PC version of Halo 2 coming - for Windows Vista

Yeah, good luck with that M$. Hopefully there will not be a demand to go out and upgrade the os and M$ will release the damn thing on its existing platform.

I won't EVER upgrade to vista. EVER. Screw Vista, and screw the Fritz Chip.

An XBox costs less than a copy of Vista. I don't get it.

dammit dammit dammit....if they do this, i'm never going to buy that game....total BS.

Oh well, i guess i won't be playing Halo 2.

Guess I'll be forced to shell out 30 bucks instead and get half life 2. Why must I be forced to play counter strike? damn you M$!!!!!!

lol i have win98 and there nott gunna make me go to vista lol

I joined Afterdawn just for this comment. I guess that even if THEY would publish it only for Vista SOMEBODY would undo they're efforts for us to upgrade to Vista by bringing Halo 2 in other ways to the market. It's happened before =)

I've actually played Halo, and it really sucks. They could of released it for free out of a donkey's ass and I still wouldn't have cared.

the decision will force more people to pirate vista aswell as halo. nice move microsoft ;-)

trusted platform module (TPM)=total evilness. Halo2=wedge strategy I smell a rat...

This is total BS.

SayYes *hands you handcuffs* DOnt forget your bond to steam and valve when you paly,er sign your rights away,eerrr whatever *L* once HL2 is updated it goes into online only mode,altho you can get workarounds they have yet to make a workaround mod loader for HL2 its just sad what all they did and the game is not that great to go thru all it all another thign its 10-15 to get a new Steam key. I liked halo and would love to get Halo 2 but this vista stuff is painfull and pure BS this amkes me want to buy vista just to back it up and take it back.....and then they wonder why pll crack games >< its either to skip the joys of the CD protection programs that mess with systems or simpleying wanting to paly a game without constantly put CDs in and scratch them in the off chance.... Glitched I loved 98se but once I got use to the stableness of XP I cant realy go back *L*

@ ZIppyDSM What?

thekingo7 What to witch comment? the signing your rights away to paly with big brother watching over you for HL2. Or the buy and swith vista scheme, Or the about I love Win98se but I love XP stableness more :P

im sorry im kindof new to this vista thing .soo tell me what it is .but from my uderstanding what everyone else is saying that vista is not the way to go . and i like listening to the people .soooo POWER TO THE PEOPLE.!!!!

t.grey Its ok Vistsa(knowen as longhorn) is M$'s new Operateing System,so much like games slowly became XP only M$ has started befor everyone else and is makeing thier newer games Vista Only. Meaning you have to speand 150+ to buy a XP to Vista Upgrade CD/DVD....

THANKS zippy .but it does not seem worth the money but then companies are always wondering why people burn copies from other people .it just dont seem worth it .i wont be buying it.

uh. yeah. like i'm going to get vista just to upgrade my laptop? Thats not happening microdust! Besides, if we can port window games on to linux, I am pretty sure we will be able to port vista games onto a good comp running xp. Hey, didn't fony spend like millions of dollars on cd protection that we just used a sharpy to circumvent anyway? lol.

igounfaze has anyone made a DX converter for linux? it be nice to paly older win9X games on such a great OS,one of reasons I ahve a love ahte relationship with XP it runs only half my games *L*

I know games run on linux are mostly ported over 1 by one theres not a DX=direct X run tiem for it or anyhting but I am not fuly up to date .

I just got my computer last year i don't have money to upgrade it. I have to use windows xp for other 7years. But my computer is still not outdated.

More like it is out of date,thats what M$ wants you to think,they also want you to think you dont ahve the right to return software if you find it lacking,or the rightto make personal use backups..or the right to complain about them and thier malware (starforce) you might get sued.....

