First Halo PC review

Basically the review says everything I could have ever hoped for, except for co-op but we all knew that wasn't going to be in there.

http://gamespy.com/reviews/september03/halopc/

You'll have to excuse me while I mop up my drool that has collected on my keyboard.

Co-op.. what it is about this gameplay mode that makes it so scarce? I hear developers talk about it being difficult to keep clients in sync. If that is the case why not make it LAN only? If a little development house in Croatia can make it work with 12 players and 50 monsters simultaneously why can't some of the industries other top development studios pull it off? Maybe they just get frustrated with it, and its the first mode to get cut because "You have to have DM, Team DM, CTF, and *other pseudo original game mode* in a FPS. Co-op was just a bonus mode we wanted but could not get working in time."

In my book co-op play can turn any crap FPS into one worth playing and make a good FPS great. It's a perfect game mode for LANs where there are always only a few good players who dominate because they consistently play the game and are familiar with the weapons, maps and gameplay. This is what my LAN's are like anyway


EDIT
Okay now that I've actually read the review, I find that it comments on why co-op got axed. Not too different from the bitter, cynical, hate filled speculation I pounded out in the first paragraph.

From the Gamespy review linked above
The only real bummer with Halo's multiplayer is that there isn't any co-op play, which was extremely popular as a splitscreen option on the Xbox. According to Gearbox, writing new networking code to get co-op going over a LAN or Internet would have been a massive undertaking, one that was decided to be left out for Halo's initial release. It's something Gearbox has stated they really want to do, but there's no telling if and when it might happen, or how well it might turn out. I'd love to see co-op play myself, but as it stands, there's such a wealth of multiplayer options available here that it's hard to complain.

Click to expand...

So they still might do it, but its far from a sure thing. Maybe by the time they release the co-op code I'll have a gaming system that will be able to run this game at decent settings

sweet

meh...

meh..?? What the heck?

Thanks for the review post. I'll have to check it out.

Hahahah, naw its just that it was cool and all back when it came out. Replaying it back on PC (*cough* demo *cough*), is fun, but you get bored fast since you know the storyline well...

Yes, but for those of us who know better than to buy an Xbrick, it will be new.

T20 said:

Hahahah, naw its just that it was cool and all back when it came out. Replaying it back on PC (*cough* demo *cough*), is fun, but you get bored fast since you know the storyline well...

Click to expand...

Some of us have not played the Xbox version. Some of us possess the willpower not to download an illegally leaked beta like you did. Just because you've played the game before does not mean its old news to everybody.

I'm getting tired of people being so comfortable with mentioning the fact that they play leaked builds. If I were a mod I'd probably give you a 24hr vacation for that.

... But I'm not

Work hard, and one day you very well might be one...

Or better yet, become a supreme cyborg overlord of the galaxy. Then you can smite me at will!!!

Annyways, back to topic, Halo was a good game on xbox, but the controls were sure wacky, on PC the controls will obviously be fantastic, but still, I think you all overhype the game slightly.

thanks for the review.

Gnerma said:

Some of us have not played the Xbox version. Some of us possess the willpower not to download an illegally leaked beta like you did. Just because you've played the game before does not mean its old news to everybody.

I'm getting tired of people being so comfortable with mentioning the fact that they play leaked builds. If I were a mod I'd probably give you a 24hr vacation for that.

... But I'm not

Click to expand...

Seroiusly, the mods have become pretty apathetic to the whole thing.

From the review:

"But the biggest problem with the graphics -- and the entire game, is that you'll need a pretty powerful PC to run Halo . My main machine is a P2.54 GHz P4 with a GeForce 4 and 1GB of RAM, and I've been running new releases at 1024x768 without so much as a stutter -- and that's with all the eye candy cranked up. But even at 800x600 with some of the details turned down, Halo still feels sluggish "

Could be a problem for people buying it, don't you guys (gals) think?

1) T20: It's a beta, NOT a demo
2) It's leaked, therefore illegal, and not a welcome topic here.
3) I'm glad some people still know the rules here. That makes me happy
4) The 'Report this post to a moderator' button isn't just there for show, guys

Mr.DLucey said:

From the review:

"But the biggest problem with the graphics -- and the entire game, is that you'll need a pretty powerful PC to run Halo . My main machine is a P2.54 GHz P4 with a GeForce 4 and 1GB of RAM, and I've been running new releases at 1024x768 without so much as a stutter -- and that's with all the eye candy cranked up. But even at 800x600 with some of the details turned down, Halo still feels sluggish "

Could be a problem for people buying it, don't you guys (gals) think?

