Regarding the bumpmaps, particularly for the ground in Truth & Reconciliation, while true the bump maps generally aren't apparent until you shine a light on them, what has changed is that the bump maps are effected by the baked lightmaps in the level. While these mainly effect the walls in T&R and not the ground, the change is there. Not obvious, but it's there.
The reason the fog effects in the sky on AOTCR don't completely load until you take a couple steps out of the door and the reason that's a legacy behavior was most likely done as a way save on game resources when loading from one environment to another on the old OG Xbox hardware.
UPDATE: Season 7 is now live. You can now experience these graphical changes for CE. For those that want Halo 2 to be fixed, Postums from 343 is looking for feedback on what issues need to be addressed twitter.com/343Postums/status/1396994283257745409 Start sending your feedback and hopefully Halo 2 will receive the same treatment as they did for CE! 🙂
Great video, just a small critic, next time you compare screenshots, try and look at the same position from the same spot, so the differences can be put side to side, and maybe even try those fancy transitions between 2 screenshots, image changing from right to left and then left to right.
3:23 - That isn't true, its not just transparencies being fixed in that level, bump maps are fixed as well. You can tell the difference with the tiled floors. Bump maps should be fixed across the entire game not just specific textures.
The Xbox 360 backwards compatible port version of Halo 1 also has inferior performance issues, stated by Marty O'Donnell. So if you're using that to compare against MCC, you're not actually comparing it to the be OG Halo 1 running on the OG Xbox. I understand if that's all you have access to, but you can't objectively call this "MCC compared to Original" because you're not comparing it to the full best running version.
Yeah the performance is pretty horrible especially when there's a lot of action happening on screen, the frame rate takes a nose dive. While its not running on original hardware, the important thing here is that a lot of the issues that people have been pointing out like the fog and bump mapping are restored to what it's suppose to look like on the xbox version and 343 delivered on that with this flight build.
Gosh I'm really happy about these changes. I got a little emotional walking around The Pillar Of Autumn and seeing it restored to it's non-flat, atmospheric glory. Guess I'm doing another playthrough. 😅
Send a ticket to the Halo support site. Please do it! The more people do it the more likely they are to fix it. I say this because a guy submitted a ticket but they closed it probably because they felt it wasn't worth the effort but it is!
Halo 2 Vista was ported by a different company. Gearbox only handled CE. But yes, even me personally who played both versions never noticed the graphical differences until Late Night Gaming covered this.
i pirated the gearbox version (cause there wasnt any store where you could buy it) and all i remember is that the structures seemed flat and in some cases ugly... but i ddidnt know that was gearbox mistake... edit and yes i would kie to see the classic HUD too
Now that 343 fixed alot of the issues and bugs that were present in the gearbox port and i can say now that halo ce MCC pc is an accurate version of the original Xbox version However there is still an issue that really bothers me and makes the game kinda weird it is the shadows of the pelicans and the covenant dropships that are not synced with movement of the latter and this bug was not present in the original Xbox so i hope that they will be aware of this issue in order to fix it because i think that no one spoke about it since it's barely noticeable and almost not so apparent and even tough it is a small detail but it can make the game realistic also there is a problem with cutscenes i think they run on 30 fps i hope they fix that too !
Great video I genuinely enjoyed it and I really hope for further improvements on the game I hope one day the differences between MCC and Original are unnoticeable. Just one more thing I think you could probably capture higher quality video of CE backwards compatible on 360? I’m genuinely not a big tech guy and I’m taking a leap but just a minor suggestion if you have a CE copy and a 360 lying around? Thanks for the good content
I actually recorded the xbox gameplay footage on my Xbox 360 using my elgato capture card. This is the highest quality it can go since the native resolution for CE is 480p. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
Good job on the video! I’m glad 343i is doing this to bring it up to par with the original Xbox version. If your original Xbox is modded, there is a modified file (default.xbe) you can run to allow you to launch multiplayer games with just one player.
