Halo Reach PC/Xbox One Review: It's Good - But There Are Issues

Alex Battaglia goes in-depth on Halo Reach's port for Xbox One S, Xbox One X and of course, PC. Find out where this conversion excels and where it falls short in this extended, deep-dive analysis.
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[@evandinc]

The audio was one of the first things I noticed. Immediately after my first firefight in the campaign I searched the audio settings to no avail. Non-music sounds need to be beefed up badly.

[@FunctionalBreadMachine]

I thought I was the only one haha. Yeah that's also one of the first things I noticed. The music is considerably louder than all of the other effects in the game.

[@14supersonic]

Yeah, the audio is one of the things that are really bad in this port. Its also bad at giving you a sense of direction as well. Not sure how they over looked this after all the extra time they spent "optimizing" this game up until now.

[@ZinhoMegaman]

Yeah I even lowered music volume to have a better hearing of the sounds.

[@evandinc]

@@penguinchip try updating drivers and checking games stability or whatever the option is in steam

[@steamempire]

its apparently an oversight in the settings, there is a settings file and the default audio quality is set to 0

[@KenniTheKid]

i knew this game felt off above 60fps. Thanks for clarifying.

[@THECURSEDJ117]

I thought it was just my PC having a hissy fit, felt like it was stuttering something horrid. Capping at 60 feels a lot nicer to play on at this moment in time

[@killertruth186]

@@THECURSEDJ117 Have you tried to do the same method like Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas?

[@Modzorz]

i think they literally just patched it today, actually! just played some games and the 60+ fps setting was actually working.

[@killertruth186]

@ I was thinking disabling the in game vsync and let your control panel do it for you.

[@labombaromba]

@Modzorz Don't think so. My MCC hasn't seen a single steam update since I got it a day after release.

[@Agtsmirnoff]

0:56 Correction: Halo 2 came out for PC in 2007, not 2004.

[@WilliamSwartzendruber]

I was going to say, it came out for Vista.

[@cerjmedia]

"All in a game from 2009" Yeah, pretty sure it came out in 2010 but close enough (10:13 for reference)

[@Agtsmirnoff]

@@cerjmedia Dates are just all wrong in this video.

[@leonthesleepy]

Biggest issue i have is with the audio. It just sounds....horribly off and muffled? I dont remember it being this way even with Halo 1 on the Xbox

[@callusklaus2413]

I'm on PC, and the audio is mess. Outside of sounding muffed, occasionally I get this really horrible electronic/lag sound that occurs when there's a lot of action. Curiously, it seems to be tied to specific maps. I can play the invasion playlist with no problem, team slayer has a lot of offending maps that makes me want to deafen myself

[@malecrium8665]

@@finn264 source?

[@LowSpecGamer]

"... Halo Reach could very easily maintain a flawless 60 FPS on almost any hardware out there" Oh it can run on some machines all right, but it sure ain't easy or look pretty X)

[@batmangovno]

Is that foreshadowing?

[@BE3R-LF94]

Given how modest its demands are, could you at least TRY to run it at medium before butchering it? Pretty please? :D

[@slandgkearth]

@Swirly Kalen to be expected with that trash gpu.

[@Drilbit]

Make it run on a Intel stick fam

[@Bonerlord]

There's a GDC talk on Reach's automated LOD system, if you're more interested in the detail on that

[@scrustle]

I heard 343 have already mentioned the audio issue and that they're working on a fix. Hopefully that's coming soon.

[@KayJay01]

They have, they've also said the unlocked framerate is just there because the community wants it. They originally said it wouldn't even ship with unlocked framerate because it wasn't ready and had lots of issues (like Alex mentions) but the community wasn't happy about that so they added it back in but said it didn't work as intended. And it obviously doesn't. This will get fixed though.

[@tholesund3760]

343 has known about the fucked up audio for months and they still haven't fixed it, so my expectations aren't high. Based on what they've said, they might come up with some improvements, but not soon.

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

Well it can not come sooner because the audio sounds a lot worse than the comparison done in the video. I can not change my sample and bit rate in Windows Sounds settings below CD quality 48000 Hz because it is greyed out but those who can reduce the setting to FM quality 37000 Hz get much better quality. I suspect DF did that before recording that comparison!

[@NatrajChaturvedi]

@@tholesund3760 wow thats discouraging then because as far as I am concerned, the game is unplayable because of how muffled the audio is. I can overlook everything else including not being able to play at higher than 60 fps but not the terrible terrible audio.

[@TheRixtah1]

Please, God, let it be soon

[@MajoraZ]

Some other post-processing issues the video didn't cover: Rain looks way less thick in the MCC version, and throughout even this video you can catch moments where some sort of haze or volumetric lighting is missing, such at 8:36 : In the 3650 vesion, there's a slight green coloring/haze to the view, wheras the MCC version is much clearer and the green coloration is gone.

[@TheIshikawaRin]

Just some small date corrections: Halo 2 for Windows Vista released in 2007, not 2004 and Halo: Reach launched in 2010, not 2009. But overall this is another great video from Alex, as one would expect.

