Halo PC Updates Delayed, Much Desired

Thanks to VE3D for its article reprinting comments by Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford regarding future Halo PC patches. Pitchford, seemingly irked at Bungie/Microsoft testing and approval delays, notes the enhancements Gearbox "...has generated between launch day and now is amazing in quality and volume. Thus far, just a fraction of that work has made it into the official updates." These prospective updates, mentioned last month, include the HEK (Halo Editing Kit), the lack of which is preventing substantial modding from taking place, and a waiting-in-the-wings "massive [graphical] performance boost... we call it 'fast shaders' - we're seeing a 30% to 50% [framerate] increase."

Comments

lag

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who only jumped on the Halo bandwagon a week or so ago (I refuse to own a console and didn't care much for the idea of Halo, but nothing else has come out that is very exciting gamewise in AGES so I gave it a shot) -- the ONLY thing I really want to see right now is a fix for all the lag. If Microsoft/Bungie are holding this up, I am seriously pissed.

Quake3, CounterStrike and all MMORPGs that I have recently played work FINE on my network. Zero problems. Smooth as can be except for a moment or two of lag every 30 or 60 minutes. Totally okay.

Halo, on the other hand, is a total bitch lagwise. There are only two maps it is even tolerable on and most (like Prison) are impossible to play because the framerate drops to about 4 frames per second - if that. This really isn't acceptable on a fat pipe with souped-up hardware in 2004 running a video game that was made in 2001(?).

Re:lag

[DeadScreenSky]

Rubberbanding really shouldn't use up any significant additional CPU power on a game like Halo. The players are usually moving anyway, so the only difference is a quick calculation to say "Oops, he is really here, not there." (And that should only be on the server end, really - the player's PC should just be given new coordinates for the other player, which would happen regardless of movement.) But we are talking about Gearbox, so who knows. I am surprised they can't at least simulate predicted movement better, like say every other popular FPS on the planet...

(I haven't tried to play Halo online via my PC, because the demo ran ridiculously poorly. I know the Xbox has some underrated hardware advantages compared to PCs, but I have enough spare juice that I should have at least got a framerate in the 20s or so. Gearbox really sucks.)

I just want it to RUN

[Dixie_Flatline]

Will they have patches so that it actually freaking RUNS without crashing all over the place? I couldn't even make it off the ship at the beginning without the game crashing. It would crash in an auto-saved transition, too, so if I ran the game again, it would crash instantaneously if I tried to play from where I left off.

I went looking for fixes, and people were having the same problem, and proposed registry hacks to fix things. I sold the game. I shouldn't have to do THAT much to get it running, and if it doesn't run, they should patch it as quickly as possible.

It was easily the worst port I ever played, so I sold it. I tried the Mac version, and I managed to make it off the ship before I ran into the same problems with the game crashing. I gave up. I'm glad I got the game in trades. I would have been really mad if I had paid money for it.

I totally feel for Gearbox.

[Dolemite_the_Wiz]

This is the second time that the Big Publishers have limited Gearbox in what they wanted to do versus what they could do.

Gearbox, for those of you who don't remember, developed 007: Nightfire for the PC. This game was Published by EA and it's console version, which is different than the PC version, was published at the same time by a different company.

As RTM neared, EA forced Gearbox to publish the game as/is which was anything but complete. The PC version of this game featured a GREAT multiplayer and had a GREAT grassroots interest for Modding. However, the much promised Editor and improvements didn't come until many, many months after the patch was ready and promised. By this time any/all interest in Modding or extending the life of this game all but disappeared, thanks to EA.

It's too bad that Gearbox doesn't have the $$ to publish these games themselves without the Big game distributors messing up serious modding potential.

Perhaps they should stick to working with companies like Valve who have a great track record for understanding and nurturing the potential in a modding community.

Dolemite
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