Support NeoGAF

[HTupolev]

Don't know why Bungie couldn't add some AA or AF when the games ran at a rock-slod 30 FPS. Would've made a huge difference.

It's not a rock-solid 30fps. Halo 3 doesn't experience huge prolonged framerate spikes very much, but it's common for tearing to appear at the top of the screen with occasional stutters.

The main reason they didn't add AA is that there wasn't a feasible way to do it alongside other design choices. Post-process AA wasn't really a thing yet, which leaves MSAA as about the only feasible option.
The Xbox 360 is somewhat nice in how, because the ROPs are tightly linked to the pool of memory that they output pixels into, there's no throughput penalty for MSAA samples. The problem is, MSAA still causes your framebuffer to take up more space in that memory. And that memory pool isn't very huge.
Oftentimes this was actually a really good fit for low-resolution games with forward lighting. Because they were low resolution, even when the framebuffer was doubled due to 2xMSAA, it could still reside fully in the render output memory. So, 2xMSAA was basically completely free.
But most seventh-gen games used 32 bits per pixel of color. Bungie was using a custom 64-bit-per-pixel format to facilitate the game's HDR, which made the framebuffer a lot bigger in memory. Doubling the size of Halo 3's framebuffer through MSAA would have prevented it from fitting all at once into the render output memory, and dealing with that by splitting the framebuffer into pieces adds some rendering overhead.

 

[disappeared]

This is awesome.

 

[93xfan]

There is still so. much. potential. left with TMCC, and so much goodwill to build.

Everyone loves a redemption story.

I just remember how I felt when the game was announced. I did a complete 180 on how I felt about Microsoft. I didn’t know they would be so careless with the game.

What a major disappointment.

 

[Sai]

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary is now available digitally for $20.
https://marketplace.xbox.com/en-us/...iversary/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8024d5309b1

Is this showing up on anybody's list of ready to install games & apps?

 

[Bishop89]

im extremely baffled how these weren't the FIRST Games to be backward compatible..

 

[Sai]

Despite its issues, maybe the presence of the MCC pushed the emulation of these 4 titles further down the priority list. They were pretty quick about putting Reach up, which was the only one not included in the collection.

 

[Oemenia]

It's not a rock-solid 30fps. Halo 3 doesn't experience huge prolonged framerate spikes very much, but it's common for tearing to appear at the top of the screen with occasional stutters.

The main reason they didn't add AA is that there wasn't a feasible way to do it alongside other design choices. Post-process AA wasn't really a thing yet, which leaves MSAA as about the only feasible option.
The Xbox 360 is somewhat nice in how, because the ROPs are tightly linked to the pool of memory that they output pixels into, there's no throughput penalty for MSAA samples. The problem is, MSAA still causes your framebuffer to take up more space in that memory. And that memory pool isn't very huge.
Oftentimes this was actually a really good fit for low-resolution games with forward lighting. Because they were low resolution, even when the framebuffer was doubled due to 2xMSAA, it could still reside fully in the render output memory. So, 2xMSAA was basically completely free.
But most seventh-gen games used 32 bits per pixel of color. Bungie was using a custom 64-bit-per-pixel format to facilitate the game's HDR, which made the framebuffer a lot bigger in memory. Doubling the size of Halo 3's framebuffer through MSAA would have prevented it from fitting all at once into the render output memory, and dealing with that by splitting the framebuffer into pieces adds some rendering overhead.

Really interesting stuff, thanks for that. Technically how impressive do you think the game is? I was recently playing the game and thinking that they must've like Halo 2 overestimated how much they could do on the hardware. As a result some levels look downright barren. Similarly do you think they ran into development issues because there does seem to be a gulf in quality between levels, and even within levels? Halo 2 for all its flaws had a larger number of unique environments.

 

[Detective]

im extremely baffled how these weren't the FIRST Games to be backward compatible..

MCC.

 

[RowdyReverb]

im extremely baffled how these weren't the FIRST Games to be backward compatible..