[@haloepic3092]

Bailey Jones little correction, just shut up

[@TheIshikawaRin]

@@haloepic3092 Rude.

[@ICEMANZIDANE]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, MediEval, Resident Evil 2.... Devs take money in hand, spend time and effort and bring these awesome games to 2019 standards. MS, LIKE ALWAYS, is greedy and used to milk MS fanboys. MS sells 1:1 conversion of Halo for 10bucks. Just for comparison, BF 5 for example sold for 15bucks in the last origin sale... No effort spend, no money taken in hand.PLS STOP ADVOCATING BIG COMPANIES LIKE MS. 10 bucks for what??? There is absolutely no development effort. BTW, MediEval's remake gives you the base original PS1 games aswell. That would have been nice if MS would have done a Halo remake + ship the originial game with it like MediEval. But hey, who is MediEval right? MS ftw.

[@TheIshikawaRin]

@@ICEMANZIDANE How is this related to date errors exactly?

[@by2083]

@@ICEMANZIDANE bro whats wrong with u commenting the same thing on everything

[@blehgopie]

The online co-op input lag when you're not host is a problem with the entire MCC and I have no clue how or why it hasn't been fixed yet.

[@IHydro]

YES, why aren't people addressing this more...

[@walkieer]

Yeah do people not play campaign with friends or something?

[@Pokemark17]

Yeah got a new pc at the start of the week and the game was unplayable my friend and I both had issues regardess of who was host

[@super_pretendo]

Like drunk-driving a fucking boat.

[@edison700]

It was like that on the 360 when it was new if I remember. It's probably a netcode/engine thing, doubt they could fix it without breaking something.

[@michaelw4861]

Every time I hear the theme music to Halo it makes me want to play the games.

[@farhanyousaf5616]

I still get goose bumps when I hear it... especially Halo 1 music.

[@Kronos0999]

Except they've all gone to shit and now all you remember are the memories and not the game.

[@chomp_5412]

Are enough people playing it on xbox to get into matches?

[@michaelw4861]

@@chomp_5412 Last I checked, yeah.

[@EchoDissolve]

Pavlov was a gamer.

[@InnuendoXP]

Why is animation frame interpolation not a thing for this!? Mods for Halo: CE have it, source ports of the Quake engine games have it. Is it too CPU intensive or what?

[@DiegoAlanTorres96]

Inexperienced devs

[@arecaidianfox]

I remember some discussion a while back about how Chimera's frame interpolation was power-hungry. But considering that even old versions of Chimera work on something like an Acer Aspire V3-572G-543S and can maintain a minimum of 60FPS for Halo 1...

[@joeykeilholz925]

Fail

[@MajoraZ]

I don't even remember animations running at lower frame rates when I played this at 120fps during the flights, is it a new issue introduced in the final build or something?

[@secret333plays]

@@MajoraZ Its only an issue above 60fps. Also, despite how it is talked about in this video, I have found it unnoticeable in actual gameplay.

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

At first I was like: The sound is really odd/crappy. Then I was like: I haven't had this much fun playing an FPS in ages.

[@Liamlucid]

At first it was so bad I didn't want to play it, then I played it for 5 hours.

[@SwitchingRooskies]

But the internet people are saying the quality is breaking the game and everyone is refunding it, so what you are saying can't possibly be true.

[@vegetarey]

The audio is broken on the PC version, and i expect to use mods or change config values in a game from 2002 to work properly, not in a new release (from a 10 year old game), on xbox one is ok, on PC is just a cash grab release, stay away from this crap.

[@chomp_5412]

Are enough people playing it on xbox to get into matches?

[@pseudonayme7717]

It's my favourite Halo game. Wait until you are playing on legendary with some skulls on, the battles become truly great and the leves are beautifully designed. You will heave a sigh of relief every time you finish a level 😎

[@Simpyphus]

My guess is patches will address some performance issues, sound, common bugs, but not much else. I would be genuinely be surprised if they actually tweak the presentation for motion blur, bloom, etc. The unlimited frame rate option is labeled as beta, that should have been clarified. Either way, even now its much better than playing the 360 version. The original is just so muddy and feels much less responsive. This remaster fixes what matters most.

[@ajaakola2]

And on 4k its so good on pc! I don´t care if its not perfect as I loved this game on 360 and this is the best version in my option right now, yes even if there are some problems.

[@hunterking572]

I just finished the game on PC at 4K yesterday and had no clue the game had AO or depth of field effects.

[@KeyJOSH8]

That "LowLevelFatalError" crash is something I've encountered in a number of games that use Unreal Engine. Removing my GPU overclock has always fixed it. UE games seem to be less tolerant of overclocked hardware for some reason

[@christopherscott934]

Noticed this issue as well.

[@VideoGameTuto]

@Boba Fett wrong. UE is used to the spartan cuatomization interface, i can replicate that error by switching to another monitor while having the game on fullscreen

[@TexelGuy]

I got that crash only once while alt tabbing and coming back, but I do have a GPU overclock. I dunno if it's really the overclock or the alt tabbing that caused the crash, because I've heard of lots of other games that have stability issues when alt tabbing.

