Need help with Half-life 2 based computer

[Nolemiah]

so, I have decided to build a computer pretty much for the purpose of playing half-life 2 at maximum settings. I've been out of the game for a while now, so I'm not exactly sure what I'll need. I'm pretty much building it from scratch with the exception of an audigy 2 platinum sound card that I already have. this is also the computer I'll be using when I go back to college for the next couple years so keep that in mind as well. I have a pretty high budget on this computer and I'll probably be overclocking whatever I get so I'm going to need good cooling as well.

thanks!

 

[robberbaron]

ATI X800XT Platinum is supposedly the best for it, thanks to biased optimazions in the game's engine.

2 gigs of ram would also be good. There was a thread for this not long ago.

 

[Unoid]

Not biased.
the above poster is a propagandaist liberal sounding partisan person.

He doens't even have proof.

 

[Apple740]

ATI X800XT Platinum is supposedly the best for it, thanks to biased optimazions in the game's engine.

You forget to mention "it's the card with the highest fillrate available, very important in shader intensive Dx9.0 games".

But we haven't see any def benchmarks yet, so we'll have to wait to drawn conclusions. Maybe a site like Anandtech makes a "mistake" and let the 6800 run in the mixed mode path (ment for GF FX), then Nv wins this round.

 

[ratmeleon]

i would actually recommend, wainting for the refreshes, and snagging a 6900 ultra or so. or even take the pci-express route. that way, you can sli if you go with nvidia. if you plan on using this system for a few years, i wouldn't recommend an ATI card, because it doesn't have shader 3.0 support.

 

[CleanSlate]

Athlon fx 55, 2 gigs pc 3200/3500 2-2-2-x, some motherboard with or without pci-e, 99999 inch monitor with matching head set.

BTW the "refreshes" wont happen for like a year... so shhh.

~Adam

 

[joecuddles]

If you want to play HL2 at max settings, get what I got (see: sig). I didn't get mine for HL2 specifically, but I'll most likely be playing at 1600 with 2xAA / 16xAF and max settings (1600 res at the least), so it works out nicely. Not to mention CS:S plays great at 2048, 2xAA / 16xAF. And if you liked Doom 3, it runs fine at 1600 as well.

Just get your standard uber PC and you'll be fine. Of course, get an FX-55 rather than the FX-53 and you'll be set. I wouldn't recommend 2GB of ram, because unless you're buying horribly timed ram (2x1GB sticks) you'll be running with all 4 DIMM's filled, which means you'll be running in 2T command rate on the S939 platform, which means degraded performance. 1GB is all you need, and is the perfect balance of quantity / quality.

 

[Apple740]

if you plan on using this system for a few years, i wouldn't recommend an ATI card, because it doesn't have shader 3.0 support

You expect that a 6800U produces decent fps in a future game (2/3 years) which is SM3.0 from bottom up (which requires full precision 32) and can't be done with 2.0b? Even in 3DM05, with shader instructions that don't surpase plain 2.0, the cards are showing slide shows from time to time (in SM3.0 path!).
Heck, maybe in 640x480 res & using Sli they can provide you some fun over three years, but if you want to play at 1280 or higher you'll definately need next gen cards.

And btw, Sis is working on PCI-E chipsets that will make Sli possible for Ati.

 

[DropTech]

You expect that a 6800U produces decent fps in a future game (2/3 years) which is SM3.0 from bottom up (which requires full precision 32) and can't be done with 2.0b? Even in 3DM05, with shader instructions that don't surpase plain 2.0, the cards are showing slide shows from time to time (in SM3.0 path!).
Heck, maybe in 640x480 res & using Sli they can provide you some fun over three years, but if you want to play at 1280 or higher you'll definately need next gen cards.

And btw, Sis is working on PCI-E chipsets that will make Sli possible for Ati.

