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Halo 1 and 2 On The 360
Next Generation is reporting on possible graphical improvements for Halo 1 and 2 on the 360. The source? The folks at Bungie mentioned some surprises in their most recent update. From the article: "Some better anti-aliasing would be a nice touch, though more computationally intensive. While we're asking for pie in the sky things, some up-rezzed textures for use in the now higher resolutions might also be a great addition, though this would require content resources (e.g. real money spent on games that aren't likely to continue selling to 360 owners) so this is even less probable than the previously mentioned upgrades. Also, those textures would either have to ship on the hard drives (very unlikely) or be downloaded via Live (more possible but still unlikely)."
Seriously, this passes as news?
Bungie: "You should see Halo 1 on the XBox360, but I can't talk about it anymore."
Gaming "news" site: "Wow! There must be some super secret thing that we don't know about. Let's spend forever debating what it might be, even though we've been given no clues."
Hype hype hype. Wake me when there's some real news to report.
What happened to that story?
It might be news for the Bungie website, but for front page /.? Heck, I'd even settle for some other FPS, but Halo? And it's not even Halo 3? Gimme a break. Of course it looks better on 360, and I'll bet it plays better, too. Especially for all those people who don't have Live accounts and might get to play the multi for free with the 360's free Live feature. That's worth a LOT more to me as a player than a texture pack.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Ok, so I don't think this really passes as news... but I'll throw in my $0.02 anyway.
Theoretically some new textures would be great, I mean, they upgrade the system, they upgrade the resolution, they upgrade the controllers, etc... But honestly, if they upped the textures in 1 & 2, they couldn't put "New Highres Textures" in version 3... (Unless they re-released 1 & 2 for the 360 and charged for the upgrades.) I mean, it doesn't really make sense for them, but it would be nice
But thinking about the effort it may take to do all that could be more than just swapping out some texture files with new ones. They may have to take advantage of specific 360 hardware to actually USE the larger textures and that may make it not worthwhile to them (again, I'm sure 3 will come out and no one will care about 1 & 2 anymore anyway). I mean, I've played FF-7 on my PC, that didn't change the textures or polygon count... but if someone went back and made really high res versions of Super Mario 3, yet kept the same game play, would people buy it? and even if they would, it wouldn't be the same game with its retro goodness.
-=JML=-
Better anti-aliasing isn't pie-in-the-sky for the XBOX-360. It's a given.
First of all, it's not a matter of "better", Halo 1/2 didn't have ANY. As for it being a pie-in-the-sky idea, the 360 was designed from the ground up to run FSAA on every single game. The GPU has specific on-chip cache to accelerate anti-aliasing. So turning on AA in the backwards-compatibility patch is a no-brainer.
As for higher-res textures, it's not such a crazy idea. As I understand it developers often produce media at higher resolution than the final in-game res, and then scale it down. So the media probably already exists, meaning it's not a major monetary investment to produce it. The problem is of course, as mentioned, distribution. Selling a high-def content pack isn't out of the question. Throwing it online could work, but we are talking about a fair chunk of data here. A few gigs most likely. Certainly possible, Valve has proven that by pushing multi-gigabyte games through STEAM, but it might not be practical on a console like it is on a PC.
Something else to keep in mind is that the 360 ships with an overpriced 20GB drive, so there isn't exactly a lot of room there. Before you point out that it is a notebook drive, you must understand that it is overpriced even for a notebook drive. For $100 US, I expect an 60GB 4200RPM notebook drive, considering that such drives cost about $90 US at marked-up retail. Anyhow, if you throw a few gigs onto that drive, right off the bat you're eating up a pretty hefty chunk of the drive for one single game.
This probably wouldn't be the same leap on Xbox -> Xbox360, but anyone who has played a PSOne game on an actual PSOne, and then played the same game through ePSXe noticed the much improved polygon & texturing capablitiies of today's hardware versus the old PSOne GPU.
ignorance.
Backwards compatibility is the ability to play the last gen games on the current gen systems, NOT to upgrade performance. You start adding little tweaks and stuff you start risking problems with the game. It's entirely possible that when everyone puts in their precious halo they will crash the compatibility engine, what a fine way to start the launch of a new system.
Sadly the fact is that Microsoft is trying to get people into the Xbox 360 for all the wrong reasons. They want people to play just Live enabled "mini" games, they want them for backwards compatibility, they want it to be the entertainment system.