What I think everyone here is missing is the plain and simple fact that if your PC can run things like Quake 4, Half-Life 2 or Doom 3 you more then likely will be able to run Vista and not have to upgrade your PC. Look at when XP came out.. 233Mhz was the min. most people had 400Mhz+ systems. If you cannot run those games then I doubt Halo 2 is going to run on your machine regardless if you have VIsta, Xp, Xp x64 or 98SE. Also upgrading will utilize the power of todays newer machines.. I mean you can only push current OS's so far. I myself have an AMD 64 3200+. When it comes to paying for the upgrade, maybe there will be a trial version, if you catch my drift. The base fact is that if you cannot run VIsta then your PC needs to be updated ANYWAYS, and your not much of a PC Gamer if you cannot at least run any of those 3 games I stated on low settings. My old 1.25GHz P3 runs them all in low. but thats another story. As two last notes too, if MS wants to put THEIR games onto only their new OS then who are we to argue, it would be like telling Sony they shouldnt make games only for PS2. Also for those who think Halo or Halo 2 are crap.. your the exception not the rule, 14.5Million people enjoyed it immensely :D

@$&#%& @$$#01&!!! Damn them!!! And @ Phoenix09: I have to say that I find your argument argumentative and would like to come back with a rebuttal. Any real gamer would obviously know that, of course you would need to upgrade, but that's what makes us so mad. I have a computer good enough to run F.E.A.R. in medium settings, but I have enough resources to run it. With Vista, now, I'm going to have to go out and buy a lot more upgrades JUST FOR VISTA! Now, even if someone were to have a pretty good rig, now they have to go out and spend an arm and a leg trying to get good enough specs for both the system and the game. This is just some sneaky way to make people do something they would eventually do, but make it hell by doing it just before the next wave of new technology comes out, thereby making people spend a lot more than they should. And if you didn't know, Bungie, the real company who made this game, was sold out by M$, and it would have come out on PC when or before it came out on Xbox. I say again, damn them for this inconvinience of theirs! It's already been a year and a half in waiting, and now they do this. I hate every last person who came up with this idea.

600 million wated hours ! Imagine what humanity could have done with that ! [Yes, I know: made a proper job of destroying the world :) ] Anyhow, I've been running Windows xp/64 for about six months or so now and really enjoying it. HP is tragic about issuing drivers for it, so I'm now using Brother and Konica Minolta printers. I'll admit to spending more than $400 for my PC, but, then again, serious gamers will too. I'm seeing xp/64 as the beta test for Vista, and it looks good. I can play lots of games straight in 64-bit (well, 32-bit inside the machine) which my son can't play on a 1 GHz Athlon at all ! I just skipped over to digiconcepts and priced out a system for about $1.2K that, while a little sound-light, looks very reasonable. Memory, hard drives, and all the other bits and pieces are getting very cheap, so I can hardly see people being able to complain too much !

Phoenix09 You have a point but my comp runs halo 1 fine so it should run halo 2 fine since it is a Xbox game if it was a 360 then mabye you would need Vista and the multi threadyness of it.wait...XP uses multi thread 0_o Bascily what I am sayign is this is a lame attpemt to sell vista much like buying out bungie and have Halo on the Xbox when the PC version was finished and not release for 2 years.......

"Also upgrading will utilize the power of todays newer machines" - What? I want to utilize the power of my machine the way i see fit, not the way M$ sees fit. Also i can run all three of the games you mentioned on on high quality, but cannot run vista fully on my system as it's AGP based, as most systems are at the moment. It's gonna be at least late 2007, early 2008 before systems start to emerge that can deal with Vista easily.... That's a long time to wait for Halo 2.

HALTRON OMG Vistda aint that power hunger is it? x_x

I also run Windows Xp 64 with a 3200+ (2Ghz) and run Quake 4 on full settings.. the thing is as I was trying to say in my previous post, everything comes around.. I remember when people were saying the exact same things about going from 95 to 98 then 98 to ME (ME was horrible tho) then from ME or 98SE to XP. Also those running 64bit machines will not notice a heck of a diffrence in resource useage as the 64bit extentions make for a faster enviroment. "And if you didn't know, Bungie, the real company who made this game, was sold out by M$, and it would have come out on PC when or before it came out on Xbox." Negitive, Bungie originaly was making Halo for PC in 98 then decided to make it Mac, then bungie started going under and MS BOUGHT them out, not sold them out, and decided to put Halo onto Xbox first. Also I have a thought that MS will be adding mucho to the graphics engine and making it 64bit as well, heck even the PC version of Halo had minor graphical upgrades, better sound and higher framerates then its Xbox;s counterpart (granted it was almost identical on a 1Ghz machine) "Bascily what I am sayign is this is a lame attpemt to sell vista much like buying out bungie and have Halo on the Xbox when the PC version was finished and not release for 2 years....... " Heck I got a demo (video) from a 98 version of PC Gamer. The thing was in works for years. It was MS's money that made it see the light. Hey if you buy a new sports car, you decide where to drive it and who rides in it. ;) I am not trying to be argumentitive, I just hate seeing this sudden gang mentality spring up everytime something new is coming on the corner.. Heck sometimes I wish I was still on my 286 with MS-DOS and DOSSHELL :P

