I have a friend who has a PC with 3.6GHz P4, 1024 mb PC3200 memory and Nvidia 5500 gfx. When playing Halo even at the lowest res with the settings on high the performance is utter crap. With all the setting at low, the performance is almost OK. Is this normal ? Or is there something else I am missing ? I didnt build the system for him, and I dont game either, so I dont know the performance with different graphics cards .... So it would be great if someone could help me out. He would like to game with all settings at high at the native res of 1280x1024 on his LG1720B monitor.
His specs are higher than mine, and I can play Halo on the highest settings, make sure that the game is up-to-date with the patches. If you are playing it online, playing on the highest settings creates lag, even on broadband, I have to reduce my settings to medium whilst online. Also update graphics drivers etc. Spyware/virues not slowing anything down?
No online gaming. I'll get the latest patches ... but I dont think they will make a difference really. But what res are you gaming at ? No Spyware or anything. The WinXP install is literally 24 hours old and I have run Adaware scans. There is folding@home running in the background, but in my experience, it has no effect on games etc.
pop a command line argument onto the shortcut try -use14 or -use11, if youre still not happy, -useff drops it down to DX7
that WILL and does have an effect on performace if you try and game with it running especially with such a cruddy gcard
No it won't because folding will cease/reduce work if demand for the CPU from other applications increases. Look at my specs below, I also have a 'cruddy' FX5200 -it playes doom on high quality on some levels... I play Halo on full at the screens native resolution of 1280x1024. AND I run Folding@Home!
^^^ same, i actually saw a fps increase of 20 on a mx440 running it in the background. mayb heat is an issue, all the 3.6ghz iv seen seem to expel alot of heat
I think Willy wonka is just lucky, or we have different opinions on what is acceptable. Personally unless i am getting more than 40 fps solid then the game is unacceptable, and i know that halo doesn't like to give high fps to any computer, never mind a mid to low range graphics card. I'm affraid you will struggle to get good detail levels with that card that are still playable.
I have all the settings on high (except for 2 that are disabled for some reason) and a res of 1024x768 running perfectly smoothly ... The specs are Asus PC-DL Dual Xeon 2.4 @ 2.8 1.5 GB PC3200 ATI Radeon 7500 USB CD-RW Drive 180GB WD HDD Logitech Desktop MX Now why is that ? The 7500 must be even worse than the GeForce 5500 right ? Yet the gaming is fluid and responsive. The other system is P4 3.6 GHz Asrock P4 Combo mobo 1GB PC3200 Corsair 200GB HDD Geforce 5500 NEC 3500 DVD-RW Drive USB Wireless Logitech Combo This has me stumped as the PCDL system is running on older drivers, WinXP SP1 (no other updates), worse card, worse optical drive, slower CPU (considering Halo will only use one cpu) and still performs a hell of a lot better ?
the problem is (i believe) the 7500 is a DX7 card, that means its not trying to do anything fancy-schmancy, same as if you ran halo with the -useff argument. Halo detects this and dumbs-down the game somewhat, leaving out all the DX8 and DX9 effects now the 5500 is a DX9 card, so while it may perform better than the 7500 in the same circumstances with the same load, halo is giving it a buttload more to do than in the case of the 7500 because it is capable (technically) of doing things like mirrored-bumped surfaces and all that jazz
