Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: Will my graphics card need to support Hardware T+L? (H2V)
  • Subject: Will my graphics card need to support Hardware T+L? (H2V)
Subject: Will my graphics card need to support Hardware T+L? (H2V)
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Well, here's the deal. I recently purchased a new notebook with an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 945. It's a fairly nice card, Pixel Shader 2, Vertex Shader 3, 224Mb of memory (though it is from my system RAM, but that's not much of a problem), but it has one serious flaw. It lacks Hardware Transform and Lighting. I've already seen the effects of this in my own programming, and I can say from experience, getting around it is a major pain in the heiny. However, it still plays Halo PC and CE quite nicely, rendering all the game's effects. My question is simple, will Halo 2 Vista run on my GMA 945 even with its lack of hardware T+L?

[Edited on 04.10.2007 12:26 PM PDT]

  • 04.10.2007 12:26 PM PDT
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as long as the card is supported by vista, yes. but it will probably look at halo 2 and give up in means of performance =\ especially if its using system ram.
system ram = high vram latency.

do you have any more specs about it?

if you read info about vista they have a new way of video called aero and one of its new fetures is if your video card is missing something aero will pick it back up in software. obviously a good idea but it is much slower then normally running it in hardware.



[Edited on 04.10.2007 1:25 PM PDT]

  • 04.10.2007 1:13 PM PDT
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The machine itself runs beautifully on Vista:
1gb of RAM (hopefully going to upgrade that to the full 4gb possible, but $500 for memory is quite expensive, considering the machine cost only $700)
1.73ghz Dual Core processor
120gb HD
DVD RW drive
On the side of Vista, I can get all of Aero's effects, the card was actually designed for them.
I'm not sure if it would help anyone, but the card runs Halo full specs at around 15-20 fps, depending on what I'm looking at, however, extremely large textures give me some problems (ie, a 512x512 base texture with a 120 repeat on a detail map appears heavily pixelated, I'd take some pics, but I fear for your bowels)
On the side of using the system's memory, we are talking about notebook here. Performance, heck, even quality, are not my goal, but rather just the ability to play. I had no troubles running a pixel-shader-less 32mb card on Halo PC/CE as it wasn't my goal to have an amazing experience, by game play or graphics. I'm a mapper, plain and simple.

If all else fails, I do plan on purchasing more memory for my desktop, which has an ATI Radeon x800 that has always served me well.

[Edited on 04.10.2007 1:24 PM PDT]

  • 04.10.2007 1:24 PM PDT
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15 frames is pretty low considering that the human eye sees 6-15 frames per second

my 7600gt plays haloce full settings without flinching not bad for a 130$ card


well there are obvious improvements on gfx in h2v so comparing h2v to hce is like comparing jets to gliders. in my opinion the laptop is going to have serious issues. id wouldnt even try it on it. just stick to the desktop for gaming. laptops aren't designed for gaming anyhow.

http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=10491683 --- look at this for help

[Edited on 04.10.2007 1:37 PM PDT]

  • 04.10.2007 1:29 PM PDT
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Indeed it is fairly slow, but it's reasonable. It's far better than the 7fps I got without anything turned on with my old Intel Extreme Graphics card.
Once again, not in it as a gamer, never have been. Didn't even buy this notebook for gaming, but I did get it for game making.
If all else fails, I'll get my desktop Vista'd and stick to my x800 (200fps). It would just be nice to run it on my notebook.
Anyway, I have some other bugs to work out related to my notebook... Off to the XNA forum!

  • 04.10.2007 1:46 PM PDT
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good luck =)

  • 04.10.2007 1:48 PM PDT
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If T&L is lacking, you're out of luck completely; sorry. Your only remaining option is to turn on RGB Emulation if your CPU is EXTREMELY good (I'm talking Core 2 E6200 or better)

However, If your card can run HALO, this is not the case. But doing some Online research, I find that your card is well under the minimal specs. So if you are able to run it, it will be on the lowest settings.

[Edited on 04.11.2007 3:28 PM PDT]

  • 04.11.2007 3:26 PM PDT