Two things... one, the only card that supports full 32 bit percision is the 6xxx series.
And two, 05 uses over 10,000,000 polygons per scene (if I remember correctly), OVER, FREAKING, KILL; so both cards will run future games nicely. No game in the next 3 years will use that many. Now shaders, however, as they get longer at lower polygon scenes you'll notice peformance increases, theoretically.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

Two things... one, the only card that supports full 32 bit percision is the 6xxx series.
And two, 05 uses over 10,000,000 polygons per scene (if I remember correctly), OVER, FREAKING, KILL; so both cards will run future games nicely. No game in the next 3 years will use that many. Now shaders, however, as they get longer at lower polygon scenes you'll notice peformance increases, theoretically.

Yes the 6xxx series supports full 32bit percision but will run mixed mode to keep speed. ATI runs 24bit all the time and does not mix 16 bit / 32 bit. At the end of the day both render very nice displays.

My recommendations:

FX53 or 55
1 or 2 gigs of good ram
SATA hard drives
X800PE or 6800GT
monitor or LCD capable of running 1600 x 1200

 

[Kevin Lowe]

You expect that a 6800U produces decent fps in a future game (2/3 years) which is SM3.0 from bottom up (which requires full precision 32)

Since when does SM3.0 not allow partial precision hints? Last I checked, it just mandated that it be possible to perform calculations at 32-bit precision, not that every calculation be performed at that precision.

 

[Badger_sly]

Get yourself a 6800ultra if the price doesn't matter. It'll run HL2 and be better for the future games with it's SM3 support, which the ATI cards currently don't have.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Since when does SM3.0 not allow partial precision hints? Last I checked, it just mandated that it be possible to perform calculations at 32-bit precision, not that every calculation be performed at that precision.

This is correct - SM3.0 requires that the card be capable of FP32, but also allows for partial precision like FP16. The 6800 meets this, the x800 does not. Also, the 6800 doesn't take much of a performance hit at all from running FP32 all the time - in fact, in FarCry the difference between running FP16 all the time and FP32 all the time is about 5-10% in performance depending on the scene.

Games of the future will be programmed for FP32/FP16, not FP24. The maker of Unreal3 has already stated some of his fog shaders show precision errors (artifacts) on FP24 cards like the x800. FP32/FP16 is simply the smartest way to do shaders, as most shaders do not require more than FP16 precision and thus would not benefit from FP32/FP24, but for those that do the Nvidia card can use FP32. When a dev knows his shader won't need more than 64-bit color precision, they can request FP16 partial precision to give them more speed. When a dev knows they will need more, the 6800 will use FP32 full precision by default for 128-bit color precision. In future games, x800 cards will be stuck in the position of having rendering errors on higher precision shaders and slower performance with no better quality on lower precision shaders compared to their 6800 counterparts.

All of the above being said for HL2 only I'm not sure what the fastest card will be. Benchmarks of Counter-Strike:Source using the same engine put the 6800 ahead. Benchmarks of the beta HL2 leak put the 6800 ahead. Benchmarks of Valve's VST put the x800xtpe ahead, but the VST featured way more shaders than HL2 ever could in a level and did not seem like a realistic gameplay benchmark. In the end though, the 6800 Ultra could run all three with everything maxed at 60+fps.

All in all, I'd have to say going with the 6800 Ultra series would be your best bet. All signs point to it playing HL2 at 1600x1200 4xAA/8xAF with no problem, and possibly being as fast as the x800xtpe in HL2. Its also the fastest in CS:S at the moment. Plus, the 6800 Ultra is faster in Doom3, and has special effects in FarCry 1.3 that the x800 can't produce (real HDR). In the end the 6800 Ultra is a much more future proof card with Shader Model 3.0, FP32/FP16, & OpenEXR HDR - the all around smartest buy.

i'd go with:
AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 CPU (spend as much as you can on this )
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1GB RAM (2 if you can spend more)
6800 Ultra (I like BFG & eVGA brands)

 

[Apple740]

Games of the future will be programmed for FP32/FP16, not FP24. The maker of Unreal3 has already stated some of his fog shaders show precision errors (artifacts) on FP24 cards like the x800.

