Official Xbox 360? Thread...Part Deux

[michaels]

http://xboxyde.com/stream_3821_en.html

Sweet looking Flatout trailer, the physics look amazing.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: purbeast0

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: blurredvision

Originally posted by: UpgradeFailure

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: Aikouka

Originally posted by: chrisg22
I'll definitely be in for the beta. we should set something up, but it needs to be probably after wednesday so everyone has a chance to get it downloaded. I have a feeling it will be a slow download..

After all the readings I've done (I get bored sometimes >_>) it looks like arranged matches won't be possible in the beta. Well, unless I've read something wrong.

well that sucks. I haven't really kept up with the beta news at all.

Me either. Hrrm, well, come wed. if we can set it up, an ATOT match would be great

Not sure where you heard that from, the party system is running fine in the Halo 3 beta. We would all join up in a party, then search for whatever gametype we'd want. So we can definitely set up a time to do this. I'm all for it.

Unfortunately for me, I'll get up Wednesday morning, and start the download (if the servers haven't crashed). I have to leave for work around 2 in the afternoon, and I seriously doubt it will be downloaded by then. So I'll be waiting until late Wednesday night before I can get my first taste.

EDIT: I'm told that parties will hold up to 8 people, but parties can only join matchmaking games, not custom ones.

I don't know anything about the halo matchmaking system, so forgive me.

is the party system basically a lobby? So if we have 8 people in the lobby, the matchmaking will put all of us into the same game with other people? What is the max player limit for the beta (if any)?

It's like you have a lobby and you can get a group in there, and then search on the automated match making system together.

So if you are in a room w/3 other ATOT members and click go, you guys will be you 4 against a random other 4 players.

But that was only for team games. In Halo 2, you couldn't play non-team games with a party in ranked games.

It really is a great system.

Ya, it really is a great system. Instead of one person joining an online game, and inviting people from your friends list to join the game, you all meet up in a personal lobby space, where you can chat, and the party lobby host will set the parameters of what kind of game your party is looking for. Then, you hit go, and it will search for a game and other people to fill out the map with the maximum amount of players.

When the match ends, you view your stats, and can chat with whomever wants to talk about them. Then, once your host decides that you've had enough of the stats screen, it will throw your party back into their personal lobby space, and you continue the process until you fall asleep on your couch, because the game is THAT fun.

 

[Eug Wanker]

The new HD DVD Update rocks my world. Info

Xbox 360 HD DVD Update Now Available

As of 2am this morning, the latest software for the Xbox HD DVD player is now available via Xbox Live (and will be posted on xbox.com in due course). The three teams involved (HD DVD, Xbox and the Codec folks) have all been hard at work for the last six months or so to produce this important update. This is not to be confused with the Xbox Dashboard update that went live last week: that effected the dashboard itself, but the HD DVD player is not a part of that: it is a separate application that lives on the HD DVD drive. You can tell which version of the HD DVD player you have by running any title, getting the Player UI up and clicking on the ? button: the new version is 2.0.4629, the previous versions were 4248 and 4113.

What's new? In summary superb Title Compatibility, Audio Improvements, and New Features. Plus a myriad of bug fixes and performance improvements.

The main area of Title Compatibility improvement as been Standard Content titles (aka CAT1 titles). The CAT1 engine can handle everything that is thrown at it now, including all of the Discovery titles, the burn-at-home discs that the ULead and other tools create, and a particularly interesting forthcoming title I can't name, but should be called "CAT1 Torture Test Disc".

For Advanced Content titles (aka CAT2) the player is now the most spec-compliant player available, and has had some areas re-written for performance and specification-compatibility. Plus we had to make sure the Matrix Trilogy played perfectly of course!

A big improvement has happened for Dolby Audio. The original versions used DRC (dynamic range compression) on Dolby sources but this could produce muddy sound on occasion: the DRC defaults to off now, with a notable improvement in some titles. In addition the ability to re-encode all audio as DTS over S/PDIF was added, which further improves audio quality (assuming your receiver can handle DTS of course). My workmate Raj spent an inordinate amount of time on audio/video sync issues, the most famous being the hammer scene in Batman Begins. That, plus every other reported sync issue has been addressed with this update: critical measurements indicate we have a closer AV sync than another other player. (Raj never wants to watch Batman Begins ever again: I have the same feelings for Bourne Supremacy, as I worked on an AV sync issue for the CES 2006 HD DVD demo which featured that title).

