Halo PC in-game font

-h4x0r- · Jun 15, 2005, 04:54 AM

We both use ATi Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB, same amount of memory, and SAME exact Halo in-game settings. Meaning same resolution and everything. However, the font on his looks MUCH clearer, the only way I get font about as clear as that is upping the resolution to 1024x768 or higher. Naturally the higher the resolution, the clearer the text will look, that goes for any game. But for some reason 2 of my friends run in that 640x480 resolution and still have very clear looking text. I already turn my AA to 6x, and basicly every other setting through the Control Center I could to highest.

http://hosting.worldgamerz.com/scree...isettings1.jpg
http://hosting.worldgamerz.com/scree...isettings2.jpg

Anyone have any ideas? I am a complete quality freak so this really bothers me. I think it is simply a setting or something because I do remember having the clear text just like him with this same card, but it was a long time ago and obviously a different driver version (which doesnt seem to be the culprit since he has 5.6 also)

Would anyone with Halo PC be able to test theirs out and tell me what they find? Thanks for the help guys

-h4x0r-

ChoGGi · Jun 15, 2005, 05:08 AM

you could try setting aa and af to app perf.

edit: how come your playing it on 640 with x6 aa, wouldnt 1024 with x2 or none be faster?

-h4x0r- · Jun 15, 2005, 06:00 AM

Not sure, I just know when I turned all those settings up, one of them made my textures (ground) VERY nice looking. With Halo, lowest res is a must unless you get hundreds of FPS on anything higher (need a good PC for that) Halo PC is much harder than your typical game, you have to lead anywhere from half an inch to three quarters of an inch ahead of them to even register the bullet. It is proven that the more FPS you get, the less your lead (though never perfect) so running in 1024x768 with 40-80 FPS (i think) will not even work good. And they have already been on application preference, that is not the issue. Thanks for the help

-h4x0r-

griswoold · Jun 15, 2005, 08:39 AM

1. AA doesn't work in Halo so you can set it app. preference in the drivers CP

2. AF(anisotropic filtering) may have an influence how the text looks as it is forced through the CP. Try disabling AF and look if it makes a difference for the text

Louiemaster · Jun 15, 2005, 04:25 PM

omg haxor i know u, your friends with my bud Rip, its me btw [SM]Louie. Anyway to stay on topic, my text seems to be like the one on the first picture, though i do run halo at 640 by 480. This may seem like a long shot but try running halo in a window, that should make your text clearer but everything will be smaller.

-h4x0r- · Jun 15, 2005, 10:45 PM

It was actually the Mipmap detail level that made all the textures more clear. And running it in wndowed mode isnt something I want to do anyways, as these people are not doing it to get the nice looking font for Halo. Can anyone think of anything else?

Yeah I know rip, play with him every long once in a while. I remember [SM] when I jumped into 1.04 for a week or so. Hows your clan doing anyways?

-h4x0r-

Tried windowed mode, WAY too small for me, and didnt change the look of the text anyways. When running any game in a really low resoltuon like that, in-game text should look pretty crappy, at least I thought. It is almost as if he is running a high text resolution with a low gameplay resolution

Dr. Zhivago · Jun 19, 2005, 11:59 PM

Try changing Alternate Pixel Center to the opposite of whatever you have it currently set to in the ATI Control Panel. Certain game's text looks weird when it is enabled. Also, certain game's text look weird when it is disabled. Sp, chnage it and see if that fixes your issue.

HTH

Peace.

PF Prophet · Jun 20, 2005, 12:42 AM

ok to start halo has worse perf with aa/af enabled. due to the way halo renders using the back buffer you must eather cheat(edit the game files to not use some ferures) Or not use aa/af on most cards.
halo automaticly uses a form of af just as it does on the xbx so your best option is to play it at 1024(or higher) if you have a 9800pro and NO aa/af.
Now on higher cards you can use aa/af if you done mind the perf loss. (x800+) i can play halo pc at over 60fps at 1600x1200 with my x800......cant even get close to that using the 9800pro i use to have.

now if you dought me check around the net about halo and AA. you can address your thanks for the shitty pc port to microsoft since they bought halo and insisted it be a xbx title only (it was orignaly gonna be pc title.....i even got in the beta b4 it was cancled)

-h4x0r- · Jun 20, 2005, 05:24 AM

Alternate pixel center Enabled or Disabled helps nothing. Infact with it enabled, it screws up shadows in Halo alot.

AA/AF at lowest or highest makes no difference, my FPS stays about the same. Running 1024x768 wotn even happen for me since I cant get consistent over 100 FPS, and that hurts Halo lead. Pro players that play halo do whatever they can to get the best FPS, meaning lowest resolution is how majority plays. This is because the more FPS you have in Halo, the less you need to lead.

I only have 768 MB of PC2700 system memory, which is what I think is limiting my video card alot. In less than 12 hours my new 1 GB will be here, so I will have a total of 1.5 GB of PC3200 system memory. However FPS is not the issue we have here, lets stay on topic. Anyone else have any suggestions to get my text looking better than the crap it does now? Theres got to be something screwy, my friend literally has the same identical card I have, and he uses the 5.6 Catalyst (not the control panel since he said that gave errors trying to run) but we can not figure out why his text looks so much better. I was even thinking about switching to Nvidia until I laughed at how crappy their shaders must be if the cloak in Halo doesnt even show right. Since Halo is the main game I play, a card that works good with Halo is what I would need. My card can handle it, I just want my text looking nice like it should. Thanks for the suggestions so far guys

-h4x0r-

Jitter · Jun 20, 2005, 05:34 AM

That definitely looks like an alternate pixel center problem. I had a very similar font problem in links 2003 and it was because i had alternate pixel centers selected in ATI tray tools. I would double check that, and maybe install ATI tray tools to make sure it is disabled. Make sure you check in the additional options stting under direct 3d, and in the settings/additional tab under direct 3D.

-h4x0r- · Jun 20, 2005, 02:23 PM

As I stated before, alternate pixel shader disabled looks like that, when Enabled it screws up all the shadows in Halo. So that can't be it, I will double check anyways though. Thanks

HungryHom3r · Jun 22, 2005, 09:10 PM

I think I know the problem. I had the exact same issues with the chat text, but it turns out it's not the graphics, video card, or driver settings at all. It all depends on what FONTS you have installed. The problem is, the game automatically uses Arial bold (I think) as the default chat text (as you can see in the 2nd screenshot), and for some strange reason the game might use Arial NARROW bold if available, which doesn't display well (in the 1st screenshot). I'm pretty sure this is what's causing the problem.

If you want, there is a tool available called Xhzjang's Halo Font Editor which you can find here:
http://files.halomods.com/viewtopic.php?t=715

With this tool, you can edit the ingame text color, location, and font. Try switching it to Arial bold with a decent text size around 8-12 (whatever your comfortable with), and see if it helps.

-h4x0r- · Jun 23, 2005, 07:54 AM

I have already used this before, don't think thats the issue, but is close to a fix. Ill try your suggestion particularly and see if that helps. Thank you

-h4x0r-

It works! Thank god. I used that before but I never thought about changing it to a different Arial. Yes my Halo was using Arial Narrow Bold 8, changed it to regular Arial Bold 8 and it looks great. Thanks for all the help everyone