Halo 1 & 2 for PC
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  • der 10 jägermeister
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der zehnte kleine jägermeister..

Posted by: k Zzzyax
im too lazy to read all that, but i probably agree with almost everything said, will we have to buy new computers to play h2pc?


Maybe.. Depends what your current setup is like. If you're running a PII 400 with 64 megs of RAM and a 4 meg onboard video card then it's likely you'll need a new computer. If you're running a P4 3.2 HT with a 2 gigs of RAM and an X800 then probably not.

  • 02.10.2006 12:06 PM PDT
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Posted by: Minjita
Windows Vista being used is a joke. Sorry, but who decided that? Games are still being made that can be run on 98.

Xp is not that old, and I refuse to upgrade my OS simply because of a game. Otherwise I am perfectly happy with XP.

I sincerly dont beleive that its on Vista for any proper decent technical reasons.

If there is some, I expect them to be available at some point.

Apart from the technical side, it doesnt make sense either.


Haha, I love it when people with no technical knowledge of what goes on in a game of this maginitude complains about an OS upgrade. I'm studying engineering (2nd year) and took a couple programing classes before changing to Mechanical. It's amazing what a little code upgrade and better system resource management will enable you to do. It's not a ploy to make you buy the OS. It would literally be cheaper for people that want to play halo 2 to go buy a used xbox and halo 2, instead of upgrading. I think they are using halo 2 to test out some things, perhaps seeing if it's possible to get their next project running on a PC? Maybe some other games in planning for Vista? A grand experiment? Or maybe they want to let PC owners get a chance to play halo 2 in a stable (hopefully) and clean enviroment.

  • 02.10.2006 1:26 PM PDT
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Posted by: Achernar UK
One point regarding map creation that I'd like to bring up. If it is indeed going to be kept to Max, Saipen, etc, then sealed world rules have to go!
This makes map making a real pain in the ass. Nothing is more anoying or time consuming than picking your way through a map to find a single vertex that is not connected or missing.
The sealed world rules deter many from realising their map making dreams. I have seen plenty of brilliant maps thrown in the trash can because of Max/Sealed world rules problems :o(


You do know that the sealed world rules are there so you can have a sky in your map, dont you? Anyways, tool give you a .wrl that tells you exactly where your problem lays.


And for you people saying that the Vista requirement is bogus, dont forget Direct X 10.

  • 02.10.2006 1:44 PM PDT
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No technical knowlage? Hmm.

My coworkers code for a living, amongst many other things. And they all say its definatly a ploy.

A friend whos an admin and does a bit of engineering stuff also says its a ploy.

Anyone into games I know says its a ploy. (go figure)

Its not about making it better to play for people, its about pushing Vista.

like i said, release 2 versions, one for vista, one for XP, and see which sells better. But they wont, because although the XP versions would sell better (we both know that) they wont because they simply want to push Vista.

By the way, Im not complaining about the OS upgrade, Im complaining about releasing an old game for a new expensive OS only.

  • 02.11.2006 12:47 AM PDT
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Like I keep saying, sealed world rules are archaic and have to go. Radiant, UnrealEd, FCed, Hammer have all done away with sealed world rules and the quality of the maps is testament to the power of those editors.
Sealed world rules are an old facet that is no longer required by modern 3d map designers.
BTW the .wrl really sucks, especially when you are dealing with a HP mesh.

  • 02.11.2006 3:29 AM PDT
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Zeph, i would love to understand what you say, unfortunately i don't know that much about KEK and all that jazz, just basic programming. :P(Im proud of that heehee) I think that it is just best taht we wait for the specs and prices that Bungie and MS have in store for us, that just basically what everyone can say at the moment.

[Edited on 2/11/2006]

  • 02.11.2006 4:50 AM PDT
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I know for a fact that hammer still uses the sealed world rule. Leaks are when it isn't sealed. The difference is, halo won't let you even get it ingame with a leak, while hammer just won't do any radiosity.

  • 02.11.2006 8:25 AM PDT
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Posted by: Minjita
No technical knowlage? Hmm.

