Halo Comment

[wetcat007]

Originally posted by: Snatchface
OMFG, you guys are such SNOBS! Halo is emminently playable on current hardware - so what if it averages 30-40 fps? If its a fun game and it plays smoothly what does it matter if its running 40fps or 100 fps? I'll take the fun game, eyecandy and slower frame rates any day, thank you.

Sigh, your talking to people who still want moe speed in Quake 3, 500FPS is far from enough lmao j/k people

 

[clicknext]

Originally posted by: wetcat007

Originally posted by: Snatchface
OMFG, you guys are such SNOBS! Halo is emminently playable on current hardware - so what if it averages 30-40 fps? If its a fun game and it plays smoothly what does it matter if its running 40fps or 100 fps? I'll take the fun game, eyecandy and slower frame rates any day, thank you.

Sigh, your talking to people who still want moe speed in Quake 3, 500FPS is far from enough lmao j/k people

You're right, though. The people here won't settle for anything less than 70-100fps with the latest hardware, and I guess I shouldn't blame them since I'd expect blistering speed if I paid $300 for a piece of hardware.

 

[Wingznut]

Originally posted by: Dug
I personally want to get this for multiplayer, but haven't because of framerate comments. I remember playing this on xbox when it first came out and running it through the computer to get multiplayer. What a blast.

Screw the people whining, Dug. Multiplayer Halo PC is an absolute blast.

If you aren't buying this game because it only runs at 'x' fps, or it plays better with low particle details... Well, you are really missing out.

(Now if we could only train everyone how to play Oddball and King of the Hill.

)

 

[Redviffer]

Originally posted by: Wingznut

(Now if we could only train everyone how to play Oddball and King of the Hill.

)

He he, yeah, nice to see some variations other than regular CTF/DM/Assult. I wish there were a couple more guns in the game, but I guess it makes up for that with the extra vehicles.

Also, running fine on my P42.53/9700Pro machine, gonna see how it is on my lower end ones.

Reminds me a lot of Unreal II.

 

[Sunner]

Sunner

I'd try to get some hands on time with the retail build of the game and see if you are still seeing the same issues.

I'll see if I can find someone with a retail copy, I guess I could buy it myself, but seeing as there's no way to return it if it does indeed run like crap on my system, which I belive it will, I won't be buying that pig in the sack.

The reason I don't quite believe the real retail version will run any better is that it seems like the warez groups have a better sense of quality than game companies these days.

 

[magomago]

I dunno I'm not part of the huge 70fps crowd....to me if I can get a stable 30fps so it doesn't lag (IE: shooters need around that much anyway so you don't start getting choppy) but I can run ut2k3 at higher details at a faster pace...to me that just seems like shoddy porting or whatever and I don't see how halo is that more complex.

And don't give me BS how I have too high expections Look at my sig for the rig

 

[Brian48]

Well, speaking for myself, I don't mind the performance hit so long as I was getting something back in return (ie. eye popping visuals or incredible 3d audio), but that doesn't seem the case with this game. The graphics just aren't very special. Unreal2 is much more visually striking and runs much faster. Performance wise, I'd say this game runs about the same as the (very unoptimized) Doom3 alpha, only it doesn't look nearly as good.

I think it's just a sloppy port and we just have to learn to live with it.

 

[Extrarius]

Originally posted by: Wingznut
[...]

IF it played better with low particle details, or low texture quality, or pixel shaders completely disabled, etc, I don't think so many people would be complaining. I wouldn't, because that would mean I would get at least 30 fps with everything turned off. Unfortunately, the reality is that going from maximum settings at 800x600 to minimum settings at 640x480 only gives about a 3fps average boost resulting in a grand total of 20 fps average (with no consistency at all which makes it even worse).
I'm still wondering why my pc performs worse than the xbox for halo when I'm running with much much much lower quality graphics settings, about the same graphics card, and a cpu at least twice as fast. I would expect at LEAST 30 fps when I set it to look the same as half-life.

 

[Andy22]

I got to tell you that the first 10 minutes of Halo had more entertainment than the whole of Unreal 2 and anyone that makes the claim that the gameplay in Unreal 2 holds up well when compared to Halo is a M-O-R-O-N. I bought Halo last weekend and have had an asbolute blast with it. As much fun as I have had with a game since Vice City.

I have a Athlon XP 1900, GF3 Ti200 and 512 MB DDR. Yes I run it at 800x600 but at that resolution the game plays silky smooth and the graphics don't take much of a hit. The game is just flat out fun to play.

