If you don’t mind me asking ** Ender ** why in the world did you get a 3 ghz processor yet only 256 mb of ram?
I might be mistaken but I thought the minimum to run XP well is 512 and 1 gig is becoming more and more standard.
Fair question.
I had the computer custom built a year and a half ago and, when comparing prices, a 3 gig processor was actually the most cost efficient for the choices available for what I’d be getting. I also decided that I didn’t need 512 MB of RAM though any option up to 1 or 2 gig could be done. I just wasn’t playing that many games, nor multi-tasking with resource heavy programs.
Up to now, I haven’t had much complaint with my processing speed. Overall, though, my computer is slowing down and with HL2 it’s just slamming on its breaks. I realize I will soon need to go up to at least 512 and I’m looking into that now.
XP runs fine on my laptop with 256 megs of RAM. However, it doesn’t run Knights of the Old Republic, let alone Half-Life 2.
I did not state that HL2 was available before the release date (although there’s no proof it wasn’t) but HL2 was quite available the DAY it came out on several torrent boards. The OFFLINE game was quite possible to play immediately (as I said, online gaming was a different story). With the speed of the P2P network actually being faster than Steam (at least WAS on the first hectic day) the game was playable within 4 hours of it being listed on several Torrent boards.
I STILL haven’t bothered playing HL2, pirated or not, over this Steam BS. Many other companies got my money instead of HL2. Steam might help with ‘pre release piracy’ but it did not actually prevent people from pirating the game. In fact right now pirates continue to release new patched HL2 versions as they are updated online.
Wow, that’s it? Does it mention at least the chipsets? Even my rather older game (Cossacks) requires DX8. I wouldn’t even want to know how the game would look under a DX7 videocard. Enderw24, did you actually look up any help with your video error? I’m pretty sure almost any videocard within the last 2 years is DX7 compatible.
DirectX isn’t a type or manufacturer of video cards, it’s an interface that graphics programming is written in. There are different generations of DirectX, which require different hardware to utilize the new features. If a game requires DirectX 7, it means it requires hardware that supports all the features of DirectX 7.
DirectX 7 hardware is pretty old - geforce 2s, I know at least, were directx 7 cards. Your 9600 is fine, that’s a DX9 card. However, you may have had a cheapy card put in your system originally that lacked any sort of horsepower whatsoever.
In any case, your long load times now are almost certainly caused by your lack of RAM. Upgrade to a gig and it should be a ton smoother.
The fully-functional Beta was available almost a year earlier.
IIRC, it most certainly does not mention any chipsets. Again, Valve has become infested with filthy lies. God programming, but these clowns are just effin bastards.
And personally, I liked HL2, but it was much overrated and has only moderate replay value.
What games are better, in your opinion? I’ve wanted to pick up Far Cry, but I don’t know too much about it.
Anyway, CS:S is pretty damn good and I want to see DoD:S.
So what? Once the content is out, people can steal it. Steam never pretended that it could prevent that. What it did achieve was an unbroken release date, removing the motive to steal the game because you had no option to buy it and couldn’t wait while everyone else was playing it. With the Stam release, no one anywhere in the world had that excuse. I would expect that HL2’s sales were up dramatically from other games in those parts of the world that normally have to wait months for major lagged releases.
Again, so what? Steam achieved its purpose. With a few hiccups, it performed pretty darn well at what it was supposed to do.
Your loss, over what seems like a pretty pointless gripe.
That wasn’t the actual game, and you know it full well: it was a leak that occured because the actual developers were hacked into: a pretty exceptional circumstance.
The actual game was kept under wraps until the content was released and decrypted. Given that they had the full game sitting on people’s HDs for over a month, and the release date STILL wasn’t broken: that’s a pretty major achievement.
Filthy Lies?? Valve very specifically said you need a graphics card that supports DirectX 7.0, and it works if you have any of the myriad of chipsets that meet that standard. You should know what DX level your card is compatible with. Now, if it turns out that HL2 doesn’t work on some oddball card, like say the XGI Volari, that does support Direct X 7.0 (the Volari is actually a DirectX 9.0 card) then feel free to call them a liar. Otherwise, don’t bitch at them for your technical ignorance.
