Disable fast writes, not that it will help your problem drastically but it will help for a more stable system, plus the gain from enabling it is pretty much zero. If anyone can show me a gain of 0.5fps with fast writes I'll be impressed.

Why should he if he's not having problems with it?

Was just a "side note"

my computer hasnt crashed and died yet and i have had that on it for over 6 months. this is why i really dont want to format it, as ive never had this kind of luck with any o/s!!

also i have recently got halo. after trying to play the game i have given up, as rthe performance is totally unacceptable, even with everything turned off and no AA. is the game code buggy or is my system too slow to handle this kind of game? if so, how will other DX9 games run? i heard that this uses the pixel 2.0 shaders, and it doesnt look ground breaking.

will this be a problem with all DX9 games or is this an isolated problem? if so is there a workaround?

btw: i disabled fast writes and theres no difference in performance..

Go to anandtech.com and observe the review of the 9600 XT....see if your performance is on par with the scores that they get.

Well I thought Halo was pretty good.

OK, now that you edited your post, mine doesn't make sense.

im sorry not to agree with you killerkebab, but i prefer the grafics of unreal 2003 and even serious sam.

the water looks terrible even with the pixel shader 2 :o

i have seen the article; i should be getting 28 fps, but on the graphs in game it shows me to get 25 normally, and 14ish in the gun battles.

is this how its meant to be?

as a side note; when i brought the card one of the transistors was wonky and touching another 1. i nudged the transistor to make it straight..... is there any way the card got damaged so its performing not greatly?

I dunno I kinda liked Halo's graphics. Although Unreal II is as good without claiming PS 2

Now what would be nice is seeing some real DX9 in action to answer all this hype.

from what ive heard the r9600 pro is supposed to be the best in middleweight dx9 performance. does this mean that im gna have sucky frames in all dx9 games?

halo is one good powerpoint show! the story is gd stuff!

You get what you pay for, end of story.

Yeah everyone should buy a 9800XT

''you get what you pay for''

i dont have unlimited weatlth whereby i can go to a shop now and get a 9800 xt/ 5900 ultra. you have to remember that most people still go for the budget components, so does that mean they can play anything well? i think not....... :roll:

The fact still remains, whether you like it or not:

"from what ive heard the r9600 pro is supposed to be the best in middleweight dx9 performance. does this mean that im gna have sucky frames in all dx9 games? "

middleweight=compromise

you can't have your cake and eat it too, halo is a demanding game, and you can't expect phenomenal frame rates with middleweight cards

im not asking for phenominal frames; i dont mind as long as its over 30fps, but it wont do that.

it cant be that demanding as i have more than a recommended system for halo, or is that a marketing ploy?