My coworkers code for a living, amongst many other things. And they all say its definatly a ploy.

A friend whos an admin and does a bit of engineering stuff also says its a ploy.

Anyone into games I know says its a ploy. (go figure)

Its not about making it better to play for people, its about pushing Vista.

like i said, release 2 versions, one for vista, one for XP, and see which sells better. But they wont, because although the XP versions would sell better (we both know that) they wont because they simply want to push Vista.

By the way, Im not complaining about the OS upgrade, Im complaining about releasing an old game for a new expensive OS only.


Alright, have you seen many people say they are going to upgrade their OS just to play halo 2 on their PC?

I literally said it would be easier to go buy and xbox and the game and cheaper than upgrading your OS. I also said it might just be a reason to test out how complex games function in Vista. They dont' have to sit down and do everything they want you to do. I also happen to believe that this game would NOT run in a stable fashion on XP.

Why can't people take things on face value anymore? Always have to believe it's some evil microsoft conspiracy. I believe what they say, that it will run better and work better on Vista.

That being said, I'm not getting it. I have this for xbox and enjoy it a lot. If you have a problem with upgrading you OS or anything else, don't buy it. Its as easy as that. If you aren't bothered by it, don't complain about it. I swear, some of you argue simply for the sake of disagreeing with someone.

  • 02.11.2006 8:51 AM PDT
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Posted by: OmniosSpartan
Posted by: Chewy Gumball
He knows what he's talking about. I know what he's talking about. I don't completly agree on the keep it to max tool guerilla sapien though. Atleast have an exporter for maya/xsi aswell. People shouldn't have to either pay for max, or pirate it just to be able to make maps.


i ahte the HEK, they need to go with something that is more user friendly


It can be more userfriendly the way it is, if they add some tutorials. If you took the time to learn, you would find it is very good system, for a 4 year old game. I hate it when people say they hate the hek because its not user friendly, when they probably only spent maybe an hour half heartedly looking through things.

  • 02.11.2006 10:27 AM PDT
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If they do that, people will be pissed. That is the most basic map editor, and is useless for quality maps like in halo. I don't want to sacrifice what can be done, just so people can make maps. I would rather have it hard, and have only people who take the time to learn be able to use it, because that normaly means they can create quality maps, not just stupid box maps.

  • 02.11.2006 3:15 PM PDT
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Download Halo Custom Edition for user created maps!
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http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=3&fid=410
The few, the proud, the leet.

Posted by: OmniosSpartan
Posted by: Chewy Gumball
He knows what he's talking about. I know what he's talking about. I don't completly agree on the keep it to max tool guerilla sapien though. Atleast have an exporter for maya/xsi aswell. People shouldn't have to either pay for max, or pirate it just to be able to make maps.


i ahte the HEK, they need to go with something that is more user friendly


HEK is probably the most simple thing ever. Tool makes everything the format needed to be played. Guerilla puts things into the cache and lets you change the specifics. Sapien places items on the map where you want them. For people who find that too complicated, apps such as Prometheus are made.

  • 02.11.2006 4:05 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

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

This is by far the most thoughtful, well articulated thread I have ever seen here. I'm glad that Bungie is listening and this honestly gives me great hope for Halo2.

Besides thinking that this should be a sticky, I have one question: Everyone keeps mentioning DX10, we all know it's been coming. However, there are no DX10 hardware capable video cards yet, so how exactly will this play out, specifically for people with DX9.0 capable boards now? I can understand Vista only, fine, but no way Halo2 will require a DX10 hardware compatible video card right?

  • 02.11.2006 4:11 PM PDT
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It might be recomended, but it probably wont be required.

  • 02.11.2006 4:40 PM PDT
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Good post Zeph, I agree with a lot of your points. Here's a couple of my points and hopefully you all understand what I'm saying:
Matchmaking to me was an awful idea and isn't much fun. I would rather pick out something I like rather than go through something I dislike. I would rather like to see serverlists than matchmaking. Plus I would much rather play with friends easier than just play with a whole bunch of random people I don't even know most of the time. Yes there is the party thing which is pretty cool and I wouldn't mind staying but if it were up to me, I would have matchmaking optional.
I for one hated the rankings, I believe it served no purpose being there and a lot of people focused a lot more on their level than on the game itself. Plus I hated how people would brag on how they were great being at level so and so and yet they weren't even that good to begin with. If they want rankings that bad, do a system sortof like what csports.net had. Or do a system with bungie getting the records and having the results on their website along with rankings on the site itself. As well as not having levels but how you rank with other players playing the game.

