Minimum System Requirements

• PC with a Pentium Processor running Windows 98, ME, 2000, or XP
• 10 MB available hard drive space recommended
• Desktop resolution of 800 x 600 at 256 colors (1024 x 768 at 16 bit) color or higher recommended)
• Internet connection (broadband recommended)

Test System

• 2.0 GHz AMD Athlon X2 64 3800+ (Dual Core)
• 256 MB PCI-E GeForce 7800 GTX
• 1 GB of Dual Channel RAM

You know as well as I do that trying to connect with your gamer friends is sometimes difficult. No Instant Messenger client is really adequate and if you have the money, you've probably set up a second computer beside your gaming rig just to monitor all your IMs and IRC. Even still, you have to turn your attention away from the gaming action to answer a message. Do you really need all this hassle?

What Is Xfire?

If you do not already have Xfire and you're a hardcore gamer, guess what? You need to try this application! Xfire was launched as a Beta in January of 2004, and it's come a long way since, now having over 4 million registered users. I've been using it for many months now, and have found that I've discontinued my use of MSN/Yahoo/AOL (even Trillian) almost completely. I use Google Talk at work, but at home it's XFire all the way. Why? Here are the Cliff Notes, folks:

1. You play games and don't want to miss important messages.
2. You don't want, or can't afford to have two computers; one simply for your fifteen million IM clients, IRC, and Ventrillo!
3. You want to know what games/servers your friends are playing and join them.

I've got a lot of online friends who play anything from Battlefield 2 to World of Warcraft and XFire has done a fantastic job at keeping me in touch.

What You May Not Know ...

I contacted the helpful staff at Xfire and asked if there may be anything I was missing and was treated to a one-on-one product tour. You can also take a quick self-guided product tour at any time by clicking this link. There, you'll find a lot of the standard features you've grown to love from competing IM clients such as Group Chat and Voice Chat, but if you haven't explored, here's what you're missing!

Automatic Patch Downloads

While you're away at school or work, patches for your favorite games automatically download! Tired of waiting for that 200+ MB file to pull off the Internet while you could be playing? Let Xfire do the work for you.

Download System and Channels

Browse through common or popular downloads on the fly right through the Xfire client!

Built-in Server Browser

Just as you can find your friends and where they're playing, you can Xfire's built-in Server Browser to search for that "Knives and Pistols Only" BF2 server and add it to your Favorites list, without even having to get into BF2.