COD2 hardware requirements

[shanKs]

I had a friend of mine ask me what the hardware specs were going to be because he's buying a new video card. He didn't want to spend beaucoup bucks on a card so I kinda figured a 9800pro would do him just fine. I suppose czech would know first hand but I haven't seen him online in a while...do you guys have any idea what cpu, mobo, ram, vid card requirements would be in store?

[Penguin]

I would expect the same requirements close to BF2

[BuddhaMan]

Tell the friend to wait a few weeks until after Quakecon when the demo will be played and whatnot and Czech can ask the id peeps in person.

According to their site, Quakecon is 20+ days from now. http://www.quakecon.org/

[Cavi]

yeah specs havent been released yet bud... but i plan on being a ok with my 2.2 ghz 9800 pro 1gig rig...

that sounded kinda cool at the end... admit it.

[BuddhaMan]

metrogeek?

[Cavi]

uBercontrolfReak?

[BuddhaMan]

You can't be refering to me...must be Arsonal.

[Cavi]

nope ... you :D

[BuddhaMan]

Speaking of control...I know you have my extension cord you stupid Buckeye! Now gimme! :finger:

[Cavi]

jigger who?

[Artis]

i have the ext. cord buddha.

[FADES]

I've got the cord!

Anyway, I am thinking that my PIII-500, Voodoo 3000, 128MB RAM machine will be just fine for the game...won't it?

[Sasha]

oh that's perfect for pong Fades no worries :)

[snipie]

If my ati 9000 pro vid card gives me 15 fps in cod:uo, i shouldn't even bother to try it in cod 2.

New computer time.

[BuddhaMan]

Good excuse to spend money!

[snipie]

Need to get a job or something to get a new alienware.

[Artis]

they are overrated IMO. build your own.

[FADES]

oh that's perfect for pong Fades no worries :)

Hey, I used to tear some UT up with that rig! When I first got that thing all my buddies were in awe. lol

[Artis]

nothing beats the amd t'bird 900, voodoo 5, 1gb of pc133 sdram system i pwn3d on.

[Cavi]

they are overrated IMO. build your own.

couldnt have said it better myself :)

[snipie]

i'd prob need some help building my own pc...

and would that lower the price?

[Artis]

better comp for less, yes. and we have all kinds of people here to help ya.

[BuddhaMan]

True, but better to have a bud there in person to help with issues for your first build ever.

[Artis]

true.

[Sasha]

Or you can put Artis on Speedial hahahaha

[Vyper]

Actually Ronin would be happy to too I'd bet. :D

[snipie]

Sorry I'm basicly in the dark when it comes to building a new computer...

Could someone give a general outline of all the parts you would need, so that I could have a good idea of price, what to get, etc.

Thanks for the help!

[=DBA=Ronin]

case (thousands to choose from)
PowerSupply (If not provided with case) (Do your homework on this, don't go cheap)
Motherboard (must match up with the type of CPU you go with)(most new ones have a built in network card, sometimes 2, and all will have multiple USB ports)
CPU (AMD or Intel, 64 or 32bit)
CPU Heatsink and fan (if OEM CPU is purchased, otherwise Retail CPU's come with these although they aren't the best)
Memory (at least a gig)
Hard Drive(s)(recomend SATA)
Optical Drive(s) (i.e. DVD Burner, CDRom, etc)
Video Card (ATI or Nvidia...sli??)
SoundCard (Optional if built in with selected motherboard...onboard S/C's are crap so recomend new one either way. Avoid Soundblaster if you can, their software is garbage)
Floppy Drive (Getting outdated, but if you have a sata or raid you may need it to load drivers upon OS installation)

Prices will vary greatly depending on where you get the parts, as well as the brand and model of each part. If you live in US, use Newegg. They have relatively competetive prices, but you simply can't ask for a better more respected place to buy from.

