Project Cartographer Update : v0.5 Changelog

**Please NOTE: We plan a hot-fix update soon™ that will contain more features like Stats, Ranks, LAN support, GUI options for muting voice chat, Extra game settings with things like original Halo 2 super bouncing options and several other goodies we don't want to let out just yet!**

LIVE List

• Our back end networking has been completely rewritten and revamped.
  • Previous versions of Cartographer used the LAN Network server browser as the hub for servers and game play.
  • This was considered to be a quick hacky workaround to get people playing with each other after Microsoft abandoned the official LIVE servers back in 2015.
• Update 0.5 features updates to the core networking that is similar to the original Halo 2 for Windows Vista LIVE servers.
  • As a result, we are now moving from the Network tab to the Live menu (which has been renamed to "Online") for multiplayer services.
• All online game play, server lists, custom games, and matching options are now located in the Online menu. This means you will no longer see servers in the Network menu.
• The Online menu includes a number of native features; Ping calculations, Server list searching/sorting/management, and a "Quickmatch" matchmaking option which automatically joins the most ideal server, based on connection and match quality.

Voice chat

• Global voice chat is now available and enabled. This is still a work in progress.
  • A hot-fix will be released soon to add GUI options for users to disable voice chat and mute individual players.
• Hosts and clients may disable voice chat at their own choosing, so if you join a server and can't talk or hear anyone, that's probably why.
• To disable voice chat you will need to navigate to
  • "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Halo 2",
  • Open halo2config1 in a Text editor (Not notepad.exe)
  • Set "voice_chat =" to "1" for enabled or "0" for disabled.
  • At this moment you cannot mute individual people. Only solution is to disable voice chat entirely

New Game Mode: Grave Robber

We are excited to introduce a new game mode: "Grave Robber”! Think of the Headhunter game type from the Halo 2 Beta or Halo: Reach combined with Kill Confirmed from Call of Duty. Kill enemies and collect the skull they drop to earn points. Once you collect enough skulls to win the game, get one final kill to seal the deal and win it all!​

You will currently find Grave Robber games limited to FFA at this time and will be activated under the game variant name "GraveRobber" (no spaces).​

New Custom Setting

Added a reticle resize option.​

Patches and Bug fixes

• UPnP now supported: Basically allows you to host games without port forwarding. Also required for voice chat to function correctly.
  • If your router does not support UPnP, you have to port forward to host games.
  • Default ports to forward are (2000-2008 UDP, and 2009-2010 TCP) Change accordingly if you change your ports in the configuration file.
• Melee fixes: Fixes to help decrease likelihood of "blank" or "ghost melees" in which we have gotten tremendous positive feedback on.
  • Currently a known bug with melee fix is that it reduces the stickiness of aim assist.
  • This is being looked into for the next update.
  • Thanks to Wyld for helping find this problem.
• Vehicle Field of View fixes: In our last update we had an improper value set for the FOV in vehicles and turrets causing it to look "zoomed in". This is now fixed to match the proper values.
• Server list flickering: This is an issue that is resolved with Live list. The Network list would sometimes constantly flash or flicker for some making it hard to select a game.
• Zombies / Infection: As above we had introduced a few bugs with our infection game mode in which was causing some audio bugs and crashes. These should now be resolved.
• Radar fix: Fixed an issue where the radar blip would fade out the dot completely out instead of staying lit enough for you to see enemies on your radar. The red dot would also sometimes not appear at all if a player had just spawned and was moving.
  • Please note this is a work in progress and there will be more optimizations in the near future.
  • Special thanks to Alen for finding this bug.
• Optimizations: We have many fixed memory leaks as well as overall optimizations to the game. The game should feel much smoother and not use as much system resources. The Cartographer FPS limiter has been rewritten to fix frame drops and stutters!
  • We recommend you still limit your framerate to 60FPS, as going above this value causes issues.
• Profile Encryption Removal: Removed the encryption that was applied to every Halo 2 profile and game variant upon creation. This will allow sharing of profiles/game variants between PCs.
  • Reminder: do not share Cartographer accounts. This will get you banned.

