Halo Performance
Over the past few days, there have been a number of excellent Halo for Macintosh reviews (Inside Mac Games probably has the most comprehensive reviews available). The problem is that none of these reviews give a good idea how well Halo runs on the Mac. While some mention some subjective results, none provide any numbers. Since what’s acceptable in terms of performance varies from person to person, this has left a lot of people wondering just how well (or how poorly) Halo for Macintosh will run on their Mac.
We thought we’d address this by providing some performance numbers from the two systems we have available: a Power Mac G5 1.6GHz and a PowerBook G4 1.25GHz.
Understanding the Results
We ran the Halo Time Demo at two resolutions (640×480 and 1024×768), with vertex shaders or vertex and pixel shaders enabled (if available), using a variety of “texture quality” and “model detail” settings. For each test, we provide two numbers: the first number is the average frame rate of the test, while the second number is the percentage of frames that were rendered at a rate below 30 frames per second.
“Texture quality” refers to the settings for decals, particles, and texture quality. * “High” means decals are on, particles are set to high, and texture quality is set to high. * “Medium” means decals are off, particles are on set to low, and texture quality is set to medium. * “Low” means decals are off, particles are off, and texture quality is set to low.
“Model detail” refers to the settings for lens flares and model detail. * “High” means both lens flares and model detail are set to high. * “Medium” means both lens flares and model detail are set to medium. * “Low” means both lens flares and model detail are set to low.
While all of the tests below were done with Mac OS X 10.3.1, we re-did some of the test with Mac OS X 10.3.2 to see if there was much of a difference with the new nVidia and ATi drivers. We found there wasn’t much of a difference in performance between 10.3.1 and 10.3.2 (maybe an extra frame or two per second in some of the tests).
Power Mac G5
Configuration:
- Power Mac G5 1.6GHz
- 768MB DDR333 RAM
- nVidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra w 64MB
- Mac OS X 10.3.1
Halo runs quite well on the Power Mac G5; it’s possible to run Halo at 1024×768 with most of the eye candy turned on and still have an average frame rate above 30fps. It’s also possible to push Halo above 60fps on this machine by lowering the resolution and disabling some of the eye candy. So, if you’re willing to choose between great graphics or high framerates, Halo will not disappoint you on this machine.
Unfortunately, pixel shaders are not supported on the GeForce FX 5200 Ultra, which means some of the (best) eye candy is not available. For some reason Westlake Interactive chose to support pixel shaders only in the Radeon 9600 and 9800. Owners of other cards (like the GeForce 4 Ti and the GeForce FX 5200) are out of luck.
Anyway, here are the results for the Power Mac G5:
Power Mac G5: 640×480 with Vertex Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 42fps, 21% | 56fps, 8% | 58fps, 8% |
| Medium | 48fps, 18% | 64fps, 7% | 67fps, 7% | |
| Low | 49fps, 17% | 67fps, 7% | 70fps, 7% | |
Power Mac G5: 1024×768 with Vertex Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 31fps, 58% | 36fps, 45% | 38fps, 42% |
| Medium | 37fps, 37% | 43fps, 22% | 45fps, 16% | |
| Low | 40fps, 31% | 44fps, 15% | 46fps, 10% | |
PowerBook G4
Configuration:
- PowerBook G4 1.25GHz
- 512MB DDR333 RAM
- ATi Radeon Mobility 9600 w 64MB
- Mac OS X 10.3.1
Unlike the Power Mac G5 above, this PowerBook G4 does support pixel shaders, so we were able to see all of the eye candy that Halo has to offer. Unfortunately, Halo doesn’t run very well on this PowerBook with all of the eye candy turned on (especially at higher resolutions). Disabling some of the eye candy and lowering the resolution makes Halo quite playable on this PowerBook G4, although we were never able to push the average frame rate above 41fps.
