Need help with Halo 2

[razor_303]

I just got Halo 2 for Windows Vista and installed it, I verified the key
online and everything, and when i tried running it there was an error. It
said there weren't sufficient resources to run the game or that some files
were missing and to reinstall the game again. then a window pops up and says
halo 2 stopped working and that if i want to check for solutions online and
close or just close it. I just got this game delivered by UPS like an hour
and a half ago and before i bought it i did my research to see if my laptop
would run the game and some people here told it would and so did the Games
For Windows Game Advisor, so why doesn't it work? I'd really appreciate the
help, thanks in advance.

My laptops specs are:

Toshiba Satellite A205-S4587
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 @1.73 GHz
2 GB of RAM
Mobile Intel 945GM/GU Express Family Chipset w/ Intel GMA 950

 

[Hank Arnold (MVP)]

I just got Halo 2 for Windows Vista and installed it, I verified the key
online and everything, and when i tried running it there was an error.
It said there weren't sufficient resources to run the game or that some
files were missing and to reinstall the game again. then a window pops
up and says halo 2 stopped working and that if i want to check for
solutions online and close or just close it. I just got this game
delivered by UPS like an hour and a half ago and before i bought it i
did my research to see if my laptop would run the game and some people
here told it would and so did the Games For Windows Game Advisor, so why
doesn't it work? I'd really appreciate the help, thanks in advance.

My laptops specs are:

Toshiba Satellite A205-S4587
Windows Vista Home Premium
Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 @1.73 GHz
2 GB of RAM
Mobile Intel 945GM/GU Express Family Chipset w/ Intel GMA 950

Are you sure that the video is supported?

--

Regards,
Hank Arnold
Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Directory Services

 

[razor_303]

what do you mean?

Are you sure that the video is supported?

--

Regards,
Hank Arnold
Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Directory Services

 

[Hank Arnold (MVP)]

what do you mean?

It looks like integrated video. I was just wondering if it's enough to
be able to run Halo 2..

--

Regards,
Hank Arnold
Microsoft MVP
Windows Server - Directory Services

 

[Paul Smith]

I just got Halo 2 for Windows Vista and installed it, I verified the key
online and everything, and when i tried running it there was an error. It
said there weren't sufficient resources to run the game or that some files
were missing and to reinstall the game again.

Did the game finish installing before you removed the disc from the drive?

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/blog/
http://www.windowsresource.net/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*

 

[Joseph Millman]

this brings up a question that I've had about Halo 2. I know that my video
chip is below the minimum system spec, but, in the past I've been able to
get past one system requirement by exceeding one or more of the other
requirements while being close to the defficient one. I in this case I do,
however, I'm using an ATI m9700 with 128MB, but the box lists an Xx00 series
(can't remember the exact number). I don't really care about the graphical
apperance of the game, so long as it runs. however, it's the running (and
resonably smoothly) that I'm wondering about.

 

[razor_303]

The installation took about 30 minutes, im thinking it DID copy all the
4.3something GB of data to my HD and yes the disk was in there all the time
even after the installation was done and i tried running the game the first
time, I thought it was zone alarm internet security blocking something but
after i allowed everything from the disk to access the internet and etc, and
unistalled and reinstall i knew it wasnt the problem.

It appears my video card isnt supported, it does have 234 Mb to use which i
thought would be enough to at least run halo 2 at minimum graphics options,
but i guess not. i guess the games for windows game advisor isnt that
accurate at telling you which games will run on your system.

theres only one thing to do here and that is return the game, which isnt
what i wanted because after playing halo 3 on the 360 i want to know what
happened in halo 2...

thanks everyone for your input

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

See my post above, your video card is fine for this game razor.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

It looks like integrated video. I was just wondering if it's enough to be
able to run Halo 2..

Geez, why don't you look it up for him Hank, guessing he has no idea what
you're talking about.

http://www.gamesforwindows.com/en-US/Games/Pages/Halo2forWindowsVista.aspx

under Recommended requirements, Halo 2 requires...