Haltron Most PC's being sold now are PCI-E based and your using beta versions of Vista.. nough said. By utilizing todays machines I am talking about things like 64bit (window Xp 32bit doesnt) and PCI-E for example my 64bit 2Ghz runs Quake 4 at Ultra Settings with 4x AA on at 60FPS in Windows XP 64, but only high on Windows XP (32bit) Sadly being a PC gamer means constant upgrading cause developers dont have to squeeze more out of whats there.. they know that they dont have to.. its an accept it or move on thing people.. its the way its been since day one ;)

Phoenix09 Like I said you got a point but 2Ghz CPU + and a 256MB gf 6800 should handel Halko 2 fine but they just want to screw with us and make it vista only why not make it where all the fancy options work on XP..its like Quake 4 and doom 3 they made it to top heavy and thus it wont sell alot becuse most cant play it. Altho as bad as DOom 3 was Quake 4 was worse >< uhg

Zippy Oh so true.. trust me I was pissed off myself.. It is what led to my recent upgrade from a 1.25Ghz P3 to my AMD 64 beast now.. Hell I remember upgrading my 486 33Mhz to a 66Mhz so I could play DOOM 2.. Its ID that is to blame :p

grrr I ment fancy options Vista but it can run on XP ><

I got that :D In fact thats how I read it :P

Wheres an edit button :S Anywho.. here are the Windows Vista System "Guidelines" http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistarpc.mspx Sorry if direct linking is forbidden :S

ID has changed...hell even Daikatana was better/more fun that DOom 3/Quake 4.....Carmack is snorting cocaine and trying to work his techno cinima magic while the rest of them forget the core of a game is gamepaly and story.....

Phoenix09 I have the vista beta DVD as downlaoded copy it dont work tho whines about missing soemthing and crashs out....I wanted to try the horror and get a preview of the horror did it with win2K and XP.

Hmm I had some Alpha build fun with Longhorn eons ago.. I think I may search for a Vista Beta to try on here.. I meet all the specs very nicely ;D Again tho.. its a Beta :P

aaww nuts I got everythign but the CPU I ahve a 2.4GHZ barton XP 3000+ 400FSB LOL

yeah, I am thinking those be beta specs too.. and you know betas are hooors. I have a feeling final compatibilty will be much higher.. with at least higher spec AMD XPs and P4's being added to that list. I hope :p As it stands I hope my Vista machine will be able to network with my XP slug. But I think we maybe starting to hijack this :S I say all the power to them.. it may make me mad. But hell everything these days do. Freaking getting too old :P

I wonder if they force to thos CPUs XP had soem stupid thign that kept you from running it on some older systems,it ran fine on a 400MHZ adm 6 128MB ramm *L* aklil slow but fine *L*

PM'd you.. dont want to hijack it over to just a Vista discussion ;)

Not really the first time they´ve pulled something like this. Age Of Empires 3 (the single player at least) runs fine on Windows 2000, but it´s a pain to install since Ensemble Studios and Microsoft try to prevent it. There´s absolutely no reason to keep people who paid for Win2000 from playing AOE3, except to begin forcing the general transition of users to XP. I wonder what the EC would think about this...

