The greatest problem in the world!

[kilogic]

So, I installed Halo 2 Vista today. Played around and tweaked the settings, played a little campain, then hopped online. All the while feeling a little sluggish.

The game ran ok, but didnt feel very reponsive. So I turned down some settings. Toned down the resolution, turned off AA, changed quality to low. Every step I took it got worse. When I went to turn the crosshair seemed to move in steps, requiring me to turn my mouse over and over for a slow 180 degrees.

Maybe it's my sound, creative's been having some vista issues. I turn its settings down, then disable it, no help. Maybe my mouse drivers, I get new ones, maybe video drivers, I check for beta versions. I am at 1024x768 on low with no AA. Why is it so choppy?!?

I'll get fraps to see what its running at. 170-200FPS!!!! I try to make a movie to show you guys what is happening to me. I hit F9 (to make a vid in fraps) and guess what? Smooth as can be at 30fps!!! Be warned! There is no option within Halo 2 that I can see. Go to your vid cards options and TURN ON VSYNC! Pumping out fps over your refresh rate will make this game unplayable!

For me, after constant worrying and driver/setting tweaking, this was possibly the greatest problem I've ever had with a game!

PS: In all seriousness. Even after vsync, this problem still slightly remains, I'll have to do some more tweaking, and playing, but it seems a little too shakey for me, like i need a mouse filter option.

[Con]

That's strange, thanks for the heads up!

[Abdurahman]

did you try turning up the mouse sensitivity to the highest setting?

[kilogic]

did you try turning up the mouse sensitivity to the highest setting?

haha yup i had that thing on insane lol. I was like "what the hell is going on!"

[MissnL1nK]

The problem is they are trying to make the game feel like the XBox. I had the same issue but here is how to fix it.

1. The feel does take some getting used to.
2. Increase your Windows and Game sensitivity.
3. If you have a gaming mouse, G5 for example, use your mouse sensitivity buttons alot to change the feel to your liking.
4. Jack up your game sensitivity and lower your mouse sensitivity

I have tweaked mine alot and I did find a good point to stay at that feels comfortable. It just takes time and some getting use to.

[kilogic]

The problem is they are trying to make the game feel like the XBox. I had the same issue but here is how to fix it.

1. The feel does take some getting used to.
2. Increase your Windows and Game sensitivity.
3. If you have a gaming mouse, G5 for example, use your mouse sensitivity buttons alot to change the feel to your liking.
4. Jack up your game sensitivity and lower your mouse sensitivity

I have tweaked mine alot and I did find a good point to stay at that feels comfortable. It just takes time and some getting use to.

I hate that if feels like its still a console game. I totally agree. The limited resolution choices and video options. The menu navigation. And the mouse sensitivity is whole numbers up to 10.
Mice vary. With my MX1000 I am stuck somewhere between 2 and 3. 2 being too slow, 3 being too fast. Im sure someone with a wired optical will be inbetween 6 and 7.
Plus the most noob thing of the all. Instead of letting us sort through servers by ping. They give us a little cell phone style connection icon, which we cant even sort by. Sure they give you the ping when you check the server info but cmon!

/rant

[Mr Buckshot]

Oh god...I am using a $10 Microsoft optical mouse that I bought in 2001 (I see no value in those $40+ "gaming mice"). I hope that won't spoil my H2V experience, but if need be, I have that 360 controller at hand (which is probably fairer for the SP campaign due to the super auto aim).

[Crest]

Thanks for the tip. Maybe something in my Nvidia settings can help me.

[Phopojijo]

So, I installed Halo 2 Vista today. Played around and tweaked the settings, played a little campain, then hopped online. All the while feeling a little sluggish.

The game ran ok, but didnt feel very reponsive. So I turned down some settings. Toned down the resolution, turned off AA, changed quality to low. Every step I took it got worse. When I went to turn the crosshair seemed to move in steps, requiring me to turn my mouse over and over for a slow 180 degrees.

Maybe it's my sound, creative's been having some vista issues. I turn its settings down, then disable it, no help. Maybe my mouse drivers, I get new ones, maybe video drivers, I check for beta versions. I am at 1024x768 on low with no AA. Why is it so choppy?!?

I'll get fraps to see what its running at. 170-200FPS!!!! I try to make a movie to show you guys what is happening to me. I hit F9 (to make a vid in fraps) and guess what? Smooth as can be at 30fps!!! Be warned! There is no option within Halo 2 that I can see. Go to your vid cards options and TURN ON VSYNC! Pumping out fps over your refresh rate will make this game unplayable!

For me, after constant worrying and driver/setting tweaking, this was possibly the greatest problem I've ever had with a game!

PS: In all seriousness. Even after vsync, this problem still slightly remains, I'll have to do some more tweaking, and playing, but it seems a little too shakey for me, like i need a mouse filter option.

They had the same problem in Halo CE, and I have the same problem now

The Halo engine doesn't like sharp fluctuations in framerate since it seems as if the gamespeed is measured by the framerate. For the Xbox, the refresh rate was "locked" to 30FPS so you didn't notice this issue. In fact, in Halo PC (and this is how I know about this) I needed to leave the Vsync stuck on 30FPS.

The problem is not that your framerate is the sucks, its just that Halo can't seem to really figure out how many frames a game-second corresponds to, so it makes predictions, speeding and slowing down the game rapidly. This corresponds to quick changes in gamespeed which looks like hiccups.

This also disappears when the framerate is artificially limited. Like with Fraps; get it?
This also explodes when the framerate gets more and more shifty. Like when you RAISE your framerate providing larger numbers to shift around; get it?

http://nikon.bungie.org/misc/halopcperformancefaq.html <-- somewhat explained in the "Why 30 FPS section for Halo 1"

If you find out a way to lock the framerate to 30-40 FPS, tell me

[MissnL1nK]

Go into your main Halo 2 folder and add " -novsync" to the end of the exe file.

This will greatly help you with performance.