Video Card: NVIDIA 6100, ATI X700, or above

Oddly enough it says the same for Minimum requirements. Halo 2 is a pretty
old game, textures are fairly simple, an Intel 945 chipset should run this
game, no problems.

http://kbalertz.com/936820/Minimum-system-requirements-Windows-Vista.aspx

This page says...

Video card
ATI X700 or Nvidia 6100 display adapter with 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM and
the following features:
.. Pixel shader: 2 or higher
.. Vertex shader: 2 or higher
Windows Experience Index scores:
.. Graphics score: 3 or higher
.. Gaming graphic score: 3 or higher

http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm

This page basically confirms that your video card supports pixel shader 2.0
and vertex shader 3.0

In other words, this system is more than capible of running this game.

will the experience be plesant? Probably not. Game developers notoriously do
NOT test their games on notebooks, which is a shame because there are lots
of gaming notebooks on the market now a days, and notebooks have to
basically run slower so they don't kill the battery in 10 seconds.

Hey Razor_303, uninstall the game, as the program TOLD you to do.

Reinstall the game from the CD, make sure you follow the installation
instructions carefully, and plug in your notebook when you do it. Use the
CD-KEY and make sure the game activates before you start it the first time.

Once the game starts up leave that DVD in the drive!

Halo2 starts the game before it's done copying files to the HD, if you
remove the DVD the game will fail to complete installation.

The pop up that came up after the error you can ignore, your game is not
installed correctly or it didn't copy correctly to your computer. Just
reinstall from the DVD, you'll probably be ok.

good luck, if you have problems it's probably not the game, it's probably
your system.

-A.

 

[razor_303]

i tried the installing the game in safe mode, all with the power cord
plugged in and my laptop at high performance, intel doesnt say whether halo2
works or not but they do have a list of games that will work with the
chipset/graphics of my laptop and im suprised some games like quake 4 wont
work on my machine even though it surpasses all the requirements maybe its
the same with halo 2. either way i already shipped the game back to the
online store for a full refund. i'll buy it again once i get a gaming
desktop pc

thanks

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

your video card isnt supported. i mean its just a really bad video card
for halo 2 i think you need a minimum of a 6100 nvidia or ati x1270

This is coming from my years spent in tech support.

When a software company says "your video card isn't 'supported'..." What
they mean is that we didn't really test your card during development, so
there's a good chance, in our experience that your video card will not work
with this game, or it means, "Your card doesn't support ______, and our game
needs it to run, so you are SOL." (____ might be like DirectX 9.0c, for
example)

Basically the game dev doesn't have to support your system if you don't meet
their minimum requirements.

Does this mean your game won't run on your system? Not necessarily. Will you
have a less than desireable experience? Probably, but who knows.

Unfortunatly Lokster didn't quote the original message and I don't have a
copy of said message.

If anyone is having problems, and even if the game says your hardware isn't
supported, still post about it here with your make and model of your
computer. Chances are you can get the game to run if you aren't trying to do
somthing crazy like run Halo 2 on a virtual PC or a really old PC.
Experience may not be that great, but it should work, or at least someone
can state why your system won't work with the game.

Ta,
-A.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

Hey, man thanks for that post ;; It seems like your wiling to help ;]

anyway Im trying to run H2 and I have a core 2 duo 1.6Ghz(3.2Ghz
total), 945 GM intel chipset(256MB), 3 Gigz of memory, availible HD
space....and the game tries to start and says insufficient system
resources or bad installation...:[ I really want this game to work, any
tweaks or anything to get the game running would be awesome. thanks

Never seen that error message before, but the integrated graphics chipset
(80945GM) should work with Halo 2, so that may not be your problem. Did you
try to uninstall the program and install it again? Remember Halo 2 starts
then continues to copy files to your HD, so don't remove the DVD once the
game starts.

Which error message did you get? insufficent system resources OR bad
installation? Or was that the whole message.