Forget the basic requirements, it's the recommended requirements that you want to pay attention to such as: "A video card with more than 256MB RAM, 2GB of DDR3 memory and a S-ATA 2 hard drive." More: http://www.apcstart.com/teched/pivot/entry.php?id=6 Plus don't forget about the anti-piracy measures put into Vista.

what it all comes down to ...are you going to spend money to upgrade .just to spend money for another game. its not worth it .i think ill get rid of my xbox also .

I just read every post. Interesting points. I have to say that I can understand upgrading computers as a gamer. I have the current desknote because I not only wanted to play, but NEEDED to play the new GTA's. My old one didn't give me the visibility I wanted; and poof: new desknote! Then I was a straight WinME fanatic. I am one of the very few that think WinME was awesome for gaiming and video play. Not one crash ever, and drivers seemed to always be at the ready no matter what the game. Use word, and bam; BSOD! Never understood that. I still made the transition over to WinXP Pro. Changed all my settings to classic and became very happy with its functionalities. But that's just it. Thinking of Vista now. I have to buy a whole other machine just to run the OS. But then I am also going to be playing games, surfing, and other things at the same time. I know that with the new OS more games will be formated to Vista settings (like the PSP's constant software upgrades - not being able to play newer games with the old versions). *ranting* What I mean is this: When I chose to upgrade my desknote. I CHOSE IT! There is no more "I" with what M$ is doing. Yeah, I know they will make Vista backwards compatible [if they didn't, I see huge problems ahead] but they have how many WinXP users? To how many Halo 1 PC users? The proper thing to do would be NOT to strongarm your customers. Make the Halo 2 Vista ready, but also current standards acceptable. That way you reach all of your current customers; and still entice them to the upgrade. Can anyone really disagree with that?

igounfaze You are totally correct. Halo 2 should be Vista ready but XP useable Now that I think of it I never got a BSOD in ME either if I was playing games, but any other kind of app I was always getting em.. should have been called Windows 98 Gamer. Haltron. Again that list was for the BETA version of a program. You have to understand that Beta's are generally unstable on what will be the min. Also some 3rd party source isnt going to have jack right until MS releases the full specs or they have a VISTA retail copy on the machine. Even then.. XP was so RAM hungry when it first came out and didnt use RAM very nice, after SP1 it did and thats when I finally made a full upgrade from 98SE. As for Anti-Piracy.. name one that hasnt been broken within days. :S My recomendations.. If you have a 939 mobo get a new 64bit proc.. cheapest ones cost about $170CAD, you will love the diffrence and you will be ready. If you dont have a 939, get a cheap Asus A8N-E mobo about $120 CAD, then just stick it in the case you have now. Aside from being "Vista Ready" You will also have speed increases across the board and be happier for it. You will have to upgrade sometime.. might as well start looking now.. heck you can probably get both those parts for under $250 if you look around online.

No offense Phoenix09, but i think your missing the point. For a start its a strategist from within Microsoft that stated those specs, this is not third party speculation. secondly, as you yourself stated before, new versions of windows are released looking to utilise the new power that exists in the hardware market at the given time, but looking at Vista if i want a PC to play Quake 4 or FEAR at the same frame rate as with WinXP i'm gonna need a higher spec video card simply due to the space and power that the WPF will occupy.... by the time we reach a level where the space that the WPF occupies becomes negligible (or close to), then i'll upgrade, because i don't want to sacrifice resources in the name of functionalities that i don't want. The WPF is just one example of many new features such as superfetch - ongoing defragmentation, but what does that mean for performance if this is attempted whilst im encoding video with huge multimedia files? I know that some of these features can be turned off but does'nt that defeat the purpose of upgrading - just to play Halo2! (M$ rip-off, this is a financially driven decision, not technological) No, i'll wait a few years....