Glad to finally hear somebody suggest fixing the HUD. The new HUD doesn't belong in classic graphics, and is ugly. I might just buy it to replace my Gearbox version if they do fix it. I know, it's an inconsequential detail, but it's one I have to look at the entire time I'm playing the game.
At 4:22 I don’t understand why one shield fades out. I’m currently playing and all shields go down, which would make more sense because of the crew. Why in your video is it only that bottom left one? Thanks I know this video is a bit old now :)
There were audio improvements in season 6. I have a video comparing season 5 and season 6. And just to note. This was recorded before another patch was released the following week for the custom game browser scale test which had another improvement to audio to reduce the excessive reverb. ua-cam.com/video/x0CL-ZHrIV8/v-deo.html
Hopefully one day they will give 343 guilty spark a proper remaster with blood and all sprayed across the rooms....also not an over excessive amount of light throughout the level destroying the spooky dark tone of the original.
There was a stream earlier today on the Xbox twitch channel where they showed off some content coming for season 7. Typically when 343 have showcases like these it means that the next season is right around the corner. I'm expecting the update to drop next week but of course that is subject to change.
This is amazing! Halo CE looks much better now. I'm glad they finally got around to working on this. I just want the OG Xbox HUD in now. One small thing they did change but I don't believe you mentioned was that the camo material (shown in your comparison from 11:15-11:20) has been restored to the OG Xbox verison. On the Xbox, the camo material had a slight blue or purple tint to it. In the current MCC version, it's clear as glass. Also, do you feel like in the flight the weapons are better, especially with the pistol? I feel like they may have reduced the bullet spread with it.
I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out! It's unfortunate that I can't compare the xbox maps because i need another player to start the game and it's been two decades since i played CE multiplayer on xbox. I've had more time playing the Gearbox port for multiplayer than xbox. And for the weapons. I haven't had the opportunity to play the multiplayer. I was really busy getting all these gameplay compiled and edited for this weekend since the flight ends on Monday. And even then, I couldn't find a single match on any of the games.
@@NinjaSynFrey I have a bit of a suggestion for point 1 that may or may not work for you. Have you ever heard of Xemu? It's an original Xbox emulator. The reason I bring it up is it supports system link and I believe it works with real consoles. What you could try to do is have that second player be on the emulator and do system link. Then, you would have your full screen on your 360 to record from. It doesn't matter if you have another controller or not- Xemu can emulate a controller with keyboard and mouse. Again, I'm not 100% sure if it'll work, there's some setup/ files you need that might not be easy for you to get, and you'd need a way to rip your game. It's just a thought. On the second point, I too haven't played multiplayer in this flight. I only played the campaign and I felt like the weapons were a bit better.
I've heard about Xemu. Problem is you need to dump the BIOS from an actual Xbox to use the emulator. I'm probably better off getting an original xbox somewhere and use that instead. At least it will run on the original hardware it's intended to be on than emulated on PC or the Xbox 360.
if you're talking about the pistol in MP especially, do you think they properly applied the MP patch the OG xbox version had which made it more accurate and deadly?
This is just an insider build for season 7. If you are enrolled in the Halo Insider Program you were given an invitation to test out new content for Halo 3, Halo 4, and of course the new graphical improvements for CE. Sadly this flight is until Monday.
The HUD that you see right now on MCC is not the original. 343/Saber Interactive decided to update this when they released Halo: CE Anniversary for the Xbox 360.
That's okay. I mean none of these missing details make the game unplayable. Its good on 343's part to restore what the developers intended the game to look like. That has to be preserved.
Now if only 343 could give this same treatment to Halo 2 since it's based on the Vista port and that port is just as busted and nowhere near as talked about as the Gearbox port
Given that they tackled this issue, as well as giving us elite stuff for H3 and the armors for H4 (all things being asked by the community), my hopes that they'll give us H2 content basically went from 0 to 10.
I haven't looked into the differences between the original xbox and halo 2 vista but i do know that the shadows are broken on the MCC/H2V version and foliage is also bugged with NVIDIA GPUs. The one thing that I really want addressed is the hit registration. I don't always play Halo 2 because of how inconsistent it is. Project Cartographer on the other hand plays better than H2 MCC.
@@NinjaSynFrey I imagine they will be addressing the issues with H2 MCC in the future. They have fixed some issues but it need much more work. The HUD now for CE on MCC should get some kind of toggle maybe have both Anniversary HUD and Classic HUDs running together in parallel but have the HUD not change with the graphic toggle maybe? This is the only game in the whole collection with a newer HUD and with the restoration of the graphics with the original Xbox, the HUD should get a similar treatment but the Classic HUD would have to be remastered as the Original HUD ported straight over would be too pixelated.
Sometimes I wonder why 343 doesn't seem to work on H2C that much. I'm guessing the codebase for it is so sensitive that they don't want to touch it without the fear of breaking something (yep i know that feeling) When importing custom edition maps into MCC CE, it does loads the classic HUD but is pixelated in some maps. I don't know if it is being sourced within the .map files or a common asset in the engine. But if it already exists in the engine then all 343 needs to do is add a toggle in the gameplay settings to switch between classic and anniversary HUD.
@@NinjaSynFrey Isn't the Gearbox Legacy HUD slightly different from the Xbox HUD? Because if that is the case, then they may have to port it over into the MCC version to get this to work. And yes I would like the HUD to be in the setting menu and not as a toggle with the graphics (or maybe they could add two different settings, one for toggling the HUD with the classic and anniversary graphics and one for staying the same between the classic/anniversary graphics).
343 is doing a madness thing, I am so happy
I feel like they’re really pulling a modern day Bungie pizza surge
Regarding the bumpmaps, particularly for the ground in Truth & Reconciliation, while true the bump maps generally aren't apparent until you shine a light on them, what has changed is that the bump maps are effected by the baked lightmaps in the level. While these mainly effect the walls in T&R and not the ground, the change is there. Not obvious, but it's there.
Two other changes in the Pillar of Autumn were the windows being a lot clearer and Cortana being less transparent
and master chief's armor looks more accurate now
@@joeygalateo5246 yes
Nobody is going to mention how insanely detailed looks MC Armor now? It looks beautiful 🤩
Big agree
yeah 😶🌫️🤯
Yeah it's interesting how it's more detailed and less shiny. He's supposed to have a more stone like texture to his armor so it's correct now.
I did notice it looks slightly more detailed, yeah!
Also, is no one gonna point out that the fixed chief low res armor to look supper rusty and detailed.
After these improvements and the animation fixes from season 6, I am so stoked to replay CE. Yank me!
Animation fixes? What was wrong with them originally?
@@bubbajoe117 Animations used to look really laggy in cutscenes, now they match the framerate.
They also restored Master Chief to his og look aswell
What do you mean?
I'm not a fan of what 343 has done with the franchise but I have to commend them for this as Halo CE is my favorite game.
Couldn't have said it better myself. I commend you for having good taste in Halo games lol
@GoTi4No They had good ideas, but not Halo - wise
The reason the fog effects in the sky on AOTCR don't completely load until you take a couple steps out of the door and the reason that's a legacy behavior was most likely done as a way save on game resources when loading from one environment to another on the old OG Xbox hardware.
UPDATE: Season 7 is now live. You can now experience these graphical changes for CE.
For those that want Halo 2 to be fixed, Postums from 343 is looking for feedback on what issues need to be addressed
twitter.com/343Postums/status/1396994283257745409
Start sending your feedback and hopefully Halo 2 will receive the same treatment as they did for CE! 🙂
Excellent video. Loved the number of comparisons from all the different sources. Very nice.
Thanks you so much for putting all this effort into comparing the graphics, it's good to know the different between versions.
[smiles in Marty O’Donnell]
3:07 the bump mapping is there even with the flashlight off, it’s just not noticeable.
