Reaching a new traced ray - Halo MCC PC gets ray-tracing mod

[williamcll]

What is very different however compared to path tracing or ray tracing used in Minecraft Java/Bedrock is that this shaders are being processed through Nvidia's Reshade function. Other releases of Halo for PC also supports this shader.

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Halo Reach is finally out for the Halo Master Chief Collection on both PC and Xbox One. We don't know yet how it is faring on Microsoft Store, but Steam launch figures are very strong as it peaked at over 160K concurrent players on Valve's platform.That said, Halo Reach doesn't exactly look very hot even at 4K resolution and 'enhanced' graphics on PC, which isn't too surprising given that it's a port of an Xbox 360 game originally launched in 2010, as the game only goes up to 8x with the 'enhanced' graphics preset. That will help with the definition of textures a bit.

 

However, arguably the worse offender in the visuals department is the outdated lighting. Thankfully, ReShade can help a lot with that if you use Pascal Gilcher's Raytracing shader, as you can see in the video demonstration (embedded below) by YouTuber Digital Dreams. In some comparison scenes, it's like the light is effectively turned on, so to speak.This does come at a performance cost, but high-end configurations can definitely afford it given how smoothly Halo Reach runs by default.

 

As a reminder, to get Pascal Gilcher's raytracing you'll need to pay $5 by subscribing to the 'beta' tier of his Patreon.

Source:https://wccftech.com/halo-reach-looks-so-much-better-with-raytracing-injected-via-reshade/

https://www.patreon.com/mcflypg/posts
Thoughts: Like Quake 2, inserting Global illumination really does refresh a lot of legacy games, though if it can be applied automatically it would be even better.

[TempestCatto]

Doesn't mean shit. I still suck at Halo.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I feel like the creator's post about what they're doing deserves a mention:

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I want to clarify a few questions from the community regarding the technical side of my shader:

What I'm doing is ray tracing in screen space, tracing rays against the depth buffer (a data buffer that contains the information how far an object is away, as opposed to the color buffer which tells you what color the object has and what you usually see in any game). When compared to DXR, it has several limitations: anything behind another object does not contribute, anything outside the screen does not contribute, backfaces do not contribute. The benefits of this shader is that it can run on every game and GPU and it’s a step up from regular SSAO. I hope this serves as a sneak peek at what DXR ray tracing can do and why everyone in vfx can’t wait to get real ray tracing for their games. 

Not to downplay their work, but it's the same techniques that's been used for a while.

[TechyBen]

Can they add a mod that stops the GUI from freezing for 60 seconds every time you click a button?

[Brooksie359]

11 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Can they add a mod that stops the GUI from freezing for 60 seconds every time you click a button?

I haven't heard of that issue from anyone so I would assume that it is not super common and a mod that fixes the issue is likely not available. You can always tell 343 though because they are make continual updates for bugs and other improvements. 

[TechyBen]

22 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I haven't heard of that issue from anyone so I would assume that it is not super common and a mod that fixes the issue is likely not available. You can always tell 343 though because they are make continual updates for bugs and other improvements. 

Seen two or three reports. It was working fine (for those on beta). So release candidate/DRM update that's trashed it for some.

[Derangel]

RT off looks much better to me. While its cool to see stuff like this done just with ReShade, it never really looks "good". Adding RT lighting on top of the game's pre-baked lighting tends to kind of wreck the atmosphere the developers were going for.  Here it makes things look way too bright, clearly butchering the darker tone Bungie originally intended the game to have. Plus, it kind of makes it look less realistic than more. This is especially evident in the second scene, if you look off to the left you can see it clear lighting an area that was meant to stay dark. I have to give credit to the work people are doing to make this possible, however, even if I don't personally like how it makes games look. Then again, I've never been a fan of what most ReShade profiles do to a game's appearance.

[RejZoR]

Looks nice, though it feels like it lacks ambient occlusion entirely. Scenes, while pleasingly lit, they lack depth. Which is a problem of most games from pre-ambient occlusion era.

[Unixsystem]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I haven't heard of that issue from anyone so I would assume that it is not super common and a mod that fixes the issue is likely not available. You can always tell 343 though because they are make continual updates for bugs and other improvements. 