Last I checked the PSX tried to do all of this and it didn't come to america. Why because that isn't a game system. Making two different console versions isn't a game system. Pushing stuff like this will only cause issues with compatibility. If not now later. Even if this works flawlessly every time, it wastes resources of the programmers, You can put a really bitching functionality in but it needs the Hard drive, now you decide if you exclude some gamers/versions of the console (and go against Microsoft's promises... as Microsoft has said this will not happen), Do you make it optional (thus making the optional hard drive now a way to divide people) and take more time making sure the game works fine on BOTH versions of the console, or do you exclude the idea all together.
The idea of variety is good to the consumer, but you have to realize testing will take longer if you try to utilize the optional hardware, it'll also be more expensive, you'll have to waste resources on making everyone compatible with BOTH systems, and it'll be a basic waste overall. Companies like EA constantly make games for multiple systems.. but they have the staff for it, Companies like Rockstar, or Insomniac don't really want to program for multiple systems at a time, some are willing to port.
Adding this functionality to Backwards compatibility just is the same as wasting resources and risking problems in which games will lose compatibility, or gamers will become disenfranchised.
A PSX game on the PS3 should play the same as it did on the PS2 and the PSX, If there's a way to avoid crashes or faster loading, great, but it should be essentially the same experience, this is the way it always is. If you want an updated version to be released sell a add on or a new game for 20 or 30 adding in the required functionality, you're fans will pay that money, MGS2 Proved that, Dynasty Warriors has proved that 2 times already and a third time is coming up, Rabid fans of FF7 has shown they will pay for a 3d updated versions if it came out, Zelda fans went crazy to get emulated sets of the series games. The money gained from this pays the cost of the changes and allows people to choose which experience to have.
Microsoft is going against the grain thinking it will make them different. Sony has proven they know their history, Nintendo of course remembers the SegaCD and Sega 32X debaticles and wouldn't try something like that. But Microsoft has easily put them into a place where they will get hurt.. and when, not if (though this is a long when, it can even be the gen after this) it happens it's going to be hard and probably stop it.
Halo is the XBOX killer-app. If they can't do what they want through emulation, I wouldn't be supprised if they recompiled the xbe and ran that off the HDD.
Just so you know, in case you are a closet Nintendo lover, the Nintendo Revolution is confirmed to be backwards compatible with Gamecube games right out of the box, so CAN SOMEONE ON /. BASH NINTENDO ONCE IN A WHILE???
Here Microsoft, Intel, and to some extent Sony get automatically bashed in a totally biased attack, while Apple and Nintendo get automatically praised in a totally biased love-fest
A PSX game on the PS3 should play the same as it did on the PS2 and the PSX, If there's a way to avoid crashes or faster loading, great, but it should be essentially the same experience, this is the way it always is.
Um, perhaps you never noticed the hardware acceleration toggles in the PS2 configuration menu that allows for smoother texture processing, as well as a few other nifty features, when playing PSOne games? This is the standard. Do you know why? Because, prior to Sony, nobody else did backwards compatibility. I want my games to be able to look a little bit sharper on the new consoles if they can.
So, yes, it should be the same way it always was. Which is that new hardware scales up old software to enhance the game, even if it is only a minor enhancement.
Last I checked the PSX tried to do all of this and it didn't come to america. Why because that isn't a game system.
Last I checked, a convergence system that powers your entire living room is exactly what Sony promised us with the PS2, they just never delivered. Sony didn't promise us a game system, they promised us downloadable demos, movies, music, and TV, all from the convenience of a sexy black box. Looks like Microsoft tore the page right from Sony's playbook...just they actually followed through.
Sony weren't first with backwards compatability. The Atari 7800 was backwards compatible with Atari 2600 cartridges. The Megadrive (Genesis) had an adaptor that let you play Master System (Mark III) games on it, and all the relavant hardware is on the Megadrive side. I don't think either of these have any enhancements though (the Master System mode on the Megadrive cartainly doesn't)
:-)
The Gameboy Color is kinda backwards compatible as well, but it's not that different hardware-wise to the original Gameboy, the Advance is a better example and that came post-PS2. (Although in GBC case, do you count false colouring of mono games as an enhancement?)
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
Here's what I'm expecting as far as upgrades go...
