Halo: Combat Evolved

This page is for the original 2003 PC release. For the remaster, see Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary.

Halo: Combat Evolved

Developers
	Bungie
Windows	Gearbox Software
macOS (OS X)	Westlake Interactive
Publishers
	Microsoft Game Studios
OS X	MacSoft
Engines
	Halo Engine
Release dates
Windows	September 30, 2003
macOS (OS X)	December 12, 2003
Reception
Metacritic	83
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	First-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, FPS, Shooter
Vehicles	Automobile, Flight, Tank
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Sci-fi, Space
Series	Halo

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

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: Combat Evolved is a singleplayer and multiplayer first-person action, FPS and shooter game in the Halo series.

It is a port of the 2001 Xbox game of the same name. Its multiplayer mode includes weapons and controllable vehicles unavailable in the Xbox original.

General information

Bungie.net - The developer's site

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

Fan-made forum thread about enhancing many aspects of Halo CE and Halo PC. Newly Updated.

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SafeDisc v2 DRM. Install Patch v1.10 to play without the CD.

SafeDisc v2 DRM was removed on May 16, 2014 with the 1.10 Patch.

The official demo for the game can be found here.

Version differences

Halo Custom Edition, commonly abbreviated Halo CE, is a standalone, multiplayer-only, expansion for Halo: Combat Evolved. The expansion was released on May 5, 2004 by Gearbox Software as an unsupported version of the original game. Similar to its PC version, the expansion requires a key-code during installation.

See Halo Combat Evolved: Refined to add the campaign option to Halo Custom Edition's main menu.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch v1.10 (Windows) fixes issues with modern hardware and replaces the GameSpy master server. Patch notes may be found here. Patches for Mac as well as older versions for Windows can be found here.

The Mavericks/Lobby patches for the OS X version switches to the new Patch 1.10 lobby servers and optionally fixes compatibility with OS X Mavericks (10.9). The latest official patch is required to function properly. For getting campaign saving working or using a lobby patch without Mavericks, see this post.

Modifications

Chimera

Chimera is a game client modification for Halo Custom Edition v1.10, PC "Retail" v1.10, and Trial v1.0 which extends limits, addresses some renderer issues, and applies dozens of fixes and quality of life improvements like map downloads.

CEnshine

CEnshine is a shaders enhancement for Halo Custom Edition aiming to restore Xbox-accurate rendering. This will fix things like bump map shadows, bumped cubemap reflection, self-illumination animations, plasma shields, water effects, glasses, etc.

Halo Combat Evolved: Refined

Halo Combat Evolved: Refined is an attempt to provide a port of Halo CE for the PC that is as 1:1 with the Xbox version as possible. All the bugs and inconsistencies introduced in the Gearbox port have been addressed. There are some improvements such as higher fidelity textures and higher resolution HUD.

Skip intro videos

Install Chimera

Use the -novideo command line argument

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Halo\
macOS (OS X)

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Halo\ %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Games\Halo CE\
macOS (OS X)	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Halo\ %USERPROFILE%\Documents\HLMD\

Video

Video settings.

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Full support requires latest patch and external fix. See Widescreen resolution.
Multi-monitor			See Widescreen resolution.
Ultra-widescreen			See Widescreen resolution.
4K Ultra HD			See Widescreen resolution.
Field of view (FOV)		See Field of view (FOV).
Windowed		See Windowed.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See Windowed.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See Anisotropic filtering (AF).
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Use dgVoodoo 2 to force MSAA. Mac version has FSAA up to 9 samples.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		Designed for 30 FPS; see High frame rate. Final cutscene is pre-rendered at 30 FPS.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Widescreen resolution

As of v1.10, widescreen resolutions are supported, although the HUD, menus, and text elements are stretched.

Available resolutions also vary between windowed and fullscreen mode in v1.10.

Use Chimera for screen fixes

Install Chimera to run the game at the current desktop resolution. Custom resolutions can be set in chimera.ini. Start the game and press ~ to open the in-game console. Type in chimera_widescreen_fix 1 to fix the scaling of HUD, menu, and text elements for aspect ratios wider than 4:3. Setting 1 has the HUD fill the screen, while setting 2 restricts the HUD to the center 4:3 area of the screen. Type in chimera_block_letterbox true to disable the letterbox effect in cutscenes. Press ~ again to close the console.