Note that the issues with trouble reading a few Universal discs (like Children of Men and The Good Shepherd) has not been addressed by this software update: that was a manufacturing problem and if you have an effected disc you can get a free replacement.

There are two New Feature areas: the first is improved Network support. Soon you will see titles appearing that will start to show what is possible when your HD DVD player has access to additional content via its mandatory ethernet connection. Blood Diamond has been announced with networking features, something that the Blu-Ray version lacks (because of course Blu-Ray players cannot do networking, or picture-in-picture, or a bunch of other things). If you want to try these new features out, be sure to enable Network Support in the player first (and you'll need an Xbox Live connection) via the new button in the on-screen UI. The other new feature is asynchronous video playback. Hard to explain succinctly what this is (and even harder to implement!) but it will allow content authors to make even better content on HD DVD.

I have to confess that my personal participation in this release was minimal: I was working on something else that hasn't been announced yet. I am psyched for the team though: this is a truly great release.

Pic of Dolby Digital, DTS, WMA Pro setup screen

 

[RagingBITCH]

Halo 3...tomorrow.......

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Halo 3...tomorrow.......

i cannot wait.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Originally posted by: maziwanka

Originally posted by: RagingBITCH
Halo 3...tomorrow.......

i cannot wait.

Ditto. I need to go see if I can still find a Crackdown copy that has the Halo 3 beta...they said only the initial copies did, so I don't know if the newer ones still have them

 

[Queasy]

Bungie's Halo 3 Beta Guide - For reading while you're downloading.

 

[bucwylde23]

nevermind

 

[Queasy]

September 25th Release Date Announced for Halo 3

We said Fall 2007, but did you expect Halo 3?s release date to be just two days into the Fall? On September 25, 2007 (just two days after the Autumnal Equinox), players will be able to finish the fight they started in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2. Halo 3 will release in Europe on September 26, 2007. Worldwide dates may vary slightly depending on local rules and conditions.

 

[blurredvision]

Wow, so they actually are releasing Halo 3 in September. I'm impressed! Now I just have to get this beta running this morning. I love the 360!

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Wow, so they actually are releaseing Halo 3 in September. I'm impressed! Now I just have to get this beta running this morning. I love the 360!

Ok so I wasted a bunch of time this morning.

bungie.net said the beta would be released at 12:00am PDT. So I got up before work to try to start the download. But it wasn't up.

I then try halo3.com and it says 5:00am PDT instead

Which brings me to my previous question, will this be able to be downloaded as a background download? or will crackdown have to actually be booted up during the entire download?
I guess we'll find out in about a half hour anyways.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Wow, so they actually are releaseing Halo 3 in September. I'm impressed! Now I just have to get this beta running this morning. I love the 360!

Ok so I wasted a bunch of time this morning.

bungie.net said the beta would be released at 12:00am PDT. So I got up before work to try to start the download. But it wasn't up.

I then try halo3.com and it says 5:00am PDT instead

Which brings me to my previous question, will this be able to be downloaded as a background download? or will crackdown have to actually be booted up during the entire download?
I guess we'll find out in about a half hour anyways.

Good question, not sure. Either way, I'm ready to start. I want to be able to put some time into it before I have to leave for work this afternoon around 2pm. That's 6 hours from download start, so I guess we'll see if I can do it on my 4Mb connection. I don't think the bandwidth will have anything to do with it, though......Microsoft's servers will be cluttered as hell, I'm thinking I'll be lucky to even be able to start the download.

 

[blurredvision]

Should we have a separate thread for the Halo 3 beta in Off Topic? Atleast maybe sticking with this thread, it might keep the PC fanboys and overall general Halo 3 bashers away. I'm sure somebody will create it before the day is out anyhow.

 

[blurredvision]

If you want some amusement, head over the bungie.net Halo 3 beta forums. It is now going on a quarter after 8am on the eastern coast. The timer on Bungie's website counted down successfully about 13 minutes ago as I type this. And those of us with Crackdown still do not have access to download the beta. If Bungie waits much longer to throw the switch, this could get interesting........

