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Bungie responds to Halo 3 resolution critics

Posted Sep 29, 2007 at 1:33PM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Bungie Studios, HDR, Microsoft

Shortly after Microsoft and Bungie Studios' monumental Halo 3 release for the Xbox 360, voices were heard all over the internet complaining about the game's resolution having shortchanged buyers. The whines and moans stem from the fact that when set at the 720p resolution, Halo 3's vertical resolution actually runs at 640p.

The fiasco has had more fuel thrown to it since then by the graphics-conscious crowd, prompting Bungie to post a response statement in their official site.

"It's more complicated than that," says Bungie. "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," Bungie adds. "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."

According to Bungie, this technique allows the application of full HDR, which results in the visuals being a lot more realistic than those of average games. The famed developers also explain why they didn't bring that up in earlier statements.

"It would have distracted conversation away from more important aspects of the game," says Bungie. As a parting shot, they added that doing so would have given "tinfoil hats some new gristle to chew on as they cataloged their toenail clippings."

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Even though the models and geometry are not as detailed as say gears....the lighting blows it away...and lighting is something our subconcious pics up on heavly when determining if what it's looking at is real or not...

I have no probs with the graphics, they are slick and smooth enough and usually i'm too busy killing people to really care too much...

# ya — Jobo50 2007-09-29 15:14

I dont understand why people care so much about graphics, i enjoy NES games just as much as i enjoy xbox 360 games, PS3 games, or wii games. Its all about the gameplay. If someone came out with a game that had mind blowing graphics, more amazing than anything ever, but had bad gameplay, i wouldnt buy it.

# ok 1080i — NOYS 2007-09-29 15:54

is not hi def according to these guys and thats is what all broadcast hd is.

# NOYS According to the Law — user name user 1 2007-09-29 16:31

HD broadcasts have a source video of 1080p wich is send interlaced, halo3SD source video is 640p a little better than dvd resolution, but not HD just ask DirectTV they got sued for advertising HD and only sending like 540p transmission and lost. yeah you heard me right, they lost.

# ok... — Someone_PR 2007-09-29 17:14

I said it before.. I'm not a halo fan... but if u play it ok.. if the grafics looks ok like another HD game... why u care then if is HD or not? is 640p ok.. but the 360 will upscale it isn't? if someone is saying that halo sucks just for that it will not buying since the beggining... anyway I still don't understand the hype for this game but ok..

# Lies again. — vitz3 2007-09-29 17:29

Hmm. I can remember a quote from M$ when asked about their HD policy.

"All Xbox 360 games must natively support at least 720p". Peter Moore.

They lie. Asshats.

# Right on — Guest 2007-09-29 18:42

Sometimes people just have to throw the fancy numbers out, chill amd play the darn thing. Halo 3 is excellent as it is, and at 60 bucks a pop, every penny goes to good use.

# So What!!! — LiK SHoT 2007-09-29 18:53

seriously no one would have noticed, it's really not that serious

# You seem to love getting screw over — houaruto 2007-09-29 19:09

they screw over and yet you are just letting them step all over you. You disgust me even more than M$ screwing you over.

# You idiot — KnowLedge 2007-09-30 01:11

Launch games Perfect Dark and PRG3 also ran at less than 720p, where I believe PD ran at 640p and PGR3 at 600p.

Also;

http://ps3.qj.net/Call-of-Duty-3-and-Tony-Hawk-s-Project-8-Not-720p/pg/49/aid/72893

COD3 runs at 620p and THP8 at 580p!

So stop acting as if this is something new or something wrong!

# Seems you're screwed in the head houaruto. — KnowLedge 2007-09-30 01:15

See my reply to vitz3 above.

Sadly, a$$holes like you seem to think resolution is more important than gameplay.

# Get an hdtv 1080p & see how important — user name user 1 2007-09-30 02:05

gameplay seems to be ok, I dont think anybody is denying that, but the graphics are crappola. and everybody can see that on an HD set, just look at all the jaggies, I feel like Im playing a N64 graphics game, with good gameplay. this is disappointing.

but if you are playing on an SDTV 480i then this game probably looks as good and any other to you.

# jaggies? — shabghai360 2007-09-30 07:11

sorry but your HDTV is not properly calibrated. I run my xbox through th compomnent out to the HDMI enabled poweramp and I use the toslink optical for sound. I pump all of this from a properly calibrated signal via HDMI to the 42" TFT flatscreen Image is perfect and no jaggies. By the way If you buy a HDTV and just plug it in then its only luck if the image is perfect. The same for the high end amps with HDMI. Go to your local hifi and ask to rent a calibration dvd and follow onscreen instructions. or google HDTV calibration.

# *Rolleyes* — KnowLedge 2007-09-30 07:19

No really, I *have* seen it on a 1080p HDTV, and it looks excellent to me.

The problem I have with comments from gamers like yourself is that you seem to have no concept of scale. Everything is either "OMG it's AWESOME" or "it's CRAP", never anything in between.

So instead of an intelligent response where you list what you like about the graphics and what you don't like, you have to go to the extreme by saying they're "crappola" and like N64 graphics. Which is BS and you know it.

# QJ put link to correct calibration. — shabghai360 2007-09-30 08:26

probably the wrong area to post this but please give a link to correct HDTV calibration as the comments from so many people although exaggerated do lead me to believe that many of them do not have their systems setup correctly. I and many others have great graphics and I cannot believe that there are 2 versions of the same game for sale.

# shabghai, calibrating your equipment will not remove jaggies — Master Chef 2007-09-30 15:10

I don't think you know what "jaggies" are. If a game does not have full anti-aliasing, you cannot remove the jaggies, no matter what you do.

I can see the jaggies on my (calibrated) Sony Bravia, and so can many others with $5000+ HDTVs. That apparently is because Halo 3 does not have full anti-aliasing. There was a topic on Bungie.net about it, and it got to over 100 pages, filled with replies by people complaining about the jaggies.

If you can't see them, you either have bad eyes or you sit very far from the screen. Go closer and look for them, they are there.

It's not a big deal really, just like this stupid 640p issue, because the game (especially the lighting) looks fantastic, but they are there.

# In fact — Master Chef 2007-09-30 15:26

You can even see it in media screenshots:

http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/screen-hires/66525/Halo-3/

See the little things around the edges of everything, that look like steps or mountain ranges? Those are jaggies.

They are somewhat hard to notice while playing, especially if you are playing the multiplayer, but they are there, like I said.

# Well — Stealth! 2007-09-30 19:35

What can you expect KnowLedge, its not like everyone has or uses their brain to think ;)

# Correct Stealth! — KnowLedge 2007-09-30 20:10

But we can only hope. :)

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