Halo: Master Chief Collection PC optimizations revealed

343 Industries and its partners rev up hardware, UI, and control optimizations for Halo: The Master Chief Collection's impending PC release.

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is coming to PC (it's even coming to Steam), and the team wants to harness the full brunt of graphics and processing hardware with the multi-configuration flexibility of the platform to breathe new life into the franchise. Now in a new Halo Waypoint update we get a full list of everything Halo MCC on PC should offer, and it's pretty enticing.

Short-hand optimizations include support for 4K resolution and beyond with HDR visuals, uncapped frame rates in certain games, adaptive sync support, FOV sliders, a plethora of video settings and UI tweaks, and support for multiple aspect ratios like 21:9. But 343i is careful to note that some of these features may not be available on all of the MCC's six games.

Side note: 343i and the team at Splash Damage want to have keyboard and mouse players in the same games as controller users. This could be significantly problematic with higher DPI mice and mechanical keyboards, both of which are tailor-made for quicker in-game responses. Here's what community manager Brian Jarrard said:

"We also need to be mindful of the fact that we will have players who prefer a mouse and keyboard for Halo and other players who will prefer controllers. We want both of these player types to be able to play together in the same match and for them to feel as if they are on relatively equal footing."

Check below for a list of the currently planned PC-level optimizations for Halo: MCC on PC:

Controls

• Robust action mapping options
• Great mouse/keyboard input across the entire game
• Low input latency by leveraging raw input and latency validation via slow motion cameras
• Support for a broad set of mouse and gameplay options

PC Native UI

• Updated UI controls familiar to PC users
• Robust video and game options that allow users to tailor the experience to their hardware
• Support for FOV sliders (to the extent each game can realistically support)
• Text chat

Runs on a variety of hardware and takes advantage of what is there in both UI and gameplay

• Range of resolution and aspect ratio support for monitors
• 4K+ resolution, native aspect ratio support from 4:3 up to 21:9 Ultrawide
• GSync/FreeSync support
• High refresh rate support
• Mice both high or low DPI
• Multiple styles of Keyboards
• Video cards, both dedicated and integrated
• XInput supported controllers
• Loading optimizations

High quality window handling

• Borderless full screen
• Flexible window resizing
• Gracefully handles keyboard shortcuts such as ALT-TAB/ALT-ENTER, etc.