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best for HL2

L

liljohnny51

n00b
Joined
Mar 30, 2005
Messages
32
I'm in the market for buying a new video card and want to to which one would be best for playing HL 2 at max settings? If you could out me out here that would me great!
 
And what are the rest of your systems specs? If you get a super-spiffy gfx card and you have a 2500+, you're going to bottleneck like a mofo.
 
yea, need some specs too. Either way i think you'd be safe with an X800XL pci-e or agp.....doesn't matter.
 
...the fastest one :p

for about 300
Ati x800xl .. make sure you pick the right slot type ( AGP or Pci express)
or a 6800 GT .. or something if you hate ati...
 
Infinite money? X850XT OCed to PE

Budget? X800XL (AGP or whatever)

Even smaller budget? 6600GT

Even SMALLER budget? 9700Pro of eBay
 
woot...if so? I ma go pump up my old comp...ati 3drage LT 4mb!!! woot!
 
liljohnny51 said:
I'm in the market for buying a new video card and want to to which one would be best for playing HL 2 at max settings? If you could out me out here that would me great!
Click to expand...
I knew i fogot to putsomthing sorry i am going with a Intel 3.2 LGA 775,MSI 915G PCI-E motherbored, 1gig ram, and i am looking to spend around 450-500
 
Hate_Bot said:
Infinite money? X850XT OCed to PE

Budget? X800XL (AGP or whatever)

Even smaller budget? 6600GT

Even SMALLER budget? 9700Pro of eBay
Click to expand...

if you had ininite monry why wouls you buy somehting you had to overclock, why bvoid your warrenty.


i think you can get an x800xt for that price
 
liljohnny51 said:
I knew i fogot to putsomthing sorry i am going with a Intel 3.2 LGA 775,MSI 915G PCI-E motherbored, 1gig ram, and i am looking to spend around 450-500
Click to expand...

If you can spend a bit more you can get this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-301&depa=1


But the best (and most cost effectve, bang for the buck) choice is this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-509&depa=1


Both of them will give you HL2 at 1600x1200 wit 4xAA and 8xAF with max settings, with good FPS (60+)
 
Hate_Bot said:
If you can spend a bit more you can get this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-301&depa=1


But the best (and most cost effectve, bang for the buck) choice is this:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-509&depa=1


Both of them will give you HL2 at 1600x1200 wit 4xAA and 8xAF with max settings, with good FPS (60+)
Click to expand...
The ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB will do those settings in HL2? If thats true maybe i'll get one.
 
ummm...sadly..but it does it faster than my 6800ultra.... b/c valve so optimze the game for ati..so yeha..it will do those settings great.
 
ati would work better with hl2. im at the understanding hl2 is a directx game and game like doom3 is more of an open gl game. so nvidia looks better on doom3 and hl2 works better with ati. ...someone correct me if im wrong please.
 
Ati cards look better in HL2 because they pulled crap with valve and the game was coded with 24bit precision shaders. Since Nvidia only supports 16 or 32, those areas that call for 24 are rendered using 32 on nvidia cards, needlessly wasting performance. However, the new 71.89 drivers really helped the game (I think), so it all should be good. I play it on my o/c'd 6800GT at 435/1180 and it flies at 1600x1200 and 2xAA and 4xAF (60-250fps). I could run higher, but whats the point? Can you really tell when you're playing? Also, PS 3.0 is nice for other games (splinter cell: CT).
 
I would think that an SLI setup would be the best (but not practical)

So ruling that out... if cost is no issue for a single card the ATI 850XT or XT-PE.

The best overall value would be a NVIDIA 6600GT.
 
The 6600GT would be a great value but it cant hold its own with AA and AF at 1600x1200.
ATi cards are faster in this game but not by much. Still if you wish to obtain the highest frames a Single X850XTPE will be best for AGP and or Single PCIe and the Dual 6800Us would be the faster in Dual PCIe. Still for a game like HL2 which can scale so well you wouldnt need dual anything (cept 6600GTs if you go that route).
 
