Halo 2 Forum
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  • Subject: Is this a glitch or my disk?
Subject: Is this a glitch or my disk?

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  • 10.13.2011 6:28 PM PDT

"No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice Too Great—Duty First!" - The fighting first's motto.

Losing internet 9/7/2012 until i don't know when. See you starside folks.


Fada beo Halo 2!


Posted by: fxnavarro
I keep getting these ghost images or whatever they are called. Mostly during the last 2 Arbiter levels an outline of an image frequently appears on screen, some go away after a checkpoint, some when you die, some don't go away.
I'm playing it on Xbox 360 but I know I've never had it occur this many times on the original Xbox.

Is this because my disk may be damaged? There are no serious scratches, just the ones you get from having it spin in your Xbox/360.

I'm trying to record and this keeps ruining it.


Yeah, it's a common problem with playing Halo 2 on the 360, I don't know how to fix it besides restarting the box. My advice to you is to film on the original box if you can.

  • 10.13.2011 6:46 PM PDT

This is actually the stupidest thing ever posted on B.net:

Posted by: the omega man117
Why does everyone hate Halo 2? Maybe its because its the worst game ever next to mario.

Your disk is fine. The 360 is known to have emulation problems with Halo 2. It is the sole reason alone why Backwash was removed from Matchmaking in 2006 =(

I am not sure if there is any permanent fix, but I know there are some tips out there on how to get rid of it momentarily. Try fooling around with some google searches on the matter or maybe somebody else here can help you further.

  • 10.13.2011 6:56 PM PDT

As people have said, it's a common problem with the 360's emulation. The Xbox 360 is actually architecturally incompatible with oXbox games, and the emulation had to be done game-by-game, which is why the library of back-compatible games is limited. They did an alright job, but a lot of games have quirks; for instance, Halo 1 on the 360 is notable for some downright weird performance loss, discolouration at the side of the screen when zoomed, and a few graphical effects that had to be replaced due to not functioning right on the 360 (such as the animated sky fog on AotCR and Two Betrayals, visible when you're flying very high).

Posted by: fxnavarro
Thanks for the reply but no, I'm using an HD PVR that is not compatible with the original Xbox :(

Wait, what? You have an HD PVR without composite, S-Video, OR YPbPr input? Does it only take HDMI?

Granted, the 360 technically gives a better image when it's not artifacting up, as it uses some nice anti-aliasing, but the oXbox can output Halo 2 in 480p (it has a few games that can do 720p, and it has the hardware to do up to 1080i, but those resolutions are rare in oXbox games).

[Edited on 10.13.2011 8:09 PM PDT]

  • 10.13.2011 8:06 PM PDT


Posted by: sdnomdE
As people have said, it's a common problem with the 360's emulation. The Xbox 360 is actually architecturally incompatible with oXbox games, and the emulation had to be done game-by-game, which is why the library of back-compatible games is limited. They did an alright job, but a lot of games have quirks; for instance, Halo 1 on the 360 is notable for some downright weird performance loss, discolouration at the side of the screen when zoomed, and a few graphical effects that had to be replaced due to not functioning right on the 360 (such as the animated sky fog on AotCR and Two Betrayals, visible when you're flying very high).

Posted by: fxnavarro
Thanks for the reply but no, I'm using an HD PVR that is not compatible with the original Xbox :(

Wait, what? You have an HD PVR without composite, S-Video, OR YPbPr input? Does it only take HDMI?

Granted, the 360 technically gives a better image when it's not artifacting up, as it uses some nice anti-aliasing, but the oXbox can output Halo 2 in 480p (it has a few games that can do 720p, and it has the hardware to do up to 1080i, but those resolutions are rare in oXbox games).
HP DVR has composite, S-Vid and YPbPr component so that is no problem. I record 1080 but 420 is the best you can expect out of an original box.

  • 10.13.2011 8:59 PM PDT

Posted by: Grumpy1
HP DVR has composite, S-Vid and YPbPr component so that is no problem. I record 1080 but 420 is the best you can expect out of an original box.

480, you mean; composite video in the US is nearly always 480i.

