Halo-PC and Specular/Shadows???

[Chaocat]

Ok - Got Halo-PC installed and everythings runs great on and offline -
However, in the Video setup both Specular and Shadows are shaded out so I
cant activate them?? Any ideas why and how I can activate these?? I'm
way over the min requirements for the game!

OS: Win2K Pro
CPU: AMD XP 1800+
MEM: 512 DDR
VID: NVidia GForce4 MX 440 64 meg
DX 9.0b (Freshly reinstalled from the halo cd)

Any ideas?? Do I have to run in a certain mode or what? I tried totaly
disabling antialiasing on the vid card and no luck there so I'm lost

 

[Colin]

It might be your video card. The MX series of cards are not much more than a
Geforce 2 in disguise, from what I understand.

Colin

 

[Paul Smith]

Ok - Got Halo-PC installed and everythings runs great on and offline -
However, in the Video setup both Specular and Shadows are shaded out so I
cant activate them?? Any ideas why and how I can activate these?? I'm
way over the min requirements for the game!

The GeForce 4 MX can't run either of those features in hardware. From a
hardware point of view it's only DirectX 7, specular and shadowing in Halo
probably require DirectX 8 hardware support (that's what it was entirely
designed around on the Xbox). In theory they could run it in software, but
it would probably murder your frame rate.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/
http://www.doom3portal.com/ A Doom 3 fansite.

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

 

[JD]

I have the same problem, and this appears to happen when running the
game in safe mode (Halo PC safe mode, not windows safe mode). Check
the file config.txt in your halo directory and see if your video card
is listed in it. I found mine listed there as being unsupported.

How did you turn off anti-aliasing? I looked for 2 hours last night
on my video card and couldn't find anywhere to disable it.

 

[Neil Dela Osa [MS]]

Bingo. The card doesn't support that feature.

 

[Jimmy S.]

Hi JD,

It's in the Display Properties / Advanced / Geforce Tab
Performance and Quality settings on a Ti4200 card.

--
Cheers,
Jimmy S.

Microsoft MVP Windows XP Shell/User: http://mvp.support.microsoft.com
Additional Support Resources: My Zone.com Helpsite: http://nibblesnbits.tk
Game FAQ's: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=FH;[LN];gms
My advice is donated "AS IS" without warranty; nor do I confer any rights.
_________________________________________________________

| I have the same problem, and this appears to happen when running the
| game in safe mode (Halo PC safe mode, not windows safe mode). Check
| the file config.txt in your halo directory and see if your video card
| is listed in it. I found mine listed there as being unsupported.
|
| How did you turn off anti-aliasing? I looked for 2 hours last night
| on my video card and couldn't find anywhere to disable it.
|
|
|
|
|
| > Ok - Got Halo-PC installed and everythings runs great on and offline -
| > However, in the Video setup both Specular and Shadows are shaded out so I
| > cant activate them?? Any ideas why and how I can activate these?? I'm
| > way over the min requirements for the game!
| >
| > OS: Win2K Pro
| > CPU: AMD XP 1800+
| > MEM: 512 DDR
| > VID: NVidia GForce4 MX 440 64 meg
| > DX 9.0b (Freshly reinstalled from the halo cd)
| >
| > Any ideas?? Do I have to run in a certain mode or what? I tried totaly
| > disabling antialiasing on the vid card and no luck there so I'm lost

 

[David]

-----Original Message-----
Bingo. The card doesn't support that feature.

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.
Please do not send email directly to my alias. This alias is for newsgroup
posting only.
are not much more than
a Shadows are shaded out so
I


.
My issues is that the game runs fine until I start to

battle the bad guys. Game comes a crawl. I have turned
antialisaing and I have a Pentium 4 2.4ghz with 800mghz
with a Geoforce 5200 with 128mg ram and 512 ddr ram.
This should smoke but doesn't. any suggestions.

 

[Paul Smith]

battle the bad guys. Game comes a crawl. I have turned
antialisaing and I have a Pentium 4 2.4ghz with 800mghz
with a Geoforce 5200 with 128mg ram and 512 ddr ram.
This should smoke but doesn't. any suggestions.

The GeForce FX 5200 is an extremely weak card, ie very very low end. Might
want to look at an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro, a lot of punch for your $s.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/
http://www.doom3portal.com/ A Doom 3 fansite.

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

 

[Chaocat]

Bingo. The card doesn't support that feature.

Why would it not support them suddently with Halo when it supports and
displays them fine with every other FPS I play, SOF2 - UT2003 - Q4, etc.
etc. I'm half tempted to return halo already as in my opinion, the game
looks like complete CRAP. We waited a year for this?? Was hoping
specular and shading might improve the graphics a little bit but even SOF2
which came out Years ago has better lookin graphics than this and I have
everything turned up as high as it'll go.

 

[Paul Smith]

Why would it not support them suddently with Halo when it supports and
displays them fine with every other FPS I play, SOF2

Really since when has the Quake 3 engine supported either of those features?
UT2K3 only makes extremely limited use of them.

Do you get bump-mapping in Halo?

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/
http://www.doom3portal.com/ A Doom 3 fansite.

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

 

[Neil Dela Osa [MS]]

The Geforce 4MX is really nothing more than a faster Geforce 2 in terms of
features. The Geforce 2 was a DirectX 7.0 part. As far as Halo running
slowly, I've seen various reports about problems with the game. It was not
a direct port of the XBox title. I believe a developer interview stating
that the graphics engine was re-written to support DirectX 9.0 pixel shader
2.0 effects. Halo on the XBox was a DirectX 8.0 title and supported pixel
shader 1.0 effects. Here's more from Microsoft's web site:


http://support.microsoft.com/?id=829479

What Are Hardware Transform and Lighting?

Hardware Transform and Lighting (Hardware T&L) are functions that are
carried out directly by the video hardware. Transform and Lighting carry out
the process of generating a 3D scene from supplied data, our 3D 'world'.

The first functional unit, transformation, is a 'geometry engine' that
converts or that transforms the 3D coordinates of the world into 2D
coordinates. This transformation must be completed because the monitor where
the 3D world is viewed is a 2D device.

Additionally, transforming 3D coordinates into 2D coordinates, the geometry
engine can be used to generate lighting information for the world, store
information about light sources, and calculate the amount of light that each
source casts on any point in the world.


http://support.microsoft.com/?id=829478

[This link lists supported chipsets - note that while you have T&L it's not
the same as the T&L engine on a GeForce FX 5200 or 5900]