[@SeiyaDLuffy]

Halo Reach doesn't use Unreal Engine uses havok

[@Liamlucid]

I fixed it by adding 60hz to my monitor edid, I only had 75hz before, adding 60 fixed it. Weird bug

[@JSTM2000]

12:43 Overwatch has the "exact" same issue, running it above or below 1080p breaks some of the effects even thought it's not a remaster of an older game.

[@KayJay01]

Did Alex have a minor stroke at 6:50? "Post processed anti aaaaaasing"

[@cambienvenu]

KayJay thought my phone was crashing for a sec there lol

[@johnd8726]

It was an audio bug. Hopefully Digital Foundry will release a patch for Alex, before his next video.

[@redbeardnj]

Hahaha ..might be those Klonopins too.🤣

[@cad3nce]

@@johnd8726lol!

[@KayJay01]

@Felix Aglon Is he really not a native English speaker? Huh, I couldn't tell. If that's the case, I can't fault the guy. I know I slur some words myself when speaking English (I'm also not a native English speaker) so I shouldn't be picking on someone else for making the same mistakes I am.

[@jbb479]

The sound mix is a mess -- the weapons don't even sound like they're in stereo anymore. The fact that the problem has been known for months and they're still staying it's going to take a lot of time/work to fix makes me think they really screwed something up in the conversion.

[@Syncopia]

I don't want to sound like a zealot or anything but 343i doesn't have a stellar track record for programming and bugs

[@LiamNajor]

@@Syncopia I think we should be glad it works as well as it does currently considering said track record

[@FunkadelicPeach]

Sound is the biggest issue I've noticed on PC. Infection has heavy breathing sprinting sounds louder than gunshots. it's ridiculous

[@quan4481]

FunkadelicPeach does it matter if you have a certain toe of headphones, say turtle beaches vs astros

[@BuzzaB77]

sound is not muffled per say, most of the 'direct' sound is missing. looks like distance cues are not sent to sound. You're hearing more environment reverb more than the source, presumably because the engine is not calculating the source as being at a closer distance so it's like you're hearing what it would sound like from far away.

[@DuckAlertBeats]

That feels like it makes sense

[@PinkBunnyCorporation]

I was thinking the same. It feels like the game is putting the source of the gun firing 10 meters in front of you, or no source at all. As if it were completely missing entirely. I think the latter is the case. All we are hearing is sound reflection.

[@Skazzy3YT]

Audio is fixed. Framerate interpolation and viewmodels are fixed.

[@iplaygames9837]

i just purchased mcc and i was wondering about issues with halo CE and reach, so CE sound issues also fixed ?

[@MrBurtbackerack]

Effort that goes into a video like this is impressive

[@dude3718]

Fast Internet in Germany?!?! Tell me, where you can learn this power!

[@6ch6ris6]

well i have 100mbit/s think that is fast enough

[@Law0fRevenge]

Step 1: Don't live in a town below 100.000 citizens. That's basically it.

[@DenGuleBalje]

@@6ch6ris6 Rookie numbers

[@bauernkind8595]

@@6ch6ris6 there are countries out there, where 100mbit/s doesn't count as internet. 😉

[@deiminator2]

Berlin 1gbps here

[@D-Rguitar]

The sound issue seems like it's been overly compressed. The loudest dynamics have been squashed and the quiet ones raised, exactly what a compressor does. So the initial bang from a weapon is quieter but the ring out and reverberations are louder which can be useful but not in this case. This is different from digital compression codecs EG. low quality MP3's where you just lose quality instead.

[@Newgodofwar]

Kinda like the loudness war with CD's?

[@InnuendoXP]

Like loudness equalization turned up to 11? So at some point someone came along and went "Dynamics bad! >:["

[@SwitchingRooskies]

The issue is equalization. Not compression. Poor equalization can make audio sound flat and unflattering - similar to poor compression, but equalization is an easier problem to solve. The author is probably using default motherboard Realtek audio which is junk compared to other dedicated hardware options. The way the audio was actually recorded also has an impact on sound quality - none of these details regarding audio recording configuration was shared(I'm being generous by assuming he recorded all footage himself).

[@boredbastardbullshit]

I don't think you understand the point of this channel, nor would I guess Alex to use Realtek garbage. The game sounds like absolute dogshit on everything. Got a soundblaster AE9? Congrats, it'll still sound terrible.

[@SwitchingRooskies]

@@boredbastardbullshit I understand that an actual comparison would not be conducted so lazily.

[@birms3287]

I noticed the audio immediately, had to turn all the other volumes down to 50% just to hear the guns. :/ i knew it couldnt have been that bad in the original release

[@gregoryross9770]

For Christ sake can somebody please fix the sound!!!!...I felt like I bought Reach the soundtrack.

[@FeralSparky]

The guns sound like they are 10 feet away from you when you fire them.

[@MslashW]

The soundtrack actually sounds fine as far as i'm aware. It's SFX that have issues.

