Half Life Hardware Specs?

Ripstar · Post by **Ripstar** » Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:56 pm

Anyone found out any info on hardware required to run Half Life?

Just wondering since what was cutting edge two years ago may be no big deal now.

Windows95 · Post by **Windows95** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 8:33 am

I seem to recall at the first big "woohaa" all the demo videos were from then a top of the line 3.0 Pentium with lots of RAM and top of the line vid card. But of course back then there were also tales that the game would be able to work on a lowly TNT video card as well. I do think the game is fairly scalable so it will be playable on a fairly moderate machine but if you've got the latest DX9 vid card and a beefy CPU then you can have all the bells and whistles as well.

It sounds like HL2 will be a game worth upgrading for, but not necessarily one you do need to upgrade for.

JCC · Post by **JCC** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:42 am

In addition to the lengthy (and quite gushing) review in PC Gamer, that issue has a nice article about the different ideal systems to run HL2 on based on varying budgets (with comments from a Valve employee). It sounds like the game will run on a wide variety of systems/video cards, but that significant visual quality is given up to do it. But I think it runs on Direct X 7-9 cards.

SirReal · Post by **SirReal** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:50 am

http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Messa ... ?l=english

CeeKay · Post by **CeeKay** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:05 pm

JCC wrote:In addition to the lengthy (and quite gushing) review in PC Gamer, that issue has a nice article about the different ideal systems to run HL2 on based on varying budgets (with comments from a Valve employee). It sounds like the game will run on a wide variety of systems/video cards, but that significant visual quality is given up to do it. But I think it runs on Direct X 7-9 cards.

You would be correct. As a matter of fact, there was an update to CS:S via Steam that mentioned DirectX 7 performance increased by 225% which had a bunch of people scratching their head

wankerjr · Post by **wankerjr** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 2:51 pm

SirReal wrote:http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Messa ... ?l=english

Yeesh that seems awfully low. I got the PC Gamer issues with the review and the developer interview outlined the system specs of what was base, mid-range, and high. I'll post the info if nobody else does but I do remember for sure that the high-end system had 2GB of RAM

warning · Post by **warning** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:44 pm

wankerjr wrote:
SirReal wrote:http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Messa ... ?l=english
Yeesh that seems awfully low. I got the PC Gamer issues with the review and the developer interview outlined the system specs of what was base, mid-range, and high. I'll post the info if nobody else does but I do remember for sure that the high-end system had 2GB of RAM

Please do!

SirReal · Post by **SirReal** » Tue Oct 19, 2004 5:17 pm

wankerjr wrote:
SirReal wrote:http://www.steampowered.com/Steam/Messa ... ?l=english
Yeesh that seems awfully low. I got the PC Gamer issues with the review and the developer interview outlined the system specs of what was base, mid-range, and high. I'll post the info if nobody else does but I do remember for sure that the high-end system had 2GB of RAM

Actually, that page didn't have a 'high-end' definition, just 'minimum' and 'recommended'.

wankerjr · Post by **wankerjr** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:02 am

OK. Here it is straight from the Hard Stuff section of the magazine:

Tying everything together, if you were to build 3 PCs for the purpose of playing HL2, which components would be best in a:

Low-End PC ($999 or less) - CPU: 2GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 512MB (1GB if you can afford it)
3D card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB*

Mid-Range PC ($1499 or less) - CPU: 3GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 1GB
3D Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB*

High-End PC (the sky's the limit) - CPU: 3.6GHz P4 or Athlon 64 FX-53
RAM: 2GB
3D Card: ATI X800 XT 256MB*

*Valve didn't provide any NVIDIA alternatives, but we recommend the following: Low-End PC - GF FX 5700 128MB; Mid-Range PC - GF FX 5900 128MB; High-End PC - GF 6800 Ultra 256MB

EDIT: This was an inteview with Gary McTaggart of Valve.

The Mad Hatter · Post by **The Mad Hatter** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 11:24 am

wankerjr wrote:OK. Here it is straight from the Hard Stuff section of the magazine:

Tying everything together, if you were to build 3 PCs for the purpose of playing HL2, which components would be best in a:

Low-End PC ($999 or less) - CPU: 2GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 512MB (1GB if you can afford it)
3D card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB*

Mid-Range PC ($1499 or less) - CPU: 3GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 1GB
3D Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB*

High-End PC (the sky's the limit) - CPU: 3.6GHz P4 or Athlon 64 FX-53
RAM: 2GB
3D Card: ATI X800 XT 256MB*

*Valve didn't provide any NVIDIA alternatives, but we recommend the following: Low-End PC - GF FX 5700 128MB; Mid-Range PC - GF FX 5900 128MB; High-End PC - GF 6800 Ultra 256MB
EDIT: This was an inteview with Gary McTaggart of Valve.

