There is still a performance penalty when using more RAM than the chipset can cache. With 2MB cache you should be able to cache up to 256MB of RAM in write back mode or 512MB in write through. Check if that helps performance and especially stuttering.
Next the usual BIOS optimisations, especially RAM timings.

Have you tried an earlier GPU? The 9800 is obviously bottlenecked. Maybe a GF4 Ti series card will have drivers that work better with the old CPU architecture? At 1024*768 it should be just as CPU bottlenecked as the 9800.

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-03-14, 12:00:

There is still a performance penalty when using more RAM than the chipset can cache. With 2MB cache you should be able to cache up to 256MB of RAM in write back mode or 512MB in write through.

K6 CPUs with onboard L2 cache can cache up to 4GB of RAM.

The game is intended for a P3 and a GF3.

Mabye try:
Disable all startup programs
Older or newer chipset drivers
Older video drivers vs newer video drivers
Windows 9x vs 2000 vs XP
Lower settings in the game and the command line:
http://hce.halomaps.org/hek/index.html?start= … e_commands.html

When I played this completely forgettable game in 2001 it was with:
Re: DosFreak All System Specs 1-6-2020

RaiderOfLostVoodoo wrote on 2022-03-14, 16:28:

Doornkaat wrote on 2022-03-14, 12:00:

There is still a performance penalty when using more RAM than the chipset can cache. With 2MB cache you should be able to cache up to 256MB of RAM in write back mode or 512MB in write through.

K6 CPUs with onboard L2 cache can cache up to 4GB of RAM.

I believe you share a common misconception: Using a K6-III(+)/2+ CPU does not change the caching limitations of your chipset. When using one of those CPUs the motherboard's onboard cache will become L3 cache which still has a positive impact on performance. If you exceed the chipset's caching abilities there is still a performance penalty, it's just not as severe as with previous CPUs that don't have an on-die L2 cache.

DosFreak wrote on 2022-03-14, 17:03:

The game is intended for a P3 and a GF3. […]
Show full quote

The game is intended for a P3 and a GF3.

Mabye try:
Disable all startup programs
Older or newer chipset drivers
Older video drivers vs newer video drivers
Windows 9x vs 2000 vs XP
Lower settings in the game and the command line:
http://hce.halomaps.org/hek/index.html?start= … e_commands.html

When I played this completely forgettable game in 2001 it was with:
Re: DosFreak All System Specs 1-6-2020

The PC version hit the scene in late 2003, so you did not play it in 2001 (no comment on "completely forgettable" 🤣) on PC. That version is also very demanding, bringing Pentium 4, Athlon XP and Athlon 64 and GF FX and Radeon 9700/9800 to their knees.
Needless to say, that poor K6 is getting toasted here. I'm curious to see how the game performs for the OP to be considering it playable, I hope for their own sake this is not their first playthrough 😜

I did play the XBOX version when it came out when I bought it for my brother and sister but yeah on PC it was in 2003 with this correct link Re: DosFreak All System Specs 1-6-2020

For the op I'm guessing 640x or 800x in the mid 20s with everything at low.

Garrett W wrote on 2022-03-14, 19:23:

DosFreak wrote on 2022-03-14, 17:03:

The game is intended for a P3 and a GF3. […]
Show full quote

The game is intended for a P3 and a GF3.

Mabye try:
Disable all startup programs
Older or newer chipset drivers
Older video drivers vs newer video drivers
Windows 9x vs 2000 vs XP
Lower settings in the game and the command line:
http://hce.halomaps.org/hek/index.html?start= … e_commands.html

When I played this completely forgettable game in 2001 it was with:
Re: DosFreak All System Specs 1-6-2020

The PC version hit the scene in late 2003, so you did not play it in 2001 (no comment on "completely forgettable" 🤣) on PC. That version is also very demanding, bringing Pentium 4, Athlon XP and Athlon 64 and GF FX and Radeon 9700/9800 to their knees.
Needless to say, that poor K6 is getting toasted here. I'm curious to see how the game performs for the OP to be considering it playable, I hope for their own sake this is not their first playthrough 😜

The sentenel beams are really dragging it down.

Yeah, seriously, it’s playable 🤣. Not lag free by any means but like I said, I’m half way through the campaign.

No 🤣, I’ve beat this game many times! Not forgettable by any means!!!

So I don’t think that I’ll be able to eleminate all lag, but I think it’s going well enough with these unoptimized drivers that maybe a few tweaks may make a significant improvment.

I can try the 256mb thing.

I’ve heard about that before people have reported more performance with less ram. Even on k63/2+/3+ I think the above statement is true about the k63/2+/3+ improving greatly, but not totally solving the caching issue. Or maybe it’s not a caching issue so much as more ram requiring more time to keep refreshed? Idk, anyway, there seems to be something to that statment.

I’ll have to dig through my gpus and see what I have.

My only gf4 is pci, I can try it?

Now, don't expect any miracles from the RAM/caching thing (though maybe 256MB will OC better than 640MB because it stresses the memory controller less?); this is going to give you a couple percent performance increase and likely less micro stuttering, but the CPU is still rather old for Halo.

A PCI video card will likely deliver worse performance than the AGP Radeon 9800. As far as I understand the MVP3's PCI implementation isn't that great for larger transfers like a graphics card requires. Also I guess the PCI GF4 is a non-Ti variant? That's probably not going to be an improvement anyway then.

Could WinXP SP1 be beneficial on older platforms btw? I have almost no idea about oprimising WinXP.😅

Halo supports Win98 FWIW. It's still strict about videocards though, minimum of a DX7-level feature set (Geforce2's etc) are supported. There's a surprisingly comprehensive videocard database included (that even namedrops PowerVR PCX cards) with an intent to identify and exclude.

On xbox halo ran on a modified version of win 2k

But win 9x prob will still run faster?

My gf4 is actually a quadro nvs400? I think it is.

I could always order a card, but which one? Which is the absolute best for halo?

Is 3dmark 99, 2000, or 2001 the most analogous for comparing results to halo?

The XBox APIs and OS should be much more efficient than Windows DirectX and drivers. Halo on the Xbox will be using every little optimization down to the metal.

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-03-14, 23:51:

Which is the absolute best for halo?

Of the DX9 class cards that do shader model 2, probably the x850. Whether that card will agree with SS7 AGP implementations are another matter...

Another thing about Halo to keep in mind, on Xbox it's capped at 30. The port didn't really do much smoothening of that, all the particles and models still run locked at 30 and looks more uncanny at a higher framerate.

swaaye wrote on 2022-03-15, 00:57:

The XBox APIs and OS should be much more efficient than Windows DirectX and drivers. Halo on the Xbox will be using every little optimization down to the metal.

Has anyone ever gotten xbox OS running on a pc?

leileilol wrote on 2022-03-15, 01:09:

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-03-14, 23:51:

Which is the absolute best for halo?

Of the DX9 class cards that do shader model 2, probably the x850. Whether that card will agree with SS7 AGP implementations are another matter...

Another thing about Halo to keep in mind, on Xbox it's capped at 30. The port didn't really do much smoothening of that, all the particles and models still run locked at 30 and looks more uncanny at a higher framerate.

At some point, the drivers started needing sse I believe. I think it’s x1000

So x850 may be good,

But I don’t know of any dual notch x850 cards. Only 1.5v notch

http://xtreview.com/addcomment-id-2023-view-g … 900-gs-agp.html

The 7900gs apparently came in 3.3v flavor.

But I’d imagine on a k6 it probably wouldn’t be faster than my 9800 pro (prob even more driver overhead)