Microsoft reveals how Halo Infinite will look on 32:9 super ultrawide monitors a...
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Microsoft reveals how Halo Infinite will look on 32:9 super ultrawide monitors and other PC perksSkip to main content
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Microsoft reveals how Halo Infinite will look on 32:9 super ultrawide monitors and other PC perks
I wish I’d had this to test with Samsung’s Odyssey G9
Microsoft has something of a history of neglecting PC gaming, but it’s trying to change that in a big way — by promising its flagship Halo Infinite will feel like a native PC game when it arrives later this year. We’ve known for many months that it wouldn’t be the Xbox Series X’s killer app, but Microsoft’s trying to make PC gamers feel like first-class citizens too, with features as forward-looking as support for 32:9 super-ultrawide monitors like the Samsung Odyssey G9 I reviewed late last year.
This morning, we learned the game would support ultrawide monitors, in addition to triple-keybinds, advanced graphics options, and both crossplay and cross-progression between Xbox and Windows PCs. But this evening, the Halo Waypoint blog went way deeper, revealing what Infinite will look like at 32:9 and an array of other PC-gamer-friendly details like being able to adjust your field of view up to 120 degrees — and the ability to host your own LAN multiplayer server!
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In my Samsung Odyssey G9 review, I bemoaned how even the games that do support 32:9 typically look abnormally, wildly stretched out on each side, providing over a dozen examples of how they don’t properly adjust the shape and curvature of the window they’re opening into the 3D game world. But Halo Infinite PC development lead Mike Romero says the game’s designed to support arbitrary window sizes, and can fit its HUD, menus, and even in-game cutscenes into the wider aspect ratios.
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“There’s dozens of people across the studio that have had to put dedicated effort into supporting something like ultrawide throughout the entirety of the game, and I’m very excited to say I think we’ll have some of the best ultrawide support I’ve ever seen in a game,” boasts Romero.
Looking at these Halo Infinite images at 32:9, it’s not immediately clear to me that Microsoft has solved the 32:9 issue — looking at the hill on the right of this image below, for instance, it seems like the game world still might appear a little bit skewed and warped.
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But it is clear that you’ll see a lot more of the game world at once this way, if you’re one of the few who’ve ascended to an ultrawide monitor — and have a PC powerful enough to drive it, of course.
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Here’s a short list of all the PC-esque perks Microsoft is promising:
- LAN play, hosting a local multiplayer server on PC that you can join from both PC and Xbox
- Crossplay, restricting ranked matches to input type rather than console vs. PC, with server-side anti-cheat
- Adjustable FOV (up to 120 degrees) on both PC and console
- Mouse and keyboard support on both PC and console
- Triple keyboard and mouse bindings
- Visual quality settings up to ultra presets on PC, with individual settings for texture quality, depth of field, anti-aliasing etc.
- High refresh rate options
- 21:9, 32:9 “and beyond” ultrawide monitor support on PC
- Minimum and maximum framerate settings on PC
- Fixed and dynamic resolution scaling options on PC
- Optional borderless fullscreen on PC
- FPS and ping overlay on PC
- Out-of-game multiplayer invites let you join games through Xbox Live, Discord and Steam
As my colleague Tom Warren notes, there’s still more to learn, like whether the game will support GPU-dependent features on PC like Nvidia’s framerate-enhancing DLSS, ray tracing, and more.
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There are 32 comments.
Sounds like they’re trying hard to make sure nobody had anything to whine about.
Of course even if its the best handling game ever somebody will find something to moan about, just the nature of things.
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 8:53 PM
Seems like most games need more time in the development tank before release (like an extra year), so I’m all for them polishing this up and making it actually a good quality release. Would love it if there isn’t much to complain about. But playing since the original Halo, the storyline has been rough for the last couple of releases…hoping they do better there.
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 9:44 PM
When has the story been rough other than 5? Halo 4 and Reach had great stories.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 8:00 AM
Halo 4’s story was horrid and some of the cheesiest writing I’ve ever seen
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 10:31 AM
The reply from "twitch-chat" in the comments below has you covered.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 10:39 AM
There can’t possibly be more people with 32:9 displays than people with brand new RTX cards wanting to use DLSS, raytracing, and reflex.
Get your priorities straight MS.
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 10:28 PM
I’m guessing the reason they haven’t talked about RTX features is probably because they’d rather use their own (Radeon and Xe compatible) DXR and DirectML Upscaling. Why would they make RTX-specific improvements when they can just use the DirectX solutions they’re already using for the Series consoles?
