Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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Subject: Why does Halo 2 have such poor performance for such an old game?

Slaying noobs since 2007.

I have seen some people with kickass systems say that it's running like they were running F.E.A.R. with hand crank. So there is obviously something wrong with H2V. But listen to the other posts in this thread also. Just an fyi.

  • 05.24.2007 11:39 AM PDT

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should had made halo 2 for XP instead of vista now i have to spend alot of money to just to get it working have to buy windows vista plus memory ram and. go to a tech for the can install the memory because i cant find where to open my computer its a dell E510 with Windows Media Center 2005 512MB and a RADEON X600 series 256MB

  • 05.24.2007 11:41 AM PDT
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Posted by: Urafaerie
Only 20% of my ram is being used for Vista.

256 megs, rounded.


not sure how you got that to work but good job. Vista wants 1 gig standard. Usually when it sees 1 gig present it goes MINE and you are left to run whatever else with whats left. I does do some sharing of resources but not much.

I think your issue is going to come down to RAM. I let you know in a few weeks if youd like im looking to get some more Ram for mine probably within the next 2 weeks. Regardless Its no Halo 3 but i would recommend any serious gamer whos going to do vista gaming.... Invest in a motherboard that can run petium 4 based chips and near 4 gig of ram. Max out your board get 512meg video card. (make sure everything is vista compatable)

  • 05.24.2007 11:45 AM PDT
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Posted by: DarkBear 1
should had made halo 2 for XP instead of vista now i have to spend alot of money to just to get it working have to buy windows vista plus memory ram and. go to a tech for the can install the memory because i cant find where to open my computer its a dell E510 with Windows Media Center 2005 512MB and a RADEON X600 series 256MB
Here is a free punctuation mark chart. Feel free to toss some of these into your posts at any time.

  • 05.24.2007 11:45 AM PDT
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While H2V may be 2 1/2 years old for XBox its new for pc, so it has new game requirements, plus the fact that its buggy right now for some ppl. I had no problems with it but then again im running more modern hardware(im getting 50fps consistantly), just remember that its still a new game for pc even though its old on Xbox.

[Edited on 05.24.2007 12:00 PM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 11:46 AM PDT
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Posted by: DarkBear 1
should had made halo 2 for XP instead of vista now i have to spend alot of money to just to get it working have to buy windows vista plus memory ram and. go to a tech for the can install the memory because i cant find where to open my computer its a dell E510 with Windows Media Center 2005 512MB and a RADEON X600 series 256MB


dont bother going to vista on that. Youll need ram, youll need a better video card. I recommend building one up

i have an intel celeron 3.3 ghz processor and id like to up that to pentium 4 with a new motherboard (need one thats max ram isnt 2 gig)

[Edited on 05.24.2007 11:48 AM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 11:46 AM PDT
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Halo 2 pushed the XBOX to the limits. If they where to put more graphic details in Halo 2, the XBOX would not be able to cope, and LAG. Not to mention that it was set at a resolution of around 800-600. The XBOX is no more powerful than a PC system with a Ge-Force 6600. So anyone with a 6800 or upwards should be able to run the game perfectly fine at 1280-1024 at the highest detail level even with these "minor" graphics update that you won't notice much. This is not the case, you need a system with a 7800 or higher to run the game at XBOX quality like graphics, with the exception of higher resolution to get smooth gameplay. A PC with a 7800 is over 3 times more powerful than an Xbox, why do you need so much power to run the game on PC. The minimum requirements should be a Ge-Force 5200 considering how old the game is.

  • 05.24.2007 12:00 PM PDT
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Halo 2 Vista is not an old game. It is a modern game that requires modern technology to run it well. What's modern? Dual-core PCs, gobs of RAM, and stream-processing video cards.

  • 05.24.2007 12:04 PM PDT
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Posted by: McKeegan_WRX
Halo 2 Vista is not an old game. It is a modern game that requires modern technology to run it well. What's modern? Dual-core PCs, gobs of RAM, and stream-processing video cards.


You trying to tell me that the XBOX runs on a 7800, has 2 GB of RAM, Intel P4 @ 2GHz and a Vista OS?

  • 05.24.2007 12:08 PM PDT
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Um no, i think he was trying to say what i said a couple of replys ago. While Halo2 is 2 1/2 years old for XBox its new for Pc so it has new game requirements.

[Edited on 05.24.2007 12:14 PM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 12:14 PM PDT
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Posted by: Fake
You trying to tell me that the XBOX runs on a 7800, has 2 GB of RAM, Intel P4 @ 2GHz and a Vista OS?

