Halo 1 & 2 for PC
This topic has moved here: Subject: A Few Simple Suggestions for Halo 2 Vista
  • Subject: A Few Simple Suggestions for Halo 2 Vista
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Posted by: Chewy Gumball
You obviously don't understand what gearbox did, nor why they did it, although you may not be willing to admit it.
Wow, how clever of you to mock my posts like a typical forum troll. Alright Mr. Gearbox representative, why don't you present to me some logical reasons as to why they did what they did then, since you seem to be so knowledgeable of it? Until then, stop the flame bait.

[Edited on 9/12/2006]

  • 09.11.2006 2:50 PM PDT
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Well, parts of the Halo 2 graphica are the same, whereas other parts have remained the same. What parts? The textures? They look really blurry, judging from the screenshots. The textures should be sharp. This is how they were on Halo 2 XBOX, but the PC has way more horsepower.


Also, it would be nice if the plasma glow could be made softer.


What I want to see :
-A new vehilce or two
-A new weapon or two
-Map editor that is easy to use.


Edit : Another thing that I want to see is water. Water never palyed much of a role in Halo 2 XBOX but with the map editor, what a better oppportunity to change it. It would be really nice to be able to make things like underwater cities.

Of course, there would have to be swimming animations, but this wouldn't be a big deal.

  • 09.11.2006 9:50 PM PDT
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The problems that come with trying to make a map editor easier is that the more they try to make it easier, the more simplistic and limited it becomes. I'm guessing it will be fairly similar to Sapien for Halo Custom Edition, and it will definitely have a decent learning curve before you can get the hang of it. I know it sucks, but that's the only way to allow players to make really intricate and detailed maps that can be comparable to the quality of Bungie's work.

[Edited on 9/11/2006]

  • 09.11.2006 10:36 PM PDT
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Posted by: ImSpartacus
lol, remember that i agree that a walk control could be interesting, but it still is modifying gameplay, and apparently halo 2 in its original state did something right bc it was/is extremely popular, and its core gaeplay should not be changed.

im in the same boat as u r, i think a prone command would be very cool, but it still would just complicate things more than they should be.

but, i think if they could, possibly add another crouch-like command so modders could have some extra button to work with when they did there thing (im saying this bc of cmt's current topic on whether to replace the crouch command with a sprint command for one of their future mods)


What they're suggesting is a key modifier to allow you to walk. This would NOT be changing gameplay from H2 Xbox version because they HAVE the ability to walk, whereas we on the PC would NOT without a key modifier. What YOU are suggesting, i.e. not to have a walk key IS to modify gameplay from the original H2 xbox.

Basically, it comes down to this: You can't emulate the Xbox controls precisely on a keyboard, but having a walk modifier would be more like the xbox controls instead of not having a walk modifier. Therefore, they should put it in!

  • 09.12.2006 2:03 AM PDT
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Posted by: Reaver225
What they're suggesting is a key modifier to allow you to walk. This would NOT be changing gameplay from H2 Xbox version because they HAVE the ability to walk, whereas we on the PC would NOT without a key modifier. What YOU are suggesting, i.e. not to have a walk key IS to modify gameplay from the original H2 xbox.

Basically, it comes down to this: You can't emulate the Xbox controls precisely on a keyboard, but having a walk modifier would be more like the xbox controls instead of not having a walk modifier. Therefore, they should put it in!
Ahh, exactly what I was getting at. Well said.

  • 09.12.2006 8:25 AM PDT
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I think its safe to say that theres no auto aim from what I can tell; if you watch the beta videos you can see that the user had problems aiming with his xbox 360 pad because there was no auto aim for him..

  • 09.12.2006 9:07 AM PDT
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Posted by: MiniSiets
Posted by: Chewy Gumball
You obviously don't understand what gearbox did, nor why they did it, although you may not be willing to admit it.
Wow, how clever of you to mock my posts like a typical forum troll. Alright Mr. Gearbox representative, why don't you present to me some logical reasons as to why they did what they did then, since you seem to be so knowledgeable of it? Until then, stop the flame bait.


Alrighty then. I present Article 1. http://www.xbox365.com/news.cgi?id=EpupZlEpAVVsdgZxdt1095

Randy Pitchford is a gearbox guy.


