Forums | MacLife
You are not logged in.
#1 2006-12-20 10:42 pm
Wierd light and texture problems
I recently picked Halo, kind of surprised to see it was a universal binary version (2.0). Anyway, I am running it on my G4 mac mini (512 MB, ATI 9200). The pre-UB demo worked fine, but this version has improper lighting--the closer you get to stuff, the darker it gets, like you walk in a dark cloud. Also, with vertex shaders on, lots of textures render as completely black--the whole opening scene bridge and backgrounds and half the characters. Even with no shaders on, the characters show up, but the bridge is entirely black.
I don't suppose I can downgrade to the non-UB version?
Ho Eyo He Hum
Offline
#2 2006-12-21 3:41 am
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
Good question. MacSoft's been shipping it as a UB for some time, and the IMG review of it noted problems.
I can't speak from experience with the UB, but Mac Halo has never really equaled Halo PC or the XBox original, esp. for graphics. The best way to run Halo on new Macs seems to be to run HaloPC via Bootcamp- of course, that won't help you.
Further fixes can be hoped for. The last 3 at Westlake, original porters, went to MacSoft- among them Ken Cobb, arguably their best OpenGL guy and someone who worked on this project.
Apple's OGL implementation still seems lacking for games. Any clever thoughts here about 'retrograding'?
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
#3 2007-02-06 12:01 pm
- IcarusFountain
- Damned Portals!
- Royal Wombat
- From: Stuck in 1 Infinite Loop
- Registered: 2003-12-27
- Posts: 6253
- Website
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
I can look into it. I had some random person hit the website the other day asking about somethign similar to this (was it you, Metacell?), and I've been digging for a good, resolute answer since then. I'll post here when I find anything definite.
Offline
#4 2007-02-28 3:26 am
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
Wow, I missed this post. No it wasn't me. And thanks! It's very frustrating to almost be able to play a game, but not be able to actually see where the walls and floor are.
Ho Eyo He Hum
Offline
#5 2007-04-18 10:16 am
- shinehislight
- Member
- Registered: 2007-04-18
- Posts: 1
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
yeah i have the same problem, it's really problamatic in certain areas, because everything becomes a solid color and you miss things like trenches and stuff, it's very frustrating, if we could get a patch or fix for this it would be wonderful!
Offline
#6 2007-04-18 5:48 pm
- NightCougar_37
- For Gallia!!
- From: The back of my Twilight Drake
- Registered: 2001-07-22
- Posts: 9142
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
Well first big problem is that your running that on a R9200 32MB. Unless you have a GF3/4Ti or better, you won't see accurate shaders or effects. The DX8 level Radeon cards never could display all the effects properly. It was a driver issue I think. Those would be the R8500/9000/9200. The 9500s and up would fix this.
Oh there was also problems with the UB version of Halo on PPC Macs. I thought they were mostly performance related tho. Might want to call or write Macsoft and see if you can get an older version. When I needed to get another Halo CD after my original cracked, they sent one right now, np.
Last edited by NightCougar_37 (2007-04-18 5:51 pm)
Offline
#7 2007-04-19 2:28 am
- Bat
- Flawless Cowboy
- Royal Wombat
- From: Björk, Björk
- Registered: 2001-05-14
- Posts: 28541
Re: Wierd light and texture problems
IIRC all copies shipped since early '06 have been the UB version.
If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion - George Bernard Shaw
"Fire up a colortini, sit back, relax, and watch the pictures, now, as they fly through the air."
Offline