Well, my PC qualifies as "low end" according to that quote but it played Doom 3 fine at medium graphic settings. I'd be surprised if HL2 wasn't at least as tolerant.

Raven_13 · Post by **Raven_13** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 12:40 pm

The Mad Hatter wrote:
wankerjr wrote:OK. Here it is straight from the Hard Stuff section of the magazine:

Tying everything together, if you were to build 3 PCs for the purpose of playing HL2, which components would be best in a:

Low-End PC ($999 or less) - CPU: 2GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 512MB (1GB if you can afford it)
3D card: ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB*

Mid-Range PC ($1499 or less) - CPU: 3GHz P4 or AMD equivalent
RAM: 1GB
3D Card: ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB*

High-End PC (the sky's the limit) - CPU: 3.6GHz P4 or Athlon 64 FX-53
RAM: 2GB
3D Card: ATI X800 XT 256MB*

*Valve didn't provide any NVIDIA alternatives, but we recommend the following: Low-End PC - GF FX 5700 128MB; Mid-Range PC - GF FX 5900 128MB; High-End PC - GF 6800 Ultra 256MB
EDIT: This was an inteview with Gary McTaggart of Valve.
Well, my PC qualifies as "low end" according to that quote but it played Doom 3 fine at medium graphic settings. I'd be surprised if HL2 wasn't at least as tolerant.

Same here (GeForce4 TI4400), and my pc runs Counterstrike:Source beautifully at 1024x768 with texture settings on high, so I'm reasonably sure that HL2 will run almost or just as well.

Jancelot · Post by **Jancelot** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:25 pm

Another 'me too' on the low-end specs. Doom 3 ran fine on mine as well so I'm pretty hopeful that HL2 will run just dandy as well.

tals · Post by **tals** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 3:37 pm

Yep me to on the low ends specs. Those are high low specs - if that makes sense. If he is right there are going to be some very upset people. They really need to get a demo out.

Tals

bluefugue · Post by **bluefugue** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 5:57 pm

Jancelot wrote:Another 'me too' on the low-end specs. Doom 3 ran fine on mine as well so I'm pretty hopeful that HL2 will run just dandy as well.

Doom 3 demo ran ok for me on Med settings, 8x6... even bump up to 1028 with a little chop. And I have an Athlon 1500, Gf3, 512 RAM. I'm hoping that will suffice for a playable HL2 experience... don't really feel like dropping several hundred for an upgrade at the moment (but who knows, I may cave and do it anyway).

The Mad Hatter · Post by **The Mad Hatter** » Wed Oct 20, 2004 8:12 pm

bluefugue wrote:
Jancelot wrote:Another 'me too' on the low-end specs. Doom 3 ran fine on mine as well so I'm pretty hopeful that HL2 will run just dandy as well.
Doom 3 demo ran ok for me on Med settings, 8x6... even bump up to 1028 with a little chop. And I have an Athlon 1500, Gf3, 512 RAM. I'm hoping that will suffice for a playable HL2 experience... don't really feel like dropping several hundred for an upgrade at the moment (but who knows, I may cave and do it anyway).

It's not really an option for me, the most I could swing would be another 512 megs of ram. A high end video card is out of the question.

martindemon · Post by **martindemon** » Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:52 am

LOL My 2.4GHz Athlon 64 3400+ is the minimum for recomanded high end system. They should say that it's an intel equivalent GHz requirement. If my system suffers from HL2, then 99.5% of the population will not be able to play smoothly

By the way, I've got a 6800 ultra and I don't fear problem from the fact that I've got a Nvidia card. I wanted an ATI x800 xt but ATI was not able to provide me a card and I waited for 3 months, so then I had the chance to see that there was 5 6800 ultra selling at a store, and I Jumped in it and they were all gone a few minutes after. No way was I to buy it from Ebay at 1200$CAD.

To make a short story, I'm ready to kick some ass in HL2, when it comes out in 2005