Here are the results for the PowerBook G4:
PowerBook G4: 640×480 with Vertex and Pixel Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 19fps, 90% | 21fps, 87% | 22fps, 84% |
| Medium | 22fps, 85% | 24fps, 78% | 26fps, 72% | |
| Low | 24fps, 84% | 26fps, 73% | 27fps, 69% | |
PowerBook G4: 640×480 with Vertex Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 28fps, 62% | 33fps, 41% | 33fps, 40% |
| Medium | 33fps, 52% | 40fps, 30% | 37fps, 36% | |
| Low | 33fps, 51% | 40fps, 31% | 41fps, 31% | |
PowerBook G4: 1024×768 with Vertex and Pixel Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 14fps, 96% | 15fps, 95% | 15fps, 94% |
| Medium | 14fps, 95% | 17fps, 94% | 16fps, 94% | |
| Low | 15fps, 94% | 17fps, 92% | 17fps, 94% | |
PowerBook G4: 1024×768 with Vertex Shaders
| Model Detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Medium | Low | ||
| Texture Quality | High | 25fps, 73% | 31fps, 52% | 32fps, 52% |
| Medium | 28fps, 67% | 39fps, 30% | 39fps, 31% | |
| Low | 29fps, 65% | 40fps, 29% | 41fps, 28% | |
Conclusions
While both of the systems we tested exceed the recommended system requirements, we imagine that any recent Power Mac or PowerBook with a good video card (say a Radeon 9000 or a GeForce 4 Ti or later) will be able to run Halo reasonably well (especially if you’re willing to sacrifice some eye candy).
Last night, I installed Halo on my G4 Cube/450mhz/Geforce2MX. It gave a warning, but with a special keypress, I was able to launch and play Halo. With all of the video options turned to minimum, I was able to play at a very tolerable frame rate. The system specs may be more flexible than the package indicates. (Don’t forget, wasn’t halo first demoed at the B&W G3 introduction, with a Rage128 card?)
I installed Halo on my Dual 800 with GeForcce 3 card. It runs AWESOME. This has got to be the best port of a game for the mac. Ever. If I didnt know better, I wouldnt even think that this was even a port but built by a company for the Mac. I do not have any other game that runs as smooth. I have Nascar 2003, RTCW, Medal of Honor – Spearhead, 4×4 Evo 2 and many other games, but NONE run as smooth or as beautiful as Halo. I am currently running the game in the highest possible resolution, 1280×1024 I believe with everything set to max details. Although with these settings, it gets a little sluggish at times, its almost worth it to have a little sluggishness to have those beautiful graphics. I will probably end up turning some stuff down or lowering the resolution later, but for now, I am enjoying it. Now, if the damn captain would just get out of the way and stop getting killed like an idiot, then I might think the AI was a little smarter =)
Well. Interesting that the Mac side is having such excellent results. Apparently the PC version was suffering from “Unbearably low framerate”. In that case, heck yeah! Go Bungie!
I am actually quite interested in performance on a PowerBook G4 550 (768MB ram) w/ ATI 16MB video.
I have tried playing America’s Army in this thing with strained expectations. No Joy. The framerate was so low, even with basically everything turned off, that it was totally unplayable (3-5 frames a second – really).
The GeForce FX 5200 and FX Go5200 both support pixel shaders or instead, ARB_Fragments. The recent 10.3.2 patch has now made the pixel shader option available with the 5200 cards.
Furthermore, the 5200s have always support this feature however Westlake decided to disable it under 10.3.1 until Apple supplied a new driver, which they now have.
God that SUCKS. frame rates in the teens and twenties
WTF. I have a PB 800 and I don’t even want to try it on this. Macs are not for gaming. a 4 year old game has worse performance than UT 2003. What is that? why does it that all new games always have to have such bad performance. Come on 14 fps with all the bells turned on one of the newest PBs. That is soooo sad. 99% of the mac market will have to live with very sub par performance, as only the results shown are for 2 very high end machines. You should not need a G5 to get frame rates above 30 on the high quality mode. That is just forced upgrading. No wonder windows people laugh at us. Game performance does sucks on the mac. I want to get a windows machine to use for games. And I probably will sometime soon. But my real work will be on the mac.
“Game performance does sucks on the mac. I want to get a windows machine to use for games.”
Actually, taken from macgamer.com’s review of Halo…
“Mac Halo runs up to 25% faster than its Windows counterpart”
It’s not the computer, it’s the game.
I have a PowerMac G4 800mhz with a Geforce4 Ti 4600 and 1gb of ram. Halo plays great on my machine. While the FPS aren’t insanely high, it’s very playable. These were my timedemo results at 1280×1024.