It is subtle but it IS indeed there.
Great video, just a small critic, next time you compare screenshots, try and look at the same position from the same spot, so the differences can be put side to side, and maybe even try those fancy transitions between 2 screenshots, image changing from right to left and then left to right.
I'll definitely take note of this for future analysis type videos. Thanks for watching and the feedback! Much appreciated! 🙂
YES!!! They fixed Cpt. Keyes! Looks even better than OG Xbox now! Wow 👏👏👏
Speaking of things that look better than in the OG Xbox, have you look how insanely good looks MC Armor now? 👌
@@wolfdragox5563 Yes him too! Lots of details like battle damage
3:23 - That isn't true, its not just transparencies being fixed in that level, bump maps are fixed as well. You can tell the difference with the tiled floors. Bump maps should be fixed across the entire game not just specific textures.
Wow, very informative and organized video. I'm definitely subbing!
i agee i wish we could access the classic hud the more closer to the original Halo ce look the better at preservation.
I hope 343 can do the same with halo 2
what issues does the h2 vista port have?
@@carlossalazar478 how fast you die on legendary is a noticeable issue
They did iirc.
The Xbox 360 backwards compatible port version of Halo 1 also has inferior performance issues, stated by Marty O'Donnell. So if you're using that to compare against MCC, you're not actually comparing it to the be OG Halo 1 running on the OG Xbox. I understand if that's all you have access to, but you can't objectively call this "MCC compared to Original" because you're not comparing it to the full best running version.
Yeah the performance is pretty horrible especially when there's a lot of action happening on screen, the frame rate takes a nose dive. While its not running on original hardware, the important thing here is that a lot of the issues that people have been pointing out like the fog and bump mapping are restored to what it's suppose to look like on the xbox version and 343 delivered on that with this flight build.
@@NinjaSynFrey then you should fix your video and state this. Because it's misleading and you wrongfully called out Latenightgaming
Gosh I'm really happy about these changes. I got a little emotional walking around The Pillar Of Autumn and seeing it restored to it's non-flat, atmospheric glory. Guess I'm doing another playthrough. 😅
Now I hope they fix the Duke controller layout for CE and then it will be a near perfect update.
Send a ticket to the Halo support site. Please do it! The more people do it the more likely they are to fix it. I say this because a guy submitted a ticket but they closed it probably because they felt it wasn't worth the effort but it is!
It's weird seeing all the changes that gearbox made, as I never grew up with an xbox, I grew up with the PC port to Vista.
Halo 2 Vista was ported by a different company. Gearbox only handled CE. But yes, even me personally who played both versions never noticed the graphical differences until Late Night Gaming covered this.
i pirated the gearbox version (cause there wasnt any store where you could buy it) and all i remember is that the structures seemed flat and in some cases ugly... but i ddidnt know that was gearbox mistake...
edit
and yes i would kie to see the classic HUD too
I also pirated the Gear version (and Custom Edition).
You just earned a sub, mate! 👌
Now they need to fix the projectile interpolation.
This makes me happy.
Now, let's make them fix 343 Guilty Spark in Anniversary mode xD
Do you play with graphical mods, cos my gold magnum just looks like it has a shade of yellow whereas yours looks like actual gold
Now that 343 fixed alot of the issues and bugs that were present in the gearbox port and i can say now that halo ce MCC pc is an accurate version of the original Xbox version However there is still an issue that really bothers me and makes the game kinda weird it is the shadows of the pelicans and the covenant dropships that are not synced with movement of the latter and this bug was not present in the original Xbox so i hope that they will be aware of this issue in order to fix it because i think that no one spoke about it since it's barely noticeable and almost not so apparent and even tough it is a small detail but it can make the game realistic also there is a problem with cutscenes i think they run on 30 fps i hope they fix that too !
