How do visuals and audio compare between Halo 2 for Windows Vista and the Xbox versions?

The quality of H2V scales with the hardware it has available. This will be the first time Halo 2 fans can play the game natively at resolutions like 1080p or even higher. The base art and audio from the Xbox has been re-used, with some retouching to help the game shine on high-end PC equipment. Audio will also scale with the equipment of your PC, and the game supports 5.1 surround sound. Suffice it to say that Halo 2 has never looked better and playing the game at 1920x1200 is a thing of beauty.

Do you plan to enable anti-aliasing? Other visual features?

Halo 2 for Windows Vista makes use of several DirectX 9 features such as edge anti-aliasing, anisotropic texture filtering, enhanced resolution shadow buffering, additional dynamic shadows, improved normal map filtering, parallax mapping, and per pixel specular mapping.

Why will Halo 2 for Windows Vista not support DX10?

Halo 2 will certainly support DX10 graphics cards but the game itself is not being re-written to specifcally take advantage of upcoming DX10 features. The more robust your graphics card, the more visual features and fidelity you will be able to enjoy.

How does Halo 2 for Windows Vista cope with cheating, aimbots, and so on?

Cheating is a big concern for us, especially in online play, just as it is for any online game regardless of platform. Windows Vista and Live include several features intended to prevent cheating in online games, and players who need an extra degree of certainty can control their own community using Dedicated Servers or Live Friends lists. Even so, there will always be those who work around these measures and make it impossible to eliminate cheating completely. We're doing all we can to make sure that online play is fun for the majority of honest H2V players.