Date / Time: 12/15/03 3:44:12 (0ms)
800MHz, 1024MB
Gee-Four\Applications\Halo\Halo Frames=4700
Total Time=191.73s
Average frame rate=24.51fps
Below 5fps= 8% (time) 0% (frames) (16.823s spent in 15 frames)
Below 10fps= 10% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 15fps= 15% (time) 3% (frames)
Below 20fps= 34% (time) 17% (frames)
Below 25fps= 50% (time) 31% (frames)
Below 30fps= 76% (time) 60% (frames)
Below 40fps= 90% (time) 79% (frames)
Below 50fps= 97% (time) 92% (frames)
Below 60fps= 99% (time) 95% (frames)
Sound Options###
Hardware Acceleration= No
Sound Quality= Low
Environmental Sound= No
Sound Variety= Medium
Video Options###
Resolution= 1280×1024
Refresh rate= 0 Hz
Framerate throttle= No Vsync
Specular= No
Shadows= No
Decals= No
Particles= Off
Texture Quality= Medium
Oh, those results were before the 10.3.2 update. The new drivers in 10.3.2 may show even better results.
I’m nominating Halo for worst game (on Mac) EVAR!
Seriously, go play it on an Xbox – you won’t regret it
If halo is faster on the mac then the programmers cannot program.
The xBox is a 700 P3 with a gforce 4. The fact that halo for windows and mac is so slow, even as 800×600 which console games commonly run at or near shows just how bad the port from the xbox was done. This was done as a ok we did it now leave us alone now, please! I beta tested EQ for mac and is was horrible. I could not believe how slow the game ran and this is on a 800 iMac with a gforce 2 mx 32. EQ is 5 years old. The port on the mac was a joke. Really slow and sluggish performance with the UI and the frame rates were like around 10 a second maybe. And this machine had 768 MB ram. It also took several minutes to load and start and crashed alot. Now the mac version of EQ is 2 paid version behind and will stay that way. It was a dead end game from the start. I have mixed feeling about game developers who make lousy ports. It makes the mac looks like a slow expensive paper weight. But with out these lousy ports you can’t point to a title and say, that runs on the mac too. I guess you can’t back a cake and eat it too. I use my PB everyday for web development and would not have it anyone way.
Remember that XBox Halo runs at 640×480 and that TVs only show 30 fps. I have been told that even the XBox version can be perceived to slow down a bit in some of the more intense battles. Plus the textures have been redone at larger sizes for the Mac/PC version. So keep that in mind before saying the XBox runs better. Plus, as I know from my PowerBook, a TV is very blurry—which hides the defects of a 3D game and in some ways makes a game look better than on a computer monitor. TV is terrible for fine text, but it’s a nice look for gaming. Try your Mac at 640×480 with less than max texture quality, and view it on TV instead of a crisp LCD. Then you can compare to XBox more fairly. (Of course, any Mac or PC has more overhead than the stripped-down, limited Windows derivative running on the XBox.)
Also, I’ve heard they may be addressing performance related bugs that have to do with a) full-screen vs. windowed mode, b) running an LCD at non-native res (which includes 1024×768 usually), and c) FSAA. Not gospel, just rumor. But since the PC just got an update, the Mac will need one too to keep up with multiplayer—and the new GPU drivers they were waiting on seem to be out now! So look for a patch soon, I’d say.
Personally, I’d need to see a demo before deciding. I lean towards UT2k4 for my next game, since I know I like how UT2k3 runs on my PowerBook G4 1.25. I’d like to see Halo results with more RAM, too. 512 is OK for OS X, but more does help.
Also don’t forget the other enhancements to Halo that you don’t get on XBox: you lose co-op mode, but you gain flying craft in multiplayer, a new Warthog vehicle variation, MOUSE AIMING (thank goodness—I hated Halo’s XBox controls) and free Internet multiplay. Plus the option to run at higher-than-TV resolutions.
(And BTW I think the XBox is closer to a GeForce 3 than 4—and with no dedicated VRAM, just 64 MB RAM shared for everything.)
