Halo Reach PC Performance Review with AMD Ryzen APU Testing

Performance, Original and Enhanced – What does each presets look like?

What can we say about Halo: Reach’s performance mode? When compared to the game’s Original settings, they look awful, so much so that the game’s performance setting shouldn’t be used outside of PCs with integrated graphics. 

Halo: Reach’s Original Settings pack a decent level of detail and respectable draw distances. These settings are supposed to match the original Xbox 360 version of Halo: Reach, which should help explain why the game’s enhanced settings are possible. Modern PCs have a lot more power than an Xbox 360, so an increased level of detail is easily possible, even with a higher resolution.   

(Performance VS Enhanced)
  

 
Using Halo: Reach’s Enhanced settings, the game is able to draw grass and other foliage at greater distances, deliver higher-resolution models for distant rocks and other objects and draw shadows around objects that are further away from the player. 

These settings are the ideal way to play Halo: Reach on PC, as they reduce the amount of pop-in that’s present within the game and improves distant details, which are very noticeable at high resolutions. 

(Original VS Enhanced)
  

Again we see that Halo: Reach’s Performance Settings have a huge impact on Halo: Reach’s visuals, lowering the detail levels of both near and distant objects. 

Even the plants at the base of the image are given a lower LOD model than Reach’s Original settings, and as you move further away, more and more downgrades become evident, especially for distant trees.   

 

(Performance VS Enhanced)
  

 
Using Halo: Reach’s enhanced settings allow us to see higher levels of detail for most distant objects, from the game’s plants to its trees and other distant objects. Notice how even the fire from the distant building is now visible, where it was just smoke before. Distant tree models also see a significant upgrade. 

(Original VS Enhanced)