Zardon

Microsoft recently sent us Halo on the PC to review, and our game crazy moderator Lee "Zerodamage" Dickey was more than happy to take this XBOX sourced futuristic shooter on a wild ride with his AMD Barton and ATI fuelled PC system. How did the game measure up? Is it just another nasty console port with lame controls and poor playability or does it kick ass?

Over 2004 as Driverheaven expands further we aim to be reviewing more software rather than just hardware so please pass us on your comments on what you would like to see reviewed in the future !

Read the Halo review here

MIG-31

good review hope to see more in the future but still seems like a bad port of a console to pc game,played halo(pc) for a time.

but have just sold halo through ebay for £19.50 (although my reserve price were £13.00) and only paid £25 for the new game so have not lost anything.

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wertret

Nice review guys, i never played the xbox version but i love Halo for PC despite the performance probs. I usually go to other websites looking for previews and reviews of games, it would be great to have them on DH

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toddsmack2k

Very nice job Zero! Excellent review!

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@/2ct!<

Damn, > 100fps.... have you seen any difference between omegas and regular 3.10s? I know my system isnt great, but at least consistent 40 fps would be nice. Also, why the hell are you using PS 2.0 ?? It hardly changes visual quality 4 me, yet there are great gains in 1.4 or 1.1 perfromance wise, you might even do 1024 with your current frames. Netcode is far improved with 1.03, used to be pretty bad. Fuel rod gun best? Hah, ill keep my pistol. Nice review, if nothing else you get free games .

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zerodamage

Thank you.

Judas

visually... v2.0 are actually very good...

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zerodamage

To be honest, I normally do not use the default catalyst drivers. As long as Omega keeps releasing his tweaked drivers, I will continue to use them. I get better IQ along with better performance most of the time.

If I can score over 100 fps in Halo with ps 2.0 on, why go back to 1.4? I would run the game in 1024x768 if the game ran well in that mode but as soon as you pass the 800x600 mode, the game runs bad. I am hoping a patch will be released that will fix the performance issues within the game.

Judas

try disabling sound.... you'll get a rather healthy surprise if you run the timedemo....

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Optimummind

With a 9800 Pro overclocked to 411/365, I can run Halo smoothly at 1280x968 with all details maxed out.

zerodamage

You are one of the few. Most of those who I've talked to have had problems running it over 800x600. But the new Cats 3.10 and Omegas seem to give a signifigant performance improvement on the game. not sure if it is intentional by ati or not.

@/2ct!<

is it constant over 100fps or spikes? What is lowest you get in multiplayer, ie death island with 3 banshees and 2 tanks an 3 warthogs goind at once? I have not tried disabling sound, nor will I. It may give 1000 fps, but whats the point if you cant here if your being shot at lol. Btw, whats the actual name of your server Judas, having trouble finding it. I assume your guys online names same as here?

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Judas

Halo Server is currently down as i haven't gotten much of a responce back at all on it.. i check the logs.. i saw 1 person join for about 2 minutes...before deciding to take off.... that was over a span of 4 days..... (running 24/7)

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kuja

*raised eyebrow*

Someone evidently didn't want to displease MS by pointing out the sheer multitude of flaws with that half-assed game and port.

Zardon

not really, its actually Lees opinion believe it or not and he mentioned the problems with the engine several times in the article but still finds it playable especially multiplayer. Personally I think its crap and have said so many a time on DH, and MS can read this forum so there you go. MS dont pay my bills dude.

I disagree with alot of the review, but does that mean it has no merit? certainly not! there are alot of people who are loving this game......... Its a thing called personal taste, and I for one remain openminded to other peoples views.

Lee did a great job on the review and im sure he will be doing more.

BWX

I CAN tell the difference between no AF and AF enabled in those screenshots.

Anyway, a game that won't let you enable antialiasing would drive me insane! I'll wait for about 6 more patches to even "try" this game. If the fixes don't happen, I won't buy the game. Another "could have been" game that was wrecked by the horrifying pattern of video game developers making all the good games for the crappy Xbox, and making their PC counterparts barely playable on even the latest and greatest high end PC's.