  • 02.11.2006 7:13 PM PDT
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Posted by: OmniosSpartan
Posted by: Chewy Gumball
It might be recomended, but it probably wont be required.


yea cause they ran it ont he XBO,and ithaswhat liek DX7, or 8?


Please don't compare what halo 2 was run on with the xbox, and what it will be run on with a PC.

  • 02.11.2006 9:42 PM PDT
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Download Halo Custom Edition for user created maps!
Link
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The few, the proud, the leet.

Posted by: Chewy Gumball
It might be recomended, but it probably wont be required.


From what I understand, Vista was their choice because of its native DX10 features. I'm sure there will be a setting that would turn them off, just as all the eye candy of Custom Edition can be turned off.

Basically, I'd say that H2V will run on DX9 just as Custom Edition runs on DX7/8.

  • 02.11.2006 9:48 PM PDT

Posted by: Nessy

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

Posted by: Zeph
Posted by: Chewy Gumball
It might be recomended, but it probably wont be required.


From what I understand, Vista was their choice because of its native DX10 features. I'm sure there will be a setting that would turn them off, just as all the eye candy of Custom Edition can be turned off.

Basically, I'd say that H2V will run on DX9 just as Custom Edition runs on DX7/8.


Thanks. Common sense says that DX10 hardware won't be required, but I'd still appreciate it if someone from Bungie would respond to my concern.

  • 02.13.2006 7:46 PM PDT
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Download Halo Custom Edition for user created maps!
Link
http://hce.halomaps.org/index.cfm?pg=3&fid=410
The few, the proud, the leet.

Direct3D 10 Technology Preview

Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT Release!)

XACT has been released and is no longer in beta! In addition, XACT has been updated for February with these new features:

· ADPCM compression has been added, which allows built wave banks to take up significantly less space on disk.
· Information on using the X3DAudio API has been added

FXC10 D3D9 HLSL Shader Compilation

· The HLSL compiler included in this update to the Direct3D10 Tech Preview now targets downlevel shader models. Using FXC10.exe included in the SDK, developers can try out the new compiler (with new language features such as Improved Flow Control Management) on Shader Model 3.0 and below. Keep in mind that only a subset of HLSL optimizations and new features are active in this release. Generated shaders will not be fully optimized.

New Direct3D 10 Samples and Tutorials

· A new sample illustrating object-space motion blur (MotionBlur10) has been added. No filter kernels are used: High-quality motion blur is achieved via fin extrusion in the Geometry Shader and accumulated in the frame buffer using Alpha-To-Coverage. Texture-space motion blur is achieved using anisotropic filtering.

· A new tutorial illustrating manipulation of Direct3D10 rendering state has also been added.

D3DX10

· A series of improvements have been made to the ID3DX10Sprite interface. Sprites now take advantage of additional Direct3D10 features (geometry shader, texture arrays) to achieve higher performance.

· The D3DX interfaces for multithreaded [asynchronous] resource loading and processing have been improved in this release.

Direct3D10 Debug Layer

· Additional pipeline and parameter validation has been added to the Direct3D10 Debug Layer. Note : Direct3D 10 support is only available on Windows Vista

D3DX9 - UVAtlas

· UVAtlas now supports texture parameterization for polygonal meshes. By providing a list of false edges to the UVAtlas APIs, meshes comprised of quads or N-sided polygons can be atlased. False edges will not be split during parameterization.

Windows Vista Game Explorer (Beta)

The Windows Vista Game Explorer has been updated for February with new features:

· Applications can now take advantage of Rich Save Games in Windows Vista.
· The Game Definition File schema now includes a required manifest of the executables that a game installs or extracts.

