Halo 3 not quite HD

Ashton, I can guarantee you if Microsoft had to dump either Flight Simulator X or Halo, FS would be in the trash can faster than you can spit.

I guess it depends on how you define 'best game developers', but if you're talking about revenue, I doubt all of the MS Flight Simulators sold in the history of the FS franchise come close to the revenue generated by the Halo franchise.

Sure FS is great, but let's not forget it's place. It has the mass market appeal of a stamp collection.

I am not certain of exactly what the 360 does when it uscales the 1152x640 image but I do know that it can not accuratly guess what the 1080p image should look like. If it could, why not just render a 1x1 pixel image and then upscale it to 1080p? The comparison must be made between the same scene rendered at the two different resolutions without any scaling.

"Is Microsoft about to let go of the best game developers it has?"

Well, that's a bad statement. There is no way that Bungie Studios are the 'best game developers' it has.

Take one good look at Flight Simulator, specifically, the latest version. A franchise that's been living for 25 years, with the latest supporting the entire world, mapping it accurately, with realistic flight physics, upcoming DirectX 10 support (which seems to be done, just beta testing), and it looks way better than Halo 1/2/3 and Bungie are MSs best developers?

Give a hand for ACES. They're the best. That's just insulting. ACES don't go around driving game-created replicas in car parks, they work hard...

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? 

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.

So please I would trade in any Hd console in the world for amazing screenshots, almost real atmospheric lighting and out of this world gameplay. 

I just have one question, When will the world accept that Halo 3 is a triumph?

Feel free to add me as a friend "Pezza Dispenser" if further discussion is needed! :)



the only good reason i can think of why they would do a lower res it to keep within the hardware requirements. Shocking, 2+ year old hardware can't keep up with the newest games. Now the xbox nubs are locked into old hardware as I play at 1920X1080 on my computer and upgrade as needed.

I was much more impressed graphics-wise with Gears of War, GRAW2, and Lost Planet than I was with the graphics in Halo3. Halo3 seems more like an 'add-on' to Halo2 than a sequel. And the fact that it still doesn't utilize my 1080p widescreen for split screen multiplayer further shows that Halo3 was never meant to be a HD game. FOR SHAME! Bungie's argument that SD split screen on a HDTV provides the best gameplay experience is total BS, because nothing pisses me off more than playing a $60 "HD" game on a $400 HD Console on a $2000 1080p HDTV only for it to be not HD. Bungie and MS should have gotten this right in the first place, the old adage of it being better than nothing is just pure laziness.

Bungie has always sucked in game development. 

remember the crappy graphics of Halo? and its pathetic performing port on PC.

Horrible graphics with bad performance as a free gift in HALO2.

Again when I was thinking Bungie has done possibly gr8 this time... HALO3 is not even HD!

Of course they are the best game developers of microsoft.

Typos are the norm on the inquirer- one of the reasons I like this site. 

I think, because the author said "Is Microsoft about to let go of the best game developers it has?" 

developers, plural, it probably was intended to say "Is Microsoft about to let go of <i>ONE OF</i> the best game developers it has?"

Just a typo, and if not, its an opinion. Not stated like a fact. Personally, I don't care about Flight Simulator. I don't like Bungie much either for that matter, they just stumbled upon the best control scheme for a FPS on the console.

Halo ROCKED the xbox, it made me sell me beloved PS2 as it is a much more powerful machine and Halo was truly a masterpiece on that machine. Shame that some pc gamers (of which I can also be accused of being-TF2 anyone?) can't see past their tiny monitors to the sofa, wireless controller and BIG screen sitting 6 feet away which can be enjoyed in comfort...

Aw who cares!! It looks good, it plays great, the end.

somebody has way too much time on their hands to be arguing about a few pixels....