Pitchford said that the project is about 40 percent done, much of which includes a successful port of the graphics engine. The port required Gearbox to move to supporting DirectX 9 and completely rewrite all the pixel shader effects. Part of what that rewrite means is that the PC game will have some enhanced effects for PCs with the latest graphics cards--Pitchford mentioned that Nvidia was helping with optimizations for the GeForce FX--that are more capable than the Xbox hardware. The game will also support cards down to the GeForce2 MX, and that has required designing some alternate effects. In particular, the flashlight effect had to be redone for low-end cards in order to keep the gameplay intact.


No the graphic quality wasn't lowered, it was , in fact, increased.

And Article 2. http://gbxforums.gearboxsoftware.com/showthread.php?t=23429

It turns out that some of the required specifications for the internet game have affected the LAN game. It turns out that while it's acceptable for hard-core gamers to cope with the back side lag from a client authoritative model (CS) it's not acceptable for hard-core gamers to cope with the front side lag from a server authoritative model. It turns out that with the physics and vehicles of Halo that there wasn't even a choice...

But there are many decisions that affected things. Decisions not made at Gearbox, but that some folks want to blame Gearbox for.

The 1 CD decision affected the cache files stuff - affected Halo CE. Nothing we could or can do.

The fixed function decision sucked man-months of engineering time away from other things. Nothing we could or can do.

The 56k decision affected the accuracy and frequency of the network updates. Nothing we could or can do.

One thing that I'm curious about is why we don't see more people playing Xbox Halo via tunnel if it's so much better.


Microsoft demanded gearbox meet expectations made after contracts had been signed and basicaly degraded the whole game either by taking time away from better things, or by limiting what could be done.

Halo PC netcode is what it is for a reason. It had to be the way it is and any experienced and capable networking programmer would've made similar conclusions.

I know we don't like the answer - I know *I* don't like the answer - but it's a true answer.


Pretty self explainatory.

The things that changed between the beta version and the final version of Halo PC were *required* in order to fit the specification of 56k. These changes were driven by the bug database and every bit of code change was crosschecked by multiple Gearbox AND Bungie / MS engineers.

The netcode was created and reviewed by Bungie AND Microsoft as well as gearbox.

The beta code you think was great was actually Gearbox netcode. The fact that it was less laggy is revealing about Gearbox's holding out for a broadband standard. But, the specification was mandated for us. Halo PC is a work for hire and, as professionals, the Gearbox developers did what they were told. After all, it was not their property, it was Microsoft's / Bungie's.

Microsofts fault there.

It's really frustrating for us to get the finger pointed at us for decisions we are not responsible for. It's even more frustrating when we try to be diplomatic about it and then we get blamed even more. We don't want to point fingers at Microsoft because we understand their decisions. I'm not sure if I would've made the same decisions if I was in their position, but it's possible.

Exactly what you have done.



I quoted some major points, but the whole post is something you need to read before you come back with an argument.

  • 09.12.2006 12:23 PM PDT

Posted by: dalmedya
About the walk key, it would be useful to move slow enough to not trigger the motion tracker. I mean, crouching was supposed to do that, but it doesn't.

oo, i like that. and you can use it when trying to get in just the right spot to throw a grenade into the pile and send yourself across the map without getting hurt.

  • 09.12.2006 5:56 PM PDT
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Posted by: Master Kim
Also, dalmedya, do your research before you say things you don't know what you're talking about. Crouching in Halo 2 makes you invisible on the motion sensor.

Well, since I have never played Halo 2, I wouldn't know. I was refering to Halo PC anyway. So =P.

  • 09.12.2006 7:48 PM PDT
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Thanks Gumball, now you just furthered my point that Gearbox was lazy. Why?

Pitchford said that the project is about 40 percent done, much of which includes a successful port of the graphics engine. The port required Gearbox to move to supporting DirectX 9 and completely rewrite all the pixel shader effects. Part of what that rewrite means is that the PC game will have some enhanced effects for PCs with the latest graphics cards--Pitchford mentioned that Nvidia was helping with optimizations for the GeForce FX--that are more capable than the Xbox hardware. The game will also support cards down to the GeForce2 MX, and that has required designing some alternate effects. In particular, the flashlight effect had to be redone for low-end cards in order to keep the gameplay intact.
Right there it says it. It was Gearbox that was in charge of rewriting the shader effects. Neither Bungie nor Microsoft did that for them. They left out the assault rifle shine and scratch marks among various other effects in the game even though they could've easily made an option to allow the higher-end PCs to utilize them as I described earlier with a "Very High" setting, thus making the "they needed to make it more compatible with low-end PCs" argument invalid. And don't argue with me that they couldn't have done it even if they wanted to, because as I also said before, I already downloaded a mod that restores the Assault Rifle's shine and scratch marks and it hasn't affected my framerate in the slightest, and it's very doubtful that Bungie or Microsoft actually came up to them to say "Hey, we don't want you to restore that shader effect, we want the game to look crappier."

