DescentBB

To any D3 pilots that play Halo, I need some help.

I am only getting a range of 17-30something FPS in Halo. My average is about 28 FPS. (Control F12 tells u ur FPS's) I just recently opened up the AGP appeture(sp?) in my BIOS/CMOS to match the amount of video ram on my vid card. It was set at a lower amount, for some reason.Default maybe? Unfortunately nothing changed. The good news is that D3 FPS increased from a max at 100 something to 400 something, so I know I did something right.

I am a Mac Person, a noob concerning PC's and know very little about the "Behind the Scenes" PC/Windows technobable. It has been suggested to me that I should update my mobo's BIOS, and/or the VIA built into Windows. However, I don't know nor feel comfortable (even w/a printed walkthough in hand) how to do this.
Basic Hardware info can be provided if I know or can find the answer.

Help please.
Fus

Hardware Spec FIRST.

Descent3 is a 5 year old game. Framerates of 400+ on a modern computer are pretty easy to achieve. Your video card may just not be up to Halo at the detail levels you have set. Try lowering quality settings and resolution.

Make sure Halo is fully patched up too. I remember something about them improving the framerates, because they were absolutely terrible when I tried the demo...

Halo's port to the PC was very poorly done on the graphics side, it was obvious when Nvidia updated their drivers and got a 50% performance boost in Halo with identical image quality.

WarAdvocat wrote:Hardware Spec FIRST.

WA:
mobo asus a7n8x-e deluxe nforce400 ultra

cpu amd xp 3000+ barton 333fsb

memory ocz dc ddr pc-3200 512 mb (1 stick)

vid card BFG Asylum 256MB OC (overclocked) Video Card with nVidia's GeForce FX 5700le Chip (Came OC'ed from manufacturer)

I have the 1.06 Halo patch and Nvidia's latest Drivers.

Fus

No punisher, not entirely. The Xbox is a P.O.S. system by PC standards today. The only thing that saves it is that it has no OS overhead. It's about tweeking. I run an ATI 8500 64 meg card (nearly 3 years old) and I get great frames in Halo

Fusion is using a new model mobo. the Bios most definately needs updating as does his VIA drives. And his system has mine beat hands down.

Also fusion. At your Halo Icon, use these line commands: "D:\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" -use11 -nojoystick -screenshot -novideo

Ignore the game file location; i left that so you could see how to insert them.

Right click on the icon and click properties. and at the end of the Target Line.

-use11 is a pixel shader ver 1.1. I believe the most current version is 3.0 something. I think Halo defaults at 2.1 Unless you have a totally ripped system, this is enough create a significant slow-down. Halo makes use of a lot of Dx9 gimicks and is loaded with bumpmapping and relfections.

Klaymation started using the "-use11" command and got a 25% increase. Of course, this means you will have to play the game by using the icon rather than the autostart when you insert the disk.

And oh, Halo updates automatically when you join the server list; so he's all updated there.

i wouldn't use -use11 on that system, you just dont need to. you wont see any performance drop between shaders on a system that fast.

this may be insulting, but in halo's options under video settings it has a framerate option. halo default is set to 30 fps. you should change that to no vsync if it isnt already. that very well may be your problem.

halo is kind of a hog. when halo custom edition came out alot of peoples framerates jumped because of the fast shaders included in the release. the regular pc version of halo does not have these though, and my system gets about 250 fps in it.

Abit IS7
512 x 2 of corsair extreme
9800 pro
2.4c@2.7ghz

so its probably an option in your video settings. either in halo or in windows.

Duper wrote: Also fusion. At your Halo Icon, use these line commands: "D:\Microsoft Games\Halo\halo.exe" -use11 -nojoystick -screenshot -novideo

Duper,
Concening the -nojoystick option....
Sorry no can do. Joy is the only way I can have any control of my controls. I just don't have the fine control of my mouse to do it in.

Fus

Edited. Go flame somewhere else

-Stress

Ok, here's the deal. I moderate here in great moderation. You guys get away with tons of crap because I let you.

This post is asking for help and several of you turn it into a debate with one another not addressing the issues Fusion has. Help the man or STFU and find something in the cafe' or NHB to do.

Thanks

Good call Stress.

fyi, Fusion has had some sucess in improving his frames.

Dude! Post what you did.

Duper wrote:Good call Stress.

Thx Stress for helping me get this back on topic.

Duper wrote:fyi, Fusion has had some sucess in improving his frames.

Dude! Post what you did.

