Halo PC

i bileve you could get   a fx5700ultra or radeon 9700ultra for under 200$.. look in

www.newegg.com

Message Edited by masteryoda on 12-16-2003 11:03 PM

You're not going to buy a Radeon 9800pro for $200.00 @ newegg.

But newegg does list a Radeon 9500pro sapphire model for $178.00.  The 9500pro is faster than the 9600pro ($149.00).  9600xt ($199.00) is on par speedwise with the 9500pro.  Newegg also listed a sapphire 9700pro for $238.00.

Your 4550 system can run any of these cards easy without any updating to your current powersupply unit. 

Now don't fault your current system or vid card because it can't run HaloPC.  The game is a poorly coded resource hog.  I'm not sure you could pop-in any of the above cards and not experience some low framerates in HaloPC.

Dale

Dimension 4550
P4 2.53GHz
A08 Bios
512Mb DDR 333MHz Ram
533Mhz fsb
Sapphire Oem Radeon 9800Pro 128Mb w/Catalyst 3.7 drivers
Sound Blaster Live
LITEON DVD LTD163-->Plextor 708A 8x burner
Hitachi/LG-DT-ST CDRW Rom 848-1b
Logitech Optical Mouse MX310
Viewsonic G90fb-2 19"
Windows XP Home Sp1 (all updates)
WD 600BB 60Gb Ultra ATA 100 7200rpm HD
WD 1200JB SE 120Gb ATA 100 7200rpm HD
D-Link 604 Ethernet Broadband Router

Your system has plenty of power except for one thing. The operative phrase for you in the description of system requirements is "3D Transform and Lighting capable", a.k.a. "hardware T&L". Though your video card may have the required 32MB minimum memory, it is not T&L capable. Hence, you need to upgrade it to run this game, as well as most other recent titles. You evidently chose a low-end  video card (probably the absolute cheapest one offered, I'd guess) when you configured your machine, guessing that you wouldn't need more. Well, now you do. The suggestions made by others of the Radeon 9500 Pro or 9600 Pro are excellent options. Another good candidate is the GeforceFX 5700 Ultra. Figure on paying in the $150 to $200 for a solid mid-range video card that will handle this and other newer games well.

One other comment--your statement that "only a few cards were compatible with the game" isn't remotely true. Virtually ANY 3D video card introduced since 2000 includes hardware T&L capability. The ATI Rage video card technology is extremely old, and pre-dates that period of time. It was offered by Dell as a low-ball option for people who would be doing no 3D gaming on their PC's.

The following cards were known to work with Halo and were therefore classified as supported at the time that Halo was shipped:

ATI Radeon Mobility 7500
Mobility VE
Radeon Mobility VE
Radeon Mobility 9000
Radeon
Radeon FireGL
Radeon 7500
Radeon 7000 VE
Radeon 8500
Radeon 8500 DV
Radeon 9000
Radeon 9200
Radeon 9200 PRO
Radeon 9500
Radeon 9500 PRO
Radeon 9600
Radeon 9600 PRO
Radeon 9700
Radeon 9800 PRO
Matrox Fusion G800
Parhelia 128
nVidia GeForce 256
GeForce 256 DDR
GeForce 256 Ultra
GeForce 256 Quadro
GeForce2 MX
GeForce2 MX DDR
GeForce2 Go
GeForce2 Quadro
GeForce2
GeForce2 Ti
GeForce2 Ultra
GeForce2 Quadro
GeForce3
GeForce3 Ti200
GeForce3 Ti500
GeForce3 Quadro
GeForce4 Ti4600
GeForce4 Ti4400
GeForce4 Ti4200-8x
GeForce4 Ti4800
GeForce4 Ti4800SE
GeForce4 MX 420
GeForce4 MX 440
GeForce4 MX 440SE
GeForce4 MX 460
GeForce4 Go 420
GeForce4 Go 440
GeForce4 MX 448 Go
GeForce4 Go 4200
GeForce4 Quadro4
GeForce4 Quadro 200
GeForce4 Quadro 280
GeForce4 Quadro 380
GeForce4 Quadro 550
GeForce4 Quadro 580
GeForce4 Quadro 700
GeForce4 Quadro 750
GeForce4 Quadro 780
GeForce4 Quadro 900
GeForce4 Quadro 980
GeForce FX GeForce FX 5200
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
GeForce FX 5200SE
GeForce FX 5600
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
GeForce FX 5600SE
GeForce FX 5800 Ultra
GeForce FX 5800
GeForce FX Go5600
GeForce FX Go5200
GeForce FX 5900
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
GeForce FX 5900SE
GeForce Quadro FX 500
GeForce Quadro FX 1000
GeForce Quadro FX 2000
GeForce FX Quadro 3000
GeForce FX Quadro Go700
nForce
nForce2

That’s quite a list, excluding any new cards… Which one is the best I can get for somewhere around 200$ One that will last for
Halo 2, that’s probably the only PC game I’ll play. I want to  make the best choice. Your right about me getting the “cheapest card” at the time I didn’t think Halo would come out for PC. I had only got the computer for other stuff…

I don’t really know if I can get a card that will last for Halo 2 for around 200$? Can I?

No you are out of luck, there are no other video cards besides the on you have, all the people who will try to sell you one are scam artists, especially those con companies, like Nvidia, and ATI....complete trash

Don't listen to him. You definitley need a graphics card that supports Hardware T&L and DirectX 8, among other things. For 200 dollars, you can get a 9700pro. It's a very fast video card. Get it on newegg.com

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus angered the gods and was eternally sentenced to push a big round rock up a mountain. At the top, it would roll down the other side, and he would have to repeat the futile task over and over, endlessly.

I mention this poor schmuck because his fate bears a strong similarity to the task of trying to buy a video card that will let you "stay ahead" of upcoming 3D games and their ever-increasing requirements. The programmers who create these games could easily design a game that would bring ANY existing PC, even with the "hottest" available video card, to it's knees by using the sophisticated 3D rendering techniques already available to them. They are basically "hardware limited" all the time in game design, so the system requirements of new games just expand to use capabilities of the newest & fastest 3D video cards. At the same time, the video card technology continues to advance quickly, so that the hottest card of today is a big yawn, performance-wise, within a year, and is completely antiquated in about two years.

So the bottom line is that keeping up with the hardware requirements of the latest games is an exercise in futility worthy of the accursed Sisyphus himself. Really hardcore gamers are pretty much doomed to spending $300 or more on at least a yearly basis, and some find themselves upgrading as often as every 6 months. It can be an expensive addiction, believe me.

What I would suggest that you do is set yourself a budget limit and just get the best card you can for that figure. In the $200-and-under range, the Radeon 9600 Pro or XT or the GeforceFX 5700 Ultra is probably your best bet. The older Radeon 9500 Pro is also an excellent card (arguably better than the 9600 that replaced it), but supplies have dwindled and it can be very hard to find. Beyond that, you may be able to find a Radeon 9700 non-Pro for about $200, but these are difficult to locate, too. Allstarshop.com lists a couple of them but they are currently not in stock. If you can find one, this would be a great choice, since it is a more powerful card than any of the aforementioned models.

To step up to the current crop of high-end cards, you'd be looking at $250 and up. There are some Radeon 9800 non-Pro's available for $250 or so, and they can be overclocked to run at or near 9800 Pro clockspeeds. This is what I run in my personal machine.