Console Command List


The following sections include command line switches and console commands that are useful when editing or creating content for Halo on the PC.

Command Line Switches


The following are valid command lines switches that can be placed after the game executable halo.exe.  This list can also be obtained by running Halo with the -? command line swith (e.g. halo.exe -?)


-nosound Disable all sound
-novideo Disable video playback
-nojoystick Disable joysticks and gamepads
-nogamma Disables adjustment of gamma
-useff Forces the game to run as a fixed function card
-use11 Forces the game to run as a shader 1.1 card
-use14 Forces the game to run as a shader 1.4 card
-use20 Forces the game to run as a shader 2.0 card
-safemode Disables as much as possible when running the game
 
-window Run the game in windowed mode
-width Forces the game to run at a specified resolution
-vidmode w,h,r Forces the game to run at the width (w), height(h), and refresh(r) specified
-adapter x Forces the game to run fullscreen on a multimon (multiple monitors) adapter
 
-port x Run the game in windowed mode
-cport x Client port address used when joining multiplayer games
-ip x.x.x.x Server IP address used when you have multiple IP addresses
-screenshot Enables the 'Print Screen' key to generate screenshots

NOTE: Having this always enabled can cause a slight decrease in performance
-console Enables the debugging console
-devmode Enables the Halo Developer Mode


-Devmode Console Commands


Adding the -devmode command line switch will allow you to use many debug and cheat tools that will help you test your level. Please note that this mode is not meant to be used during real games and thus the ability to join games has been removed when in this mode.

NOTE 1: You MUST use the -devmode switch in conjunction with the -console switch for this mode to work correctly.

The following are valid console commands that can be entered into the Halo console when in developer mode. (-devmode), To bring down the console press the ~ key, you must have the command line switch -console enabled for halo.exe, Sapien has the console enabled by default.  See the above section Command Line Switches for additional help and information.

There are many Halo console commands, this is not a complete list of the available console commands. The following console commands are common console commands that are helpful when editing Halo content.

NOTE 2: These commands are for development use only and thus may not provide a 100% stable game environment. Meaning - though useful, some commands may cause the game to crash.

NOTE 3: For commonly used commands, it is suggested that these commands be placed in an init.txt file.  This file is a simple text file that is put in the root Halo game directory (the same directory that contains the halo.exe file) that contains the console commands and parameters exactly as they appear when typed into the console.  When Halo is run, this file is read and the commands are run automatically.



Command or Variable Default Value Valid Values Description
cheat_all_powerups N/A N/A This console command will spawn all the powerups near the player.
cheat_all_vehicles N/A N/A This console command will spawn a standard warthog near the player.
cheat_all_weapons N/A N/A This console command will spawn all the weapons around the player.
cheat_bottomless_clip 0 0-1 Enabling this command will give the player a bottomless clip which means that the weapon will never have to be reloaded and will never experience overheating.
cheat_bump_possession 0 0-1 Enabling this command means that every time the player bumps a character they will take control of that particular character.
cheat_deathless_player 0 0-1 Enabling this command makes the player invulnerable to any damage, including the maximum falling damage height restrictions.
cheat_infinite_ammo 0 0-1 Enabling this command will give the player unlimited ammunition.
cheat_medusa 0 0-1 When this command is enabled, any enemy unit that sees the player will be instantly killed.
cheat_spawn_warthog N/A N/A Typing this console command in will spawn a standard warthog near the player.
cheat_super_jump 0 0-1 Enabling this command allows the player to jump very high, which is useful for maneuvering around a level during its construction.
cheat_teleport_to_camera N/A N/A This command will teleport the player to the current camera position.
cls N/A N/A Clears the console screen.
debug_objects 0 0-1 Enabling this command will give visual representations of the game objects or models bounding radii and collision models.
debug_portals 0 0-1 Enabling this command will draw or outline the portal definitions in the game.
debug_sound 0 0-1 Enabling this command will give visual representations of the sounds being played and their audible radii along with labels indicating the specific sound being played to the player.
error_suppress_all 0 0-1 The suppression of error messages is by default on, disabling the error suppression (setting the value to 0) will show errors being encountered by the game and is useful in debugging content and game problems.
game_speed <#> 0 0-20 This command changes the entire speed of the game.  Its very useful for pausing the game or travelling around a environment quickly during level creation or debugging.

NOTE: The value entered can go higher than 20 but higher values tend to be uncontrollable or problematic
map_name <map name> N/A N/A Use this command to manually load a specific level.
radiosity_quality 0 0-1 Sets the quality of the radiosity to be performed.  See the section Radiosity (Lighting)for more details and information.
radiosity_start N/A N/A Starts radiosity lighting on the level using the current radiosity settings.  See the section Radiosity (Lighting) for more details and information.
radiosity_save N/A N/A Saves the current radiosity lighting to a .bitmap lightmap file for the selected level (.scenario_structure_bsp). See the section Radiosity (Lighting) for more details and information.
rasterizer_environment_diffuse_textures 0 0-1 This toggles the drawing of the diffuse textures for the world on or off, effectively displaying only the lightmap data for the level geometry.
rasterizer_fog_atmosphere 0 0-1 This command toggles atmospheric fog in the level on or off if the level has atmospheric fog set for the level in the tags.
rasterizer_fog_plane 0 0-1 This command toggles the fog plane in the level on or off if the level has a fog plane set for the level in the tags.
rasterizer_wireframe 0 0-1 This draws the current world scene including the world model (bsp) and all models such weapons, vehicles, characters and effects in wireframe mode, including non-visible geometry that has collision.  This command is extremely useful in determining the placement of visiblity portals, please see the section Level Creationfor more details and information.
rasterizer_fps 0 0-1 This is the equivalent to rasterizer_stats 5.
rasterizer_stats 0 0-5 Each setting for rasterizer_stats displays the following:

0 - This disables the display of the rasterizer stats.

1 - Unsupported

2- This is the most useful output option for rasterizer_stats.  This setting displays a frame rate counter as well as categorized vertice and triangle counts for the scene being rendered.  Additional information such as the number of dynamic lights, lens flares, decals and shadows are also displayed.

3- Unsupported, used for Xbox version of Halo.

4- Displays information on memory usage for the game.

5 - Simple frame rate counter and information such as maximum, minimum and average frame rates for the scene.

NOTE: Hitting the CTRL-F12 key combination will bring up a frame rate counter and graph.
quit N/A N/A Quits the game