Q: My system runs C&C:Generals pretty well. How do the requirements of this game compare to other games such as Tribes 2, NOLF 2, and Half-Life 2? Will I be able to run them?

A: CNC:Generals requires at minimum: an 800MHz PIII or Athlon, 128MB RAM, and a 32MB Geforce2/Radeon 7500 DirectX 8.1-class or better graphics card. Recommended is: 1.8GHz P4 or Athlon*, 256MB RAM, and a GeForce3/Radeon 8500 or better graphics card.

Now, assuming your system is somewhere around the recommended point: Tribes and Tribes 2 are likely to run well on your system (I can guarantee† Tribes will). The original Half-Life games would of course run fine on your system. NOLF1 and 2 should run fine (having a HL2-capable system, I ran my copy of NOLF2 at a pretty high resolution with anti-aliasing turned on).

Half-Life 2 may bog** down unless you have more CPU power (such as at least an Athlon XP 2100+ or equivalently-performing P4). Secondarily, a DirectX 9-class video card with power (such as a Radeon 9800Pro or GeForce 5800Ultra, not one of these "entry-level" cards like the GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon 9000) would improve your graphics quality, but may not be strictly necessary - DirectX 8.1 mode is less demanding. Furthermore, HL2 really needs at least 512MB of RAM, and a defragmented, fairly fast hard drive (otherwise, there's going to be a lot of stuttering for 2-3 minutes after level changes).

Finally, if you want to run something like the HL2 Antlion Troopers Deuce mod, I recommend something like an Athlon 64 2.0GHz or Pentium 4 3.0GHz at minimum - it just completely bogged down on my 1.8GHz (~2200+) Athlon XP, getting 1-3fps regardless of how high or low I set my graphics settings - CPU limited. Other mods with less intense AI demands worked fine. When I upgraded to an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (2.0GHz), all other hardware except the motherboard being the same (even the same OS), it ran smoothly - at least 30fps. But that's probably over a hundred antlions each with their individual AI, up against dozens of troops - compared to the regular HL2 game, which does a clever job of keeping your computer from having to handle more than one or two dozen enemy AIs at any given moment, and makes good use of scripting where appropriate. No wonder there's a difference in performance :)

* - I think a 1.8GHz Athlon would be a lot faster than a 1.8GHz P4 - maybe they mean an "1800+" performance rating Athlon, which is really 1.53GHz.
† - Or your money back! :P
** - Bog: dip below 24 frames per second often. Below 30fps may make it difficult to aim accurately at quickly-moving enemies. 60fps avg with a minimum of 45 is ideal, but we're not talking the ultra-quick multiplayer Quake games here, and speed costs money.

Question and answer published in this format on 2007-01-01 23:10:05 -0800
Question originally answered on Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:52 am