High Resolution Fix

When running the game in windowed mode at 2K and 4K resolutions, there are issues with text breaking or disappearing completely. If these issues apply to you, enable this fix:​

• Right click on your game's shortcut, select "Properties" and then click the "Shortcut" tab. Locate the Target line and at the very end of it (which should end with halo2.exe") add a space outside the quotation marks and type -hiresfix and click apply to enable.

Example: "C:\Games\Halo 2 Project Cartographer\halo2.exe" -hiresfix​

If you installed the update through the installer, the shortcut is already present in your Start Menu.​

​

Credits to eMoose for this fix!​

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Project Team Message

We would like thank everyone who has been with us and helped us test up to this release.​

We know there will be issues and would love to hear feedback. For the best response please post all issues to our GitHub​

A Hotfix is already planned and any bugs reported during this time will be looked at and considered for the hotfix.​

Thank you all for your patience and see you in game!​

 

will Microsoft step and and shut this down?

 

Setting Voice Chat to "0" did not work, I can still hear everybody.

 

will Microsoft step and and shut this down?

Microsoft can not do anything if the cartographer project team adheres to the rules that Microsoft publishes
and the cartographer project team is following that regulation

 

will Microsoft step and and shut this down?

Considering the official servers were shut down and that it seems nobody at Microsoft or 343i knew who were hosting those and nobody's willing to bring them back online, the project cartographer team is in its right to bring back the service by their own means, Halo 2 Vista was officially released on PC and is not subject to the same treatments as Halo:Online and the Eldorito Project, Halo 2 can be modded as long as it respects the terms set by Microsoft and those are pretty permissive, basically you're just not allowed to make money out of this...

Anyway this update is really nice, looking forward to future additions like LAN...etc, been following this project from the start and it's good to see it alive and kicking years later, still hoping to see more SP and coop content in the future

Btw I was thinking about a simple addition for SP that would be to unlock all the missions with a console command or through the cartographer menu, that'd be helpful for SP freaks like me who just want to train or have fun on specific missions but who just got the game installed and don't have any old save laying around (for various reasons, mostly because most of us played SP on xbox and not PC), do you guys think that'd be possible without too much of a hassle?

 

Unable to turn off voice chat. For people who have serious interference noises or who are chewing food through their mic this is extremely annoying and I cannot play the game muted. I guess I'll wait to play until they come out with the update to mute people through the game itself. Meanwhile I'll probably hope over to Halo Online: Eldorado

 

when i installed the update .. no servers are showing to me now :!

 

Unable to turn off voice chat. For people who have serious interference noises or who are chewing food through their mic this is extremely annoying and I cannot play the game muted. I guess I'll wait to play until they come out with the update to mute people through the game itself. Meanwhile I'll probably hope over to Halo Online: Eldorado

am i the only one who can't hear anyone ? !! i didn't have to mute anything .. i just can't hear people

 

How do I create or start a Dedicated Server under the new 0.5 version. Under 0.4 I started my server with h2server -lan. That still works or at least starts up, but it no longer shows in the server browser list (when selecting "online" from the client)

 

I'm having FPS issues with random lag since the update, I'm from EU, idk if it's a matter or range or something ?

 

when i installed the update .. no servers are showing to me now :!

Should read the notes in the patch.

Go to online not network like you have in the past. All the games are in the online menu now.

 

I am excited to see the team care so much for the Project! It is truly a pleasure to be a part of this awesome community! Thanks for keeping H2 alive, and continue to be awesome!

 

Ye . when i first found out about Cartographer . i was crying rivers :3 because i loved this game soo much ..and they bring it to life again
i respects those devs alot ♥

 

Incedible update!! I'm loving it!

 

Can you guys update us on the commands list. It looks like you hit F10 now. Thanks for enabling kick players, that was a very needed tool.

 

I did the ports thing in order to create a server, but I don't know where is the configuration file. I don't have any halo2configX.ini in the local folder. How am I supposed to do it? Help?

 

I'm having FPS issues with random lag since the update, I'm from EU, idk if it's a matter or range or something ?

I'm having the same issue and I'm from AU.

