Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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  • Subject: H2V working on XP, This is not a "H2V should be for XP thread&...
Subject: H2V working on XP, This is not a "H2V should be for XP thread&...
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Technically, Hired Gun and Microsoft lied, and Bungie really doesnt need this kind of -blam-.

  • 06.26.2007 2:11 PM PDT
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Posted by: The true grunt
Technically, Hired Gun and Microsoft lied, and Bungie really doesnt need this kind of -blam-.
There is nothing "technical" about it, there was no ambivalence in the statement or the result.

Will the game work on Microsoft Windows XP?

No, as the name suggests, Halo 2 for Windows Vista will only run on the upcoming Microsoft Windows Vista operating system. The game is tied to Windows Vista in order to take advantage of new Live functionality and multiplayer features that aren't avaialble on XP or other operating systems.

You cannot install Halo 2 Vista on an XP machine without the emulator. They never said that it will only run on Vista "unless someone develops a non-supported emulator hack". It is not even a lie of omission. No one makes that claim about their software.

This nonsense over the move to Vista is just a repeat of the same crap people offered up over the move from Win98 to 2000 or XP. It's all the same: "It's too expensive" or "I have to upgrade my computer" or "I can't play my games" - get over it or get left behind.

  • 06.26.2007 4:04 PM PDT
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Posted by: UXB
Of course they would it would be stupid and irresponsible for them to do anything else. Considering that the XP operating system, is reaching end of life and Microsoft will stop offering Windows XP for sale by January 2008 with support being discontinued by January 2009 creating a program for anything else BUT Vista would be like creating programs for CPM, DOS or the Commodore 64.


This is incorrect. The bottom line in games is making sales. By restricting the number of people who may purchase and use your product, you are working contrary to your bottom line. As evidence by the fact that every other major game producer is still producing XP games. Infact, Microsoft is the only production company going the Vista only route.

This nonsense over the move to Vista is just a repeat of the same crap people offered up over the move from Win98 to 2000 or XP. It's all the same: "It's too expensive" or "I have to upgrade my computer" or "I can't play my games" - get over it or get left behind.


You fail to appreciate scale here. Doom 3 is one of the first major titles that ceased supporting Win98. Win98 was released in 1998, Doom 3 was released in 2004. For more comparison, Win2K was released in 2000 and Windows XP in 2001. Doom 3 supported 2K and there is a 4 year gap between the two.

Vista was released in 2007. Halo 2 was released in 2007. Less then 6 months apart. This cut 90% of the market from buying and using the game. This is contrary to the bottom line for game sales. However, Microsoft has a conflict of interest. They want to sell Vista copies. So the strategy used by Microsoft was not one designed to benefit the game market and actually hurts the gamers just to benefit Vista.

This is not a repeat of the "same crap people" as you don't appreciate it took years for people to migrate from Win98 to Win2K and eventually WinXP. Microsoft is trying to force the issue in just 5 months.

In my mind, you are part of the "crap people" who make excuses on behalf of Microsoft while ignoring the horrible game business practice this is causing. Just look at the other production companies who just want to sell games and make fans. Crysis is far more advanced then Halo, its XP playable. The recently announced Starcraft 2 will even support XP. Its at least 2 years from release. And you make further mistakes. Halo 2 was already created. So the costs are already sunk into the game. To make the best possible profit it would be most logical to make the game as accessible as possible. Making it playable on Win2k and WinXP would significantly improve sales. Restricting to Vista for a game entirely capable of running on older OS's is an incredibly stupid strategy and very obvious as nothing more then a ploy to force Vista OS sales.

  • 06.26.2007 5:36 PM PDT

* Pr: ĭnʹtərnĕts: "I hear there's rumors on the uh (pause), Internets...

Halo 2 was actually released in 2004. </smartass>

>_>

  • 06.26.2007 6:05 PM PDT
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Posted by: darthbob
Halo 2 was actually released in 2004. </smartass>

>_>


he means halo 2 for computer. That came out in 2007, you dummy!

  • 06.26.2007 6:31 PM PDT
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Posted by: darthbob
Halo 2 was actually released in 2004. </smartass>

>_>


Oh really. So tell me why would a game released in 2004 require an OS that wasn't released until 2007. As this forum is for the PC version, it should be immediately obvious that I am talking about most things related to said version. Do I need to draw this in crayon for you to understand?

  • 06.26.2007 8:03 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

The bungie.net community is the halo PC community that is renowned for being unbelieveably sucky.