It's the Master Chief Collection. Get used to awful UI and general bugginess, it's not going anywhere. 

[Brooksie359]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

It's the Master Chief Collection. Get used to awful UI and general bugginess, it's not going anywhere. 

I honestly haven't had a single issue so far with the game and most reviews I have seen do not mention bugs other than the audio bug which isn't all that bad in my one or two times experiencing it. All things considered they did a pretty great job with the port. 

[IrshaadH]

it looks better with RT off....

[Unixsystem]

22 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

I honestly haven't had a single issue so far with the game and most reviews I have seen do not mention bugs other than the audio bug which isn't all that bad in my one or two times experiencing it. All things considered they did a pretty great job with the port. 

I've had several bugs involving not being able to zoom, not being able to voice chat in lobbies, and getting stuck in random menus if you dare trying to go into options while trying to match make. 

 

And that's not accounting for things like the inability to bind multiple buttons to one function (such as having both mouse up and down switch weapons), inability to rebind push to talk or chat at all, complete lack of graphical options like AA or film grain, a requirement to use the Xbox friends list while simultaneously not allowing you to add Xbox friends from within the game, and a plethora of just plain stupid UI decisions like the fact that once you unlock nameplates, it ceases to chow what the requirements were to unlock them, so there's no obvious way to know what feats you have already accomplished. 

 

And that's not accounting for the fact that this port has been in the works for over a year, on an engine that is fundamentally the same as the one in Halo 4 (which they already ported to x86), and yet they couldn't manage to even get Forge in for launch, let alone the other games. 

 

Is it nice to have Halo on PC by any means necessary? Sure. But it is absolutely not a high quality port, it's a hodgepodge of messy UI and half broken systems that they ported over wholesale from the already lackluster Xbone version rather than rebuilding something that actually works well. And it's only going to get worse as they add more and more games to the collection. 

[Brooksie359]

41 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I've had several bugs involving not being able to zoom, not being able to voice chat in lobbies, and getting stuck in random menus if you dare trying to go into options while trying to match make. 

 

And that's not accounting for things like the inability to bind multiple buttons to one function (such as having both mouse up and down switch weapons), inability to rebind push to talk or chat at all, complete lack of graphical options like AA or film grain, a requirement to use the Xbox friends list while simultaneously not allowing you to add Xbox friends from within the game, and a plethora of just plain stupid UI decisions like the fact that once you unlock nameplates, it ceases to chow what the requirements were to unlock them, so there's no obvious way to know what feats you have already accomplished. 

 

And that's not accounting for the fact that this port has been in the works for over a year, on an engine that is fundamentally the same as the one in Halo 4 (which they already ported to x86), and yet they couldn't manage to even get Forge in for launch, let alone the other games. 

 

Is it nice to have Halo on PC by any means necessary? Sure. But it is absolutely not a high quality port, it's a hodgepodge of messy UI and half broken systems that they ported over wholesale from the already lackluster Xbone version rather than rebuilding something that actually works well. And it's only going to get worse as they add more and more games to the collection. 

The only time I have been unable to zoom in is when I am being shot but that is a game mechanic. I feel like you are assuming that it us easy to port an old game like this when it isn't. If it was simple to do they would fix all the issues you talk about because some of them they have tried to find ways to fix it and have had difficulties doing so and honestly they have worked on alot of the key parts that most people care about and delivered on most of them. That is why I call it a good port. Does it get everything perfect? No but that doesn't make it a janky port because it feels and plays great which is what really matters. Also the game graphics settings I am unsure how this is a big deal anyways. What are we going to really gain from having access to them when 99% of people are just going to run It at max settings while a small minority will use lesser settings to make it run better. It should also be noted they they didn't want to totally rebuild the game because they wanted to preserve the original game as much as possible. I can play reach with uncapped framerates with better fov and with mouse and keyboard all while getting improved visuals and keeping the same feel as the original game. Yeah that is a good port in my book and to say it doesn't work well is simply disingenuous. Also we get keybindings just not alternate which I still think is pretty good. The push to talk not being rebindbale is something that they are still trying to figure out so it seems like it isn't simple to implement and is still being worked on. 