{NG}Fidel said:
The 6600GT would be a great value but it cant hold its own with AA and AF at 1600x1200.
ATi cards are faster in this game but not by much. Still if you wish to obtain the highest frames a Single X850XTPE will be best for AGP and or Single PCIe and the Dual 6800Us would be the faster in Dual PCIe. Still for a game like HL2 which can scale so well you wouldnt need dual anything (cept 6600GTs if you go that route).
Click to expand...
ill join ur CSS clan
 
Lol PM me if you are seirious.
One thing you should know is we are just starting to transition to CS:S so we arent this big big clan as of yet.
 
My 6600gt performed well in HL2, but the x800xl murders it, and then add to it that ati cards generally work better in HL2 than nVidia, and the gap widens further. So yeah, x800xl is a great choice, unless maybe you have to pay 100$ for having agp(not sure if they have anything other than the aiw version in agp yet).
 
aZn_plyR said:
ummm...sadly..but it does it faster than my 6800ultra.... b/c valve so optimze the game for ati..so yeha..it will do those settings great.
Click to expand...


Link?!
 
It's a well known fact that, in general, ATi cards fly in DirectX games, and nVidia cards fly in OpenGL. The past couple generations, the companies concentrated on one API over the other. Therefore, (again, in general), ATi is the card for HL2.

Not to say that those who claim their "6800GT tore HL2 a new asshole" aren't telling the truth, but a $299 x800 XL honestly beats a $450 6800 Ultra by a few fps in HL2.
 
the steam survey says that 50.78% of hl2 players use nvidia cards while 41.23% use ati.

really though... in hl2 ati might be faster by 1 or 2% at most.

but overall the 6800 will beat ati and it supports pixel shader 3.0 which is slowely being intergrated into games.

so the 6800 is more future proof and in 99% faster.
 
It's comments like these that give nVidia !!!!!!s a bad name. Do you really want me to post benchmarks? :p

BTW, those 60% using nvidia cards, over half of them are using fx5200 IIRC, so they aren't exactly the most credible source.
 
not even a 6800 ultra overclocked can run sm3.0 shaders very well in games...so theres no point with getting one, as it runs slow...and most games at the minute have exactly the same picture quality with the older sm...
 
Yeah I like how everybody claims "The 6800's are future proof because they support sm3.0"
The only problem is, by the time most games are using sm 3.0, the 6800's will be slow video cards anyway, and everybody will be upgrading to the next-gen of cards.

Kind of like the 30 bit precision vs 24 bit. Is nvidia's 30 bit more future-proof? Yes
Does 30 bit offer any advantages ATM? No
Disadvantages? Yes, because DX9 games not optimized for 30 bit run slow.
Will 30 bit games look better in the future? Yes
Will 6800's be fast enough to run those games? No.
 
I love people who speculate and give out information with no experience with the subject :rolleyes:. Coming from a person who actually owns a 6800GT, these cards run PS 3.0 games perfectly fine. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, for instance, looks gorgeous with 3.0 shaders enabled and at 1280x960 with all the other goodies enabled. Let me quote myself again as to the reason why Ati cards work so much better in HL2:
Mr. K6 said:
Ati cards look better in HL2 because they pulled crap with valve and the game was coded with 24bit precision shaders. Since Nvidia only supports 16 or 32, those areas that call for 24 are rendered using 32 on nvidia cards, needlessly wasting performance. However, the new 71.89 drivers really helped the game
Click to expand...
.
Also note that its 32bit support that nVidia cards have, remember computers run on binary? (2,4,8,16,32,etc.)
Anyway, Nvidia's cards do just damn fine in HL2: http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/196/1/;
While geekcomputing's statement of the 6800 being 99% faster is a little out there, everything else he said is pretty much right on. You people need to get some experience and do some research before you start throwing out false claims that you have no idea about.
 
Andrew_Carr said:
My 6600gt performed well in HL2, but the x800xl murders it, and then add to it that ati cards generally work better in HL2 than nVidia, and the gap widens further. So yeah, x800xl is a great choice, unless maybe you have to pay 100$ for having agp(not sure if they have anything other than the aiw version in agp yet).
Click to expand...

Of course it murders it. The 6600GT isn't the same class of card as the X800XL.
 
liljohnny51 said:
I'm in the market for buying a new video card and want to to which one would be best for playing HL 2 at max settings? If you could out me out here that would me great!
Click to expand...

