Problems with Halo

**delmer_1** · February 6th, 2004, 10:10 AM

Hey guys, i tried to play Halo on my new PC last night, and it doesnt work. I had no problems with it with my geforce 4 mx440 (other than the fact that is was slow) but since i added my Radeon 9600XT and did a clean install of windows...i can no longer play Halo. I open it, it plays the intros for the different developers, but when the main title screen, it just goes black. I can hear it the background music, and i can hear it when i change menu selections...but i just cant see it.

I am running XP w/ SP1
Halo installed Directx 9.0b
and I have the latest drivers from ATI.
i also tried a 3rd party driver(cant remember where from, i am at work now, cant check)

no matter what i try, i cant get it to come up. I also patched Halo to the latest version, but it still is just a black screen. I tried installing some other games and they all ran fine (Duke Nukem: manhattan project, Quake III Arena, and Doom Legacy)

i know that Halo is the only DirectX 9 game that i have. so i dont know if that is the issue. Why would it run withmy geforce and not my radeon?

what can i do to fix this? if i remember right, you cant uninstall directx9...right?

**jaeger** · February 6th, 2004, 10:58 AM

First off, make sure that antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are setting in display properties to either off or application preference. Then try reinstalling DirectX9. I suppose you installed your latest chipset drivers? A running software firewall may also cause problems, especially Norton firewall.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, I forgot to add that Halo for PC is a buggy port from hell, so it may not be something you can fix.

**delmer_1** · February 6th, 2004, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by jaeger

First off, make sure that antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are setting in display properties to either off or application preference. Then try reinstalling DirectX9. I suppose you installed your latest chipset drivers? A running software firewall may also cause problems, especially Norton firewall.

Edited to add: Oh yeah, I forgot to add that Halo for PC is a buggy port from hell, so it may not be something you can fix.

ok, i'll try disabling those options. the latest chipset drivers are installed, and i do not have a software firewall.

i would really like to get it working..even though i think the xbox versoin is better. i cant try this stuff till this evening..so if anyone esle has any suggestions, please do so..that way i have tons of stuff to try when i get home.

also, do you think it has anything to do with my PC being overclocked?

**ilovetheusers** · February 6th, 2004, 07:50 PM

Yes an OC can cause all sorts of goofy issues.

I can run halo with a 9200 at 640x480 and I still get some chop so this game is a rotten hog. In Maximum PC they said it ran slow on a 9800 so you know it's a dog.

Do what Jaeger said and also check that the firewall isn't popping up while the game is trying to load something. I turn off zone alarm or put it into learning mode when I run new games as it often tries to stop the program from accessing the local network or internet and freezes the who damn machine in the process.

**jaeger** · February 6th, 2004, 08:14 PM

Originally Posted by ilovetheusers

I can run halo with a 9200 at 640x480 and I still get some chop so this game is a rotten hog. In Maximum PC they said it ran slow on a 9800 so you know it's a dog.

Running slow on a 9200 is not surprising. A 9200 is really just a slightly hobbled 8500. On a overclocked 5900nu and 2.32 ghz Athlon, I just manage 53 fps in the timedemo at 1024 with specular off. Halo is a BAD port, buggy and slow. Some of the as yet unreleased patches supposedly help, but I'm not holding my breath.

**delmer_1** · February 6th, 2004, 09:03 PM

i downloaded and installed hte lastest chipset drivers and tried to install the asus update program, but it kept telling me that no asus motherboard was detected. i also noticed that when i went to system properties,it showed 2gb of ram, but it didnt show the processor.

when i installed windows, i had it overclocked, because it was running fine before like that. but it gave me a hell of a time during the install. so i decided just to play it safe and do a clean install. The last time i did a quick format on the drives, this time i am doing a full format. it is taking forever though. it's been 24minutes and is just now 50% done. but then again, it is over 300gb so i guess it should take a while. hopefully the install goes better this time. I just wish i knew why i cant install windows with the usb enabled in the bios. it just wont run. as soon as i disable the usb controller, it is ok. at least i found a ps2 mouse, becasue the first 3 installs without a mouse really sucked.

i have it set back to normal speed, and i have no plan to overclock it. a 3ghz Cpu is plenty.

I preordered Doom III tonight...i just hope that this machine can run it when it comes out. (april) you get a pewter demon statue when you preorder.

i know what you mean about halo being a hog..i cant beleive how crappy it ran. i still enjoy the xbox versoin, but i would like to at least see how it runs on my new PC.... i am hoping this clean install will fix it.

on the bright side, Doom ran really well...i just wish i could find my copy of the doom 3 alpha i downloaded a long time ago...i want to try it agian now that i have some more horsepower

**delmer_1** · February 7th, 2004, 11:51 AM

ok, got sick of it not working and decided to do a clean install....again. THis time i set the cpu back to default speeds(it was OCed when i installed it last time) did a full format instead of quick.

installed XP, SP1, all critical updates, latest chipset drivers, latest catalyst drivers, directx 9.0b

i then installed Halo and it still didnt work. i ran the latest patch, still doesnt work.

i can it get to load if i use the safemode switch, but that is it. i have no idea why it wont work and mit makes me mad. I went intot he display options and set antialiasing and filtering to application preference.

is there aything else i can do? or am i just not going to be able to play this game?

