Half life 2. ???? Bah humbug (Off subject and angry !)

Matrix · Post by **Matrix** » 28/12/2004 - 13:09

"Any suggestions appreciated..."
- Ditch WinMe.... either go backward to 98SE or forwards to XP..... Me is LEGENDARY for not liking games and having the compatibility issues of Israel and Palestine.....

Post by **tas** » 28/12/2004 - 13:21

i was about to say the same, ME is notoriously bad.

tomsk · Post by **tomsk** » 28/12/2004 - 13:47

Hey guys - thanks for those suggestions

@ DHS

Processor is an AMD Athlon 2200XP+ 1800Mhz

I guess you're probably right - maybe time for a processor upgrade, I'm just hoping my board will allow an update, otherwise that means more expense.
Not sure if 2200XP is the name of the board - I'm a rank amatuer at such techie things.
Oh by the way.....nice glow !

@Matrix,Tas, etc
Oh, and thanks for the tips regarding ME. Didn't realise is was such a parcel of sh*te. Thanks for that. I'll probably go XP.

Cheers chappies

DHS · Post by **DHS** » 28/12/2004 - 13:51

Another reccomendation is the RAM.

Get *at* *least* 1Gb.

With 1Gb, after XP finish booting, i'm left with 639Mb.....

Next system i'll make sure to get 2 or maybe 4.

ifadeo · Post by **ifadeo** » 28/12/2004 - 15:44

why don't buy a AMD Athlon 64 3000+ / 1.8 GHz - L2 512 KB for
about 120 Ã¢â€šÂ¬, together with a MSI NEO2 mainboard (nforce3, great for music)....

and the best, you can tune the cpu from 1,8 GHz to 2,7 GHz (depends on
the ddr ram you used), works fine for me....

....and yes, it's better to have 2 gig of ram... esp. for making music....

cheers ifadeo

Kenz · Post by **Kenz** » 28/12/2004 - 16:22

I found the installation with STEAM to be time consuming and nasty - it took me OVER AN HOUR to install the game (ridiculous) ... Once I'd FINALLY got STEAM sorted the cheeky bugger demanded I updated my graphic card drivers and I had to download another 30meg file! *fume*

It was all worth it though.

DHS · Post by **DHS** » 28/12/2004 - 17:58

ifadeo wrote:(nforce3, great for music)....

Not really: nForce3 doesn't implement SoundStorm but some generic AC97 compatible audio.
And that's the reason why nvidia received a shitload of bad comments for the audio section of nForce3.

nForce4 atm doesn't have it too, but they sweared they will implement soundstorm again in the next southbridge for the chipset.

Cheerz.

ifadeo · Post by **ifadeo** » 28/12/2004 - 18:33

DHS wrote:
ifadeo wrote:(nforce3, great for music)....
Not really: nForce3 doesn't implement SoundStorm but some generic AC97 compatible audio.
And that's the reason why nvidia received a shitload of bad comments for the audio section of nForce3.

nForce4 atm doesn't have it too, but they sweared they will implement soundstorm again in the next southbridge for the chipset.

Cheerz.

nooo, i never used onboard sound, what i mean is that nforce 3 has very
good driver for the overall performance.... esp. with MSI Neo2 Platinum
board (incl. the firewire and usb 2 ports)....

for music making i use a ESI Waveterminal 192M, which offers me all the
things i need....

sorry for the misunderstanding....

cheers ifadeo

DHS · Post by **DHS** » 28/12/2004 - 18:44

A litte tale about nForce drivers..

Last week i was cursing Yamaha for their 01x drivers. The problem was that, while playing (or recording) i had some audio dropdowns. Not nice.

After some investigation, i discovered that the problem was in the nVidia IDE drivers, not the yamaha ones.

IF i had my project on a IDE drive, controlled by those drivers, the dropdown occurred. Moving it to a SATA drive (controlled by the onboard silicon image chipsed and own drivers) the problem went away.

Now, the point is that you can avoid installing the nvidia ide drivers, and use the WinXP instead. The problem is that, in performances, the ms ones suck big time compared to the nvidia ones.

Aside this, i must agree with the fact that i find the nvidia chipset much much better than the ones i had previously (VIA). I didn't have all those issues with VIA i read about in the internet forums, but the nvidia ones are much more reliable, stable and faster (talking about the via KT133).

