- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
2kz,
I don't want to be a buzzkill but I'm going to give you my honest opinion.
From your screenshot, I took your computer's make and model and got to the official specs at the HP site.
First, the CPU. Celeron is a "value" line from Intel. It's not optimized for a lot of calculations. It's good as an all around "general purpose" CPU, but it lacks a lot of "oomph" for gaming. The CPU could run it, but it won't run as well as a lower end Pentium-D or a lower Core 2 Duo.
Memory: You have 512MB of System Ram, 64MB of which is being allocated to the integrated video. It's good enough to run Vista Home Basic, but that's about it. You really need to upgrade that to at least 1GB (preferably 1.5-2.0GB) if you'd like to be able to play games. I don't just mean Halo 2 Vista, but any recent releases in general. If you can afford it, try to grab two 1.0GB sticks of PC2-4200 DDR2 ram and replace your current 512 with those two sticks. That will go a long way to making your system better.
Video: You have an integrated ATI RADEON XPRESS 1100 with only 64MB of RAM (which, again, is being "shared" from your main system RAM). You really need at least 128MB of RAM for your video card to be able to play H2V. But that's not really the whole problem. The larger problem is that the integrated video is very low end and, even if you could give it 128MB, it wouldn't have enough processing power to run H2V very well. Assuming your system has a PCI Express slot available (I'm not sure as I'm not looking at the detailed specs of the included motherboard), you'd really need to get a third party nVidia or ATi video card and disable the onboard one HP provided.
Edit: Found detailed motherboard specs. The integrated video can go as high as sharing 256MB, but still it's very low end. The only saving grace is the motherboard does have a PCI express slot so you could get a separate, better, video card upgrade.
Your HDD and integrated sound are ok.
Sadly this is a case of a very low end computer. The reason computer systems have become so cheap of late are because they use cheaper hardware and give consumers the bare minimums for systems to run. For you to be able to play H2V (or any other recent release game) on that system, you'll almost have to spend a fair amount just in upgrades.
Edit 2: My suggestions, based on looking at your detailed specs:
Link: My recommendation for memory.
Link: My recommendation for video card (given you have an ATi built in chipset).
If you were to get these items and have someone install them properly - and disable your onboard video - you would see a dramatic performance increase.
[Edited on 06.03.2007 10:14 PM PDT]