Great video I genuinely enjoyed it and I really hope for further improvements on the game I hope one day the differences between MCC and Original are unnoticeable. Just one more thing I think you could probably capture higher quality video of CE backwards compatible on 360? I’m genuinely not a big tech guy and I’m taking a leap but just a minor suggestion if you have a CE copy and a 360 lying around? Thanks for the good content
I actually recorded the xbox gameplay footage on my Xbox 360 using my elgato capture card. This is the highest quality it can go since the native resolution for CE is 480p. Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
@@NinjaSynFrey the 360 actually upscales CE to 720p, but only while in 4:3 aspect ratio
If you can't include footage of something, then don't make a video on it
I would love for them to fix the classic audio on halo 2
Good job on the video! I’m glad 343i is doing this to bring it up to par with the original Xbox version. If your original Xbox is modded, there is a modified file (default.xbe) you can run to allow you to launch multiplayer games with just one player.
I'm pretty sure there is an option to toggle the old skool HUD vs modern HUD, as well if you want the gun model higher up or lower down.
Yes, you can change between classic and modern HUD as well as the view model. It wasn’t available at the time of recording this video
Very good video man, keep it up :)👍
Man this game had such a great soundtrack!
Glad to finally hear somebody suggest fixing the HUD. The new HUD doesn't belong in classic graphics, and is ugly. I might just buy it to replace my Gearbox version if they do fix it. I know, it's an inconsequential detail, but it's one I have to look at the entire time I'm playing the game.
Don't usually post on UA-cam videos.. but that was such a good comparison between each version I just had too! Keep up the good work :)
At 4:22 I don’t understand why one shield fades out. I’m currently playing and all shields go down, which would make more sense because of the crew. Why in your video is it only that bottom left one? Thanks I know this video is a bit old now :)
Great video, Did they fix the sound occasion issues? particularly noticeable with grenades.
There were audio improvements in season 6. I have a video comparing season 5 and season 6. And just to note. This was recorded before another patch was released the following week for the custom game browser scale test which had another improvement to audio to reduce the excessive reverb. ua-cam.com/video/x0CL-ZHrIV8/v-deo.html
@@NinjaSynFrey Thanks for the reply. Its great to see Halo CE restored to it's former glory. Keep up the good work fella.
Thank you for doing this
With the release of season 7 only a few days away, this makes me really want to replay it in its former glory! Good video
So wait, are the animation issues fixed?
Yes. 343 made the necessary improvements when season 6 dropped
ua-cam.com/video/32EOBMTsfOI/v-deo.html
Hopefully one day they will give 343 guilty spark a proper remaster with blood and all sprayed across the rooms....also not an over excessive amount of light throughout the level destroying the spooky dark tone of the original.
I suspect you're talking about the Anniversary visuals, but the OG blood splatters have been fixed - ua-cam.com/video/7nRe_cW6C1I/v-deo.html
Finally!
Any idea when the update will be here?
There was a stream earlier today on the Xbox twitch channel where they showed off some content coming for season 7. Typically when 343 have showcases like these it means that the next season is right around the corner. I'm expecting the update to drop next week but of course that is subject to change.
welp, time to play halo ce clasic... again
they also restored first person armor
Master chiefs moving mad when they die.
epic comparison. good job!
Man, the original look is soo good
This is amazing! Halo CE looks much better now. I'm glad they finally got around to working on this. I just want the OG Xbox HUD in now. One small thing they did change but I don't believe you mentioned was that the camo material (shown in your comparison from 11:15-11:20) has been restored to the OG Xbox verison. On the Xbox, the camo material had a slight blue or purple tint to it. In the current MCC version, it's clear as glass. Also, do you feel like in the flight the weapons are better, especially with the pistol? I feel like they may have reduced the bullet spread with it.
I didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out! It's unfortunate that I can't compare the xbox maps because i need another player to start the game and it's been two decades since i played CE multiplayer on xbox. I've had more time playing the Gearbox port for multiplayer than xbox.
And for the weapons. I haven't had the opportunity to play the multiplayer. I was really busy getting all these gameplay compiled and edited for this weekend since the flight ends on Monday. And even then, I couldn't find a single match on any of the games.
