why is halo so slow on my computer?

[hans007]

so i havent played a game in a while i figured my computer couldnt be this slow.

i run halo. i put it at 1024x768 with the settings all high since thats where they started. halo chops up whenever there are like 5 bad guys on the screen. it gets really bad when the machine gun is being used.


so i tone down textures to low, and some other settings to low. STILL CHOPPY! then i put my ati card into "performance" from "balanced" and its still kinda choppy. what gives.


the important parts of my computer are, radeon 9600 128mb, athlon 64 1600mhz , 512mb pc3200. i figure this should run anything. and halo is old isnt it? i dont even have fsaa on!

 

[0roo0roo]

halo is special. not in a good way. its a bad bad port. many a better looking game out now with far better graphics, and less burdensome.

 

[Confused]

The PC port of Halo is an odd beast.

It will run extremely choppy on the best of hardware for some people, and will run very well on the "Recommended specs" for others

It is one of the worst examples of a well written game for various hardware

Confused

 

[JammingJay]

If you want a fps game with some nice eye candy before the "next generation" hits, its definitely Max Payne 2. With your specs, it should run decent at med-high res.

 

[hans007]

man i havent been like.. just sucked into a game for an hour and a half like that since diablo 2 came out. wow. halo is a fun game. just well its oddly slow sometimes, but fun. multi was pretty fun too. and to think i almost bought a 5200 or a 5600xt instead of this radeon... man i wouldnt even be able to play.


hmm according to toms hardware guide, if i blow $400 on a 9800xt now, i can get my frame rates up from like 23 to 60. or i could just buy an xbox.

 

[Sunner]

I have an AXP @ 2.0 GHz, a Radeon 9800, and 512 MB of PC3200, and it's choppy as $hit on my box as well, both the demo and the retail version.
The PC port of Halo is quite possibly the worst port I've ever seen, even beating out FF VII and VIII.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Confused
The PC port of Halo is an odd beast.

It will run extremely choppy on the best of hardware for some people, and will run very well on the "Recommended specs" for others

It is one of the worst examples of a well written game for various hardware

Confused

I even doubt that. I think those people with recommended specs just think the performance is manageable for them while the people with the more faster hardware expected better.

In my opinion, I think Halo is a perfect game for the X-Box. Just like Resident Evil is to the Game Cube.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Sunner
I have an AXP @ 2.0 GHz, a Radeon 9800, and 512 MB of PC3200, and it's choppy as $hit on my box as well, both the demo and the retail version.
The PC port of Halo is quite possibly the worst port I've ever seen, even beating out FF VII and VIII.

well from the little i've played... it does have performance problems.

but i remember ff 7 not working on anything but voodoo cards, and it crashing all the time, to the point that it couldnt even be played.

nothing beats ff7

 

[BenSkywalker]

Halo runs a lot faster on my rig then it does on the XBox(I have both versions), and I'm running a Ti4200(lower spec then the XB).

Halo isn't a bad port, actually it isn't even close to a bad port. It runs considerably better on a like spec PC then it does on the XBox, nigh unheard of for a port. Most people just seem to assume that the XBox version of the game runs well- it doesn't. Sub 25FPS is normal, framerates in the teens are common and single digit framerates certainly not unheard of.

Halo is what a lot of people have been asking for, a shader heavy game. Want the game to speed up like hell? Use a command line argument and disable pixel shaders. I see decent framerate most of the time on a GF4 running everything high, 1600x1200. Of course, the game looks better running with shaders on @640x480(no good fall back) then it does with them off and the res cranked which is how I play(usually am in the ~80FPS range and that's using the framerate counter, not guessing).

 

[brunswickite]

runs great on mine, running

2.53 p4
512 ddr 333
ti 4200 128mb clocked at 4400 speeds

 

[0roo0roo]

buy call of duty. most badass fps i've played this year. from the original mohaa team looks damn better then halo anyday.

 

[farscape]

My son plays Halo on his system (2400+, 9700NP, 512 DDR). Told me that you have to disable V-sync and disable the frame lock in the options. Runs very smooth for him - no laggies in single or online.

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: BenSkywalker
Halo runs a lot faster on my rig then it does on the XBox(I have both versions), and I'm running a Ti4200(lower spec then the XB).

Halo isn't a bad port, actually it isn't even close to a bad port. It runs considerably better on a like spec PC then it does on the XBox, nigh unheard of for a port. Most people just seem to assume that the XBox version of the game runs well- it doesn't. Sub 25FPS is normal, framerates in the teens are common and single digit framerates certainly not unheard of.

Halo is what a lot of people have been asking for, a shader heavy game. Want the game to speed up like hell? Use a command line argument and disable pixel shaders. I see decent framerate most of the time on a GF4 running everything high, 1600x1200. Of course, the game looks better running with shaders on @640x480(no good fall back) then it does with them off and the res cranked which is how I play(usually am in the ~80FPS range and that's using the framerate counter, not guessing).