Here's a post I made on another board:

I was worried about performace as I am towards the low end of the system spectrum with an Athlon 1900+, 512 MB DDR RAM and a GF 3 Ti200. I followed the tips and tricks(e.g. -use11) I have seen at various sites and started the game at 1024x768 and it was a bit sluggish but definitely playable. After about 2 hours I switched to 800x600 and noticed very little drop off in the graphics and saw a big increase in performance. Now the performance was perfect and equal to a game like Unreal Tournament or any Quake 3 engine game. If you are a gamer that has to have everything maxed out and every feature turned on then you better have a top of the line system to do it in Halo.

The game has a lot of atmosphere and character from both your squad mates and the incoming transmissions that assist you along the way. Some of it is down right clever. There was one mission where we were going to assault the aliens up on a ridge. The first time I tried to go straight up the middle and I heard a transmission tell the rest of the unit that the Master Chief has the middle and to flank on the left. Well, I died and retried but this time I went up the left side and the transmission actually changed and told the squad to rush the middle since I had the left flank covered. That was pretty neat. Your squad mates let loose some rather funny one liners and will occasionally walk up to an alien they just killed and pump a few more rounds in him. The lower level aliens are also pretty funny as some of them will turn and run away as soon as you start shooting.

The AI of your teamates ranges from average to good but the AI of the aliens...especially the thougher ones is just flat out terrific. They take shots and duck back behind cover, never stand still for very long, and will charge at you if you are close enough. If you throw a grenade at them they will sometimes dive in the opposite direction. I actually had a dream about the Hunter Aliens Saturday night. Those guys pack a mean punch and when they get close to death they will charge at you almost as fast as you can run. You just pray that you kill them before your ammo clip ends and you have to reload.

The balance seems to be absolutely perfect in that you always seem to be close to running out of ammo just as you end a mission. The health and ammo supplies seem to be perfectly placed to keep you going for the most part although a couple of times I ran out of ammo and had to drop my assault rifle and pick up alien weapons to get through a level as you can only carry 2 weapons. Very much adds to the tension which there seems to be alot of.

I had played about 1/4th of the way through the game on the X-Box and could never come to grips with the control setup. I got used to it but it just felt wrong playing without a mouse and KB. I have been waiting to play it on the PC since that first video was shown at Mac World. So far, I am having a blast with it. The game compels you to just clear one more check point...and then another and another. At normal difficulty it is hard enough to be a challenge but not overwhelming. I haven't had this much fun playing an FPS in a while.

 

[beatle]

The thing is that you can't get a consistent 30fps with this game, even running above-average hardware. The difference between 40 and 100 fps is striking because when the game slows down, the machine running 100fps is still at a playable framerate and the 40fps machine looks like a slide show.

Turning down the details might be nice if you're really going to be competitive (I did this on Q3) but part of the appeal of a new game is its eyecandy. I loved the single player of Halo initially, even with lower framerates, but the game gets awfully repetitive after playing it for a while. I've yet to try multiplayer.

 

[voodoomachine]

HI all

I was suprised at how halo ran on my pc and i don't even have an fx5900 or rad9800 etc. But this of course has nothing to do with it, once patched the game does run better. Yes this game uses heaps of shaders, thats why it runs worse then ureal2003, unreal2 is more about lots of textures, shadows etc. But if it was to use lots of shaders, it would run 'piss poor' as someone said earlier.

There are many things u can do to get halo running much better. For all users,

Try benchmarking

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -timedemo

To force 1.1 or 1.4 pixel shaders on dx9 cards try this. If u want to run with 1.1 or 1.4 for playing, just take out the timedemo part below.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use11 -timedemo
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use14 -timedemo

Also i found that if i started the game in safemode. tried it out, then i went back in and loaded it normally, It ran so much better, why? I'm not sure but it did.

Also just to set the record straight, u cannot judge a console that runs at 733,gf3ish, against a pc with 733mhz gf3. Consoles are custom built.

One last thing, Once the new Nvidia, and also 3.8 cats are out, they will prob run the game alot smoother.

Hope this helps some of you!

 

[voodoomachine]

HI all

I was suprised at how halo ran on my pc and i don't even have an fx5900 or rad9800 etc. But this of course has nothing to do with it, once patched the game does run better. Yes this game uses heaps of shaders, thats why it runs worse then ureal2003, unreal2 is more about lots of textures, shadows etc. But if it was to use lots of shaders, it would run 'piss poor' as someone said earlier.

