Halo's really some pain

Barose · #1 December 13th, 2005, 09:24 AM

Hello guys. I'm experiencing some graphic and gameplay trouble with that pain in the ass Halo. First of all i can't see the characters properly (master chief is colored differently than the box and the marines' faces are a mess), then when i'm fighting in big areas the game gets REALLY slow. The following are my eMac specs

Processor: 1 GHz PowerPC G4
Memory: 512 MB SDRAM
Graphics: ATY,RV200
VRAM: 32 MB
Producer: ATI
Resolution: 1024x768 Refresh:89Hz

As you can see the minimum requirements are matched and slightly surpassed, considering that Halo is a 2003 game. I think i've read somewhere on the Bungie FAQ that i need to update my graphic driver, but the update software included in the CD (ATI stuff) doesn't work: it says no ATI card is present on my Mac. WTF? Isn't ATY RV200 another name for the Radeon 7500??? Anyone can help me? I understand that you guys all have uber powerful G5 computers, but i'd like at least some advice to run Halo better. I've tried the lowest settings possible, like switching to 640x480 and eliminating particles, details, decals etc., but it's running even slower than the previous 1024x768. Halo's a great game, but i can't really say i've enjoyed it, with bad graphics and slow gameplay. I'm not really good when it comes to graphic on Apple computers...

EDIT: i think i've posted this help request on the support application "help" aswell, but i'm not sure what i did exactly, i'm a newbie to this site...sorry if i double posted anyway.

Damrod · #2 December 13th, 2005, 10:34 AM

I can not really believe that at 640x480 the game is running slower than on 1024x768...

The newest driver is always included in the most recent OS X upgrades. As Halo is from 2003, the drivers on there are as well. They would not help anyways. Update to the newest version of OS X if you have not already.

I dare to say your graphics card is the bottle neck. The 7500 is not the strongest ATI card out there as far as I know. I have problems running it with my 64MB Radeon 9000 at resolutions higher than 800x600.

There was a thread on how to configure Halo to get a higher frame rate. Search here in the games forum for it, it's been a while since it was active

ra3ndy · #3 December 13th, 2005, 10:45 AM

I think you're right. The aty,rv200 is more commonly called by it's commercial name, the Radeon 7500. I found this link to ATI's driver updates for Mac OS. You should be able to find out if your drivers are up to date at least.

Another thing to keep in mind is that OS X likes to use a lot of RAM. 512mb might NOT be enough...especially if you're running Tiger. Luckily, RAM for your machine is very cheap right now. Give it a shot, and good luck!

Barose · #4 December 13th, 2005, 12:29 PM

I've just browsed the old threads and found some...interesting stuff. Like that when i updated Halo to syncronize it with the PC users i also added more graphic particles to calculate and some other issues...well, something like that. This explains well how Halo, that used to run perfectly when i first purchased it, now is terribly slow. And almost every Halo player has at least a Radeon 9000 and more than 500 mb of RAM.
Anyway, i've just updated my drivers, and still Halo doesn't run at a sufficient speed to be playable at all. I'm seriously considering to burn this stupid cd. DAMN BUNGIE!!!