Halo PC 1.03 is our first update to address some of the most
important issues that have arisen since the game was released. Our
goal with this patch was to 1) improve the quality of the online
experience for gamers and 2) address the most frequent issues gamers
run into. This update is also our first opportunity to improve our
networking architecture with some of our learnings from our hours of
online play. Here is a summary of what's new in Halo PC 1.03.
Note:All updates to the Halo Dedicated Server are documented in
the Halo Dedicated Server Readme file, which is available here: Halo
Dedicated Server 1.03 Readme
Improving the Quality of the Online Experience for Gamers
Addressing Team Killing
Servers now have a complete team
killing / banning system that should
significantly reduce team
killing online. The concept is simple: team-kill a number of time
and you will automatically be banned from the server for a period of
time set by the server administrator. Because team kills can be
accidental, the concept of grief also exists: following a team-kill,
if you don't team-kill again for a period of time, you are forgiven
for your team-kill. These settings are customizable by the server
administrator(s) using server console commands.
In addition to the system above, players are no longer penalized
for being killed by someone on their team and respawn time penalty
for a team-killer is multiplied by the number of teammates he
killed, rapidly leading to very long respawn times for team
killers.
Improving the Quality of the Online Experience
We've made a
number of updates and bug fixes to our networking architecture, the
most important one being specifically in how we transfer / predict
player's movement / position as well as the action of reloading your
weapon. While going into the details of these changes is beyond the
scope of this document, the result should be a smoother online game
experience across the variety of connections to the Internet.
We made the following changes to our user interface:
* Servers
name now supports 65 characters for dedicated servers and 32
characters for client-hosted servers and now accepts an extended
character set.
* Chat text length has been extended to 64
characters
* In-game scoreboard now displays every client's
ping
* In-game scoreboard now displays your # of assists
*
Server port numbers are displayed accurately throughout their
range
Additional Online Multiplayer New Features:
* Teams are now persisted for the next game when map cycling
occurs
* Map Reset: It's now possible to restart the current game
without requiring the server to map cycle.
* Assault: We now have
a timer to keep track of how much time is left to your offense /
defense round
* Assault: Alongside this timer, we also have an
"Offense" and "Deffense" indicator to quickly inform you of your
role
Addressing the Most Frequent Issues Experienced by Gamers
Many users have reported problems with Halo PC when using 3rd
party software to force the refresh rate of their monitor. We have
changed how we handle this situation in our code to seamlessly fall
back to the forced refresh rate.
A significant number of reported game crashes are related to an
external library called keystone.dll. We have updated this library
to address the most common failures. These crashes would usually
occur when changing screen resolution, when starting or quitting
Halo PC, when chatting in a multiplayer game or when using ALT-TAB
to minimize Halo PC and return to Windows.
Additional Bug Fixes
* Halo can now be bound to a specific IP address using the -ip
command line argument. (facilitating multiple NIC support for Halo
Dedicated Servers)
* Halo can now read/write data files to a user
specified folder using the -path command line argument. This is
particularly useful for Halo Dedicated Servers but also be be used
for users whose "My Documents" folder is remapped to a UNC path. It
is an advanced option and using it will force you to manually move
saved games and multiplayer gametypes.
* Online Multiplayer:
Telefrag message is now appropriately replicated.
* Online
Multiplayer: Minor fixes to switching teams in kill-in-order games
(scorew will now remain accurate)
* Online Multiplayer: Minor
fixes to the end of the game state (new players now have to wait for
the game to be restarted before being admitted to the server)
*
Online Multiplayer: Fix for clients flashlight states when joining
games
* Online Multiplayer: Vechicles won't respawn if they have
a projectile (such as a plasma grenade) attached to them. They will
wait for the projectile to be removed.
* Online Multiplayer:
Minor fixes to using teleports for high-latency connections
*
Sound: Fix for cinematic dialog being cut out on certain cards when
enabling Audio Hardware Acceleration in the Audio Settings.
Halo PC 1.02
With Halo PC 1.02, we are adding support for multiple instances
to our
dedicated server, enabling us and the community to roll
out many more servers for gamers. We are also introducing client
support for RCon (Remote Console), allowing dedicated server
operators to have control over their servers running in data
centers. For more information on the Halo PC Dedicated Server and
the Remote Console, please consult the Halo PC Dedicated Server
Readme file located here:
Halo PC Dedicated Server 1.02
We have also released the Halo PC Technical and Performance FAQ,
which answers most frequenty asked technical questions about Halo
PC. This FAQ is located here:
Halo PC Technical & Performance FAQ
Here is a summary of the changes with Halo PC 1.02:
* Halo PC Dedicated Server Support for multiple instances
*
Halo PC client support for RCon (remote console) to dedicated
servers
Bug Fixes:
* Timedemo doesn't check memory usage consumption with every
frame rendered (see Halo PC Techincal and Performance FAQ for more
info)
* After running timedemo, the last saved checkpoint is not
altered anymore
* Multiple minor bugs fixed in the Halo
Auto-Updater application
* Fixed an issue in keystone.dll that
was causing certain configurations to potentially crash when
chatting in multiplayer games
* Fixed minor card specific
rendering glitches
Halo PC 1.01
After Halo was released to manufacturing but before it arrived on
store shelves, the Halo team discovered a potential crashing issue
when playing Halo multiplayer online. In order to guarantee the best
possible experience for our customers we have issued an update that
addresses this issue. Before you can play Halo multiplayer online
you will need to allow this update to install through the
auto-install feature of Halo or by running haloupdate.exe from your
Halo installation folder.
This is the only issue that was addressed with Halo PC 1.01
Halo PC 1.00
Initial release of the PC version of Halo
Technical Support Options
Your first stop for Halo PC technical support should
be
www.microsoft.com/games/halo/support.asp
For all of our support offerings, visit . In Canada,
visit
http://microsoft.ca/support.
To get started, try the following:
* For articles targeted at a specific issue, visit the Microsoft
Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com
* To work with a
Microsoft Product Support Professional over the internet, submit
your issue at
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/onlinesr.asp
* For your
product's general support policy,
visit
http://support.microsoft.com
Phone Support: Call (425) 637-9308 in the U.S., or (905) 568-3505
in Canada (toll charges may apply). For paid assisted support in the
U.S., call (800) 936-5700; in Canada, call (800) 688-7975.
TTY Users: Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services are
available at (425) 635-4948 in Washington State, (800) 892-5234
elsewhere in the U.S., and (905) 568-9641 in Canada.
Worldwide: Support outside the U.S. and Canada may vary. For
regional contact details, visit
http://support.microsoft.com/international.aspx. If there is no
Microsoft subsidiary office in your country or region, please
contact the establishment from which you obtained your Microsoft
product.
Conditions: Microsoft's support services are subject to
then-current prices, terms, and conditions, which are subject to
change without notice.
Additionally, visit
http://halo.bungie.net/site/halo/features/halopc.html for access to
the Halo PC Technical and Performance FAQ and other useful
resources.
You can also log on to the Gearbox Software forums
at
http://www.gearboxsoftware.com to be in touch with other Halo
PC users.
Copyright © 2003 Microsoft Corporation
All rights
reserved
