When it was first shown to the public back in 1999 running on a blue and white G3 it was instantly hailed as a future classic a game that would become a killer app and whose inherent quality would actually get people to buy hardware in order to play it. Grapics are better on a Mac.Written by Perry Longinotti, our 3D gaming Canadian remote mad scientistEdited and posted 12/31/03 by Rob-ART Morgan, Chief Mad ScientistHalo is a game that is steeped in much folklore. While synonymous with the Xbox brand, Halo was originally never meant for Microsofts console.I was willing to pay 50 buck for Halo:CE and Id pay 50 more for Halo 2 for my Mac if I could get it and so would a lot of other Mac users, just make it available to us.First, the game experience encompasses a high caliber single player story and a shelf life prolonging online multiplayer mode. It was a good business decision that has paid off in both fame and fortune.Consolation to Mac users everywhere is that after a delay, the Mac version of Halo is finally upon us and that PC users have had to wait almost as long as us.If you have been keeping up on the topic of user reaction to Halo, both on the Mac and PC platforms, two universal trends will immediately become clear. They got bought while Microsoft was in a spending mood and the success of Halo has catapulted them from obscure Mac developer to closely watched tier one mega developer. For many in the Mac community, Bungie (Halo's developer) was seen as a sellout that betrayed the community that had supported it.I, for one, cannot begrudge Bungie for achieving some financial security at the expense of the Mac community.Only the options supported by your video card will appear. There are three rendering code paths (from low to high), No Shaders, Vertex Shaders and Vertex & Pixel Shaders. Each version of Halo includes either a decent online FAQ or Read Me file.Mac users are treated to a configuration menu when the game loads initially. This author does not believe in perpetuating platform polemics.A lot is being written about Halo performance, but the best source of information is the literature published on the topic by the Mac and PC developers.The integrated Time Demo function will aid us in determining the best settings for Halo on our machines.The single player experience is greatly enhanced by all of the pretty visuals Halo is capable of. These can be distilled into two approaches, one for the single player game and the other for multiplayer. Relying on the command line for advanced configuration may be less user-friendly than the Mac approach, but it is nothing the average PC user can't endure.When testing the game out on both platforms, we did everything we could to keep settings the same across the board, but the extra configuration options on the Mac version meant that exact matches were impossible.There are lots of ways to tweak the performance of Mac Halo to get decent experience. This is also the way to activate the PC version's Time Demo feature.
![]() Halo 2 Mac If IFor my MDD PowerMac 1.25 I found the following settings worked best:This setup gets me 37.5 fps. This will require some trial and error. Try dialing up the detail settings as high as possible while being able to achieve a time demo of at least 35 frames per second (FPS) average. From here, increase the launcher and in-game video settings in gradual steps running a Time Demo between each change. Start with the lowest resolution possible (640*480) and low detail settings. Best program for deleting files macGames come out that make us buy new hardware. While those people who are fortunate enough to have a high-end machine are going to experience Halo in all its glory.Many a forum thread has been dedicated to the whys and who-done-its of Halo performance, but the simple truth is that this is the way of things. A higher resolution is generally regarded as more important in multiplayer than eye candy.Gamers with average Macs, much like their Windows counterparts, are going to have to make some compromises in order to play this game. If this works, the next step would be to increase resolution a notch or two and test if game play is still smooth. Just slightly over 30% of the time, the time demo dipped below the magic 24 fps that we perceive as fluid motion.This may seem low like settings, but a Windows powered machine with a 1.25Ghz CPU and RADEON 9000 will achieve similar results.For multiplayer, if you find that the single player settings you use result in slow down at in-opportune times, try lowering the visual settings to the bare minimum. The extra settings are useful in getting Halo running comfortably on an average iMac or PowerMac. The Mac version offers Anti Aliasing and greater control over rendering options. Porting a showcase DirectX 9 game to OpenGL could not have been easy.In a few ways, the Mac version actually beats the PC version. RETURN to Main BARE FEATS Index Page.
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