Bungie picks PQ over resolution for Halo 3
In case you've been hiding under a rock for the last couple of weeks: Bungie's Halo 3 was released for the Xbox 360 about a week ago. Console pixel counters quickly picked up on the fact that screenshots of the game showed a resolution of 640 lines, 80 short of the 720P HD standard, and quickly jumped on Bungie to explain this deficiency. Kudos to Bungie for being forthright in explaining what we consider a good design choice: using 2 display buffers (each at 1152x640 pixels) to preserve both high dynamic range and smooth frame rates. As we've said before, there's a lot more to picture quality than just static resolution, and both contrast ratio and motion are high on the list of factors that make for a great viewing experience. So yeah, we think Bungie's decision has merit and that Halo 3 looks great, but we're not sure if this qualifies Halo 3 as HD.
Filed under: Other hardware, Others
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
mike @ Oct 9th 2007 12:24PM
Well if it was on PS3 it'd be true 1080p.
Tim @ Oct 9th 2007 1:49PM
SONY's no slogan
Our games suck but they are true 1080p.
Sami @ Oct 9th 2007 3:51PM
Well, considering that most games made for PS3 runs att 720p I don't really see that your argument has any point. And how come many games (Madden Football for example) runs at same resolution across the platforms but lesser framerate? Duh!
Both the 360 and PS3 make excellent upscaling to 1080p though.
smee @ Oct 10th 2007 4:35AM
Well, like any good game, it's not on PS3, but please enjoy your crap games in HD
nigel @ Oct 10th 2007 6:20AM
PS3 fanboys can only wish they had such a low quality game like Halo 3 on their piss weak system, HA
Boone Pickens @ Oct 9th 2007 12:28PM
^^^ @ Mike - Maybe Sony could use that line for their marketing campaign.
P.S. Halo 3 has been out for exactly 2 weeks now.
DEEZNUTZ @ Oct 9th 2007 12:42PM
@ mike,
Yeah and it would run at 15fps.
Dave @ Oct 9th 2007 12:44PM
DEEZNUTZ, you are missing one zero after 5...
gescamil @ Oct 9th 2007 12:50PM
say it was 718p, would that be considered hd? 640p is still hd, it may not be an hd standard, but it's still hd.
trefox @ Oct 9th 2007 12:53PM
If you consider 720p to be the minimum for HD, then the 640p that Halo 3 runs at would be considered 80% of HD. (since 1152x640 gives you 80% of the pixels that 1280x720 gives you)
For comparison: 480p gives 37.5% the pixels of 720p, and 720p only gives 44.4% of the pixelx of 1080p (although twice as fast FPS-wise, assuming the game is running at a full 60 and 30fps respectively).
Personally, I think the 640p is close enough to HD. People need to chill out. How many people would have known at all if no one told them?
Tim @ Oct 9th 2007 2:26PM
i am not sure what res but it looks damn good on my 1080p 57" Mitsubishi TV. Several people have come by and was blown away at the detail of some of the maps on Halo 3.
Kiwi616 @ Oct 9th 2007 12:56PM
"Well if it was on PS3 it'd be true 1080p..."
Very true, not to mention at full speed. Its a pity that xbox 360 has already reach its ceiling at processing power with Halo 3! Only 2 years in the making also.
Dave @ Oct 9th 2007 2:29PM
lol@Sony being all 1080p. Some games for the PS3, such as The Darkness, have even lower resolution than Halo 3. You guys must be kidding. I suggest you do a little research. Not all PS3 games are 1080p.
Dave @ Oct 9th 2007 3:42PM
Actually, some people ARE saying that all PS3 games are 1080p. Personally, I'm upset about the fact that Halo 3 isn't--not because it's not a great game (it is), but because if you look on the box, it states the game is 1080p. That's why I'm upset about it. Just because you scale in software--which could have been done in hardware--doesn't give you the right to claim a game is 1080p.
Still, I also know that not all PS3 games are HD--and so in my prior post, I was merely trying to educate the ignorant.
