HalfLife2

[IronSight]

Does anyone have it yet? I'll be purchasing it sometime this week. It's been a long time coming and I'm looking forward to it.

I'll do a reformat tonight and get'er all ready for tomorrow. :)

[Brian]

Kurtis and I both have it. We have spent all day working on a performance article. Should be up later tonight so stay tuned!

Great game btw!!!

[IronSight]

Wonder how my system will handle it...

System:
A-Open N Force 333FSB DDR400 AGP8x ATA133 Raid
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ CPU
1Gig PC2700 DDR333 Memory
80GB ATA100 8MB FDB HardDrive SATA
Sony 1.44MB Floppy
LG 52x24x52x CDRW x/Burn Proof
NVidia GeForce 4 Ti 4800 128MN x/TV Out
6CH Surround Sound AC '97 Integrated Audio
Real Tek 10/100TX Integrated Network Card
Silver Full Tower 420W ATX Full Tower Case
Microsoft Internet Keyboard
Microsoft Wireless Optical Duel-Axis Wheel Mouse
800W PWPO Subwoofer Speakers
LG Flatron 15" LCD Moniter

[Brian]

Unfortunately the majority of the cards we had on hand and tested with were current generation. The only older card we had was a 5950 Ultra. We tested an X600 XT, X800 XT, 6600 GT (all PCIE) and a 5950 Ultra, 6800 GT and X800 Pro (all AGP). The PCIE system has a 3.4 Prescott while the AGP system has a 2.4 Northwood. Both have 1 GB of memory.

[IronSight]

But from what you've probably encountered, how would my card hold up?

[Kurtis]

But from what you've probably encountered, how would my card hold up?

give us a couple of hours and the article will be up. i just finished with my half of the benchmarking finally, so now i just need to write the article, put in graphs, etc...

[Dyrewolph]

But from what you've probably encountered, how would my card hold up?

how can you expect either of them to answer that???

if they answer one question of "do you think it will run on my system?" they'll open a floodgate and every poor bastard that doesn't have it yet will be shouting out "brian.... kurtis... do you think I should buy it... my systems not that good but I wanna know what you think? here's my specs: ... .... ... etc..."

[Kurtis]

I would imagine that a TI4800 wouldn't play HL2 very well, at least not if you want good image quality. I can't say for sure obviously, because I don't have this card myself. I can, however, tell you that a 9600 Pro did not play CS:Source very well at all. The graphics looked like crap and there was a LOT of lag.

[Rich]

Hey kurtis, send me a copy and I can try it on my 4200 Ti. :P

[Kurtis]

lol send you a copy? Download steam, and push the purchase button :P

you already got your birthday present, silly boy :D

[Brian]

you already got your birthday present, silly boy :D

My god, could that sound any more gay? :-P

[Kurtis]

you already got your birthday present, silly boy :D

My god, could that sound any more gay? :-P

lol! whatever 8)

[IronSight]

But from what you've probably encountered, how would my card hold up?

how can you expect either of them to answer that???

if they answer one question of "do you think it will run on my system?" they'll open a floodgate and every poor bastard that doesn't have it yet will be shouting out "brian.... kurtis... do you think I should buy it... my systems not that good but I wanna know what you think? here's my specs: ... .... ... etc..."

Hey man, simmer down. Considering they run this website and do all the reviews, I figured that they might have a better idea than I do. Geeze.

And actually, HL2 runs fairly well with my setup, and still baffles me how great it looks. Very rarely do I encounter any choppy areas.

[Kurtis]

what video settings to you have HL2 on when you play? I'm surprised it isn't choppy for you.

Although, your Barton 2500+ kicks my personal rig's XP 2100+ Palomino... That probably makes a pretty big difference, considering how CPU-intensive the game is.

[EmoMakesMeCry]

I bought HL2 the other day and have pretty much been playing it nonstop ever since. The graphics, sound, physics, textures, AI....everything about the game is superb.

It took me 13 hours to beat it on normal and I know I missed a lot of little hidden things so I'm going back and playing it again on hard. Lots of people are complaining about the ending but I love it. It's so open-ended and makes me salivate even more for Half Life 3. There are a plethora of theories concerning Gordon, the G-man, Xen, and the Combine that are floating around but I'm sure that Half Life 3 will sort it all out and will be an excellent end to the trilogy.

The only quips that I had were with stuttering sound at a few points in the game. Being the anal audiophile that I am, I of course refused to play until these problems were fixed. I made a few game tweaks and some virtual memory fixes and all was well once again. I was amazed at how smooth the game ran on my PC with all the graphics options and AA/AF turned up all the way at 1024x768. And it even played pretty well at 1280x1024 with the graphics options turned up fairly high.

What I was most impressed with was the overall depth of the AI and the environments in the game. It was so incredibly involving that you begin to stop noticing the breathtaking graphics because it just feels so real. It's much more involving than Doom 3 could have ever hoped to be. I was a bit disappointed that the hydra which was featured in the E3 movie did not make its way into the final game. That would have been quite a thing to behold but alas, some things were left out or replaced. (The weapons, for example).

I did manage to spot the ever so elusive G-man no less than 9 times throughout the game and I'm sure I'll spot him more the second time around.

Overall, I don't think I've had this much fun playing a game since I was little and played Zelda nonstop on my NES for a month straight. And I definitely haven't wanted to go back and replay an entire FPS game right after I finished it before.

Oh, and I seriously had so much fun with the physics engine that I was doing this a lot. :D

http://penny-arcade.com/images/2004/20041117l.jpg

[Brian]

Yeah, great game. I am a bit uneasy about the ending though. It was a good ending since there is an expansion coming as well as HL3 (from what I have heard), but there were way too many questions left unanswered.

I saw the g-man about three times through the game (besides the obvious parts). Emo, would you mind creating a thread with a "spoiler warning" in the title so we can discuss the ending, g-man sightings etc? I too am going to play through it a second time, but this time take all the time in the world and explore every nook and cranny.

I must say, this is one of the best games I have played. Extremely immersive and has some great settings. My biggest complaint was the insanely long airboat sequence and even that wasn't really that bad.

One of my favorite parts was in the beginning when the patrol guys push you around. I threw some trash at a guard and he got pissed and came after me with his shock stick thingy. Best game ever.

[Kurtis]

yeah, in the very beginning, that guard that won't move aside until you mess with him, he actually is telling you to throw the soda bottle in the trash. if you drop the soda bottle in the trash he moves aside :D

right now i am a little bit past where u get the ant lion bait. was playing for like 4 hours last night, and been playing for several hours today

[IronSight]

I'm at 1024x768, with all video options set to high. No AA/AF.

[Kurtis]

oh no AA/AF, that explains it. I can't stand jaggies, so I always crank up the AA/AF :)

[Blinkin]

I got the 9600 pro and CS:S and Half Life 2 look fine to me. I also got 512mb DDR and a AMD XP 2800 barton. I got settings on like semi-high and I get about 50 fps.

[Kurtis]

I got the 9600 pro and CS:S and Half Life 2 look fine to me. I also got 512mb DDR and a AMD XP 2800 barton. I got settings on like semi-high and I get about 50 fps.

well, i also have a crappy CPU in my personal rig, so i sorta needed a better video card to balance things out a little bit. My XP2100+ Palomino isn't the best CPU for gaming, period, let alone HL2... :(