Recently, I had to reinstall Vista Home Premium on my laptop because of a crash.
Being one of my favorite games of all time, I reinstalled Halo on the laptop after all the Vista service packs had been completed.

Halo right off the CD loaded up without any problems and worked fine; however, after selecting multiplayer the 1.09 update auto installed, and suddenly Halo said it no longer recognized my laptop's GPU. Starting the game anyway, it went through the two startup videos, then nothing but a blank screen with music and flashing.

As recommended, I have tried disabling AA and AF on the Nvidia control panel, rolling back video drivers, uninstalling, cleaning and reinstalling video drivers, but nothing seems to work.

Help Please!

have you tried running in "Windows XP service pack 2" compatibility mode? worked for me, should work for you. if not, it's vista's fault.

I will try, but it worked before without having to resort to compatibility modes.

It was working ok until the reinstall.
The Laptop has an Nvidia GeForce 8400M GT that was working fine before the reinstall.
Halo ran fast and smoothly.

right click the shortcut or the .exe, go to compatibility, check "Disable visual themes" and "Disable Desktop Composition", as well as the XP compatibility mode. that might work.

Try the startup arguement: -vidmode 640,480,60
When it loads and if it loads properly, change the resolution to one that you know works.

OR

Try the startup arguement: -safemode
To see if it loads at all

OR

Try a DirectX 9c package: (edit: By default, Windows Vista tries to emulate DirectX 9 with its built-in library, the real thing should clear up most problems)
FileFront link: here
Edited by OrangeJuice on Dec 16, 2012 at 07:15 PM

also, install ALL updates.
Edited by afD2345 on Dec 17, 2012 at 02:44 PM

Ok, it loads with the startup arguement -safemode. Now what should I do?

Go "continue anyways" and it will all be good.

No, it goes to blank screen with music and occasional flashing.

run game in safemode and set lower graphics settings and then run game in normal mode (not in safemode).

Ok, I've tried everything that I can think of, and what has been recommended. I've Uninstalled and cleaned out all residual file traces, regcleaned, reinstalled HALO and HALO CE, installed the hotfix, installed all updates, installed the most up-to-date Nvidia display driver, tweaked settings including AA, AF, etc. Nothing I do will allow me to see the screen as it once worked, and it only works in -safemode.

The last time this happened, I had to restore the PC to some earlier time in order to get it to work. Unfortunately, the system restore is not saving some of earliest restoration points automatically so I can't go back to an early point like I did in the past.

The laptop is a dual core...are there issues with this type of processor? Is there some other location that the AA needs to be turned off. It seems that it must be locked on since its showing the symptoms of AA being on, even though I have turned it off for HALO and HALO CE, as well as for all global settings. Is there a registry file that might need editing?

Any more suggestions? Dennis, do you have any suggestions?

UPDATE: I also noticed that the anti aliasing - setting line in the Nvidia control panel is gray-barred for some reason.
Edited by Mysterion on Dec 27, 2012 at 02:37 PM

By tweeking AA did you set it to off or application controlled?

I tried both...

See my update under a new posting!
Edited by Mysterion on Jan 4, 2013 at 11:22 PM