Of course not. That's probably the second dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone ever say. But Halo 2 Vista does not run on the Xbox. It runs on, um, Windows Vista (that's probably why they call it Halo 2 Vista). I sincerly doubt that putting your Xbox Halo 2 disc in your Windows Vista machine would work either.

However, because they wanted it to run on Halo 2 Vista and be the flagship game for the platform, they had to beef it up quite a bit. Which they did. Thus, Halo 2 Vista's code and Halo 2's (Xbox) code are vastly different. They're not even comparable. Rest assured, Halo 2 Vista has been tweaked quite a bit so as to look better on modern hardware. Enjoy your updated and improved game!

  • 05.24.2007 12:14 PM PDT
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It's a rubbish port, return it and tell them it's broken.

  • 05.24.2007 12:28 PM PDT
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Posted by: CommanderZx2
It's a rubbish port

Oh? Most of the game review sites seem to be fairly impressed with it. Really, I am surprised to see so much hate.

  • 05.24.2007 12:37 PM PDT
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Posted by: McKeegan_WRX
Posted by: Fake
You trying to tell me that the XBOX runs on a 7800, has 2 GB of RAM, Intel P4 @ 2GHz and a Vista OS?

Of course not. That's probably the second dumbest thing I've ever heard anyone ever say. But Halo 2 Vista does not run on the Xbox. It runs on, um, Windows Vista (that's probably why they call it Halo 2 Vista). I sincerly doubt that putting your Xbox Halo 2 disc in your Windows Vista machine would work either.

However, because they wanted it to run on Halo 2 Vista and be the flagship game for the platform, they had to beef it up quite a bit. Which they did. Thus, Halo 2 Vista's code and Halo 2's (Xbox) code are vastly different. They're not even comparable. Rest assured, Halo 2 Vista has been tweaked quite a bit so as to look better on modern hardware. Enjoy your updated and improved game!

Halo 2 Vista, tweaked quite a lot. Sure, the graphics don't look much better than the XBOX version (I admit on 'higher" end systems with "higher" resolutions it looks a lot clearer). There are a ton of glitches and bugs for what I have been reading. Well, I am not going to say more because I have not played the game, and I have heard that it runs really well on 7600's, which i have a 7600GT, so if this is true, i guess I'm lucky.

You can't really say that, just because its on Vista, and only recently came out on PC that you need new hardware to play it well. I have gained 10-15% performance boost over XP after I installed Vista Ultimate. My games run faster in Vista than what they did in XP. So theoretically, Halo 2 Vista should run well with Vista. For what I've heard, this is not the case.

Posted by: McKeegan_WRX
Posted by: CommanderZx2
It's a rubbish port

Oh? Most of the game review sites seem to be fairly impressed with it. Really, I am surprised to see so much hate.

I wouldn't call 6.7 out of 10, or 7 out of 10 a very good review

[Edited on 05.24.2007 12:42 PM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 12:39 PM PDT
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CommanderZx2 is completely right its a crap port, and everyone should get over it.ive bought one or two crappy ports in my time, i wont be making the same mistake again. lets face it most developers are concentrating on consoles, and the pc is just another way to get your money six months after the initial release or in halo 2's case two and a half years later and they still cant get it right. money grabbing bastards.

  • 05.24.2007 12:43 PM PDT
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There's really not a lot a company can do to port a game engine from a console to a PC. With a console there's only one set of hardware to program for, usually similar to but not exactly like off the shelf PC parts. The problem is taking that engine, and then making it work on about every possible PC configuration. There's only so much a programmer can do without rewriting the whole thing.

As far as the source engine goes, it's efficient and very good at running on older systems because it was written when those cards were top of the line (or at least closer to the top.) Expecting a low end PCI card that's three generations old to work with a new game is a little naive.

The GeforceFX series of cards sucked even when they were new, and yours isn't even near the high end of that line. They had big problems with DX9 and shader model 2.0 rendering, so its not surprising that a game that requires DX9 capabilities on hardware wouldn't work well with a 5X00 series card. The only reason you were able to run HL2 at decent speeds was because Valve made the (correct) decision to force all FX series cards to render in DX8. Had you tried to run in DX9 it would have killed the performance. H2v can't jump back to DX8 because it was designed for more Vista, and DX9 is required for Vista so there's no reason to rewrite the shaders for DX8 compatibility.

In the end you're pretty much hosed unless you get a new graphics card. Honestly I wouldn't even try to run vista with that card.