Nice honest review though, I'll definitely keep my eyes on the progression of the patches, and if the game gets polished enough, this review will help me to decide whether or not to pick it up. If it wasn't for all the performance and graphical problems, it sounds like a really good game.

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Mac Daddy

Nice review Zero and I hope to see more of these on DH.
Nicely said Zardon and indeed we are all entitled to our own opinions and tastes.

As for the problems I have seen this many times with console games re-written for PC where the original software was written for one specific system. Given the large number of hardware alternatives currently in the market the coding has to allow broader support.

But like Zero said this should not have been an issue in a game that was released for public sale as far as I am concerned .........

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Chaos

Well it's about time DH got into a game review

Personally I don't care for Halo and didn't see what all the hype was about!!!

While the review seemed short there was some good info in there....hope to see more game reviews here @ DH

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Judas

i enjoyed it... alot..... it's got great potential yet...

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Zardon

yet .................................. ?


waits for cliffhanger ending..........

Judas

Me to...

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Mac Daddy

Hmm me too ..

Will Zerodamage fight off the Goblin and return too His reviews ????
Will Zardon fight off the evil Joker and allow more game reviews on DH ??
Will Chef Jeff actually take up shaving enough to buy an electric razor ??

Tune in next week at the same Bat Time .. On the same Bat Channel ...
For the exciting conclusion ..

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

WildChild

smh....lmaooo

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Knowledge is SCARY,Stupidity is REALLY frightening

Vengeance

Good review Thx, everytime I go to bestbuy or anywhere they sell games I always pick up Halo. Stand there and look at it, Then put it back down and get something else!
And reading a review like this one just proves I was right to put it back

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[color=red]Rage3D Super Moderator[/color]
[color=red]BFG 6800 GT [/color]

WaltC

Some good points and information in that review! This is a complex game to review for a number of reasons, and I thought your concentration on some of the technical/support considerations for it was well done and needed. I bought Halo PC awhile back myself and want to add a few comments concerning things I noticed about it...

You've probably been here already, but this is a nice Halo resource:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=829478

Here's a direct quote from there about FSAA and Halo:

"Halo is not compatible with the anti-aliasing mode overrides that are set in the control panel. Adjust this setting to 'Off' or 'Application Default'."

From what I gather, Halo is incompatible with multisampling FSAA, just like Splinter Cell (both the Catalysts and Forcenators are not allowed by the game engine to support FSAA in Splinter Cell.) The main difference being that with Splinter Cell turning on FSAA in the Cpanel would result in very visible artifacts in the game where with Halo there's no visible indication that FSAA is turned on in the Cat Cpanel whatever, except that the game runs slower, sometimes much slower. For nVidia cards running Halo, setting FSAA to on in the Forcenator Cpanel seems to result in worse problems in some cases than merely seeing no effect apart from a reduction in frame-rate performance, and M$ has a special warning about nVidia FSAA & Halo as a result.

The general advice seems to be that with Halo it's best to set the Cat Cpanel to Application Preference for FSAA and AF, and set AF on or off within Halo itself. I always run my texture preferences on "High Quality" so I've never seen the mipmap problems that apparently exist between Halo and the Cats when using lower quality texture-preference settings in the Cpanel.

I agree with you about running ps2.0--I have the game set up for ps2.0 from the command line just like you. Some very visible and noticeable IQ effects in the game simply aren't rendered in the game apart from ps2.0 rendering, and ATi does ps2.0 at least as fast as nVidia does 1.4, so I see little reason not to see the game as its creators intended.