[Brooksie359]

49 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I've had several bugs involving not being able to zoom, not being able to voice chat in lobbies, and getting stuck in random menus if you dare trying to go into options while trying to match make. 

 

And that's not accounting for things like the inability to bind multiple buttons to one function (such as having both mouse up and down switch weapons), inability to rebind push to talk or chat at all, complete lack of graphical options like AA or film grain, a requirement to use the Xbox friends list while simultaneously not allowing you to add Xbox friends from within the game, and a plethora of just plain stupid UI decisions like the fact that once you unlock nameplates, it ceases to chow what the requirements were to unlock them, so there's no obvious way to know what feats you have already accomplished. 

 

And that's not accounting for the fact that this port has been in the works for over a year, on an engine that is fundamentally the same as the one in Halo 4 (which they already ported to x86), and yet they couldn't manage to even get Forge in for launch, let alone the other games. 

 

Is it nice to have Halo on PC by any means necessary? Sure. But it is absolutely not a high quality port, it's a hodgepodge of messy UI and half broken systems that they ported over wholesale from the already lackluster Xbone version rather than rebuilding something that actually works well. And it's only going to get worse as they add more and more games to the collection. 

Also they want to make a really good version of forge that caters to mouse and keyboard rather than a simple port. If you want to play forge there is already a way to mod it to work but you can only use a controller. 

[Tristerin]

Im not sure I watched the same video as those who said it looked better with RT off.  RT on clearly defined details compared, that were otherwise fuzzy or would be impossible to pick apart the details (grass in scene 1 for example).  As for the ambiance claim - could it be more so that the developers didn't have the technology to light it up correctly...so you got what you got.  Not sure we can say it was "intended" to be dark themed, or was it themed with the tech available at the time?

[Unixsystem]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

The only time I have been unable to zoom in is when I am being shot but that is a game mechanic. I feel like you are assuming that it us easy to port an old game like this when it isn't. If it was simple to do they would fix all the issues you talk about because some of them they have tried to find ways to fix it and have had difficulties doing so and honestly they have worked on alot of the key parts that most people care about and delivered on most of them. That is why I call it a good port. Does it get everything perfect? No but that doesn't make it a janky port because it feels and plays great which is what really matters. Also the game graphics settings I am unsure how this is a big deal anyways. What are we going to really gain from having access to them when 99% of people are just going to run It at max settings while a small minority will use lesser settings to make it run better. It should also be noted they they didn't want to totally rebuild the game because they wanted to preserve the original game as much as possible. I can play reach with uncapped framerates with better fov and with mouse and keyboard all while getting improved visuals and keeping the same feel as the original game. Yeah that is a good port in my book and to say it doesn't work well is simply disingenuous. Also we get keybindings just not alternate which I still think is pretty good. The push to talk not being rebindbale is something that they are still trying to figure out so it seems like it isn't simple to implement and is still being worked on. 

I never said it was easy to port a game. I said that 343 spent over a year with MS's resources to port a single game on the same engine as games they had already ported, and they couldn't even manage to give basic key bindings to all functions. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean I need to give them a free pass for doing a lackluster job of it. 

 

The zoom bug is not a game play feature, it's when you hit the zoom button and occasionally instead of scoping in the gun and HUD disappear and the view doesn't actually zoom at all. The only way to fix it is to "zoom out", switch weapons, then switch back and it'll scope properly. 

 

With regards to settings, my point is that the port a "enhanced" settings looks like shit. I'm not asking for a full remake (Reach of all games doesn't deserve one), but one of the advantages of putting an old game on PC is that you can crank AA and AF and get something that looks simplistic yet extremely crisp. The Reach port constantly looks muddy with flickering edges and significant LOD pop in. The game has "resolution scaling" in the menu but it only goes down - if they implemented a scaling system, then why can't I run it at 2x native and have it scale down? 

