Halo

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Halo

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 97 Halo: Combat Evolved

I know I won’t get much sympathy from you readers, but I haven’t had as much time to play this game as I would like. But I’ve finally made my way to the Library and thank Bungie for giving me a shotgun to save my butt. 🙂 All I have to say is that I’m glad UT2K4 has been delayed…it gives me a chance to exhaust this game.

Unfortunately as good as this game is, it performs slowly even on some of the most capable machines. We have three different Halo tests here at AMDMB.com. The first test is in a very demanding part of the game and we turn on every detail to see how bad the hardware performs. The second test is the same demanding location but with only 1 feature enabled. The final test is in a more “typical” portion of the game to see how well hardware performs in a typical setting.

Situation 1 – Truth & Reconciliation: High Details
“As Bad as it Gets”

In the first few chapters, I found two spots that made the test system crawl: the stairwell in the Pillar of Autumn (Chapter 1), and in the storage bay on the Truth and Reconciliation (Chapter 3). In many ways, these two situations are very similar:

  1. Large quantity of enemies attacking (not just standing there)
  2. Large multiple floors viewable from the player’s location
  3. Large amount of bump-mapped surfaces

This test was done on the Truth & Reconciliation in the above mentioned storage bay. I have chosen a situation that’s tough on the video subsystem on purpose so we can see how bad the hardware performs. So rest assured that the rest of the game should be much better (as we will see in our 3rd situation test).

Game Configuration
Screen Resolution 1024×768
Difficulty Heroic
Shader Version v2.0 (forced through the -use20 switch)
VSynch OFF
Specular Effects ON
Shadows ON
Decals ON
Particles High
Textures High
Anti-aliasing Since Halo does not support anti-aliasing, we don’t have any of those tests here. Instead we can only adjust anisotropic filtering.

 

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 98

Min and Max Frame Rates
Asus Radeon 9800XT
NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra
Softmod R9500
Min
Max
Min
Max
Min
Max
1024×768

0xAF

14
61
12
53
10
28

8xAF

9
41
9
28
8
27

For the most demanding level in Halo, the Asus Radeon 9800XT performs very well! With 0x anisotropy, it manages a decent 27 FPS without much of a bad stutter. All other cards just fail to do anything useful here. 😉

Just as a personal note, anisotropic filtering in halo is not that advantageous. A lot of the environments are dark and moody (especially in the Library and on the Silent Cartographer), so sharpening dark textures just does more harm than good since you can’t see all the textures anyway because of the lighting.

Situation 2 – Truth & Reconciliation: Feature Tests

For this test, I disabled all the features and then played the same room used in the previous situation. Then one by one, I enable only one feature to see what effect it has on performance (i.e. the performance cost of having Effect X enabled). Then for the last test (Test #7), we enable everything except Specular to see how well things run without the most costly feature.

Game Configuration
Screen Resolution 1024×768
Difficulty Heroic
Shader Version v2.0 (forced through the -use20 switch)
VSynch OFF
Test 1 – Everything OFF All effects LOW or OFF if available.
Test 2 – Specular Specular ON, rest LOW or OFF if available.
Test 3 – Shadows Shadows ON, rest LOW or OFF if available.
Test 4 – Decals Decals ON, rest LOW or OFF if available.
Test 5 – Particles Particles HIGH, rest LOW or OFF if available.
Test 6 – Textures Textures HIGH, rest LOW or OFF if available.
Test 7 – No Specular All effects ON or HIGH, Specular OFF

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 99

We can see in this test the Asus Radeon 9800XT and FX5950 Ultra performing similarly. With everything turned on except specular effects, the Asus is capable of almost 40 FPS which is very impressive. It also goes to show how Specular effects can negatively impact your performance. So if you’re one of the many people complaining about the poor performance on your hardware, try disabling specular effects.

Ch. 4 The Silent Cartographer: Specular Effects Test

Seeing how Specular effects has the greatest effect on performance, we will do another test using it ON and OFF on a more “typical” situation. Here I have chosen a room in the 4th Chapter “The Silent Cartographer” just after the “Shafted” checkpoint. The room has a number of enemies (6+ Grunts, 2 Elites, and 2 Jackals) in a room with two floors. Unlike the room in the previous situation, this room is a little smaller and has less bump-mapping which is more typical of Halo single-player and multiplayer maps.

Game Configuration
Screen Resolution 1024×768
Difficulty Heroic
Shader Version v2.0 (forced through the -use20 switch)
VSynch OFF
Specular Effects

1. ON
2. OFF

Shadows ON
Decals ON
Particles High
Textures High
Anti-aliasing Disabled

Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD - Graphics Cards 100

Once again we see the Asus Radeon 9800XT and NVIDIA FX5950 Ultra do a little tango – it would seem both cards are equally matched in Halo. Having specular effects OFF pushes the game up to a very nice 60 FPS for both cards. The mid-range Radeon 9500 softmod is left in the wake, but still manages some playable FPS.

General Halo Performance Tips

Having played this game for a while and tested cards on it, I have figured out some “good” settings to try to boost performance.

  • Turn Specular effects OFF. As cool as it looks, the performance penalty is too high. Even if you disable all other features and just have Specular, it’s still too slow. So just turn that off and turn on everything else to the Max.
  • Play at 1024×768. I know we PC people are spoiled with 1600×1200 gaming, but Halo was simply not designed to play at high res.
  • Disable Anti-aliasing. Halo doesn’t support anti-aliasing, so turn it off in your driver! If you have it enabled, you will have a severe performance hit. Strangely enough, an warning dialog pops up when playing with an NVIDIA card, but none for ATI.
  • Never disable particle effects. Disabling this feature makes plasma grenades harder to see and you unable to see explosions. It’s really odd seeing a grenade explode without any fire and enemies falling to the ground for no reason. If you’re playing multiplayer, you want this on as you want to see which direction explosions are coming from.
  • Update to patch v1.2.
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