R4000 + HL2 & Doom3 Benchmark / Gameplay (Updated)

R4000
4000+
2GB Ram
ATI 200M /w 128m (no shared)
80GB HD

Doom 3

Doom 3 is not really playable on the R4000. Timedemo1 run at 640x480, low settings and all items off in advanced netted 18FPS. While in areas that had low action things were fine, but anytime special affects occurred (such as the imp fireballs) everything would become slow motion. I am sure later levels will just escalate the bad framerate if someone were to try to slug it through. I did not have much hopes of it playing that well considering it ran pretty poorly on my old notebook (Dell 9100 with an 9700 mobility), but it is pretty much unplayable. There were artifacting as well, textures blinking on and off in some areas. The artifacting didn't occur that often, but was often enough to notice.

Half-Life 2

Played single player for 30-45 minutes at 800x600 all settings high, without AA turned on. No FPS counter, but felt smooth and very playable. No hickups and not a single lag spike encountered. The framerate was very stable and playable.

Benchmarked afterwards with HarwareOC HL2 Benchmark.

800x600 Max Settings netted 30FPS.

Played Counterstrike: Source for 30 minutes at 800x600 medium/low settings. Everything was smooth as butter, no lag spikes or any real flucuations of FPS. Smooth and very playable.

The card in this machine is budget, but it is not nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I've had no problem playing games with it so far and everything is stable. HL2 single player is definitely playable at 800x600 max settings in single player, or medium/low for multiplayer (for higher FPS needed in competition environment). This is a DX9 card as well, so things are much better off than older DX8 cards that may have similar performance (such as a geforce4).