Indeed, my standard resolution for play is 1280x960 which most of the time provides me with very playable and smooth frame rates. Since Halo doesn't support MSAA because of the way the game is coded for its graphics display, I think substantial IQ is lost when running at lower resolutions, but like my preference for ps2.0 in the game, that's a subjective call for people to make as all of us have different standards relating to IQ in general. I'm using a Barton 2500+ with PC2700 ram clocked to an fsb speed of 190Mhz, which pushes the Barton to 2.1GHz, which is obtained with standard voltage levels and the default multiplier. I'm using a gig of ram set up in dual-channel interleaved configuration (2x512) on a Chaintech 7njs nf2-chipset motherboard *and* I'm using a 9800P.

There are times, however, when Halo frame rate gets fairly choppy, and it's very noticeable when that happens. It doesn't happen often enough for me at 1280x960 to make me consider backing off of 12x9 or ps2.0, however. It's obvious the inconsistencies in frame rates are simply the result of the game engine coding (it is, after all, an xBox port and the original code the PC version is based on was designed to run optimally on the xBox's much slower, much more restricted hardware environment, which of course includes very low resolutions and explains why the engine doesn't support multisampling FSAA.) It is, however, a much better xBox port to the PC than some I've seen this year. Heh...

Last, I thought your experience with the modded Omega drivers in this case was very interesting (as I only use the reference Cats--3.10 at present.) I congratulate you on being so forthcoming about it as it is precisely the kind of info people can find most helpful (and if there's one thing any good 3d-game review should do it would be helping game owners and prospective owners to understand both the high and low points of the general technology behind the game in review.) I think your experience with the modded drivers illustrates very well the problem with using a driver not created and supported by the IHV--and this is that such a driver can create a whole new class of bugs that simply don't exist in the game itself or in the the IHV's own reference drivers. Sometimes "tweaked" means "better," but sometimes it can mean "a piping hot buffet of bugs waiting to be digested"...

The only thing I might say to prospective Halo PC customers is that I found the game to be an order of magnitude better than the Halo PC demo Gearbox released. In fact, I'd say that the difference is such that I don't find the demo to be representative of the game, particularly. This is about the fourth game demo I've installed this year which I've found rough and ill-conceived, and considering that game demos are supposed to inspire a desire to buy the game and really have no other purpose, it's surprising to see publishers and devs alike putting out such poor demos. You may, or may not, agree with me for the case of the Halo demo, but I really have to say I don't think the demo achieves its objective.

Mac Daddy

Wow .. once again another well structured and informative post WaltC !!
I have noted several times your excellence in posting .. Dude it took me almost as long to read your post as it did to read the original review. Very well thought out and presented ... thanks for taking the time man

Mine will be considerably shorter
But one thing I do agree with you on is the demos. I have seen some pretty stanky demos and the demo for Unreal Tournament 2003 definately takes the cake. I still have a friend who refuses to try UT2003 final release because he despised the demo so much. He's Vietnamese and owns his own Puter business here in town.
Great guy and a good bud of mine .. but very set in his ways.

Makes you think that maybe software manufacturers should put a lil more thought into there demos. Might turn off potential purchasers of the final release ............

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

@/2ct!<

Which level would you have used for the demo though, I thought it was a farily adequate representation... You fight covenant, have a multitude of available weapons and get a warthog, not too bad Imo, also had indoor and outdoor environments, seemed like an adequate depiction of rest of the game to me.

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Mac Daddy

hmm as far as my memory serves me the original demo didn't even use the same engine .. hmm
As I have mentioned before I might be corrected .. But I have always felt both the UT2003 and Halo demos sucked .. just my opinion

THX for the feedback BRO

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

BWX

If M$ knew they were going to release a version for the PC and actually charge money for it, they should at least have made AA available. It's almost 2004, PC games should all support antialiasing and take full advantage of the latest hardware, which includes running well on the latest and greatest hardware.. I just wonder what M$ was thinking sometimes, oh wait, I know what they were thinking --- $$$$$$


Is it possible for a patch to come out that would allow for AA to be enabled or would they have to basically recode the game?

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Mac Daddy

Personally I think Mr. Burns needs to resolve some issues ..
As Zero mentioned he did have fun with the game .. But I doubt if I would have that kind of patience to resolve the issues he did just to provide the review

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"My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen