[wifedoer68]

Anyone else doing this? I have a few hard drives laying around, a case, and some ram. Thinking about scraping something together for cheap just for Halo.

Any ideas? Tips? Suggestions?

- Ca$h

[videian28]

buy an xbox and save yourself the trouble?

[petehammer]

Originally posted by videian28:
buy an xbox and save yourself the trouble?

Damn, beat me to the punch.

When you factor in the speed of processor, HD, and video card you'll need, an XBox is far cheaper.

No joke.

I don't think you're going to be able to scrap anything together and be able to play Halo as nicely as you can play it on the Xbox, unless you're scrapping from a very nice junk heap.

I own a PC and it plays the game like a dog plays tennis... that is, not very well.

[a2daj]

You won't be able to play online with XBox Halo, at least in any official capacity. And no mouse and keyboard.

[OwlBoy]

Halo on the XBox, and then Halo 2 on the XBox with XBox live = sweeet.

Get some friends that play Halo XBox (if you don't know any as of now) and have a lan party, It is awesome.

-Owl

[wifedoer68]

I'd like to be able to play with a KB and mouse, and be able to play online. Hence, I need a PC. And I think it can be done for a reasonable price; 1.4 gihz chips cost nothing, and 64 meg video cards cost almost nothing.

- Rob

[11011001]

Well, I scrapped together a PC over the summer. I had about a $1200 Canadian budget.

I bought everything new. I didn't need a fancy case, waste of money. So I got a cheap case. But I did get a good Power Supply.

I used an AMD Athlon XP 3000 w 512k of cache. That was about 300.

I used a ASUS mother board. The Asus A7N8X Deluxe-UAY Rev. 2.0 w/Audio, Dual LAN, AGP 8X, SATA, 1394, I believe, not quite sure though.. just looking at the website I got the stuff from.

I put 512 MB of DDR 400 PC 3200 RAM in there. (with DDR 400, you can only put 1 GB on this particular motherboard).

Then, I stuck a 40 GB Western Digital in there.

Finally, I put a RADEON 9000 in.

For your system, you could do something similar. AMD processors are good. And the ASUS mother board I described is also a good one. I would probably put in a better video card, RADEON 9600.. or if you are daring, a 9800. GeForce might not be bad either.

The processor was about 350 CAN, the motherboard about 150 CAN, the RAM 120 ish. I don't recall the power supply, but you have to be careful to get one that will match your motherboard, and your power requirements, talk to the guys at the computer place, they should know.

All in all, it wasn't a very difficult process. I got everything up and running in about a day. (including installing XP and all the necessary updates)

The computer, btw, ran very well. (it was for my father, so I didn't get a better video card, since he doesn't play games)

[spatterson]

Well guys Halo on the X-Box is awesome... and well I've played both versions and...I would go ahead and save you the trouble and play the x-box version... The only thing going for the PC/MAC version is the mouse...

[wifedoer68]

Ah... thanks. I have experience building PCs, I'm just not sure what the best deal is graphics card wise.... I'm thinking something with 64 megs should suffice.... minimum is 32... and 64s are cheap. Also, I might be able to get a mobo for dirt cheap also.

- Rob

[Peter]

I am building a pc, more or less for halo and college work. Worked out around £600 for a 2.4Ghz system, 512Mb RAM, a Radeon 9600XT Graphics card (35fps in Halo @ 800x600 apparently), etc.
Should run okay.

[redJag]

My PC easily handles Halo, and it only has the Radeon9000Pro..XP2600+ and 768MB RAM. Far from top of the line, and you don't have to sell your soul to Microsoft But really, I don't like the xBox controllers at ALL.

[goMac]

I have a friend with a P4 2.4 ghz and a GeForce4 Ti, Halo is unplayable.

[wifedoer68]

Originally posted by goMac:
I have a friend with a P4 2.4 ghz and a GeForce4 Ti, Halo is unplayable.

More info please? What resolution was he trying to play it at, how much ram, etc.

- Rob

[Geoff Thompson]

From playing halo on a PC:
The key seems to be the cards' ability to do pixel shader 2.0 stuff. I saw virtually no difference when using my old 1.6 willamette p4 vs. the new 2.4ghz 800mhz fsb p4. The video card I use is a radeon 9600.
A fast hard drive is a good idea because the game practically freezes for a few seconds when saving the checkpoints.
Hopefully the mac version of halo runs better. It seems that my PC can do most parts of the game okay, but does still start lagging if 20 or 30 enemies appear all at once on the screen.

[wifedoer68]

So what specs do you think I'd need to get to have a DECENT halo system? I don't want to spend a lot... I already have hard drives, ram, and a case with power supply though.

