Re: Halo - Poor Game Play "lags" help

From: Matthew Shaw (matted_at_[REMOVETHIS)
Date: 04/22/04 

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:52:21 +0800

No, he has enough memory...but he *may* be low on virtual memory if his 40gb
hard drive is quite full.

Lag as in graphics, as in a poor frame rate, and lag over the internet is
different. A poor frame rate per second (the action is jerky because the
screen's picture isn't been updated quick enough for your brain not to
notice that the image flow isn't 'smooth') would be caused by poor computer
specs, whereas lag over the internet is either caused by a slow connection
to the server, or by a poor connection of the server. But the two can
obviously be connected (in a way).

If the connection to your multiplayer server is poor, you would typically
see the action jumping around (especially the banshees), and it might make
it difficult to actually play the game, like you could be moving forward and
then all of a sudden your character slams into a wall. It doesn't matter how
fast your internet connection or computer is, if the server is too slow then
you'll suffer.

To improve your gameplay over the internet, you should start Halo and go
into multiplayer, click the Filter's button and change Server speed (?): Any
to something like Server speed: < 300 or lower (300 gives me a good choice
of servers). This filters out all the slow servers and gives you a list of
the faster ones. Typically, this gives me many Australian servers as they
are closer and will therefore usually have a better connection to me (as I'm
in Australia).

If you find a server you really like, that is fast, has good maps and
options, and has lots of people in it (keep in mind that the less people
playing on a server the faster it will usually be) then you should remember
it and try to use it whenever you go on to save time in going from server to
server (you'll also get to know some of the people well).

To check your frame rate in game, press Ctrl and F12. A little graph will
display up the top of your screen and show you your frame rate and, along
the right hand side in the middle, how many frames per second your game is
currrently running at. Higher frame rates are better, so having your graph
line near the top means that your game is running smoothly. Typically,
anything lower than about 25fps will start to look like a slide show. 30fps
is ideal.

Hope this helps a bit (Halo does rock!)

Matthew Shaw

<anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:279901c4280b$f072e770$a401280a@phx.gbl...
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >I have A,
> >P4 1.7GhZ
> >512 Mb DDR Ram
> >40GB HDD
> >ATI 128 MB Video
> >T3 Internet Connection
> >The Game barely runs at 800x600 and was wondering why, I
> >have followed all of the suggestions on the support sites
> >(latest drivers ect, -use14) and nothing improves the
> game
> >play. Halo ironicly is the least demanding game I own and
> >it runs the worst. So if anyone knows how to fix this
> >problem would be great.
> >Thank You,
> >Allan
> >.
> >
> Allan i think the problem is that you don't have enough
> virtual memory which can be fixed by buying a memory card
> for your computer. I had the same problem but i had a
> nvidia 4 video card but after i got the memory teh game
> takes no time at all to load anymore.
> Glad to be of assistance
> anonymous