XBox Online - help needed

[b33p]

Hi there im having a bit of trouble getting my xbox/halo to work online.
My current setup is a crossover cable connecting my network card in my PC to the network interface on the back of the xbox console. Im using the gamespy tunnel and arade software to try and get it to work, i have configured tunnel correctly and i can get into the xbox/halo screen on gs arcade. I enter a halo game room, the host starts the game and if does come up on my xbox, but as soon as i try and connect to it it comes up on my xbox as a network error, unable to connect :(
Im running a BT ADSL usb modem 512k as my inet conn and i cannot think of what is going wrong, any hep would be much apperciated.

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

No idea m8.
I'm waiting til Christmas when X Box Live makes an appearence in the UK.

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

Have a look at Gameplay's article on how they did it:

X Box Broadband connection article (http://news.gameplay.co.uk/news/1016735831/index_html)

[Console_Steve]

It might be the fact that you can only play against people with the same version as you. i.e. PAL (europe) players can only play against PAL players, etc... Last time I lookde on Gamespy Arcade there were not a lot of PAL servers around...

Steve

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

At work we gave Halo a blast on a NTSC and a PAL system.
Neither system could see each other because of how Halo is set.
I have an article that I am trying to find explaining the full details of why but basically it goes like this.

Since the NTSC runs slightly faster than a PAL system (due to degraded graphics and the refresh rate of NTSC etc) the way points set for the Warthogs were set in different places on both systems. This made it so that the PAL seems to run as fast as the NTSC version due to different way points. If the 2 systems were allowed to play together you would have vehicles driving in places it shouldn't on the other system.

I'll look for the article... it explains it so much clearer :)

[KermitTheFrag]

now thats what i call fugly hacks.

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

OK here's the article, this is direct from Bungie:

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. :-)

[Jazza]

Is this a general problem, or just one relating to Halo?

As it would be bad for XBox Live

[Console_Steve]

Halo isn't officially supported online, but XBox live games will not have this problem.

Steve

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

Halo 2 will get around this as will the other online games.
Re-Volt being one of the first online games for X Box and I believe it will bundle with the X Box Live pack.

I reckon they should just get rid of the inferior NTSC technology. Problem sorted.

[KermitTheFrag]

Originally posted by Dwarf_Pr0n
I reckon they should just get rid of the inferior NTSC technology. Problem sorted.

Thats a bit hard as the NTSC / PAL division is (at the TV end) actually pretty much down to the mains frequency ... NTSC 60Hz, PAL 50Hz. This means that the yank plonker who decided 110v 60Hz was better than our native 220v 50Hz is the culprit :p:

I do however agree entirely :)

[Dwarf_Pr0n]

Yeah but give a free gun with every PAL TV and the Americans will flock out to buy em :D