- Rob

[Bostic]

I'm running a P4 2.26GHz, 1gig 333MHz RAM, ATI 9800 Pro 128meg, SB Audigy 2, 7200 120gig Hitachi HD & Sony E540 21" monitor. Even with a clean install of XP, latest Catalyst drivers and doing the many tweaks that have been posted in the Gearbox forum the gameplay is lousy. Resolution is best at 1024x768 and lower, anything higher and fps is 25 and under and even worse on the indoor levels, Truth & Reconciliation, etc. Hopefully a future patch from Gearbox will help the netcode, even on low ping servers it's hard to know how much to lead shots. The gameplay can still be fun and I'm definately addicted to mouse & keyboard vs x-box controller. Can't say I'm pleased about sinking in a lot of money for a flagship videocard to run at 1024x768 on a 21" monitor. Halo runs smoother on my IBM T40 with a 32meg Radeon 7500 at 640x480.

The x-box version has the vibrating controllers and you can look at teammates screens to get a better view of the other team, something that will never make this version obsolete.

I hope the Mac version will run decently on the new 12" powerbooks.

[polendo]

That is really strange. Most of you guys have really competitive PC setups and not being able to play w/full details is strange. Maybe the PC version needs some optimization?

I have it on xbox and it runs nicely. As you know the xbox , though 100% decicated for gaming, has a P3 800 mhz or so processor and an nvidia card.

As far as the cheap PC to play Halo... I would suggest at least 512 MB of RAM and a really competitive video card. I would suggest an ATI 9700 or an Nvidia with at least 64 MB but not the MX line of cards.

[wifedoer68]

Actually, I was thinking about playing it at 640X480. Why? So I can hook it up to my 32" proscan TV. What video card has enough oomph to run it nicely on a TV? Also, what video card has a TV out (preferably S video)? Can you guys recommend a processor? I'm not into buying the latest/greatest.... I like deals. What's the most chip for the least amount of money (that can still handle halo)? AMD? Intel? Dorito?



- Rob

[Geoff Thompson]

My friend has a barton 2500+. He hasn't played halo on it yet (read that as "I haven't brought the cd over for him to install it from yet") but I imagine it'll do pretty well. OTOH, I have tried it on another friends system (celeron 1.1ghz, radeon 7500 pci, 512mb pc100) and it play just as well as my system did with the extra features turned down and res at 800x600. Be sure and get a real soundcard though, his onboard sound was skipping and such with halo, until we put in a cheap es1371 type pci sound card. The radeon 7500 does have a s-video out, but if I were buying a card like that i'd just try and find a radeon 8500 agp from ebay for $50.

[wifedoer68]

Originally posted by Geoff Thompson:
The radeon 7500 does have a s-video out, but if I were buying a card like that i'd just try and find a radeon 8500 agp from ebay for $50.

Thanks for the heads up about the sound card advice. What's the diff with the radeons though? Cheaper is better.

- Rob

[Peter]

I highly recommend the 9600XT Radeon - around $150. It comes with a free Half Life 2 (when released ) too

[petehammer]

Originally posted by PeterClark2002:
I highly recommend the 9600XT Radeon - around $150. It comes with a free Half Life 2 (when released ) too

Seriously, am I missing something?

We're talking about building a PC specifically for Halo and ending up with a machine that costs FAR MORE than the $200+ dollars required for Xbox+Halo.

Xbox Halo has co-op, which is AWESOME. You can use a keyboard/mouse with Xbox Halo with an adapter (PSO adapter).

I have the PC version. It runs DOG slow and does not have the co-op feature. It is a poor port. Buy an Xbox and Halo if you're building a PC for the sole purpose of playing Halo.

Besides, Halo 2 will be out on Xbox first.

[wifedoer68]

Look, I hate the Xbox. The controllers suck, the system is big and stupid looking, and I cannot play online halo with fellow bungie friends in a different county. HOWEVER, I can do that with the PC version. I'm talking about spending a tad over $100 on a mobo/CPU combo, and a videocard. The rest of the parts I already have or can scavenge from friend's old systems.

- Rob

[kelesh]

xbox: 512 x 384 = 196608 pixels
my pc: 1280 x 1024 = 1310720 pixels (6 2/3 as many pixels)

plus I have anti-aliasing AND anisotropic filtering, and a higher framerate.

xbox: big sh1tty controller
pc: keyboard and mouse

far as I can tell, the only thing the xbox has going for it is that I can play it while slouching in a couch.

pc is the way to go, though it'll cost a bit if you don't already have a good videocard.

i wonder how a g5 playing halo would compare to a p4 if they both had radeon 9800 pro's.

sigh, if only OSX had coutnerstrike :/

[polendo]

Well I did some research on Halo PC and yes.. apparently is not optimized. It consumes lots of resources. That's really bad to say the least. Maybe a patch will come in soon.