PC upgrades

[daventry]

Greetings guy's, i have a question that is wasting my money away.

I have Far Cry and Half Life 2

Now, Far Cry needs High System Requirements that is worth 800 Dollars / Pounds to me so that i can upgrade my PC. I can barely play the game on my PC now, because my System is slow. I saw pictures of the game and the game looks awsome.

Now Half Life 2 needs no Requirements at all and i don't need to uprgade my PC at all, but the game itself looks awsome.

Now this is what gets me confused and angered, the Half Life 2 game has Graphics that looks exactly the same as Far Cry. So why must i upgrade my PC to get Far Cry to work, but i can just install Half Life 2 and play the game on my slow PC just as it is.

[Louisiana Night]

Half-Life 2's graphics engine is VERY scalable, and the graphics level is lowered to work on old graphics cards(all the way back to the original Geforce, I believe). Far Cry also lowers the graphics level for older PCs, but anything less than a Geforce3 would probably look like a slideshow.

I don't know how CPU/memory intense the games are, so that's all I know about the scalibilty of the engines.

[daventry]

Half-Life 2's graphics engine is VERY scalable and the graphics level is lowered to work on old graphics cards, all the way back to the original Geforce I believe

That's cool.

Far Cry also lowers the graphics level for older PCs, but anything less than a Geforce3 would probably look like a slideshow.

I have a Geforce2, but all this does not answer my question.

What i want to know is, why must i waste so much money to upgrade my PC to get Far Cry and Doom 3 to work, but HalfLife 2 works without doing anything when even all 3 Games has the same Graphics.


Want a better explenation, go to www.agdinteractive.com then go check out the pictures of King's Quest 1 VGA and King's Quest 2 VGA. When you go to www.justadventure.com/TheInventory/TheInventory.shtm and read the November Issue, check out the Quest For Glory 2 VGA pictures. Now by each game they make the Graphics and 3D, better and better.

They don't tell us to go and Uprgade our PC for better game requirements, they make games for the low PC's with better and better Graphics.

So why can't the people who made Far Cry and Doom 3, stick to the low System and make cool 3D like Half Life 2. It saves me a whole lotta 800 Dollars/Pounds.

[Louisiana Night]

All three have VERY different levels of graphics.

Reason's for them requiring different types of PCs(higher/lower specs)
Doom3=uses OpenGL

Farcry=uses DirectX(I think)

HalfLife2=uses DirectX

Doom3=an attempt to push PCs as far as they'll go(still no PC that can use it's highest detail level, as far as I know)

HalfLife2=Spent a great deal of time/money/effort, trying to be made compatible with older hardware(while still taking advantage of modern hardware) and there STILL isn't any hardware available to use the highest detail level(as far as I know)

Farcry=made by small(and new) company

HalfLife2=made by a company, that put most(if not all) of their previous earnings into it(HL2)

Doom3=made by ID, and meant for the FPS crowd(that, as a rule, upgrade their PCs often)

Besides, the graphics are comparable, but hardly the same(good luck getting HL2 to render shadows as effectively as Doom3 ).

and the main reason...

THEY ARE USING EXTREMELY DIFFERENT GRAPHICS ENGINES

P.S. I played the Farcry demo with a GeforceMX, so I know it works with it(but it's SLOW).

EDIT(due to your edit )
They do that(making new games, with better graphics,  while still working on old hardware) on video game consoles(and a few of those games want you to upgrade). If you want to buy a new PC game, with the latest graphics, you'll have to upgrade often(HL2 will keep you at low detail, with a great decrease in graphics quality). Also, some games will require higher system requirements. For example, Farcry deals more with outside areas(to the best of my knowledge). If it had stayed indoors through the whole game, it would work better on your PC. Although, then it wouldn't have been the same game.

Basicly...
If you want better graphics, get a better PC.

[daventry]

Skip the Christmas Presents and skip the Birthday Presents, behold my new PC that i will buy.

01. AMD Athlon 64 FX-51

02. Geforce FX 5950

03. 1024mb ddr400

04. DVD Writer

05. 40gb hdd with WinXP installed

06. Pentium 4 3000

07. Windows XP

Now i'm gonna go Kick some GAME Butt.

[Oldbushie]

I already have that caliber computer, geforce 5900 as well (though not 5950...).

Which sound card will you get? I'm using on-board sound for now but the motherboard's sound is still much better quality than my old Soundblaster card for some reason.

[daventry]

I want the best 3D, because i'm tired of being one step behind each new game.

I also use the Mother Board Audio

[racx_00]

Doom3=an attempt to push PCs as far as they'll go(still no PC that can use it's highest detail level, as far as I know)

ID could run it on their PCs with the highest detail level

01. AMD Athlon 64 FX-51

I personally wouldn't get an Athlon 64, I heard they are a little unstable , something along those lines anyway ; (

[Louisiana Night]

They might be unstable, but not compared to Pentium4s.

[racx_00]

They might be unstable, but not compared to Pentium4s.

Yeah Pentium 4s are the worst

[GravityMX]

I personally wouldn't get an Athlon 64, I heard they are a little unstable , something along those lines anyway ;

Could it depend on the socket? The 939 is dual channel while the 754 is single channel!