There are many things u can do to get halo running much better. For all users,

Try benchmarking

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -timedemo

To force 1.1 or 1.4 pixel shaders on dx9 cards try this. If u want to run with 1.1 or 1.4 for playing, just take out the timedemo part below.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use11 -timedemo
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use14 -timedemo

Also i found that if i started the game in safemode. tried it out, then i went back in and loaded it normally, It ran so much better, why? I'm not sure but it did.

Also just to set the record straight, u cannot judge a console that runs at 733,gf3ish, against a pc with 733mhz gf3. Consoles are custom built.

One last thing, Once the new Nvidia, and also 3.8 cats are out, they will prob run the game alot smoother.

Hope this helps some of you!

 

[voodoomachine]

HI all

I was suprised at how halo ran on my pc and i don't even have an fx5900 or rad9800 etc. But this of course has nothing to do with it, once patched the game does run better. Yes this game uses heaps of shaders, thats why it runs worse then ureal2003, unreal2 is more about lots of textures, shadows etc. But if it was to use lots of shaders, it would run 'piss poor' as someone said earlier.

There are many things u can do to get halo running much better. For all users,

Try benchmarking

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -timedemo

To force 1.1 or 1.4 pixel shaders on dx9 cards try this. If u want to run with 1.1 or 1.4 for playing, just take out the timedemo part below.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use11 -timedemo
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use14 -timedemo

Also i found that if i started the game in safemode. tried it out, then i went back in and loaded it normally, It ran so much better, why? I'm not sure but it did.

Also just to set the record straight, u cannot judge a console that runs at 733,gf3ish, against a pc with 733mhz gf3. Consoles are custom built.

One last thing, Once the new Nvidia, and also 3.8 cats are out, they will prob run the game alot smoother.

Hope this helps some of you!

 

[voodoomachine]

HI all

I was suprised at how halo ran on my pc and i don't even have an fx5900 or rad9800 etc. But this of course has nothing to do with it, once patched the game does run better. Yes this game uses heaps of shaders, thats why it runs worse then ureal2003, unreal2 is more about lots of textures, shadows etc. But if it was to use lots of shaders, it would run 'piss poor' as someone said earlier.

There are many things u can do to get halo running much better. For all users,

Try benchmarking

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -timedemo

To force 1.1 or 1.4 pixel shaders on dx9 cards try this. If u want to run with 1.1 or 1.4 for playing, just take out the timedemo part below.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use11 -timedemo
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.exe" -use14 -timedemo

Also i found that if i started the game in safemode. tried it out, then i went back in and loaded it normally, It ran so much better, why? I'm not sure but it did.

Also just to set the record straight, u cannot judge a console that runs at 733,gf3ish, against a pc with 733mhz gf3. Consoles are custom built.

One last thing, Once the new Nvidia, and also 3.8 cats are out, they will prob run the game alot smoother.

Hope this helps some of you!

 

[voodoomachine]

Sorry about the repeat of posting, but it didnt show me that it had posted, my screen just froze.

If admin could amend this.

Thanks

 

[Wingznut]

I'm convinced that those who are getting horrible frame rates are NOT running the (patched) retail version.

 

[splice]

I'm not sure you can blame it all on poor programming. Gearbox has the source from the orginal XBOX game, mostlikely written in C++ OOP. Which, should be highly portable. Granted they would have to re-write some of the DX interfacing and maybe port some custom XBox libraries, but don't forget: XBox is a x86 computer running a lite version of windows and a modified version of DX8. It not like this is a huge cross platform porting problem.

Also, for those of you using the warez beta version.. get a life and go buy the game and patch it before you start complaining about poor performance and how bad it sucks.

Debugging can be a huge performance loss depending on how much debug information is being recorded, save to the hdd, or being outputted to a debug console window.

 

[NOX]

Originally posted by: splice

Also, for those of you using the warez beta version.. get a life and go buy the game and patch it before you start complaining about poor performance and how bad it sucks.

Exactly! In so many situations that is exactly the case (and of course they won't mention it).

Also for those who are using NV cards, and the Det. 45.23's etc... check out Anands Catalyst 3.8 review. The Det 45.23's suck with Halo! The 52.14's are much better with Halo running the same card. I run the 45.23's with RivaTuner and will contintue to do so until NV comes out with WHQL 52 series's Dets.

EDIT: Also use "haloupdate" in your Halo folder to update halo.