Give us a general budget you are looking towards and we can give you more specific recomendations, but the list above should give you some guidance as to what you will need if you wish to hunt stuff down on your own.

Putting the parts together is fairly simple, so don't be intimidated by it for your first time. You will most likely run into some snags, but it's a good learning experience, and like the rest have mentioned, there are plenty of people around here more than willing to help (i.e. Tech Forum)

Good luck!!

[FADES]

Keep in mind that you may not need to buy everything that Ronin listed above. Some of the things you have now may be good enough to move over to the new case such as, sound card, optical drives, etc. You be the judge. Maybe list what you have now and we can give help and direction with that.

[snipie]

Right now my CPU is a hunk of garbage, as it is a Dell Dimension 4300 with a ATI 9000 pro and 512 RAM. lol. Also, the Hard Drive is only 37 GB.

Is there anything I could salvage from this?

I'm thinking a price range from 700-900, is this realistic for a good gaming pc? And one that would last beyond games such as COD2. The video card im looking at is a Radeon x800, which is $356 on Newegg. And 1 Gig of RAM is a must.

Thanks for the help guys.

[BuddhaMan]

There isn't much budget left after the graphics card you picked and memory to buy a CPU, mobo,etc.

[snipie]

With this list so far, could you give me an estimated to finish the job?

case- $100
power supply- $100
motherboard- $125
CPU- $250
Memory- $100
Hard Drive- $150
Video Card- Ati x800 ... $359

And that equals almost $1200, any ideas on this?

[FADES]

I built my rig for right around $800-900. Specs are as follows (this is what I bought):

Antec Lanboy Case
Antec True Blue 480 power supply
Nvidia NX6600GT 128M video card from MSI
512Mb Corsair RAM
AMD64 Processor/Abit Mobo combo

I kept my hard drives, optical drives, and sound card. It runs any game out there like a dream. HL2, Doom 3, etc. all ran great at fairly high settings with no problems. And the thing has been running rock solid for several months now. I built it shortly after Christmas.

[blakeee]

$150 for the hd?

[Artis]

snipie, keep in mind that anything you build can be upgraded later, especially the video card. if you want to go a little cheaper on the video card that is a way to save some money although the x800 is a great card. also the $100 you have there for the case and $100 for the pwr supply could both be dropped down by nearly $50 and you would still get quality stuff. ie. super lanboy is around $70 bucks and you can get a true power antec pwr. supply for around $60. as for the HD, you dont need to go that big as a good size sata drive costs around a $100 now which isnt that bad. so with this savings that is approx. $200 cheaper than your original 1200 estimate.

[shanKs]

I'm right there with ya artis. The x800 is an awesome card you can still play every game out there with a 9800pro and you can pick one of those up for 140 bucks. A $100 case seems a little steep unless you want something really flashy or high quality. You can also get a gig of value ram (3200) for about 75 bucks now. I also just bought that thermaltake purepower psu (500W) for around 50 bucks and it werks awesome and is silent.

[snipie]

Ok. I just quickly went on Newegg and saw the general prices for most of those things, so thanks for the advice.

Oh and would I need to get a new monitor?

[Artis]

monitor is totally up to you. any monitor 15 yrs old or less should work, lol.

[BuddhaMan]

Well, you'd want a DVI connection or the graphics card will need to support VGA out.

[=DBA=Ronin]

I wouldn't recomend going with a ati9800 pro. Yeah they were great cards in their hay-day and you can get them pretty cheap, but thats because they are getting out dated already. You could go with the likes of a 6600gt which has the newer hardware specs and will support more of the newer releases a lot better than a 9800pro. Performance wise they match or exceed the 9800 in just about any review you can find, which for being the low end of the new gen spectrum, is pretty impressive. I am sure ATI has a similar newer gen card out as well that would match up just as well (the x700 is it??) After a cpl of years of frustration with Nvidia for myself, I recomend going with the ATI, but others would tell you different.