LiqwidZero @ Oct 9th 2007 1:09PM
Who gives a rat's ass? It still looks and plays damn good, and shouldn't that be all that matters or is the world still full of whiny middle-aged men who can't get over the fact that some games have to cut things in order to make things look better?
Dan in DCVA @ Oct 9th 2007 1:11PM
Bottom line: the picture quality for H3 rocks. This game is a work of art. At no time did that lack 80 lines detract from anything. The immersive experience is as strong for this game than any other you can point to.
If some nerds out there are so anal retentive that they need to nitpick marginal resolution adjustments, they are obviously are not *playing* the game, but only *watching* it and, therefore, have missed the whole point.
If Halo 3's 1152x640 image is not immersive enough of an environment for them, something tells me they're are trying too hard to escape the grim reality of their real lives (living in their mother's basement) by looking for a holodeck to occupy themselves. My advice to them is to get a job, move out, get married, make babies, get a life and stop crying about whether or not Halo 3 is or is not real HD.
IseWise @ Oct 9th 2007 1:24PM
I hope you're talking about the Multi-player as a work of art, because the single player campaign....not so much art as it is a good attempt at art.
Bioshock > Halo 3 Campaign
Chad @ Oct 9th 2007 1:16PM
What is up PS3 fan boys...least we forget that on every cross platform game - Madden, TWG ect - the xbox360 is running at 60fps and not the pathetic 30 they had to use on the PS3. Evolution of the devel kit or lack of ability of the platform? You would think that such a technologically superior system would be able to handle the same thing a measly 360's performance. /sarcasm.
IseWise @ Oct 9th 2007 1:17PM
I would like to remind people to the quote from Peter Moore 2 years ago at E3 2005 about pixels:
"To ensure that the next generation delivers, every game is built on what we call Essentials, a foundation of requirements every game must have before it can ship on the Xbox 360 platform. These essentials include a minimum of 720p high definition resolution to provide gamers with jaw-dropping visual clarity and fidelity. Many developers are already working on games in 1080i."
"In addition, Xbox 360 games will provide anti-aliasing that gets rid of what we call the jaggies. Well, you know what, with Xbox 360, the age of the jaggies is over, superseded by smooth, lifelike visuals of cinematic quality."
I've beat Halo 3 a couple of times already (achievements, what can I say?) and there are a bunch of jaggies all over the place. Also, is the Xbox 360's hardware already being pushed to the limit that developers are having to sacrifice resolution for other effects?
ryan @ Oct 9th 2007 1:37PM
I haven't played halo 3 yet but from everything I've heard picture quality, distance draw and graphics are excellent. If all of that is achieved who really cares about lines of resolution.
Great ammo for PS3 fanboys though to justify their console that has so few decent games.
irshliquor @ Oct 9th 2007 1:38PM
I'd like to coin yet another acronym for situations such as this (you can never have too many acronyms). HTSDBNQHD. Higher Than Standard Definition But Not Quite High Definition. Makes perfect sense to me...
...Just me? OK, fine you win.
domerdel @ Oct 9th 2007 1:41PM
Chad:
It's called "Porting", thats why PS3 isn't capitalizing on "technologically superior" in this case.
FrankTheCrank @ Oct 9th 2007 1:46PM
IT'S NOT HD.
It's not either 720P, 1080i or 1080P, which means it's not "true" HD.
The system has an upscaler, so I'm sure it was UPSCALED to 720p or even 1080i.
razordullwit @ Oct 9th 2007 1:52PM
I'm kind of tired of Bungie and Xbox haters freaking out about this. I'm sure some of it is probably a (somewhat justifiable) backlash against the hype machine MS rolled out for the H3 launch, but seriously?
I had just about finished the campaign by the time people "discovered" Halo's resolution, and I didn't actually notice the jaggies until I looked for them. And I'm playing on a 56" 1080p DLP set, so picture flaws are pretty noticable. Here's the other thing that never gets pointed out -- while some objects suffer from the jaggies (the most noticable being the weapon you're holding, unfortunately), anything that uses both frame buffers to take advantage of the HDR looks clean and smooth, with no apparent jaggies. Take a look at the "God rays" in the first level, or pause a saved film and fly around plasma bolts or sparks. This is where the dual frame buffer really kicks in -- you won't see any evidence of jaggies or "missing lines" when you look at these things. So, it's not really fair to say that it only runs at 1152x640, since it's not really that simple. As a bonus, the ANA scaler really does a great job of up-converting the graphics, so you only see the flaws if you look for them.
joe @ Oct 9th 2007 1:53PM
Steven,
The contrast ratio of halo3 is unchanged due to the buffer use. You are referring to HDR lighting effects, which are pretty.
