Major Halo Problems

[Danger]

About 3 or 4 weeks ago I started to have some major halo problems.  Whenever something is near me, such as a major fire fight, someone driving a hog or any other type of vehicle, more than a few people on my screen, I hold down my vent hotkey, or get a message on MSN, I get major lag and/or terrible framerate. My fps will drop down to 1 or even 0, my ping in the server will start to jump crazily and I will get the DC box, my computer will start to almost lock up as in get extremely slow, and vent will lag until i alt + F4 out of halo and wait for my computer for about 15 seconds for it to catch up and be at normal speed again.  This only happens when I play halo, I can browse the web or play other games such as Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare just fine with the exception of the ocassional fps issue that one would expect when trying to play such a game on GeForce 8400 GS.  I have tried lowering my settings to no avail. I have tried a system restore to when i could play it just fine to no avail. I have tried several different antivirus softwares such as IOBit or AVG 8.5 to no avail, no viruses.  I have tried uninstalling halo, uninstalling my graphics drivers, restarting, reinstalling my graphics drivers, restarting, reinstalling halo, restarting and trying to play to no avail.  I used to be able to play halo on all max settings at 1280 x 1040 resolution when i wanted to, but not anymore.  I have used Smart Defrag to defrag, used CCleaner to clean up my registry, and GameBooster to try to boost gameplay.  Nothing has worked.

Oh and this does happen in campaign mode too.

[Còól]

I tried to help him last night. We wnt into a server messed with settings and all that. It was only him and I in the server when he was out of the hog he did fine as soon as he got in one and started to drive he warped all over the place. We did not get it fixed. 

[Moosh]

If u havnt already, check the network settings, changing the internet speed set in there can make a difference.

I had a similiar problem a few days back and it turns out the network settings were wrong, so halo was trying to run too fast for my internet connection or something like that...

[Fraggle]

Have a looksee at >>THIS<< thread. It helps you set-up your halo for optimized play.

I t helped me immensely. You don't need to do everything that is suggested, and some of the things require you to be a bit tech-savvy... but overall it's a wonderful tutorial.

~BFM_Fraggle

[Danger]

Done and done repeatedly before, doesnt help fix the problems. and I doubt its the network settings because it does happen in Campaign mode too.

[BFM_RedFox]

Did you have installed something about 3 or 4 weeks ago that may use a lot of RAM?
Some graphics cards use a part of the RAM to increase the graphics RAM. For example I got an ATI card with 512 MB physical RAM. But when I view my system settings it tells me that I've got 1024 MB.
I think your graphics card may do the same and if you have installed a program using a lot of RAM your graphics will just use its physical RAM (256 MB on your card).

[Danger]

No, this is a case of working and playing halo one day, and then the next day turning on the computer and trying to play halo and it doing this stuff.  I did not install any new hardware or software just before this started happening.

[Danger]

Any more ideas? 

[BFM_Mil]

I have no idea how to solve your problem but if there's too many problems I'd say format your PC.

[Dr Decoy]

I'll have to go with Mil on this one. From my experiences, the more time you spend trying stuff, the more of a problem you're going to have. You said it worked before, so a Clean Install would probably be best, in my opinion. Just be sure to back up your data because you WILL lose it in the process.

[McSkittles]

This really is quite a random occurance. You havn't installed any new software, you don't have any viruses, it can play CoD4 with only slight fps issues on occasion, and will play perfectly fine one day and not the next. Personally, I can't think of what on earth could be wrong. I'd say to ask Mxy next time you get the chance, since he is quite the tech expert, and will probably be able to figure out a solution for you in no time

And as Decoy and mil said, I'd back up your data, but take no action until consulting Mxy

[Danger]

I can't lose Microsoft Word because mom would kill me..and there's no disc for it anymore and I don't have a way to back anything up.  So I think format may be out of the question..

Oh and I meant it just randomly started doing this one day, but since then it's doing this every single time now.

[Moosh]

Maybe its hardware related since its started happening all of a sudden, with no changes made to programs or anything?...

I dont know much about computers but it seems like the most likely thing with near all other possibilities tested and ruled out.

[Danger]

**UPDATE**  I figured out I CAN play halo perfectly...while I'm not on vent and its even better when I also don't have xfire running as well. This is really odd though considering I can play Call of Duty Modern Warfare with both of those programs running which I would've thought to be a more demanding game on my PC but apparently not.

[BFM_Skedog]

Have you recently messed with the priority settings in task manager? Possibly by setting halo to a higher priority, it cannot get all of the resources it needs while having these other programs running. I would try changing your halo priority to one spot below normal, and see if that resolves the issue.

BFM_Skedog