XBox Halo - PAL vs NTSC?

[Link83]

Hi everyone,
I have just been reading some old threads here on NTSC-UK and noticed a comment that said PAL Halo was not as good as the NTSC version, but it didnt say why.
Is this true? and if so what were the problems with the PAL version?
Also if there were any problems with the PAL version were they ever fixed with a LIVE patch/download, or were they fixed in the PAL XBox 'Classic' re-release?
TIA

[egparadigm]

I think the only problems with the PAL release of Halo were some slow-down in the climax... I could be wrong, though. I believe that both Halo 1 + 2 were region free, so getting the US version shouldn't be too painful. I have to say that there was nothing in the PAL version which bothered me, however.

[MattyD]

The PAL version has framerate issues even in PAL60 IIRC. Also, PAL and NTSC versions are incompatible on network play. From Bungie's website:

"Okay, I need to explain the differences between NTSC and PAL Xbox Halo because there are some serious misconceptions about what we did and why. Some people seem to think we made PAL and NTSC versions incompatible either as a sneaky, half-assed method of region-locking or perhaps just because we could, and that we actually invested time and energy to cripple net play when it would have worked fine if we'd left it alone. None of this is true.

Those of you who have edited Myth maps will be familiar with the concept of tags. A programmer could come up with a better description of what tags are, but my quick and dirty layman's definition would be "objects that contain and/or reference game data and variables." The Master Chief's running speed is stored in a tag. The speed of the Warthog is stored in a tag. Lots of things are stored in tags.

When we started work on the PAL version, it ran much, much slower than its NTSC counterpart. Basically, Halo always assumed it was running in NTSC (updating 30 times per second) which meant that under PAL (updating 25 times per second) everything took longer. Much longer. So we had to manually adjust the tags, basically compensating for PAL slowdown by making certain things faster.

The problems between NTSC and PAL Xbox Halo stem from the different tags. Because many of the tags we changed are so fundamental to the game (the running speed of the Master Chief, for example) any NTSC-PAL Halo game would go out of sync immediately. We figured it would be less stressful for all concerned if we changed the ports used for multiplayer so PAL Xboxes would not let NTSC Xboxes into LAN games (and vice versa). At least that way no one says "I can join the game, therefore there must be a way to make it work. Let's spend several frustrating hours trying to resolve the problem."

Syncing the PAL tags with their NTSC counterparts is not an option; doing so would impose a 20% speed penalty on the PAL version, which we'd already decided was unacceptable. I suspect dropping the PAL tags into an NTSC version of the game would result in similar speed issues.

Yes, this is a less-than-ideal situation, and yes, future Bungie games will probably be less NTSC-centric. :-)"

[MJ]

The PAL version has framerate issues even in PAL60 IIRC.

Correct, because the PAL version is 50Hz only and doesn't support 60Hz/PAL-60.

[Commander Marklar]

Just to point out that Halo is not region free. Also, the PAL60 thing just causes some weird frame-skipping. You'll only ever notice it in cut scenes, doesn't make much difference to the game. You can link a 50hz + 60hz PAL Halo together though, they're both running at 50hz... just one has a slight display issue

Also, German PAL Halo doesn't link to other versions (except German, natch) IIRC. We had someone with a German copy at it just didn't want to play ball.

[phillai]

Does this apply to Halo 2 as well?

[MJ]

Halo 2 is 60Hz compatible so there are no frame rate or regional issues (that I know of or have come across at least).

[NekoFever]

Also, German PAL Halo doesn't link to other versions (except German, natch) IIRC. We had someone with a German copy at it just didn't want to play ball.

That could be down to them editing it even more, which wouldn't be out of the question when you look at German attitudes to violent games. If playing around with some of the tags caused synching errors it wouldn't be out of the question for modifying the ones related to violence against humanoids to cause more.