makingmusic476 said: selnor said: Well me and my mates were blwn away with how good Halo 3 looks, with the amount of stuff on screen. No game has ever pulled off this level of graphics with what 50 enemies on screen? Not to mention the 15 guys stood fighting beside masterchief. All with individual AI. This is so far next gen.  Heavenly Sword?

HS AI wasnt completely individual. Also, Halo3's draw distance is far greater. It's levels and architecture far more impressive.

TheBigFatJ said: Of course I know that. I'm making a point by showing a fallacy. If we can say 'higher resolution implies lower draw distances' then we can also say 'lower resolution implies higher draw distances' by logic. This is clearly not true, it's not true across consoles, but even more relevantly it's not true across the 360. Of course, it may be part of a tradeoff (as I've stated several times before), but, then again, it may not. You may be decreasing or increasing the resolution irrespective to draw distance and you may or may not even be limited by fillrate. Your draw distance could be restricted by your CPU time available, for example. Higher resolution does not imply lower draw distances. It doesn't. While you may be able to tradeoff draw distances and resolution in some situations, it does not apply to all situations and that is exactly my point. And my point is that this particular situation is much more likely due to framebuffer size limitations than fillrate.

actually your logic is incorrect.

If A implies B, it does not follow that !A implies !B. In other words, if "High Resolution" implies "Low Draw Distance", it does not follow that "Low Resolution" implies "High Draw Distance". This logic is incorrect because all the implication is stating is if A is true, B is true, but states nothing about the value of B when A is false. In other words, you have committed a logical fallacy.

the correct logic is "A implies B, therefore !B implies !A". In other words, if "High Resolution" implies "Low Draw Distance" then it follows that "High Draw Distance" implies "Low Resolution". This is valid logic, and is not a logical fallacy. It is however, incorrect due to the fact that the initial statement is incorrect, of course. There is actually very little relationship between draw distance and resolution, as they rely on different parts of the graphics pipeline.

Your point still stands, of course. I just wanted to point out that many people misuse logic when they don't really understand it ;) 

omgwtfbbq said: TheBigFatJ said: Of course I know that. I'm making a point by showing a fallacy. If we can say 'higher resolution implies lower draw distances' then we can also say 'lower resolution implies higher draw distances' by logic. This is clearly not true, it's not true across consoles, but even more relevantly it's not true across the 360. Of course, it may be part of a tradeoff (as I've stated several times before), but, then again, it may not. You may be decreasing or increasing the resolution irrespective to draw distance and you may or may not even be limited by fillrate. Your draw distance could be restricted by your CPU time available, for example. Higher resolution does not imply lower draw distances. It doesn't. While you may be able to tradeoff draw distances and resolution in some situations, it does not apply to all situations and that is exactly my point. And my point is that this particular situation is much more likely due to framebuffer size limitations than fillrate. actually your logic is incorrect. If A implies B, it does not follow that !A implies !B. In other words, if "High Resolution" implies "Low Draw Distance", it does not follow that "Low Resolution" implies "High Draw Distance". This logic is incorrect because all the implication is stating is if A is true, B is true, but states nothing about the value of B when A is false. In other words, you have committed a logical fallacy. the correct logic is "A implies B, therefore !B implies !A". In other words, if "High Resolution" implies "Low Draw Distance" then it follows that "High Draw Distance" implies "Low Resolution". This is valid logic, and is not a logical fallacy. It is however, incorrect due to the fact that the initial statement is incorrect, of course. There is actually very little relationship between draw distance and resolution, as they rely on different parts of the graphics pipeline. Your point still stands, of course. I just wanted to point out that many people misuse logic when they don't really understand it ;)

There is no direct relationship, but certain factors can make one affect the other. Halo 3 has situations that do that.

My guess is that the lighting engine has effects the pixels, and not the texels, then it would use part of the frame buffer, and not the texture buffer. That would mean that resolution would be important.

@ sieanr

I already stated that I think the XBox 360 is powerful enough to handle everything in Halo 3 to be rendered in native 720p. Considering Halo 3 is made by a Microsoft owned company, having seemingly endless resources and probably more development time than any other "high definition" console game currently on the market, I just think the true reason for this sacrifce is not being shared by neither Bungie nor Microsoft.



Halo 3's rendering in 640p isn't a scaling issue. IMO it's just strange the XBox 360's by far most important game is not even rendered in a minimal HD resolution (and no AA, I thought Microsoft said AA was "free" ). And like I pointed out we aren't here talking about some half-assed 3rd party project.

"Three HDTV standards are currently defined by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-R BT.709). They include 1080i (1,080 actively interlaced lines), 1080p (1,080 progressively scanned lines), and 720p (720 progressively scanned lines). "

@ omgwtfbbq

Basically higher resolutions allows for further draw distances. If or not sacrifices need to be made depends on console power and game design.

@ selnor

Can you show some screenshots as proof? Everything I have seen so far for Halo 3, didn't really show amazing draw distances. So far I have only read about it.

Heavenly Sword for comparison:



http://fp.scea.com///Content/Movies/15475/Images/3/image.jpg

I still love their explanation of why 640p isn't a big deal:
"Halo 3 uses not one, but two frame buffers – both of which render at 1152x640 pixels"

Last time I checked, video cards/chips have been using multiple buffers for a long time... Have you ever checked the "Triple Buffering" option in the graphics settings before? "Not two, but three buffers!"

All these are from in game. Using theatre mode from campaign levels.

Is that ok mike b?

Very impressive game graphically is Halo 3.

Andir said: I still love their explanation of why 640p isn't a big deal: "Halo 3 uses not one, but two frame buffers – both of which render at 1152x640 pixels" Last time I checked, video cards/chips have been using multiple buffers for a long time... Have you ever checked the "Triple Buffering" option in the graphics settings before? "Not two, but three buffers!"

 He didn't mean that there was more than one frame buffer. He meant that the full set of graphics, aside from lighting range, is on each one.

Halo 3 runs at a lower resolution, not only to maintain a constant frame rate, but because it runs TWO frame buffers, that cover both the high dynamic range, and the low dynamic range. Hence why Halo 3 is possibly the most colourful game in a long time.

80 vertical pixels is a worthy sacrifice to not have a game that looks bland like Gears of Grey, and to have a steady frame rate during some of the larger battles (at one point in the game, there are 2 scarabs, about 8 ghosts, 20-ish brutes and grunts, 10 or 15 marines, and a buttload of aircraft having dog fights in the air. All in an area that is probably about 1/2 mile wide)