This should result in higher quality similar to the original XDK. Bitmap DXT1-3 (BC1-3) encoding now uses DirectXTex instead of some S3TC code.Most logs (like debug.txt) are now saved to a reports subfolder (similarly to Halo 2+).This increases the crash stability of radiosity.
Additionally this code now only uses 32-bit integers instead of an unsafe mix with 16-bit ones, and 16 MiB stack reserve. Lightmapping now takes roughly a quarter of the time of legacy Tool and is even faster than LM tool. Lightmapping code has been optimized and is even faster with the -noassert command line flag.A -verbose flag can be added to see additional logging.Interpolation on screen shake, antennas, flags, and some UI fading.Restoration of shader_transparent_generic and shader_transparent_plasma.It is still important to use portals to manage visible clusters. This means BSPs can now have more visible triangles without culling happening. Increased MAXIMUM_RENDERED_ENVIRONMENT_SURFACES from 16k to 32k.First person models now use the highest LOD available instead of the lowest.This should result in better performance and support on modern systems. The tools now use the modern DX11 graphics API instead of the obsolete D3D9 API.Various cases of unnecessary/confusing logging in the tools have been removed, such as "Couldn't read map file toolbeta.map" and "Sound card doesn't meet minimum hardware requirements".This allows them to use up to 4 GiB of virtual memory instead of 2, which prevents Sapien from running out of memory when editing scenarios with many large assets.
All tools are still 32-bit, but they are now large address aware (LAA).This makes it easier to work with different tag sets. The tags, data, and maps directories can now be set when running all tools.Asserts can be disabled using the -noassert command line flag.
The Halo: CE Mod Tools are a free download for all players via Steam, regardless of if they own The Master Chief Collection or not.