Halo 3 not HD: runs at 640p, pixel counters claim - Joystiq

godtabh

Bungie havent responded yet if its true or not.
Claim

Hyzepher

Who cares, the game rocks. I'll take game play over laggy over hyped HD pixels!

Ciaran500

Oh noes!

ntlbell

bungie stolez da megahurtz!@#

godtabh

i nearly cried when i saw it

fifth

Ah, I think it still looks great on a HD tv.. Didn't affect my experience..

godtabh

funkyflea wrote:

Ah, I think it still looks great on a HD tv.. Didn't affect my experience..

It looks unreal. A lot of games hd but they are upscaled. Couldnt care less. still a great game experience

tman

kearnsr wrote:

It looks unreal. A lot of games hd but they are upscaled. Couldnt care less. still a great game experience

Why start this thread then?

Pedro Monscooch

Tman has a point. Besides, I thought anything over 480p was HD. Bungie's response: http://kotaku.com/gaming/waaahhh/bungie-address-640p-whiners-305117.php

godtabh

tman wrote:

Why start this thread then?

Is that what these boards are for?

Scruff

it does gives the sony and the ps3 fanboy brigade a small stick to attempt to beat the 360 with though.

projectmayhem

the games looks very nice either way so it's not a big deal, but putting 720p on the back of the box is a bit cheeky when it's upscaled. may as well say all DVD movies are HD because you can upscale them too...

Riesen_Meal

Bungie have responded : from bungie.net

You Owe me 80p!

One item making the interwebs rounds this week was the scandalous revelation that Halo 3 runs at “640p” which isn’t even technically a resolution. However, the interweb detectives did notice that Halo 3’s vertical resolution, when captured from a frame buffer, is indeed 640 pixels. So what gives? Did we short change you 80 pixels?

Naturally it’s more complicated than that. In fact, you could argue we gave you 1280 pixels of vertical resolution, since Halo 3 uses not one, but two frame buffers – both of which render at 1152x640 pixels. The reason we chose this slightly unorthodox resolution and this very complex use of two buffers is simple enough to see – lighting. We wanted to preserve as much dynamic range as possible – so we use one for the high dynamic range and one for the low dynamic range values. Both are combined to create the finished on screen image.

This ability to display a full range of HDR, combined with our advanced lighting, material and postprocessing engine, gives our scenes, large and small, a compelling, convincing and ultimately “real” feeling, and at a steady and smooth frame rate, which in the end was far more important to us than the ability to display a few extra pixels. Making this decision simpler still is the fact that the 360 scales the
“almost-720p” image effortlessly all the way up to 1080p if you so desire.

In fact, if you do a comparison shot between the native 1152x640 image and the scaled 1280x720, it’s practically impossible to discern the difference. We would ignore it entirely were it not for the internet’s propensity for drama where none exists. In fact the reason we haven’t mentioned this before in weekly updates, is the simple fact that it would have distracted conversation away from more important aspects of the game, and given tinfoil hats some new gristle to chew on as they catalogued their toenail clippings.

chicken_food

Haha! Thats a great pr response. Hats off to Bungie-the game is amazing hd or not!!

Burning Eclipse

I couldn't care what resolution it runs at, I love how it plays!!

Also

Edge review is in

10

Always gonna divide opinions though!!

Riesen_Meal

Picked up edge over the weekend alright,

Delighted!

Scruff

well asides from halo3 alone the issue with resolution and upscaling is quite interesting from the point of view of the limits of 3rd gen console hardware and conversions between console. Have a read of this post here from a huge debate thread on beyond3d.

in relation to Halo3

Halo3 is 1152x640 not 1138x640 (and the photo mode is 8064x4448 in a 7x7 tile grid downscaled in 1920x1080 ) and probably perfect dark too (1152 is anamorphique but is a more simple upscale ratio than 1138, apparently devs prefer to choose simple upscale ratio than isomorphic resolution)

I havent played Hao3 yet but that explains to me why some of the ingame "photos" i've seen look so fantastic compared to game vids i've seen.

guest

Here's my opinion(s) on the matter:

1. The info on the back of the Halo 3 box states 720p/1080i/1080p formats. This is a pure lie on Microsoft's part, and is illegal. The game is 640p as Bungie stated in their recent (and excellently-put) response. Whether the Xbox can upscale the visual imagery anywhere upto and including 1080p is immaterial. The original data is 640p. Any other figures merely represent interpolation by the console itself, not the product you're buying. How do they get away with that? It would be like a DVD claiming 1080P definition. Yes, some modern DVD players upscale to that level, but the product you're buying in its current form is what matters!

2. Bungie IMO did the right thing. To me they have always been championing substance over style. Many claim that Gears of War outshines Halo 3 in terms of graphical quality (and now, resolution) but the gloomy environments in GOW, albeit effective, also allow for faster loading times (so they are cheating in their own way:D) Halo's environments are much more interactive and a joy to behold (again IMO).

3. 640p is good enough for me!