Halo Runs Slow on a G5?!
 

I just got Halo and the first thing I did was turn all the settings up to their max. Then when I ran the game I realized that it was running at like 5 fps. I decided to bump the graphics down a little bit, but still leave them better than the default settings. It would still slow down to 20 fps in high action gameplay (tons of characters on the screen).

I have the dual 2GHz G5 with 1.5 Gigs of ram with the standard ATI Radeon 9600, there is no reason that it should be running slowly at all, even with settings beefed up a little bit. I can't even run the app at my monitor's native resolution 1280x1024 (17" Apple Studio Display).

Is this game just really processor heavy? And if so what settings should I use to get the best visuals and gameplay out of it. Am i Just crazy? Thx in advance.

I heard that it (and the PC version as well) was a truly crappy port of it off the XBox.

Not processor intensive
 

Everything that I have read indicates that Halo is much more dependent on the graphics card than the CPU. In fact, there are already testimonials of folks with older G4s and Radeon 9800 GPUs that have been enjoying better than expected results. Moreover, I don't think that Halo is dual processor aware, so you are not getting an advantage there. Bottom line, this is not a game that is designed to take advantage of everything that your dual G5 system offers.

As for the quality of the port, it looks like the Mac port is better than the PC port in terms of the variety of hardware that it supports. Again, as long as you have a good GPU, you can play with a fairly old machine.

My copy arrived today and I will testing it out on my old sawtooth (upgraded to an 800 Mhz G4 and ATi 8500) as well as on my 1 Ghz tiBook.

We'll see how it goes.

As for optimizations, try turning off FSAA first and then turn off the shaders (vertex and/or pixel) and see if that helps. Finally, keep in mind that we don't have the 1.03 update that has been released on the PC side so there might be more optimizations coming soon -- at least for multiplayer. Also, there is some talk of an update from ATi to fix a problem with FSAA.

HTH,

Ben

Good info!

I can't wait for the 1.03 update. I'm more interested in the multiplayer fixes than anything else. I just updated my PC copy, and played a game online. The difference between 1.02 and 1.03 online is like night and day.

On our 1.8 (single) G5 at work (stock Nvidia GPU) I ran halo's timedemo with the vertex shaders on (pixel not an option yet), FSAA off, 800x600 res, everything else on high (except one of the audio options, I'm not there to check which one); and it averaged 46fps. It is very playable, even in the library level (lots of movement and enemies).

For the work that Gearbox (PC) and MacSoft/Westlake (Mac) had to do, this is a great port. I've found that the particle effects, and higher resolutions affect the performance of the game the most.

On my PC (GeForce 4 Ti 4200), setting the resolution above 800x600 starts really pulling down the performance of the game.

My mac at home is a 450 Sawtooth G4 upgraded to an 800Mhz, Radeon 9000 Pro, and 1.75GB of RAM. If I leave only one monitor hooked up (so a 64MB VRAM is used), I run at 640x480, with almost everything on low or medium, and it lags every so often, but it is playable. If I try to leave both displays connected, then I can only really play single player if I leave particle effects off.

I'm going to try with shaders off today, since apparently on the Mac version, even with shaders off, the game still uses hardware texturing and lighting, and lets the CPU do other work (unlike the PC version).

Some Details
 

Here is my setup and the results of timedemo.

eMac 700Mhz G4
256MB RAM
GeForce2mx 32MB
No Shaders
Lens Flare Medium
Model Detail High
800x600 resolution
Decals - No
Particles - Low
Texture Quality - Medium
Average 15.17fps
It does well enough for multiplayer, but single player is painful.

Sawtooth 800Mhz G4
1.75GB RAM
Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB
Vertex Shaders
Lens Flare Medium
Model Detail High
640x480 resolution
Decals - No
Particles - Low
Texture Quality - Medium
Average 15.85fps
This seems to handle single player better than the eMac. My guess would be the combination of processor, video RAM, and video processor.

