H2V freeze on loadup

I recently got around to installing Vista, and naturally Halo 2 was one of the first things I tried out. The installer runs fine, but actually trying to load Halo 2 brings up a black screen that can only be exited through Task Manager (Alt+F4'ing it won't work).

So I tried it again under Windows XP with the appropriate patches... This time, it'll load the "Halo 2" load image, but freezes shortly thereafter with nothing but full CPU utilization and incessantly-climbing memory usage. Neither case turned up any errors in the Windows Event Log.

The machine in question is a dual 2GHz system with 2GB of memory and Vista64/XP64 dual-booting. The real limiting factor is the graphics card, which is a Radeon X300 and non-removable. What I'd like to know is, has anybody seen/heard of this problem before, and is it caused by a bogus/subpar/etc graphics card, or is there anything I can do about it?

its prolly your gfx card, cause the minumum H2V says is an X700

Another problem might be Vista 64bit.

The thing is, I have a hard time believing that the problem is the graphics chipset. The Radeon X300 < (whatever) < X800 (I think) have the same instruction set, but just process at different speeds and bit depths and have different amounts of memory. If there are reports of people running H2V, however pitifully, on Intel GMA cards, I'd like to think I can run it on even a subpar yet relatively recent Radeon.

Unfortunately I have no way of testing it out on a 32-bit XP or Vista given my current configuration.

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Originally Posted by [FBI]Xetsuei™

Another problem might be Vista 64bit.

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well even on the box and the website it doesnt specify which version of vista you need, just vista.

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Originally Posted by Don_HH2K

The thing is, I have a hard time believing that the problem is the graphics chipset. The Radeon X300 < (whatever) < X800 (I think) have the same instruction set, but just process at different speeds and bit depths and have different amounts of memory. If there are reports of people running H2V, however pitifully, on Intel GMA cards, I'd like to think I can run it on even a subpar yet relatively recent Radeon.

Unfortunately I have no way of testing it out on a 32-bit XP or Vista given my current configuration.

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Dude, even if you do get it working it will hardly run. My laptop has a Core 2 Duo, 2 Gigs of ram, and a GeForce Go 7600. I can run h2v @ 640x480 low settings no aa, and get no more than 15 fps.

Trust me: when you finished most of Halo 1's campaign mode on a Radeon 7000 and everything set as low as possible, 15fps isn't too bad. I got used to three or four FPS firefights where even the falling snow would start to glitch out. And to date I've still never run anything with antialiasing enabled.

I guess if worse comes to worse I'll install a 32-bit OS and give that a try... If I still get the same crash, then I've got a problem.

Halo PC + Radeon 7000 + Windows (whatever you were using) does NOT = (equal)
Halo 2 Vista + Windows Vista x64 + ATI Radeon x300

I am running Windows Vista x64 and H2V works fine for me so I doubt it is a x64 problem.

Yeah, x64-related problem. I had mf.dll in &#37;SystemRoot%\System32, not %SystemRoot%\SysWOW64, where it should have been on a 64-bit system. Corrected my stupidity, and it works fine.

Syuusuke - you're right: there's about two frames per second worth of difference. The game averages 17fps under XP and a meager six under Vista. I used Fraps to benchmark both of them. This, of course, is with the LoD set to "Low", no antialiasing, and so forth.

So, my next question is... Is there any equivalent to switches like CE's -vidmode, -safemode, and so forth? I'm alright running it at the minimum 800x600, but if I can get a few more frames out of 640x480 I wouldn't mind doing so.

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Originally Posted by Don_HH2K

So, my next question is... Is there any equivalent to switches like CE's -vidmode, -safemode, and so forth? I'm alright running it at the minimum 800x600, but if I can get a few more frames out of 640x480 I wouldn't mind doing so.

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As far as I know, there are none. Microsoft decided to mandate user-frendly (read: fucking useless) interfacing.

p0lar_bear, looks like you're right. I looked in halo2.exe but from the looks of it the only switches it takes are "-windowed", "-novsync", and "-nosound". I might've missed a few, I don't know for sure.

Some searching turned up the screen dimension settings in the Registry in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Halo 2\Video Settings, but changing the appropriate two values just reset the game back to 800x600 when it loaded up. Nice work, I even had Halo 1 running as low as 320x200 (used by a number of MS-DOS games) without any trouble.

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Originally Posted by Don_HH2K

Some searching turned up the screen dimension settings in the Registry in HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Halo 2\Video Settings, but changing the appropriate two values just reset the game back to 800x600 when it loaded up. Nice work, I even had Halo 1 running as low as 320x200 (used by a number of MS-DOS games) without any trouble.

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It works somewhat, but not the way we want it to. You can run at 800x600, and set it to 1680x1050 with regedit, and it worked, but 1440x900 didn't and reset to 800x600. I think I broke something though, as the SP is unlocked now, and I didn't enter a key yet (XP install). :eyesroll:

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Originally Posted by [FBI]Xetsuei™

Dude, even if you do get it working it will hardly run. My laptop has a Core 2 Duo, 2 Gigs of ram, and a GeForce Go 7600. I can run h2v @ 640x480 low settings no aa, and get no more than 15 fps.

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lol, how does tht happen... i got exact same specs and can run @ 1280x1024 in high framerates... to be exact my laptop's a toshiba qosmio g30

I'm running a 64 bit of vista with the specs of. 2ghz amd spemphron 1gb of slow ddr400 ram and an nvidia 8500gt with 256 mem. I'm running at med detail no aa at 1024x768. I get good framerates in mp, ok ones in sp. but I can still see whats going on.

Why the hell did you get an 8500GT? What a horrible card.