Optimizing your PC Experience in Halo: Campaign Evolved

Overview

This PC optimization guide is designed to improve system performance in Halo: Campaign Evolved, with most changes made within the game itself, so your other games are not impacted.  

It is recommended to follow the steps in order, as some options may influence your choices for later steps.

Graphics Quality Options

Halo: Campaign Evolved provides 8 individual graphics quality options for balancing your visual fidelity and performance:

• Effects: Quality and complexity of effects, such as explosions and particles. Lower settings may remove non-essential effects.
• Geometric: Quality of shapes, such as characters, trees, and rocks.
• Global Illumination: Quality of light bounce and indirect scene lighting.
• Lighting: Quality, distance, and amount of shadows.
• Texture: Resolution of textures.
• Reflections: Quality of surface reflections.
• Atmospheric: Quality of elements like the sky, clouds, and fog.
• Post-processing: Quality of visor effects, lens flares, and other post-effects.

Each setting has four options: Low, Medium, High, and Ultra. Using lower settings can help boost performance and reduce latency, while using higher settings will increase the fidelity of the visuals at cost of performance and latency.

Very Low  

If you are using a handheld device such as the XBOX ROG Ally or Steam Deck, a Very Low graphics option may become available. This setting is designed to improve performance on lower-powered hardware.

When Very Low is available, the High and Ultra graphics options are hidden to help reduce the risk of stability issues on these devices.

In some cases, PCs detected below the minimum specifications may also display this option. While these settings can help improve performance on lower-end systems, they do not guarantee compatibility or full functionality on hardware that does not meet the minimum requirements. 

Performance Tip

The Global Illumination Quality and Lighting Quality options control very resource-intensive lighting and shadow systems. Reducing these settings specifically can yield significant increases in performance, without the need to reduce the other graphics options.  

Upscaling Techniques

Halo: Campaign Evolved includes 4 different upscaling options.

• NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS)  
• AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR)  
• Intel Xe Super Sampling (XeSS)  
  • Available on Steam versions
• Temporal Super Resolution (TSR)  

For DLSS, FSR, and XeSS, you can adjust the level of upscaling using the Upscaling Quality dropdown options:

• Low – 33% resolution  
• Medium – 50% resolution  
• High – 59% resolution  
• Ultra – 67% resolution  
• Native – 100% resolution  

Higher settings like Native will boost your visual sharpness and clarity at cost of performance, while lower settings like Low will boost your performance at cost of clarity.

Temporal Super Resolution (TSR)

When using TSR, the Upscaling Quality setting does not affect its output resolution. Instead, two dedicated settings are available to adjust how TSR operates: 

Resolution Scale

The Resolution Scale setting controls the game’s internal resolution using a percentage of your display resolution. Lowering the value reduces the resolution the game is rendered at, which will reduce system latency and can improve your frames per second (FPS) when not CPU limited. Increasing it above 100% renders the game at a higher-than-native resolution, which can greatly improve image sharpness and clarity, but can come with very high performance cost, depending on how high the percentage is raised. 

Minimum Frame Rate  

The Minimum Frame Rate setting helps maintain consistent performance by maintaining a target frame rate during demanding moments. To do this, the game automatically adjusts its internal resolution on the fly, lowering it when the FPS drops and raising it again when system demand decreases.

Enabling a minimum frame rate target can improve overall stability and reduce noticeable slowdowns in intensive scenes. Target values that are significantly higher than what your system can deliver may lead to more frequent or drastic changes in image quality as the system works harder to maintain the selected frame rate.

Asynchronous Computing

Enabling async compute will allow your GPU to handle multiple workloads at the same time, improving how efficiently it uses its available resources.  

In GPU-bound scenarios (where your GPU is the limiting factor), this can increase performance and produce smoother, more consistent frame delivery. In CPU-bound scenarios, leaving it enabled can slightly reduce performance since the GPU is already waiting on the CPU and the extra scheduling work provides little benefit.

As async compute functions differently based on your GPU and accompanying system, it is generally recommended to test the setting yourself:

Field of View (FOV)

When adjusting FOV, consider balancing visibility and performance. A higher FOV can improve situational awareness and reduce the feeling of tunnel vision, but reduces framerate due to rendering more of the environment on screen at once.

While Field of View is generally set to a specific value for comfort, players with more flexibility may want to reduce their FOV to boost their framerate.

Reducing System Load

Minor applications can continue to use system resources even when running in the background. For improved performance, close any unnecessary applications.  

Common examples include web browsers, streaming applications, and background launchers.

One of the easiest ways to close applications and refresh your computer is by restarting your system to ensure all background processes are fully cleared before launching the game again.

Turning Off Idle Monitors

Turning off additional active but unused monitors is a lesser-known and completely optional way to improve performance. When multiple displays are active, your system still continuously allocates minor resources to each one, even if they are not being used for gameplay.

Turning off additional monitors can free up system resources, which may improve performance in certain situations, especially on GPU-bound systems.

This step is helpful, but not required. It is intended for players looking to maximize performance.

Frame Generation

Frame Generation adds a generated frame between each fully rendered frame to increase perceived smoothness. 

Because these inserted frames are predicted rather than directly tied to player input, this feature increases input latency and may introduce visual errors and artifacting. It is best suited for players who prioritize smoother motion over the most responsive controls.

Frame generation availability depends on your system’s GPU, and choice of upscaling technique: 

DLSS

• NVIDIA: RTX 40-series or newer 

FSR

• NVIDIA: GeForce RTX 20‑series or newer
• AMD: Radeon RX 5000‑series (RDNA 1) or newer
• Intel: Intel Arc Alchemist (A‑series) or newer 

XeSS

• NVIDIA: GeForce RTX 20‑series or newer
• AMD: Radeon RX 5000‑series (RDNA 1) or newer
• Intel: Intel Arc Alchemist (A‑series) or newer

Frame Rate Limit

This setting limits how many frames your system renders per second. Instead of your hardware running at full capacity to produce as many frames as possible, it only works hard enough to meet the set limit.  

Using a frame rate limit can lower GPU and CPU load, decrease power consumption, and reduce heat output. This often results in quieter operation, and more consistent performance with better frame pacing.

Low-Latency Mode

Low latency modes reduce the delay between your input and what appears on screen. They do this by limiting how far ahead frames are prepared and displayed, helping ensure your inputs are reflected more quickly. This becomes especially important when using frame generation, where additional buffering can further increase input delay if not managed. 

Vertical Synchronization (VSync)

VSync synchronizes the game’s frame output with your display’s refresh rate to prevent screen tearing, but it can introduce input delay and limit your maximum framerate.

• Toggle VSync on to reduce or eliminate screen tearing, but expect increased input lag and a capped framerate.
• Toggle VSync off to allow higher and more responsive framerates, but you may see visible screen tearing.

Mouse Smoothing

Enabling mouse smoothing averages your mouse input over a short period of time to reduce small, rapid movements. This can make camera motion feel more stable and less jittery, especially at lower frame rates or with inconsistent mouse input.

Turning off mouse smoothing sends your mouse input directly to the game without averaging or filtering. This results in reduced input delay, with a more immediate response to your movements.