Click to expand...

Yeah...How could this be? this game is like 2 years old? Perhaps because its a direct x9 game he was using a G4?

Unfortunately guys, all the early reports I am reading have the game running easily twice as slow as it really should. Enclave showed us that an Xbox port does not have to perform like crap. But BloodRayne, and a few others have shown us that it really isn't all that easy to do.

Here is a Halo benchmark result.. Notice the framerate on this uberclocked system.

3600MHz, 1024MB, 128M ATI Radeon 9700 PRO (DeviceID=0x4e44) Driver=6.14.10.6378 Shader=2.0
F:\Halo\halo.exe -use20 -vidmode 1024,768,100 -timedemo (Version=1.0.0.564)
Frames=4700
Total Time=101.06s
Average frame rate=46.51fps
Below 5fps= 5% (time) 0% (frames) (5.902s spent in 9 frames)
Below 10fps= 6% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 15fps= 6% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 20fps= 6% (time) 0% (frames)
Below 25fps= 8% (time) 1% (frames)
Below 30fps= 18% (time) 7% (frames)
Below 40fps= 34% (time) 18% (frames)
Below 50fps= 52% (time) 36% (frames)
Below 60fps= 77% (time) 65% (frames)
Memory used Max=159MB, Min=129MB, Ave=148MB

I think this is relevant to where this discussion has gone and didn't want to say "yeah it performs like crap this sucks" without giving you guys some numbers. No this is not from any of my systems, I found this elsewhere online. If anybody has a problem with this data being here let me know.

Well, it is (unfortunately) more a Microsoft project than a Bungie project now. MS pro'lly said "Hey! It compiles! Ship it!" or something.

I'm sure they'll patch it eventually, but for now, I'll pro'lly hold off buying it 'till they do.

Oni said:

Well, it is (unfortunately) more a Microsoft project than a Bungie project now. MS pro'lly said "Hey! It compiles! Ship it!" or something.

I'm sure they'll patch it eventually, but for now, I'll pro'lly hold off buying it 'till they do.

Click to expand...

I really hope they can just patch this. But I don't think I've ever seen a developer release a patch that doubles performance. That's what it would take for this game to be running at a speed I'd be happy with given the graphical detail.

That seems to perform to what I would expect. I mean if you look at the xbox it is very close to a geforce 4 4200 correct? If the xbox renders at 640x480 and at certain points in the game it chokes the xbox down to fps in teens (probably single digits) I wouldn't expect the 4200 to be playable at much more the 800x600. While it is unfortunate I can't say I'm really shocked. But hey, we can hope right?

guys i have a real version, not pirated, which i got from a friend that works at microsoft. using xp2400 @ 2.27 and a gf3 classic i get average 30 fps. it drops in single player a bit though, 15-30 depending on how many explosions and enemies are on the screen. in multiplayer the fps is perfectly fine. theres a bit of trouble with ati cards though, it seems that they dont run it as fast as they should.

note: this is at 1024x768 with no AA all settings highest

mage_x, could you post the full benchy results here?

I've heard that AA isnt functional. You can turn it on (and take a nice performance hit) but it does not actually anti-alias anything

As for XBox vs PC performance, there are other things to consider than just the gfx card. A typical PC with a TI4200 has 10 x the memory as an Xbox. That number includes 512mb main memory and 128mb of dedicated vram (xbox has 64mb of shared 266mhz DDR). As you can see in the benchmark though, Halo only grabs about 150mb of main memory. Then of course there is the CPU etc etc bla bla I don't feel like going over all this

The fact of the matter is games that look much better than Halo can run circles around it performance wise. This includes UT2K3, Unreal 2, and DOOM 3. Yes, that is a link to Doom 3 benchmarks which generally spank Halo's numbers. The gfx cards are better, but the guys CPU in the Halo benchmark is clocked way up.

Maybe this is just how Halo performs no matter what platform you put it on, but a game performing half of what it should really turns me off.