@@NinjaSynFrey I have a bit of a suggestion for point 1 that may or may not work for you. Have you ever heard of Xemu? It's an original Xbox emulator. The reason I bring it up is it supports system link and I believe it works with real consoles. What you could try to do is have that second player be on the emulator and do system link. Then, you would have your full screen on your 360 to record from. It doesn't matter if you have another controller or not- Xemu can emulate a controller with keyboard and mouse. Again, I'm not 100% sure if it'll work, there's some setup/ files you need that might not be easy for you to get, and you'd need a way to rip your game. It's just a thought.
On the second point, I too haven't played multiplayer in this flight. I only played the campaign and I felt like the weapons were a bit better.
I've heard about Xemu. Problem is you need to dump the BIOS from an actual Xbox to use the emulator. I'm probably better off getting an original xbox somewhere and use that instead. At least it will run on the original hardware it's intended to be on than emulated on PC or the Xbox 360.
if you're talking about the pistol in MP especially, do you think they properly applied the MP patch the OG xbox version had which made it more accurate and deadly?
I still on season raven so my mcc ce is not updated yet
This is just an insider build for season 7. If you are enrolled in the Halo Insider Program you were given an invitation to test out new content for Halo 3, Halo 4, and of course the new graphical improvements for CE. Sadly this flight is until Monday.
What do you mean classic hud?
The HUD that you see right now on MCC is not the original. 343/Saber Interactive decided to update this when they released Halo: CE Anniversary for the Xbox 360.
All these detail I never notice bc I never really cared 😂this is why everyone was complaining
That's okay. I mean none of these missing details make the game unplayable. Its good on 343's part to restore what the developers intended the game to look like. That has to be preserved.
finally! ive found video proof that cortana changes colors during AOCR!
I don't care about this fix. :)
More power to you I guess.
While I do... This actually brought me to a chuckle.
Now if only 343 could give this same treatment to Halo 2 since it's based on the Vista port and that port is just as busted and nowhere near as talked about as the Gearbox port
Given that they tackled this issue, as well as giving us elite stuff for H3 and the armors for H4 (all things being asked by the community), my hopes that they'll give us H2 content basically went from 0 to 10.
I haven't looked into the differences between the original xbox and halo 2 vista but i do know that the shadows are broken on the MCC/H2V version and foliage is also bugged with NVIDIA GPUs. The one thing that I really want addressed is the hit registration. I don't always play Halo 2 because of how inconsistent it is. Project Cartographer on the other hand plays better than H2 MCC.
@@NinjaSynFrey I imagine they will be addressing the issues with H2 MCC in the future. They have fixed some issues but it need much more work. The HUD now for CE on MCC should get some kind of toggle maybe have both Anniversary HUD and Classic HUDs running together in parallel but have the HUD not change with the graphic toggle maybe? This is the only game in the whole collection with a newer HUD and with the restoration of the graphics with the original Xbox, the HUD should get a similar treatment but the Classic HUD would have to be remastered as the Original HUD ported straight over would be too pixelated.
Sometimes I wonder why 343 doesn't seem to work on H2C that much. I'm guessing the codebase for it is so sensitive that they don't want to touch it without the fear of breaking something (yep i know that feeling)
When importing custom edition maps into MCC CE, it does loads the classic HUD but is pixelated in some maps. I don't know if it is being sourced within the .map files or a common asset in the engine. But if it already exists in the engine then all 343 needs to do is add a toggle in the gameplay settings to switch between classic and anniversary HUD.
@@NinjaSynFrey Isn't the Gearbox Legacy HUD slightly different from the Xbox HUD? Because if that is the case, then they may have to port it over into the MCC version to get this to work. And yes I would like the HUD to be in the setting menu and not as a toggle with the graphics (or maybe they could add two different settings, one for toggling the HUD with the classic and anniversary graphics and one for staying the same between the classic/anniversary graphics).