New Era of Halo: Unpacking the Demanding PC Performance of Halo Infinite

Halo Infinite marks the triumphant return of Xbox’s legendary franchise after a six-year hiatus. The Halo series kicked off in 2001 as a flagship title for the original Xbox, captivating players ever since. On November 15, coinciding with Xbox’s 20th anniversary, Halo Infinite surprised everyone with the launch of its free-to-play multiplayer mode. However, the single-player campaign for Halo Infinite won’t be available until later this week — specifically on Tuesday, December 8. We’ve had the opportunity to experience it ahead of the official release.

The latest Halo title is priced at Rs. 3,499 on Steam and Rs. 3,999 on the Microsoft Store, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X. The game, developed by 343 Industries, will also be accessible to all Xbox Game Pass subscribers on its first day. You can pre-load the game now. The Halo Infinite single-player campaign will require approximately 50GB of disk space on your PC, while the multiplayer component is about 26GB. The Halo Infinite multiplayer supports crossplay, allowing Xbox and PC players to team up.

Halo Infinite PC system requirements

Let’s talk about what your PC needs to run the latest installment of Halo. Halo Infinite features four different graphics settings requirements. The lowest specs can be met with a GTX 1050Ti or Radeon RX 570 with around 4GB of VRAM, while Ultra settings demand a powerful Nvidia RTX 3080 or AMD Radeon RX 6800XT with about 10GB of VRAM. For the CPU, you’ll need at least an Intel i5-4440 or an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 to meet the minimum threshold.

Minimum PC system requirements for Halo Infinite at Low settings

The basic specifications to run Halo Infinite on your computer are:

• OS: Windows 10 RS5 x64 (October 2018 Update)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel i5-4440
• RAM: 8 GB or more
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 570 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
• Storage: 50 GB
• Video Memory: 4GB
• DirectX: 12

Minimum PC system requirements for Medium settings in Halo Infinite

To play Halo Infinite on Medium settings, you will need the following:

• OS: Windows 10 19H2 (November 2019 Update)
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2600 or Intel i5-9500
• RAM: 8 GB or more
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 5500XT or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660
• Storage: 50 GB
• Video Memory: 6GB
• DirectX: 12

Recommended PC system requirements for High settings in Halo Infinite

The recommended specifications for playing Halo Infinite are as follows:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or Intel i7-9700k
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: Radeon RX 5700 XT or Nvidia RTX 2070
• Storage: 50 GB
• Video Memory: 8GB
• DirectX: 12

PC system requirements for Halo Infinite at Ultra settings

If you want to run Halo Infinite on Ultra settings, your system must meet these requirements:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X or Intel i9-11900K
• RAM: 16 GB
• GPU: Radeon RX 6800 XT or Nvidia RTX 3080
• Storage: 50 GB
• Video Memory: 10GB
• DirectX: 12

Halo Infinite PC Requirements
Photo Credit: Xbox Game Studios

Graphics settings for Halo Infinite on PC

Halo Infinite provides various options that allow you to customize for optimal performance on your PC. The game permits field-of-view (FOV) adjustments: the default is set at 78 and can be expanded to 120. Lower angles minimize the fishbowl effect and motion sickness risk, while higher settings offer a broader view of the battlefield but may distort the edges.

Moreover, the game supports resolution scaling, which enables you to play in 4K even on a 1080p monitor. However, this may impact performance due to increased demands on the graphics card. Fortunately, you can monitor this directly through the Halo Infinite settings menu.

Halo Infinite offers four preset graphics configurations: starting with «Low» and progressing to «Medium,» «High,» and «Ultra.» You can also specify minimum and maximum frame rates. The game allows adjustment of multiple settings, including detailed options like Terrain Quality — a higher setting enhances terrain geometry, adds more detail to structures, and improves distant quality while reducing abrupt pop-ins. This can affect VRAM usage, so adjust with caution.

Step back into the role of Master Chief in Halo Infinite
Photo Credit: Xbox Game Studios

You can also modify Simulation Quality to manually adjust how Vehicle audio and suspension systems behave. This setting requires more CPU power to reduce in-game artifacts. Halo Infinite also permits you to configure the quality of decals like bullet holes, foot impressions, tire tracks, and blast marks. A higher quality setting increases the number of decals that remain, which doesn’t significantly affect system resources. Furthermore, players can adjust Dynamic Wind parameters; increased values affect the area and complexity of wind effects. This is set to off in the Low preset. Speaking of wind effects, Halo Infinite lets you toggle wind streaks on and off — those are the visual lines of wind that appear during sprinting.

If you’re experiencing any performance drops, you have the option to adjust effects quality. Lowering this setting disables non-essential effects to preserve performance. Additionally, Halo Infinite allows you to enable or disable Async Compute, which enables compatible GPUs to handle computing tasks and graphics rendering simultaneously. This feature aims to minimize screen tearing and enhance performance on certain devices.

Choose from four distinct graphics presets in Halo Infinite
Photo Credit: Robin John/Gadgets360

However, it’s worth noting that some players in the Halo Infinite beta reported crashes when enabling Async Compute. Hopefully, this issue will be resolved before the official launch.

Besides these adjustments, you can also experiment with settings for blur, sharpening, and screen shake. Unfortunately, Halo Infinite has not included FidelityFX Super Resolution, commonly known as FSR, or DLSS, both of which are upscaling technologies designed to improve performance while retaining visual fidelity.

Performance review of Halo Infinite campaign on PC

For our performance testing, we utilized a setup featuring a 3.6GHz AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Super GPU with 6GB VRAM, a full-HD 1080p monitor capable of 144Hz, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD running Windows 10 (21H1). We ensured all drivers for the Nvidia graphics card and Windows were up to date.

As previously mentioned, Halo Infinite provides four preset graphics configurations. With the graphics set to “Low,” the game achieved a peak frame rate of approximately 78–80fps, with a minimum of 67fps observed. The average frame rate during gameplay hovered around 68fps, with drops primarily occurring during significant battles and explosions.

A screenshot from Halo Infinite
Photo Credit: Xbox Game Studios

After that, we adjusted the graphics to the “Medium” preset. This configuration delivered a maximum frame rate of 71fps in Halo Infinite, although it did dip to as low as 47fps amidst intense combat and grenade blasts. The average frame rate stabilized at around 65fps.

The “Medium” preset prepared our system for testing the “High” preset. This option increased the demands on the system — while we managed an average of 60fps, the maximum was capped at 65fps. However, there were significant drops to 34–35fps during close-range combat and major explosions, resulting in noticeable slowdowns during engagements. Unfortunately, I could not test the «Ultra» preset as it maxed out the VRAM beyond 7GB.

Is Halo Infinite worth purchasing on PC?

As one might expect, Halo Infinite places considerable demands on your hardware for optimal graphical performance. It is certainly a worthwhile purchase, particularly for fans of the series.

With all settings at their lowest, you should be able to achieve satisfactory and reliable performance on a budget gaming rig. Throughout my sessions with Halo Infinite, I encountered no issues or bugs, and the game never crashed. It operated smoothly as I moved through the battlefield.

Regarding combat, all shots registered accurately, providing a solid experience. Halo Infinite is a good investment if your hardware is capable of supporting it. You can buy it for Rs. 3,499 on Steam or Rs. 3,999 on the Microsoft Store. Halo Infinite will also be available on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate from day one, which is priced at Rs. 699 per month.

Halo Infinite releases on December 8 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.

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