Halo 2 is Vista only because M$ didn't make it for XP. That was my Yogi Berra line for the day, I hope you got it. There was technically no reason why they could not have put it on XP. It does not use DX10. I think what bothers so many people is not that M$ made H2 Vista only, but that here at Bungie, they wrote that FAQ that was complete BS. M$ and Bungie did not lie, but they sure distorted the truth to shape their PR. When you have Bungie moderators finishing long and thoughtful posts with "i am losing patience with M$," then something smells funky. Most educated people saw this whole H2V fiasco for what it was regardless of whether they bought the game and enjoy it or not. M$ would be wise to learn from this: be honest with customers and you will have more of them even if the news is bad.

[Edited on 06.26.2007 8:27 PM PDT]

  • 06.26.2007 8:26 PM PDT
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. The bottom line in games is making sales. By restricting the number of people who may purchase and use your product, you are working contrary to your bottom line. As evidence by the fact that every other major game producer is still producing XP games. Infact, Microsoft is the only production company going the Vista only route. You are approaching the issue from a narrow perspective. While I agree wholeheartedly that it is always about the bottom line the bottom line in this case is not just the Halo 2 game. MS has a huge internal support mechanism and it’s associated costs for supporting multiple platforms and programs across those platforms. I am not saying I totally agree from a consumer perspective but the fact remains that MS is indeed forcing the issue of migration unlike they did with XP. As such the “Vista only” policy they have adopted and the accelerated end of life of XP makes it clear that any new program from MS will be Vista only.

As an IT professional I am keenly aware of the cost and time it took to upgrade from W2K to XP. Unlike that migration where the benefits to the upgrade were minimal the security changes in Windows Vista will make future support in a corporate setting that much less expensive.

Restricting to Vista for a game entirely capable of running on older OS's is an incredibly stupid strategy and very obvious as nothing more then a ploy to force Vista OS sales.

Again you are not taking the longer view. The number of people who are going to upgrade to Vista just to run the game is so insignificant in the overall sales of the OS as to make it inconsequential. I am guessing that the reduction in platform support costs will more than make up for lost sales. If not then they were wrong we may never know...

I am by no means a Microsoft fan, however all the arguments for an XP supported game tend to be rooted in the “I want what I want and I want it now” mind set. Microsoft has never supported the PC game market as other companies have. Bungie for that matter is nearly totally invested in the Xbox market and only offers minimal service to the PC. However from the outset they said the Game is Vista only, not Vista only unless you run an emulator.

Like it or not XP is end of life Jan 2008 no support after Jan 2009. You choices are to upgrade, get left behind or vote with your wallet and install Linux or buy an Apple. You can then run your Windows games in an emulator.

The decision was made when they announced the OS and the game. The complaints that they lied about it are hyperbole.

  • 06.26.2007 9:35 PM PDT
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This still completely ignores the fact that for a games producer the bottom line of game sales is most important. You don't go out of your way to make something work on a single OS when relatively minor software tweaking will make it playable on multiple OS's. The money spent on making it playable on XP and Win2k would have been more then offset by sales to these people. Stating XP is no longer going to be supported ignores the reality of the situation. We still use XP here, today. The majority of the market is still using XP, right now. The game community as a whole is still going to support XP because its cost effective.

Your arguments are ultimately flawed because Halo 2 and Vista are not comparable to previous examples. You don't cut support to the previous generation the moment the new generation comes out. As evidence by the fact that XP is still going to be supported for time to come. The XP support is contrary to the MS issue on producing Vista only titles.

  • 06.26.2007 10:19 PM PDT
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miked23:

"The reason people are resisting Vista is it so expensive to get it then upgrade you computer for it."

That may be a reasons, what about the fact that its BLOATED with crap, and loves homing in with "annonymous" usage statistics on its user.


checkertail:

A halo3sucks.com already exists LoL!


The true grunt:

"Technically, Hired Gun and Microsoft lied, and Bungie really doesnt need this kind of -blam-."

Bungie is Microsoft, and Microsoft is Bungie. Bungie as a stand-alone company as you remember no longer exists.


UXB:

"get over it or get left behind."

You are going to find that XP will be around for many years to come. Everyone I know that touched Vista went back to XP ASAP. Too much bloat, too much junk, CBF. Novilty crap for people that don't know anything about computers.
XP does everything Vista does, remember that. :) OK, maybe Vista has o0o0ow Aero, what a joke - bloated inefficient novilty crap.
I got XP and its pretty much a Windows 95 setup. I use XP because its stable and does everything I need. I don't need Vista, nor do I like it. The first time I used it (I gave it 5 minutes of my time) it crashed in MSPaint, and then I found an error in Windows Vista Help (Windows help homes in what you enter in the search field, this computer was offline and as the helps got IE built into it, a socket plug-in gave me an error as this demo PC was offline - my conclusion). Why would you want the head -blam!- when you don't need it. What, so you can say "o0o0w I use Vista" to trendy people that know nothing about computers? Right! LoL


Alyeska: You are right, I have seen Doom 3 run on Windows 98 SE anyway. If you haven't already, check out my website halo2vista.com and read what I have to say about Halo 2 Vista, I think it will interest you.

