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Forums - Gaming - Halo 3 runs at 640p native XD

kamekazai on 30 September 2007
selnor said:
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)
I am guessing that is the reason, it was probably possible to run the game at 720p and in fact without much difference, but bungie decided that the little extra framerate and dual lighting renders where worth it. So far I agree.

 



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facher83 on 30 September 2007

Halo 2 was glitchy as well, in terms of graphics...  always amused me when textures were still loading a second or two in to a scene/battle - that's glitchy, in my book.



Numbers: Checker Players > Halo Players

Checkers Age and replayability > Halo Age and replayability

Therefore, Checkers > Halo

So, Checkers is a better game than Halo.

MikeB on 30 September 2007

@ selnor

Is that ok mike b?

Very impressive game graphically is Halo 3


The first screenshot doesn't seem like a long draw distance at all. The third one does if the plumes of smoke (or tonados?) in the distance is geometry. The spacecraft dots would certainly benefit from higher resolution.

I like the last pic best, but I think the XBox 360 is powerful enough to handle this game at 720p, maybe even at 60 FPS.



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PS3 vs 360 sales

makingmusic476 on 30 September 2007
selnor said:

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

Is that ok mike b?

Very impressive game graphically is Halo 3.


A couple of pics to put yours to shame...

How many characters did you say Halo 3 had on screen at once? 50 at most?

Here's a pic for draw distance...

And here's a pic showing both draw distance and a high number of enemies on screen...

I'm not sure why those last three pics are so blurry. GS usually has pretty crappy screen shots, though. I mean, just look how blurry the words are on the second pic.



sieanr on 30 September 2007
kamekazai said:
selnor said:
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)
I am guessing that is the reason, it was probably possible to run the game at 720p and in fact without much difference, but bungie decided that the little extra framerate and dual lighting renders where worth it. So far I agree.

 


It also has to do with how halo is running two rendering passes, one on each buffer. This is where the EDRAM of the 360 gets into play. When the 360 was originally designed, the EDRAM was intended for handling 720p. However, there is no way bungie could fit two 720p buffers and get two rendering passes. So 640p is the highest resolution you could get out of this system. Also, there are various reports that Bungie was screwing around with MSAA until the 11th hour, but they just couldn't optimize it in time, or they couldn't justify the framerate hit - depending on who you believe.

And before MikeB pops in here to say the PS3 could pull this off, it cant. No PS3 game has rendered two different rendering passes, and likely never will for a variety of reasons. Halo 3 pulling off two completly different rendering passes is quite impressive and a really interesting use of the hardware. This is also a big reason why Killzone is using the relativly exotic method of deferred rendering as you can get most of the same things as you can with two rendering passes. However, deferred rendering has its own problems and benefits, namely blurry textures but great dynamic lighting.

@making music - that last pic is clearly a skybox, and the second is likely one as well.


Leo-j said: If a dvd for a pc game holds what? Crysis at 3000p or something, why in the world cant a blu-ray disc do the same?

ssj12 said: Player specific decoders are nothing more than specialized GPUs. Gran Turismo is the trust driving simulator of them all. 

"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away" 

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sieanr on 30 September 2007
MikeB said:
@ selnor

Is that ok mike b?

Very impressive game graphically is Halo 3


The first screenshot doesn't seem like a long draw distance at all. The third one does if the plumes of smoke in the distance is geometry. The spacecraft dots would certainly benefit from higher resolution.

I like the last pic best, but I think the XBox 360 is powerful enough to handle this game at 720p, maybe even at 60 FPS.

Do you work in PR, because you can spin anything. And I don't mean this to sound like a compement, since, frankly, its just a bit little sad.

Still waiting for your say on Lair. IMHO one of the biggest PS3 titles, especially graphically, having to sacrifice 120 pixels from TRUHD and still having a poor framerate is just bizzare. Even moreso since they had a 30mil budget, support from Sony and experience making Amiga games.

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

No it doesn't. 

Higher resolution may allow you to see more in the distance, but it also takes up more power that could be used to render objects farther away. Again, common sense.



Leo-j said: If a dvd for a pc game holds what? Crysis at 3000p or something, why in the world cant a blu-ray disc do the same?

ssj12 said: Player specific decoders are nothing more than specialized GPUs. Gran Turismo is the trust driving simulator of them all. 

"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away" 

Andir on 30 September 2007
sieanr said:
 
that last pic is clearly a skybox, and the second is likely one as well.

 That's funny, cause I clearly thought the Halo shots were skyboxes too.



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TheBigFatJ on 30 September 2007
LordTheNightKnight said:
TheBigFatJ said:
fazz said:
TheBigFatJ said:

Further, higher resolution does not imply 'lower draw distance' or 'fewer polygons'.


Actually, it does.

Did anyone bother on checking the link that GranTurismo posted? Those screens are native 1920x1080.


Then the converse is true as well -- lower resolution implies longer draw distances. Ego, Wii games have the longest draw distance of this generation.

Do you see the problem with the logic here? Rendering engines aren't that simple. If you're not running into a bottleneck, you don't have to make a tradeoff. Chances are, the bottleneck they ran into here was with the framebuffer so it is very unlikely that they were trading resolution for draw distances.

As you no doubt know (since it's common knowledge), the 360 has a built in hardware scaler and scales the rendered resolution to targets as selected by the user. Two of those targets are 1920x1080. It says little about the native resolution of the game and I think the beyond forums have pretty solid evidence as to the resolution being rendered.


You're twisting words. The comment is about lower resolution on the same system. Learn how a framebuffer works. It has to manage the fouth wall of the game. More graphics can use it up. Yet esolution can also use it up, since some of the tasks of the frame buffer require watching every pixel on screen at all times.* Ergo, more resolution means more pixels to watch, and more of the framebuffer is eaten up. Less resolution means there is more room in the framebuffer to deal with a greater amount of graphics.

 

*The most well known of these tasks if anti-aliasing, but there is also one that sees what textures are on screen, and what isn't visible is not fully rendered, which saves bandwidth. This is expecially important in a game with a free camera, which any FPS has by defintion (or else it would be a rail shooter).


I know how a frame buffer works.  I wrote a 3D engine from scratch. 

 Oh, look -- I was right and you were wrong:

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=12821



Lost tears of Kain on 30 September 2007

zzzz halo looks absolutley amazing, i dont care what any opposing fanboys have to say, it has some of the best lighting, and some of the best looking envornments ive seen. Game is gorgous and its fun, its not perfect



                 With regard to Call of Duty 4 having an ultra short single player campaign, I guess it may well have been due to the size limitations of DVD on the XBox 360, one of various limitations multi-platform game designers will have to take into consideration-Mike B   

Proud supporter of all 3 console companys

Proud owner of 360wii and DS/psp              

Game trailers-Halo 3 only dissapointed the people who wanted to be dissapointed.

Bet with Harvey Birdman that Lost Odyssey will sell more then Blue dragon did.
sieanr on 30 September 2007
Andir said:
sieanr said:
 
that last pic is clearly a skybox, and the second is likely one as well.

 That's funny, cause I clearly thought the Halo shots were skyboxes too.


 Then you clearly cant differenciate between rendered geometry and a blurry, flat skybox



Leo-j said: If a dvd for a pc game holds what? Crysis at 3000p or something, why in the world cant a blu-ray disc do the same?

ssj12 said: Player specific decoders are nothing more than specialized GPUs. Gran Turismo is the trust driving simulator of them all. 

"Why do they call it the xbox 360? Because when you see it, you'll turn 360 degrees and walk away"