Bungie Confirms: Halo 3 Doesn't Run Natively in HD Options

[tomgreen99200]

i really like the game and im having alot of fun playing it but i too think its annoying that the image is 4:3 when you play split screen. Like some one said above me; if Gears of War uses the full screen while playing split screen then i think halo 3 could have done it aswell. If all games come in 720p native then why cant halo 3 ? If the beta was in 4:3(split screen) then why is the final game not fixed ? Sounds to me like they were lazy from the start and decided that it was not worth it.

[stezo2k]

I had a feelin that they'd done somethin to the graphics because it doesnt look as spectacular as some other games on my TV, i mean graphicswise GoW blows it away but its all about gameplay init

[Hopeful]

You can be pretty sure it'll still scale great though. I have yet to see a high budget 360 game that had bad upscaling. The only weird thing is that this breaks the promise that every 360 game would have mandatory native HD. In this case it seems acceptable though.

But what i am kind of mad about is two player split screen. Anyone with a HDTV try it? its in 4:3 Ratio! there are the black crop bars on the left and right

I think that may actually work better if you think about it.

If they split a 16:9 image in half horizontally it would be freakishly long and squished, and split vertically it would be hard to focus on enemies at your sides. I'm not a huge fan of halo games but in all fairness this seems like a good idea. 4:3 split horizontally gives you way better proportions if you're just going 2 player. A bigger screen area doesn't always equal better in every case.

16:9 split four ways on the other hand, works out well because dividing by four doesn't distort the ratio at all, and you can use the whole screen to full effect.

You'll probably notice the camera has great proportions with any amount of players this way. So there's definitely a positive aspect to how they handled this.

I know they can make 2 player split screen in 19:9 cuz gears is. Just kinda bugs me cuz it makes the screens pretty small on a 32 inch LCD

I have a small HD screen too. Personally the co-op made it harder for me to aim in gears because of the proportions, even though the game was still just as fun. True though, the extra size on a smaller screen was helpful in its own way. I guess it's a trade-off either way, but I see the benefits of how Halo 3 did it.

This post has been edited by Hopeful: Sep 29 2007, 09:01 AM

[ludacrisvp]

did bungie ever clame anything about the resolution?
not like you can tell the difference between 640 and 720 with a naked eye anyway

Oh and yes by the way they do claim that the game is in HD right on the back of the box "HDTV 720p/1080i/1080p" if you dont believe me you can look at your own case.
Halo 3 has a native resolution of 1138x640 pixels.
Minimum to be HD, like they claim on their packaging, is 1280x720 up to 1920x1080.

"Running at only 1138×640, that means there are 728,320 pixels. That’s a full 193,280 pixels LESS than 720p. In fact, it is even less pixels than your very average 1024×768! Hardly what anyone would consider “high-def.”" - quoted from Gamerawr!
HD 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels on screen
HD 1280x720 = 921,600
XGA 1024x768 = 786,432
below XGA 1138x640 = 728,320
800x600 = 480,000

[BlackOmega]

I knew that there was something wrong with the GFx...

You know.. I feel like I've been cheated... When gears of war came out I thought "ZOMG XBOX360 KICKSS ASSES!"
Now looking at halo halo 3 you get to think about 3 things:

Either the console is not so powerful as it seemed before, or EPIC did a miracle OR Bungie sucks at programing.. Honestly I would LOVE to see this game running on the unreal engine JUST TO COMPARE the engines....


Too bad the xbox360 is a closed enviroment, there is no way for us test this.


AFAIC Gears of war is still the king when it comes to graphics.
The xbox is showing it's weakness to early imo.

I'm not complaining about the game as a whole or the gameplay, I know it's great... I'm only criticizing it's technical aspect.

This post has been edited by BlackOmega: Sep 29 2007, 09:14 AM

[steveju]

I like how this is ok but had it been a PS3 game that had done this the entire thread would be filled with flames towards Sony. But since it is the all powerful and amazing Halo it is ok. This is rather pathetic.

The real source for this actually states that PS3 games are equally running on lower resolutions than advertised.

This post has been edited by steveju: Sep 29 2007, 09:27 AM

[iwannadie]

I like how this is ok but had it been a PS3 game that had done this the entire thread would be filled with flames towards Sony. But since it is the all powerful and amazing Halo it is ok. This is rather pathetic.
Mainly directed towards the people that say the PS3 isnt sending out a true 720p or 1080i/p signal both the native games and scaled games.

Exactly, sadly its so true. Had this been a ps3 game it would be an all out flamefest. The other side of the fanboy coin shows its face.

[bucko]

It's all about gameplay right? Graphics second?

Honestly as long as it don't look pants on the screen then it's ok...

[Wilz]

They really should add option to change native resolution, like pc games
And fix that split screen Bungie !!!

[turk3y]

Oh and yes by the way they do claim that the game is in HD right on the back of the box "HDTV 720p/1080i/1080p" if you dont believe me you can look at your own case.
Halo 3 has a native resolution of 1138x640 pixels.
Minimum to be HD, like they claim on their packaging, is 1280x720 up to 1920x1080.

"Running at only 1138×640, that means there are 728,320 pixels. That’s a full 193,280 pixels LESS than 720p. In fact, it is even less pixels than your very average 1024×768! Hardly what anyone would consider “high-def.”" - quoted from Gamerawr!
HD 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels on screen
HD 1280x720 = 921,600
XGA 1024x768 = 786,432
below XGA 1138x640 = 728,320
800x600 = 480,000

I think you need to understand that the native resolution of 1138x640 pixels is only inside the frame buffers, once it goes throught the 360 output hardware its scaled to whatever you have chosen in the dash ie 720p or 1080i/p or even 640i... this is what the box means, as all you as a user need to know is that the xbox360 will display this game in thoes hd resolution.

Comparing halo3 to gears is a bit harsh, the enviroments in gears for the most part are up close and gritty whilst halo has wide open expanses which are totally different and much more taxing on the hardware. This is why the fighters in a 1 on 1 beat em up are always better than the characters dynasty warroirs say. They spend more pollys and more affects in a smaller area. I think Halo3 has a nice blend of up close detail and impressive draw distace going on, I think technically its much more advanced that its getting credit for.

This is all down to a smart move by M$ the scaler they touted allows for game designers to tweak things for over all performance, if bungie where forced to 720 you might find it would cost you 30fps... so slightly less crisp images for thoes with hd sets is much better than halving the fps for all users.....

[Gmc]

Guys...you are aware 99% of the people who play this game wont actually give a crap about what res they use in the framebuffer and whatnot. Hell, if this info never come out, I guarantee you probably wouldnt be whining about it. Stfu and go code your own halo 3 and show me you can do a better job

[throwingks]

Guys...you are aware 99% of the people who play this game wont actually give a crap about what res they use in the framebuffer and whatnot. Hell, if this info never come out, I guarantee you probably wouldnt be whining about it. Stfu and go code your own halo 3 and show me you can do a better job

Why do you think the info came out? Some people noticed it and hand counted the pixels. Nothing was said until they were called out by people that noticed it.

This post has been edited by throwingks: Sep 29 2007, 01:30 PM

[anonim1979]

Exacly as I said before:

"On X360 scaled games
Two 640p Perfect Dark and Halo3 (1138x640) (no AA) (correction Halo 3 uses 1152x640)
Three 600p PGR3, Call Of Duty 3 and Tomb Raider (1024x600) (all have 2xMSAA)
(also probably Tony Hawk's Project 8)

RR6 is ~ 1440x810
1080p VT3 and NBA street (1920x1080)
thats all - all other games use 1280x720


On PS3 scaled games
540p - The Darkness (960x540)
600p - Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Call Of Duty 3

Ninja gaiden Sigma 1280x720 (not 1080p game - software 2x scaller to 1080 from 960x720 - 1080p is more blurred than 720p!)

GTHD use 1440x1080
Rub'a'dub use 1600x1080
Stardust HD use 1280x1080

and more - mostly software scaling to 1080i (R6:Vegas - bad and blurry)

( GRAW2 in multiplater 600p ? - unconfirmed)

more info
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43330 "

[BasicAir]

I wasn't too surprised to hear this news either. It also seemed to me like the resolution was lower than it should have been.

HD nuts like myself and others can tell the difference without trouble.

It isn't so much that we're missing a few pixels, but imo it's more about the fact that A) every 360 game is supposed to run in 720p natively, no exceptions, and they advertise 720p on the case. Also, considering it's the biggest video game launch of all time, you'd expect it to be 100% flawless and run 100% like people expect and like it's supposed to.

Resolution is even more important to me, considering I play 360 games at 1080p on my 56" HDTV over HDMI. Just minutes into the H3 campaign, I noticed it wasn't true 720p right away as the resolution looks IDENTICAL to that of CoD3 which is also not true 720p.

If someone was a big enough prick to file a lawsuit claiming false advertising for the "720p" label on the back of the case, I wonder if they'd actually win!? I bet they would...

[Kabbalah]

this is halo 3... i'm pretty sure the company took out all the stops to make this game look solid. and guess what it does look solid... i watched a bit of it on my friends HDTV running through optical cable and it looks clean, crisp and spectacular

An optical video cable.. doesn't really sound like a bad idea although nobody can buy one of these, right?