[sek929]

Although right now my QS only has a weak nVidia GeForce 2MX, I do plan on getting a newer and more powerful vid card soon. However, in the sys requirements for Halo it says 800mhz G4 or higher, is that an absolute thing that Halo will recognize and not run or will my 733 system be able to handle it? I really don't think 67 mhz makes much of a difference and I do have 1 gig of RAM... So my real concern is that getting a new vid. card would not make Halo run and subsequently alot of the other new games coming out (Doom 3, UT, etc..)

And all because my Halo for xBox got stolen

[Johnny_B]

My machine (see sig.) run it at 1024*768 in single player, but I must go all the way down, and still it's not smooth in multiplayer.

[lenox]

In Halo, there's a few features (such as lens flare) that are hardware-supported in DirectX but not OpenGL. Therefore, the CPU has to, for instance, render each pixel of the lens flare. That's just one example of how Halo is quite cpu-dependent unfortunately.

I have a similar setup to the previous poster however mine's a duallie, but Halo doesn't make use of that other cpu, as far as i can tell.

[grae_a]

I think it *should* run fine, I have an 800mHz QS, NVidia 4Ti, 640mb and it runs fine on high settings (lens flares on medium and fsaa off but everything else on high) unless there is a lot of action in an open area. From the performance on my 'borderline' system, I'd say it would run well with a powerful graphics card.

G

[kpne1home]

I have a 733 quicksilver too and it runs ok with all the settings at low. When the map is big it gets real slow and bad but thats only for a couple of levels.

[bluedog]

Yeah, well I've run it on a dual533 with 1.25GB RAM and the same video card you are using (I believe). You'll be fine with the machine you have. You may have to turn down a few details, but with the faster video card you'll likely not have to scale back too far.

I even have it installed on a G3 iBook 900mHz and 384MB of RAM, the video is a Radeon7500 and it really doesn't do too well, but the specs say it needs a G4. I was surprised it even let me install. I think it would work fair with ALL details and settings turned to low and additional RAM would likely help.

Good luck.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by lenox:
In Halo, there's a few features (such as lens flare) that are hardware-supported in DirectX but not OpenGL. Therefore, the CPU has to, for instance, render each pixel of the lens flare. That's just one example of how Halo is quite cpu-dependent unfortunately.

I have a similar setup to the previous poster however mine's a duallie, but Halo doesn't make use of that other cpu, as far as i can tell.

Actually, Halo isn't very CPU dependant. Sure, it helps to have a faster computer, but there's a point where it doesn't matter. The game is more GPU limited. The better the video card you have the better the game will run. I've run Halo with my dual proc system set to use 1 proc and with sound on and off and there's virtually no difference in performance (even if a game isn't specifically multithreaded, sound can get offloaded to a second CPU by the OS).
Lens flare is pretty much the only example in Halo that might be affected by the CPU speed but even that might eventually get moved over to the GPU for processing. The No Shader rendering path is going to be much more CPU dependant than Vertex Only and Full shader rendering paths.

[busket68]

My 1ghz iMac with Geforce 4 is pretty much BARELY playable. :| I think I'm going to get a newer FP imac with the 5200 in the future sometime.

- Rob

[lenox]

Originally posted by a2daj:
The No Shader rendering path is going to be much more CPU dependant than Vertex Only and Full shader rendering paths.

Actually, all three paths are just as cpu-dependent. What changes is the level of GPU dependence.

[Holigen]

I dont understand why a 1ghz iMac is having trouble with this game. I have to have all the settings toned down, but it runs very smoothly on my 700mhz G4 iMac. Try lowering your settings.

[a2daj]

Originally posted by lenox:
Actually, all three paths are just as cpu-dependent. What changes is the level of GPU dependence.

No Shaders moves some rendering chores from the video card to the CPU, so it uses up more CPU, thus more CPU dependent.

[Lateralus]

My G4 933/GF4MX 64MB/1GB runs Halo tolerably at 1024x768 with the default quality settings. It does get a little choppy during high action, but for the most part it is quite smooth.

[busket68]

Originally posted by Holigen:
I dont understand why a 1ghz iMac is having trouble with this game. I have to have all the settings toned down, but it runs very smoothly on my 700mhz G4 iMac. Try lowering your settings.

It's a 17" flat panel. If I lower the res, it's not in a native resolution, so it runs slower. If I run the game at native resolution, it's high res, so it runs slower.

It's a lose-lose situation.

I also need more ram, I only have 256.

- Rob