Sawtooth 800Mhz G4
1.75GB RAM
Radeon 9000 Pro 64MB
No Shaders
Lens Flare Medium
Model Detail High
640x480 resolution
Decals - No
Particles - Low
Texture Quality - Medium
Average 21.25fps
Unless I'm in large open areas (Assault on the Control Room) or being swarmed (Library), this handles single player rather well.

I haven't tried tweaking my settings beyond the defaults, except to crank up the gamma.

of shaders and video cards
 

WRT shaders, my understanding has been that the GeForce 3, GeForce 4 Ti, Radeon 8500, and Radeon 9000 support first generation pixel shaders. These are supposedly DirectX 8/OpenGL 1.3 level shaders, not the DirectX 9/OpenGL 1.4 level shaders that Halo was designed to use. I would have assumed that the G5's GeForce FX 5200 (as well as the 9600 and 9800) supported the latest generation pixel shaders but your experience indicates otherwise.

Curious.

Ben

You heard wrong. The custom GF3 inside the Xbox isn't the latest in gaming hardware, but it does a few things PC cards don't do with ease, and Halo was designed to take advantage of them. (For example, Gearbox had to rewrite the Master Chief's invisibility cloak effect.)

Randy Pitchford (of Gearbox) speaks:

http://www.gearboxsoftware.com/forum...b=5&o=&fpart=1

He does make a valid point about 30fps vs 100fps and how there is really no difference except knowing that you are doing one rather than the other.

I was just hoping that my baby (erhem, 2x2 G5) could whoop some serious graphic butt. But hey, at least I meet the minimum requirements :)

Re: of shaders and video cards
 

I haven't seen Halo on a Mac with an ATI 9600, 9700, or 9800 yet (G5 or G4), but according to the read-me, they do support pixel shaders.

I would have to find it, but I'm pretty sure that the read-me also mentions that Halo on an FX 5200 has pixel shaders disabled for now for performance reasons, and that MacSoft is working with Nvidia on a fix that will take both a driver update and a Halo update to address.

The code for Halo (PC) is written for DX9, which is the code that Westlake was given for the port. The lower rendering (code?) paths for the PC are handled by the video card's driver, not by Halo itself.

I'm contemplating buying Halo, but I am a little worried about it running slowly on my TiBook after reading the thread starter's post.

It's a 1 GHz G4 with a ati 9000 (64 MB) and 512MB of system ram. (is the mobile graphics card slower than the desktop graphics card?, this is my main concern)


any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Personally I think it would work because you have that 64 meg gfx card and a 1ghz g4 (which is also the recommended, not minimum, requirement).

You should be fine as long as you don't start turning everything on high (and as you read even I can't do that on my G5). However, the game still looks great with all the default settings, seriously.

I would bump you laptop up to a gig of ram though, i couldn't hurt, but I still believe that it will work for you.

thanks for the advice!

You should be fine if you leave it at or around the default settings.

As an extreme case (I don't recommend this), I have a coworker playing Halo on a 450Mhz Sawtooth with an AGP Mac Radeon (no number) 32MB.
If he gets hit by a needler round, or picks up overshield or health, his screen goes black for the duration of the effect. He has all settings on low.

Damn, he really can't wait to play halo huh?!

Ok, so i bought it, and it looks good. How do i get to see how many fps i'm getting? (probably something with the tilde but i don't know the command for halo)

thanks

I don't know the consistent label for it, but if you run the timedemo (checkbox upon launch halo), you will get an average FPS for a variety of the cinematic scenes, plus percentages for time spent in a specific range of FPS.

Dual GPU 1.8Ghz G5
Radeon 9800 Pro
1GB RAM
FSAA Off
Pixel/Vertex Shader On
at 800x500 resolution (such a waste of a 23" HD display)


SLOW as HELL gameplay.