Get a PC if you ewant to play games. Macs suck big time. PC’s will alwayss be the gamers choice…not some crappy mac.
Adam. The Xbox is a 733MHz P3..NOT A 700 MHz. I work with Microsoft. I know.
Adam…Xbox has a geforce 3 Ti 200 chip. really…where do you get this crappy info of yours?
Well, I find it interesting that there are hardly any mac users that say that Halo performs ‘fair’ or ‘ok’. Nearly everyone says it’s absolutly sucktastic, or that it’s great. I’m currently in the ‘sucktastic’ group. I’m pretty sure this all comes down to video card. CPU model/speed seem to hardly matter at all. In fact I’m pretty sure that Halo isn’t even 128-bit optimized for the G4’s Velocity Engine, or the G5’s dual Velocity Engines. Anyway, it seems to all come down to graphics card, and nearly only graphics card. First of all, if ATI cards perform somewhere between 1 and 2 times faster than nVidia cards, on similar graphics settings in Halo. Plus only the very high end ATI cards (9600 and 9800, I believe) are even allowed to do the best graphics, the pixel shaders; no nVidia card can, that I’ve seen.
I’m on a fairly high end mac, a PowerBook G4 1GHz which sounds like it would play Halo acceptable… untill you hear the graphics card. It’s a GeForce4 Go 420 (64MB), which basically means it’s a slower clock speed GeForce4MX. And for anyone that doesn’t know, the GeForce4MXs are really GeForce2’s with some magical marketing 2 added to it, making it a GeForce4. Maybe they used GF2MX hardware, and have it the GF4 instruction set, I don’t know. Bottom line is that nearly any GF3 is much better than a GF4MX. Anyway, that leaves me with the lovely ability to not even do Vertex Shaders, I’m stuck with the lowest possible rendering pipeline as my max. If I max what few options I’m even able to turn on, (which amounts to High texture quality, high particles, 1024×768, high lens flare, high model detail, and everything else off), except for FSAA (which effectivly cuts the framerate to whatever multiplier you choose; ie 5x FSAA = 1/5 normal framerate), I still get an awe-inspiring 9-10 fps. At absolute minimum settings I get performance that is… odd. 100fps when nothing is on my screen, but as soon as any battle starts, framerate quickly drops to 10-15 fps. Joy.
I just bought halo for my 1.6 GHz g5 with 256 mb ram and radeon 9600 pro, and honestly halo runs perfect for me i dont need to turn down any of the options the only time i see anyting wrong is on slow servers and maybe a bit-O-lagg when large explosions accur in single player, but other then that.. its good to me.
Just like to point out that Halo ran like arse on my tricked out dual 2.0 GHz G5 until I updated to the new OS X 10.3.2 and now it runs like a dream.
Yes, Halo runs like crap on all but the best machines, PC or Mac. Theres nothing you can do about it but wait for the patches to come out. It’s running a brand new gaming engine written with DX9, (the first). It’s also running brand new netcode as well. If you want a game to compare it too, look at Counterstrike, it took 8 or 9 patches to get it running smoothly, and they still have problems now and then, 5 years later. Just give it time, the bugs will be worked out.
As for all the word about how only the super high-end video cards will run Halo nicely, I’m not so sure. I’ve got a G5 1.8 Ghz (Single…think I’m getting the dual soon, and we’ll see how that changes things…) with 512 MB RAM and the Radeon 9800 OEM. In 10.3.1, Halo ran really quite horribly…anything beyond a moderate draw distance dropped it down to about 3 or 4 FPS (this is all with everything maxed out). It’s better in 10.3.2, a LOT better, but it’s still not what SHOULD be happening from a moderately top-of-the-line machine with an absolutely top-of-the-line video card. Maybe more RAM is the answer, I’m not sure…in my past experience, RAM has caused loading lags, not FPS drops. Hopefully 1.03 will fix some of these problems. Beyond just performance…am I the only one who thinks that a lot of the effects look like crap compared to the XBox version? It’s nice to have the extra res, but the umbra effect appears not to work (yes, I’ve turned the lens flare setting to extreme, to no effect), and the quasi-reflective properties of the metal textures which made the XBox version so gorgeous don’t really seem to work…they just give it a sheen, nothing like the XBox. A lot of the Covie effects seem lackluster, too…the dropship suspension fields and the Truth and Reconciliation docking bay shields, for example. Maybe I’m just delirious…
Hi, I just wanted to poke my head in and say Digikid’s a retard. A smug, 14-year-old retard.