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 11:04 PM
RTX is DXR. Nvidia just like to brand it something different. DLSS which they market under RTX is the only thing that is wholly nvidia.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 3:14 AM
You’re misinformed. Microsoft & Nvidia collaborated to make DXR what it is. RTX is merely how Nvidia markets their implementation. Nvidia released the first DX12U cards & their DXR implementation is by far the fastest correlating to their core competency in machine learning (why they were so invested actually realizing DXR on their GPUs)
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 8:38 AM
I had assumed RTX was something special because many games had to be patched to let Radeon 6000 cards use RT, but your explanation makes sense.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 9:27 AM
21:9/32:9 is still a more popular display then 4k. But that’s because two or more monitors would hit that display resolution. And since we’ve had things like Eyefinity Display for like, decades, it’s a kind of a more common thing then RTX.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 7:49 AM
Unfortunetly you can’t make a game perspective perfect for a curved screen. 3 monitors at different angles they can do easily. But a curve is basically infinite angles which can’t currently be done. I’m sure the skew you see above is an attempt to mitigate that to some degree.
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 11:14 PM
Unless you add support for nivida’s simultaneous multi-projection or whatever it’s called now (Perspective Surround?).
Posted on Apr 29, 2021 | 11:31 PM
Curves are fine, because setting angled displays would still have warping since the game can’t possibly know the precise angle that you put your displays on. The warping on the other hand is more of an issue that the FoV hasn’t been jacked up high enough to support it. Like, 120ish is generally the standard for a 21:9 monitor, higher then that would help mitigate the screen warping around the edges when you’re pushing 32:9.
Either way, the warping isn’t that much of an issue for a game like Halo, since the player will be focusing into the middle of the screen for most of their gameplay, so any warping is more like a digital equivalent of peripheral vision. If anything that 343 should do right now, is to move the HUD more into the center so it’s not quite so far outside of the periphery.
And on the bright side, they’re not cutting the screen into a third of what it is like Dota 2 or Overwatch does with their lazy 21:9+ implementation. Because both those games currently support it but they do such a poor job at it that you actually see less of the game then anyone else on a 16:9 screen.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 7:59 AM
Most of these "features" are honestly baseline things or things easily modifiable. A good amount of PC enthusiasts need to see features like
- DirectStorage / SSD-specific optimization
- Ray-tracing
- HDR (Dolby Vision HDR support on PC)
- Pixel density settings rivaling the enhanced edition of Metroid Exodus & Demon Souls Remaster.
Have things to actually make the game look next-gen on PC as it ought to–and to maximize Direct X12 Ultimate; it’s abysmal Microsoft has all these next gen PC features for devs to use, & they don’t maximize such APIs in their first-party games themselves.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 2:05 AM
99% of PC games (100%?) don’t have this combination of features actually so people don’t see these as baseline features at all. Please name one game that has all of these.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 2:32 AM
Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Spider-Man Remaster, Metroid Exodus Enhanced Edition, Control, Shadows of the Tomb Raider, the MP Wolfestein, & Cyberpunk 2077 have a great deal of these features.
I never said they need to use all the feature I mentioned at once. All the games I mentioned destroy the visuals of this game; the closest comparison is Metro Exodus Enhanced Editon I expect Halo Infinite to be graphically competitive with as a 2021 title
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 8:42 AM
I’d also point out a good amount of Xbox Series X optimized titles have a promising amount of such features that hopefully is in PC ports moving forward.
It’s 2021; DX12U PC games should be the priority of their first party PC games but Microsoft already said they won’t really do so until ~2023.
They won’t have a game as visually impressive as Demon Souls Remaster & probably the upcoming God of War till then as well. That’s disappointing to me. Third party games & PS5 exclusives will destroy the visual fidelity & gameplay complexity of their first party games accordingly until then since their studios have to accommodate a base Xbox One.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 8:48 AM
I don’t think the major titles moving forward beyond 2021 or parts of 2022 are still being developed to ship on Xbox one. We’ve already seen SEVERAL titles announced that never indicated any xbox one support and I’m sure anything not yet announced for release is almost certainly going to Xbox series / pc exclusive.
The first year of games from any console generation is full of games that ARE cross gen titles OR were only pushed to be "next gen " exclusive but not typically very deep or long term must plays (ie Ryse Son of Rome, knack, etc).
Demon souls is just an old ps3 game with a new coat of paint and Spiderman (both of em) are still running on ps4 as well.
Then you had the destruction derby freebie game that no one cared about and now we do have a TRULY next gen title in Returnal launching but its a lot of spectacle in a game many would have little interest in completing (it takes a certain type of players to want to play a game that must be completed in one sitting).
Ratchet and clank looks to be the first real solid and must have title but again it may only have a certain audience being a game aimed at younger gamers.
With HFW and (likley) GOW2 both launching on last gen as well it’s not like Sony is 100% moving forward anytime soon either.
I think in the end micorosfts approach may not be as bombastic but I certainly feel it respects their players time and money much more than Sonys.
By the time systems are actually available games actually worth having will likley also be arriving and in the meantime they are keeping their current owners satisfied with the option to keep playing the next few big games while the transition between generations is more cemented.
