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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Benchmarking With Halo For PC 60

Posted by simoniker from the frame-rate-frame-rate-rah-rah-rah dept.
Thanks to ExtremeTech for their article discussing comparative benchmarking of PCs using newly-released FPS Halo. The piece explains how to "add a few command line options to the [Halo] shortcut" to enable benchmarking, which "runs through several of the game's cut-scenes", and the final page of the article has results for ATI and NVidia's current high-end graphics cards. The article concludes: "Halo is not the most elegant console game port, and given what you see on the screen it's odd how slowly it runs at times... Still, the Halo benchmark is a pretty good graphics card test- at once stressful, deterministic, and scalable with both graphics cards and CPUs."
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Benchmarking With Halo For PC More

Benchmarking With Halo For PC

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  • This sounds suspiciously like a timedemo.

  • Keep in mind... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @07:30PM (#7250582)
    Even though Halo was originally designed for the PC, it was long twisted and tweaked for maximum XBox performance. Gearbox virtually had to break down the walls and expand the game engine to fit the wide array of different hardware PCs have. Trying to compare Halo PC with, say, Quake 3 or UT2k3 would be very unfair.
    • Keep in mind that coding for the xbox is essentialy coding for windows + directx.
      Now considering the game was heavily optimized for the xbox, theres a NVIDIA chip inside.
      The test results show the best ATI card blows away the best NVIDIA card.
      • The equivalient of a Geforce3 am I not correct? (XBOX chip that is). You're trying to compare a Geforce3/Geforce4 chipset running on what is similar to a DX8 app to a GeforceFX running DX9 ps2.0 (which has shown to have problems).
    • After all, Halo PC IS competing against UT2k3 and Quake III.

    • Heh, unfair? The game sells for $50 ($40 at Fry's). I'm going to compare it against other games that cost $50 new. I think that's plenty fair.

  • Great. (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Now everyone can see how badly it plays even on the best hardware.

    Seriously though, you'd think they'd take these options out before release, knowing how it makes even a P4@3GHz + Radeon9800 cry. Considering most users are still on GF2 or GF3 class hardware, it's not going to help sales, surely?

    • Idiot AC (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mike Hawk ( 687615 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @08:05PM (#7250712) Journal
      Interesting? Because being forward looking is a bad thing, right? Just because an option is there doesn't mean you have to use it. But someday soon the hardware will be affordable and that day you will be glad the option was included. The next person that complains about having many features in a game should be kicked off of slashdot and probably the internet.

      Look at Q3. According to Gamespy stats, there are almost 4600 people playing Quake 3 online right now. Do you think they are using the same resolution and color depth as when it was released on 12/3/99? I'm going to say no, but I bet they are glad the engine scaled upward. Idiot.
      • I have a P4 3.06Ghz and a Radeon 9500 and the demo was more than playable in the default configuration. My only complaint is there were some artifacts when the invisible guys attacked me, and that shitty nagging seargant that you can't shut off when you quit the game.

  • PC gaming - that's it, I'm done. (Score:3, Funny)

    by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep@z e d k e p.com> on Saturday October 18, 2003 @07:37PM (#7250609)
    Oh my god.

    A Radeon 9800 on a 2.4GHz P4 is *required* to get even halfway decent performance. I'm done with PC gaming.

    Dave
    • I run on a 1.5ghz athlon and a geforce ti4200.

      Game runs stellar for me. Looks great, even though I had to shut the specular effects off. I seem to average around 60fps which is fine by me.

      • Wish I had mod points to give to you. These people think if they can't run a game on max graphics and get insane performance on the machines their mommies just bought them yesterday then the game completely sucks and they don't even give it a chance.
    • This actually brings up to me the one thing I didn't like about the Half-Life 2 benchmarks, and these benchmarks as well- they run the games at the highest resolutions with all the bells and whistles turned on. I downloaded the demo and ran it just fine on my integrated Geforce 4 MX- admittedly, I ran it at 640X480 with all detail levels set to low, but I'm willing to accept that. If I want it to look perfect, I'll save up and buy a new video card. Or just get an XBox and play the original.


    • It's part of a Intel/Microsoft-led conspiracy to maintain their respective business models.

