System Requirements

   According to VALVe Software, the official minimum and recommended system requirements for the game will be:

   Minimum system requirements:

   Windows 98/98se/2000/Me/XP
   1.2GHz level CPU(E.G, Pentium III/Pentium 4, T-Bird/Athlon XP processors)
   256MB of RAM
   32MB-64MB VRAM Direct-X 7 level graphics card(E.G, GeForce 1/2/4 MX series, Radeon 7xxx series)
   ~3 GB free HDD space
   Mouse and Keyboard
   Internet Connection

   Recommended system requirements:

   Windows 2000/XP
   2.4 GHz level CPU(I.E, Pentium 4/Prescott, Athlon XP/64 processors)
   512MB of RAM
   128MB-256MB VRAM DX9 compatible video card(I.E, Radeon 9800/X800 series, GeForce 6/6800 series)
   ~4 GB free HDD space
   Mouse and Keyboard
   Internet Connection

---

   For historical purposes only:

   Gabe Newell stated that @ E3 2003/2004 that a DX6 level of graphics hardware (TNT, TNT 2) would be able to run Half-Life 2 in low-detail mode @ 640*480 resolution at a decent frame-rate. Another highlight is that he also stated that any DX9 ATi Radeon graphics card (Radeon 9500-X800 XT P.E[Platinum Edition]) would be able to run Half-Life 2 beatifully at 1024*768 with full detail no compromises what so ever....with proper FSAA support (due to Cenitroid Sampling type Anti-Aliasing support) at a fast frame-rate. GeForce FX and GeForce 6 hardware in HL2 is known to perform 40%-75% slower in Half-Life 2 at same settings. This is due to lack for 24-bit floating point precision support, strange optimizations/cheats in the drivers, lack of centroid sampling support (the GeForce 6 series support it but the GeForce FX series do not) and unsupported, custom nVidia developed programmable pixel and vertex shader revision extensions.

   And in a recent interview, Doug Lombardi stated that Half-Life 2 now requires a Direct-X 7 card at the minimum with 256MB of system RAM and a 1.2 GHz CPU.

   Also, there are benchmarks floating around the net testing performance and image quality(IQ) out of Source Engine based games and HL2 on various modern hardware configurations, and are a good performance/IQ indication for those who want to know how the a bit more demanding Half-Life 2 will perform and look on their system setup.

   The current June/July 2004 top-of-the-line setup rigs that should be kicking-ass for Half-Life 2 are:

   Pentium 4E E.E (Extreme Edition) 540 @ 3.4 GHz or Athlon 64 FX-53 @ 2.4 GHz
   1GB - 2GB + of RAM (dual-channel PC400 DDR1 @ 400 MHz)
   256MB G-DDR 3 VRAM x16 PCI-Express Radeon X800 XT P.E (Platinum Edition) or x16 PCI-Express 256MB G-DDR 3 VRAM GeForce 6800 Ultra E.E(Extreme Edition)


   We've got some discussion on Half-Life 2 in our forums regarding system requirements. Perhaps taking a swing around there for a brief view wouldn't be that bad? Considering that some people are asking how it will perform; what system specs they'll need to run it optimally etc.