[Mr Quint]

Who has put Halo 3 on there HDD regardless of what bungie said, I have and it seems ok!

Not done any Halo 3 for a while, its nice to get back in the saddle before ODST.

[Billy Goodgun]

I did, but I deleted it - that definitely seemed to speed up matchmaking a tiny bit, but not much. I couldn't tell much of a difference, to be honest.

However, I believe the Halo 3 multiplayer disc shipping with ODST corrects all this, meaning it will run as good/faster on your HDD. I'd just install that as and when you get it.

[1LeeDenton]

I didn't see a noticeable difference when I had it installed......I did uninstall it upon Bungie's notice, but I figure that there must be sooooooooo many people that still have it installed that I may as well reinstall it again.......my disc drive is quite a noisy one, so I'd welcome the peace and quiet to be honest.

Didn't realise the ODST Mutliplayer disc was being configured to 'accept' being installed - nice one Billy

[Billy Goodgun]

I think I'm right about that, but more research is needed to be certain! I'll try to dig out the link a bit later - I seem to remember reading something on b.net saying that the reason Halo 3 didn't work so well on HDD is that it was specifically configured to be read as fast as possible from the disc, since installing to HDD wasn't an option back when it was released.

[nerro]

Originally Posted by Billy Goodgun

I think I'm right about that, but more research is needed to be certain! I'll try to dig out the link a bit later - I seem to remember reading something on b.net saying that the reason Halo 3 didn't work so well on HDD is that it was specifically configured to be read as fast as possible from the disc, since installing to HDD wasn't an option back when it was released.

Isn't it because the Halo 3 disc loads some of the data on to the hdd by default anyway so it's designed to read from the disc and hdd simultaneously? By having it installed to the hdd it has to read from 2 different parts of the same hdd at the same time. I thought i read this somewhere, correct me if i'm wrong.

Anyway, I never installed the game to the hdd initially but I did give it a try a few weeks back. The lack of dvd drive noise was great but I did notice something odd when I played on the Pit. The tannoy in the background was playing 2 different announcements at the same time
"The white zone is for loading and unloading only" etc.

I never heard it again as I uninstalled the game after I heard that. Freaked me out a bit.

[Billy Goodgun]

Originally Posted by nerro

Isn't it because the Halo 3 disc loads some of the data on to the hdd by default anyway so it's designed to read from the disc and hdd simultaneously? By having it installed to the hdd it has to read from 2 different parts of the same hdd at the same time. I thought i read this somewhere, correct me if i'm wrong.

You're probably right! I was digging up this information from the deepest, darkest depths of my foggy brain, so it's entirely possible I've got a bit mixed up.

However, my main points are these:

• Halo 3 was optimised to work from the disc, not via a complete install.
• IIRC (and I may not, so please don't take this as gospel!), then the ODST disc has been rejigged slightly to allow you to install the Halo 3 MP without any issues.

[sordid_sentinel]

In a recent weekly update Bungie said the Halo 3 ODST is fine to install but the Halo 3 MP disc isn't, it still reads the maps in the same way as the original disc. I have mine installed anyway though because 2 Halo discs have cracked on me and I'm not having it happen again!

I was hoping they'd let you install 1 disc and run 1 disc so you didn't have to swap discs between Firefight and Halo 3 but it isn't to be

[Billy Goodgun]

In the words of the mighty Ch13f, "superangryconfusedface"