so new PC and Half Life 2.. will it work on my HDTV with DVI connection?  

What video card is in your Dell?

You most likely will be able to do what you want. However, be prepared to do some tweaking.;)

HL2 is a great game, btw.

HL2 supports 480p and 720p natively so you should be able to run those resolutions. Get ready for a treat, it looks amazing on a projector.

Using the ATI driver control panel, you should be able to force your DVI output to 1080i. Once the driver is set to that res, HL2 should recognize it and you'll see 1920x1080i in the choices of resolution settings for the game.

One problem you'll most likely encounter doing this is overscan. There are adjustments to select custom resolutions in the driver control panel that will help minimize overscan, however, DVI inputs on TV's can be very finicky about what resolutions they'll accept. Thus, you may not be able to remove overscan using the DVI input.

You're chances of getting your computer displayed on your TV without overscan are much greater if you use a component input on your TV instead of DVI. If your videocard does not have a component breatout on it as many newer ATI cards do, you can get an ATI DVI-to-component adapter that will acccomplish the same thing.

i had to ditch the ATI control panel. Everytime i loaded any game it would crash my computer. Powerstrip may be more complicated, however its wokrs well for me and my X850.

To be honest, I prefer Powerstrip also. I use it with my x800pro connected to my Toshiba HDTV.

Depends on the television I would say. I can't get rid of the overscan on my projectors component input, but the DVI connection has a 'Computer' mode that maps the image 1:1. So clearly the DVI has the upper hand in some cases.

Hmm, seems like a game setting then.

For starters, just use PowerStrip's '1080i HDTV Standard' predifined setting. Once your desktop is displayed in full 1080i widescreen, launch the game.

In your video options are you able to change the 'Aspect Ratio' setting, and if so is 'Widescreen 16:9' an available option? If so, select it. Also, make sure your 'Display Mode' setting in your video options is set to 'Fullscreen' and not 'Run in a window.' Then, change the game's 'Resolution' stting to 1920x1080i.

Good luck! Let us know if that doesn't work.

spring for a dvi ----> component dongle

When the game runs in a window you should be able to go into the options of the game itself and there is a widescreen and fullscreen option.

I had this happen to me on 2 different computers.

Please don't jump on me, but there is no way an x300se with a 3.0 Intel chip and high latency DDR2 will run HL2 @ 12x10 or higher with all the eye candy turned on, no way. When you say "everything max" that means antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. It just isnt possible. Also, your FSB is actually 200mhz not 800mhz. 800mhz is the total system bus (200mhz x4).

I agree with DrCrawn
that video card is the cheapest thing Dell could find to put in the PC

I doubt it would do any AA or AF at all without lagging out the game play

everything else in the PC is set for a nice gaming experience
but the most important thing the video card

and sayanythingrock
I do not think the DVI to component dongle works with the newer X300 series cards
it was for the non AIW 9500 Pro through 9800 series
the newer x700 and x800 uses the svideo din to output svideo and component through a breakout cable much like hte 6600 series from nvidia
and I am really not sure what the x300 uses but doubt it is the dongle

Yep. A lot of new PC buyers these days only look at processor speed to determine how powerful the PC that they are buying is. Unforunately, the best proc is NOTHING without a decent video card. The x300se is a budget card, so you'll probably be playing on medium settings if you're lucky...

And unforunately a lot of thes buyers purchase PC's that have integrated cards and upgrading is more difficult in many cases.

Medium settings are ok but half the enjoyment of PC gaming is getting the top settings.

Now you guys have me worried. My roommate and I just put in an order for a new Dell on Friday night (admittedly a bit drunkenly after several glasses/bottles of wine).

I know nothing about vid cards and the like and trying to configure native resolutions. I probably won't game on it very much, but I really wanted to try out a game or two on it to see how great these PC games look.

We got a computer with:

Intel P4 640 with HT technology (3.2 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
1 GB dual channel DDR2 SDRAM
250 GB SATA hard drive
256 MB PCI Express x16 NVIDIA GeForce 6800
16x DVD-ROM and similar burner
Sound blaster Audigy 2 ZS (D) sound card

...and I changed out the monitor for a widescreen. Do these games not run in widescreen? Should I have stuck with a 4:3 monitor? Native res on the 20 inch widescreen panel is 1680x1050 (at 60hz). Will the games just play with black borders on the sides?

I'm sure I'll have more question when we actually take possession of this thing and I buy a game for it...probably that Half Life 2 one.

Thanks,
Dave

You'll be just fine.:cool: That's an excellent card, and overall a really nice machine. Was your monitor the fp2005? If so, keep it.

Yes, I believe the monitor is the 2005FPW.

The computer also has a TV tuner, and the rep said it was an HD tuner, but I can't find anything in their catalog to confirm that. No biggie if it's not since I have two HD tuners hooked up to my TV, but it sure would be sweet for recording purposes.

Back on topic, I'll get back on here for help when I buy HL2 and try to get it to output properly...probably next weekend if we get the computer by Friday.

Well, once again I am not trying to be a jerk, sorry if I come off that way...here's the truth about DDR2. AMD has not adopted it for a good reason mainly b/c DDR1 is still hands down faster even @ 400mhz vs. 533mhz. This is because good DDR1 runs timings such as 2-3-2-6 or slightly slower 2.5-3-3-7 etc... DDR2 found in Dells would run very slow timings for example 4-4-4-12, maybe slower. When DDR2 gets those timings down, it will be much faster than DDR1, until then it is generally slower than the older DDR running 400mhz.

If you want to see what timings your DDR2 is working at, download the appropriate CPU-Z verision and it should tell you. www.cpuid.org or follow this link: http://www.cpuid.org/download/cpu-z-128.zip

oh but to answer your question, it should not affect your music software, and for general use, I wouldnt worry too much about it :)

Brian,

Sounds like you already pulled the trigger on the Dell, but next time you should consider building your own PC, it's easy, fun and you save a ton of money if you're aiming to build a high performance gaming rig.

In 10 years your PC may not be be able to load the current version of Windows, let alone play a game. 10 years is an ETERNITY in the computing world.

Just so you are aware for the future. It is generally snap together stuff. Lots of online guides are available (and we are talking 12 easy steps here). I read an 8 page magazine article (pictures blurbs everything so not 8 pages of 3 column text) and built one for a friend a month later in a day. Granted - you want to make sure you have a working PC on hand in case you need something off the internet and such (i.e. some piece of software or an update) but it's really an afternoon project and there's something to specing out all the parts, ordering, getting them in the mail, and finally booting that puppy up that is satisfying. Frankly, I'd pay up to do it -plus, you know your PC inside and out. Plus, so many forums can assist you if you really do encounter an impasse.

There are many sticks of DDR2 available that can run 3-2-2-8 into the high 300's, built by Micron. DDR's days are numbered.