From good to bad. Halo 2 Performance :(

3 days ago I finished building myself a new computer. It played all my games incredibly, including Halo 2. At max settings, 1024x768 resolution I got an average 120-130 fps and lowest I ever saw was about 70.

New computer:

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Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
Antec Solo chassis and Antec Basiq 500w PSU
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz HT ~3.2GHz CPU
Sapphire Radeon x1950 Pro 256mb GPU
1GB G.Skill PC2-6400 DDR2-800MHz RAM
400GB Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 16MB Cache HDD

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So here's what happened. I used the HDD from my old computer (not much point in buying a new one) and never did a reformat. Just hooked it all up, and booted into Vista. Everything worked great. Windows installed all the new drivers it could (USB, audio etc), when it asked me if I had a disc for the video drivers, I popped in the disc that came with my x1950 Pro and it installed great. I played Halo 2 all afternoon without a hitch.

I began to notice some graphical errors, for example: The marines had stuttering eyes and a few stray lines but nothing serious. I decided to update the drivers. So I went and downloaded the latest drivers (7.9) and installed them. Fired up Halo 2, everything looked as good as before, just no more stuttering eyes and stray lines. One problem, LAG. My frame rate had plummeted seriously. I now get about 20-30 fps.

I tried uninstalling the 7.9 drivers and putting the old 7.1 drivers back on, but still the bad frame rates continued. I tried some of my other games; Halo Combat Evolved, F.E.A.R. Combat, TES IV Oblivion. They all ran perfectly. I've tried reformatting and it still wont work.

I've tried asking on other forums, but I haven't had alot of help. I've tried various different Catalyst drivers including 7.7 and 7.8 I just can't figure this out! Please help me, I love this game and would like to play it at full speed again.

hmm strange, check if the extra power cable for your graphics card is connected.

you could also try to add this parameter to the halo2 exe: -novsync
this disables vertical synchronization and gives better performance on some systems.

I noticed a small fps drop too when updating to the latest Catalyst drivers (but not as huge as yours :/)
Try doing a Selective Startup - See my post "read this before posting here about tech issues" on more detail as to "why" and "how".
Also, it seems that AMD/ATI isn't fixing any issues related to Halo 2, they are only focusing on the newer games like bioshock, Quake Wars and Crysis...

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Originally Posted by beele

you could also try to add this parameter to the halo2 exe: -novsync
this disables vertical synchronization and gives better performance on some systems.

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any idea how this could work with my xp H.axt h2? appearantly the shortcut refers to...Microsoft Games\Halo 2\PLAY_HALO2XP.bat so it doesnt directly start the game via .exe.

Srsly i seldom saw such a halfassed port of a halfassed game. i really must be some kind of fanboy to even play it from time to time. Mb its because of the epicness of the story and music :/

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Originally Posted by nooBBooze

any idea how this could work with my xp H.axt h2? appearantly the shortcut refers to...Microsoft Games\Halo 2\PLAY_HALO2XP.bat so it doesnt directly start the game via .exe.

Srsly i seldom saw such a halfassed port of a halfassed game. i really must be some kind of fanboy to even play it from time to time. Mb its because of the epicness of the story and music :/

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Don't know that, It's an exe with me.

If you have an nvidia card you can force vsync of in the nvidia control pannel. Don't know if there is something similar with ati, since I only have nvidia.

ok i have the same problem about the framerate...
except not only did my games' fps drop, my index score went from its initial 3.0 rating to ~2.6,2.7 and if it's feeling nice, 2.8
this happened with catalyst 7.8, it only dropped worse with 7.9

... i've never had this problem with my old (and suckier) nvidia card

Erm... i've overclocked a P4 2.8Ghz once too and that did result in strange behaviour.

To force Vsync on or off see the specified tips section in my post on (the sluggish mouse movement :).

And when you run the windows experience diagnostic you should close all other programs as they tend to have a negative effect on the results.

And my Graphics Cards rating got up from 3.6 to 5.3 (ATI Radeon X1600 XT) just by making sure that the ATI External Event Utility Service was turned on at the startup. (see msconfig)

yes there are vsync options on the ati Catalyst Control Center...
you need to open it in Advanced Mode
i have it set for Vsync always off
... if you have an ati card, you should change it so that it has vsync off too

(i have a mobile card (partially integrated... up to 512 full) that's where i think all of my problems are at)

is it possible to restore my vista experience index back to the way it was? back to the way it should be

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Originally Posted by demonmaster3k

yes there are vsync options on the ati Catalyst Control Center...
you need to open it in Advanced Mode
i have it set for Vsync always off
... if you have an ati card, you should change it so that it has vsync off too

(i have a mobile card (partially integrated... up to 512 full) that's where i think all of my problems are at)

is it possible to restore my vista experience index back to the way it was? back to the way it should be

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But with Halo 2 if you have it set to "always off" it might lead to conflicts in the game (such as sluggish/stuttering mouse) so I suggest that for Halo 2 you turn it to "Always on".
That, or you turn vsync completely off with the -novsync parameter in the shortcut.

you took you old hd and put it in your new pc without reinstalling windows?

lmao.

For me that worked with XP, not for vista though... but i only use vista for H2V so that wasn't a big problem.

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it. I've tried the -novsync and -nosound ones with no luck. Went to that drivers test site and I have all the latest drivers. This is just so strange. All my other games are still working amazingly, why does Halo 2 have to differ?

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Originally Posted by DoomyCheese

Thanks for the replies, I appreciate it. I've tried the -novsync and -nosound ones with no luck. Went to that drivers test site and I have all the latest drivers. This is just so strange. All my other games are still working amazingly, why does Halo 2 have to differ?

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Well you could try uninstalling the ATI drivers first COMPLETELY with for instance DriverCleaner, and then Installing the latest drivers - or the older ones if you feel like it :/

According to Zeph, if your framerate is too high (yes, too high), the numbers in the counter will look good but the game can't keep up and will stutter and display errors. It has happened to me before. You can lower your settings to low or medium (on low, it looks almost as good as the xbox version) and then increase to your native resolution, and play with AA a bit until you can lower the framerate to between 30 and 70.

It's ridiculous how H2V doesn't have an option to lock the framerate at 30 fps like Halo PC did for the most consistent video performance. Your CPU, RAM, and video card are all superb (especially the video card, although the CPU is a bit dated). Just toy with settings until you can "lock" the framerate.

I run at 1680x1050 on lowest with 2x AA, with an Athlon X2 3800+, 1 GB RAM, and a Geforce 7600 GT (using Vista here). and I get around 40-70 fps which is consistent. On my laptop (2.13Ghz Centrino Solo, 2 GB RAM, Geforce 6600 and windows XP), I use 1280x720 on high without AA and I get 30 fps.

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Originally Posted by Mr Buckshot

It's ridiculous how H2V doesn't have an option to lock the framerate at 30 fps like Halo PC did for the most consistent video performance.

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Ummm.... Then what the hell is V-Sync??
You know, the thing we've been talking about all the time that's automatically turned on in Halo 2 unless if you use the -novsync parameter?

Hey that remined me, maybe your desktop framerate is really low, try increasing it.
And Halo 2 has this bug where it always goes back to 60Hz (and in some cases lower) when restarting the game so I suggest that you try switching the resolution in game again.