Field of view (FOV)

By default, Halo compresses its vertical FOV rather than stretching its horizontal FOV in widescreen resolutions.

Use Chimera

Install Chimera. Start the game and press ~ to open the in-game console. Type in chimera_fov <value>, for example chimera_fov 90, to set the world FOV (default is auto). Type in chimera_fov_cinematic <value> to set the cutscene FOV (default is auto). Type in chimera_fov_vehicle <value> to set the vehicle FOV (default is off). Notes End with v to lock to a vertical FOV, which prevents the FOV from looking distorted when switching aspect ratios.

Windowed

Start the game with the -window command line argument

Use Chimera
Install Chimera. Open chimera.ini with a text editor. Search under the [video] section and change the value of windowed=0 to 1 to enable windowed mode. (Optional) Change the value of borderless=0 to 1 to enable borderless fullscreen windowed. Note Running in the game in a lower resolution in borderless fullscreen windowed will result in the game being stretched.

Anisotropic filtering (AF)

Force anisotropic filtering through the GPU's control panel

Use Chimera
Install Chimera. Start the game and press ~ to open the in-game console. Type chimera_af true and press ↵ Enter. Notes This method only applies to the level geometry, not individual objects.

High frame rate

The game has an issue where object movement is tied to tick rate, thus objects will never move faster than 30 FPS.

Chimera adds interpolation for objects, cutscenes, and plasma projectiles, and uncaps the cinematic frame rate from 30 FPS.

Install Chimera for frame rate fixes
Custom frame rate cap can be set with chimera_throttle_fps <value> in the console (default is 300).

Weapon zoom blur

Disable blur with Chimera
Install Chimera. Start the game and press ~ to open the in-game console. Type in chimera_block_zoom_blur true. Press ~ again to close the console. Notes chimera_block_zoom_blur is known to break the scanline visual effects in the 343 Guilty Spark cutscene.

Input

Keyboard and controller remapping.

Mouse settings.

Controller settings.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Mac version doesn't allow binding functions to modifier keys and only allows 4 mouse buttons + scroll wheel.
Mouse acceleration		Positive acceleration. Use Chimera (off by default) or Halo Mouse Tool to disable.
Mouse sensitivity		See Mouse sensitivity.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Set in Mouse Setup. Affects both mouse and controller Y-axis.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		Menus can not be navigated with a controller without third-party tools.
Controller remapping		Cannot bind two actions to a single button without third-party tools.
Controller sensitivity		Set in Controls Setup → Advanced while the gamepad is selected as a device.
Controller Y-axis inversion		Set in Mouse Setup.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Recognized as a generic DirectInput controller.
PlayStation button prompts
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired, Wireless (Bluetooth)

Generic/other controllers
Button prompts		Axes and buttons are referenced by number.

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Mouse sensitivity

Set horizontal and vertical mouse sensitivities
Install Chimera. Start the game and press ~ to open the in-game console. Type in chimera_mouse_sensitivity <horizontal> <vertical> to set the horizontal and vertical mouse sensitivities. Press ~ again to close the console. Notes It is recommended to have mouse acceleration disabled if using low values.

Tweak sensitivity through Halo Mouse Tool

Alternative controller prompts

Use Chimera and enable generic prompts replacements

Install Chimera. Open chimera.ini with a text editor. Search under the [controller] section and change the value of ;enabled=0 to enabled=1. Create two link breaks underneath the line enabled= with ↵ Enter, then copy and paste one of the following text based on the controller being used: Xbox 360, Xbox One, DualShock 4 (DS4Windows), Switch Pro. Save the file. The game should now display text-based controller prompts instead of the generic ones.

Audio

Audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Sliders for Master, effects and music, between values of 0 to 10.
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 output. May require DirectSound 3D restoration software.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		Game pauses when out of focus.
EAX support		Needs a fix for modern systems; see DirectSound 3D restoration software. May also require eax.dll file to be placed in the game directory.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Traditional Chinese				Only in Chinese version of the game
French				Only in French version of the game
German
Italian
Spanish

Network

Network settings.

