Directx, Graphics Cards, and HL2

MakerOfGames · Post by **MakerOfGames** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:11 am

Ok, so I was looking at Half-Life 2 and it requires a directx 7 or higher capable graphics card. I have an old nvida tnt2 64 pro. Does that support directx 7? I went to the microsoft site for directx and they made it seem like graphics card dont do anything with directx, just windows itself? Please let me know just what directx is and if possible tell me if I could play HL 2 with my graphics card.

Post by **AndyCR** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 2:40 am

theres a halflife2 demo, download that from steam and try it out.

directx is basically some code that sits between your graphics card and games. normally there is an engine sitting between directx (or it's major competitor, opengl) and games as well. it goes like this:

[Graphics Card]<-API(Direct3D/OpenGL)<-Engine<-Game

in rf, it goes

[Graphics Card]<-API(Direct3D/OpenGL)<-Engine(Genesis3D)<-Game Shell(RealityFactory)<-Game

directx support is up to the video card maker - check your video card's site to see for sure.

it ran fine on my laptop's 64 mb shared intel extreme graphics 2 integrated chip, but i dont know how it would run on a tnt2, i think i may have heard somewhere it did, but i could be wrong. either way it wont run terribly well.

gekido · Post by **gekido** » Fri Jan 20, 2006 7:19 pm

You can go to 'start->run' and run 'dxdiag' to see what your video card supports, hardware-wise.

This is a simple tool that is included with DirectX

MakerOfGames · Post by **MakerOfGames** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:36 pm

I ran the directx diagnostics tool and found that I am running directx 9 on my computer. Thanks for the help.

psychopath · Post by **psychopath** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:40 pm

I've tested HL2 on the TNT2 64. It runs, but just barely.

-psychopath

MakerOfGames · Post by **MakerOfGames** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 6:28 pm

Thanks for the info. I will pass it up and save my 50 bucks then.