[Edited on 06.27.2007 4:07 AM PDT]

  • 06.27.2007 4:04 AM PDT
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Posted by: Kolusion
miked23:

"The reason people are resisting Vista is it so expensive to get it then upgrade you computer for it."

That may be a reasons, what about the fact that its BLOATED with crap, and loves homing in with "annonymous" usage statistics on its user.


checkertail:

A halo3sucks.com already exists LoL!


The true grunt:

"Technically, Hired Gun and Microsoft lied, and Bungie really doesnt need this kind of -blam-."

Bungie is Microsoft, and Microsoft is Bungie. Bungie as a stand-alone company as you remember no longer exists.


UXB:

"get over it or get left behind."

You are going to find that XP will be around for many years to come. Everyone I know that touched Vista went back to XP ASAP. Too much bloat, too much junk, CBF. Novilty crap for people that don't know anything about computers.
XP does everything Vista does, remember that. :) OK, maybe Vista has o0o0ow Aero, what a joke - bloated inefficient novilty crap.
I got XP and its pretty much a Windows 95 setup. I use XP because its stable and does everything I need. I don't need Vista, nor do I like it. The first time I used it (I gave it 5 minutes of my time) it crashed in MSPaint, and then I found an error in Windows Vista Help (Windows help homes in what you enter in the search field, this computer was offline and as the helps got IE built into it, a socket plug-in gave me an error as this demo PC was offline - my conclusion). Why would you want the head -blam!- when you don't need it. What, so you can say "o0o0w I use Vista" to trendy people that know nothing about computers? Right! LoL


Alyeska: You are right, I have seen Doom 3 run on Windows 98 SE anyway. If you haven't already, check out my website halo2vista.com and read what I have to say about Halo 2 Vista, I think it will interest you.


Wow what a site you got there, ill be you put a lot of effort into that, lol. As far as not needing Vista, your right, but if you want to run certain games properly then you will need Vista. Also as its been said before, you either move into the future or live in the past the choice is yours. Myself i prefer the future.
I havent had even a hicup running Vista ultimate or H2V or even shadowrun :)
I remember when ppl said the same thing about Xp and now the same ppl are defending it, lol, what a joke.

  • 06.27.2007 5:50 AM PDT
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JustBringIt"69", chances are you don't know much about Windows Vista, or computers for that matter. k thx mwa

  • 06.27.2007 6:34 AM PDT
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The Halo CE Chronicles http://hcec.halomaps.org

Posted by: Alyeska
This still completely ignores the fact that for a games producer the bottom line of game sales is most important. You don't go out of your way to make something work on a single OS when relatively minor software tweaking will make it playable on multiple OS's. .
This is where you seem to be stuck. Microsoft is not just a game developer. Their primary market is the OS, server and the productivity tools. From their perspective you don't develop games that require increased support costs for multiple platforms. If your primary business is as a game developer then I would agree with you, however, Microsoft is not primarily a game developer. They just dabble.



ps: it has been a pleasure having an intellegent conversation for a change

  • 06.27.2007 8:18 AM PDT
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Posted by: Kolusion
You are going to find that XP will be around for many years to come. Everyone I know that touched Vista went back to XP ASAP. Too much bloat, too much junk, CBF. Novilty crap for people that don't know anything about computers.
XP does everything Vista does, remember that. :)
I am sure XP will be around for many years, in my datacenter I have a Windows NT machine running a special use program and some of my clients still run DOS based accounting systems heck at one of the companies I worked for 15 years ago they are still using the test equipment I designed based on the Commodore 64. But these are exceptions not he general rule. There are two irrefutable facts you are ignoring: According to the Microsoft Lifecycle policy XP reaches end of life Jan 2008 and end of support Jan 2009.

There are vast differences in the security model between XP and Vista. In XP applications and services all run in the same security context as the user with full administration rights to the file system. Essentially you either lock down the users or give them full administrative privileges. Both scenarios cause help desk calls for different reasons. In Vista there are essentially two security contexts: the standard user and elevated processes where services run. Running as a standard user and not the administrator you now have the ability to load software and make configuration changes without the worry of purposely or accidentally accessing or damaging elevated processes, which is how malware and virus work. This reduces the overall help desk calls and makes support less expensive.

