73 replies to this topic

[a2daj]

I wouldn't really call it a bug.  A bug would imply that there was something wrong with the code.  Before 10.3.5 there simply wasn't a method in OpenGL to do the hardware accelerated lens flares that worked with the Halo engine.  I like to think of it as a Performance Enhancing Development, or as the mundane may put it, stero... er an optimization.    The UB code doesn't seem to have the PED, as mentioned earlier in this thread.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

teflon, on January 31st 2007, 05:49 PM, said:

think youve got the wrong stick in your hand... you can choose between none, vertex only, vertex & pixel and Advanced Vertex & Pixel in the mac version quite easily compared with the PC version.
which are from a drop down list when you hold down command upon launch.

What the heck are you trying to say with that first thing is that a personal insult? The second thing is not answering my question that is just stating the obvious. Are you telling me putting vertex only is the same as forcing pixel shader 1.x (1.1 or 1.4) via an argument on PC Halo? Because I get no other option otherwise yet with the same card that I have with the same game on Windows you can put on pixel shader 1.x. I'm thinking perhaps via the command console I might be able to do it but I need to test that theory.

[Quicksilver]

Thinine, on January 31st 2007, 08:42 PM, said:

Because the bug is back obviously. Did you read the thread?

This is a new problem, but I'm not sure if I would categorize it as a bug (the bug from the Panther days was much worse).  If you look and tBC's earlier post and mine, extreme lens flares are causing a performance hit that decrease framerates from ~5-20% (depending on your system specs), which further proves that Macsoft didn't bother to fully-optimize the universal binary.

The obvious bottom line is that you shouldn't turn down lens flares unless you're having serious performance issues.  a2daj was replying to my recommended MacBook Pro settings, but the 2.16 GHz MBP can handle extreme lens flares at those settings just without any apparent performance penalty (hence my objection).

[a2daj]

The pixel shaders versions are aimed at Direct3D.  OpenGL's official pixel shaders are the fragment programs, which first appeared as an ARB feature in OpenGL 1.5.  They're roughly equivalent to pixel shader 2.0.  Video cards which support pixel shader 2.0 in hardware support ARB fragment programs.  The various other versions of pixel shaders (1.1 and 1.4) were based on vendor specific extensions.  I think 1.1 was equivalent to NVIDIA's register combiners (used in Mac Halo's old NV Shader option) and 1.4 equivalent to the ATI fragment program in the OpenGL extensions.  There's no equivalent to a 1.4 rendering path in Mac Halo.

Quicksilver, on January 31st 2007, 07:19 PM, said:

The obvious bottom line is that you shouldn't turn down lens flares unless you're having serious performance issues.  a2daj was replying to my recommended MacBook Pro settings, but the 2.16 GHz MBP can handle extreme lens flares at those settings just without any apparent performance penalty (hence my objection).

Based on my tests back in September this is wrong.  I saw a 21% performance drop with extreme lens flares.

edit.  Is there some auto consolidation feature in the forum software?  My response to QS was intended to be a separate post.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

a2daj, on January 31st 2007, 08:24 PM, said:

The pixel shaders versions are aimed at Direct3D.  OpenGL's official pixel shaders are the fragment programs, which first appeared as an ARB feature in OpenGL 1.5.  They're roughly equivalent to pixel shader 2.0.  Video cards which support pixel shader 2.0 in hardware support ARB fragment programs.  The various other versions of pixel shaders (1.1 and 1.4) were based on vendor specific extensions.  I think 1.1 was equivalent to NVIDIA's register combiners (used in Mac Halo's old NV Shader option) and 1.4 equivalent to the ATI fragment program in the OpenGL extensions.  There's no equivalent to a 1.4 rendering path in Mac Halo.

According to what I've read about the specs of my ATI card it supports 1.1 with more instructions than 1.4. If it is true that neither paths are available in Mac Halo it's unfortunate when they are available on Windows whether it is because of Direct3D or not. But thanks for the more constructive reply.