In my opinion, I would go with a better card now than spend a couple hundred on one that will only get you by for a while, only to have to replace it again sometime soon. Skimp a bit more on the remedial items such as the case and hd's. Don't go all out on a mobo if there are a lot of options on it you will never use, you can get a quality mobo for less than what you posted, just might not have all the bells and whistles.

What do you have in your current system that you can bring over to the new one? You mentioned your current HD is 37gb...based on the size I am curious to know if that is a WD Raptor or some other type of high speed drive (Scsi??) If it is, I would definately recomend keeping it, as HD's are often times a big source of system bottlenecking. Keep it for running your OS and applications, and buy a bigger SATA drive to store all your stuff on that won't require performance. If it is just a standard 7200rpm drive, you could still keep it, but it won't give you any advantage over buying any other standard HD. (for the most part)

Keep on truckin!!

[snipie]

Video Card- ATI x800 $319 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102543
CPU- Intel Pentium D $237.49 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819116213
Mother Board-
Memory- 1 Gig $81.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820141225
Hard Drive- 80 Gig $65 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148040
Case-
Power Supply-

I'm not sure what to get for the Mobo/Case/Power Supply. Help me on this please. And, help me with the choices i've made so far. thanks.

[Shadowbane]

power supply-----http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16817153007

[shanKs]

motherboard -- Asus A8N-E http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131530R

processor -- AMD athlon 64 3500 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103533

After I bought my AMD I've been super impressed with it and it will take me a while to go Intel.

[snipie]

And lastly, what are the specs the case should have? I was looking on Newegg and so many choices, and I dont want to mess that up. lol sorry if I'm being a pain in the ass. :)

[=DBA=Ronin]

There aren't a whole lot of specs to be concerened about with the case. Mainly you want it to fit a full ATX motherboard and have an adequate amount of drive bays and what not. Most motherboards will have xtra USB hookups available on them so if you get a case wtih front USB ports you should be ok.

Also, fan configuration is another point to conisder. If your interested in keeping the system quiet look for one that has space for at least one 120mm fan. Lots of cases will come with fans installed. Looks are important too (i would assume, but maybe not) so start with ones that are appealing to the eye and drill down the specs from there.

I too would recommend an AMD 64bit chip. My personal experience with them has made me a firm believer in their advantages over the Pentiums.

I would be a little hesitant about that Ram you posted. Pretty high CAS latency and I haven't heard much about how good pqi is. Matching up Ram with the CPU is important if you go with the AMD 64. I would recomend going with this stuff over the pqi...its only a couple of bucks more and is from one of the best makers of memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820145440

most mobo/cpu combos will technically only support the pc3200 anyway...I see getting the pc4200 as a waste and leads yourself to issues in terms of stability since you would need to o/c the system to take advantage of it. Its hardly worth the headache.

The other stuff posted, by you and the others, seems pretty good imo. Can't go wrong with any of them.

[Artis]

as far as cases go, a quality and relatively inexpensive brand to look at is 'antec'.

[FADES]

I like my Antec case with the fan in front and in back to keep that AMD64 cool.

[Artis]

the antec super lanboy is lightweight, looks cool, and will keep your comp cool (temp wise).

[CDSaint]

ive nicknamed my case the behemoth. pics of it in NK forums. too lazy to give link.

[shanKs]

<--- too lazy to look for it

[CDSaint]

indeed

[FADES]

The case Artis mentioned is the one I have. I believe I saw pics of someone's from the CPL weekend LAN you guys had. Ronin maybe? Or maybe he was playing on someone else's comp. I dunno. Or was it you, Artis?

[=DBA=Ronin]

Wasn't mine...I dont have a lanboy. I do have the Sonata though but I didn't bring any of my shit down to CPL. Antec does make great cases. Can't go wrong.

[Artis]

i have the super lan boy and so does bleuballz. the super lan boy is may main gaming rig although i may switch to my other one which sits in a rather large sweet silverstone case.