Further more, the MINIMUM requirements on a game are just that - the minimum need to play the game. If one of the 3 major things (video card, RAM, CPU speed) is at the minimum, you will be able to play the game, but you will have to sacrifice some eye candy, or endure long loading times. This is true of every graphically intense game out there. That is why companies have the “Suggested Requires” right next to the minimums, to know what you need to have to play the game without making those sacrifices.
But putting DX t on the box says nothing. In fact, its downright deceptive andisn’t the information the consumer needs.
IIRC, they redesigned a good bit of the game content after that leak.
There are no suggested requirements printed on the HL2 DVD box, only minimum ones. Proof: http://briefcase.pathfinder.gr/download/dog80/20111/368247/0/hl2.jpg
It is extremely misleading for them to list DX7 compatible cards as meeting the minimum requirements. I don’t plan on playing this game as I’m not a fan of shooters, but the screenshots I’ve seen are just fantastic. DX7 is quite simply incapable of rendering graphics that look even a quarter that good. It’s a good bet that the code wasn’t optimized for lower end cards, so even if all the settings were turned down to low the game would still tax the system, possibly slowing it down to the point of unplayability. I’ve seen it happen with other games, and of course shooters, and especially this one, push the graphics as far as they can possibly go.
The big problem is that no anti-piracy policy is going to prevent pirates from circumventing the anti-piracy measures. In turn, the only thing that is accomplished is pissing off the honest customer.
There’s this group of musicians in Germany called “Die Ärzte” and in an interview they were asked why their label doesn’t use copy protection on their CDs and the lead singer said “Just imagine you’re buying a brand new Mercedes and as you’re trying to drive away the car tells you: Sorry, the drive-away-locks are enabled. Customer: But I’m having the keys right here! This is my car!”
I was amazed that those guys had it nailed down, personally I refrained from buying a couple of CDs (the same would hold for games), because the kick in the nads for the honest customer just isn’t something I’m going to tolerate.
Ironically, despite all the hoopla over Microsoft’s anti-piracy measures, I’ve found them to bend over backwards for the customer on it. They at least make it clear and easy to do and make it such that it can be done any time - and they’re still actively experimenting. Most companies don’t care about the customer.
Personally, I expect this crap is a minor factor driving gaming to consoles, which I don’t particularly like.
That’s true. I have an official copy of XP pro and after making various HW changes my serial cannot be verified online. I called them up, got a rep (at like 2 am) and without asking anything just gave me the working verification code.
Apos, I don’t think we’re talking about exactly the same thing. A ‘same day release’ is not a big anti-piracy measure IMO. Because I’m in North America we get the newer games anyhow (and local pirates can have a cracked/patched game up as a Torrent in a matter of hours). If a game is released Europe/America only, then I could understand but most games are released everywhere except for a few smaller titles (that I had to have shipped from the UK since I’m a game freak).
I doubt pirates are really not buying games only because it’s not available locally. The whole point of Piracy is to play games for free. Regardless of if it’s available locally or not.
Then I guess the real problem is less that we aren’t talking about the same thing, and more that you don’t know what you’re talking about, no?
By golly, you’re right! People don’t actually respond to incentives after all. Let’s write a paper to the Journal of Economics and rack up some Nobel prizes!
Sad, but true. It’s not that anyone will eradicate piracy, just make it more difficult. It used to be very easy simply to type a game name into a file-sharing program and get the game. Not so much anymore. I like to use virtual drives. They’re faster and I don’t have to find and swap discs. Can’t do that either.
Well shit Mr Expert, why don’t you go fucking write that paper then? Since you seem to have it all figured out.
I guess Steam is the ultimate answer to piracy! Same day releases counter the urge to pirate games! I guess my reasons to pirate games in my youth could have been all fixed if these games were available at the same time world wide. By golly, I would have never pirated a single game if only I was forced to wait until the day it was on the shelves!
Heh, google can find HL2 in exactly 0.09 seconds. Piracy used to be rather hard back in the day when BBSes were around. These days any yahoo can do it (which I think is really bad). The only non-pirated type of game would be a MMOG-type game, exactly the type of game I would never buy.
There just isn’t a reliable counter to piracy. Anti-copy measures can hurt real customers. I recently had BF 1942: Anthlology that I had to return 3 times (all cds had read errors on my drive). I gave up and Futureshop accepted it’s return.
Sheesh, what a moron you are. Valve creates something saying it will help them do X. It does X. You bitch that it doesn’t do Y. Anyone can see how stupid that is.