Ok, here's what I did. Thx to [NuB2]corran, I was able to find a couple of websites that had the command strings that can be placed in the shortcut's target string. Here is one of them: http://www.hackhalo.com/tutorials.php?tid=3. After finding Halo's timetest string, I inserted it into my shortcut and when it was finished, it spat out the results in a txt file. After reading the results, I had a baseline of current settings.
I inserted the 1.1 shader command next and found that my results had increased slightly. So I reduced the screen res to 800x600,(was 1024x768) and ran the test again. The results in the txt file said that I had made a major increase in my FPS's.
So now I am averaging 50 FPS in MP.

kurupt wrote:this may be insulting, but in halo's options under video settings it has a framerate option. halo default is set to 30 fps. you should change that to no vsync if it isnt already. that very well may be your problem.

I appreciate your suggestion Kurupt, however the option you mention is already set to no v-sync.

Duper, If you are willing, Since you are the closest D3 pilot here in my neck of the woods, perhaps you and I can get together and do those updates that you recomended. (That and it was your idea in the first place.) I certainly would be more comfortable if A: The person walking me thru it was here in person instead of on TS or some other form of "Remote Control" instructions/walkthru,
and B: that person knew what he was doing and I could trust him w/Fusion's Game Box.

Fus

Most certainly, updating the BIOS and the VIA 4in1 drivers WOULD BE A COMPLETE AND UTTER WASTE OF YOUR TIME. Why suggest something which will give him NOTHING and take a shizload of time and hassle to do? BIOS updates are ONLY for fixing issues with motherboard support for certain hardware and/or configurations. IF IT WORKS - DON'T MESS WITH IT! The VIA drivers should NOT be updated unless a component of your system IS NOT WORKING.

AGP aperture size only affects how much system RAM is available to the Graphics card if the texture memory on the card fills up. If the system must make trips across the AGP bus to get textures from main memory, then the entire game will slow to a crawl, because, well, the AGP system sucks donkey nuts.

Things to check in the BIOS which actually CAN make a difference to performance are:

AGP Multiplier: Should be set to the same as your card's specification. Note: The difference between 4X and 8X is almost unmeasurable.

RAM timings: Often the SPD settings are very conservative, lowering the timings can result in faster performance - and system instability if the RAM can't handle the timings you select. Study this subject intensely before venturing into RAS/CAS delays!

AGP Fastwrites: if your card supports this, enable it. (The machine won't boot if the card doesn't support it)

It's worthwhile exploring your system BIOS options, and then investigating anything you don't understand by using GOOGLE for definitions.

Mobius, close your mouth dude. .. you have stuff falling out of it again....





I find your statement untrue. On my last Asus board the first 4 or 5 Bios updates gave real frame increases. Apparantly, something to do with the piplines was made better because one update DOUBLED my frame rate. Some VIA 4in1 updates deal specifically WITH AGP handling. Sit down dude.

If you are still talking about a A7N8X board tho, why even mention the VIA 4in1 drivers? The A7N8X is a Nvidia Nforce2 chipset, the VIA drivers are only for boards using VIA chipsets, if you want to update the system drivers on a NF2, get the Nvidia unified driver.

Unless I missed someone mentioning a VIA board?

Krom wrote:If you are still talking about a A7N8X board tho, why even mention the VIA 4in1 drivers? The A7N8X is a Nvidia Nforce2 chipset, the VIA drivers are only for boards using VIA chipsets, if you want to update the system drivers on a NF2, get the Nvidia unified driver.

Krom is correct, I do have a A7N8X-E Mobo.

Fus

ah.. ok. I hadn't even looked that far to see if it had a VIA chipset in it.

So my bad there.

Krom wrote:if you want to update the system drivers on a NF2, get the Nvidia unified driver.

Ok, 2 questions on the driver subject.

1. How Do I find out what ver I have now?
and
2. Would this Nvidia and this BIOS be what I am looking for?

Fus

Both of those are correct

Though if u used the CD that came with ur MB u probably already have the nf5.10 drivers installed, since nvidia hasn't updated them in forever. Unless Asus modified the ones that came on the cd.

The only way I see that making a difference is if u have never installed any chipset drivers and are just using the ones windows installed.

there are something like 5 or 6 Bios updates for Fusion's MB. I was looking at it the other day when were on TS.
Appearantly they only used one chip batch for the Bios unlike some others where you need a serial number or id number off the chip itself.

Alright I am totally confused.

Nvidia says their Driver ver is 5.10, but at the bottom of the screen it says 4.4x. Where the dickens do I find the info I want? How can I find out the info if the #'s don't match?

This is all totally over my head. None of this makes any sense at all. Just PC Technobabble, or as they say "It's all Greek to me".

Fus

The version numbers at the bottom are for each part of the driver,, audio, usb ect...

the driver in the link u post is the one u want, 5.10
Doesnt matter what type of board u have,, if u have any nForce chipset (besides nforce4) then those are the drivers u use