As far as minimum specs for

Half-Life 2

are concerned, are you still aiming for a 733Mhz CPU?

Lombardi: Yeah, and then 128Mb RAM and a DirectX 6 graphics card, so like a TNT 2.



How will the game run on these specs? Will it just be lower detail but run smoothly, with all the facial animation still intact?

Lombardi: The facial animations are mainly handled by the CPU, as are the physics; and we considered those to be two key things - if we took those away, then the game just wouldn't be the same.

At the beginning of the demo we're showing, in the first scene at the docks, where the water's nice and rippling and stuff, on the lower systems that water just isn't going to be as pretty as it is on a higher spec machine.

But framerate, facial animation and physics, these key things will be there on lower spec machines, otherwise it's just a crummy experience for everybody, and the last thing we want is lots of unhappy customers out there - that's suicide.



We get a lot of queries from readers planning to upgrade for

Half-Life 2

asking what graphics card to go for. Does the game favour either of the top-end nVidia or ATi cards, or does it perform equally well on both?

Lombardi: Well, we're actually going to release a benchmark pretty soon, and once we put that out and we finalise it, folks will be able to decide for themselves what they want. I don't think that there's a bad experience out there for folks, but for the absolutely hardcore guys, they are going to want take a look at what's available.

If you're a hardcore guy, then you're going to want to look at the latest from ATi and nVidia, and the latest from Intel and AMD.