[@ryrin6091]

@@MslashW That's his point. That only the soundtrack works fine.

[@gregoryross9770]

@@ryrin6091 Thank you sir the soundtrack is jamman👌🏿

[@bazzy5644]

@@MslashW The voices sound muffled too, at least the comms chatter in game does. I have no frame of reference for the cutscene sound.

[@DoctorZombo]

hahahaha Alex, Q&A= Questions and answers. QA = Quality Assurance

[@MorningstarJinn]

Hope this adresses loads of the stuff that everyone seems to ignore

[@user-fo3qd2dh4d]

yup man it killing me

[@ICEMANZIDANE]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, MediEval, Resident Evil 2.... Devs take money in hand, spend time and effort and bring these awesome games to 2019 standards. MS, LIKE ALWAYS, is greedy and used to milk MS fanboys. MS sells 1:1 conversion of Halo for 10bucks. Just for comparison, BF 5 for example sold for 15bucks in the last origin sale... No effort spend, no money taken in hand.PLS STOP ADVOCATING BIG COMPANIES LIKE MS. 10 bucks for what??? There is absolutely no development effort. BTW, MediEval's remake gives you the base original PS1 games aswell. That would have been nice if MS would have done a Halo remake + ship the originial game with it like MediEval. But hey, who is MediEval right? MS ftw.

[@TekkitForTheFunOfIt]

@@ICEMANZIDANE You are comparing 3 full priced games to a $10 ($8.30 if you buy mcc) port, get a grip.

[@alexescobar817]

@@ICEMANZIDANE Why are you copy and pasting this this rant over and over?

[@TekkitForTheFunOfIt]

@@alexescobar817 Doesn't help that its not even a well worded comment...

[@adrianC_]

The weapon sounds are too soft.

[@ICEMANZIDANE]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, MediEval, Resident Evil 2.... Devs take money in hand, spend time and effort and bring these awesome games to 2019 standards. MS, LIKE ALWAYS, is greedy and used to milk MS fanboys. MS sells 1:1 conversion of Halo for 10bucks. Just for comparison, BF 5 for example sold for 15bucks in the last origin sale... No effort spend, no money taken in hand.PLS STOP ADVOCATING BIG COMPANIES LIKE MS. 10 bucks for what??? There is absolutely no development effort. BTW, MediEval's remake gives you the base original PS1 games aswell. That would have been nice if MS would have done a Halo remake + ship the originial game with it like MediEval. But hey, who is MediEval right? MS ftw.

[@by2083]

@@ICEMANZIDANE smoke a bowl chill out and play some halo reach grifball

[@terskstarfxx]

@@ICEMANZIDANE Is it necessary to answer every single comment? You are a pain!

[@by2083]

@@terskstarfxx lmao

[@TexelGuy]

They sound so weak.... The gunplay is a crucial part of this game and they reduced its volume so much that I have to increase my windows volume way up to be able to hear them to feel the "punch" from any of the guns, but the downside is that everything else is blasting my ears because they are ungodly loud, so it's not really possible to get it right from the user side.

[@a1do255]

9:55 The shadow of the gun is missing in the video footage on the left declared as “PC 4K Enhanced Graphical Quality.” On the right side the shadow is properly rendered.

[@getsbaked]

So excited you guys made a video covering this issues so soon! I have been discussing them on various forums and so many people are completely ignorant of any issue and think it's perfect, now I have a place to point them because you go into more technical detail than I can dream up! Amazing work at DF, love you guys!

[@jettangeles2707]

Thank you for this in-depth analysis. I was wondering why I felt “micro-stuttering” while above 60 FPS (I have an Acer X34P) and it was very jarring to the point that I haven’t touched it since it released on PC. When I get on, I will lock the FPS to 60 to see if I get a better experience.

[@syrupgoblin4920]

I wish it still had the bloom. That's one of the things that made the original so beautiful to me

[@mainsmain]

No

[@DavidsDead]

I like how you tell me up front in the title, and then expand on it in the video.

[@FidelisG]

I couldn't agree with you more on your summation: "preserve as they were and improving at the same time". Hopefully the developers will listen and implement this methodology for the next instalments of the MCC!

[@HelveticaBold1]

How is the HDR implementation? That’s certainly a bonus.

[@sirbumblebee6245]

that's another thing, HDR is missing on PC

[@abc123a5]

Sir Bumble Bee is it? Because i was just gonna fire it up to test it. I saw hdr looks amazing on xbox one x but really no hdr on pc? Even if u enable on system settings?

[@sirbumblebee6245]

@@abc123a5 no setting for it in game at least

[@RazorEdgeBullie]

Yeah, no HDR on PC.

[@isarafan]

I bought it just to find out there is no HDR. Maybe will return it now...

[@Rynkowski100]

This was perhaps one of the best reviews I've ever seen for a halo game. Still gonna get the remastered version of the game but sad to see some of those bugs in the game. Reach was my favorite halo game growing up so looking forward to playing it again. Definitely subscribing and loved some of that old halo music you threw in there. Overall, well done with the review!

