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Liquidity X · Sep 14, 2003, 05:49 PM

Gamespot, who has NEVER been been wrong with release dates, has it preordered as an option on there site, and says its ships on 9/30 and U get a free action figure, so how far away is the mac version?

OptimusG4 · Sep 14, 2003, 06:42 PM

Originally posted by Liquidity X:
Gamespot, who has NEVER been been wrong with release dates, has it preordered as an option on there site, and says its ships on 9/30 and U get a free action figure, so how far away is the mac version?

about 3 years past due.

OwlBoy · Sep 14, 2003, 07:56 PM

Originally posted by OptimusG4:
about 3 years past due.

So true.

I am optimistic quessing a month.

So about 10/30/03 for us.

They are really working as hard as they can to get it out for us.

-Owl

fireside · Sep 15, 2003, 12:57 AM

im sure bungie will do a good job on the mac port.

voodoo · Sep 15, 2003, 05:11 AM

Originally posted by fireside:
im sure bungie will do a good job on the mac port.

Will Bungie even do the conversion? Do they have any Mac programmers left?!

DBvader · Sep 15, 2003, 10:38 AM

No, i thought westlake oe someone was doing the port.

Liquidity X · Sep 15, 2003, 12:05 PM

yes, westlake is doing the Mac port, the PC port is being done by another company, not bungie.

OwlBoy · Sep 17, 2003, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by voodoo:
Will Bungie even do the conversion? Do they have any Mac programmers left?!

Well, Halo was designed and put together on macs (same with Myth) (true before they moved to the XBox)...

Anyway...

here are some videos that show Halo on the mac, and the mac developers (westlake) seem like some interesting guys.

-Owl

macenthusiast · Sep 17, 2003, 09:47 PM

where?

justinkim · Sep 17, 2003, 09:50 PM

Originally posted by macenthusiast:
where?

Try looking at http://www.macledge.com. They recently put up some video of Westlake and Mac Halo.

OwlBoy · Sep 17, 2003, 09:58 PM

Erm yeah, sorry!

I can't belive I forgot the link, but he is right, at mac gamer they have it.

-Owl

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 17, 2003, 10:22 PM

I don't think Bungie will ever produce another Mac or PC game ever.

Now that Alex and da boys have MS stamped on their foreheads, they'll be producing Xbox games forevah and evah.

Macfreak7 · Sep 18, 2003, 02:37 PM

Originally posted by justinkim:
Try looking at http://www.macledge.com. They recently put up some video of Westlake and Mac Halo.

SCREW HALO..... look at AGE OF MYTHOLOGIES!!!!!
OH MY GOD, i can't wait!

OwlBoy · Sep 18, 2003, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
I don't think Bungie will ever produce another Mac or PC game ever.

Now that Alex and da boys have MS stamped on their foreheads, they'll be producing Xbox games forevah and evah.

Well, if they do create a PC game, I am sure they will do the mac part too, just like Blizzard.

-Owl

ambush · Sep 19, 2003, 06:09 AM

I'm sure every single original Bungie employee left with like 1M in their pockets.

So I'd be surprised if they did the Mac port.

MilkmanDan · Sep 22, 2003, 04:48 PM

I don't know if I can handle playing HALO multiplayer, without being able to see everyone else's screens. It'll make my life so much more difficult.

Yeah, they'll never make a HALO 2 version for Macintosh. I miss the old Bungie so much. Come back Bungie... come back!

(Than again, HALO 2 will probably only play on G5s anyhow)

pantalaimon · Sep 22, 2003, 04:57 PM

I've never understood why system requirements are so high, the x-box is a 2 year old pc and Halo 2 is being released on it soon.

Surely a current G4 could run Halo 2, assuming it was going to be made for mac?

mac freak · 12:28 AM

The Xbox is a 700MHz P3 with a 64MB GeForce3; however, it natively runs games at 480x360, like all modern consoles, which looks like crap on a computer. I'm not sure if Halo 2 supports 720p or 1080i, which are also Xbox-supported modes -- and both of which are still smaller than the bare-minimum 1024x768 required to make computer games look any good.

