Warning

ZetaLoader will be archived since CU31 introduces Easy Anti-Cheat which blocks the modification from loading.

ZetaLoader

A modification to fix technical issues with Halo Infinite on PC.

Features

Borderless Fullscreen

Warning

ZetaLoader's Borderless Fullscreen renders the following options unusable:

• Display Monitor
• Limit Inactive Framerate
• Inactive Mute
• V-Sync
• Maximum Framerate

Because of this consider using alternatives for the following:

Option	Alternative
V-Sync	Driver Based V-Sync
Maximum Framerate	External Framerate Limiter
Limit Inactive Framerate	Background Application Max Frame Rate (NVIDIA Only!)

Important

• ZetaLoader's Borderless Fullscreen forces the game's window to be always on the primary monitor.
  
• To activate the game's window either click on its taskbar button or use Alt + Tab.

ZetaLoader overrides Halo Infinite's Borderless Fullscreen/window style, if its Borderless Fullscreen implementation is enabled.
Halo Infinite uses the following styles WS_VISIBLE | WS_OVERLAPPED | WS_CLIPSIBLINGS for its Borderless Fullscreen implementation.

The window style WS_OVERLAPPED doesn't fill the screen area correctly if the display mode is below 1440x810 resulting in the window to extend its client area beyond the screen area itself.

This is simply fixed by using the following attributes:

• Window Styles - WS_VISIBLE | WS_POPUP:

  • Fixes incorrect window sizing caused by WS_OVERLAPPED.

• Extended Window Styles - WS_EX_APPWINDOW | WS_EX_NOACTIVATE:

  • Force the window to appear onto the taskbar.
  • Prevent window activation due to a mouse click or a window being minimized or closed.

• Z-Order:
  

  • HWND_TOPMOST: The game's window becomes always on top when it is in the foreground.
  • HWND_BOTTOM: The game's window drops to the bottom if it is not in the foreground.

User Specified Display Mode

Note

User Specified Display Mode Demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnzN4xTO6UA

Tip

• ZetaLoader's Borderless Fullscreen must be enabled to use this feature.
• Adjust Halo Infinite's UI's Text Size.
• In your GPU's Control Panel set the Scaling Mode to Fullscreen│Stretched.
• User Specified Display Mode handles display modes as follows:
  
  • Only Landscape orientation based display modes can be used.
  • If no display mode is specified, the display mode stored in the Windows Registry will be used.

User Specified Display Mode provides Halo Infinite with the facility to have the game's window run at any arbitrary display mode of the user's choice as long as it is valid.

Jittery Mouse Input Fix

Important

Setting the game's process priority to High will negate this fix.
Reference: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/procthread/scheduling-priorities
Issue + Fix Demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pJd-dKW7WY

Setting the game's window thread priority to THREAD_PRIORITY_HIGHEST resolves jittery mouse input when an external framerate limiter is being used by giving the game's window thread enough of a timeslice.

You can verify if this works by using a lower thread priority & setting it using the function SetThreadPriority in the source code.

Installation

Automated

Run the following script in PowerShell to install ZetaLoader for Halo Infinite's Campaign and Multiplayer:

$ProgressPreference = $ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue"
Get-Content  "$(Split-Path $(([string]((Get-ItemPropertyValue `
-Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\steam\Shell\Open\Command" `
-Name "(Default)") `
-Split "-", 2, "SimpleMatch")[0]).Trim().Trim('"')))\config\libraryfolders.vdf" | 
ForEach-Object { 
    if ($_ -like '*"path"*') {
        [string]$Path = "$(([string]$_).Trim().Trim('"path"').Trim().Trim('"').Replace("\\", "\"))\steamapps\common\Halo Infinite" 
        if (Test-Path $Path) {
            Write-Host "ZetaLoader Installation Status:" -ForegroundColor Yellow
            try {
                Invoke-RestMethod `
                    -Uri  "$((Invoke-RestMethod "https://api.github.com/repos/Aetopia/ZetaLoader/releases/latest").assets[0].browser_download_url)" `
                    -OutFile "$Path\game\dpapi.dll"
                Write-Host "`tMultiplayer: Success" -ForegroundColor Green 
            }
            catch { Write-Host "`tMultiplayer: Failed" -ForegroundColor Red }

            try {
                Copy-Item "$Path\game\dpapi.dll" "$Path\subgames\CampaignS1\dpapi.dll"
                Write-Host "`tCampaign: Success" -ForegroundColor Green 
            }
            catch { Write-Host "`tCampaign: Failed" -ForegroundColor Red }
        }
    }
}
$ProgressPreference = $ErrorActionPreference = "Continue"

Manual

1. Download the latest version of ZetaLoader from GitHub Releases.
2. Open Halo Infinite's installation directory.
3. Place the dynamic link library in the following folders:
   
   • Multiplayer: <Installation Directory>\game
   • Campaign: <Installation Directory>\subgames\CampaignS1

Uninstallation

Simply remove any instances of dpapi.dll from Halo Infinite's installation directory.

Configuration

Important

You must restart the game for any configuration file changes to reflect.

To configure ZetaLoader, do the following:

1. Go to the following directory:

   • %LOCALAPPDATA%\HaloInfinite\Settings

2. Create a new file called ZetaLoader.ini, this is ZetaLoader's configuration file.

3. Add the following contents into the file:

   [Settings]
   Fullscreen = 0 
   Width = 0
   Height = 0
   Frequency = 0

   Key	Value
   Fullscreen	0 → Halo Infinite's Window Mode 1 → ZetaLoader's Borderless Fullscreen
   Width	Display Resolution Width
   Height	Display Resolution Height
   Frequency	Display Refresh Rate

This will make Halo Infinite run 1360x768 @ 60 Hz with ZetaLoader's Borderless Fullscreen:

[Settings]
Fullscreen = 1
Width = 1360
Height = 768
Frequency = 60

Building

1. Install MSYS2 & UPX for optional compression.

2. Update the MSYS2 Environment until there are no pending updates using:

   pacman -Syu --noconfirm

3. Install GCC & C++/WinRT using:

   pacman -S mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-gcc mingw-w64-ucrt-x86_64-cppwinrt --noconfirm

4. Make sure <MSYS2 Installation Directory>\ucrt64\bin is added to the Windows PATH environment variable.

5. Run Build.cmd.