Halo 2 on PC requires Vista, eh?
Discussion
Now I'm certainly not a luddite, and Microsoft can choose to use games to force a new (and poorly supported) operating system onto gamers, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed. I was looking forward to Halo 2, and had given up hope of it ever making an appearance on the PC. Then they announce it and tell us it'll only work on an O/S I have no intention of buying for at least 2-3 years.
I'm wondering of there are any PH PC Gamers who'll be installing Vista in order to play Halo 2, or will you simply not bother?
I'm wondering of there are any PH PC Gamers who'll be installing Vista in order to play Halo 2, or will you simply not bother?
Xenocide said:
spidydude said:
Xenocide said:
I have vista but i probably won't get Halo.
is it any good?
Well I love it.
I bought the original Halo on PC when it was finally released, and expected much after the hype and general love-in from mags like Edge.
Unfortunately it was pants, totally outclassed by PC stuff like Far Cry, so it went in the bin and I bought the Doom Collection - best £10 I've ever spent (on a game) - Doom, Doom2, Plutonia and that other one - brilliant.
Witchfinder said:
Now I'm certainly not a luddite, and Microsoft can choose to use games to force a new (and poorly supported) operating system onto gamers, but I can't help feeling a bit disappointed. I was looking forward to Halo 2, and had given up hope of it ever making an appearance on the PC. Then they announce it and tell us it'll only work on an O/S I have no intention of buying for at least 2-3 years.
I'm wondering of there are any PH PC Gamers who'll be installing Vista in order to play Halo 2, or will you simply not bother?
I'm wondering of there are any PH PC Gamers who'll be installing Vista in order to play Halo 2, or will you simply not bother?
Vista opens up the possibility of PC and Console users being able to play together IIRC, maybe this is why it has to be Vista only ??
MS have been adament that DX10 will not appear on XP, stating that it requires the kernal/ HAL of Vista to function (or some such).
How true that is only MS know.
Halo 2 shouldn't be DX10 anyway as it's a port of an XBox game which is only DX8.1 (plus a bit more) hardware. However Halo on the PC had some token DX9 shaders so MS might have added some DX10 support.
To be honest I'd be supprised if Halo 2 required DX10 and Vista, as it would severly limit the audience for this game. I can't see an old XBox game being a reason for many to buy an expensive OS. The visuals will be so far off top DX10 PC games such as Crysis. Halo looked pants compared with PC games of the time and it ran terribley too.
How true that is only MS know.
Halo 2 shouldn't be DX10 anyway as it's a port of an XBox game which is only DX8.1 (plus a bit more) hardware. However Halo on the PC had some token DX9 shaders so MS might have added some DX10 support.
To be honest I'd be supprised if Halo 2 required DX10 and Vista, as it would severly limit the audience for this game. I can't see an old XBox game being a reason for many to buy an expensive OS. The visuals will be so far off top DX10 PC games such as Crysis. Halo looked pants compared with PC games of the time and it ran terribley too.
wolves_wanderer said:
Mr E said:
Pretty sure DirectX 10 has been backported to XP also.
Are you sure on that? My understanding is that it would take a pretty serious modification of the kernel.
Theres someone who says they have, its a paid for service thing & no proof as yet.
DX10 requires some funky memory access stuff fior vid cars that'd need to be built into the kernal, puting DX10 into XP would basicaly mean rebuilding it to Vista, so thats a no go.
BUT theres no reason on earth why Halo2 needs DX10, at all, Xbox1 wasnt DX10 by a long shot.
RobDickinson said:
wolves_wanderer said:
Mr E said:
Pretty sure DirectX 10 has been backported to XP also.
Are you sure on that? My understanding is that it would take a pretty serious modification of the kernel.
Theres someone who says they have, its a paid for service thing & no proof as yet.
DX10 requires some funky memory access stuff fior vid cars that'd need to be built into the kernal, puting DX10 into XP would basicaly mean rebuilding it to Vista, so thats a no go.
BUT theres no reason on earth why Halo2 needs DX10, at all, Xbox1 wasnt DX10 by a long shot.
Indeed, knowing Microsoft and programmers in general, the quickest and easiest way is to have the EXE do a version check on files to see if they're DX10 or not, if so it plays if not it bins itself. Assuming Microsoft are adament it's DX10 only, I'd suspect people more versed in the arcane than me to see if that's actually the case. If it is DX9 they'll rip out the version check code
RobDickinson said:
BUT theres no reason on earth why Halo2 needs DX10, at all, Xbox1 wasnt DX10 by a long shot.
Which is kind-of why I started this thread. It seems clear to me that Microsoft have taken a commercial rather than technological decision about Halo 2. That's their perogative, but rather than gaining them a sale of Halo 2 and Vista, it's just lost them a sale of Halo 2.
Witchfinder said:
RobDickinson said:
BUT theres no reason on earth why Halo2 needs DX10, at all, Xbox1 wasnt DX10 by a long shot.
Which is kind-of why I started this thread. It seems clear to me that Microsoft have taken a commercial rather than technological decision about Halo 2. That's their perogative, but rather than gaining them a sale of Halo 2 and Vista, it's just lost them a sale of Halo 2.
I think it shows Microsofts lack of knowledge of the PC games arena. True they had/have a whacking great games division but they've become used to the xbox, fans will fork out for the hardware to get the game they want (say Halo 3). You also have the fact that in the console arena games like Halo (FPS + half decent storyline) are or were quite rare.
Well in the PC market games players tend to be only as loyal as the product keeps rolling (flicking between AMD and Intel CPU's for performance, ATi & Nvidia and so on) there is practically zero platform loyalty nor is there a great deal of publisher loyalty (we really don't care who publishes CnC4 only that CnC4 appears on shelves). Halo doesn't stand out, a multitude of FPS games appear with decent storylines (I thought Quake 4's was neat, as was Half-Life and HL2's) and it's graphics were rather lacklustre.
Perhaps MS will ship Halo 2 WITH a copy of Vista Home Basic? Free OS with your game? Free game with your OS? It'd certainly boost uptake of the OS a bit.
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