[@hl6816]

Great video!!! Thanks for talking through the technical aspects of the release. One thing though: Reach came out on September 14th, 2010. Still awesome video. Subscribed!

[@GregH999]

Dang I forgot how great the Halo multiplayer was... I am totally hooked yet again....

[@monocore]

Why did you wait so much to fire those first shots at the sound comparison? My anxiety levels went off the chart.

[@BlazeHedgehog]

Thanks for this, Alex. These kinds of changes (and removals!) drive me absolutely crazy. Remasters shouldn't take away features. I wanted to hurry up and play Reach on PC before my Gamepass Ultimate expired in January, but I may just tough it out on the 360 if it means preserving the original visual effects and sound design.

[@tamasmasable]

You guys at DF continually make outstanding and fair in-depth content. The amount of work you put into your videos shines through clearly.

[@WarpBeacon]

Danke schön, Alex! Thanks for the video!

[@nimbulan2020]

Glad to see my high framerate experience replicated here. Weirdly though, on my system running at 120 fps, it seems to switch back and forth between smooth and jittery motion - running smoothly for a second, then jittery for a second, back and forth constantly.

[@thejonathan130]

I know You won't want to hear it, but setting it to 60 frames keeps it from jittering.

[@nimbulan2020]

Oh I did that pretty quickly, and I've been recommending it to others too. Playing at 60 fps is much more responsive in this game than you'd expect since it's using an older single-threaded renderer, which has significantly lower input lag compared to newer multi-threaded engines. Unfortunately, this is also likely the reason for the framerate dips on the Xbox version, since the consoles have very poor single core performance.

[@SvDKILLSWITCH]

Personally, while I agree with everything you take issue with, I think you should have mentioned the areas that 343i have already taken note of as issues. Things like the sound mixing have been addressed - the current mix exists due to issues converting the sound from the 360 version. Dynamic audio mixing wasn't working in the late flights, but was fixed prior to release, indicating 343 are continuing to work in this area. Further audio enhancements will take time, and 343 have said they will update us when they have more to share. The VFR (variable frame-rate) mode has been labelled as experimental, and guidance has been that the intended experience is 60fps, but support for uncapped framerates has been included at community behest. I hope further improvements are planned to this mode. Ultimately I think Reach just got to the point where they had to hit a release deadline. It's a good base to work from, but I hope further improvements are in the pipeline and that it doesn't get abandoned in favour of working on bringing Halo CE Anniversary to PC MCC.

[@vandal_ross]

Thanks for this, another brilliant informative and very detailed video Alex... Loving your in-depth PC work! GG to you sir :)

[@Megaspartan23]

According to PCgamingwiki, there is a way to fix the audio Go to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\LocalLow\MCC\Saved\Config\WindowsNoEditor\. Open GameUserSettings.ini. Change AudioQualityLevel from 0 to 1. If you still experience audio issues, try increasing the value.

[@spiffyshadow]

I really want someone to talk about the fact that we cant see other peoples Spartans in lobby and have zero time to look at service records. i feel like armor and nameplates have been devalued and people care less about obtaining them also it seems like the social aspect has been ruined by all this. i wanna jump into a lobby and see someone with Emiles helmet and think wow that persons put in serious work. it just doesn't feel like that anymore. please cover this. like so Digital Foundry can see. oh and also. where is cross play? Microsoft windows... Microsoft Xbox.. Microsoft published game.. come on Microsoft and 343.

[@fredcrewneck]

The multiplayer is bringing back good memories!

[@Simte]

The editing in this video is so great!

[@googlewolly]

Excellent review. You discussed everything, including the above-60 FPS. Appreciated.

[@SteelSkin667]

Sounds like the audio mixing is completely out of whack. Ambient sounds are almost all the same volume regardless of distance, and the weapons sounds are toned down to the point of sounding muffled. All the dynamic range is lost, almost like they ran everything through a compressor.

[@eclipse9304]

Reach was really held back on the 360, glad it's getting the care it deserves, but I feel like it can shine just a bit brighter, mostly in the smaller details.

[@sprtndlx]

On reflection, the lift on normal reach you can stand and walk normally on it but on mcc, the lift makes your character lift its legs as if you are jumping and moving makes you slide. Like how kat is in 17:19

[@rainman3577]

Fantastic review Alex, I feel like I always learn something new with your videos

[@3KPK3]

Chill people. They will fix the audio issue soon most probably. Be happy that they provided a remastered version of this fan favorite in 4K 60 fps! Thank you Xbox and Game Pass!

[@Hylander_1989]

I think the point is that this game was months in beta with a general attitude being 'it will be released when its polished/ready' it's obvious MS pushed 343 to get this out the door before Christmas. The game certainly could have benefitted from a later release. I noticed the audio and geometry LOD issues on X. I love the 4k presentation and enjoyed my play through though. The art design really does shine at a higher res.

[@MarikHavair]

"Be happy to pay for an old experience in an inferior state" I'll be happy when the game is free of basic technical flaws and not before, it's not like they did this out of generosity.