Halo 1:
-Higher Resolution
-Better Antialiasing
-Anisotropic Filtering on the Textures
-Better Framerates
Halo 2:
-Higher Resolution
-Better Antialiasing
-Anisotropic Filtering on the Textures
-Better Framerates
-The cinematics don't do that pop-in crap anymore!
"A truly wise man realizes he knows nothing."
It doesn't mean that they can figure it out down the line. Sure its not an ideal solution but when it comes down to it, whos to say that the PS3 won't have the same problems as well?
What is the number one complaint about Halo 2? The way the movies are dynamically generated and increase detail as the movie progresses, adding refined polygons and textures. This makes people look like blobs for the first few seconds of the game.
The XBox 360's tripple core PPC 970 processor and revlutionary GPU means that the 360 will "catch up" with the movie much faster if not instantly and I won't cry as much when halo 2 reaches a cut scene.
Amen. The anti-Microsoft arguments would actually be more persuasive if the posters here at least gave the illusion of being non-biased. Right now, that ain't happening, and you can practically guarantee that the top 3-5 comments are going to be:
1) Microsoft-bashing, like the one you've just read. As a bonus, this one contains gems like:
"It's entirely possible that when everyone puts in their precious halo they will crash the compatibility engine, what a fine way to start the launch of a new system."
Yeah, and it's entirely possible that a giant space chicken will descend on us from the Vega start system and peck Europe to utter destruction. And both events are about equally likely... do you honestly think Microsoft wouldn't, you know, *test* their code before shipping it?
2) Diatribes about how gameplay is always better than graphics which sometimes go as far as saying that games with poor graphics have better gameplay. (Players of ET on the Atari 2600 might want to dispute this one.) Of course, you have to mention that Nintendo is the *only* company out there that understands this and releases games with good gameplay.
These posts always get modded to +5 regardless of how off-topic they are, or how repetitive it is reading the same goddamned arguments in every single game thread which is, more than anything, proof that the moderation system doesn't work.
3) Completely off-topic rants about how good Nintendo is, sometimes from people who admit that they don't even own any other consoles to compare their experience to. Despite being posted in topics like "Xbox Live to carry mini-games" and "Splinter Cell Next Gen to be PS3 Exclusive", these posts will never be moderated as Off-Topic, but will instead get +5 Interesting.
Comment of the year
The high res textures already exist - the PC shipped with many textures that were 4x or even 8x the resolution of those used on the xbox (most notably on the shipboard computer displays and weapon-in-hand skins)
damnit, should have used preview. ... the PC version shipped...
Hey can you link me to a site which goes into more detail about this? I haven't heard anything about AA problems, and would like to see what it is all about.
I heard something about this yesterday on Beyond3d:
1 5
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=
I guess it has something to do with the amount of memory being too small so you would have to break up scenes into tiles and no developers are doing that. Too hard? I don't know. But I saw a quote from Allard saying developers would have to write special versions of their engines just for the 360. I also saw some talk of the problem on teamxbox, but the thread seems to have been deleted pretty quickly - I guess they don't want people to know about it.
I suspect that when they said things were "looking good" they meant that the games were running properly on the system.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
And you've just shown yours. The 360 has no backwards compatibility whatsoever. However they are porting the executables (not the data) of some of the more popular games to give the illusion of limited backwards compatibility. So it's not like they're patching up the existing executables to add new functionatlity, they're just new executables loading the data from the XBOX 1 discs.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
As I recall, the PS2 had this problem as well. When it first came out, anti-aliasing was really hard to do on its hardware. Eventually developers figured it out, but it took a while. The best example of this that I know of is Virtua Fighter 4 and its cousin, VF4: Evolution. By the time Evolution came out, Sega had figured out how to get AA working. The models are almost identical between the two games, but everything looks a lot smoother on screen.
Developers will probably have it figured out in a year or two, I'd reckon. But these launch games are gonna be rushed to market and they'll look like it.
No, there was no problem like this on the PS2. There was a lack of documentation early on. But AA wasn't a technical problem.
The 360 looks like this is going to be a major issue for developers. The lack of ram to render into is going to be an issue for the life of the console. Since a huge number of 360 developers are pc developers who put out xbox versions because they don't have to do much work are faced with a dilema. Do a straight port and ignore the cries from gamers or do the extra work of rewriting their engine to support tile rendering for AA.
