MahlerIsGod

Most of us are waiting for two games and only two games this year: Harry Potter Quiddach World Cup and Outlaw Ping-Pong. (I kid!) Those games would be Half-Life 2 and Doom 3. THey should be in beta-testing (if they are not, something is wrong) and its tax season. Some of us are going to use are tax-returns to buy the necessary equipment (new video card, CPU, RAM, etc.) but we have no idea what to buy! Would it be too much to ask of Valve and Id to release the system requirements so we can have a general idea what to buy? Am I just being "uppity?" But I think some of us would really like to know!

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Lestat

It's not to much to ask. I am also curious on the specs.

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Mr.Deflok

I'm pretty sure id software released a minimum spec sheet to a long-standing Doom fansite sometime last year. As far as I can remember min specs were incredibly low.

Latch

\

You forget about Duke Nukem Forever? hahaha

GoldenOuroboros

Well if you're goin to spend the money on new parts.. why not just wait for the stats to be released and THEN buy the parts?

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mystix

i already have half life 2 from a vid card purchase and doom III is going to be even harder. From what valve and id have benched so far, you will need a monster to play these. half life can actually give u 60fps on a good video card (ati), while doom can give you up to 30 on a good video card (nvidia). I would just wait for the next-gen video cards i u must have the best performance

n0b

To me, system requirements aren't too useful. To make a game look nice, you need way above the minimum requirements and even above their "recommended" requirements. Game companies don't really make games for the current hardware that's out, they make them for future technology to extend the game life. My advice would just be to buy the best system that you can afford.

GakFace

You forgot Tribes 3: Vengeance!!!! argness!

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Lasereth

That's exactly right. Gaming companies release the minimum requirements...which are basically what the game will boot up on, not counting the fact that it's running at 5 FPS. Hell, even the recommended specs are incredibly undershot usually. Morrowind recommends a GeForce 2 with an 800 MHz processor. Umm, my 1.6 GHz Athlon XP and GeForce 4 TI4200 have trouble running it "well."

Simply enough, if you get an AMD Barton processor (preferably above 2 GHz) or an Intel Pentium 4 processor at 2.4 GHz or higher, that will cover the gaming market for a couple of years. The videocard is what ya need to be concerned with. If you spend $200 or above on a videocard right now, I'm sure it'll run the games fine as well. You can find GeForce FX 5900's for $200, and they beat out Radeon 9700 Pros on many tests. Cards of that caliber are gonna run the games fine.

You have to remember that Valve has released the video benchmark for HL2. It ran damn good on my computer, and it's nothing special anymore. Doom 3 runs alright on my PC until I...well, fire the gun, but that's only because the "demo" I played has no adjustable video settings. NVIDIA hasn't released optimized drivers for the game, either...it's sort of not out yet.

-Lasereth

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GakFace

/me hugs his 2400 with 512 Ram, and GFX 5900.

All to upgrade really are the speakers and the sound card.. then in a year or so exchange the dual 256 to Dual 512 or Dual 1024.

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RoboBlaster:
Welcome to the club! Not that I'm in the club. And there really isn'a a club in the first place. But if there was a club and if I was in it, I would definitely welcome you to it.

jujueye

Nice idea. But id will likely not release Doom3 until sales of HL2 are long gone. Seems pretty obvious they do not want to complete and want to be the onyl game in town. My guess is Doom3 will not be released this year.

As for gaming specs: expect that the game will look its BEST on the latest and greatest. This means the top-of-the-line video, proc, and memory. I would say not to wait for them to get released and just get the top-of-the-line stuff now. It will enhance every other game you already have. Unless the are released a year from now, there is little to worry about.

Upgrading is part of the PC lifestyle.