[@jameswalsh5683]

22:45 THANK YOU! i knew there was something wrong with 144fps in this game but my friends just called me mad. Little do they know. Everything just felt too "off"

[@JHD6045]

I am a part of the Insider xbox program and the Insider for Halo. On one of the support forums they've said that they are working on the LOD system for xbox 1X. Apparently they had a check list of things they wanted to make sure they hit right before releasing. I guess the LOD system was one that as far as the xbox goes would be addressed later on.

[@romero1337]

Glad you touched on the audio. Playing reach on the 360 always had great punchy audio. On the PC everything sounds mixed and muffled with very flat weapons.

[@sonsofblades]

22:24 This is the same issue that happens with previous Halo (CE and 2)games on PC that had a 60 FPS toggle. All of the animations were 30 FPS, non-keyframed, since it was targeting a perfect 30 FPS on the console. Obviously, with PCs being more powerful, when uncapping the framerate or setting to double the model's base animation frames, it becomes extremely obvious. So it seems that maybe it's an engine limitation more than anything else, or Bungie hand animated every single model.

[@InnuendoXP]

Maybe, but community mods for Halo: CE implemented frame interpolation to correct for this. Pretty sure the anniversary version had something similar.

[@sonsofblades]

@@InnuendoXP Oh I'm sure that is the case, just like modders did for Quake 1(10 FPS non-skeletal animations).343 industries, I would imagine, used a small subset of their dev team to work on getting Reach out, since the vast majority of their 450 person team is working on Infinite. Or Reach could have engine issues that prevent true frame interpolation. Without looking at the code, we won't know. I just know that converting the old engine to run on x64 cpu's was an absolute monumental task, to put it mildly.

[@SkyOnPC_]

These animations played back fine at uncapped framerates during Test Flights 2 and 3. Whatever change they've temporarily made while trying to fix the input latency above 60 have since broken them.

[@sonsofblades]

@@SkyOnPC_ Well, I'm guessing we'll see a patch pretty soon then.

[@Shezmen88]

I hope the devs see this. I can't like this video enough. You always do such a honest job.

[@storm-shadow1237]

Plays best on PC

[@manuelbesada]

Amazing video. Thanks. You Made all the important points. Fix audio, please.

[@moisesdaniel3051]

Congratulations for the excelent work as always Digital Foundry!

[@eduardogodoy8438]

0:50 Wasnt Halo 2 released for PC in 2007?

[@kevincampbell989]

yes it was.

[@LamziLamziLamzi]

finally, been waiting for this video

[@user-fo3qd2dh4d]

you waiting

[@LamziLamziLamzi]

@@user-fo3qd2dh4d yes

[@Kirtahl]

I love that familiar sound of casings hitting dirt from that M6. Audio design was always good from Bungo

[@axoliminator]

i had no idea about the sound and +60fps issues. Seems like i'm going to wait and see if it gets fixed

[@martixy2]

Verdict: Wait for the sound and animation fixes.

[@MegaSmiley]

Yeah game felt really weird with an unlocked framerate so I just locked it to 60. Disappointed, since I only recently got a 120hz monitor and I was loving how smooth other games felt.

[@GameplayandTalk]

That was a ridiculously involved analysis, Alex. Great work! These ports definitely don't seem perfect, but man I really want to play this with a keyboard and mouse.

[@aflyingmodem]

100% agree with you, and hopefully they see this and address/fix these issues for reach and other games

[@EchoDissolve]

Alex was such a great addition to the DF team. I remember a few years back this felt like the PlayStation Pro channel, but now we have Alex to champion the PC platform. Thank you, DF and Alex.

[@getsbaked]

he vocalizes my thoughts with such extensive technical knowledge, he really is a joy to listen to.

[@trblemayker5157]

I'm glad that games like Doom 2016 focus more on 60 fps being the minimum.

[@kitsunelegend7976]

I mean, we're talking about a nearly decade old game that was originally designed for the Xbox 360, where getting even a stable 30 fps was amazing... All 343i did was port the game over to PC. This isn't a "remake". Nothing was remade, nothing was redone. Its simply a port. A rather well done port though tbh, considering how old the game is, and the quality of some other ports in the past.

[@joeykeilholz925]

Pc games always better than console. Sadly Microsoft and bungie didn't get the memo after halo 2 and before 2019

[@trblemayker5157]

@@kitsunelegend7976 Considering how the game runs on laughably low pc requirements, Bungie would've done a stellar job on the PC port if it had happened. Too bad MS thought the PC market was a trove of pirates back then.

[@memebot6490]

@@trblemayker5157 Steam didn't exist, if I'm not mistaken. PC WAS full of pirates, cause of lack of dedicated online store. It was even worse back then.

[@NickkTran]

Paul Westfall Steam been out for 16 years. It's just people were used to buying game back then.

[@Larrybarrymo]

Thanks Alex great analysis! i was wondering about that thing with 60+ fps but now im gratefull to you :)

[@thanksbetotap]

This was super thorough and excellent, Alex! Your best video yet.

[@HAL1138]

This was in Beta for months. Why can’t they release a finished version of anything?