[a2daj]

Smoke_Tetsu, on January 31st 2007, 07:28 PM, said:

According to what I've read about the specs of my ATI card it supports 1.1 and 1.4. If it is true that neither paths are available in Mac Halo it's unfortunate when they are available on Windows whether it is because of Direct3D or not. But thanks for the more constructive reply.

PS 1.1-3 support on ATI cards is emulated.  It supports 1.4 in hardware.

[Smoke_Tetsu]

a2daj, on January 31st 2007, 08:30 PM, said:

PS 1.1-3 support on ATI cards is emulated.  It supports 1.4 in hardware.

I just read the situation with 1.x shaders was fragmented (no pun intended) and it got better with second generation 2.x shaders. Unfortunatly.. my card doesn't support Pixel shader 2.x. Ah well.

[Quicksilver]

a2daj, on January 31st 2007, 09:27 PM, said:

Based on my tests back in September this is wrong.  I saw a 21% performance drop with extreme lens flares.

I have that system right here, and it runs great.

[a2daj]

I just reran the Halo benchmark on my 1st gen MBP 2 GHz with 256 MB VRAM.

800x500 with everything within the in-game prefs maxed out including audio.  No vsync.
Advanced Pixel Shaders w/ Detail Objects and Model Reflections checked.
FSAA off
Model Detail High

Low Lens Flares
58.38 (typically low first run frame rate)
60.22
59.71

Extreme Lens Flares
48.20
48.18
48.11

That's about a 20% drop in performance.  When I did my tests back in Sept they were at 1024x768.  The frame rate numbers weren't exact but as mentioned the performance drop was around 20%, same as these results.

[dr.zeissler]

Though it's an old one, but it's technically interesting to me. The different shader-paths and different visual quality on different mac's is a nice testing object for me as a retro-gamer.

I love Halo. It's a really good game. Perhaps we get the master-chief-collection on ARM64 sometime
Taking about the shader's. What can you expect, or how do I get the most visual quality under acceptable frame rate?
I own the old PPC 1.5 Version and the later 2.0 UB Version of the game.

I think I will have to do some testing.

- G4-Mini 10.3.9 R9200/32MB
- iMac G5 x600pro
- iMac G5 FX5200
- iMac x1600pro
- iMac 2600pro
- iMac CI7
- Mini GMA950 (my first Mac ever)
- Mini 9400m
- Mini 320m
- Mini HD3000
- Mini HD4000

[ehuelga]

Oh… are we back to posting Halo timedemo scores?

Date / Time: 3/30/21 4:19:53 (0ms)
3600MHz, 32768MB
C:\Applications\Halo.app Frames=4700
Total Time=20.16s
Average frame rate=233.09fps

They'll have to take my Mojave partition from my cold, dead, Spartan fingers.

[dr.zeissler]

Yesterday I checked if copying the HaloMD shaders to 2.04 does fix the glitches on intel-igp, but it does not.
The glitches are 100% the same...that was a surprise. So why are the shaders still wrong...it must be more than that.

[jos]

ehuelga, on 30 March 2021 - 05:28 PM, said:

C:\Applications\Halo.app

What? Is Microsoft magically creating secret C: drives on Macs that have Halo installed? Did they also install DirectX for us and does this mean we can install and play Doom and Doom: Eternal if we install Halo first?

[ehuelga]

jos, on 31 March 2021 - 09:01 AM, said:

What? Is Microsoft magically creating secret C: drives on Macs that have Halo installed? Did they also install DirectX for us and does this mean we can install and play Doom and Doom: Eternal if we install Halo first?

No… I think it's just the auto-formatted timedemo.txt syntax. It's been a minute since I looked in there, but was happily surprised to find my oldest entry there is from 14 years ago:

Date / Time: 11/1/07 12:37:1 (0ms)

2400MHz, 2048MB

C:\Applications\Halo.app Frames=4700

Total Time=67.93s

Average frame rate=69.18fps