Why is Halo so demanding?

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EnderW

[H]F Junkie
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I was reading this article and it was talking about how not even a 9800xt can run halo at 60 fps. I thought that was weird, b/c Halo orginally came out on XBOX, which is basically just a PC, and it only has like an 800MHz processor.
 
a number of reasons, number one is that the team at gearbox spent so much time on implementing a netcode into the game that they never really optimized the engine very much, number two is that in terms of shaders it is probably the most demanding game around, number three is that on xbox is was only doing 640x480 and it was highly optimized for one setup, pc's use higher resolutions and configs vary greatly.
 
that Xbox runs halo at what, 640x480?

try that resolution on your pc, you'll see it runs a lot better ;)

There are a few theories why Halo runs so poorly on the PC

the number 1 theory is that it is poorly programmed, i.e. simply a bad port from Xbox to PC, you do have to remember afterall it is a port

another theory is that the ps 2.0 effects they used just are not done effeciently, or optimized

regardless, it is what it is

if you don't use ps 2.0 and force ps 1.4 or 1.1 you will find performance increases a lot, or hell, fixed function is much faster, because it isn't using all the neat effects

and you can also run it at a lower resolution with AF, it does not support AA, not that it matters since it doesn't perform well anyways

hopefully Halo 2 will be better on the PC
 
was reading this article and it was talking about how not even a 9800xt can run halo at 60 fps
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True. Halo has horrible coding which makes FPS drop. They are trying to patch it to make it run smoother last i heard.
 
I would say *mainly* the reason why would be because the team at bungie only needed to get halo to run well on a very specific platform and at 640x480, and 30fps was considered "good enough". If you crank the resolution to 2x what it originally was, run it on a different setup, and are running a sort-of port(xbox runs on a super dumbed down version of w2k does it not? So it's not as much of a port as porting say, a game from the PS2 over to PC would be), it's not surprising you can expect slowdowns.
 
Gearbox did a sloppy job porting the game, there was a patch before the game was even released :eek:

A good way to boost fps though is to use -use11 or -use14 in the shortcut, it forces pixel shaders 1.1 and 1.4 instead of the system-hog PS 2.0.
 
You guys act like the only bottleneck could possibly be fillrate (the very very end of the graphics pipeline). Most games are CPU bound (the very beginning of the pipeline). Modern CPU's are only 3x faster than what's in the XBOX, and I'm sure you guys can do the math on that one. Not to mention the huge advantage you get writing directly to hardware without ring0 switches and such, as opposed to Game->D3DAPI->VideoDriver->Hardware you have to deal with on PC.
 
the xbox uses a version of directX and a (heavily) modified win2k kernel that is specialised for it...it still has to go thru the stages u describe. BUT as the xbox only comes in one flavour (if u believe what MS tell developers) it is much easier to optimise for. The game does not directly address the hardware as such, it still passes thru an API and driver base as it were.
 
700mhz on a highly optimized kernel is WAY faster than 700mhz on Windows XP.

Hence, this is why the xbox can get away with using only 64mb of ram and still maintain a solid framerate in halo.
 
plus i believe that api and driver stuff is intergrated into the kernel, making it even faster.
 
think Microshit needs to die.. mk thanks bye.
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not very good idea.... with that dead we dont have "Word,Power Point, exec etc" what is the problem with them anyways? i dont have a problem. what should we all switch to...linux? i dont know if it would hold up in the corprate world.
 
Linux is free, Windows is not. the answer to MS office is OpenOffice. OpenOffice works with MS Office .doc's and is FREE. and Linux dominates the server market, and distros like Red Hat are very user friendly, so theres your "wont hold up in the corporate world" thrown out the window
 
yes but a move to any other platform would require massive retraining of the corporate workforce, making it cost more than just buying software from microsoft with witch everyone is familiar. I am not taking a side, merely stating a fact.
 
Linux is free, Windows is not.
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im pretty sure Linux would start charging if microsoft died. since they have noone to compete with they would take the microsoft path and charge like it should be. i cant imagine the whole entire would switching to linux. its inane. i still stand by "it wont hold up in the corprate world".
 
I stand by my statement. I don't like linux, but microsoft is evil.

~Adam
 
stand by my statement. I don't like linux, but microsoft is evil.
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nothing left. Mac is owned by Mico"EVIL" . so you dont like microsoft or linux... your a hard to please kind of guy/girl.
 
