- last post: 01.01.0001 12:00 AM PDT
Right. You forgot to mention the more important aspects of the computer: the RAM and CPU.
Firstoff, you should mention how Halo looks. This will determine how good your Graphics chipset is. A good way to tell is if the plasma pistol has a glowing, round dial that lights up or just a small red dot. If you see the dial, you've got a card that can handle Halo. If all you see on the pistol is a red dot that doesn't do anything, your card...isn't as good.
The CPU is the brain of the computer, the thing that runs all the processes and calculations. Now, if Halo looks beautiful but your framerate is despicable (taht is, if the game appears choppy and/or hangs), then it's either your CPU or RAM. A CPU that runs at a clockspeed of 1.6 or higher would be needed to have a smooth game of Halo.
RAM is Random Access Memory, the computer puts stuff there for ready access. 512MB is good for Halo, 1GB is preferred nowadays. Also keep in mind that if your graphics chipset is higher end, it'll share RAM with the rest of the computer, knocking your actual avalible RAM down a couple hundred megabytes.
You can find all this out by going into Start>Run and typing "dxdiag" and hitting enter. That'll bring up everything you need to know, including physical RAM, avalible RAM, processor name/brand/clockspeed and graphics name/brand/clockspeed.
Example: I've got a Compaq Presario v2000 with an AMD Turion64 Mobile clocking at 1.8GHz, a Mobility ATI Radeon Xpress 200M and 512 avalible RAM. However, my Radeon knocks my RAM down to only ~380MB avalible for use. Hence, Halo looks beautiful as hell, but get any more than seven people on screen and it starts to chop and hang.
[Edited on 7/17/2006]