Quick semi-unique question

[OoteR02]

How well would HL2/CSS run on a dual 1800+ system with 1.5 gigs of ram and a 6600gt run?

i'm looking at this specifically..

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=45&threadid=1728543&enterthread=y

i'm thinking of buying it just to have a computer to throw linux on even if i cant get hl2 running very well (i could just upgrade my barton 2500+ box with a new video card and a gig more of ram if i have to)

is hl2 smp enabled or will it run ONLY on a single cpu (i can use windows for the game if i must.. cedega isnt all that great for it yet) ie: it will run fine on the system, but only use a single processor whilst doing so

let me know some opinions..

EDIT: fixed my own context..

 

[Crescent13]

People run Half-life 2 on dual core CPUs, so I don't think 2 cpus would be a problem

I ran half life 2 on my old laptop

30gb hdd
768mb ram
radeon9000igp
p4 2.8 (non hyperthreading)

and it ran fine. Now I run it on my gaming rig (link in sig) and it's awesome. It should run okay.

 

[OoteR02]

well i know that the graphics cards benifit highly from having a fast cpu to work with them.. will windows/hl2 take advantage of the fact that there are 2 cpus there to do the work?

fixed my post a bit.. i worded it incorrectly. Thanks for the reply..

 

[Crescent13]

On the contrary, graphic cards barely benefit at all if they have a fast CPU. If you play at low resolutions, the cpu handles most of it, if you play at high resolutions, the GPU handles most of it. Will half life 2 benefit from 2 CPU's, not much, one CPU can handle all the background tasks, and the other can handle HL2.

 

[obeseotron]

You may get a very slight increase over 1 cpu from the newer nvidia drivers, which are multithreaded, but half life 2 and every other game that exists is single threaded. The multhreaded drivers are good for a 5% bump on a good day, and having one core handle background processes might be worth another percentage point or two. I'd still expect you to be able to run HL2 reasonably well because your video card is pretty fast even if the rest of the system isn't.

 

[OoteR02]

well. i guess what i'm really asking is will the 1800+ and a 6600 run hl2 well. (the other info is good, just not exactly what i was asking for) thanks!

 

[OoteR02]

anybody else?

 

[Hikari]

What resolution do you want to run it at?

It ran tolerably at 1280x768 with all the goodies turned on with my fiance's machine (2.4ghz barton+6800 NU). 1680x1050 was playable but choppy.