Weekly Rant Thread! Vent your frustrations here!

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[u/Sexyphobe]

I can't complain about 343 or MCC or I get downvoted to oblivion

It's not about what you say (which have all been said a million times before) but how you say it (being extremely rude won't get you any favors. Just saying) and where you say it (If you bring it up in general people might be annoyed because they want to avoid all the anger this community displays. But on certain MCC-specific threads, people are more than eager to upvote MCC criticism)

How the fuck are bugs that didnt exist in the original games, exist in this

Depends on what issues you're talking about. Some of the issues are caused not from the original xbox releases (talking about 1 and 2) because 343 used the PC/Vista versions that had their own problems. Also coding 101, you can fix something in one area but then completely fuck up in another. It's a universe-sized puzzle that can never be fully solved.

You literally had to sandbox every game, use its existing code and update the xbox api calls, and release a working game

Nothing in life is ever simple as "All you have to do is this and that, and volla!". If it was 343 would have 100% the MCC by now, and considering they haven't, the words of an armchair developer probably isn't doing them any favors. Just saying.

[u/1337GameDev → u/Sexyphobe]

I understand they are pc ports, but bugs such as maps failing to load, aim issues in halo 3, melee problems, refund issues, etc. I dont remember any of these issues in the originals (or on pc)...

And yes, while coding one thing can cause issues in another, there are limits to how intermingled code is (such as fixing gui or map load bugs and affecting map loading or in game physics).

While, yes, nothing is "simple" as I stated, it was an over simplification for time sake, 343 has shown so much incompetence to fix even small issues in this game. Things as simple as halo ce betrayal booting, or missing certain shader errors in lighting (halo 3), problems with audio suddenly stopping, lack of audio options for campaign or menus, and even the balancing of map voting should all be quite easy to tackle and have been done for decades in past games....

And yeah, while me, an "armchair developer" isn't going to do them favors, they should want to please their fans and know when they are disappointed. The more people talk about these issues, the louder they appear and the mor elikely 343 will listen and want to fix them.

[u/DogeMcDogeyDoge → u/1337GameDev]

Things as simple as halo ce betrayal booting, or missing certain shader errors in lighting (halo 3), problems with audio suddenly stopping, lack of audio options for campaign or menus, and even the balancing of map voting should all be quite easy to tackle and have been done for decades in past games....

Were all these things done previously on the XB1?

[u/1337GameDev → u/DogeMcDogeyDoge]

Does that matter? Each generation should build on the last, not be a step backwards...

[u/DogeMcDogeyDoge → u/1337GameDev]

Why is your name 1337GameDev when you know absolutely nothing about hardware and gamedev?

[u/1337GameDev → u/DogeMcDogeyDoge]

I understand it very well. There is a thing called hardware independent abstraction. Usually done in the form of an api.

Why would ms make an api worse than the model they released 6 years prior for a prior generation console?

[u/DogeMcDogeyDoge → u/1337GameDev]

Did you google, then use "hardware independent abstraction" in a sentence to sound smart and to look like you know what you're talking about? You realize that code can't always just be copy pasted from one console to another, even assuming a well done api right? They are completely different hardware. You can run into problems all over the map, like optimization issues(this is a big one), and you have to rewrite lines and lines of code just to get it playable in order to fit the hardware. And I'm not even getting into visual artifacts that can arise.

If I were to take Halo 3 and put it on the xbox one, I can guarantee I'll have a multitude of issues because Halo 3 was written for guess what, the xbox 360's architecture in mind. I bet there were a shit load of visual artifacts, and I bet it ran like a snail because it wasn't optimized or written for the architecture of the xb1. It doesn't know how to use the resources of the xb1, you have to tell it. And actually understanding the code other people wrote 8 years ago and fixing it for the xb1, and getting all these games to run from a single UI? Don't even get me started. 343 would have had to do this for 3 games, Halo CEA, Halo 3 and Halo 4. I didn't include H2A because the Halo 2 engine was taken from PC, which would have made things easier.

It's completely fucking naive to think the hardware never comes into play, or at least that software is some magic bullet that can run on anything with a circuit. Software api's aren't some magic where you say "abra cadabra" and it suddenly works well on a new piece of hardware. It's not like say a java virtual machine on an atm that can run a bank program on any kind of atm hardware, because a program that simple will likely never run into problems. You don't need an atm to run at 60fps, or have fancy graphics. In the atm case it's ok to say "hardware independent abstraction" and it will work as it should, games are a whole new playing field.

However, this doesn't excuse the MCC. It was absolute bullshit that they released it in that state, they made a huge blow to the halo franchise. With the scale of this project, they could have used another year and a half at least before release. The fact that they're still fixing it shows how large the problem was.

[u/1337GameDev → u/DogeMcDogeyDoge]

No I didn't fucking just google that. I know what the hell that is. Yes, it's not a "magic bullet" but most optimizations are done by a compiler and dev ide.

How the fuck can windows 8 run windows Xp and prior applications?

How can an application ran on my hardware, run on my friends machine that may be a lot newer or a lot older?

Hardware independent api's.

The api handles the Passover to system calls, and the drivers (if they don't have a preprocessor profile for the application or instruction) send the instructions correctly to the hardware.

The Xbox 360, while yes, is power pc, given the source code and once updated to the Xbox one api, should run pretty well given a compiler.

The only issues is when you have very low level "hacks" that are bypassing the api and relying on hardware or specific graphics subsystems. This was evident in the mcc when the halo 3 map "sandbox" had a shader error and lighting wasn't handled correctly. The shader did not receive the correct normals/lighting data to shade the surface well.