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Players	Notes
Local play		8	Use Nucleus Co-op. Requires Halo Custom Edition.
LAN play		Versus
Online play		Versus The official GameSpy server has been shut down; apply Patch 1.10 to use a replacement.

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Ports

Protocol	Port(s) and/or port range(s)
TCP	80
UDP	2302, 2303

Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) support status is unknown.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		G3D Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Devices
Tobii Eye Tracking		Works with Tobii EyeX tracker or Tobii EyeX 4C and 5 headtracker plugins for FaceTrackNoIR.
TrackIR		Works with FreeTrack 2.0 protocol using software like FaceTrackNoIR.
Novint Falcon

Issues fixed

Broken gamma calibration with Chimera

With Chimera, Halo's gamma setting is disabled due to it affecting the entire operating system's gamma.

Use dgVoodoo 2 (recommended)

Use Peixoto's patch[citation needed]
The gamma calibration does not work with this method, but the gamma level will be the game's default instead of the very dark level used by default with Chimera. The gamma correction also will not affect the entire system anymore, just the game window.

Running the game at screen's refresh rate

While the Halo menu does not list refresh rates above 120 Hz, Chimera can be used to bypass this limitation.

Install Chimera to use the system's current refresh rate
Custom refresh rates can be set in chimera.ini.

High frame rate issues

• Checkpoints occur sooner than they typically should once reaching a safe state at >30 FPS.
• Camera shaking does not work at high frame rates.
• Auto look centering makes vehicles difficult to handle at high frame rates.
• Motion sensor fade is incorrect at >30 FPS.
• Contrails are bugged at high frame rates.
• Scoreboard and player names don't fade in/out correctly at high frame rates.
• Cinematic frame rate is capped at 30 FPS.
• Object movement is tied to tick rate, thus objects never move faster than 30 FPS.

Install Chimera to fix all frame rate issues

Graphic card not recognized by game

The highest version of Pixel Shader Halo supports is 2.1. Use this to force the game to use it if the graphics card is not recognized by the game.

Use the -use21 command line argument

Mouse cursor leaves the window

Use dgVoodoo 2 to lock mouse cursor

Activating hardware acceleration or environmental sound causes sounds to cut out randomly

ASUS sound cards cut out short-duration audio streams for power management, as a result the assault rifle will become silent when holding the fire button.

Add the sound card to the config.txt file[citation needed]

Go to the Device Manager and expand the Sound, video and game controllers section. Right-click on the primary playback device (Example: ASUS Essence STX II) and click Proporties. Go to the Details tab and change the Property listbox to show the Hardware IDs. Write down the Vendor ID (Example: VEN_13F6) and the Device ID (Example: DEV_8788). Open <path-to-game>\config.txt. Press Ctrl+F and type 0x plus the Vendor ID (Example: 0x13F6) and click Find Next to see if the Vendor ID is already listed in the config. //If the AudioVendor already exists: 0xDEVID = "Sound Card Name" // EXAMPLE: 0x8788 = "ASUS Essence STX II" HeadRelativeSpeech EnableStopStart break //If the AudioVendor doesn't exist: AudioVendor = 0xVENDOR_ID "Vendor Name" // EXAMPLE: AudioVendor = 0x13F6 "C-Media" 0xDEVICE_ID = "Sound Card Name" // EXAMPLE: 0x8788 = "ASUS Essence STX II" HeadRelativeSpeech EnableStopStart break

Broken main menu background flyby

i.e. The flyby for the Halo ring in the main menu background is not following the correct path.

Enable Vsync and set the monitor to 60 Hz

Open Sauce and Chimera not compatible

Current versions of Chimera are incompatible with OpenSauce and HAC2. Attempting to use them at the same time will result in crashes or a white screen when launching the game. Use the older build 581 to combine Chimera with OpenSauce in order to play .yelo maps.

Open Sauce and HAC2 not compatible

Fix compatibility on Windows 8 and later
Download hac.dll and copy it to <path-to-game>. Start the game with the -no_os_gamestate command line argument. Disable map downloading in Open Sauce to avoid irregularities.

Fix compatibility on Windows 7
Download hac.dll and copy it to <path-to-game>. Start the game as administrator for map downloading to work.

