[Sheallaidh]

Well my load times are now 10-20 seconds, with full graphics acceleration, all options turned up full. All down to doubling my RAM from 512 to 1024.

As an avid Counter-Strike player I naturally had Half-Life 2 pre-ordered via Steam, I completed the game the same day it was released and with full graphical settings I never once notice a single bit of lag or choppiness.

In addition, I have been playing CS: Source for some time, running off the same HL2 engine, with no problems, and an FPS of around 100 at all times.

I have a GeForce FX 5900, which up until very recently (new 6 series card) was the top of the line Nvidia card (only marginally less powerful than the FX 5950), and my processor speed is double the minimum syetm requirement.

Since getting the new ram I have conducted various tests, including running two different performance monitoring tools alongside the game. I have concluded, quite conclusively, that it was absolutely, definately, down the the game requiring more RAM than the system had to give it. For example, when it is raining in a large area, such as Santa Monica, if you make the system work as hard as you can - buy jumping around with level 5 celerity on, the game peaks at using 768mb of ram. Half again as much as I had previously, and DOUBLE the documented minimum system requirement.