      Microsoft, and other software excreters write bigger, fatter, slower code in order for Intel (and AMD, ATI, nVidia) to be able to sell bigger, faster, more wasteful processors to make those software excretions look good. After all, what would be the incentive to buy new hardware if the software vendors came out with smaller, faster code that ran better on existing hardware? You can call it a symbiotic/parasitic relati

  • Halo is a very very poor PC port i'm afraid..
    I have an Barton-code AthlonXP 3200+, 1GB of DDR400 Dual Channel RAM, nForce2 mobo and a GeForceFX 5900 and it's dog-slow... and its not like the game is visually stunning... it kinda looks... well about a year old.

    Oh, and it won't run if you've got antialiasing turned on.

    • Re:Bad Port - Very True (Score:2, Informative)

      by @madeus ( 24818 )
      I've been saying this to people for ages (in my /. posts too).

      The X-Box origional was visualy stunning and used the console very well (particularly given it was a launch title). It was obviously designed to take advantage of the specific strenghts (and limitations) of the console.

      The PC port is a shoddy straight forward could-have-been-done-with-an-emulation-layer port of the X-Box version that althought (like the origional) it uses a few DX9 effects, take no consideration of the advantages of PC gaming h
    • I have a similiar system, Barton 2500+ with 512MB of 2700 RAM. But I have ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, and the game rocks on it.
    • I was really looking forward to Halo on the PC, what I got was a port worse than RedFaction2 (anybody who has seen it knows what I'm talking about), very very sad, glad it was not my money that paid for it.

      * Looks like what it is, which is basically a bad dated console to PC port. I mean UT2k3 look a _lot_ better than it.

      * Runs like shit, I mean for the graphics quality you get you would think it runs at +100 FPS on modern hardware, instead you get a measly frame rate that drops to nothing if you look in
      • I agree; it is definately a bad port. When you release a game, you want it to (yes of course) have some new functions when better hardware comes out, but you don't want to have to force people to use the latest hardware to gain 50+ fps. That's just insane; and a waste of money. I'm regretting that I've ever bought it now. To me, it looks almost the same as it does on the Xbox -- with really crappy FPS. Halo is a great game, I've always loved it, but I wish it ran better. The X-box had an "advance" gpu lik
    • Try using the beta Nvidia drivers (52.13) you can download them off my website (http://download.flipsidesoftware.com/) and make sure that you aren't using PS2.0 because Nvidia cards are seemingly having a problem with such. (first I would try to use it with the 52.13s, and then turn off PS2.0)
      Parameters:
      PS1.1 -use11 PS1.4 -use14 PS2.0 -use20
  • The Radeons "owned" the Geforce FXs. But then again, ATi must have paid off Gearbox for these scores, just like they paid off Valve and every other company and person, so that their products would outperform nVidia's. Right?

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tisephone ( 709174 )
    After foolishly attempting to run the demo on my six-month-old PC, I can confirm Microsoft's vision of Combat Evolved is shooting their other corporate branches in the feet.
  • The game runs faster than that. No, I don't own it but I do know that you can't use those benchmark numbers like you can Q3 numbers.

    PLEASE read what Gearbox [avault.com] has to say about this.

    Basically, this doesn't work like a "normal" benchmark. The FPS number takes more into account than just FPS (sorta). Please read the above.

  • resolution (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tolldog ( 1571 ) on Saturday October 18, 2003 @09:11PM (#7251053) Homepage Journal
    People do realize that the xbox output at NTSC or HD at best... max res is 1080

    Most gamers won't play below 1280x1024 on the PC. Comparing the speed between the two is hardly fair unless it is done at 640x480 on both...

    -Tim
    • the "1080i" resolution is 1920x1080. That would be a number well above what most gamers aim for (1024x768 seems to be the standard benchmark number). Incidentally, though, Xbox only outputs at 1080i in a couple of games; most others are 480p at best (a few don't even support progressive scan).
      • I stand corrected, I should have known this. All the video work I had done previously had been to DVD or NTSC standards. Thanks for the correction.

        -Tim
    • holy shit dude, most gamers wont play below 1280x1024? What kind of freakin CPU and graphics card do you have to be able to play anything after Quake2 at 1280x1024 with 32-bit color at a playable framerate?