Having to use command line switches to run the game att acceptable speeds at 800x600 on the latest and greatest(well close enough) is hardly what I'd call anything but a bad port.
After our latest debate, I downloaded the demo, and even with everything set to the lowest(no CLI switches, just from the in-game controls), running at 800x600x32, the game still doesn't run at speeds that I'd call acceptable.
And it still doesn't look very spectacular either, so if all pixel shaders have to offer are better-than-avarge-but-not-great looking games with very subpar framerates at low resolutions, I think I can manage without them.

Max Payne II blows Halo out of the water in terms of graphics, and it plays perfectly until I hit 1600x1200x32, at which it becomes slightly choppy(and that's very slightly, maybe like 35-40 FPS or so, not the 5-20 from Halo).

hans007
Eidos released a patch after a while that allowed it to work on my Riva128 and TNT, after that it was just a "bad" port, but still playable.

 

[BenSkywalker]

is hardly what I'd call anything but a bad port

If you have a piece of software that can complete a given task in ten seconds on one platform, and it is ported to another platform where the same task takes five seconds using directly comparable hardware, do you call that a bad port? That is what you are doing with Halo.

 

[BenSkywalker]

DP

 

[Alptraum]

I only tried the demo, but it ran fine for me at 1280x1024 (my LCDs native res) with all the details turned on (I am pretty sure I did that at least). On a =

P4c 3gig
9800pro AIW
1 gig PC 3200 Corsair XMS

 

[Brian48]

Originally posted by: hans007
so i havent played a game in a while i figured my computer couldnt be this slow.

i run halo. i put it at 1024x768 with the settings all high since thats where they started. halo chops up whenever there are like 5 bad guys on the screen. it gets really bad when the machine gun is being used.


so i tone down textures to low, and some other settings to low. STILL CHOPPY! then i put my ati card into "performance" from "balanced" and its still kinda choppy. what gives.


the important parts of my computer are, radeon 9600 128mb, athlon 64 1600mhz , 512mb pc3200. i figure this should run anything. and halo is old isnt it? i dont even have fsaa on!

Add "-use11" to the commandline when running the game. This will allow you to run with shaders 1.1 instead of 2.0. I doubt you will notice the difference in visual quality. As the others have mentioned before, Halo is a very GPU intensive game and despite what Bungie says, I think it's just a very bad port.

 

[blazerazor]

I saw Halo running on 'theScreenSavers' and it was choppy on Live television. I get sick playing games that are choppy. If they cant get it to run smoothly with the best of the best hardware given to them for free... what can you say.

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

runs fine on my AXP barton @ 2.0GHz, 512MB PC3200, and 9800pro.

As long as I'm not running over 1280x1024x32 with 6x AA and 16x aniso.

Normally play it at 1024x768x32 with no AA and 8x Aniso though.

As long as I get a nice server, I notice no lag at all.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

For those of you who have the "Black Flag" edition, try buying the game. It's been proven that the warezed version has a significant performance hit compared to retail.

- M4H

 

[DAPUNISHER]

The reason it runs smoothly on the ti4200 is pixel shader=1.3 by default It ran great on my 2.35ghz Barton system with 5800U@35/1.1ghz @10x7. If you want to sacrifice IQ for speed just follow these quick tweaks for Halo link just using PS 1.3 should do the trick as was mentioned.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: hans007

the important parts of my computer are.........athlon 64 1600mhz.......

Strange CPU.....


I think I read somewhere that the PC version of halo used PS2.0 compared to 1.4 (1.3 or 1.1 I can't remember) on th X-box. This will increase visual quality and ofcourse also gives a performance hit.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Strange CPU.....

Engineering Sample

 

[hans007]

i actually did buy the game. i usually buy the games i really do play, traded some cooling stuff for halo actually.

i guess i will try all these fixes you guys say. i personally do not think it was such a bad port. i mean on the xbox its basically a p3-733 , running with a gf3 or gf4 running it at 640x480 so i can understand that my video card is a bottleneck. especially since im noticing a lot of you guys who say it runs fast, have 9700 or 9800 cards, but a comparable cpu

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: hans007
so i havent played a game in a while i figured my computer couldnt be this slow.

i run halo. i put it at 1024x768 with the settings all high since thats where they started. halo chops up whenever there are like 5 bad guys on the screen. it gets really bad when the machine gun is being used.


so i tone down textures to low, and some other settings to low. STILL CHOPPY! then i put my ati card into "performance" from "balanced" and its still kinda choppy. what gives.


the important parts of my computer are, radeon 9600 128mb, athlon 64 1600mhz , 512mb pc3200. i figure this should run anything. and halo is old isnt it? i dont even have fsaa on!

Halo is a crappy port like everyone else has said... also... your video card isn't spectacular... it's decent for the casual gamer, but not for a hardcore gamer. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by an Athlon 64 1600 Mhz because there's no such thing... Athlon 64's start at 2.0 Ghz. Unless you mean an Opteron.