Halo 2 looks better on Xbox One X

[TheRat62]

The colors are much more vibrant and colorful, the textures look more detailed, and enemies/friendlies don't blend into the environment as much as they do on the PC version. The PC version looks washed out.

Granted, I'm not entirely sure that I have HDR activated when playing the PC version so I'm not 100% sure if I'm just noticing HDR vs. non HDR.

The PC version definitely runs at a smoother 60fps and has more AA for me but thats about all that I can say is better about it.

As of right now, the Xbox One X version looks A LOT better.

[garfield]

I use nvidia filters to help with halo ce, but halo 2 seems fine to me

[TheRat62]

Maybe it's cause the HDR on my PC input does not seem to work. Everytime I turn HDR on, my screen goes blank.

But for me, the PC version of Halo 2 looks very washed out, black levels are terrible.

On the Xbox One version I've got very deep blacks and vibrant colors.

[Seth!]

Halo 2 looked amazing on a 4:3 box television in 2004 without all the fancy HDR and crap that doesn't matter. It's just a bad port of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Vista version we will never see pure H2 they want us to play H2A which is a lame excuse for a remaster.

[Magicktech]

are you even using the same screen when comparing?

[TheRat62]

Originally posted by Phantasm:

are you even using the same screen when comparing?

Exact same TV, different input. I just keep switching between them with both versions of the game on at the same time.

However, I just realized that this entire time I have not been taking advantage of HDR when gaming on my PC because the HDMI cable I was using does not support it. I just changed the cable, and now HDR seems to work.

So I'll restart Halo on PC and let you know if it's on par with the Xbox One version now.

[TheRat62]

Originally posted by Seth:

Halo 2 looked amazing on a 4:3 box television in 2004 without all the fancy HDR and crap that doesn't matter. It's just a bad port of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Vista version we will never see pure H2 they want us to play H2A which is a lame excuse for a remaster.

Really? What do you prefer about the vista version?

[kripcision]

Originally posted by JohnnyGamer:

Originally posted by Seth:

Halo 2 looked amazing on a 4:3 box television in 2004 without all the fancy HDR and crap that doesn't matter. It's just a bad port of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Vista version we will never see pure H2 they want us to play H2A which is a lame excuse for a remaster.

Really? What do you prefer about the vista version?

he prefers the original xbox version is what hes saying.

[TheRat62]

Ok so switching back and forth between Xbox and PC version I can confirm that the Xbox One X version does indeed look better.

There is actually texture detail in the Xbox version that is missing in the PC version with the graphics set to "enhanced"

[TheRat62]

Is there a way to post photos on here? I'll show you guys what I mean.

[kripcision]

Originally posted by JohnnyGamer:

Ok so switching back and forth between Xbox and PC version I can confirm that the Xbox One X version does indeed look better.

There is actually texture detail in the Xbox version that is missing in the PC version with the graphics set to "enhanced"

maybe its just upscaled to 4k. try setting your resolution to 4k on the pc version and try again.

[TheRat62]

Originally posted by anubis:

Originally posted by JohnnyGamer:

Ok so switching back and forth between Xbox and PC version I can confirm that the Xbox One X version does indeed look better.

There is actually texture detail in the Xbox version that is missing in the PC version with the graphics set to "enhanced"

maybe its just upscaled to 4k. try setting your resolution to 4k on the pc version and try again.

My resolution is set to "native" at 100% RS.

Would that not be proper resolution?

[TheRat62]

Here's proof that textures are more detailed on Xbox One X:

PC: https://imgur.com/a/cZjoIHB

Xbox One X: https://imgur.com/a/uUjYbXN


Even look at Cheif's hand you can see the textures are more detailed on Xbox.

[TROGDOR]

Yep, sounds like a HDR implementation issue. Are your graphics in the PC version set to 'enhanced'?

Originally posted by Seth:

Halo 2 looked amazing on a 4:3 box television in 2004 without all the fancy HDR and crap that doesn't matter. It's just a bad port of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Vista version we will never see pure H2 they want us to play H2A which is a lame excuse for a remaster.

Install Reshade against the MCC .exe file in the Binaries folder, download this shader package https://github.com/Matsilagi/reshade-retroarch-shaders & paste the contents in the reshade-shaders folder. Then play Halo 2 in classic visuals on a 4:3 resolution, enable one of the filters with CRT in the name, enter the resolution (double-click the box & type): horizontal NTSC 480p is 640 horizontal x 480 vertical, PAL is 1024 horizontal by 576 vertical

Here are some example screens. https://imgur.com/gallery/DTuR3v2
Mine is set to the PAL 576 vertical lines resolution with an even dot pitch as that's what my experience was. It's important to view the images at full size & sit back a bit if your monitor's less than 1440p as the CRT filter doesn't take resizing very well being line-based. It looks much better in motion than it does in stills but you get the idea.