      I've got a 1ghz+geforce2 (i know, old stuff) and I can't even play counter-strike higher than 800x600!
  • If you run the benchmark you won't be able to select "continue" from the main menu as it will take you to the Convenant ship (the last scene it benchmarks). You'll have to reload from your last save point (potentially forcing you to replay lots of the game if you don't save often).
  • I brought the game the first day it came out and the first night playing it the machine crashed at least 8 times and the network play was non-existant.

    I have a 2500+ barton oc to 3200+ with ati radeon 9500 pro. every game (including the new max payne 2) runs silky smooth.

    I have other friends who got the game and the pattern of failures seem to center on the graphics card.

    all my friends who have it running smooth (out of the box, no patches) are running some sort of nvidia card

    all my friends who crash a
    • I play the same games with a Barton 2500+, not OC'ed. The video card I use is an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro and I've had no problems with Halo at all, it runs perfectly.
      • we run 9500 pro or 9700 pros here, no 9800 pro.. that's a very expensive card =)

        i guess you have it lucky.. run good stright out of the box?

        -joe
        • Yep, Catalyst 3.8 drivers and nothing in the system overclocked either. In fact it's at a 333MHZ front-side bus, not even 400. I think it's the whole Direct X9 Pixel Shader stuff - only the Radeon is newest to support that amount of rendering happening on each pixel.
  • I ran the game on a 1.4GHz Athlon with a GeForce2 MX400. It ran FINE. I probably had the graphics turned way down, but I played through the whole single player campaign and a lot of multiplayer without a single slow down that last longer than half a second. I bet it still looked better on my computer and 15" monitor than it would've on a shitty console running on a TV.
    • I have a really similar set up I have a 1.25 Athlon XP with 512MB of RAM and GF2 MX400 video card and the game runs pretty good and I haven't had a single crash. I even have the setting set pretty high (looks just like the Xbox version). So I don't understand how people are having problems with it.

      On another note, now that I've played all of Halo I can't see how people could say its that great of a game. its about average at best.
      I'll take Tribes 2, UT, UT2k3 or Quake 3 over it any day.

      • I tried to like it. I really did. The graphics were okay (but that doesn't really bother me), but the guns were pretty lame and the level design was bad (i.e. the library -- what were they thinking)? I got to the Covenant ship after slogging through for 10 hours and said to myself, I can't do this anymore. UT2k3 against bots is more fun than Halo. I feel really, really sorry for XBox gamers that bought a system for this game (and who don't really know what aN FPS is!)
  • I'm playing the DEMO on a Duron 650 with 384 MB of RAM and a 64 MB GF4 440 (the cheapo DX7 and not really DX8 part).

    The demo runs acceptably well at 1024. Granted it's not using any pixel shaders, but the game works, and it works well enough to play.

    The story might be different on a low-end card that can do either spec of pixel shader tho.
  • Did anyone actually read this review? The conclusion had some scores that looked totally whack unless I'm interpreting things wrong. Using pixel shader 1.1 @ 1024x768 @ 3.2ghz a 9800 pro got 27 FPS. The FX 5900 got 24 fps. Now same pixel shader version except the processor is at 2.4ghz and the resolution is 1600x1200. The 9800 pro got *55* fps. The FX5900 got *31* fps. Why is it this game is performing BETTER on a slower processor at a higher resolution? Is something whack here or am I interpreting
    • I noticed that too. Anyway the numbers don't really matter, here is a realistic factual review:

      $200 Video Card - Forget it, razor wire is more fun
      $300 Video Card - Forget it, slow and looks like shit
      $400 Video Card - Still slow and looks like shit.
      $500 Video Card - Looks like shit.
      $600 Video Card - Still looks like shit
      $700 Video Card - You have too much money!

      There, a review Guide to Halo for PC.
  • The game runs like like magic on my 2500+ ti4200 - to all those who complain about performance turn off some of the specular or don't bitch. Go back to number crunching stats on your water cooled system trying to tweak a higher 3dMark score instead of playing any damn games in general.

  • Halo runs fine on my p4 w/ Raedon 9000 at max resolution ONLY when I turn off all the optional effects like shading etc. with them all on, the game struggles at 800x600.
  • Even though Halo for PC has all the extra material added to it which is better I mean do you think it works better on pc or xbox? Depending on you pc to.

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