Sony at first seemed to be compeltley against this and was ready to say screw all their old owners upgrade or get left behind but now we see they’ve taken a bit of a half step that at the very least guarantees that their financial investment in these large games (Spiderman HFW etc) isn’t limited by the fact that they can’t even get consoles in gamers hands who want to pay for them.
It works out for ps4 owners as well but I think it’s more of a by product than a genuine consumer first move.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 3:46 PM
Microsoft confirmed before the launch of the Xbox Series X all first party games in the next 2-3 years will support Xbox One; you cannot support Xbox One X without supporting Xbox One.
This pandemic exacerbates that.
Your rant about Demon Souls is nonsensical. It’s a next gen remaster; it doesn’t matter if the original came out 3 decades ago. It having current gen tech exclusively in mind has advantages no first party Xbox game the next 2 years will exclipse.
The gameplay loop is faithful to the original, so last gen & today game’s have more complexity but no current first-party Microsoft game exceeds it graphically.
Any Sony high-fidelity game also for PS4 are the only games a first party Microsoft game can succeed graphically.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 5:02 PM
*PS5 games downgraded to being available to PS4 due to shortages, this pandemic, & feasibility analysis are the only games to expect realistically that a first party Microsoft game will rovial graphically.
A game could deliberately be low-fidelity/cel-shaded/etc to make that moot of course.
A game built around exclusively SSDs & at least ~10Teraflops as a floor have too a huge advantage for a game designed to accommodate Xbox One that came out many years ago.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 5:16 PM
I agree with a lot of this, but I will state that I think calling a series like Ratchet & Clank as a "a game aimed at younger gamers" is akin to calling Mario or Sonic "a game aimed at younger players".
I don’t think that applies to either of the three series: they’re all meant as console platformer mainstays to appeal to all ages.
Hell! – of the three, I’d say that in terms of the concepts of the story and technical prowess needed to juggle the multiple tools & weapons (and now this time/realm-shifting mechanic, to boot), R&C might be the most "adult" of all three franchises, even despite the furry mascot and the cute robot sidekick.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 8:51 PM
I’m sorry but I don’t agree that ALL of these games destory infinite in the looks nor have we seen more than a few screenshots of the updated lighting and what we did see is miles ahead of what was shown last year in the demo.
If you’re opinion is based on that old demo then it’s an outdated opinion and if it’s based on the couple screenshots I dont think you can make a fair competition that way though I think what is seen in them is quite good for a giant open world (and "outdoor") first person shooter world.
Now expecting this game cross developed for 2 generations of xbox (amd based) and pc to have Nvidia proprietary tech like DLSS is kinda a hard sell.
As far as the tech that is part of xbox series x and is also on pc I think we can expect SOME of them but not necessarily all of them because again the game is still being developed with Xbox one base console as a target.
There’s only so much next gen features they can put in while keeping it functional on the old consoles without essentially developing 2 different games simultaneously.
As far as your comparison to metros new enhanced edition again I think it’s completely illogical to expect them to deliver a game on a technical level as advanced as it (being that it’s LITERALLY the ONLY game ever made with ray tracing as a REQUIREMENT)
So much of what makes it look as good as it does is SPECIFICALLY because it doesn’t offer ANY support for older generations of gpu tech.
And once again I remind you that halo infinite must launch day 1 with full support on Xbox one base consoles.
Still for all the handicaps it must carry I think they’ve done a great job of delivering a game of scale that still provides visuals that can impress with the proper setup and situation occurring in the game.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 3:31 PM
DLSS is trivial to add to any game with common anti-aliasing already. It’s irrelevant the game is accommodating Xbox One for it to have DLSS or not. The PC Port should have no problem with that, just like many games already available on multiple platforms having DLSS today.
You can do progressive enhancement to add Ray-tracing. Many games with Ray-tracing are available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, & Series X.
Ray tracing biggest strength is that it is way faster & easier to implement than the faking of lighting, reflections, & so of precious techniques. It’s a time-saving technology for developers. For that reason, including the fact that deep-learning-capable GPUs enable transformative upgrades to AI & physicals, current-gen games will increasingly require a Ray-tracing GPU.
In fact, before the pandemic, many predicted that multiple games will require ray-tracing GPUs as soon as 2023.
It’s a pleasant surprise (but unfortunately likely a outlier) Metrod Exodus Enhanced Edition will be the first to do so.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 5:12 PM
The good news is Microsoft and AMD announced at an Xbox developer event today that FidelityFX and their upcoming version of DLSS will be coming to Xbox.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 3:29 AM
Wasn’t this already known and they are just making it official? I mean we knew AMD version of DLSS would have to be a thing for consoles to hit 4K and a stable 60fps if not more, with all the graphical bells and whistles.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 7:13 AM
I cannot wait to see how the game looks at E3. I need to play it NOW!!
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 4:05 AM
This is the version that they should have shown in the first place!
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 7:13 AM
can I have a halo of monitors to play halo? 
Imagine all those curved ultrawide monitors around you.
Posted on Apr 30, 2021 | 7:57 PM
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