[@jetsetatrophy67]

You could uninstall it and reinstall when they release their patches.

[@F1zzzy90]

Because daddy Microsoft wants it now, not after Christmas

[@Myst97]

Outside of audio issues and the crouching on PC, the game has been pretty flawless for me and my friend. Audio doesn't really bother me a ton because it doesn't sound that bad. Glad they released the product lol feel and plays finished.

[@NeoVejiita]

Halo 2 PC wasn’t released until 2007 :O

[@PlaylistWatching1234]

What a crazy thorough video this is. Incredible work.

[@deathab0ve]

11:35 look at the shadow casted by noble 6 on the falcon. Big improvement.

[@farhanjamli3676]

My feeling exactly A lot of freezing and stuttering issues No subs during gameplay The sound is muddled as hell, the guns sounds like bb guns and can barely hear the coice acting under all that noise

[@linhza501]

I found the voice to be loud as hell across the board, while gun sounds and effects are muffled.

[@ICEMANZIDANE]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, MediEval, Resident Evil 2.... Devs take money in hand, spend time and effort and bring these awesome games to 2019 standards. MS, LIKE ALWAYS, is greedy and used to milk MS fanboys. MS sells 1:1 conversion of Halo for 10bucks. Just for comparison, BF 5 for example sold for 15bucks in the last origin sale... No effort spend, no money taken in hand.PLS STOP ADVOCATING BIG COMPANIES LIKE MS. 10 bucks for what??? There is absolutely no development effort. BTW, MediEval's remake gives you the base original PS1 games aswell. That would have been nice if MS would have done a Halo remake + ship the originial game with it like MediEval. But hey, who is MediEval right? MS ftw.

[@UndertakerU2ber]

Freezing and stuttering? Are you for real? I've been able to play it just fine on my GTX 1070 and 4670K at 4K 60FPS, besides my antivirus falsely detecting the executable as a virus at first. What are your specs?

[@Ryzen-gh1en]

@@UndertakerU2berthis is not an unreal engine game right, if it is im shocked not because it is a very older title because back in days almost 99% UE3 games use to be stuttery mess fuck same with today UE4, i didn't get any stutters or freezing problem at all with my ryzen 1600 and 1050ti can play above 100+ fps most of times max setting XD

[@farhanjamli3676]

@@UndertakerU2ber dude I'm also playing at 4k 60fps but with higher specs than you are dude. R5 2600 and rx 5700 xt. Just bcoz you don't have the problems doesn't mean other people don't.

[@Gitaroo236]

Alex also forgot to mention hdr is omitted on pc I think.

[@DarkReturns1]

No! Is it really??

[@mrchiledonut]

Great coverage. Everything you mentioned is noticeable within the first few minutes of play and I hope 343 takes a look at what you found. The biggest issue to me is the sound. I'm on the X, and the sound is extremely base-y and yet the gunfire and everything else is quiet comparatively. It's as if someone turned up the base and turned the treble down. I can hear the boom before I can actually hear the sound of the weapon, so it'll rattle my room, but I won't actually hear or know where the shots are coming from. I kept saying to myself that maybe it always sounded like that and I just don't remember, but glad I was wrong. The only thing I want to point out though is that Reach on 360 didn't come out in 2009 (that was ODST), it came out a year later in 2010.

[@topshelfgaming9093]

aahhh just what i was waiting for! an In-depth dive into MCC on PC by Alex! thanks man good work!

[@aL3891_]

"Colleague John..." you cut him deep John.. you cut him deep.. :(

[@xd-ko9oo]

what should he have called him then? dear john? bf john?

[@aL3891_]

They usually call each other "friend" but in the CRT video, John called Alex "Colleague", presumably breaking his heart and now having him calling John "Colleague" as well

[@batmangovno]

Enough of this levity boys, we have frames and pixels to count!

[@bazzy5644]

You are a weird man, stop making fanfiction with guys doing their job, this is strange behavior lol

[@MicroCosmix]

I stopped playing becuse of the bad sound, I hope they fix it so I can play through this game. I have a good soundsystem so bad sounds becomes to obvious..

[@panic_diver]

Exactly dude, sound mixing is horrendous which only becomes more prominent when heard over a wider dynamic range be it through a good sound system or a nice set of headphones. Hoping for a quick fix.

[@ICEMANZIDANE]

Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, MediEval, Resident Evil 2.... Devs take money in hand, spend time and effort and bring these awesome games to 2019 standards. MS, LIKE ALWAYS, is greedy and used to milk MS fanboys. MS sells 1:1 conversion of Halo for 10bucks. Just for comparison, BF 5 for example sold for 15bucks in the last origin sale... No effort spend, no money taken in hand.PLS STOP ADVOCATING BIG COMPANIES LIKE MS. 10 bucks for what??? There is absolutely no development effort. BTW, MediEval's remake gives you the base original PS1 games aswell. That would have been nice if MS would have done a Halo remake + ship the originial game with it like MediEval. But hey, who is MediEval right? MS ftw.