Tools - PIX

PIX has been updated with these workflow improvements:

· PIX now supports single-frame capture and playback of Direct3D10 applications.
· The display of Direct3D10 texture resources, including the back buffer, support is included in the update. Image data can be viewed with or without the alpha channel.

· CreateObject and DestroyObject events are now added to PIXRun files, to more clearly indicate when Direct3D objects are created and destroyed.

Installation Points:

DirectX SDK - (February 2006)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en

DirectX SDK (February 2006) Symbol Files

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en

DirectX End-User Runtimes (February 2006)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en

DirectX Websetup (February 2006)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...&displaylang=en


:\, I guess DX10 wont even be required. If it is, I'm going to be really excited for all the new eye candy that can be used. I hope that the potential to use all this is available for the content creation portion more than anything.. This is also a great reason not to newbify it. I'd love to see great motion blur, enhanced shaders, etc. features added to the campaign if possible, but I really want to see this stuff being used in the custom content.

  • 02.13.2006 8:05 PM PDT
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strikes again baby.

so, to start off, as chewey gumball said:

He knows what he's talking about. I know what he's talking about. I don't completly agree on the keep it to max tool guerilla sapien though. Atleast have an exporter for maya/xsi aswell. People shouldn't have to either pay for max, or pirate it just to be able to make maps.

dont restrict it to just those, why would you do that? everyone has their likes and dislikes, and restricting people to certain programs is just plain old problematic.

pkmrules240, are you saying that you couldnt make new weapons in the editor? or are you saying that you couldnt make weapons at all? if you meant the first, then what the hell man, you want them to make their own modeling, and animating tools? if the latter, well damn that really sucks.

Having there be ONLY a server list is annoying, having there be ONLY matchmaking, is also annoying, so have both! that way i can join random people if i want, or, i can join some buddies (or strangers) for some crazy custom fun. as for ranks i dont mind them, but they should probably only be kept to official servers, that way there would be no getting around a program that checks for the correct game type parrameters. cheating will always exist, im not even sure it can stoped without altering human nature. sure you can decrease the desire to cheat by removing ranks, but depending on my mood, i like the ranks, and i dont like them. i could go either way. perhapes a different ranking system would be better? perhapes something that just tracks kills, deaths, and other assorted stats (much like the rss feed does).

Zeph i would HATE to have to alt tab out to get some updated custom stuff, it should be done just like in unreal, if its in the server and you dont have it, it will download it for you, but if you dont want it you can always cancel and pick another server.

Jellburn, dothalo enough for the halo 2 xbox modders (dont think of modders as bad, their not, think of matchmaking modders, as cheaters.), so cheating on xbox wont get worse.

map sealing, map sealing isnt bad, it encourages people to NOT release sub-standard maps, if your going to make a map go all out, dont just make some piece of crap.

i think you would be vastly wrong to assume that halo has better flexability than the Unreal Editor, take a look at some of the top mods, one (i forget the name) had a top down view, and is really an excellent game.

so minjita your saying your friends know everything about vistas code and can say that it in no way (or atleast in no big way), improves the implementation of game code? they know that it will not be more beneficial, and will not better use system resources to make for better game play? if they do then they are probably under an agreement to not talk about anything and work at microsoft.

no omniospartan, i think that the learning curve needs to be high, that way the weak are weeded out and the strong thrive, besides if your looking for a career in this, its a good demonstration.

i think the most simple editor i have ever used was called staredit, for those of you old enough to have used it, the most difficult thing to learn was what to do to exploit glitches for some really neat effects.

pretty much everything else has been coverd. to actually see what i want in there check out this thread from page 5 onward.

-Fooluaintblack

  • 02.13.2006 9:39 PM PDT
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Again, I am totally with the blackness on this.
Apart from sealed world rules. they are no longer essential to map making in the 21st century. Get with the times peeps. HEK was great for a 4 year old game, but now we have a new game and a new year, so stop being fan boys and open your minds to new possibilities. The HEK gets pissed all over by Ued. Deal with it.

  • 02.14.2006 1:14 AM PDT

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