Halo: Combat Evolved

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Halo: Combat Evolved

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Developers
	Bungie
Publishers
	Microsoft Studios
Engines
	Halo Engine
Release dates
Windows	September 30, 2003
macOS (OS X)	December 3, 2003

Warnings

The macOS (OS X) version of this game does not work on macOS Catalina (version 10.15) or later due to the removal of support for 32-bit-only apps.

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Halo
Halo: Combat Evolved	2003
Halo 2	2007
Halo: Spartan (series)
Halo Online	2015*
Halo 5: Forge	2016
Halo Wars (series)
Halo Recruit	2017
Halo: The Master Chief Collection (series)
Halo Infinite	2021

Key points

Modding tools are available as a separate download

Great console port

Small community

General information

Bungie.net - The developer's site

Halo Nation - A very detailed wiki for everything Halo related

Halo.Bungie.org - One of the biggest Halo fan sites around

Halo Maps - A fan site for downloading mods and maps for Halo: Custom Edition

Bungie forums thread about enhancing the graphics of Halo CE

Versions

Halo: Custom Edition

Halo: Custom Edition allows players to play multiplayer Halo games on user-created maps. There is no singleplayer campaign. In order to play a downloaded user-created map, place the .map file in:

 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Halo Custom Edition\maps 

Note: this is the path for a default installation on a 64-bit copy of Windows 7. The path may vary. If you downloaded a .zip or other archive, you will need to extract it first. WARNING: Do NOT delete any .map files in the folder by default, ESPECIALLY not ui.map. Halo: Custom Edition and any custom maps can be downloaded from halomaps.org

Improvements

Patch 1.09 (Windows)

This patch also removes the disk check.

The latest version of the game is 1.09. The game can download the latest patch automatically by clicking Internet in the multiplayer menu. The latest patch can also be downloaded manually:

Patch 1.09

Video settings

File:HaloCE Video.png

In-game graphics settings.

Widescreen resolution

To play at a resolution unsupported in the ingame options, right-click a shortcut to the game, select Properties>Shortcut, and you will see a path to halo.exe in quotes in the Target box. Add a space after the end quote and then:

 -vidmode x,y,z 

where x is the horizontal resolution, y is the vertical resolution, and z is the refresh rate. For example, to play at 1920 by 1080 at 60fps, enter:

 -vidmode 1920,1080,60 

If z is not specified, the game will default to what is set in the ingame options. The game must be started from the shortcut you modified for the custom resolution to work.

Field of view (FOV)

On widescreen resolutions, Halo compresses its vertical field of view (FOV) instead of stretching its horizontal FOV. To fix this, download the following tools as appropriate to the version you are using

• Halo: Combat Evolved: Widescreen Fixer. When running, an icon should appear in the system tray. Right-click it and select Restore. A window should appear where you can configure various settings. To remove the delay when changing FOV/change FOV instantly, set the FOV refresh under Settings to 1 millisecond. After configuring, minimize the window and launch Halo. Once the main menu appears, press the key you assigned to enable the FOV fix (by default it is bound to *). Press the key again to disable the FOV fix. Widescreen Fixer must be running for the fix to work. The FOV fix does not work for Halo: Custom Edition.

• Halo: Custom Edition 1.09: FOV and ThirdPerson Halo. Open the program and set the hotkeys and FOV to your liking (90 degrees is recommended). Next with the program still running open Halo: Custom Edition and enable the FOV fix with the hotkey you set (Default is *). FOV and ThirdPerson Halo must be running for the fix to work.

Windowed

In the target box of a shortcut, add -windowed to the end.

Anti-aliasing (AA)

Halo does not support Antialiasing (AA). Force-enabling AA in your graphics driver has no effect on Halo: Combat Evolved and in Halo: Custom Edition causes the game to freeze on the loading screen while playing the main menu music in the background. The only way to escape this is by force closing the game with Alt+F4 or the Task Manager. If your graphics card supports it, enable Morphological Antialiasing (MLAA) on ATI cards or Fast Approximate Antialiasing (FXAA) on Nvidia cards to improve image quality and gain an AA-like effect. You may need to update your graphics drivers to gain access to these features. It is recommended that you do not enable MLAA and FXAA globally.