MMM I know vista also has DMR or whatever digi rights scheme they come up with I guess as bloated and evil as it is I would be better off either building a comp for vista only or wait a year for all the cracks and "fixs" to come out 0_o I am still rooting some group figures out how to make DX10 for DX9 or figures out Halo 2 realy uses DX9 or soemthing of the like *L*

I was about to buy the latest X1800XT but then I herd it wasn't DX10 compatable so now I have even more time to wait to save up even more money.

wheelman7 You got vista already? DX10 is only on vista 0-o

No, I don't have Vista yet but I plan on getting when it comes out. Hence the wast of money I would have just spent on a new video card.

wheelman7 dont forget you will also need 2gig of the fastest ramm your mobo can run *L* Vista is goign to be a ram eater 0-o

My pc isnt even near that running at 1.25ghz 256mb 64mb vram and no money to upgrade :( everyone shouldnt buy halo till they make it xp useable and make a petition:)

sobhy2406 petitions never get to far with M$ even the Court petition/order's to make M$ paly fair 0-o

I´m running a 9700Pro right now. The new Nvidia and ATI cards are pretty nice, but I think I´ll hang on until the first DX10 cards start to arive (hopefully by the end of the year).

well i have 1g of mem.and a 9600ati card that should be enough .but to change everything just to pla halo2 or some games is still not worth it

I don't want it , You'll need SLI to run the game . Pfffft I like my games running stable 70 fps and graphics cranked right up!!

I have also radeon 9700 (pro) and 768 rambus mem.. I bet my system would work perfectly in vista if i had faster cpu than 1,7ghz. Probably 2ghz and above is enought to run vista. It´s like they say between the lines. You can run vista with less than they say, but you wont get all the eye candy (sad =)). if you read "http://www.apcstart.com/teched/pivot/entry.php?id=6" you notice that he says it will work with 512 mem(ddr3?) and video card that has only 64mb mem. If you think about todays games, there are more and more games that require cpu above 2ghz. Dont know about halo2 but why not. This halo working only vista reminds me the time i couldnt play some ea games in windows 2k because ea had some wierd opinion that win2k isnt suitable for games. ^lol^ As everyone i also dont think it´s fair to gamers to make the game only for vista. Then again you cant force them to make it for winxp or 2k but as we know m$ isnt fair. I hope i can finaly throw all ancient floppy drivers to garbage can.

"As everyone i also dont think it´s fair to gamers to make the game only for vista. Then again you cant force them to make it for winxp or 2k but as we know m$ isnt fair." -- How true.

They came out with Halo and you needed a damn good video card to run , plus the MP lags ...I have a BFG 6800 GT OC and I'm betting Halo 2 is gonna run like chit on it .. they code em on Quadros or whatever and the Grphics cards are a gen behind .

video card with more than 256MB RAM 2GB of DDR3 memory and a S-ATA 2 hard drive Wow, more than 256mb Vram to run this, so it looks like you need a $500 video card to even work. and 2GB of DD3 memory? I'm not positive, but has ddr3 ram even became avaible to the public yet? I know its on video cards already because I got a ATI Radeon x700 Pro with 256mb DDR3. Will its kinda cool that it says that you could zoom up a pic and it won't become blurry. Yea, just Halo one for PC needed a good PC to run. Before I had a P4 3.8ghz w/ HT, 128mb 9200 radeon, and 512mb pc3200 ram and it lagged so much. Now that I upgraded the ram to 1gb and the video card to the 256mb ATI x700 Radeon Pro, it runs perfectly.

People, look at the business aspect, it is great! First of all look at like this: $0.07 per dvd disc+ a low number of dollars to port the game from xbox to vista format. so there wont be much of a loss if any in the production stages. Secondly, coupling this Halo 2 with vista is great even if they can get only 1000 people to buy vista simply for Halo 2. They are looking at most likely near a half million. That may be nothing to start in the eyes of microsoft, but it puts production of Halo out of hte way, and there will be more than 1000 who upgrade their system with halo 2, and more that will upgrade their system to be up-to-date, and more to be ahead of the curve. There is simply a "great incentive" in the eyes of some, to upgrade in Halo 2. Halo 2 on PC will simply get the word out as well: "my halo 2 looks so much better than the xbox!" (<- of course coming from somebody with the requirements to run vista and a high end game) "and you are using vista? maybe microsoft is on to something" (<- coming from the ever numerous speculative buyer) lets face it, vista in 2-3 years time will be the industry standard, if they can force a good headstart with halo 2, why not?