[@TexelGuy]

@@panic_diver People have gotta be playing the game using some REALLY shitty speakers/headphones to not be able to hear the glaring issues right away. I thought it couldn't be that bad, but it was worse than what people were describing, atleast for me. (Apparently some people get crackling audio too which is even worse)

[@by2083]

@@TexelGuy yeah wasnt that bad but could be better

[@panic_diver]

@@TexelGuy I couldn't even complete the first mission. Everything felt flat, shooting felt impactless with no feedback. Enemies don't react much to bullets and gun sounds are buried under all the other noise. You don't need to be an audiophile to discern these glaring issues, in a game about shooting and guns its genuinely a deal-breaker.

[@DanMufc-jt9le]

So what i cant understand is, say if you have a recent tv model that has 4k built in, and you have say the xbox one s with hdr enabled, for a game like halo, cod, battlefield,fifa etc What resolution should you play them on in order to get smooth fps and make it look good if that makes sense ? Also does having dynamic contrast, dynamic colour gamma have any sort of impact on performance ? Ive had my lg 4k tv for a while now but still dont think ive figured out the sweet spot as its hard to get it right, And what setting is best for watching media on them to ?

[@ZinhoMegaman]

MSAA can be forced through display driver just like 16x Anisotropic Filter and it works perfectly with the in game AA. Here I play in 1440p with 4xMSAA. Edit: I forgot to say that looks better then 4k without any MSAA, but this is my personal opinion.

[@tedahwooga]

The audio made it literally unplayable for me

[@cad3nce]

Me too. It's a real shame.

[@x-coin6740]

Whats wrong with the sound it sounds fine to me 🤷‍♂️

[@Tony-yn5rr]

Stupid. I don’t want to damage my hearing from playing Halo. If you want gun sounds yo sound dangerously loud stick to csgo kiddo

[@WonderMePartyStrip]

@@AfterBurnerTeirusu It can't be fixed. Read the article they used in that pic from the tweet.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

@@Tony-yn5rr Did you really just call someone kiddo for playing CS? also you do release we have this amazing thing called volume Guns are loud, they're guns

[@MLGJuggernautgaming]

Considering how hard it’s been for Xenia to emulate reach, they did a good job. Makes me wonder if they even know how their own game works

[@bazzy5644]

Its not their own game in the first place, the only game 343 made in this collection is halo 4. Bungie made the other halo games. So its no wonder 343 and splash damage are fumbling in the dark here.

[@kevindesousa6277]

Nice video, wich version on the game did you use for pc ? Steam or windows store ? I had issues with game on the windows store (the outer worlds) I could'nt play in exclusive fullscreen but i could with the epic game store version and it gave me way better and smoother performances. Maybe Halo mcc is plagued by the same issues ?

[@TurboPikachu]

I have a 75fps monitor and any right-stick input on a gamepad suffers from the same inconsistencies as mouse. Turning my framerate back down to 60fps until a patch addresses this. Also would like motion blur back as an option

[@AvithOrtega]

Being a music producer and videogame composer, I cantell you somewhat what they did with audio. It sounds very compressed and low resolution, which means that they probably compressed the audiofiles to be smaller so less memory space it uses, and that "muffles" the audio, there are less high end. But what is worse for me is that it also sound overcompressed (what people percieve as "louder"). Therefore the dynamic range is diminished, and this is not a thing of file compression, but more a mixing process that somebody at 343 thought was necessary, but it already sounded perfect, there wasnt any need to remix the audio.

[@chiefmegadeth]

I always thought the ghosting was my TVs fault. I used to ask friends if they had this issue. A couple of friends said they never had that issue. Now I know they were full of shit. Looks great and no more ghosting on the X1X is so good!

[@getsbaked]

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to trust other gamers words that aren't technically savvy. There are thousands of people that will tell you their version of Links Awakening on Switch doesn't have performance problems when that's simply not true, these people will throw constructive conversation out the window.

[@tadtakuma]

I've noticed that some, usually less tech-savvy people, are less prone to noticing stuff like that. It's not necessarily that they're lying, but rather just not noticing or caring about it.

[@getsbaked]

@@tadtakuma Yeah it's just frustrating when they declare there are no issues. Power to the people who aren't bothered by these minor imperfections, I have a friend who plays with horrible screen tearing and doesn't notice any issues, his PC was running games at 12 frames and it took him days to notice something was wrong.

[@Sebbz]

Thank you for making videos Digital Foundry! Can’t emphasize how important you are to the gaming community as a whole :D

[@ghostdiv7sion194]

professional editing. very good job sir

[@drLuigidr]

My biggest problem is coop latency. Can't enjoy the campaign with my friend

[@matheuskiskissian]

Changing the "AudioQualityLevel" from 0 to 1 in the GameUserSettings.ini file seems to have made the audio quality a bit more clear for me

[@DiegoAlanTorres96]

How about changing it to 3?

[@fredcrewneck]

1:06 that was dope

[@convexcornet2169]

Another thing I'd like fixing: the pulsing effect on Jackals sheilds isn't always displayed. it effects some barriers too I think.