Originally posted by zoltan
im pretty sure Linux would start charging if microsoft died. since they have noone to compete with they would take the microsoft path and charge like it should be. i cant imagine the whole entire would switching to linux. its inane. i still stand by "it wont hold up in the corprate world".
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Uhhhhh, linux is an open source project distributed in various flavors by tons of companies, I doubt linus will just start "charging for it" at the risk of destroying his whole ideology.
 
I want a microsoft that doesn't abuse its powers and doesnt waste time and money making consoles such as that pos 733. If they want to make games, then make games for computers... optimize them for windows xp and make them run like a bat out of hell... dont waste my time and money on a console like that pos, FRANKLY.

I wouldn't mind microshit so much but they charge way too much for operating systems (monopoly powers got to their heads) And Apple... well they're even worst than microsoft, steve jobs is going to claw his way up to the top, not matter who has to pay his out rageous fees for him to do it.

~Adam
 
Originally posted by Lime
Linux is free, Windows is not. the answer to MS office is OpenOffice. OpenOffice works with MS Office .doc's and is FREE. and Linux dominates the server market, and distros like Red Hat are very user friendly, so theres your "wont hold up in the corporate world" thrown out the window
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Linux is not free in the corperate world. RedHat no longer makes a "free" version. (9 is no longer supported) The cheapest you can get RedHat for is $189 for the workstation version. The server versions start at around $800. No, Linux doesn't dominate the server market, Unix does. Unix is not free. Then in second is M$ based solutions. Look it up if you don't believe me. This is what I do for a living. Then you have to add in the cost of education. The reason M$ has been so successful is that Windows is easy to use for any idiot. Linux just isn't quite there yet.
 
I don't know about my comp but it's awesome :) since i have a 9700PRO and i can play Halo perfectly in 1280x1024 with ps2.0 and highest details and everything turned up :D
 
Ok, now back to Halo. IMHO Halo was a bad port, I don't think GearBox had time to optimize the code for current systems.
 
OK, a new question: Why does Halo keep disconnecting and lagging so much? It's not even playable.
 
Check your settings. I don't lag at all and I play with 800x600. Make sure you aren't dl'ing anything (no porno!).
 
Originally posted by DaveX
Check your settings. I don't lag at all and I play with 800x600. Make sure you aren't dl'ing anything (no porno!).
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I was downloading porn, but now I'm not. I'm not downloading anything, and I'm on cable, usually average about 200 KB/s when I do download. Any ideas?
 
The lag will never go away. It's bad netcode... nothing you can do but play on dedicated servers.
 
I don't have time to read all the suggestions, so I'll just post what I know even though someone might have arleady said it.

First, AA and AF really don't work. AF works somewhat, but it's just better to leave it off. There is a way to get AA working by disablingAlphaRenderTargets, but it causes several effects in the game to break.

With your card, run it at 1024*768, maybe 1152*864. But if your really need to, play at 800*600, that's what I had to do for 9700pro system.

Then set everything to high of course. Leave it at P2.0, I hear that when switching to other shaders, some textures then need more passes, while in 2.0 they only need one pass. 2.0 also has more reflection effects on certain surfaces and such. So really there is not need to change it, it all evens out I think.

Also, this might not sound great at first, but it really helps smooth out the game. Turn the 30fps limit on. This makes it more consistent, better than seeing fps jump to 60+ then back to 30fps here and there. Just try it. Also, the animations were made to run at 30fps originally on the Xbox, so if you don't have the 30fps limit on the animations can get wierd on the pc.

So,
1024*768
High settings
30fps limit
No AA or AF

and enjoy the game!
 
Originally posted by Brent
that Xbox runs halo at what, 640x480?

try that resolution on your pc, you'll see it runs a lot better ;)

There are a few theories why Halo runs so poorly on the PC

the number 1 theory is that it is poorly programmed, i.e. simply a bad port from Xbox to PC, you do have to remember afterall it is a port

another theory is that the ps 2.0 effects they used just are not done effeciently, or optimized

regardless, it is what it is

if you don't use ps 2.0 and force ps 1.4 or 1.1 you will find performance increases a lot, or hell, fixed function is much faster, because it isn't using all the neat effects

and you can also run it at a lower resolution with AF, it does not support AA, not that it matters since it doesn't perform well anyways

hopefully Halo 2 will be better on the PC
Click to expand...

320x240
 
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