 

The fact that "they are still trying to figure out how to make push to talk rebindable" is exactly my point. Is it a game breaking feature? No, but it's a substantial annoyance and it points to a rushed and slap dash port that they shoved out the door to meet holiday demand, just like they did with the original MCC. My standards for "good port" is that they take the original game and make it run on a new platform exactly as if it had originally come out on both, and the fact is that the current release of MCC would be laughed out of Steam if it said anything on the cover other than Halo. Just because it generally functions and you can play it doesn't make it a good port, it makes it the bare minimum to be a product that they can actually release. 

 

Again, it's nice that we will theoretically eventually have all of the worthwhile Halo games playable on PC in some capacity, but unless they want to rename it to "Halo: The 'It' s Better Than Nothing' Collection", then I'm not content to sit back and accept that this is the best that we could possibly get from one of the most famous modern franchises backed by one of the largest game companies on the planet. 

59 minutes ago, Brooksie359 said:

Also they want to make a really good version of forge that caters to mouse and keyboard rather than a simple port. If you want to play forge there is already a way to mod it to work but you can only use a controller. 

343 has said many things over the years about what they "want" to do, and they consistently fuck it up. If they completely redo Forge to make it a fantastic PC centric level editor/creator, then great, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's just going to be the vanilla Reach Forge with a slightly higher object budget and maybe a few useful hotkeys (which may or may not been be rebindable). 

 

Every single thing that they have touched since Halo 4 has been an absolute disaster in one way or another, so forgive me if I'm not keen to take them at their word. 

[Brooksie359]

37 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

I never said it was easy to port a game. I said that 343 spent over a year with MS's resources to port a single game on the same engine as games they had already ported, and they couldn't even manage to give basic key bindings to all functions. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean I need to give them a free pass for doing a lackluster job of it. 

 

The zoom bug is not a game play feature, it's when you hit the zoom button and occasionally instead of scoping in the gun and HUD disappear and the view doesn't actually zoom at all. The only way to fix it is to "zoom out", switch weapons, then switch back and it'll scope properly. 

 

With regards to settings, my point is that the port a "enhanced" settings looks like shit. I'm not asking for a full remake (Reach of all games doesn't deserve one), but one of the advantages of putting an old game on PC is that you can crank AA and AF and get something that looks simplistic yet extremely crisp. The Reach port constantly looks muddy with flickering edges and significant LOD pop in. The game has "resolution scaling" in the menu but it only goes down - if they implemented a scaling system, then why can't I run it at 2x native and have it scale down? 

 

The fact that "they are still trying to figure out how to make push to talk rebindable" is exactly my point. Is it a game breaking feature? No, but it's a substantial annoyance and it points to a rushed and slap dash port that they shoved out the door to meet holiday demand, just like they did with the original MCC. My standards for "good port" is that they take the original game and make it run on a new platform exactly as if it had originally come out on both, and the fact is that the current release of MCC would be laughed out of Steam if it said anything on the cover other than Halo. Just because it generally functions and you can play it doesn't make it a good port, it makes it the bare minimum to be a product that they can actually release. 

 

Again, it's nice that we will theoretically eventually have all of the worthwhile Halo games playable on PC in some capacity, but unless they want to rename it to "Halo: The 'It' s Better Than Nothing' Collection", then I'm not content to sit back and accept that this is the best that we could possibly get from one of the most famous modern franchises backed by one of the largest game companies on the planet. 

343 has said many things over the years about what they "want" to do, and they consistently fuck it up. If they completely redo Forge to make it a fantastic PC centric level editor/creator, then great, but I'd be willing to bet money that it's just going to be the vanilla Reach Forge with a slightly higher object budget and maybe a few useful hotkeys (which may or may not been be rebindable). 

 

Every single thing that they have touched since Halo 4 has been an absolute disaster in one way or another, so forgive me if I'm not keen to take them at their word. 

From what they want to add to forge is ways to make things level and more coordinate type features. Also what you described is a perfect port not a good port. They added features that are specific to PC and are what people wanted with some exceptions so it isn't some simple crap port that companies do where they just transfer controls and make no effort to add features design for the platform it is being ported to. Also keep in mind that transfering from console to console is much easier than console to pc. Just because halo 4 was ported to an x86 architecture does not mean it is easy to port to PC because the input is completely different. Like I said it isn't a perfect port but it is still a good one. 