Anyway, my next system will be on at least a dual, dualcore AMD64FX chipset. Nothing less, since i am very happy with the one i have now

Again based on nvidia chipset (unless ATI comes out with something really massive in the meanwhile) and again it will be ABIT ('cos there's simpy no competition in quality with all the other taiwain makers).

So, we are talking of more than a year.

Cheers.

ifadeo · Post by **ifadeo** » 28/12/2004 - 19:35

yep, the nvidia ide drivers produce somehow dropouts, i had these
problems with my 'old' computer(NForce2)....

...but my new machine got two nice 160 Gb. S-ATA HDs, no probs anymore....

cheeers ifadeo

Vosla · Post by **Vosla** » 28/12/2004 - 22:00

Tas wrote:i was about to say the same, ME is notoriously bad.

Well, it works pretty good at my place... at least most of the time.

Sometimes I think I should update my network though...

Lagerfeldt · Post by **Lagerfeldt** » 28/12/2004 - 23:15

I'm very happy with my Xbox, all games run from the minute I've inserted them into the disc tray. No registration, no installation, no expensive hardware upgrading.

I get to play on my 41" tv and not a small computer monitor, I get DTS digital surround sound in my living room, and I can play in my couch with my friends.

So maybe I don't get anything above HD TV resolution, and the framerate is lower than a top spec PC, but at least I have fun and the games work from the get-go.

"Buy an Xbox" is actually quite good advice IMO. Of course you'll have to wait another year to play both HL2 and Far Cry though, but for now I'm busy playing Halo 2 and Burnout3 on Xbox Live, and very soon Star Wars: KOTOR II.

Retrovertigo · Post by **Retrovertigo** » 29/12/2004 - 12:39

I get to play on my 41" tv and not a small computer monitor, I get DTS digital surround sound in my living room

Somehow I don't think expensive upgrades are a problem for you.

DHS · Post by **DHS** » 29/12/2004 - 13:18

Lagerfeldt wrote:I'm very happy with my Xbox, all games run from the minute I've inserted them into the disc tray. No registration, no installation, no expensive hardware upgrading.

The same with any console (ps2 in my case).

Lagerfeldt wrote:I get to play on my 41" tv and not a small computer monitor, I get DTS digital surround sound in my living room, and I can play in my couch with my friends.
So maybe I don't get anything above HD TV resolution, and the framerate is lower than a top spec PC, but at least I have fun and the games work from the get-go.

I experienced playing Halo2 with an xbox connected to a big, expensive plasma tv; it almost made me puke. One thing is (in general) plasma tv, that imho, are expensive for look purpose only. A good 800e traditional TV offers a much better image than any 4000e plasma. It takes much more space, but there's no comparison. The same goes with LCD tv.
The other is the graphic. I read entusiastic reviews about Halo2 gfx on xbox. May be, but i think this is highly objective. XBox will never ever get any close to the gfx i can get from my pc.
And, as many, in my pov, FPS must be played with a keyboard and a mouse.
DTS/AC3/Prologic2; all things you get from a PC or a ps2.
Playing with a big tv is a nice thing (i do it with my ps2), but, in general, a 19" monitor (with high refresh rates and higher res) does a much better job to your eyes.

Lagerfeldt wrote: "Buy an Xbox" is actually quite good advice IMO. Of course you'll have to wait another year to play both HL2 and Far Cry though, but for now I'm busy playing Halo 2 and Burnout3 on Xbox Live, and very soon Star Wars: KOTOR II.

XBox has a plenty of great games.
I never considered it anyway, for various reasons:
-Ridiculously big.
-Much more great games on the other side (ps2).
-Microsoft.

Considering buying one is at least a self lesionistic investment, now that xbox2 and ps3 are so close.

As always, my humble opinion.

xonder · Post by **xonder** » 29/12/2004 - 13:19

I doubt Half-life 2 will look very good on an Xbox. The machine is after all pretty old, and can hardly compare to a modern PC. Besides, FPS-games are obviously supposed to be played with a keyboard and a mouse.

As for the game itself, I really don't regret buying it. Ok, the installation (especially the decryption) was very slow, as was the in-game loading times, and the copy protection was exaggerated, but all things considered it was definitely worth it. The atmosphere was good, the graphics excellent, and the physics engine really fun to play around with.

The game would have benefited from a more complex plot, and more different types of enemies, though. IMO there were way too many Combine soldiers in the later parts of the game. Things got somewhat tedious then.