In the long run I would go with a 6800GT or a 6800 and you can unlock the extra pipelines. Why do I say Nvidia when HL2 is clearly an ATI favored product? HDR. Not to mention it runs amazingly on my 6800GT.
 
Well Nvidia does its own sort of HDR and Radeons can do it too just not in the same manor. Also about PS3.0 in SCCT their is a little more to it than just turning PS3.0 on.
I am most likely going to word this wrong but here goes.
With Pixel shaders the most drastic improvements that 3.0 brings over 2.0 is the massive amount of Pixel effects it can do at once. I think its in the 10ks while 2.0's max Pixel effects is like 768 or something like that. Lets get another fact down. Visualy everything 3.0 can do 2.0 can do just 2.0 does it a bit slower. Also just to let you guys know those shader heavy games like Far Cry and HL2 use I think a maximum of 78 lines of Pixel effects in the entire game. So what people really mean by games that fully utilize Pixel shader 3.0 is games that are running with what 2000 lines of code for pixel effects (just a random number). I cant really support this though without knowing the amount of Pixel effects SCCT uses. But it was food for though. If you dont understand this sorry but my ADD gets to me I am afraid... :D

P.S Just ask and I will try to clear up some of the confusion
 
Mr. K6 said:
I love people who speculate and give out information with no experience with the subject :rolleyes:. Coming from a person who actually owns a 6800GT, these cards run PS 3.0 games perfectly fine. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, for instance, looks gorgeous with 3.0 shaders enabled and at 1280x960 with all the other goodies enabled. Let me quote myself again as to the reason why Ati cards work so much better in HL2:
.
Also note that its 32bit support that nVidia cards have, remember computers run on binary? (2,4,8,16,32,etc.)
Anyway, Nvidia's cards do just damn fine in HL2: http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/196/1/;
While geekcomputing's statement of the 6800 being 99% faster is a little out there, everything else he said is pretty much right on. You people need to get some experience and do some research before you start throwing out false claims that you have no idea about.
Click to expand...

According to more than a few people, 6800 series runs 32 bit precision just as fast as 16. So saying that because the game runs slower on NV hardware because of 24 bit precision is ridiculous. Just look at the hack people were applying to HL2 to force 16 bit to everything. Even the most hardcore !!!!!!s will tell you the 6800 series got only a few FPS bump, while looking less than stellar.
 
The best budget card for HL2, if you want full settings with AA and AF, at a decent res, is the X800XL

the 6600gt Will run HL2, at max settings, but with little or no AA and AF, and youll see performance decreases at higher (over 1024x768) resis
 
Mayhs said:
not even a 6800 ultra overclocked can run sm3.0 shaders very well in games...so theres no point with getting one, as it runs slow...and most games at the minute have exactly the same picture quality with the older sm...
Click to expand...

Wow, pulled that one outta yer butt. My 6800NU ran Far Cry just fine with SM3.0 enabled. Even a 6200 will be able to run games with SM3.0 enabled. If you are going to make SH** up you should at least have something to back it with.
 
All PS3.0 did in Far Cry was make performance a little bit better. They did not add any new lines of code to the game or anything. Running it in PS2.0 would give you the same visual results as running it in PS2.0. If you were to run a game with PS3.0 shaders are their full extent or even just half of what they could do any card currently out their (SLi included) would just suffer. I am not even sure cards of the next gen (G70 and R520) would be able to handle the massive amount of Pixel shading effects PS3.0 can support.
Prime dude calm down.. These are just video cards....
 
Wow Fidel, I didn't know those specifics on PS3.0, thanks :cool:

Anyway, I totally agree, we're technically seeing the infant stage of what PS3.0 can do. Splinter Cell can bring my card to its knees if I enable 1600x1200, PS3.0, HDR, and tone mapping too, so you're right about these cards not being able to support all the effects. However, with just PS3.0 and a 1280x960, I still get the 60fps. There's a huge difference, however, when 3.0 is enabled. The lighting looks absolutely fantastic. Now I dont know if that's because its going from 1.1 to 3.0 or not, but its big. Anyway, its still nice to have an extra feature to tinker with IMHO :)
 
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