And though textures and the like may look crisper than the XBOX version, that still doesn't take away the fact that the quality was lowered due to much of the missing shader effects that were in the XBOX version but not the PC version. You can't deny that, as I listed off many of them in my first post - cave smoke effect, jackal shields, Halo ring shaders, assault rifle shaders, etc. So go play the two versions of the game and see for yourself. The cave smoke shaders especially are one of the most prominent things you'll notice.

There isn't much information that you posted in which I didn't already know about. I understand that much of it too is Microsoft and Bungie's demands, but that still doesn't rule out Gearbox's faults entirely. And I never mentioned anything about complaining about the netcode or lag issues, as I understand that there was nothing that could be done in that case, BUT considering that I was able to download some certain shader effects to have them be restored and see the results for myself that a better job could've been done, that's where it falls into Gearbox's fault. I do understand the work involved, thank you.

[Edited on 9/13/2006]

  • 09.13.2006 2:22 PM PDT
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^^agreed.

  • 09.13.2006 2:25 PM PDT
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Pitchford said that the project is about 40 percent done, much of which includes a successful port of the graphics engine. The port required Gearbox to move to supporting DirectX 9 and completely rewrite all the pixel shader effects. Part of what that rewrite means is that the PC game will have some enhanced effects for PCs with the latest graphics cards--Pitchford mentioned that Nvidia was helping with optimizations for the GeForce FX--that are more capable than the Xbox hardware. The game will also support cards down to the GeForce2 MX, and that has required designing some alternate effects. In particular, the flashlight effect had to be redone for low-end cards in order to keep the gameplay intact.

Just because you seemed to have missed that fact.

Re writting pixel shader effects doesn't have anything to do with not having the shinyness on the ar or flag pole. Thats a bitmap that wasn't included. The same kind of bitmap was included on many many other things like vehicles and scenery. I have no idea what cave fog things you are talking about.

Keep in mind that when changing formats, not everything is doable the same way. Gearbox might not have had enough time, or some other restriction that kept them from recreating some effects in the new PS format. Gearbox created very few new assets for halo, and I doubt they would spend time on small things like a multipurpose bitmap for a ring on a title screen no one looks at, and a flag pole you probably aren't staring at either. Just because it doesn't cause any noticable effect to you, doesn't mean it is that way for everyone else, or that the problem wasn't fixed in a later patch, and if included would have resulted in a very large download because every map file would have had to be downloaded (basicaly the whole game).

You and I have no way of knowing what these few effects did when used while testing. There are alot of weird things that happen for no apparent reason. Maybe they caused a complete harddrive failure, or maybe they caused weird artifacts, or maybe not.

I think "missing" 4 things out of thousands of files is one hell of an achievement.

The reason the textures are "sharper" on the xbox is because the resolution of the shaders wasn't increased. High resolution screen and not so high res textures means bluriness. Don't even start about how they could have redone the textures. (doubt you would but just so you can't argue that point)


You have no reliable evidence that gearbox was lazy therefore you have no valid argument as you don't know why these things werent included. All you have is assumptions. What bugs me is ignorant people like you voicing opinions about things they don't understand. Its like me trying to argue quantum physics with albert einstein.

I don't pick fights I can't win. I know you may think you are right, but that doesn't mean you are. I am not arguing that gearbox could have done a better port, I am arguing that the visual quality wasn't reduced, and that even if you think it is, you shouldn't be blaming gearbox.

[Edited on 9/13/2006]

  • 09.13.2006 3:21 PM PDT

Now, in the quantum moment before the closure, when all become one. One moment left. One point of space and time. I know who you are. You are destiny.

Posted by: OmniosSpartan
actually the thread has more then 500+ posts.

please STFU and leave my forum.

and i wasnt flaming you i was stating a fact. fact =/= flame.

kthxbye.

YOUR FORUM?! HAHAHAHA!!!! That is SO FUNNY. And you WERE BEING OFFENSIVE. Careful with what you post.

Anyways, I do agree with them all suggestions. Nice job. = )

[Edited on 9/13/2006]

  • 09.13.2006 4:47 PM PDT
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Posted by: Chewy Gumball
What bugs me is ignorant people like you voicing opinions about things they don't understand. Its like me trying to argue quantum physics with albert einstein.


Am I going to have to quote this again?

