New to a Mac and Halo UB running not as expected

[Kenza]

First of all, hey folks.

Got my first Mac last week(the white MB 2Ghz, 1GB Ram) and thought that it would be nice to just have one game on it for the odd time I'd like to play something. So I read, that there's Halo for the Mac and it being kinda old (especially in gaming terms) and existing in an UB version, I thought my MB would run it fine.

So, now after installing it and starting the first mission, I discover, that camera movement via an attached USB mouse just isn't that smooth, sometimes being too fast and at other times being wy too slow. But to top it all of, everytime I shoot the pistol(the assault rifle is even worse), the shots are delayed by at least 2 seconds after clicking the button...for example, I hit the button a couple of times, and while hitting it, the weapon fires once, maybe twice. But even after stopping hitting my moousebutton, the weapon continues to fire rounds until it equals the time I pressed that damn mouse button...that sort of sluggish reaction is pretty much the worst that can happen to you in a FPS. Strangely, weapons and movement behaved normally in a few parts of the first level, but not seeming to be connected to amount of enemies present or larger areas in the game.
So, seriously, I know the MB's graphics are not top notch, but from what I gathered, it should run Halo UB fine on a MB, right?
So, what am I doing wrong? Certain settings that I'd better keep the hell away from or things to disable/enable before starting the game? As I said, I am a virtual Mac virgin.

Thanks in advance and regards,

Kenza

 

[lancestraz]

The first thing you should do is download the latest update. (direct download).
Second thing you should do is to keep lowering Halo's graphics settings until it's playable.
Last thing to do, start playing Halo with us.

 

[Redneck1089]

The first thing you should do is download the latest update. (direct download).
Second thing you should do is to keep lowering Halo's graphics settings until it's playable.
Last thing to do, start playing Halo with us.

I'm going to try the update for the UB Halo. Halo right now runs like a dog on my Quad 3 Ghz with an X1900 XT. Doom 3 on max is as smooth as butter...

 

[applekid]

Halo wasn't a perfect port from X-Box to PC/Mac, but then again, on the PC and Mac it's running at much higher resolutions and there's a lot more detail added.

Your MacBook's Integrated Graphics is not helping the problem. You're going to have to turn down a few settings to get a smooth and steady 30 FPS.

 

[Nermal]

The Halo UA is a disappointment. I have 2.0.1 on my 2.33 GHz MBP and it still doesn't perform as well as my old PowerPC did

 

[lancestraz]

The Halo UA is a disappointment. I have 2.0.1 on my 2.33 GHz MBP and it still doesn't perform as well as my old PowerPC did

How many FPS are you getting?

 

[Xeem]

You should also remember that Intel integrated graphics aren't just bad for gaming, they are terrible. Unless a modern game has received optimization specifically for Intel chipsets (example: World of Warcraft), chances are it will be nigh-unplayable on integrated graphics. Halo, while not really modern, was ported very poorly to computers in terms of performance, so it should be expected to chug a bit on a Macbook.

 

[Kenza]

Alright, so after decreasing the resolution there was a visible performance boost. Though, after reaching level 2, Halo, something new occured. First of all water is not visible or being displayed in a neon blue or a black, second, when moving through terrain, there sometimes seem to be invisible obstacles. Meaning, I am moving through open and mostly plain terrain and suddenly the Master Chief stops or starts to strafe just like I had run into a wall or something similar. This severely annoyed the hell out of me after trying to evade some enemy fire by strafing and suddenly stopping like I strafed into a wall...only to realize, that there was nothing but a simple grass plain, no wall, no steep hill, no nothing.
What's so confusing about that is, that I played the demo for Halo before getting the full version. The demo displayed water and let me move through terrain as you would usually expect it, the only problem being, that it is for PPC and thus running choppy like hell.
So now what? Is this normal? Does anyone else experience this?
I know that gaming is not a part of the whole Mac/Apple-thing, but when it comes to Halo right now, my Mac just does nost work...or the game, that's where I'm not so sure.

Regards,
Kenza

 

[tominated]

ok, that is definitely not right. You should email macsoft or something

 

[Nermal]

How many FPS are you getting?

I don't know, but it wasn't smooth. I've just put a new hard drive in my system and haven't reinstalled the game yet so I can't give you any precise figures (plus I don't know how to tell!)

 

[applekid]

How many FPS are you getting?

I don't know about Nermal, but I can a steady 30 FPS even in the Silent Cartographer beginning beach assault with the proper settings which are 1024 x 768, 5x Anti-Aliasing, Advanced Pixel Shaders + Vertex, highest settings for polygons, textures, particles, and luster. The resolution definitely kills the frame rate although it looked better at 1440 x 900 on the MacBook Pro's display.

On a MacBook Pro 2.16 GHz with 1 GB RAM and a X1600 256 MB.

 

[lancestraz]

I don't know, but it wasn't smooth. I've just put a new hard drive in my system and haven't reinstalled the game yet so I can't give you any precise figures (plus I don't know how to tell!)

If you install it again...
Make sure the console is enabled (start Halo from the Finder while holding the command key and select the "Enable Console" check box)
Then hit the tilde key, type "rasterizer_fps 1" and hit enter.

I get about 30fps with all settings on high using a 2.33GHz C2D MBP with 2GB RAM.

 

[applekid]

If you install it again...
Make sure the console is enabled (start Halo from the Finder while holding the command key and select the "Enable Console" check box)
Then hit the tilde key, type "rasterizer_fps 1" and hit enter.

I get about 30fps with all settings on high using a 2.33GHz C2D MBP with 2GB RAM.

That is what I have done, and I kept the framerate setting at 30 FPS.

 

[budpam]

?

Am I missing something here? If you have a MacBook and not a MacBook Pro, then it is either going to look terrible with everything turned down, and may be playable at 640 x 480, or at higher resolutions, it will not run smooth no matter what. The integrated Intel GMA950 in the MacBook will not play Halo like the ATIx1600 in the MacBook Pro.