I'm not terribly depressed, only the more time that passes is the more time that I could've been downloading. If I have to wait until late tonight to play, then so be it.

 

[bucwylde23]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
If you want some amusement, head over the bungie.net Halo 3 beta forums. It is now going on a quarter after 8am on the eastern coast. The timer on Bungie's website counted down successfully about 13 minutes ago as I type this. And those of us with Crackdown still do not have access to download the beta. If Bungie waits much longer to throw the switch, this could get interesting........

I'm not terribly depressed, only the more time that passes is the more time that I could've been downloading. If I have to wait until late tonight to play, then so be it.

haha, I was checking my friends list through xbox.com and you as well as all the rest of them are exactly like this:
Playing Crackdown
In the Frontend Menu

A couple are already playing the beta but not through crackdown.

I'm just sitting here watching bungie.net watching the # of online players jump up.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: chrisg22

Originally posted by: blurredvision
If you want some amusement, head over the bungie.net Halo 3 beta forums. It is now going on a quarter after 8am on the eastern coast. The timer on Bungie's website counted down successfully about 13 minutes ago as I type this. And those of us with Crackdown still do not have access to download the beta. If Bungie waits much longer to throw the switch, this could get interesting........

I'm not terribly depressed, only the more time that passes is the more time that I could've been downloading. If I have to wait until late tonight to play, then so be it.

haha, I was checking my friends list through xbox.com and you as well as all the rest of them are exactly like this:
Playing Crackdown
In the Frontend Menu

A couple are already playing the beta but not through crackdown.

I'm just sitting here watching bungie.net watching the # of online players jump up.

Ya, when I went into the living room this morning, I went ahead and set it up. So now I'm in the other room on the computer, waiting for any word from the kids on the forums. Then I'll go in there and start it .

EDIT: Keep us a list of the amount of players as time progresses. I've kept an eye on it myself, and it went something like this:

8:00am - 1,100 players
8:10am - 1,920 players
8:25am - 2,100 players
8:35am - 2,460 players
9:00am - 2,900 players
9:15am - 3,300 players
10:00am - 3,700 players
11:40am - 4,400 players

That's about enough I guess. With the Crackdown download not working almost 4 hours in, the number count isn't nowhere as big as I wanted to see.

 

[bucwylde23]

I'm just interested to know the download size & how fast you will be downloading. so keep me informed

 

[bucwylde23]

blurred, are you watching the xbox.com forums? People are getting PISSED over there because they can't download through crackdown. Pretty funny stuff.. shouldn't those kids be in school?

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: chrisg22
blurred, are you watching the xbox.com forums? People are getting PISSED over there because they can't download through crackdown. Pretty funny stuff.. shouldn't those kids be in school?

LOL....I've been watching the bungie.net forums, and briefly visited the gamefaqs forum, although that didn't last long .

A couple of people have posted that they were able to start downloading through Crackdown, but I don't believe it. They are all speculating now that bungie is only letting so many people through at a time, which is actually a good way to do it, but they never announced it this way. Besides, they stickied a post on the forums that warned people that downloading would be slow.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: chrisg22
I'm just interested to know the download size & how fast you will be downloading. so keep me informed

I already know the download size to be 1.1GB. That's the main reason I don't think I'll be playing this morning.

 

[bucwylde23]

from bungie.net:

Folks are reporting problems downloading the Halo 3 Beta via Crackdown this morning. We have alerted the appropriate Live authorities and they are taking care of the problem as we speak. More news as it comes in.

 

[blurredvision]

Originally posted by: chrisg22
from bungie.net:

Folks are reporting problems downloading the Halo 3 Beta via Crackdown this morning. We have alerted the appropriate Live authorities and they are taking care of the problem as we speak. More news as it comes in.

Atleast that gives the people with codes an easy download time.

EDIT: Well crap, now that they posted that on the bungie homepage, the site has slowed to a crawl.

 

[Queasy]

You can't even get to Major Nelson's site right now.

 

[blurredvision]

LMAO!! Chris, are you reading of the "Crap, I've gotta go to school now!" posts? I'm laughing out loud, it's good stuff.

 

[raystorm]

LOL Halo fanboys are ready to explode. I'll wait until tomorrow..things should die down by then. In the meantime I still have one more agility orb to get in Crackdown...sigh...I don't think I'll ever find it.