I would not be surprised if in four years the are large numbers of 360 game with no AA.
And you know this how? Wait until it comes out, then we'll see.
It may actually be playable this time around.
I hope they do a better job than the PC port; even with the framerate increased the models still animated at 30 FPS. This made them very unnatural looking.
Dear lord this post is utterly full of crap.
First point. Backwards compatibility is to play old games on your new system. Thats as far as the definition goes just cause youve invented some more precise definition that excludes any upgrades to the old games means nothing.
Compatibility engine? You clearly dont have a clue how this is working the xbe's are being updated to function on the 360 even if they werent the upgrades there discussing are simple file changes (For textures) and effects added to the output the core of the game its physics its level design etc. Doesnt need to be touched.
Live has millions of users how is it a 'wrong reason'? ITs one the biggest selling points.
It wont cause compatibility issues. You keep saying BOTH as if MS are releasing entirely different things. The console in BOTH forms is an identical gaming platform. The harddrive is for additional content to those games (and media stuff). I.e. everyone can play all the games without any issues and some who dished out a bit more get more can get more content.
A PS1 game shouldnt play exactly the same on the more advanced consoles thats utter nonsense, the way it always is? You act like theres some code that they have to work by.
The PS2 didnt support advanced graphical features because of the way it was implemented not because Sony had some kind of divine rule book. They essentially plugged a PS1 in to the PS2 it was quite messy and infact there are 'compatibility issues' as you keep whining on about as some (admitedly only a very small number.) PS1 games dont work. It was a cheap and quick fix to a problem that would have required a lot of work had they decided to emulate the PS1. The PS3 will almost certainly have similar problems dont expect 100% compatibility and do expect (especially if they are emulating) older games to look a damn site better.
Sony hasnt proven crap, they are also pushing for more multimedia based consoles in fact there plans appear very similar to MS. Nintendo is taking far far more risks than either of the other two. There entire future in the console market is pretty much reliant on the single piece of innovation in there controller. (Though I cant help but hope they succeed. Who cant love good ol Nintendo.)
It's a sad, sad day for the games industry when one of the biggest titles coming out for a brand new system is an emulation of an older console title.
Would a little innovation really hurt that much?
May the Maths Be with you!
Indeed! The slavish devotion to Nintendo is strong here.
While 'we' hated them when they were being fined millions for uncompetative price fixing, 'we' like them now they are the underdog, and any deviation from the official party line is not tolerated. In the same vein, posters are apparently expected to remember at all times that Microsoft are inherently evil and there is no way they can make a superior console (and that even Sony are better than Microsoft).
For your amusement, you might want to check out the moderation on this post as an example of how offenders will be punished.
This is actually one reason I don't have Zonk posts appearing on my front page now, as they seem to attract this sort of lunacy from people who are apparently so afraid they might be proven wrong or their position on something undermined that they would try to stifle anything that is contrary to what they believe.
So MS is going to allow Xbox360 owners to play Xbox games on the system through ported executables but that is not backwards compatible?
Uh...wtf.
That has to be the most retarded logic I've ever seen in my life.
Basically, this is like what Vavle did with Half Life. They re-released it as Half Life: Source which just gave it a graphical update. While I'm excited about the return of Halo 1 and 2, I'm hoping for a bit more in my updates
Backwards compatibility isn't the Issue, I respect Sony, I respect Nintendo (though wish they got a little more attention), Intel I find over priced but at least they are getting their act together.
However Microsoft isn't offering backwards compatibility. They are offering upgrades or such. It's a false compatibility. Backwards compatibility is great, and it should now be a standard, but doing this type of move isn't what it's about.
It's called "porting", you dumb bastard.
The PS2 offers texture smoothing for PSOne games. That's an upgrade.
Nintendo has said they're considering giving the retro downloads for the Revolution upgraded graphics.
This isn't anything unusual. It's part of scaling older lower-resolution media to a newer higher-res medium.
texture smoothing is a generic upgrade, It's not focused on one game. These are going to be per diem game upgrades.
Nintendo has said they will give retro downloads, I've never heard upgraded graphics.. Honestly we don't know what their system will even be.
Ask why they are talking about a curvaceous character called spartan 458. If you look into what ATI's gpu can do, you will find that (unlike previous consoles or pcs) they can render b-spline surfaces on the fly, allowing a new level of curvaceous detail.