Nice you mention Unreal3. You really think a 6800u will give you decent framerates @1280x1024,4xAA/8xAF? Come on TranC, you should know better. By that time your 6800 is in the pc of you little doughter, who don't care playing at 640x480.
Serious gamers definetaly need next gen cards by then.

the 6800 Ultra is faster in Doom3

My XTPE with 8.07b is 4fps slower than my friends 6800U in Doom3 timedemo @1280x1024,4xAA/8xAF. However, Ati's OGL tripple buffering gives you a smoother feeling gameplay when V-sync is enabled.

and has special effects in FarCry 1.3 that the x800 can't produce (real HDR)

Real HDR? Your funny. FC1.3 contains fp16/32 blending HDR, which can only be seen by disabling FSAA, which ain't true HDR. You can get true HDR, but your fps dies. If Farcry wasn't a TWIMTBP game HDR would be implement as well for Ati, it's capable of doing this for years.

the all around smartest buy.

If you like more nosier cards (6800 cooler sounds like an airplane compared to X800's) and
love to spent money on big powersupplies then 6800 is the better choise indeed.
This generation, the extra SM3.0 transistors are nice for speeding up things like more lights in one pass, but it can all be done with sm2.0b, period.

 

[Netrat33]

the all around smartest buy.

i'd go with:
AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 CPU (spend as much as you can on this )
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1GB RAM (2 if you can spend more)
6800 Ultra (I like BFG & eVGA brands)

If you check his posts, they always lean more towards nvidia no mater what

Whether you buy an XTPE or an ultra...you're going to get a great card at fast speeds that are going to be around a long time.

but in actuality...if you want a card just for HL2...than wait.

 

[Warrior]

Not biased.
the above poster is a propagandaist liberal sounding partisan person.

He doens't even have proof.

LMFAO!!!!

my 9600 pro seems to play the game wonderfully...so i guess i recomend a 9800 pro to save some cash ( unless yuour going to be turning on ani-aliasing, if you are get a x800 ) and about a gig of ram will do it fine..and nothing under a 3ghz, and to top it off...get a audigy 2 ZS like me to get the full gameing experience

 

[R1ckCa1n]

If you like more nosier cards (6800 cooler sounds like an airplane compared to X800's) and love to spent money on big powersupplies then 6800 is the better choise indeed. This generation, the extra SM3.0 transistors are nice for speeding up things like more lights in one pass, but it can all be done with sm2.0b, period.

Since I have both the X800 Pro (which can run at PE speeds) and a 6800GT, I can tell you the 6800 is what seems like 10x louder. If you are interested in a quite rig, you have to watercool the 6800 or add one of those NV5 silencer.

I must say from a driver perspective, the NV drivers are more user friendly. ATI has made MAJOR improvements to their drivers, but the NV drivers feel more "polished".

From the display perspective, both render great images. The GT can typically outpace what my X800 was doing, and typically at higher AF.

I did not buy the 6800GT for SM3.0 since it does not have any use today or in the next year. By then, I will have another card anyways.

 

[R1ckCa1n]

i'd go with:
AMD Athlon 64 socket 939 CPU (spend as much as you can on this )
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1GB RAM (2 if you can spend more)
6800 Ultra (I like BFG & eVGA brands)

Dude, the Neo2 boards suck, IMHO. Via won the 754/939 chipset battle this round, with or without NF4.

I would go with the A8V from Asus.

 

[CastleBravo]

Have any of you guys run the Source stress test? Any of the high-end graphics cards eat that thing for lunch. I ran at 1280x1024 4xAA 8xAF and got something like 106 FPS *average* with a P4 3.2E with 1GB of relatively crappy (3-3-3-8) PC3200 and a 6800 GT @ 400/1.1. Arguing over a 6800 Ultra vs. an x800 XT-PE for this engine is just so much jerking off... either one will own it with everything cranked up.

I would agree that a socket 939 A64 is the way to go, nice thing is that it will be able to go up to at least the (not yet released) 4200+ and FX-57 level according to AMD's roadmap.