Awhile ago we ran a report that Halo had missed out on Game of Show and even Runner Up honors at the Tokyo Game Show. Among the issues cited in articles at the time was that Halo was still having some framerate problems.

We mentioned that it wasn't a good omen that Halo couldn't meet its 30 frames per second lock we remembered being told it would have, especially when games on rather pedestrian PC hardware were getting far higher rates, even if they were fluctuating.

vector40 called us on that, saying that he hadn't seen that feature confirmed. We read about it on the HBO forums, but not directly from an authoritative source. There wasn't any mention of it in our own news archives or in the Halo Updates, and with our old forums offline we couldn't look there. So we amended the story and removed those references.

Well, this item from xbox.ign.com seems to confirm not only that Halo is still having framerate issues in some scenes, but the existence of this 30 FPS lock we remember:

Halo: The bridge level is the only section of the game open at TGS, and while it's fun, it's certainly not as impressive as showing fans what the tank or the jeep look like in motion. Most of the level was locked at 30fps, but there were a few moments, particularly in corridors filled with enemies, that the framerate seemed to stutter for a few seconds. It's definitely better than last time... here's hoping it's completely fixed by launch.

Well... improvement is a good thing. And I know what the arguments are-- that a locked 30 frames is better than 60, 70 or more peak if there are fluctuations. And that might be true... if it were locked. But if it's stuttering, it's not locked.

Secondly, even assuming that, the Xbox graphics hardware was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread, able to surpass PC hardware even beyond the Xbox's launch date. Halo's graphics may be pushing the Xbox's hardware harder than most PC games do. The Xbox's hardware would truly be amazing if it could deliver improved graphics at the same framerate as PCs; or if it delivered the same quality of graphics at a higher framerate. But if the Halo engine is trading away frames per second for graphic quality, and dropping to half the framerate of leading PC hardware to do it... that doesn't seem quite so revolutionary; every generation of PC games does the same, and requires better hardware to run.