Anisotropic Filtering (AF)

To enable AF, do the following:

1. If you wish to enable AF in Halo CE, then make a profile for it in your graphics driver. To do this in Nvidia, open the driver control panel, go to Manage 3D>Program Settings>Add, then browse to haloce.exe.

2. In your Halo and Halo CE profiles, choose your desired AF level and then set the AF mode to forced.

This works for most people. If you know your drivers are current and can't get it to work, do the following:

3.Navigate to your root Halo/Halo CE install directory and open config.txt (you might want to run Notepad as Administrator). Search for this:

 Unknown = "Unknown"
 //UseAnisotropicFilter 

Choose the one under the brand of card you're using. Remove the double slash.

 Unknown = "Unknown"
 UseAnisotropicFilter 

Save and run the game.

Input settings

File:HaloCE Controls.png

In-game controls settings.

File:HaloCE Mouse.png

In-game mouse settings.

File:HaloCE Gamepad.png

In-game gamepad settings.

Audio settings

File:HaloCE Audio.png

In-game audio settings.

Issues unresolved

HUD Stretch

When played at custom resolutions on widescreen monitors, the HUD (Heads Up Display) and all ingame menus will be stretched horizontally. There is currently no fix for this for Halo v 1.09. Read this thread for more information on how to fix HUD stretch in previous versions.

Issues fixed

Enabling EAX on Windows Vista or greater

Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX) applies effects such as echo, reverb, and flange to ingame sounds, making the game sound more realistic, in theory. However, if played on Windows Vista or later, Halo does not support EAX. To fix this, those with Creative sound cards can download Creative ALchemy, those with ASUS sound cards can download GX2.5, and those with Realtek integrated audio can download Realtek 3D SoundBack. All three programs re-enable EAX effects in pre-Vista games by emulating EAX calls in OpenAL. Even with these programs, EAX cannot be used unless you enable it in the ingame audio options. Using these programs, specifically 3D SoundBack, may result in sound clipping and other audio artifacts.

Active Camo Fix

Active Camouflage in the Xbox version of the game looked kind of like the stealth mode in Crysis; as enemies walked around they would refract and distort the scenery behind them. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that to all owners of the PC version. If your cloaked elites look flatly transparent, then we've got a fix for that.

1. First step, download DXTweaker from the net, or from my mirror.

2. Now extract the program somewhere, and run DXTControl.exe Note: If the program is completely black, you must disable visual themes on it. To do this, right click on DXTControl.exe, and click properties. Go to the compatibility tab, and check "disable visual themes".

3. Click the New button under projects, then under Properties:

• Check Active.

• For path, navigate and use your haloce.exe, or halo.exe. It should fill out workpath.

• For arguments, you can put in something like "-console -screenshot" Note: The camo fix breaks any solutions that involve adding arguments such as -vidmode and -windowed to shortcuts. If you want to use these, add them here.

4. Expand Modules to Load and scroll down until you find Ident Changer. Select and check the box next to this item on the list.

5. Expand Module Properties with Ident Changer selected. Fill out as shown below.

Driver: ati2dvag.dll
Device Name: Radeon X1900 Series
Driver Version: 6.14.10.6599
Vendor ID: 1002
Device ID: 724B
SubSystemID: B121002
Revision: 0x0000

6. Now the fun part! If you want, you can click Start under Projects, or you can create a shortcut to start Halo with this fix and the arguments you provided. Create a shortcut on the desktop to: C:/.../DXTweaker/Config/haloce.dxtp Now when you run this shortcut, halo will startup with the fix! Have fun.

Courtesy of Conscars

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Windows 98SE	Windows ME/Windows 2000/Windows XP
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.2 GB free
Video card (GPU)	32MB/3D T&L capable