I work “with” Microsoft… hahahahahahhaahahahahahhahahahaah
Forgetting the XBOX’s unified system architecture, are we? Oh… And that when running Halo, Halo is the OS (strange but true). That limits what types of things the XBOX can do, but it also makes it extremely capable of doing it’s narrow field of tasks very well.
Your PC (or Mac) on the otherhand isn’t as well “structured” for gaming. It is, however, capable of doing a wide variety of tasks pretty well or decently.
My new mac is below the minimum requirements – 700 mhz G4 eMac with the 32 MB NVIDIA GeForce2 MX video card. I didn’t have so much money to spend on a new computer. Up to about 10 or 12 players, I can run Halo just fine with all the graphics features turned off, except I keep the particle graphics on medium so I can see plasma grenade smoke or napalm fire (important for gameplay.) On the other hand, it gets a little jerky when I play on maps with long-range views, like boarding action. I can still rack up the kills though – I often place first or second in free for all slayer games.
I’m planning on buying an ibook g4 1ghz. It’s got an ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 w/ 32MB DDR video memory, and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to play halo on my new mac. Can anyone clue me in? Plz email at sol_kauffman@telus.net
Also-Digikid, while you may have your own uninformed, retarded opinions, please don’t share them with us. Or me, at least.
while digikid might be a bit of a fucktard, i believe his knowledge of the xbox specs are correct alcyon. He’s prolly a PC fan-boy or xbox junkie with nothing better to do during study hall. I know the clock speed is a 733, as for the graphics card i have no clue, except that ATI will have 2 of the 3 major gaming systems when the second generation (or 5th in the case of GC) rolls around.
I have a friend who has a completely tricked out g5 (dual 2.2’s or w/e the fuck they are), 9800 oem, 512, etc etc who still has frame rates sitting at around 27 fps.. from reading posts here it seems like if you’re having problems and you don’t have a sysstem that sucks eggs (like that Imac your mom bought because it looked like a lollipop) you need to update Jaguar.
personally, i’m a pc (specifically amd) kid at heart and prefer the affordability and diy-nature of AMD and PC’s… I like being able to build a relevant system in the region of 500-1000 dollars. if you guys are having problems, i’d suggest getting some updates rather than blaming your video cards.
Ja Ne!
well i have an ibook G4 800, with 512+128 megs of ram (hey, im on summer vacation, who needs to do work?) and im running 10.3.2. this game runs the worst ive ever seen, i have no idea whats wrong, i reinstalled the game and the system software and cant seem to get a framerate above 10 fps without looking at the ground. i called tech support and they told me nothing useful. IT SUKS!!!
We published a G5 vs P4 review of Halo on our site:
http://www.barefeats.com/halo.html
The G5 beat the P4 when we only used Vertex shaders. But when Pixel shaders were turned on, the P4 was faster. (Both had Radeon 9800 Pro cards.)
HALO crashes after the first level because my nVidia video card doesn’t support pixel shaders. How do I enable only vertex shading in the video settings screen ? I cannot figure it out – please help. Thanks.
I’m gonna make some details more clear as some people seem to not understand things.