In short -- higher res = higher requirements; I'm also positive the Mac/PC versions are not very optimized, plus the fact that they have had graphics upgrades from the Xbox original.

mac freak · Sep 27, 2003, 05:27 PM

Ok, just played with the final PC version --
On a 3.06 GHz P4 and a Radeon 9700 Pro, the first level was dropping to ~20 fps during heavy action at 1280x1024 with "high" settings. Ick! The same machine runs multiplayer UT2003 at ~90FPS at 1600x1200 with all maxed settings. As I predicted, it's intensely unoptimized -- and doesn't even look very good.

Of course, it's still a great game.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 27, 2003, 06:22 PM

Originally posted by mac freak:
Ok, just played with the final PC version --
On a 3.06 GHz P4 and a Radeon 9700 Pro, the first level was dropping to ~20 fps during heavy action at 1280x1024 with "high" settings. Ick! The same machine runs multiplayer UT2003 at ~90FPS at 1600x1200 with all maxed settings. As I predicted, it's intensely unoptimized -- and doesn't even look very good.

Of course, it's still a great game.

What does this mean for Mac users? DBvader will have a field day.

mac freak · Sep 28, 2003, 12:29 AM

Maybe it'll be one of those rares cases where the Mac version is better

(like Shadowbane).

MindFad · Sep 28, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by mac freak:
Ok, just played with the final PC version --
On a 3.06 GHz P4 and a Radeon 9700 Pro, the first level was dropping to ~20 fps during heavy action at 1280x1024 with "high" settings. Ick! The same machine runs multiplayer UT2003 at ~90FPS at 1600x1200 with all maxed settings. As I predicted, it's intensely unoptimized -- and doesn't even look very good.

Of course, it's still a great game.

With all of the pixel shaders on?

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 28, 2003, 07:35 AM

Bah...who cares about sHAlLOw anyways.

*goes back to playing Marathon Aleph One*

mac freak · Sep 28, 2003, 05:24 PM

Originally posted by MindFad:
With all of the pixel shaders on?

There are not many graphics options. You can turn off "mapped surfaces" (or something) if you want, but the performance increase isn't drastic. And the game looks much worse.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 28, 2003, 07:09 PM

Although I most probably won't be buying the game, this is a chance for Westlake to make Halo a possible 'switcher' situation. If people bought Xboxs at US$350 to play Halo, why wouldn't some people not buy a Mac to play a faster version of Halo when they realize the PC version sucks?

nforcer · Sep 28, 2003, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Although I most probably won't be buying the game, this is a chance for Westlake to make Halo a possible 'switcher' situation. If people bought Xboxs at US$350 to play Halo, why wouldn't some people not buy a Mac to play a faster version of Halo when they realize the PC version sucks?

PC people are already complaining about performance problems. I'm not expecting good performance on the Mac side, if the PC side is already complaining. The president of Gearbox (the company behind the PC port) recently made a post discussing this performance situation.

Despite the power of the G5, I still doubt the Mac version will be faster than the PC version. Halo uses DirectX, which is Windows native, and a closed API. The only way I can see Westlake bringing Halo to the Mac is if they write equivilent functions that run on the Mac. If they are taking this approach, I doubt the functions will be as well optimized on the Mac as they are on the PC.

Perhaps someone from Westlake can post here and inform us of what/how they are doing things, so we can have a better idea of what performance might be like.

mac freak · Sep 28, 2003, 09:06 PM

Here's a big thread of bitching PC folk at my favorite PC performance enthusiast forum:

http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.p...eadid=33713426

Only a select few are scoring above 30 avg fps in the timedemo at 1024x768.

Horsepoo!!! · 10:18 PM

Sucks when a 3.1GHz PC with the 9800 Pro can only achieve 35fps.

What will the minimum specs for Mac be? 2x2GHz G5 with 9800 Pro?

I hope nforcer is wrong and that Westlake can still slap in some optimizations. Or the game will be a bigger flop than what I expected (a pretty big flop).

Jansar · Sep 29, 2003, 01:00 AM

This game was due a long time ago! What's with the requirements???