Dan,
I haven't seen any review that describes halo3 as a work of art. I have seen plenty that call it an exceptionally crafted game.
All,
The important thing to note in this is that to achieve the HDR look and solid frame rate of Halo3 Bungie had to give up many of the 'next gen' features of the 360 hardware. ATI did several very smart things in the design of the GPU for the xbox360. Among them they give good motion rendition,frame rate, and anti-aliasing.
The lighting model that Halo uses sacrifices the "free" anti-aliasing features of the 360 platform.
It looks like the xbox360 has already hit a fairly important graphical wall. I suspect that you may see more 30 fps games on the 360 like gears of war because the 360 has simply run out of bandwidth to provide the graphical effects that people expect now, such as motion blur, full frame anti-aliasing, 30+ fps and high dynamic range lighting.
Nintendo may have had it right. The processing may not have been there to do all of this in HD resolution. Sony hasn't shown that this can be done yet either. A nicely upscaled SD image with all of the rendering goodies will look better than raw resolution.
Kiwi616 @ Oct 9th 2007 2:35PM
We are not saying all games are 1080P, but anything that states its HD and not at least 720P should not be advertised as such. Halo 3 is the crown and jewels of the xbox and MS hasn't even put in the effort to make it at least 720P (even after 3 years of waiting). Pretty pathetic.
But it looks good for what you paid for I guess... :P
Maybe they'll be another SE version with a different SKU thats 720/1080i/p HA!
Tim @ Oct 9th 2007 2:29PM
at this point who cares because $300+ million, it already super succes. i am sure it will reach $500 million by the end of the year. i am sure 640p will not stop someone from buying a great game.
andy @ Oct 9th 2007 3:14PM
I'm sure that if they'd bundle it with the Elite (which would be 65nm due to its late manufacturing date), they would sell at least one Elite before Christmas.
And the sale would have NOTHING to do with Christmas :devil:
Man I want to play.
EatingPie @ Oct 9th 2007 3:19PM
I was far more pissed at waiting 2 years on a half-assed single player campaign. I haven't used multiplayer yet, but I assume all the work went into that.
There are jaggies in this game. It's very obviously upscaled. It also has a few slowdowns, but only 1 or 2 in the whole *cough* campaign.
Overall, I was VERY DISAPPOINTED and upset with H3.
-Pie
HEY!!!! @ Oct 9th 2007 3:24PM
you guys act like microsoft is the only one doing this but:
On PS3 scalled 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
the worst part about this generation of gaming is that people only care about the graphics if the game is fun then who the f**k cares
DeadPlasmaCell @ Oct 9th 2007 3:34PM
Wow. A little late with this story ay Engadget?
EEL @ Oct 9th 2007 9:55PM
For everyone that has made any "positive" comment here for Sony's PS3 over the Xbox 360, please explain why Madden 08 for the PS3 only runs at 30 fps while the 360 version runs at 60 fps, 90% of current multi-platform releases are taking 2 weeks to 2+ months for the PS3 version to release (DiRT, Stranglehold,etc.), and PS3 2007 killer app, Lair, sucks?! Now I will not ever say that the PS3 is not a quality gaming system, but they have some serious issues that still haven't been corrected and may never be corrected (like offering proper support to 3rd party developers so the PS3 release of a game won't get delayed until after the Xbox 360 version has already been on the market). Sony's asking a lot from their fans to wait until 2008 exclusives like Killzone 2 and MGS4 and when that time finally arrives, only 40 GB PS3 maybe available without backwards compatibility. Right now, I rather spend my $400 elsewhere.