Master Chief Collection. They figured, why would people want to play the original versions when there are enhanced versions available?

 

[Bishop89]

MCC.

oh right... forgot about that.

 

[FyreWulff]

im extremely baffled how these weren't the FIRST Games to be backward compatible..

Performance wasn't there yet. Reach was barely playable for about a year via BC. They finally figured it out and now Reach runs better than it does on 360. Also MCC, but the first thing too.

 

[jizzlobber]

Why bother with these when you can buy MCC cheap these days?

I'm sure it had been said already.

 

[Chip N Chance]

Id still rather play the MCC versions of all these games. Framerate, resolution and a unified control scheme across all the games far exceeds any purity that the original releases may contain. Its still cool for preservation sake to still play them in their original state.

 

[Scott32020]

Wasn't Halo: CE Anniversary multiplayer a map pack for Reach? How does that work with this?

 

[FyreWulff]

Wasn't Halo: CE Anniversary multiplayer a map pack for Reach? How does that work with this?

We don't know yet, and I don't have my CE:A 360 disc on me, someone borrowed it.

Presumably it'll just load it via Reach being backwards compatible.

But there's no real point now because those maps are free, so you might as well just get Reach and then download the Anniversary (and all the other) maps.

 

[c0de]

For anyone interested, vgtech has the video comparisons online for 360 and XBO.

 

[Narpas Sword0]

MCC still does not run flawlessly, even in campaign. Especially campaign co op.

 

[FyreWulff]

For anyone interested, vgtech has the video comparisons online for 360 and XBO.

Most impressive scene i've seen so far

Bridge explosion in ODST

 

[chemicals]

I'm here to remind you that ODST is the best Halo.

Oh, best Halo music too! https://youtu.be/yWh9l8RSkPk

This guy has his shit together. Right on.

 

[yankeehater]

I can't believe that if I want to play odst firefight it would cost $20. They need to sell it as dlc for people that already have the campaign from playing mcc.

 

[HTupolev]

Technically how impressive do you think the game is?

It's an early-gen game with an untamed - but not necessarily bad - arrangement of strengths and priorities. It doesn't "look impressive" at a glance, but there's some interesting heavy lifting going on under the hood to facilitate the unique visual style, and overall I really like the end result. And it does it while being stable and having a pretty robust featureset (i.e. online play, split screen, and theater support for all modes).

What's a little unfortunate is that much of the interesting stuff the game does is hard to explain or point out. Bungie did a few presentations about the game's graphics, and posted the materials on their site. Last year I wrote a thing trying to articulate some of what the game does and why in as close to layman's terms as I could.

 

[ganaconda]

For anyone interested, vgtech has the video comparisons online for 360 and XBO.

Looks like Halo 3, Halo 3 ODST, and Halo 4 all perform better across the board on X1. Halo CEA has less big drops but has a lower average framerate on X1.

 

[Oemenia]

It's an early-gen game with an untamed - but not necessarily bad - arrangement of strengths and priorities. It doesn't "look impressive" at a glance, but there's some interesting heavy lifting going on under the hood to facilitate the unique visual style, and overall I really like the end result. And it does it while being stable and having a pretty robust featureset (i.e. online play, split screen, and theater support for all modes).

What's a little unfortunate is that much of the interesting stuff the game does is hard to explain or point out. Bungie did a few presentations about the game's graphics, and posted the materials on their site. Last year I wrote a thing trying to articulate some of what the game does and why in as close to layman's terms as I could.

Read your post, really interesting stuff? With that said, what do you think of Halo Reach1 This is the only Halo came I genuinely did not enjoy all that (haven't played 5 yet though...) and it truly feels just unfinished. The graphics engine might be improved but much of the game feels like it wasn't polished or left in its alpha/beta stage. The MP maps were really bad for this with many looking almost identical. Given Bungie's conflict with MS, it seems they couldn't be bothered at this point. Can you weight in?