Of course if you run in administrator mode then you are correct to the uninitiated Vista will seem to operate much like XP. But as you obviously know there is no reason to run Vista in administrative mode once the system is configured because that opens your system to the same malware as XP. But being as knowledgeable about computers as you claim I am sure you knew that.


[Edited on 06.27.2007 9:11 AM PDT]

  • 06.27.2007 9:07 AM PDT
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Posted by: UXB
Posted by: Alyeska
This still completely ignores the fact that for a games producer the bottom line of game sales is most important. You don't go out of your way to make something work on a single OS when relatively minor software tweaking will make it playable on multiple OS's. .
This is where you seem to be stuck. Microsoft is not just a game developer. Their primary market is the OS, server and the productivity tools. From their perspective you don't develop games that require increased support costs for multiple platforms. If your primary business is as a game developer then I would agree with you, however, Microsoft is not primarily a game developer. They just dabble.



ps: it has been a pleasure having an intellegent conversation for a change


This is in conflict with what you previously stated. Halo 2 Vista to encourage Vista sales. And you don't appreciate the cost difference. The work required to make Halo 2 playable on Win2k and WinXP is negligible. The fact that a handful of dedicated fans managed it less then a month after the games release shows this. The significant increase in game sales would more then compensate the costs. Unlike an originally developed game, the core of Halo 2 has already been produced. The technology behind it is built on the bedrock of technology used in XP. That it runs better on XP then Vista just goes to show the particular decision they made is highly questionable. And given the backwards compatible nature of Vista, they could have designed the port for XP and Win2k without expending any Vista resources and Vista would still play the game.

In short, outside of trying to encourage Vista sales (and taken in this context Halo 2 is part of a larger overall strategy to force migration over to Vista, Shadowrun and Games for Windows Live are also taken into consideration), there is no rational justification.

I will admit I was tempted to snap at your first posts due to a presumed arrogance, but I saw you were thinking with more depth then first appreciated.

  • 06.27.2007 12:50 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kolusion
JustBringIt"69", chances are you don't know much about Windows Vista, or computers for that matter. k thx mwa


So your web site is evidence of how much you know? Hahaha. Or is it your use of the English language " k thx mwa", what a joke. You sir have just been awarded the idiot trophy of the day, thank you and have a nice day, hahaha.

  • 06.27.2007 12:55 PM PDT
Subject: H2V working on XP and Linux, This is not a "H2V should be for ...
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Posted by: ART1LL3RY
If any of you haven't heard
People have managed to get H2V to work on XP, and many of the problems don't happen is XP. The mouse lag is gone, you can cap frames, you can get playable framerates(30 fps) with a Geforce 6800 on high setting at 1280x1024.
So what do think?
EDIT: I changed the title feel better?


What took so long?

Anyways, I seriously doubt that Microsoft is gonna patch the game, considering how much support H1 got from them...

Honestly, we're just a cash grab for them, which is another reason I don't buy games like this till they drop in price...

  • 06.27.2007 1:37 PM PDT
Subject: H2V working on XP, This is not a "H2V should be for XP thread&...
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Posted by: Alyeska
I will admit I was tempted to snap at your first posts due to a presumed arrogance, but I saw you were thinking with more depth then first appreciated.

Dennis is in his 50's. Just FYI. When you call someone out, make sure the guy hasn't lived through five decades.

  • 06.27.2007 3:01 PM PDT
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Posted by: Kolusion
I saw Halo 2 Vista working on XP coming a mile away, a long time ago.


Despite you being an ass...

*gives Kolusion a cookie*

  • 06.27.2007 3:49 PM PDT
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Posted by: Alyeska
This is in conflict with what you previously stated. Halo 2 Vista to encourage Vista sales.

You have me confused with someone else. I never said that MS decided that H2Vista was to encourage Vista sales. I specifically said that the decision to make it Vista only was most likely to minimize the support costs of multi-platform support, and the corporate direction of a Vista only development process. The number of people who would purchase Vista JUST to run the game was so small compared to the overall OS sales as to be inconsequential at best.

Posted by: Alyeska
And you don't appreciate the cost difference. The work required to make Halo 2 playable on Win2k and WinXP is negligible.
Actually I do appreciate the difference. Most people do not think about the Quality Control process involved in cross platform support. They are enormous. It more than doubles the cost of single platform QC support and testing. As programs become more complex the costs rise exponentially where we have reached a point that it is impossible to test all parameters and functionality of an application.

