How To Fix Halo Pc To Rock At Hi-res

[Duneadan]

Hi guys:

I just figured out how to fix Halo's performance to make it run at high frame rates at hi-resolution.

All you have to do is use this command line, depending on your graphics card:

Run "C:\Halodirectory\halo.exe -use11" with halodirectory being where ever you installed it.

If you have a really old card use the command line: "C:\Halodirectory\halo.exe -useff".

"-use11" forces the game to only use Pixel Sharders 1.1 on your card.

"-useff" forces the game to not use any pixel shaders at all and only run the game at fixed function mode.

I was absolutely hating the game, Ubisoft and Bill Gates before I figured this out.

Now I love the game, but still hate Ubi and Bill Gates for delaying the games release on the PC.


Cheers

[john240sx]

the shaders issue was touched on in gnerma's benchmark thread, most of the benchmarks were only a couple fps apart with the different shader versions.

the best shader version to use dpends on what card you have. the GF FX cards run better when 1.4 is used, the 9500 and up have a minimal performance hit when using 2.0, i'm not sure about the GF4TI series as i haven't seen enough benchmarks from them to decide anything.

btw, what does Ubisoft have to do with Halo? the game was developed by Bungie, not Ubi.

[ThePerfectCore]

And was ported by Gearbox.

[Duneadan]

durr. right. smoking crack here. but still happy that the damn thing finally works. with 2.0 shaders it was for crap. still hate gates and bungie though.

[ThePerfectCore]

Do I really have to say it again?

GEARBOX PORTED HALO NOT BUNGIE. JESUS.

[Duneadan]

Right. But no hard feelings to gearbox now that I can run at hi res and playable framerates.

I'm still miffed at Gates for buying it and bungie for selling out to him three years ago.

many apologies to ubi, though.

[Banyan]

who cares who ported what :rolleyes: why do you get so upset like it's an insult to you personally... i don't. the game still performs like crap with this "fix", just playable framerates.

[baqai]

i have ti4200 so which switch should i use? :rolleyes: i posted my benchmark scores in that halo thread

[Duneadan]

Not too sure. Try Shader 1.1 and if that doesn't work, switch to -useff.

The only difference I noticed in the image quality was on the zoom lense in the hand gun and sniper.

Try -use11 first though. It may only work well for the Geforcefx, but you never know. I could not tell a noticeable difference in the frame rates.

[Shade00]

Interesting. My friend is running a Ti4600 (which is still a fast card) and the game runs like absolute crap. I'll give this a shot.

[baqai]

does the game by default uses shader 2.0 or what? coz as far as my mind can think it's simple, i'll try to elaborate

if (found shader 2.0 support hardware) use shader 2.0

else if (found shader 1.1 support hardware) use shader 1.1

else (dont' use shader)

i guess most of you will agree with me on this logic, so we are forcing the program to run in xyz shader mode (if it works) than makes me wonder is it program bug or something that its not automatically selecting the correct shader???

[Gnerma]

If you are using a... Geforce2 or Geforce4 MX you have no pixel shaders, so it will default to fixed function.
Radeon 7xxx I'm not sure.
Geforce3 use 1.1 shaders. This is your only shader mode and therefore the default. Turn it to fixed function if you are starving for FPS.
Radeon 8500 - 9200 (R200) use 1.1 shaders. These cards default to 1.4 but you get a solid performance gain from switching to 1.1
Geforce4 TI use 1.3 shaders. This is the default shader mode for this card. Switching to 1.1 gives little to no performance gain.
GeforceFX I'm not sure. Not much data on these.
Radeon 9500+ (R300) use 2.0 shaders. These cards default to 1.4 (err I think) but switching to 2.0 gives a slight performance increase for most, and no performance regression for anybody that I've seen.
None of this pixel shader switching seems to make much of a difference with the exception of R200 based cards. A few other detail settings seem to play a larger role. Check out the "Post your halo benchmarks and performance impressions" (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=235336) and "ok what is up with halo pc?" (http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234370) threads for some good discussion on that :)

[Oni]

Originally posted by Gnerma

Radeon 9500+ (R300) use 2.0 shaders. These cards default to 1.4 (err I think) but switching to 2.0 gives a slight performance increase for most, and no performance regression for anybody that I've seen.

If Shaders 2.0 isn't enabled by default, how do I enable it?

[john240sx]

you have to edit the target of the shortcut, add -use20 after the "

here's an example of my shortcut

"G:\games\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.eXe" -use20 -console

edit: also, you can use -? to see a list of switches.

[Oni]

Originally posted by john240sx
you have to edit the target of the shortcut, add -use20 after the "

here's an example of my shortcut

"G:\games\Microsoft Games\Halo\Halo.eXe" -use20 -console

edit: also, you can use -? to see a list of switches.

Thanks! I'll give it a spin.

[idioteQnology]

do u have to include the -console as well? most other threads that suggest this didnt include that.


thanks.

[Derivative]

I'll try enabling PS2.0 like this as well.. hopefully I get better performance as sometimes my FPS dips to like 15 during huge firefights :(

[Gnerma]

Originally posted by idioteQnology
do u have to include the -console as well? most other threads that suggest this didnt include that.
No. Unless you want to use the ingame console.