[Unixsystem]

1 hour ago, Brooksie359 said:

From what they want to add to forge is ways to make things level and more coordinate type features. Also what you described is a perfect port not a good port. They added features that are specific to PC and are what people wanted with some exceptions so it isn't some simple crap port that companies do where they just transfer controls and make no effort to add features design for the platform it is being ported to. Also keep in mind that transfering from console to console is much easier than console to pc. Just because halo 4 was ported to an x86 architecture does not mean it is easy to port to PC because the input is completely different. Like I said it isn't a perfect port but it is still a good one. 

Again, I don't care how easy or difficult it is. They are selling a product on PC that lacks dozen of standard PC features and options. That makes it a bad PC port. It's not expecting perfection to expect a PC game to have AA options, preferably ones that don't look like shimmery crap. 

[CarlBar]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

From what they want to add to forge is ways to make things level and more coordinate type features. Also what you described is a perfect port not a good port. They added features that are specific to PC and are what people wanted with some exceptions so it isn't some simple crap port that companies do where they just transfer controls and make no effort to add features design for the platform it is being ported to. Also keep in mind that transfering from console to console is much easier than console to pc. Just because halo 4 was ported to an x86 architecture does not mean it is easy to port to PC because the input is completely different. Like I said it isn't a perfect port but it is still a good one. 

 

Sorry but i'm with waffles here. The things he's complaining about in terms of button rebinding and graphical options stuff is basic standard to every PC game ever stuff. not having it IS a bad port. You have to meet that bar to even be an ok port.

[The1Dickens]

1 hour ago, Waffles13 said:

They are selling a product on PC that lacks dozen of standard PC features and options.

 

4 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

button rebinding and graphical options stuff is basic standard to every PC game ever stuff.

1.) It's a port of a console game. Some things just don't translate well. None of that was a concern on the console. Most other ports I've played from console to PC don't have all the graphical sliders, knobs, bells and whistles, or multi-key rebinds, either.

2.) It's 10 bucks.

 

11 hours ago, williamcll said:

shaders are being processed through Nvidia's Reshade function.

I don't think it is nVidia's software. The home page says developed by crosire. Not sure if that's an individual or team, so I guess it could be sponsored.

[Brooksie359]

3 hours ago, CarlBar said:

 

Sorry but i'm with waffles here. The things he's complaining about in terms of button rebinding and graphical options stuff is basic standard to every PC game ever stuff. not having it IS a bad port. You have to meet that bar to even be an ok port.

You do get button rebinding just not having multiple buttons bound to the same action which tbh I have never once needed and dont see how that is the standard for a pc port. You dont like an action being bound to a certain key then you can still change it so I am unsure what the big deal is. As far as graphics settings yeah you don't get granular settings but you still get what is relevant. I mean fov slider and the option to go with uncapped framerates are the two main ones that actually matter which they have while the rest dont matter much tbh. I mean it's an old game that runs well on most hardware so there isn't a real need to fiddle with settings to optimize performance like you would with other games. If these factors actually detracted from the enjoyment of the game then I could maybe see the argument but tbh they don't. Anyways the game has been a ton of fun to play so far and seems just like a much better version of the reach I played on the 360. 

[Derangel]

4 hours ago, Waffles13 said:

Again, I don't care how easy or difficult it is. They are selling a product on PC that lacks dozen of standard PC features and options. That makes it a bad PC port. It's not expecting perfection to expect a PC game to have AA options, preferably ones that don't look like shimmery crap. 

It's a nine year old game specifically designed for hardware that was half a decade old by the time it was made. It was also built quickly solely so Bungie could get out of their contract with MS. There are simply some things that are never going to be possible either because doing it would break the engine or because it would take too much time and/or money to accomplish. You can't expect a game from that era, designed to be solely played a single console, to have all the bells and whistles of a modern PC release. It was never going to happen. Something to note is that this is also a $10 release, not a $60 full priced game. You should expect the limitations that come with an extremely budget release. There are definitely serious issues they need to fix and the game needs some QOL updates and improvements, but there was never going to be a situation where it stood up to the best PC releases simply due to what it is. Expect all the other MCC games to have various limitations as well.

