly scalable it can run on low spec systems (lower then hl2's minimium requirements) unlike farcy and doom3. best way to go with a gaming system is an amd64 because they are great for games due to their onboard memory controller, its a toss up between gpu makers but if youre on a budget but want a great card then go with a 6800gt but if you have pci-e then wait for the x800xl, if youre going all out then get the x800xt pe or if you have pci-e and dont mind waiting a little the x850xt pe will be released some time soon. gigabytes 3d1 graphics card may be considered if you want something near ultra performance on an sli mobo but without having 2 cards. either way no point going for any of last generations graphics cards.

airetam_storm

kazzer wrote:

Hi,
To play the latest/future games, like Half Life 2, what should the minimum spec of your machine be?
Thanks

:rolleyes:

RicardoSmith

If it were me I'd be looking to see what motherboard is likely to have upgrades for the longest. Socket A and Socket 478 are dead lines now. You'd have to be looking at a socket 939/754 (which is AMD64) or an Intel LGA 775 and PCI-e (PCI express). Base your machine around that and get Nvidia 6600GT or 9800Pro as the graphics card. Get a 3000+ CPU or a 3ghz Intel. 1GB of ram.

kazzer

Hi Ricardo,

do you really think 1Gig of RAM is necessary? I know memory is cheap these days.

Ciaran500

A gig is deffinatley necessary for current games, makes the gamplay alot smoother and load times shorter.

angelofdeath

i had a gig untill i lent 512 to a friend till he can afford to get ram for his new comp, and the only difference thats noticable is when coming out of newer games like hl2, css, farcry doom3 etc, it takes slightly longer, its not too bad but with the gig you could exit out and have the desktop there instantly, thats with 512 pc3200 2-4-4-7

RicardoSmith

I think you need it for newer titles like HL2, Doom3, Far Cry and LockOn. I'm sure if they need it now, in 6 months you'll definately need it.

Woden

i notice the difference between a gig of ram and half a gig hugely on the loading of battlefield both DC and Vietnam (hell i can even see the difference between a gig and a gig and a half) i'd highly recommend a gig to anyone even for the little things like not having to close every program under the sun when you want to launch a game and the ability to alt tab smoothly

data