Posted by: Alyeska
That it runs better on XP then Vista just goes to show the particular decision they made is highly questionable
This assertion is anecdotal at best and I have seen reports to the contrary. The various emulators I have heard about so far are buggy, unsupported and not fully functional. which is more anecdotal non-evidence.

Posted by: Alyeska
In short, outside of trying to encourage Vista sales (and taken in this context Halo 2 is part of a larger overall strategy to force migration over to Vista, Shadowrun and Games for Windows Live are also taken into consideration), there is no rational justification.

I am pretty sure that the decision to develop Halo 2 on vista had absolutely nothing to do with forcing more sales of the Vista OS. Your rational assumes that the MS PC game market drives the OS market where the opposite is the case. Before the announcement of the Halo 2 for PC game Microsoft was clearly on an accelerated path to force migration to Vista as evidenced in their public life cycle policy as such from a business perspective it only makes sense to develop only for Vista. If people are that opposed they will vote with their wallet, so far they haven't balked.

The gamming public is not known for looking at all the aspects of the situation. Discussions like this are rare and generally degenerate into name calling and MS bashing. I can think of plenty of valid reasons to not like Microsoft, I espouse them some times daily, but this is one decision (Vista only) that I can not argue with because, although not in a game company, I have been on the other side of decisions like this and from the narrowly focused outside may look like a mistake but in fact are correct for business.

The bottom line here is:
1) Bungie and Microsoft did not lie. It was designed for the Vista OS as they said
2) They never said it would or would not run in emulation it is unreasonable to expect they would.
3) Halo 2 Vista was never going to drive Vista sales
4) The complaints are more about the Vista upgrade than the game itself
5) Microsoft is discontinuting XP Jan 2008 and support Jan 2009

As the saying goes: Your mileage will vary.

  • 06.27.2007 4:10 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

The bungie.net community is the halo PC community that is renowned for being unbelieveably sucky.

Actually UXB you are incorrect about one thing and nevertheless keep saying it. M$ and Bungie did in fact say that H2 would be Vista only b/c they could do things on Vista not available on XP. Remember, the game was originally going to be both a DX10 hardware enabled game as well as cross platform with the Xbox. Now it is very clear that technically speaking the game can run just fine on XP as well as Win2K.

I am not a big time H2V hater like others, but I do own the game and frankly the MP is nothing special at all. Some people are going to love it b/c it is Halo and appears to be the natural upgrade from Halo PC, but some of us that have play a lot more games than others take it on face value. I look at the game for what it is, not what it is hyped up to be.

The Bungie nonsense has nothing to do with how the game plays.

  • 06.27.2007 4:23 PM PDT

Tru7h and Reconciliation

Posted by: UXB
Posted by: Alyeska
That it runs better on XP then Vista just goes to show the particular decision they made is highly questionable
This assertion is anecdotal at best and I have seen reports to the contrary. The various emulators I have heard about so far are buggy, unsupported and not fully functional. which is more anecdotal non-evidence.


This is not an emulator, it's not like running XP games inside linux. IT RUNS BETTER ON XP NO MATTER WHAT YOUR HARDWARE CONFIGURATION. What reports have you seen to the contrary as far as performance increases? All I know is that for me in Vista, Halo 2 ran about 20-30fps at 1024x768 on Low with no AA. On XP, it runs at about 30-45fps at 1280x720 on Medium with 2xAA, not to mention LOADS IN A QUARTER OF THE TIME ON AN INCREASED DETAIL LEVEL. If that's not a performance jump I don't know what is. Not to mention that glitches like mouse lag and strangely limited resolution/refresh rate options are actually ALLEVIATED compared to the "true" Vista version.


[Edited on 06.27.2007 8:16 PM PDT]

  • 06.27.2007 8:13 PM PDT

* Pr: ĭnʹtərnĕts: "I hear there's rumors on the uh (pause), Internets...

The limited resolution options are still present in XP.

  • 06.27.2007 8:17 PM PDT

Tru7h and Reconciliation

If by that you mean theres no 1280x800 or 1440x900, then yes they still aren't there. My list of possible resolutions still doubled when I went to the settings on my XP install.

  • 06.27.2007 8:21 PM PDT
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"All I know is that for me in Vista, Halo 2 ran about 20-30fps at 1024x768 on Low with no AA. On XP, it runs at about 30-45fps at 1280x720 on Medium with 2xAA"

Now that is what I want to hear as I'm going out in a few hours to pick me up a copy of H2V, not bickering over the faults and responsibilities of Bungie and MS.

  • 06.27.2007 8:25 PM PDT