Forums | MacLife

Q · 2003-12-29 2:22 pm

I'm trying my damnest to play Halo, and it just looks god-awful on the machine I'm using. Here are my specs:

Dual 1.42 Ghz G4
1024 megs of RAM
L2 cache 256K (times 2)
L2 cache 2 megs (times 2)
OS X version 10.2.8

Graphics card:
card type: ATY, DD Parent
card name: ATY. Phoenix Parent
card model: ATY, RV250
card (video) memory: 64 megs

Does any of this sound horrible to anyone? Because, when I play something is seriously wrong. This is a G4 machine in a university Mac lab, with a T1 connection. The connection, obviously, is perfect, but the graphics are crap. I'm not familiar with the graphics card used in this machine which is the ATY, is that some sort of ATI chip? Or could this be some cheap clone of some type? And I have ALL the settings to bear ass minimum, and it still runs choppy. Also, I have it installed on the desktop, does this have any effect on how well a game will operate? I play Warcraft 3 off of the desktop, on these machines and it runs well. I can't install it to the system, because it's a university lab, and I don't have an admin password, so installs on the system are out of the question. (Unless you know a way around that)

I've have yet to have a great Halo online experience yet.
X BOX version: No Mac versions of X BOX Connect, or Gamespy Tunnel
PC version: (My work computer) Graphics are ass (but viewable), and I'm behind a firewall which blocks all chat/info. (Don't ask me why, this has stumped absolutley everyone, on every single Halo Forum.
Mac version: Graphics are ass, but the machine seems more than capable of handling it.

Yes, I've bought every single medium Halo has been released on and I'm about to give up and just wait for Halo 2.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks, and sorry for the ranting...

Earendil the Mariner · 2003-12-29 2:42 pm

I believe that video card is an ATi Radeon 9000 Pro 64 MB, in which case the game looking like ass is understandable:
Mac Halo's shader implementation is not so great compared to PC Halo.
Only Radeon 9600 and 9800 cards can run the full quality pixel and vertex shaders (pixel shaders are what make the game look good; vertex shaders make it run faster).
The lowly 9000, however, can run vertex shaders; try turning them on and see if it runs any smoother.
Upgrading to 10.3.2 would also boost performance a bit.

And yes, there is a Mac OS X X-Box tunneling app called Aquaduct.

tracks182 · 2003-12-29 3:25 pm

i agree with ear, if your card supports vertex shaders, use 'em. my machine is a 733 g4 with 1.25 gb ram and a 128 mb geforce 4 ti, and it looks pretty good with vertex shaders. it allows me to turn a lot of the other details up while still getting good framerates (i'm in the high 20's average)

ColPanic · 2003-12-29 4:55 pm

It runs pretty good on my Dual 867 with 768 MB DDR RAM and a GeForce4 Ti. I run vertex shaders and I messed wih some settings to get it not laggy, there is one setting that said something about 30 FPS that was making it really laggy, when I changed it to something or other about not limiting frames or something it ran a heck of a lot better. shrug

Odin · 2003-12-29 5:41 pm

Halo just plain doesn't look that good.. Especially for such a new game. This is just my opinion, of course. smile The gameplay and story were good enough to keep me playing through the single player, but the engine itself plays about as well as the Doom3 Alpha did, and looks far worse. big_smile Ok.. its a little faster. But not a lot.

Q · 2003-12-29 7:24 pm

Ok thanks, I'll give the vertex shaders a try.

Aquaduct, I've heard of it, downloaded it, but had no luck in getting it to work. Is it any good?

Earendil the Mariner · 2003-12-29 7:29 pm

Dunno, I never got a chance to try it myself.

ColPanic · 2003-12-29 9:21 pm

Halo just plain doesn't look that good.. Especially for such a new game. This is just my opinion, of course. The gameplay and story were good enough to keep me playing through the single player, but the engine itself plays about as well as the Doom3 Alpha did, and looks far worse. Ok.. its a little faster. But not a lot.

Are you crazy? Have you played it on the Xbox or are you talking about how it looks on your computer? Because with all the graphics at their best, it looks better then anything else out there to this date.

tracks182 · 2003-12-29 10:14 pm

It runs pretty good on my Dual 867 with 768 MB DDR RAM and a GeForce4 Ti. I run vertex shaders and I messed wih some settings to get it not laggy, there is one setting that said something about 30 FPS that was making it really laggy, when I changed it to something or other about not limiting frames or something it ran a heck of a lot better.

y'know, that's something i didn't ever test... you're referring to the framerate setting, either 30 fps, vsync or no vsync. it probably runs better on yours than mine, since you've got 2 processors on my one, and 133 mhz.

Bat · 2003-12-30 1:54 am

Halo just plain doesn't look that good.. Especially for such a new game. This is just my opinion, of course. The gameplay and story were good enough to keep me playing through the single player, but the engine itself plays about as well as the Doom3 Alpha did, and looks far worse. Ok.. its a little faster. But not a lot.

Odin, you need a new vidcard. The Ti4600 won't deliver on Halo, tho the latest drivers help. PS 1.4, Xbox graphics are as good as the GF4 gets even under Win, and running with Specular Lighting off ensures you're not even getting that. Have you perused my screen galleries?

Bat · 2003-12-30 1:57 am

Halo just plain doesn't look that good.. Especially for such a new game. This is just my opinion, of course. The gameplay and story were good enough to keep me playing through the single player, but the engine itself plays about as well as the Doom3 Alpha did, and looks far worse. Ok.. its a little faster. But not a lot.
Are you crazy? Have you played it on the Xbox or are you talking about how it looks on your computer? Because with all the graphics at their best, it looks better then anything else out there to this date.

Actually it's a somewhat mixed bag and Halo does show its age in some respects, but the high-level shaders are quite nice... pity that using Render Targets for them disables FSAA under current DirectX, tho.

Odin · 2003-12-30 8:27 am

I've seen screenies from better cards, I'm just not that impressed.

Forums | MacLife

#1 2003-12-29 2:22 pm

What am I doing wrong???

#2 2003-12-29 2:42 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#3 2003-12-29 3:25 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#4 2003-12-29 4:55 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#5 2003-12-29 5:41 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#6 2003-12-29 7:24 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#7 2003-12-29 7:29 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#8 2003-12-29 9:21 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#9 2003-12-29 10:14 pm

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#10 2003-12-30 1:54 am

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#11 2003-12-30 1:57 am

Re: What am I doing wrong???

#12 2003-12-30 8:27 am

Re: What am I doing wrong???

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