-733 MHz “Coppermine” (133 MHz FSB) Celeron
-64 MB PC133 SDRAM
-8, 10, or 20 (supposedly) GB hard drive, all partitioned to 8GB
-”NV2X” GeForce3 derived graphics chip
-nForce chipset, modified to support Intel chips (nForce for desktops is an AMD chipset)
-DVD drive with custom firmware to support modified UDF format game discs
-4 USB ports with fifth pin (extra power) for controllers
-Pixel Shader 2.0 (DirectX 9 in the Windows world) is only currently supported by ATi’s R3XX chipsets. The cards based on this are:
*Radeon 9500 (RV300)
*Radeon 9600 (RV350)
*Radeon Mobility 9600 (M10)
*Radeon 9600 XT (RV360)
*Radeon 9700 (R300)
*Radeon Mobility 9700 (M11)
*Radeon 9800 (R350)
*Radeon 9800 XT (R360)
-All other cards will have lowered graphical capablilties
-Pixel Shader 1.x cards (a.k.a. DX8)
*GeForce FX
*Radeon 8000 Series
*Radeon 9000 and 9200
*GeForce 3
*Geforce 4 Ti
Before nVidia fanboys jump on me over this one, the GFFX does NOT support the full PS2.0 spec. It supports some, but not enough to run Halo properly. The R3XX, by comparison, supports beyond the PS2.0 spec
-Fixed Function cards
*GeForce 4 MX
*GeForce 2
*Radeon
*All Other Cards
(Halo still requires a bare minimum of DX7-type functionality to run. Those with Voodoo1 cards are SOL
)
-Even the Xbox has framerate drops every now and then. This is especially noticable in co-op or splitscreen game (for obvious reasons).
-Test PC 1:
*AthlonXP 2000+ (1.67 GHz)
*256 MB DDR400
*nForce2 Chipset (Asus A7N8X-Deluxe motherboard)
*Radeon 9800 XT
**This machine played as well as or better than the Xbox in side by side tests. I assume the $500 RadeonXT helped this dramatically.
-Test PC 2
*HP Laptop
*AthlonXP-M, unknown clock speed
*Radeon IGP 340
**Barely playable at 640×480 on battery, decent at all resolutions when plugged in
-Test PC 3
*Compaq Laptop
*Pentium 4-M, unknown clock speed
*Radeon IGP 340
**better than above HP laptop on battery (actually playable), never observed on plug
-The two laptops were owned by friends, and thus the configuration was not under my control. I built the desktop, and used Halo as part of the testing process.
-Halo needs a VERY powerful computer to play it at Xbox-like framerates, but with the right equipment it is even better.
-The graphics card makes ALL the difference. ATi needs to release the XT chips for Mac.
I felt my questions would be lost in my previous post, so here goes.
I am considering replacing my current laptop (Acer Travelmate C102Ti TabletPC) with a PB17”
Has anyone done comprehensive gaming tests on this? Do games support the widescreen resolution?
Anything will be better than my Tablet, but I would like to get back in to gaming like I was a few years ago (when my desktop was up to date).
And please no Anti-mac-gaming flames. I’m a PC person, I’ve heard (and used) them all. I love OS X, and the iApps + Pro software convinced me a switch was worth it.
is an iBook G4 800MHz with 640 MB of ram gonna be able to play any games like Sim City 4 or Call of Duty. Or will a powerbook 1Ghz be better?
I’ve been playing a lot of games on the new 15” albook 1.25ghz with Mobility 9600 64mb. Loads of fun. Major modern games (at least the ones I’ve played) can run in widescreen, some just need a tweak to the preferences. I’m playing multiplayer Halo at low-medium settings at 1152×768 with 30+ fps. Most games perform better than that, as Halo is pretty heavy on the system.
Check the minimum system requirements for Sim City 4 and Call of Duty.
You must to be joking.
Mac Halo supports both vertex and pixel shaders with the GeForce FX chipsets using X 10.3.3 and Halo 1.04. Yes, the Master Chief has a shiny helmet on my 12” PB Rev. B.
im sorry but mac blows for the $ u pay dude, and pc has more upz than downz compared to mac…… dont get me wrong though. Mac isnt a bad comp if u didnt pay so much for the dam box of ancient technology(333 bus? HA!!!!!radeon 9800 non pro as the best vid available 4 it, not to mention its prize range nearly doubling). The ONLY reason its fast is becuase of its simple archatecture. Ive seen and heard so much s*** about apples that a stayed away from them. Dont get me started on performance, ive seen LOTS of mac games run like crap on new macs, and if you ask me, no pc has had a bad port other than halo without a common factor within the PC and MAC comminity so those that still care, Mac just is a gay comp to game on.
I just got halo and i am playing it on my dual 1.8 g5, 256 ramm, and ati 9600. and it runs like crap. it looks great but it crashes my computer everytime i play it (after a few minutes of play). i am putting in another gig of ramm, so that might help, but i am not so sure. anybody have any ideas? please email me if you know how to fix this. thanks.