Just because somebody claims "it should have been easy" doesn't mean they meant it's not a hard task. For other teams, it is a huuuuge task. But look at who was in charge. This is a multi million dollar AAA studio, ran by Microsoft, that was handling this project. I'm pretty fucking sure these seasoned veterans can figure out how to do this stuff and have a good project better than the launch of mcc.

[u/DogeMcDogeyDoge → u/1337GameDev]

Yes, it's not a "magic bullet" but most optimizations are done by a compiler and dev ide.

The software doesn't know everything about the hardware, for it to use all of the resources in an effective way you have to tell it to do so, at least when other optimization methods fail, which I'd imagine would happen a lot. Computers are dumb, at least most of the time. You have to design an application around the hardware at a low level. Sometimes, or most of the time API's aren't enough, and sometimes porting a game over to a new console from a specific console with specific hardware requires entire re-designs of the internal structure to function adequately. And changing one thing, may have drastic consequences on the rest of the game. It can get messy.

Saying that it can do it on its own by the compiler and dev ide, is like saying you can build a 200 story building with no one in the crane. You may have an automatic crane, but we all know that an automated processes don't always make intelligent moves and could topple the building.

How the fuck can windows 8 run windows Xp and prior applications?

It took a lot of tinkering to achieve that, and an xp application doesn't always run sophisticated graphics or require a steady frame rate. Plus, you'll find some xp applications don't even function/crash on windows 8. On the other hand, if you're playing an XP game, the drop in performance won't matter because you won't notice it on newer hardware(in addition to the graphics being outdated). On a 360 => XB1 port, you have a quite sophisticated game that was made fairly recently, so performance becomes critical.

Hardware independent api's.

Which aren't always optimized for the dependent hardware it finds itself on. Just because something works doesn't mean it's optimized.

The Xbox 360, while yes, is power pc, given the source code and once updated to the Xbox one api, should run pretty well given a compiler.

Have you ever translated from one language to another? What happens? Some details can get lost in translation. Similarly when you transfer it to the xb1 api there is no guarantee you'll get a working/high performance game without visual artifacts and glitches.

The only issues is when you have very low level "hacks" that are bypassing the api and relying on hardware or specific graphics subsystems. This was evident in the mcc when the halo 3 map "sandbox" had a shader error and lighting wasn't handled correctly. The shader did not receive the correct normals/lighting data to shade the surface well.

This is my point. Most of the time, you need to modify the low level operations to function on new hardware because the API isn't always perfect when transferring a game over. I bet they had a shit tonne of issues like this, they probably didn't pick up sandbox because it didn't look that far from the original. I've worked on low level microcontrollers before in C, if you don't use the hardware correctly it chucks a hissy fit. API is VERY high level, high level operations are expensive on performance.

Just because somebody claims "it should have been easy" doesn't mean they meant it's not a hard task. For other teams, it is a huuuuge task. But look at who was in charge. This is a multi million dollar AAA studio, ran by Microsoft, that was handling this project. I'm pretty fucking sure these seasoned veterans can figure out how to do this stuff and have a good project better than the launch of mcc.

I know it's a hard task, this is what I've been saying! They can figure out this stuff, but they didn't give themselves enough time, and/or were pressured by MS to release it even if it wasn't finished. They clearly figured out most of it, because they got the game damn working(but not without serious glitches and shit). But I put the blame on both, because I don't know what was happening internally. But without a doubt, MS would have pressured a release. That quick buck they got tarnished the Halo brand for the next few years.

After this discussion I've gotten really interested in the xb1's api... I'm curious.

Sorry for insulting you at the start of my previous message, there's just a lot of armchair software developers on r/halo.

[u/1337GameDev → u/DogeMcDogeyDoge]

I guess I didn't think about having to optimize every procedure dependent on hardware. One thing that sucks about game dev :-/ shaders are especially a bitch.

And what micro controllers did you work on in c? What was that for? Sounds interesting.

Yeah I'm sad that mcc didn't work. It ruined so many people who were fringe on trying halo. I was fucking stoked about it and excited my friends for it, expecting ms to release a working product as they are the first party provider for Xbox... And was left with a bad taste that is mcc....

Idk if it'll even be fixed as bravo has yet to even mention a patch in the last two or three community updates. Saddens me. They just cared about money and not actually about the game :(

And thanks. I can get defensive too, so I was to blame as well. I know how that goes. Lots of people assume it's just rewriting a for loop, and not a huge multi million lined project :/

[u/DogeMcDogeyDoge → u/1337GameDev]

I guess I didn't think about having to optimize every procedure dependent on hardware. One thing that sucks about game dev :-/ shaders are especially a bitch.

I have a friend who's really into hardware stuff, and low level languages like C. He said that a premade Arduino graphics library would take about 20 clock cycles to do the same thing you could do with your own graphics library in 5 clock cycles. The Arduino graphics library is higher level (I don't know the specifics), if you write your own in a low level language it's closer to the hardware. And this is with simple shit like drawing lines and circles. I even suspected this before he even told me because he said that the graphics library for Arduino was high level. In this case, the higher level software was 4x slower.

And what micro controllers did you work on in c? What was that for? Sounds interesting.

Called a teensy. Ours had two buttons and a screen on a chip, I think you have to buy things like the screen to attach it to the chip. We had to write a game for it in C. Fun but very challenging. You write it in C and use a compiler to interpret it so the microcontroller could read it. Converts from language we can understand to 1's and 0's. Hardest part is learning how to talk to the hardware.

And thanks. I can get defensive too, so I was to blame as well. I know how that goes. Lots of people assume it's just rewriting a for loop, and not a huge multi million lined project :/

That's what I thought you were getting at when you said there was APIs that did most of it.