Remember Quake 3 and the amazing detail tahat it produces? Games haven't improved much since then and Quake 3 could probably run at 200 fps on my computer!

nforcer · Sep 29, 2003, 09:38 PM

Originally posted by mac freak:
Here's a big thread of bitching PC folk at my favorite PC performance enthusiast forum:

http://rage3d.com/board/showthread.p...eadid=33713426

Only a select few are scoring above 30 avg fps in the timedemo at 1024x768.

The President of Gearbox from the link I provided stated that the time-demo feature in Halo PC is actually doing quite a few "worst-case" simulations, and graphical things that you will not necessarily be seeing all the time in the game, if at all.

To quote him:

The coders included the -timedemo feature to help you tune your performance and compare cards against one another. The feature is honest and rigorous (the -timedemos are running the most intesive pixel shaded scenes in the game - scenes that were designed to be non-interactive where performance isn't as crucial). We hope that this feature is used not as a measure of average performance during game play (because it is not), but as a metric for doing benchmark comparisons from one system to the next.

Perhaps someone should tell the people at the rage3d forums about that? Or perhaps we should enjoy listing to these "PC High Rollers" complain about performance on their systems, since it is they who have almost always bashed the Mac when it comes to performance. Then take comfort in knowing the truth about both their situation and ours

druber · Sep 29, 2003, 11:38 PM

Nah, people love logging into forums and bashing whoever's on their list. Bungie sold out and everyone made millions. Mac Halo won't support hardware rendering and will only run 640x480 at 20fps, max. Why worry about reality and research when you can just flame whoever disagrees with you.

Yes Westlake has ported APIs to take the place of DirectX. No, their version won't be as optimized as the real thing, considering the number of programmers and amount of time MS has devoted to that project alone. Of course Westlake will do their best to optimize the game to run on as wide a range of machines and also with as much quality as they can squeeze out. But the longer they work on that stuff, the longer people have to wait for it to come out.

No one's gonna hold Halo up as a standard how-to for game development. But maybe people are taking this a bit too seriously? Bungie as personal insult, etc.? No, you're right, it's only me.

CharlesS · Sep 30, 2003, 03:09 AM

Originally posted by nforcer:
Despite the power of the G5, I still doubt the Mac version will be faster than the PC version. Halo uses DirectX, which is Windows native, and a closed API.

The original game that they were working on before they sold out to M$ has got to have been written in OpenGL, since it was cross-platform back then... don't tell me that M$ would actually have made them port the whole codebase to Direct3D!

If that's the case, maybe that's why the performance is so poor.

Horsepoo!!! · Sep 30, 2003, 06:25 AM

Originally posted by CharlesS:
The original game that they were working on before they sold out to M$ has got to have been written in OpenGL, since it was cross-platform back then... don't tell me that M$ would actually have made them port the whole codebase to Direct3D!

If that's the case, maybe that's why the performance is so poor.

Yup...from OpenGL to Direct3D (and back to OpenGL? Not according to druber and nforcer)...from a 3rd person view game to a 1st person view game, from a computer 'mouse-and-keyboard' game to a 'console-controller' game and back to a computer 'mouse-and-keyboard' game.

I'm surprised the game even got ported at all to the xbox...and I'm more surprised it got ported back to the PC.

MilkmanDan · Sep 30, 2003, 11:33 AM

well, maybe if I run it at a bad resolution, with a giant controller, and a small TV (split 4 ways), I can relive those wonderful college days....

Oh wait, I'm still in college, and my roomie has a an xBox. Never-mind.

But seriously, I'm guessing my 867 Quicksilver with a Radeon 9000 and 1.5 GIG of RAM will probably just barely run it. What a world what a world.

Angus_D · Sep 30, 2003, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by OwlBoy:
Well, Halo was designed and put together on macs (same with Myth) (true before they moved to the XBox)...

I heard that it was basically rewritten for the Xbox, and then the PC port was again large amounts of code rewritten, so the version of Halo you'll be able to buy will probably not share very much code (if any) with those old technology previews which were running on G4s many moons ago during Stevenotes.

pelorus · Sep 30, 2003, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Angus_D:
I heard that it was basically rewritten for the Xbox, and then the PC port was again large amounts of code rewritten, so the version of Halo you'll be able to buy will probably not share very much code (if any) with those old technology previews which were running on G4s many moons ago during Stevenotes.