Chaz @ Oct 10th 2007 12:28AM
"waaah" ... is that the Sony fanboys i hear? lol u idiots
the PS3 has NUMEROUS games as mentioned by other posters that are at a lower resolution than Halo 3. Visually, Halo 3 blows any PS3 game out of the water as far as pure picture quality goes. So stop the whining, and find a better angle to bash the 360, im sorry you wasted your $400-$500 on a sh!t gaming machine. (great movie player, but shitty gaming machine, facts are facts... lol).
The majority of Blu-Ray fanboys are just PS3 owners who realized there was a serious lack of quality games for their new console.
smee @ Oct 10th 2007 4:48AM
OK EVERYBODY, XBOX 360 AND PS3 FANBOYS ALIKE.
READ THIS ARTICLE, THEN WE CAN GET ON WITH A REAL DEBATE!
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-348-1.htm
EEL @ Oct 10th 2007 7:37PM
Thanks. PS3 fanboys just don't get it.
Carbonize @ Oct 10th 2007 6:44AM
I have to say, WHO CARES? For those of us old enough to remember. When playing Doom did you care that everything was blocky up close? No because great game play draws you in regardless of the graphic quality.
I do have to say though that Halo 3's campaign sucks big time.
As to Havok Vs Unreal engine I'm not sure. BioShock does look slightly better than Halo 3 from my brief play on it (BioShock that is) but then everything in BioShock is indoors. I have seen some mistakes in Halo 3 like a Pelican going through rock.
Halo 3 - Finish the hype.
joel @ Oct 10th 2007 9:44AM
this seems strange, halo 3 looks great don't get me wrong, but it could look better. Gears of war had dynamic lighting as well, but i didn't hear about the resolution being cut to do it. I may be wrong but Halo 3 is still the best game out there, just not the prettiest.
mike @ Oct 10th 2007 10:08AM
Okay, now I'm confused. I thought the PS3 was more powerful than the 360? Is that not true?
It seems as if bungie decided to remove some of the reso. because of the xbox's limit in power.
Like many have said before it still looks good.
As I preceive things, I thought the PS3 was the muscle this console war. So it can handle stuff like that?
Deathwish238 @ Oct 13th 2007 5:53PM
No that's not true, the PS3 and 360 have roughly the same power
Wesley Hester @ Oct 10th 2007 7:21PM
I own and play all the current systems so I'm not a fanboy of any one console (whats the point anyway really).
With a console that upscales and outputs to 720p, 1080i and 1080p, the marketing folks will never allow Halo 3 or PGR3 out without HD branding of some kind and kindly omitting true resolutions, etc. at the same time. Whatever: thats THE game.
What I personally don't understand is how all kind of things get leaked to the internet during game development, numerous developer interviews are released, betas and demos played, etc., etc. but little (read "f'ing huge") things like Bungie choosing 640p for better PQ and 2K choosing to use a weird way to handle 16:9 on a console destine for widescreen displays with BioShock don't. How do these things get overlooked and/or undiscovered until AFTER release? How convenient!
smee @ Oct 11th 2007 8:01AM
XBOX 360 outsells PS3 4:1, PS2 outsells PS3 2:1, PS3=DOG
http://www.vgchartz.com/news/news.php?id=554
Chelvestor @ Jan 5th 2008 4:37AM
I'll sum it up, I have both a 56" 1080p DLP and 24" 1920x1200 computer monitor. I notice the jaggies more on the 24" display than the DLP, DLPs are projection and so the jaggies will seem softer by nature, no matter what size screen.
What you do not notice is a slower framerate, and that is ultimately what is going to keep the game fun. Yeah Call of Duty 4 looks better, but it's also upscaled.
Bottom line, H3 probably could look a bit better if it was written on a newer engine (equivalent framerate at slightly higer resolution), but then again the game might not even be released yet if it were.
Don't dwell on it, and if you really must, go buy a dual core pc and 8800gt and you'll see how medicore both gaming platforms look compared to a new pc.
Although not as fun as H3, check out Unreal Tournament 3, absolutely gorgeous, running it at 1920x120(1080p=1920x1080) and 60fps.