Anyway, if you run a YPbPr cable from your oXbox, the oXbox will allow you, in the video settings, to enable 480p (for everything), and 720p and 1080i for the games that support it. The caveat is that, as far as I know, nothing supports 1080i, and relatively few games support 720p. Still, even for games that can't do 720p, the minimum 480p of the YPbPr cables is a huge advantage over the 480i of composite and S-Video when playing on flat panels, since flat panel TV's stumble and vomit all over the place when you feed them interlaced video; either they weave and it looks horrible, or they use a powerful deinterlacing algorithm and you get a bunch of input lag.

But as far as I know, Halo 2 won't do more than 480 lines on oXbox, as you suggest; I tried it out, and on the 1080p TV I thought it had way too harsh jaggies to be 720 lines.

  • 10.13.2011 11:08 PM PDT


Posted by: sdnomdE
Posted by: Grumpy1
HP DVR has composite, S-Vid and YPbPr component so that is no problem. I record 1080 but 420 is the best you can expect out of an original box.

480, you mean; composite video in the US is nearly always 480i.

Anyway, if you run a YPbPr cable from your oXbox, the oXbox will allow you, in the video settings, to enable 480p (for everything), and 720p and 1080i for the games that support it. The caveat is that, as far as I know, nothing supports 1080i, and relatively few games support 720p. Still, even for games that can't do 720p, the minimum 480p of the YPbPr cables is a huge advantage over the 480i of composite and S-Video when playing on flat panels, since flat panel TV's stumble and vomit all over the place when you feed them interlaced video; either they weave and it looks horrible, or they use a powerful deinterlacing algorithm and you get a bunch of input lag.

But as far as I know, Halo 2 won't do more than 480 lines on oXbox, as you suggest; I tried it out, and on the 1080p TV I thought it had way too harsh jaggies to be 720 lines.
Wow, you know a lot more that I do. My vids are all p, what does that mean as opposed to i and I don't know exactly what that means either.

Are most videos captured as interlaced...I don't know what that means either, lol. How do I make sure because I have several lines running across the screen and it bugs the hell out of me.

I'm saving as HD, should I change that so my H2 saves as 480p?

  • 10.13.2011 11:18 PM PDT

Posted by: Grumpy1
My vids are all p, what does that mean as opposed to i and I don't know exactly what that means either.

Progressive scan means that a frame is sent all at once, one line after another. Interlaced scan is when a frame is sent as two "fields," typically one field of even lines and one field of odd lines. One field is sent, line by line, to the TV, and then the next field is sent, line by line, to the TV.

Suppose we had a video format of only 6 lines. In 6p, the lines would be sent 1,2,3,4,5,6. In 6i, the lines might be sent 1,3,5,2,4,6, or 2,4,6,1,3,5, depending on if it's an odd-first or even-first video standard.

The motivation for this has to do with flicker in CRT displays; when video standards were being established, CRT's couldn't receive and scan lines very fast, and scanning an entire 480-line frame would have taken about 1/30th of a second. If it was scanned all at once, the screen will do this 30 times each second, which is noticeable to the eye. Instead, they opted to get 480-line images (they didn't want to use lower vertical resolutions) by scanning 240-line "fields" 60 times each second. Which does unfortunately introduce several artifacts, most notably combing, which is exactly what it sounds like; it's not so bad on natively-interlacing CRT's (not because it doesn't exist, but because it's more natural and less noticeable on them, though it's still annoying), but natively-progressive displays don't handle combing very well. Check out DollarPwnCenter's section at the beginning of Trinity; all those horizontal lines? THAT is how bad combing is on progressive displays.

I don't know what that means either, lol. How do I make sure because I have several lines running across the screen and it bugs the hell out of me.
Looked carefully at your ghost launch, I don't see any interlacing artifacts in it. Either you're receiving over component or HDMI in a progressive format, or your system deinterlaces well.

What I do see is some screen tearing, which is the annoying horizontal cutoff happening midway down your image. I suppose that might happen because of too-high capture quality; I would certainly recommend doing less than 1080p in any case, since your source video isn't rendered that high anyway, and so you aren't really getting more quality out of it. Try capping at 480p and 720p and see how it looks; even 720p should more than halve the number of pixels your system is recording, and should look as good. It might not fix the problem, but it's worth a shot.

One other comment, though: what aspect ratio are you compiling videos in? It looks like you're having Halo 2 render 16:9 widescreen, but your videos on youtube are squished to a skinnier ratio. If anything, that's a larger issue than your screen tearing.

  • 10.14.2011 1:03 AM PDT

Awesome

Yes, 16:9...what should I change or change it to?

I'm using the new Hauppauge TV tuner to record videos ($50) but there's a glitch in getting to the settings. I discovered I could go into the files and find the edit for the settings in there so I can change at will.

I'll lower the pixels one step at a time, the quality is 1 for 1080 so I just have to experiment so thanks for the info. You hit the nail on the head with that 'screen tear' thing. I'll try that tomorrow when I try the Ghost launch again.

I had set it to a progressive format earlier, so that's OK?

Thank you very much.

Edit:
Two more questions. I record with the TV tuner, does my aspect ratio for my flatscreen count there? What should I set my original box to (widescreen etc.) and would it be the same for the 360?

Sorry about all the questions, I'll only ask them once.

Edit again: I changed the setting from 1 to 2 and the darned screen tear was not there. However, when I look at the quality it st1ll said 1080p HD, then 720p HD, then 480p. Those are the same readings that come up with the #1 setting for quality. I'm not sure then why that made a difference. Not sure if that made sense my friend, lol.

Link for quality setting of 2 (as opposed to quality setting 1 you watched with screen tear):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTSvqD5TdEk

[Edited on 10.14.2011 1:48 AM PDT]

  • 10.14.2011 1:12 AM PDT

"No Mission Too Difficult, No Sacrifice Too Great—Duty First!" - The fighting first's motto.

Losing internet 9/7/2012 until i don't know when. See you starside folks.


Fada beo Halo 2!


Posted by: Grumpy1

Posted by: sdnomdE
As people have said, it's a common problem with the 360's emulation. The Xbox 360 is actually architecturally incompatible with oXbox games, and the emulation had to be done game-by-game, which is why the library of back-compatible games is limited. They did an alright job, but a lot of games have quirks; for instance, Halo 1 on the 360 is notable for some downright weird performance loss, discolouration at the side of the screen when zoomed, and a few graphical effects that had to be replaced due to not functioning right on the 360 (such as the animated sky fog on AotCR and Two Betrayals, visible when you're flying very high).

Posted by: fxnavarro
Thanks for the reply but no, I'm using an HD PVR that is not compatible with the original Xbox :(

Wait, what? You have an HD PVR without composite, S-Video, OR YPbPr input? Does it only take HDMI?

Granted, the 360 technically gives a better image when it's not artifacting up, as it uses some nice anti-aliasing, but the oXbox can output Halo 2 in 480p (it has a few games that can do 720p, and it has the hardware to do up to 1080i, but those resolutions are rare in oXbox games).
HP DVR has composite, S-Vid and YPbPr component so that is no problem. I record 1080 but 420 is the best you can expect out of an original box.


I would think because of this problem with imaging you would have to film on an original xbox...?

  • 10.14.2011 6:43 AM PDT

"You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space." -Johnny Cash

The only solution to get rid of it permanently is to play it on the Original Xbox. I couldn't get rid of the problem on the 360 (I tried everything), so I just bought an Original Xbox again, and played it on that.

  • 10.14.2011 7:16 AM PDT
  •  | 
  • Noble Heroic Member

Hey.

This happens on my Xbox 360 as well. The only real solution is to buy Halo 2 Vista or play the game on the Original Xbox.

  • 10.14.2011 2:44 PM PDT

"Through the fog the army moves on. Pushing through borders. Knocking over obstacles. Killing all enemies. Victory is secured, brothers, march on until the flag rises over the landscape."
The Holy Council

I know what you're talking about. I get it too but I just ignore it. It's not that dark.

  • 10.16.2011 9:22 AM PDT