[Edited on 05.24.2007 1:06 PM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 12:44 PM PDT
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Posted by: Fake
Oh? Most of the game review sites seem to be fairly impressed with it. Really, I am surprised to see so much hate.[/quote]
I wouldn't call 6.7 out of 10, or 7 out of 10 a very good review
But I would call an 8.0 and a 9.2 pretty good. Overall, 7.7 is a fairly good rating, which is what I said. Why do you insist on focusing on the negative? It baffles me.

  • 05.24.2007 12:47 PM PDT
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Posted by: McKeegan_WRX
Posted by: CommanderZx2
It's a rubbish port

Oh? Most of the game review sites seem to be fairly impressed with it. Really, I am surprised to see so much hate.

You are aware that those reviews that are scoring high are bogus right? For example gamezone gave it a 9.2 claims you can play through Halo 2 PC via co-op.

Yahoo games which gives it an 8 ends it's review with "But all the philosophizing in the world isn't going to change the fact that it's a port of a three-year-old game that we've all played to death, and try as we might, we just can't get excited about that.". So obviously they're over rating it.

Gamedaily gave it a 7, it's run by AOL so what do you expect...

Those are all the scores above the 6.x range.

[Edited on 05.24.2007 12:48 PM PDT]

  • 05.24.2007 12:47 PM PDT
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Posted by: CommanderZx2
You are aware that those reviews that are scoring high are bogus right?
Well, if the high reviews are bogus, then the low ones are too. Most likely the reviewers that gave low scores are just Halo haters for whatever reason, using your philosophy, that is.

  • 05.24.2007 12:50 PM PDT
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Posted by: McKeegan_WRX
Why do you insist on focusing on the negative? It baffles me.

I like to focus on the negative things first because you tend to get more information, from both the people who agree, and the people who object. The reason I'm saying all the negatives is because I need to get them all out of the way, so when I go to play the game, I'm left with positives. I don't like to play a game and not know anything about the negatives, because you will eventually find out about them yourself while playing, and that would ruin the game. But if you find out about the negatives before the game, than you will know what to expect, thus prepare yourself.

  • 05.24.2007 1:07 PM PDT

Let there be CHAOS!

Don't decide whether a game is good or not based on reviews. I've played plenty of games/seen plenty of movies that got bad reviews but I enjoyed.

  • 05.24.2007 1:38 PM PDT
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Posted by: Fake

I wouldn't call 6.7 out of 10, or 7 out of 10 a very good review


I would call 7 out of 10 pretty good for 2.5 year old game. Means it held up good over time.

neither here nor there though issue is Xp handled memory better than Vista. Vista wants 1 gig all to itself. Highend rigs now have more than 2 gig in them. My board only supports up to 2gig so im at a current midlevel system. (till next week i have 1.5 gig in it and the game is sluggish but halo1 works great and so does Quake 4 / doom 3) we shall see.

  • 05.24.2007 1:44 PM PDT
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Posted by: Urafaerie
My hardware is not my concern though.

I'll ask again.

Why can Riddick and Half-life 2 run fine and Halo 2 can't with my current setup.

Explain that and you will be answering my original question.


Because Nvidia's drivers are messed up.
Because they didn't bother optimizing it
Because it was shipped in an unfinished state
Because the Source engine was crapped out by god himself
Because, above all, Halo 2 is another HALF ASSED PC PORT

  • 05.24.2007 1:48 PM PDT
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Posted by: Chaosenemy
Don't decide whether a game is good or not based on reviews. I've played plenty of games/seen plenty of movies that got bad reviews but I enjoyed.


good point reviewers killed spiderman 3. why? it had a minor frame issue when going super fast swinging. it had more issues on ps3 but what game doesnt. And the biggest knock on it. It had no new gameplay... ie it was Spiderman 2 with better graphics. Does that warrant a lower game score. Yes and No. It was given low by reviewers because they wanted more from the game, i get that. But i for one found it to be an 8.5 experiance. Mainly because i wanted Spiderman 2 with next gen Visuals. (i got very close to that with minor frame hicups and i thought the graphics could be a bit better)

Reviewers dont always call it right. Halo 2 pc is 2.5 years old. if it got 6 or higher average it held up pretty well. Its dated content. doesnt matter if it got a bit better graphics. Dated content is dated but the question is.... Did you want to play halo 2 on your pc? If yes then its a solid experiacne of something youve done before elsewhere.

  • 05.24.2007 1:54 PM PDT
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I, Kinda don't get it, Half Life 2 has way better graphics then Halo 2, yet My regular Compaq Processor can play Half life 2, but not Halo 2, i'm definatley not gonna buy h2v, if i wanted to, I would of kept my Xbox :P

  • 05.24.2007 3:56 PM PDT

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