  • 09.13.2006 5:29 PM PDT
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I addressed them all before you even MADE them. Now that is a good argument.

  • 09.13.2006 5:58 PM PDT
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Hmm, time to break out the marshmallows?

  • 09.13.2006 7:57 PM PDT
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The reason the textures are "sharper" on the xbox is because the resolution of the shaders wasn't increased. High resolution screen and not so high res textures means bluriness. Don't even start about how they could have redone the textures. (doubt you would but just so you can't argue that point)
OK I don't understand why you bothered to say that. If you actually read my post, I said that the textures in the PC version are crisper, not the XBOX.

Just because you seemed to have missed that fact.

Re writting pixel shader effects doesn't have anything to do with not having the shinyness on the ar or flag pole. Thats a bitmap that wasn't included. The same kind of bitmap was included on many many other things like vehicles and scenery. I have no idea what cave fog things you are talking about.

Actually I didn't miss that fact... I just told you, they could've easily put in a "Very High" setting which would then utilize another "alternate effect" for the high-end graphics cards to render it. If a teenage kid can rip the bitmaps and put them into the game himself, then there is no reason Gearbox couldn't handle it. There is simply no excuse for this other than that they must've been short for time... but I don't see how that could've been the case since basically they were porting a game that was already completed and required little tweaking of the physics engine, let alone additions of new wireframe models and textures in the game. But if that is so, then fine, I will accept that, but we don't know if time constraints were the issue for sure.

As for the cave fog effects, I can't believe you don't notice it? Do you even HAVE Halo 1 for XBOX? You can very clearly see the difference. Load up the second level titled "Halo" on the XBOX version, then get to the Forerunner cave with the bridge structure in the middle of it. You'll notice the fog. Then boot up Halo PC and go to that same exact place, and notice how the fog effects aren't there, it's just a bland grayish-white color that fades into the distance.

I think "missing" 4 things out of thousands of files is one hell of an achievement.
There are several other minor effects too, but I just listed the main ones. Another example would be the teleporters in Blood Gulch and various other maps, as they are missing effects as well.

You have no reliable evidence that gearbox was lazy therefore you have no valid argument as you don't know why these things werent included. All you have is assumptions. What bugs me is ignorant people like you voicing opinions about things they don't understand. Its like me trying to argue quantum physics with albert einstein.
The thing is, I said that I think it was because they were lazy. I never said that I know they were lazy, so before you draw your own conclusions about me and make your own false assumptions that I am an ignorant person, please double check yourself. I'm just saying that more evidence seems to be pointing towards them being lazy, but admittedly it isn't reliable enough to truly confirm that. The same goes for your evidence too, however. You can't disprove it for certain either.

Just because it doesn't cause any noticable effect to you, doesn't mean it is that way for everyone else, or that the problem wasn't fixed in a later patch, and if included would have resulted in a very large download because every map file would have had to be downloaded (basicaly the whole game).
Again, that argument is defeated by the fact that you the player would have the choice to enable all graphics settings or not. And FYI most of the bitmaps are stored in a single file, including the Assault Rifle's effects, so you wouldn't have to redownload every map all over again. I know this because SuperSunny's mod required me to manually install the bitmap file that I was given using a certain program.

I don't pick fights I can't win. I know you may think you are right, but that doesn't mean you are. I am not arguing that gearbox could have done a better port, I am arguing that the visual quality wasn't reduced, and that even if you think it is, you shouldn't be blaming gearbox.
As Recon Number 54 once said, it's not about winning or losing a fight here. When you view things that way, then it just becomes an ugly competition. We're all here to share our knowledge and enjoy community debates and discussions.

And no offense, but considering that you didn't even notice the missing fog effects in the Forerunner cave as opposed to the XBOX version, I'm not so sure you're in a position to claim that Halo PC has been visually improved... I seriously recommend that you play through Halo XBOX again. You really do notice the differences after playing through Halo PC. If you so strongly believe that it was improved, then I think Omnios (for once) said it best:

No the graphic quality wasn't lowered, it was , in fact, increased. which is why 100's of shader effects are missing form the game. i guess in your book that's a quality increase
Look, I'm not necessarily trying to force my views of Gearbox on you, but what jumped my gun was how you so mockingly introduced your argument at the start. Let's just say this: you and I have our separate views of how good of a job Gearbox has done on Halo PC, and you're fine to keep yours and vice versa for me. I don't think either of us are really ignorant on the situation here though. We're just interpreting the information differently.

[Edited on 9/13/2006]

  • 09.13.2006 8:39 PM PDT

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