Bungie enhances Halo 2 for Windows Vista

[zekrahminator]

According to one of the people on the Halo 2 for Vista developing team, Vista is really coming along nicely. They still have some bugs, but they are being worked out very quickly, and graphical enhancements are making many of the people on the developer team call it "Halo 2.5". There have been a lot of artistic enhancements making all the characters look nice at the developers preferred resolution of 1920x1200. At that resolution, the developers can get Halo 2 for Vista running at 60 frames per second at maximum settings.

Due to complaints from testers, Bungie has reconfigured the Halo 2 for Vista controls, and is working on the best way to reconfigure the mouse. The Xbox360 controller, which is compatible with Halo 2 for Vista, has received some deadzone tweaks, but anyone who uses the Xbox360 controller will definitely want to be using a mouse and keyboard. The multiplayer interface has also gotten a tweak. Text chatting and VoIP chatting is now enabled in not only the game, but in the pre-game lobby. The developer team has officially dumped all machines using Windows XP, because game's networking, video, and window-management code only work properly on Windows Vista. The XP machines were used to help code Halo 2 for Vista.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Looking sweet Bungie, looking sweet. But still, an XP Version should come out.

 

[zekrahminator]

Unfortunately, Halo 2 networking, video, and window-management code only work properly on Windows Vista. Sorry . The fact that they got so far programming Halo 2 using Windows XP machines makes me wonder. I'm very surprised that Halo 2 needs DX10 when it can be rendered on a DX8 machine.

 

[trog100]

they aint gonna sell many copies are they if it only works on vista..

trog

 

[zekrahminator]

Either that or it will be the driving force behind Vista (main reasons I'm getting it is for Halo 2 on Vista, Aero, and future-proofing).

 

[Nyte]

I remember when this game was called Team Fortress Classic.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

I want to get Vista too, but maybe wait until the bugs are fixed.

Zek, do you have Halo 2 for Xbox? And do you have Live?

 

[zekrahminator]

My friend has Halo 2 for Xbox, I play every once in a while, great game .

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

What about Live!?!

 

[zekrahminator]

No Xbox live, sorry .

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Awww!!!!!!!....

 

[jocksteeluk]

effectively halo 2 for pc will cost £130/$180 minimum (game +vista) i certainly aint gonna pay that no matter how good it looks, the marketing behind this strategy is completly assenine to say the least but no doubt as always is the case some moron will buy this without a doubt. My hope is developers dont use DX10 until it is compatible with xp and i hope they feel encouraged to develop games using only the openGL api so everyone can get the full benifits without having to buy another card.

 

[wazzledoozle]

Microsoft has to release DX10 for XP if they want any sort of market support. Just like in the early days of DX9, they had to release it for the (then) larger base of 9x/2k users.

 

[Thermopylae_480]

I don't like Halo, and it definetly won't be a driving force behind me buying Vista.

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

I like Halo (2) a lot, but it's not going to make me buy Vista since Halo 2 is great for me on the Xbox, and when Halo 2 comes out, I'm sure Halo 3 will be out on the 360 as well, and many fans going to go for that.

 

[GLD]

Eeeehhh, I always thought Halo was overrated. To pastel and fluffy. So no big whoop for me. I wont be buying any Halo game. I will buy Vista though. Crysis, now that's looking worthy!

 

[Track]

It may seem unfair to have to spend money on the game and on Vista wich could be above 200$.
But if u wanted to play Halo 3 ud have to spend above 400$. Vista is like the new interface for PC. You cant say that ur mad at them for not releasing Halo 3 on the original Xbox right?
Now maybe its possible, but they wont do it.
Not to mention they arent going to make high-end games for XP anymore and only Vista, so if u have a machine that can run these games ur going to have to get Vista, unless they release DX10 on XP, but even then i dont think it would be good as it would on Vista, and what ur just going to stick with XP forever, if i didnt care abt games id still have Windows 98.
This is all in the name of progress. Do u not want Microsoft to bring out new versions of Windows? Well if all the games are being released for XP and for Vista, then they arent going to make a lot of sales wich will take their ability to make a new Windows later on.

Personally, im going to find a way to get Vista without paying for it, but i doubt it will be easy and im sure that Microsoft has spent Billions of $ to make sure that software piracy does not occure, since they lost over 14$ Billion because of XP piracy, thats probably because they price it so high, but still.. So in any case, i may just buy it to get it over with, although for the same ammount of money i could get my E6600.. tough choice.

 

[lemonadesoda]

...the characters look nice at the developers preferred resolution of 1920x1200. At that resolution, the developers can get Halo 2 for Vista running at 60 frames per second at maximum settings

OK. So that's one copy of Halo 2, one copy of Vista, and 2 x Crossfire X1950XTX.

I certainly ain't going to pay a combined $1000 just to play Halo. And if they think the game Halo is going to make people upgrade their OS and 2x GPU, they gotta be bonkers. Maybe one or two techno-gaming-fanboyz. But the mass market?

Something is rather odd with this MS strategy. I think they may be using it to hype Halo 2, only to remove the DX10 requirement at a later stage, and everyone goes "OH GREAT, lets go out any buy it. It must be amazing."

 

[jocksteeluk]

not that i am an advocate of violence but i would love to just slap the taste out of microsoft and the developers collective mouths, they realy are taking the p*ss with this game and you can gurantee all of microsoft new games will follow the same vista only idea

 

[Track]

OK. So that's one copy of Halo 2, one copy of Vista, and 2 x Crossfire X1950XTX.

I certainly ain't going to pay a combined $1000 just to play Halo.

By ur logic, u just paid over 1000$ to surf the web and submit that post, because obviously if i buy a PC its only for 1 purpose right?
The whole point of getting a high-end graphics card is so that u can play many games, not just one. And u dont need 2x X1950 XTXs to enjoy this game on Max. Prefferably u can just buy a DX10 card or even 1x X1900XT wich will run it just fine (remmember, stay away from "XTX").

 

[Casheti]

Still looks shit, even in DX10.

 

[W2hCYK]

imo, it does look bad. i think the only thing that has improved is the models. The glass walls look awful.. they look like very overly sized textures. To make that game look better, i think they need to redo most of their textures. I dont think thats going to happen though

 

[zekrahminator]

...I think I'm the only guy here that's going to get Halo 2 for Vista .

 

[Casheti]

DIE n00b!

 

[Azn Tr14dZ]

Prefferably u can just buy a DX10 card or even 1x X1900XT wich will run it just fine (remmember, stay away from "XTX").

The guys you quoted said "X1950XTX"...there is no X1950XT.