Meant to be Seen

Difficult where to place this one but in case you missed it Microsoft has decided that Halo 2 will run only on Vista.

Unsure about you but is there really any decent S-3D support out there for Vista? Something that's solid yet?

Ya. MS is trying to boost it's Vista sales but it will probably hurt them as well. If they did this in a year or so from now, when Vista may have a better chunk of the market, I could understand that but it's too early. Especially with problems arising with drivers [not just video].

Comments?

I really wouldn't lose sleep over stereo support for Vista.

All the major manufacturers are putting nearly 100% of their efforts on Vista drivers, DX10 is known to be very popular with gamers, and S-3D represents the interests of the premier gamer. They all tie in together.

There was stereo support for Windows ME long before XP. Why would this be any different? If anything, the market is in much better shape now than before.

I can't speak for NVIDIA, but based on what I'm seeing so far in the recent driver releases, I think something's cooking.

Regards,
Neil

Neil wrote:I really wouldn't lose sleep over stereo support for Vista.

All the major manufacturers are putting nearly 100% of their efforts on Vista drivers, DX10 is known to be very popular with gamers, and S-3D represents the interests of the premier gamer. They all tie in together.

There was stereo support for Windows ME long before XP. Why would this be any different? If anything, the market is in much better shape now than before.

You're comparing crummy ME which came out in '99 with XP? Please! ME was horrible. Microsoft admitted it was a mistake to introduce it because the OS bombed and they were stuck with supporting the turkey.

If you noticed that ME's support died quite fast. Even faster than Win 98. If I'm not mistaken, All OSs have 10 years of support inwhich the first 7 years have full support and then 3 years of security updates (unless you want to pay a few thousand for additional support!). ME's support would still be going for security fixes like Win 2000 as they both came out within months of each other - but it ain't.

As for actual drivers, just like waiting for the first service pack for Vista [as most companies want to wait] I'd be waiting until then to look at going to Vista assuming the video and audio drivers are fine. I heard even that Creative Labs had issues with their released drivers.

Most current games may not even run on Vista. EA's support says that if it works, it works, if it doesn't, they won't do anything to fix it. This is for games that have not been stamped on the box that it works on Vista.

I can see a lot of gamers choosing the dual boot route until they have sufficient number of games that work in Vista before scrapping XP completely.

Stereo-3D adds another layer of variables. Not only the regular video drivers but then a smaller set on top of it.

Neil wrote:I really wouldn't lose sleep over stereo support for Vista.

All the major manufacturers are putting nearly 100% of their efforts on Vista drivers, DX10 is known to be very popular with gamers, and S-3D represents the interests of the premier gamer. They all tie in together.

There was stereo support for Windows ME long before XP. Why would this be any different? If anything, the market is in much better shape now than before.

I can't speak for NVIDIA, but based on what I'm seeing so far in the recent driver releases, I think something's cooking.

Regards,
Neil

I hate to say it but the overall opinion of Vista and gamers is pretty bleak "right now". I read a lot of gaming and tech message boards and most gamers don't want Vista because the performance is worse than when gaming under XP. It is a VERY bloated OS. The same thing happened when we went from 98 to XP (yes I purposely left out ME). XP performance was lacking until drivers matured and fixes/service packs were released. It's the same circle every time an new operating system comes out.

Overall the majority of gamers will 'probably' be using Vista in 2 years or so as more DX10 games come out. I wouldn't fret over s-3d and Vista just yet. XP is is a very good gaming OS IMO, and it's difficult to get people to change. I know I don't want to use Vista for gaming ... just yet.

Sounds like M$ is pretty desperate to sell Vista, I was at Wal-Mart the other day and Vista home was $1 cheaper then XP. At this rate they should be paying people to install it by Christmas. I have become accustomed to being the last to get to play a game. Looks like it is going to be a long time before I get to play Halo2, I can live with that. When Vista works better in 3D then XP, I will then buy Vista.

there is a little patch.. around 100 kb with wich it gets possible to play halo 2 on xp. you can find it on google.

I tried the game with the XP "hack" and stereo3d.. I did get some stereo effect but the FPS dropped to 1-5 so it was unplayable I didn't try tweaking the settings, the game runs about 40fps with the same settings.

Halo 2 Windows XP Patch
Installation Instructions:
1) Extract the archive.
2) Insert the Halo 2 DVD
3) Run Startup.exe on the Halo 2 DVD using the included Loader.exe
Ie.: Loader.exe D:\Startup.exe
4) Install the game.
5) Install XLiveRedist1.0.6027.msi and vcredist.msi from the \redists dir on the Halo 2 DVD.
6) Copy the following files into the directory you installed Halo 2:
dwmapi.dll, mf.dll, MFPlat.dll
7) Finished. To play the game, run halo2.exe using the included Loader.exe
Ie.: Loader.exe "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Halo 2\halo2.exe"

source
has anyone else had any luck in XP?

yes for me it worked. without problems.. by the way remember to buy the original game. and use the patch only with the original game.

sharky wrote:yes for me it worked. without problems.. by the way remember to buy the original game. and use the patch only with the original game.

Like this game is worth buying - anyone pm me if you want the game

The same thing happened when we went from 98 to XP (yes I purposely left out ME). XP performance was lacking until drivers matured and fixes/service packs were released. It's the same circle every time an new operating system comes out.

The difference is that XP had some really necessary features, like stability. Win 9x is simply not stable. It's going to blue screen eventually no matter what you do. WinXP was based on the Windows 2000 kernel which IS stable. If you have good drivers, you can keep the system up indefinitely. It also added in compatibility options that 2000 was lacking, enabling users to run more programs, especially things like games. It had a slew of features like the system restore function, device manager, etc. that was the best of both worlds between Win98 and 2000.

Vista has none of this. It is less compatible, has much more bloat, and really doesn't add anything that you couldn't already have via 3rd party programs long before it was released anyway. I think comparing it to the win9x v. XP crossover is a mistake because XP was clearly a superior OS to its predecessors. As for people being resistant to change, I wouldn't think that would apply to the stereoscopic crowd here. I mean stereo's a big jump that most people just dismiss, but as we well know, can be simply amazing.

XP was hardly stable when it was first released, I duel booted because there was no OGL driver for my Radion and most games ran better and more stable on a fully patched Win98 SE with DX 8.1 then they did on a fresh install of XP with DX 8.1. I have to agree with Neil on this one, I have seen every M$ OS come and go and it's a familiar pattern. When you start reading posts in forums about how great Vista is for gaming and how great the 3D is, then it's time to upgrade to Vista. I think we have a long wait ahead of us.

I'm running the game under XP, however I am not getting any stereo.
Could anyone help me with this?

Hm I think this one is difficult.
Let me guess: the game crashes and there is not even a sign of 3D when pressing the hotkey?

That is what hapens with shadowrun under XP...
I don't have a clue how to fix it, but it might be due to the portation/patch from Vista to XP. Maybe valuable information get lost trough the patch

i don't think that you loose some values.. the patch is just a sort of executer.. a 100 kb tool.. no file modification at al... but maybe the filestructure or something like that is different and not compatibel with th edrivers...

Yeah a different file Structure might explain the problems in making DX10 and GF8 Cards S-3D compatible.
The Driver would have to be programed completly new. But this can't be a big problem, because third party users can do it as well (iZ3D, KindDragon...)

well, if iz3D can make it then it shouldn'T be impossible.. and if it is not impossbile nvida will have it too.. (maybe in 2020 but it will... ) joking..