**jaeger** · February 7th, 2004, 12:47 PM

Originally Posted by delmer_1

ok, got sick of it not working and decided to do a clean install....again. THis time i set the cpu back to default speeds(it was OCed when i installed it last time) did a full format instead of quick.

installed XP, SP1, all critical updates, latest chipset drivers, latest catalyst drivers, directx 9.0b

i then installed Halo and it still didnt work. i ran the latest patch, still doesnt work.

i can it get to load if i use the safemode switch, but that is it. i have no idea why it wont work and mit makes me mad. I went intot he display options and set antialiasing and filtering to application preference.

is there aything else i can do? or am i just not going to be able to play this game?

This is a long shot but an idea; run halo with the -nosound command line switch. Also, if you run pccillin, you are running a firewall whether you know it or not. I'm not sure if the XP firewall can interfere, but you may want to disable that if you havent already.

**delmer_1** · February 7th, 2004, 01:02 PM

Originally Posted by jaeger

This is a long shot but an idea; run halo with the -nosound command line switch. Also, if you run pccillin, you are running a firewall whether you know it or not. I'm not sure if the XP firewall can interfere, but you may want to disable that if you havent already.

not running pccillin... i am running norton antivirus 2003. xp firewall is not enabled...i just tried the nosound switch...no go.

**buksida** · February 10th, 2004, 08:20 AM

Had similar probs on my comp, instead of going black the game just used to shutdown and exit back into windows (2000pro SP4). Thought it was my graphics card (geforce 4 64 MX440) so upgraded to an FX5600 256MB DDR ... still did it. CPU wasnt O/C'd (XP 2200 running at 1800). Turned off the antialiasing which has been mentioned, that worked a bit, the thing stayed on longer. Eventually managed to complete it (after god knows how many restarts). I think my issues were power related though as it happened on other games also.

Have you tried installing on another box? could be a dodgy CD?

**delmer_1** · February 10th, 2004, 08:30 AM

Originally Posted by buksida

Had similar probs on my comp, instead of going black the game just used to shutdown and exit back into windows (2000pro SP4). Thought it was my graphics card (geforce 4 64 MX440) so upgraded to an FX5600 256MB DDR ... still did it. CPU wasnt O/C'd (XP 2200 running at 1800). Turned off the antialiasing which has been mentioned, that worked a bit, the thing stayed on longer. Eventually managed to complete it (after god knows how many restarts). I think my issues were power related though as it happened on other games also.

Have you tried installing on another box? could be a dodgy CD?

well, i dont particularly have another box that will run it. the only one that might is running win2k server, but i would have to put a better video card in it. What i dont understand is why it worked before. the only thing different in the PC now is a different video card, and two additional hard drives in my raid array. with a 450w antec power supply, i hardly think that power is the issue.

**Stalemate** · February 10th, 2004, 09:46 AM

Originally Posted by delmer_1

...the only thing different in the PC now is a different video card, and two additional hard drives in my raid array. with a 450w antec power supply, i hardly think that power is the issue.

What about AGP port speed?

Hasn't that changed from the mx440 to the 9600XT? (4x to 8x)

Also, you may want to set the AGP Aperture to 128Mb, as you definitely have enough RAM to do it. If you must go lower, use 32 instead of 64Mb for this setting, as the performance tends to decrease for some reason at that range.

**delmer_1** · February 10th, 2004, 12:03 PM

yes, the new card runs at 8x, where the geforce was 4x, i didnt try reducing that. I will try that when i get home.

THe default AGP aperature was 64mb, but i changed it to 256. (because when i did that, I had no idea what it was, and since i had a 256mb card, i made it 256mb) i then did some reading and determined that this is the ammount of system ram that your video card will use if it runs out of ram on the card. (at least that is what i got from it). I never went back and changed it because i figured with 256mb on the card, it shouldnt run out anyway, and if it does, i have 2gb of system ram, so it shouldnt be a problem.

i will try adjusting this when i get home tonight. i never even thought about that. what would be the optimal setting for the aperature size?

**Stalemate** · February 10th, 2004, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by delmer_1

...i will try adjusting this when i get home tonight. i never even thought about that. what would be the optimal setting for the aperature size?

I think 128 should do it, but if you can pull off 256, then more power to ya!

Benchmarks here: http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/aperture-size/

More info: http://www.ocfaq.com/article.php/ove...ing/vidcard/43

**Tglyptic** · June 18th, 2004, 08:26 PM

You are not alone any longer, brother. I just installed Halo today and am now encountering the identical problem with a Radion 9600 XT w/ 256 ram. Have you ever came up with a solution? I've updated drivers and Halo as well. I don't forsee the need to re-install xp. This game is the only game that has done this on my system. I have tried setting my graphics card to multiple different resolutions and color depths to no avail. Very frustrating indeed. We must crush the microsoft fools for not making it 100% compatible with such a good graphics card.

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