Update your drivers, go to http://www.intel.com and find the right drivers
for your graphics chipset, you might also update your drivers for your audio
card (not listed so don't know which one you have) and probably your
motherboard chipset.

You can run dxdiag (just type "dxdiag" into your start menu search) and run
the diagnostics to make sure everything is ok. all the tabs should read "no
problems" somewhere.

Write back with any updates.
-A.

 

[Arctic W. Fox]

Yeah mine comes up with the same error also and I haven't got a clue why... I
have a AMD Dual core processor that runs at 1.8 GHz totaling 3.6GHz. And I
can't seem to find anything that tells me how to fix that problem.

 

[Arctic W. Fox]

My video card in my laptop is a NVIDIA 7000M / GeForce 610M it should be good
enough right?

 

[Arctic W. Fox]

oops sorry wrote it wron it a NVIDIA GeForce 7000M / nForce 610M

 

[Arctic W. Fox]

Yeah I think your right but now I got a new problem I found out the only
thing you can really change in a laptop is the RAM. T_T I'll never get to
play Halo 2 now. SOB

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

Is it possible to play against the computer in Halo 2 For Windows
Vista?

If so, could someone please tell me how?

Like a bot deathmatch? No, there are not Bots in Halo 2, only good ole
human players. If you want to fight NPCs in the game, play Single Player
Campaign.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

my computer has a Pentium dual core
possessor running at 1.6ghz thats about 3.2ghz.

I always find this funny, you assume your CPU is running a multithreaded
aware application and there's literally no delay when calculating which cpu
gets to run which instruction.

You're not running at 3.2ghz, you're running at 1.6ghz, which btw I would
say is the minimum specs for a desktop gaming machine, but you're on a
notebook, so since your CPU is trying to save power it really isn't packing
the same wattage punch as a 1.6ghz desktop cpu. So, yeah...

Your video card is probably adiquate to run the game, find the latest
drivers from nVidia.com install and try the game again.

What's your system make/model #? I'll double-check your compatibility
prospects online.

FYI, if you want a better game for your notebook on the road, look into
Civ4, turns a 5 hour plane flight into like 30 minutes.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

you can find the specs to my computer here


'Lenovo 3000 K100 57068347 Intel Desktop Computer - Intel Pentium Dual
Core E2140 (1.6GHz), 3GB DDR2, 320GB SATA, SATA DVDRW, Gigabit LAN,
Windows Vista Home Premium at TigerDirect.com'
(http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp? E
dpNo=3523912&CatId=2630)

Which video card? Sound Card?

GPU/VPU: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Audio Description: Integrated Audio
Audio Chipset: High Definition

Found out from Lenovo.com (http://tinyurl.com/3pdgl2) that your sound
card is an ADI SoundMAX, which I believe is an Intel soundchip.

So you might try downloading video and audio drivers for your computer.

I don't know if you have Vista 64-bit or 32-bit. I'm guessing 32-bit,
but you might want to double-check.(Right click on Computer, Choose
Properties)

Here's a link to ID your computer Chipset and Graphics Card:
http://tinyurl.com/4zdhaz

You can download the audio driver from the Lenovo link above.

Once updated try the game again.

Worse case scenario, get a dedicated video card, but this game should
run no problem with your system. --
-A.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

Thats' great, YaYa. At least I know it is POSSIBLE to play "Single
Player".

However, you failed to let me how HOW to do that.

My copy of Halo2 For Vista (LIVE) does not appear to have any such
"Single Player Campaign".

IF I am mistaken, PLEASE point out to me HOW to get to this campaign.

I've never heard of anyone not being able to play single player. I can't
recall the menu off the top of my head (haven't played in months), but
assuming you load into Halo 2, Sign-in to an account at the Live Window
(Optional as I recall), there should be a new game option and you should
be able to select Single Player Campaign somewhere.

If the option doesn't present itself describe what you see from the
opening screen, and what you have or have not tried.

I couldn't find any Halo 2 photos online, when I get home tonight I'll
load up the game and post something.

Sorry dude. Check the manual, or RTM or RTFM or whatever.