The Diehards will price the price I guess your saying.I been there done that. You want HD Performance you need the video cards to do it I.E. AA, AF, Cranked right up , Halo 2 will be great looking on PC but , No Doubt ButI'm not paying $1000.00/SLI-Crossfire(Trust Me)to see it. P.S. I'll stay Richer and buy a PS3 , Right now Console is more bang for the $$$...Computer tech done pissed me off .

Pittfan, I don't know what problems you had with Halo but I had a measly p4 2.0 with 512 mb and a Geforce FX 5600 256 mb video card and it ran PERFECT! Never lagged or anything. Weird.

I had a FX 5200at the time when I first tried Halo and Was'nt big Into PC Gaming. I Tried Halo PC demo like a month ago and I still was'nt Inpressed, For a $400 vid card you should be able to run a Game on the Highest settings AA , AF Maxed out. I like HD I guess . :)

I agree. I have the exact same video card as you do now.

Hmm, I dont know why your systems didnt run Halo well.. my 1.25Ghz P3 1GB of RAM with a geforce 5200FX ran it sweet. 1024x768x32 with AA 2X on. Meh, oh well

ya i also hope that halo 2 comes out for pc...but dose any1 know if halo ce needs halo pc to run cuz i dont have that much memory and i would like to get rid of halo pc cuz i never use it i only use halo ce...so if u do know if u do or dont need to have halo pc to run halo ce that would be great just send me a priviate message

Halo can run on basic settigns on a 1.2Ghz XP or better CPU 500MB+ ramm and at the least a DX8 ready 64DDR vid card this is what I had when I ran halo and for the most part it ran ok.

that is great yeah...but do i need halo pc for halo ce to run?

forget microsoft.

halorockz It seems Halo Custom Edition is an addon,sicne it adds more graphic fuetures and editing tools yes it needs Halo PC,AAaahhhhhh I see thier getting the furbur up for halo now alil befor Vista will be out >< god I hate M$.oh well I wonder if it will work wif my back up :3

It would be better to just buy a Xbox 360. Why spend all that money upgrading your PC?

iguanaman I been thinking about that but KB and mouse rules the dim lil pad even more so now adays with bare minuim controller setups and halos "innovative" aim system that cant be used by some with no "normal" control option button config and such games are playing worse add the lack of detail and polish to game play....blah..... Does this mean I will get vista no it just means I like to bitch

im useing rc2 the beta for vista on a 128nvidia 6200 and 756ram and it runs really smooth but its only the beta.... and i can run halo maxd out and it runs smooth on my system no lag nothing and im on a p4 2.4GHz ocd to 2.8GHz but people shouldnt have to get vista to play H2 i bet some1 will find away to hack it and play on XP.... but heck if ur in a computer support class in high school and working with cisco u can talk to ur teachers and get vista for free next month thats what im doing and just use a duel boot on my new comp im making...

dc133 vister works its like XP was works for some not so much for others.

Originally posted by ZIppyDSM:

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wheelman7
dont forget you will also need 2gig of the fastest ramm your mobo can run *L* Vista is goign to be a ram eater 0-o

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Quote:

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[quote=quagpeter]I wonder if you still will be able to do superjumps and glitches on halo 2 for pc

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I signed up here just to post on this subject and post my opinion.
Halo was a fun game and now that it is not out for the pc on any of the newer halo editions i have not played halo since halo 1. I only buy pc games. I like a keyboard vs a controller.

My pc's are fast enough to run any game out there on a 64 bit os including crysis at high res. For os i choose winxp 64 because vista and win7 sux. vista is buggy and reminds me of windows me and windows 7 sux because they changed the file system so i get lost in it where winxp i could fly. It takes me 3 times as long to do what i want. I have windows 7 on my laptop and hoping i will be able to load winxp 64 on it because this win7 is crap. anyway all current games should be programmed to play on any 64 bit os not just one as halo2 did. Microsoft makes too much money off us and should be using some of that money to fix the economy and creating jobs or donating for education instead these billionaires keep stashing money away while we are all broke.
No wonder steve jobs seperated from bill gates and made his own company. Bill if your out there do something about our economy and make some jobs you rich selfish baSt@rd.

mechtech, if correct, steve jobs never worked for bill gates as steve is co-founder of apple computers.