Halo 2 acting very strange

[beele]

I've had halo 2 installed for over a year now, ran fine all the time. One day I boot up halo 2 and I'm getting stutters. So I do some basic checks and stuff, like reinstalling halo 2 (several times), installing newer and older video drivers (nvidia), checking for viruses and spyware (none on my pc with nod32 smart security), changing resolution/quality, but all these things gave no solution. So I booted up fraps to see if the stutters were FPS related, seems they are not since I'm getting a nice 40-60 FPS on high at 1280 by 720 with 2 times AA on. Even in the stutters my frame rate stays nice and high, but it's like the game is paused for a really small amount of time and then gets going again, the problem gets worse in the main menu or when I move the player when playing. It's really a pain in the ass when trying to test/make maps. (In sapien the problem does NOT occur.)

Does anyone have an idea why this is happening, because I'm not willing to format my laptop just for halo 2 when other games like COD4 and crysis run like a charm.

[beele]

Anyone has got an idea, it's really hard to test a map this way

[Zeph]

Lower the resolution to the lowest possible setting and play in windowed mode.

[beele]

Lower the resolution to the lowest possible setting and play in windowed mode.

I was already playing in windowed mode. I tried it at 800 by 600 and the stutter became smaller, but still not gone (but it's playable now). It's nice that It has limited the problem, but it still makes no sense to me, that suddenly the game starts running very choppy, when before I was able to play it on 1680 by 1050 on high.

Edit: fps when on 800 by 600 on high with no AA is from 50 to 100, averaging around 55.

[johnnyblaz20]

-novsync?

[beele]

-novsync?

Doesn't solve the problem. But would be strange that the problem would lie with the vsync, since that is fps related. The stutters I'm getting do not make the framerate fluctuate.

[armoman92]

idk, try some dumb stuff you would never try like changing halo 2 priority in task manager, using cheat engine to screw with the halo 2 process or shut down all non-essential processes from task manager. Change the resulution through windoes display settings as well. U can also try unistgalling halo 2 without using windoes unistaller; use some 3rd party program or something. Try playing in safe mode (idk if that works). Take out ur video card from the pc and blow on it. And if worst comes to worst, screw halo 2 and move onto a difeerent game (but i dont want u to do that, i like airstation).

[beele]

idk, try some dumb stuff you would never try like changing halo 2 priority in task manager, using cheat engine to screw with the halo 2 process or shut down all non-essential processes from task manager. Change the resulution through windoes display settings as well. U can also try unistgalling halo 2 without using windoes unistaller; use some 3rd party program or something. Try playing in safe mode (idk if that works). Take out ur video card from the pc and blow on it. And if worst comes to worst, screw halo 2 and move onto a difeerent game (but i dont want u to do that, i like airstation).

I'll try the priority thing later today, as for most other things, I've already tried them. Also you can't run a game in windows safe mode since there are no drivers loaded then.

[Dan]

The latest nvidia drivers seem to do this to halo 2, driver 177.41 is the latest one that doesnt do it, change back to that driver if you have installed new drivers.

[armoman92]

Also you can't run a game in windows safe mode since there are no drivers loaded then.

i did not know that, nice to know thanks

Also you can try to run a game acceleration program to help the game run better. I use "game accelerator" (get it from some warez site or torrent, idc) and it helps speed up the games (as in not lag because of system specs). But at he same time its weird that it was working fine b4 and now its spazzing.

Ill show my "crazy super PC-game-expert asian-(no racism intended)-nerdy-ass-friend " this thread tommorow about what he would do and get back to you with his suggestions. He doesn't like halo though... he is a CSS master.