 

Any details on how to turn on mic for mac? I'm running h2 through wineskin on Sierra. Unable to locate the files aforementioned to make the tweak.

 

I'm having the same issue and I'm from AU.

I recommend checking your FPS limits, as I had a similar issue. If your PC is sufficiently powerful, turning off FPS limits seems to fix it. Try messing around with your graphics settings and see if it helps. I hope you get it resolved!

 

I did the ports thing in order to create a server, but I don't know where is the configuration file. I don't have any halo2configX.ini in the local folder. How am I supposed to do it? Help?

Check \users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Halo 2

Alternatively you can put one in your halo 2 ded server folder and use portable setting to 1 so it always reads and writes from that folder

Here is a sample "h2serverconfig1.ini" file:

#--- Halo 2 Project Cartographer Configuration File ---

# h2portable Options:
# 0 - Config files are read from executable's launch directory then AppDataLocal if missing. Will write to AppDataLocal if not read from the execution directory.
# 1 - All config files are read and written to the executable's launch directory (however will still scan and read from AppDataLocal if missing).

# base_port Options:
# <1 - 65526> - The port the game binds to including any of the nine (9) afterward: UDP and/or TCP (Upper limit: 65535 - 9 = 65526).

# wan_ip Options:
# lan_ip Options:
# This option is used for when you cannot join games hosted on the same local network due to NAT issues.
# Configuring these settings for an internal network address avoids the requirement for that host user to port forward.
# <IPv4> - External IP Address of the local / internal network user you are trying to connect to. If blank, the External IP returned from the Master Login is used.
# <IPv4> - Internal IP Address of the local / internal network user you are trying to connect to.

# enable_xdelay Options:
# 0 - Non-host players cannot delay the game start countdown timer.
# 1 - Non-host players can delay the game start countdown timer (native default).

# voice_chat Options:
# 0 - Voice chat is not enabled, you cannot host voice servers or connect to them.
# 1 - Voice chat is enabled, you can host voice servers or connect to them (default).

# mp_explosion_physics Options (Server):
# 0 - Explosions do not push players or vehicles they drive.
# 1 - Enables explosion physics for players in the game.

# mp_sputnik Options (Server):
# 0 - Sputnik skull is off.
# 1 - Sputnik skull is on for all players.

# mp_grunt_bday_party Options (Server):
# 0 - Grunt Birthday Party skull is off.
# 1 - Grunt Birthday Party skull is on for all players.

# banshee_bomb Options (Server):
# 0 - Players cannot use the Banshee Bomb in multiplayer.
# 1 - Players can use the Banshee Bomb in multiplayer.

# mp_blind Options (Server):
# 0 - Players do not have missing HUD or First Person elements.
# 1 - Players cannot see their HUD.
# 2 - Players cannot see their First Person Model.
# 3 - Players cannot see their HUD or First Person Model.

# banshee_bomb Options (Server):
# 0 - Players cannot use their Flashlight in multiplayer.
# 1 - Players can use their Flashlight in multiplayer.

# debug_log Options:
# 0 - Disables excess logging.
# 1 - Enables excess logging.

# server_name Options (Server):
# Sets the name of the server up to 31 characters long.
# Leave blank/empty for no effect.

# server_playlist Options (Server):
# Sets the playlist of the server up to 255 characters long.
# Leave blank/empty for no effect.

# login_identifier Options (Server):
# The email or username used to login to an account.
# Note: Server accounts *should not* be signed into multiple times concurrently *unless* it is all on the same computer (i.e. only exempt when running multiple server instances).

# login_password Options (Server):
# The password used to login to the defined account.

[H2ConfigurationVersion:1]
h2portable = 1
base_port = 2000
wan_ip =
lan_ip =
enable_xdelay = 1
voice_chat = 0
mp_explosion_physics = 0
mp_sputnik = 0
mp_grunt_bday_party = 0
banshee_bomb = 0
mp_blind = 0
flashlight = 0
debug_log = 0
server_name =
server_playlist = <folder>\playlist.hpl (if you want to specify one...see original halo dedicated server readme for instructions on creating a playlist)
login_identifier = <loginid>
login_password = <password>

Your server will show in the Browser list under the login_Identifier