I really hope they optimize this for dual CPU. It's nice they have the option to make everything look good, but it's useless if even the fastest of Macs can't run it (not mine, but others' 2x2 G5)

yeah that doesn't surprise me, macs really aren't gaming machines. amd and intel processors are much better for games than G5's and the drivers are awful for the mac video cards. This is probably the last game i'll buy for a mac for a while. :(

Try these settings
 

I can't verify this as I don't have a G5 or a Radeon 9800, but my understanding from reading other forums and from playing around on my (lesser) machines is that the following settings should give a good balance of eye candy and performance.

In the opening dialog box:

- Leave shaders on Pixel + Vertex, but UNCHECK Detail Objects
- Set FSAA to 2x Sampling
- Set Lens Flare to Low
- Set Model Detail to Medium

In the in-game settings:

- Set Frame Rate to VSYNC
- Turn the rest of the graphic options to the max

Turn your audio settings up has high as you like as your dual G5s can handle it.

The key seems to be lowering model detail. Also, if you are running at a high resolution, consider turning off FSAA (especially if you haven't upgraded to 10.3.2). You will get a decent performance boost here, and at high resolutions FSAA is of marginal benefit (IMHO).

HTH,

Ben

These messages really surprise me. I'm running Halo on my dual 1 GHz G4 with a GeForce 4 Ti and it runs SUPERBLY at 1344x840, the highest resolution it will allow me (which is about 20% shy of full res on my Cinema Display).

I also loaded it onto my little 867 MHz G4 PowerBook and, while it doesn't support the higher quality effects, it still runs fast and is totally playable.

I would agree with you. I have been pleasantly surprised with the playability of Halo on my old Sawtooth G4 (upgraded with a Sonnet 800 G4 and Radeon 8500). My 1 GHz tiBook (Radeon 9000) is also playable.

I think that the frustration of some comes from:

(a) folks with G5/Radeon 9800 rigs expect to be able to max out every setting (probably not an unreasonable expectation); and

(b) for a new game it doesn't really look that much better than games based on the venerable Q3 engine (e.g., RTCW).

However, given that the PC guys have also been having problems and that this is a console port (i.e., was not designed to support high resolutions), I'm pretty happy with the current state of affairs and look forward to some improvements with the expected 1.03 update.

I honestly think that it is just because i had an absolute beast of a computer before this laptop which i had to sell. AMD Athlon xp 2800+ with ati 9700 allin wonder and a gig of pc3200 ram. I think if you guys looked at halo on a souped up intel or amd machine you would see a big difference.

When i say slow for my laptop i'd say it gets around 20 fps in lots of action with the resolution way down. It is still playable, but it makes me miss my other computer :)

Despite it's speed flaws, is the game any good? I've 1/2 a mind to purchase it..

timedemo
 

i ran the time demo, but where are the results of the benchmark?

I double clicked "timedemo.txt" in my Halo folder, but it just opens timedemo, it isn't a text file...

:confused:

When one says "pcs are better for gaming", this is meant to reflect the market reality that there are more games for PC; and if a game does make it to mac it's not always the best done port.

It has nothing to do with the hardware[1].


v

[1] The exception could be high-end OpenGL cards, but if you're using these for gaming you're just wasting your money.

i agree, and when rereading my post i realize i didn't mean that, but i also think the drivers aren't as good for mac b/c the companies realize the pc market is much larger

basically, we're gettingthe shaft in games

I'm one of those guys with 9800, although it's on my PM 1,24 G4 with 768 Mb RAM. However, Im running the game at 800x600 and I want it to atleast run smoothly all the time, which it doesn't. Now it runs okay in small indoor levels and pretty choppy in outdoor with fighting.

Anything else you can do to make it run better? I mean, I thought a Radeon 9800 Pro would be... well... good. Up until now I haven't noticed any difference at all when compared to my old Radeon 9000 Pro.

Maybe it's just coded poorly. i have another problem with Halo now, it seems after about 20 minutes of gameplay my ram fills up to around only 50 megs free (out of 512). i know 1 gb would be good for games with beefy requirements...but 256 is the requirement on the box (with 512 recommended)

My guess is, just another crappy port, sadly..