According to an interview, it was built on the PC. It was shown on Macs, but most of the work was done on PC. Many many moons ago.

mac freak · Sep 30, 2003, 05:43 PM

Anyone have a link to those ancient Macworld videos? I'd love to see them again

Liquidity X · Sep 30, 2003, 09:15 PM

fileplant.com has it, do a search for "halo"

blizzard · Sep 30, 2003, 11:44 PM

The game is awesome...may not run as fast as other computer games, may not look as new as Unreal 2, but the gameplay is second to none. And it runs fine at 800x600 on an Athlon 2500+ with a lowly 8500LE...chunkier in some spots than others, but I have no issues with it at all.

Horsepoo!!! · Oct 1, 2003, 10:47 PM

Originally posted by mac freak:
Anyone have a link to those ancient Macworld videos? I'd love to see them again

Yup...great speed on a G3 with a Rage 128.

Of course, one would argue that the physics complexity, and graphics detail increased since then but...looking at the video, it looks pretty much like Halo now.

How they could fit 4 players screens on one TV (for 4 player multiplayer...intesive sh!t) and get good speeds and not get good speeds on a top of the line PC with a top of the line graphics card is beyond me.

If Halo ran smoothly on a 400MHz (?) G3 with Rage 128 (I still think that video was prerendered though even though Bungie claimed it wasn't), how could it not run smooth on a Dual G5 with 9800!!! That's a difference in speed of well over 5 times (at the very least)!!!! If we started factoring in say clock-for-clock boosts the G4 had over the G3 and then clock-for-clock boosts the G5 has over the G4 and the G5's super-bandwidth, and the G5's second processor (even if the game isn't SMP-aware, it could easily use one CPU completely and efficiently without other processes hogging part of it), and the Altivec (which probably won't be used at all unfortunately) we'd see something like 10 times the speed of that MW G3 demo.

And the 9800 is a gazillion times faster than the Rage 128.

DrBoar · Oct 3, 2003, 05:49 AM

Never ever underestimate the power of programming to hog CPUs

Anyone remember MS Word 6 were the powernative version was way slower than Word 5.1a that was running in emulation

.

Yes I miss old bungie to

Think a new Marathon with all the kicks and throws of from Oni.

ApeInTheShell · Oct 6, 2003, 02:11 AM

halo? beat it.
you ain't missing nothing except a hard ending.
Halo 2 on x-box. woot woot!

Truepop · Oct 19, 2003, 12:05 PM

::still waiting for mac port::

4 years and counting.

Horsepoo!!! · Oct 19, 2003, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by Truepop:
::still waiting for mac port::

4 years and counting.

Is it really worth waiting? I stopped waiting when Microslop bought "Bun-gee, what the the hell were they thinking".

And by the looks of the PC port, I don't think anything less than a G5 will run Halo at an acceptable speed.

So if you don't have a G5 or a top-end G4 and you don't have the money for a shiny new G5, get ready to wait some more.

Truepop · Oct 19, 2003, 10:58 PM

Just because the people porting the PC version did a crappy job doesn't necessarily mean westlake will do a bad job....

Ohh well, while browsing to preorder Splinter Cell but instead bought a few titles that were dirt cheap.... I found out GoGamer expects Halo for mac by 12/03.

maybe 12/31/03

http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGam...uct/View/001HM

blue · Oct 21, 2003, 10:18 AM

Pre-ordered my copy from amazon.co.uk. expected to arrive 17/11/03.
Oh yeah!

OwlBoy · Oct 21, 2003, 11:52 AM

MacNN has confermed the 12/03 date!

W00t!

That means I can use my $20 .mac renewal coupon on it

-Owl

Truepop · Oct 21, 2003, 03:19 PM

YAY

peace in the land...

Until we see how badly it plays on our G4s...

How I wish I had a G5.

a2daj · Oct 21, 2003, 04:16 PM

If you've seen the MacGamer Halo videos you would have seen Mac Halo running very nicely on a G4 867 single proc machine.

alphaone · Oct 21, 2003, 05:28 PM

Originally posted by a2daj:
If you've seen the MacGamer Halo videos you would have seen Mac Halo running very nicely on a G4 867 single proc machine.

Where's that? Link Please.