Open Sauce cannot be installed

Install .NET Framework 3.5 from Windows Features

Use AmaiSosu

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	9.0b
OpenGL	1	OS X only.
Shader Model support	1.1, 1.4, 2.0

Executable	PPC	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)				In June 2006, a new release of the game was released that updated the game to a universal binary, adding support for Intel processors. Unfortunately, this was not followed up with a 64-bit Intel update, which makes the game stuck at 32-bit; and therefore, unable to work on 10.15 "Catalina" and later.

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	DirectSound3D
Cutscenes	Bink Video	Only for credits, post-credit sequence, and intro videos.
Multiplayer	GameSpy	Was shutdown in late 2014. New host uses HostPC.com

Other modifications

Misc

Assault Rifle HUD meter fix, Captain Keyes Xbox Skin and Explosive's Shader Restoration Patch (European version here) or Quagmirian's Xbox Multi Pack + Assault Rifle Xbox Skin adds missing/changed Xbox textures & shaders. Requires Halo Map Tools and/or a PPF patcher (Explosive's pack only; must be applied before the others).

CMT SPV3

SPV3 is a revamp of the original campaign, featuring new weapons, enemies, vehicles, abilities, features and levels.

Project Lumoria

Project Lumoria is a brand new campaign story for Halo CE; stays true to the classic Halo CE feel.

The Silent Cartographer: Evolved

The Silent Cartographer: Evolved is a ground-up re-imagining of the Halo: Combat Evolved map of the same name.

Open Sauce

Open Sauce is a mod for Halo Custom Edition that fixes multiple issues and adds several features for modders.

Halo Anticheat 2

Halo Anticheat 2 (or HAC2) is a mod that fixes multiple issues and adds several features. Supports all versions of Halo: Combat Evolved and Custom Edition.

Open Sauce and Halo Anticheat 2 are not compatible with each other. Only one of the mods can be installed at any given point. That being said, a potential workaround is available

Halo Mini Demo

HaloMD is a mod (perhaps even the only one) for the Mac release of Halo that addresses compatibility issues with later operating systems and adds support for hosting and playing on custom maps (Custom Edition was not released for the Mac). Note that non-Mac users as well as Mac users with systems too old to run MD can join MD servers by ensuring they have the correct maps installed (base game, not Custom Edition) and by manually joining a server on their lobby. There is even a script for non-MD Mac users assist in hosting MD maps here. Note that this too does not run on 10.15 "Catalina", at least for now.

halothirdfov

Enables third-person mode.

Command line parameters

See command line arguments on how to use the following options.

Parameter	Description
-nosound	Disable all sound
-novideo	Disable video playback
-nojoystick	Disable joysticks and gamepads
-nogamma	Disables adjustment of gamma
-useff	Forces the game to run as a fixed function card
-use11	Forces the game to run as a shader 1.1 card
-use14	Forces the game to run as a shader 1.4 card
-use20	Forces the game to run as a shader 2.0 card
-use21	Forces the game to run as a shader 2.1 card
-safemode	Disables as much as possible when running the game
-window	Run the game in windowed mode
-width x	Forces the game to run at a specified resolution
-vidmode w,h,r	Forces the game to run at the width(w), height(h), and refresh(r) specified
-adapter x	Forces the game to run fullscreen on a multimon (multiple monitors) adapter
-port x	Server port address used when hosting multiplayer games
-cport x	Client port address used when joining multiplayer games
-ip x.x.x.x	Server IP address used when using multiple IP addresses
-screenshot	Enables the Print Screen key to generate screenshots. Having this always enabled can cause a slight decrease in performance
-console	Enables the debugging console
-devmode	Enables the Halo Developer Mode

System requirements

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	98SE	ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	733 MHz
System memory (RAM)	128 MB	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.3 GB
Video card (GPU)	32 MB of VRAM DirectX 9.0b compatible

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.2.8 (10.3.9 for UB version)
Processor (CPU)	PowerPC G4 800 MHz
System memory (RAM)	256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	1.4 GB (1.5 GB for UB version)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce 2MX/ATI 7500 or better (ATI Radeon 8500/9000, GeForce 3Ti/4Ti for UB version) 32 MB of VRAM