 

Oh and before you go talking about "same engine as Halo 4" or whatever, let me stop you right there. Halo 4 and Reach both use the Halo engine, but it is not the same version. Just because they successful created a new version for new hardware does not automagically mean the old version is going to work perfectly when it is ported over. There are very valid reasons to yell at 343 for this release, but "it's not up to the standard of modern $60 PC games" is not one of them.

[Mira Yurizaki]

I like how most of this thread is complaining about the quality of the port.

[Unixsystem]

12 hours ago, Derangel said:

It's a nine year old game specifically designed for hardware that was half a decade old by the time it was made. It was also built quickly solely so Bungie could get out of their contract with MS. There are simply some things that are never going to be possible either because doing it would break the engine or because it would take too much time and/or money to accomplish. You can't expect a game from that era, designed to be solely played a single console, to have all the bells and whistles of a modern PC release. It was never going to happen. Something to note is that this is also a $10 release, not a $60 full priced game. You should expect the limitations that come with an extremely budget release. There are definitely serious issues they need to fix and the game needs some QOL updates and improvements, but there was never going to be a situation where it stood up to the best PC releases simply due to what it is. Expect all the other MCC games to have various limitations as well.

 

Oh and before you go talking about "same engine as Halo 4" or whatever, let me stop you right there. Halo 4 and Reach both use the Halo engine, but it is not the same version. Just because they successful created a new version for new hardware does not automagically mean the old version is going to work perfectly when it is ported over. There are very valid reasons to yell at 343 for this release, but "it's not up to the standard of modern $60 PC games" is not one of them.

Reach is a modified Halo 3 engine, and 4 is a modified Reach engine, and all 3 are from the same console. Again, I'm not claiming it's a quick or easy port, but it's also not like they are starting from square one here. 

 

I'm not asking for "all the bells and whistles" of a modern release, I'm asking for the bare minimum of what any PC game is expected to have. The fact that I can't bind "Mouse Wheel" to change weapons is insane. The fact that I can't rebind push to talk off of V is insane. The fact that I can't disable the film grain filter is awful. 

 

"It's only $10" doesn't make the port any better. It makes it a better value proposition, sure, but even if it was free it would still be an equally bad port than if it was $100. Less insulting, sure, but the quality of the game is independent of the price. If it was $15 or $20 for Reach and it came with a full suite of PC features, I would rather have that game. 

[Derangel]

4 minutes ago, Waffles13 said:

Reach is a modified Halo 3 engine, and 4 is a modified Reach engine, and all 3 are from the same console. Again, I'm not claiming it's a quick or easy port, but it's also not like they are starting from square one here. 

 

I'm not asking for "all the bells and whistles" of a modern release, I'm asking for the bare minimum of what any PC game is expected to have. The fact that I can't bind "Mouse Wheel" to change weapons is insane. The fact that I can't rebind push to talk off of V is insane. The fact that I can't disable the film grain filter is awful. 

 

"It's only $10" doesn't make the port any better. It makes it a better value proposition, sure, but even if it was free it would still be an equally bad port than if it was $100. Less insulting, sure, but the quality of the game is independent of the price. If it was $15 or $20 for Reach and it came with a full suite of PC features, I would rather have that game. 

It performs incredibly well, KB+M controls feel close to a game originally designed for the platform, there aren't a bunch of new game breaking bugs (would have been nice if they could have fixed some of the scripting issues, but probably not possible without rewriting large portions of the AI and mission scripts), it doesn't have widespread stability issues, even the majority of the audio issues are related to the bad sound mix (always a problem with Reach, but made worse by the changes they had to make), most keys are rebindable, they set mouse accel and mouse smoothing to off by default, the game isn't locked to stupid frame rates, there is a wide range of FOV options for both on foot and vehicles, and so on. Not being able to rebind a couple keys or disable film grain (which I don't like either, by the way) does not make it a bad port. I'd argue its a good port, with some issues that need to be addressed. You are hyper focused on the couple nitpicks that bother you and letting it give you tunnel vision. There are things in this port that go above and beyond what several native PC games do.