I personally like CRT-Lottes & CRT-Geom, CRT-Easymode is another good one that's a fair bit faster & easier on the GPU. They're all very customizable whether you like CRT bloom or a sharp image, you can get scanlines or a simple pixel dot mask. I play mine with the contrast quite high with the dot mask that has the CRT phosphors in straight lines as my old CRT TV wasn't very bright but it had high contrast which really made the plasma & lights seem to pop & a pretty grid-like dot matrix, but you can make it look as washed-out or tinted as you like, you can have the dot mask as a more scattered version instead.


I tend to play vanilla Halo CE & 2 (and basically every Xbox/PS2 era game) like this wherever possible. Some visuals just weren't meant for HD & some monitors weren't meant for sub-HD. Filters are a solution.

[TheRat62]

Originally posted by TROGDOR:

Yep, sounds like a HDR implementation issue. Are your graphics in the PC version set to 'enhanced'?

Originally posted by Seth:

Halo 2 looked amazing on a 4:3 box television in 2004 without all the fancy HDR and crap that doesn't matter. It's just a bad port of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ Vista version we will never see pure H2 they want us to play H2A which is a lame excuse for a remaster.

Install Reshade against the MCC .exe file in the Binaries folder, download this shader package https://github.com/Matsilagi/reshade-retroarch-shaders & paste the contents in the reshade-shaders folder. Then play Halo 2 in classic visuals on a 4:3 resolution, enable one of the filters with CRT in the name, enter the resolution (double-click the box & type): horizontal NTSC 480p is 640 horizontal x 480 vertical, PAL is 1024 horizontal by 576 vertical

Here are some example screens. https://imgur.com/gallery/DTuR3v2
Mine is set to the PAL 576 vertical lines resolution with an even dot pitch as that's what my experience was. It's important to view the images at full size & sit back a bit if your monitor's less than 1440p as the CRT filter doesn't take resizing very well being line-based. It looks much better in motion than it does in stills but you get the idea.

I personally like CRT-Lottes & CRT-Geom, CRT-Easymode is another good one that's a fair bit faster & easier on the GPU. They're all very customizable whether you like CRT bloom or a sharp image, you can get scanlines or a simple pixel dot mask. I play mine with the contrast quite high with the dot mask that has the CRT phosphors in straight lines as my old CRT TV wasn't very bright but it had high contrast which really made the plasma & lights seem to pop & a pretty grid-like dot matrix, but you can make it look as washed-out or tinted as you like, you can have the dot mask as a more scattered version instead.


I tend to play vanilla Halo CE & 2 (and basically every Xbox/PS2 era game) like this wherever possible. Some visuals just weren't meant for HD & some monitors weren't meant for sub-HD. Filters are a solution.

I've actually just come to find that PC Halo 2 does not support HDR.

[TROGDOR]

Originally posted by JohnnyGamer:

Originally posted by TROGDOR:

Yep, sounds like a HDR implementation issue. Are your graphics in the PC version set to 'enhanced'?



Install Reshade against the MCC .exe file in the Binaries folder, download this shader package https://github.com/Matsilagi/reshade-retroarch-shaders & paste the contents in the reshade-shaders folder. Then play Halo 2 in classic visuals on a 4:3 resolution, enable one of the filters with CRT in the name, enter the resolution (double-click the box & type): horizontal NTSC 480p is 640 horizontal x 480 vertical, PAL is 1024 horizontal by 576 vertical

Here are some example screens. https://imgur.com/gallery/DTuR3v2
Mine is set to the PAL 576 vertical lines resolution with an even dot pitch as that's what my experience was. It's important to view the images at full size & sit back a bit if your monitor's less than 1440p as the CRT filter doesn't take resizing very well being line-based. It looks much better in motion than it does in stills but you get the idea.

I personally like CRT-Lottes & CRT-Geom, CRT-Easymode is another good one that's a fair bit faster & easier on the GPU. They're all very customizable whether you like CRT bloom or a sharp image, you can get scanlines or a simple pixel dot mask. I play mine with the contrast quite high with the dot mask that has the CRT phosphors in straight lines as my old CRT TV wasn't very bright but it had high contrast which really made the plasma & lights seem to pop & a pretty grid-like dot matrix, but you can make it look as washed-out or tinted as you like, you can have the dot mask as a more scattered version instead.


I tend to play vanilla Halo CE & 2 (and basically every Xbox/PS2 era game) like this wherever possible. Some visuals just weren't meant for HD & some monitors weren't meant for sub-HD. Filters are a solution.

I've actually just come to find that PC Halo 2 does not support HDR.

Not surprised, HDR is one area that PC games are held back on compared to consoles. Splitscreen is another. And it looks like high speed data streaming from SSDs being standard is going to be another unless devs start including NVME SSDs as a minimum requirement, which isn't going to go over well when so many people still have HDDs and SATA SSDs.