A mod was recently released, I saw it... today? On reddit. Possibly yesterday, not sure now.
In any case, it took me a while to get it running, but this is how you do it.
- Install Halo PC (original CD version, not MCC) in the default location, else the update won't find it.
- Install the 1.0.10 patch, now available from the internet archive.
- Install the mod, optionally with Chimera (which improves the game), see instructions on the mod Github page.
- Make sure you go into Video Settings in the game, then set Frame-Rate to NO VSYNC, at least that worked for me to unlock the frame-rate, else I had it locked at 30.
- In Pillar of Autumn, in the very first calibration scene, you need to move the mouse on your PC to continue.
That's about it. It runs pretty well, dips down a bit in bigger scenes from me, but otherwise I run it at 120Hz in a Valve Index. I streamed it today, available here, I think for two weeks, then Twitch murders it. I'll continue it soon enough, I need to make it through the whole game as this is something I've wanted for more than a decade 🤩
As a review of the mod, things I would have wished for, no idea if any of these are possible but anyway:
- First person driving, or controller vehicles with my head instead of joystick.
- Same with the Warthog turret
- Cut-scene cameras are quite disruptive, circumventing those could be nice.
- For two-handing of pistols to stabilize instead of making them act as rifles
Then a bunch of stuff already mentioned in the known issues, hopefully this mod will see more work, but it already works really well. I'm kind of blown away, even if a bit distracted by the quirks and mild issues 😅
I guess I should mention what works, too:
- Interface is vertically locked to the horizon, follows the head horizontally, works well.
- We get two-handed weapons, 6DoF hand controller aiming of weapons.
- Performance is quite OK, brilliant indoors, can suffer a bit outdoors. But then my VR setup is basically a 120Hz 3K screen, and it's rendering in stereo 3D.
- Installation was quirky, mostly due to how old the game is, but after getting everything in the right place it just worked.
- The sniper zoom is an overlay placed above the weapon, it's a peep hole onto the actual zoom view, quite funky but works well enough.
If you have a PC VR setup, and the original Halo PC version, check it out 😁 And sorry if the post is chaotic, I'm drained, took me way too much energy to get this working and then streaming it 🙃
