Cubemap/skies Testing

[DEElekgolo]

Hey! This is a new method that I am testing. It includes high res cubemap and skies to meet today's HD demands. Seeing that this map uses a lot of 32 bit colors, I need to see how it runs on other people's systems. Download and test this map. Then post your CPU, GPU, RAM, and frames per second. Then you can tell me what you think of the new method. The lightmaps were calcuated using a HDR image based on the same image the sky uses.
Download the map here.
http://www.filedropper.com/cubemaptest
5MB download. 28MB map
Here are some pictures.
http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/7620/haloce2009010610441440kf9.jpg
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/2295/haloce2009010610442650nv5.jpg
http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/765/haloce2009010610443895qk8.jpg
http://img118.imageshack.us/img118/8780/haloce2009010610453293wq0.jpg
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/8109/haloce2009010610454815pw8.jpg
Yes its a small map but this is mainly for opinions. Have fun!

I will be hosting a server called "Halo HD testing" for users to join.

[Rentafence]

Runs fine for me. I like it, it looks like a different game.

ATI radeon 9600
1.83 GHz AMD Athlon xp 2500+
1GB ram

E: Yeah G not M

[Saggy]

Runs fine for me. I like it, it looks like a different game.

ATI radeon 9600
1.83 GHz AMD Athlon xp 2500+
1MB ram
1MB of RAM? I think you mean 1GB?

Anyways, will edit this post after I finish testing.

E:
FPS: 60
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)
GPU: BFG Tech NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT OC 512MB GDDR3 Memory
RAM: 3GB

Overall, ran fine for me. Looks amazing to, loving the soft shadows.

[DEElekgolo]

Take off vsync.

[Saggy]

I did, it's set on No Vsync. Also, all my settings were on high and shadows, decal, and particles were turned on.

[Phopojijo]

I did, it's set on No Vsync. Also, all my settings were on high and shadows, decal, and particles were turned on.It might be turned on elsewhere, check your driver.

[Saggy]

It might be turned on elsewhere, check your driver.
Nope, it's set to "Use the 3D application settings" and in Halo, I have my framerate set to "NO VSYNC".

[Syuusuke]

Might as well set it to Off then.

[Saggy]

Might as well set it to Off then.
I did, atm the setting for Vertical Sync in my NVIDIA Control Panel is set to force off. Is there something wrong with using vsync? I don't even know what it is so if someone could enlighten me.

E: I just changed the setting in Halo to not be able to go above 30 FPS, and it doesn't go any lower than 30 when playing the map either so I don't get any frame loss when playing this map.

[Syuusuke]

Hm, that's weird...

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo P8400
GPU: Geforce 9800M GS
FPS: 750
RAM: 3gb

[dark57]

Dude this map....best map of 09.

[Syuusuke]

What are you trying to imply.

BTW, can you really gather enough information by just having only two objects in the map?

[Sel]

Would be cool to see this stuff used in one of the hurr graphics maps halo already has, namely valkyrie.

[Lateksi]

Objects looked great, I got 400-470 fps on the map.
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 @ 2.66GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.7GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB (overclocked)
2046MB RAM

[legionaire45]

http://video.xfire.com/5fd12-4.jpg (http://www.xfire.com/video/5fd12/)

Issues. Stuff disappears when it goes beyond a certain angle. Not sure if it has anything to do with the fact that I'm running a non-standard resolution via the -vidmode parameter but it is kind of annoying.

60 FPS constant on my setup as well. I have decals disabled due to my video card.

[DEElekgolo]

http://video.xfire.com/5fd12-4.jpg (http://www.xfire.com/video/5fd12/)

Issues. Stuff disappears when it goes beyond a certain angle. Not sure if it has anything to do with the fact that I'm running a non-standard resolution via the -vidmode parameter but it is kind of annoying.

60 FPS constant on my setup as well. I have decals disabled due to my video card.
Didnt need to make a video hehe. Selentic told me about it and I know how to fix it. It will be in the next test.

[FRain]

I did, atm the setting for Vertical Sync in my NVIDIA Control Panel is set to force off. Is there something wrong with using vsync? I don't even know what it is so if someone could enlighten me.

E: I just changed the setting in Halo to not be able to go above 30 FPS, and it doesn't go any lower than 30 when playing the map either so I don't get any frame loss when playing this map.

VSync: VSync makes the framerate stay with the refresh rate so there is no horizontal tearing. VSync I personally prefer USING it because then if you look up and down quickly there wont be any page tearing, but you have a cost of how high your refresh rate is. On usual days I play 1024x768 at 100hz refresh giving me a max of 100 fps.

No VSync: This will allow you to have the highest framrate available. However, if you move your mouse up and down quickly, there will be major page tearing. Page tearing means that the monitor is refreshing inbetween frames so that its stuck between two frames for 1 frame.

I will be downloading this map tomorrow morning.

[DEElekgolo]

For this we need vSync off so that I can see the max frame rate the GPU can calculate the map.

[legionaire45]

850 FPS standing still, 300 when firing the AR full blast.

[DEElekgolo]

http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7405/blackouttb6.jpg
Here is the new image that will be in the next test. The actual picture is much larger. I will be adding auroras soon once I find out how to make them in photoshop. If not then I will just have it be as a separate object.

[Saggy]

Ok, finally got VSYNC to turn off. I have a maximum of ~690 FPS when standing still and ~350 FPS when firing the assualt rifle WHILE moving.

[t3h m00kz]

I'm too god damn lazy to download the map at the moment, but that looks damn sexy. Crazy stuff I'd never expect to see in the Halo engine... I always wondered why Halo's stock lighting looked so bland (the original Unreal Engine had better level lighting imo), and I'm seeing all these cool lighting improvements. Hope to see more of this around...

[Corndogman]

Is there any way to get Anti-Aliasing to work with halo? The game would look much better with it, especially with these lighting methods.

[MetKiller Joe]

Is there any way to get Anti-Aliasing to work with halo? The game would look much better with it, especially with these lighting methods.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, short of editing disassembling and rewriting parts of Blam! code or porting all of the assets to another engine, I don't think it is possible. Then again, maybe that piece of code was commented out or inactive, just waiting for somebody to notice :D.

Still, I have to say, this lighting method is awesome.

[p0lar_bear]

Halo was made in a time before HDTVs and 1080p resolutions. The game was played on the Xbox at 640x480 when most people owned plain ole tube STDVs, which tended to interpolate the video anyway, making aliasing not very noticable.

This was a very cut-and-dry port. They recoded the engine to run on the PC, added in 56k-"friendly" network coding, and that seems to be about it.

[DEElekgolo]

Or we can crack the pixel shaders and vertice shaders here.
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/4638/scr07568480762941wf0.jpg

[p0lar_bear]

IIRC kornman actually released the source to those in the form of another passworded RAR, and I don't think it was ever solved since he said it would only really benefit Win32 developers.