- Zetren
- |
- Honorable Member
Halo PC was ported in 2003 to the PC, and had the graphics quality and potential of Crysis for its time. Now, in 2011 they are falling behind a fair bit. I make this guide to enhance the graphics and bring more life back to our beloved Halo.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge of ATI, I don't know the ATI equivalent of any of these steps but I'm sure you'll be able to work them out anyway.
I recommended you follow and apply these tweaks in the order given.
Update your graphics card drivers
Although not a tweak, it's an absolute essential. Update yours to the latest before you begin.
Make sure you're running Halo PC/CE v1.09
Version 1.09 (at the time of writing) is the latest version of Halo PC/CE. Make sure your updated as you will have to apply most of these tweaks again if you patch the game afterwards. No previous patches are required.
Halo PC v1.09 Patch
Halo CE v1.09 Patch
Make NVIDIA Control Panel recognize Halo CE (haloce.exe)
By default, Nvidia does not recognize the EXE of halo CE, this means any custom set options in the "Manage 3D" tab will not apply to Halo CE. To enable, go to the "Manage 3D" tab, Click "Program Settings" and finaly click "Add", then find your halo CE EXE
This is needed for the Anisotropic Filtering tweak.
Active cammo fix
Halo PC and CE both do not render the "glassy cammo effect" seen in Halo Xbox properly if you are using an NVIDIA card, the fix is simple and straightforward.
Active Cammo fix for NVIDIA users
When you done with this fix, delete you old halo desktop shortcuts (don't worry about any command line parameters) and create new shortcuts (with the fix enabled) by going to DX Tweaker's directory, looking for "halo.dxtp" and "haloce.dxtp", and creating shortcuts of them to the desktop.
With the new shortcuts made, rename, right click on the shortcuts and apply the halo icon from the default halo folder.
NOTE: Cammo works properly for ATI video card users.
Force Halo to run at your native resolution
If you are using DX Tweaker(cammo fix), then:
In the "Arguments" field of DX tweaker , add this:
" -vidmode xxxx,xxxx,xx".
(i.e) " -vidmode width,height,refresh rate"
If you are not using DX Tweaker(cammo fix), then:
Right click on your Halo PC/CE shortcut. In the "target" line, add this:
" -vidmode xxxx,xxxx,xx"
(i.e.) " -vidmode width,height,refresh rate"
(Remember to add spaces where necessary).
Make sure Halo is using Pixel Shader v2.1
If you are using DX Tweaker(cammo fix), then:
In the "Arguments" field of DX tweaker, add this
" -use21"
If you are not using DX TWeaker(cammo fix), then:
Right click on your Halo PC/CE shortcut. In the "target" line, add this:
" -use21"
(Remember to add spaces where necessary).
(Thanks to Dr Syx and Btcc22 for this.)
Halo with antialiasing
It's possible, but only for certain owners of ATI cards. Here's the details
Halo AA for lucky ATI users
I also heard that it is possible to enable supersampling AA for halo on any graphics card using the DX tweaker, although I'm still to find a tutorial. If anyone knows how, tell me and I'll add it as soon as possible.
Enable Anisotropic Filtering
Anisiotropic filtering basically improves the quality of further away textures, this tweak is defiantly the most beneficial out of them all, if you have a fairly good GPU (graphics card) I strongly suggest enabling it.
01.Go to
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Halo\config.txt"
or
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo\config.txt"
02.Scroll on through and change any instances of "//UseAnisotropicFilter" to "UseAnisotropicFilter"
03.Open you graphics card control panel, NVIDIA users right click on desktop and select "NVIDIA Control Panel". Select "Manage 3D settings", select Halo or haloce.exe, and force Anisotropic Filtering to x16 for best quality.
Original thread
Set a custom FOV (Field of View).
Halo's default FOV is 70 degrees, which is 20 below the average of 90 degrees. This makes everything feel zoomed and very uncomfortable, especially for people using widescreen monitors.
Halo PC v1.09 FOV Fixer
Halo CE v1.09 FOV Fixer
When you download both of these programs, empty the folder contents into your halo PC/CE directory and run. Make sure you put the FOV refresh to 1 millisecond in the "settings" tab for instant zoom with the halo PC FOV fixer.
Place a shortcut of the FOV fixers beside your halo shortcut on the desktop, or put a shortcut in the startup folder for autorun at startup.
Run them before starting the game. And expect at least one crash (Gathering exception data).
Make sure Halo is running at 60fps (frames per second)
With 30fps enabled, halo creates a kind of "artificial lag" to improve performance (ironic eh?). To enable 60, go to Halo's video settings and make sure "Framerate" is set to "VSYNC". Simple, I know, but a common mistake!
Hope you enjoy. Remember, if you know of any other graphics tweaks that are compatible with both Halo CE and PC, please post them here.
[Edited on 10.11.2011 9:39 AM PDT]