Halo 1 PC poor performance

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OK, I know it's not the best FPS but I like to play the game online with a couple friends.

Game played fine @ 1280 x 1024 on my 2.53 GHz Pentium 4 and 5900 Ultra and just fine on my e6600 and 8600GT @ 1600 x 1200. In DX7 mode it runs fine on my PIII 933 w/MX440 PCI in 800 x 600.

I recently got a laptop about a month ago with a 1.4 GHz 5270 C2D and 8400M GS. Not the best setup, but its perfectly sufficient for the word processing, 480p and 720P clips I watch. So I thought Halo PC would run fine given the fact my Pentium 3 runs it alright. Not so much. Even in DX7 mode, any action on the screen lowers fps to like 10-15 where the game isn't fun or playable. I've seen FPS as low as 3, high as 60 (only when looking at the ground).

Weird thing is that lowering the resolution doesn't really help too much. So I thought, alright maybe it's my CPU that's holding me back. Again no. My CPU was still only using 20-30% max.

Any idea on how I can get 50+ FPS consistently? Could this be a GPU driver issue?
1.4 GHz C2D
1GB DDR2 RAM (512 x2)
XP SP2/Vista Business 32-bit Dual Boot
160GB HDD (5400 RPM - could that be an issue?)
8400m GS
LCD -> 1280 x 800 so not high rez by any means.
 
that seems perfectly normal to me. there are very few video cards in laptops that will run 3d games well.
 
it was just an extremely bad console port.

That contributes nothing, not to mention he already stated it runs fine on an extremely old system

OP: My guess would definitely be that the 8400 card in that laptop which if I recall has acceleration built in for movie decoding, is absolutely not up to snuff for DX9 games. (it was a DX9 game, right?)

More than likely, the video card doesn't have the mustard to run the game well.

or, try to find new drivers for it, might help.
 
Make sure you set the frame rate limiter to something other than 30 fps. The game plays horrible on that setting.
 
Are you running it in Vista or in XP? The card should be able to handle it fine, I was able to play Halo PC on my 9600 vanilla back in the day with smooth framerates at 1024x768 maxed out, and the 8400GS is a decent amount faster. If you are running it in Vista, try it with compatibility mode. The game is coded extremely poorly though, so if you're having trouble in XP, the game itself is probably the reason.
 
it might be that frame limiter that caps frames at 30 like mentioned above
 
theres def something wrong, i was able to play it on my old dell laptop with an Intel GMA 855.... thats even worse than the 950's.... so yea....
 
Thanks for the loads of replies everyone! :)

(and the rickroll I suppose...OT: is 4chan still messed up?)

Yeah, Halo 1 is DX9 but even in DX7 mode I struggled to get above 20 fps in multiplayer games. It's so choppy it's unplayable. Oddly enough, Vista runs is smoother than XP.

Currently everything is on low at 800 x 600. Vsync on. Still worthless.

I'd really like some solutions if possible (at least dx8 mode would help as dx7 is ugly) but at least I have my 8600GT in my desktop. Although I am going to a dorm in college in 3 months so I'm considering a new psu and gpu for my Pentium 4.

Sigh...8400M GS you failed me.

EDIT: I feel kinda stupid for getting a laptop with a dedicated GPU if it can't even play a 2003-ish game at low rez.
 
Turn off V-sync. That should help quite a bit.

Thanks for the loads of replies everyone! :)

(and the rickroll I suppose...OT: is 4chan still messed up?)

Yeah, Halo 1 is DX9 but even in DX7 mode I struggled to get above 20 fps in multiplayer games. It's so choppy it's unplayable. Oddly enough, Vista runs is smoother than XP.

Currently everything is on low at 800 x 600. Vsync on. Still worthless.

I'd really like some solutions if possible (at least dx8 mode would help as dx7 is ugly) but at least I have my 8600GT in my desktop. Although I am going to a dorm in college in 3 months so I'm considering a new psu and gpu for my Pentium 4.

Sigh...8400M GS you failed me.

EDIT: I feel kinda stupid for getting a laptop with a dedicated GPU if it can't even play a 2003-ish game at low rez.
 
Actually, it explains a lot. This game ran like crap on my 6800GT.

then you probably had something goofy going on ..because it's one of the more popular games in the computer lab I setup for the kids at a school for troubled teens that I work at .. everything from XP 1900+'s and up to P4's 2.8ghz and under and one Athlon64 FX-55 running cards ranging from Radeon 8500LE's/9600's/Ti series/5900 to a 6600LE .. standard setting is 1024x768 (using 15 to 17" CRT and LCD screens) ..runs good on all of them

a 6800GT should melt thru it like butter I would think at much higher resolutions to boot.. :confused:



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I don't think it's the GPU. The 8400M GT supposedly gets about 3000 in 3DMark 05. That's about the same as my old 6600GT which ran Halo great.
 
-useff after the target (right click > properties then paste -useff after the target)

Also now there's something weird. The FPS in campaign goes straight from 20 fps to 60 fps to 20 etc. Like its either 60 or 20 constant. When it changes fps the line is vertical! Not gradual at all.

I opened up dxdiag and you know what? I have 368mb VRAM. I'm only supposed to have 128. So 240mb is just via RAM. I got a dedicated hcip for a reason, so how do I disable the extra VRAM?
 
so how do I disable the extra VRAM?

Probably through the BIOS. If that doesn't do it, the issue is probably caused by drivers. There's no technical reason why the card wouldn't be able to handle the game maxed out, so it must be a software issue.
 
Fair to note that an early P4 didn't perform as well as a P3 until they broke about 2.0ghz unless the programs code was specifically optimized for the P4, so I would bet it is a processor speed issue.
 
My Pentium 4 is @2.53 GHzand runs the game fine. It's my Core 2 Duo laptop that's the problem.

I can't disable VRAM caching (shared vram memory) in the BIOS and can't find it in the drivers. Plus in xp I have 256mb total and in vista I have 368. Odd isn't it? I deleted my XP Partition today though, 'cuz its useless.

Still I want to get this game to work! My 8400m gs can handle it apparently, and my cpu is better than my Pentium 4. Should I consider getting more RAM?
 
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