Halo 3 IQ discussion * - Stay civil and polite folks!

[Laa-Yosh]

This has been explained repeatedly:

1) Halo3 is the biggest 360 game in its short history, and probably the biggest videogame launch of all time. Of course it's going to get 10times the media exposure and scrutinity of every other game.

That's the breaks when you're projected to sell over 8 million copies, and in turn get a ton of free publicity just from that. So I shed few tears for Bungie in this regard.

2) Quaz only came across a foolproof method to determine a games true resolution in the past few months. The games that were doing upsampling (although some were obvious to me, like Tomb Raider:Legends) were already out and media attention to them has passed.

Unfortunately this is not the case. It's not about sheding tears in the first place, but criticizing and condoning Bungie, apparently trying to downplay the achievments and success of their game.

And just because Quaz haven't done it earlier, and there's no media attention, it'll somehow give a free pass to any other game that has done this before? This is hypocrisy at its worst.

At least be honest about it...

 

[mrcorbo]

Humm, am I to take it that you don't notice much of a difference between HD format movies and standard DVDs either? From what I've seen, most people consider such differences quite striking.

1. No that wouldn't be a safe assumption at all. In fact, I can see differences between recorded OTA broadcast HDTV vs. broadcast HDTV sourced from digital cable or "scene" releases of HDDVDs vs. the original discs when played back on my HTPC. Seeing the differences in the your scenario hardly presents a challenge.

2. As RobertR1 pointed out it's also not a very good comparison.

I did say that I agreed there were clear differences and I see everything you pointed out. I just also see similarities between the two images. Enough of them that I wouldn't call the overall difference between the images vast.

 

[vazel]

Hmm, I see what he was saying. The bilinear mushiniess does give it a SD quality as it blurs out detail so when a lot of the mushiness was reduced as a result of the resolution raise the difference is almost comparable from when you're going from SD to HD. Lots of people at the AVS forum would consider that a vast difference.

 

[Dave Glue]

Unfortunately this is not the case. It's not about sheding tears in the first place, but criticizing and condoning Bungie, apparently trying to downplay the achievments and success of their game.

Er..."condoning" would be supporting their decision/explanation, so I'm not sure you intended to use that word.

So why shouldn't it be criticized, though? What makes Bungie so special? No one is trying to "downplay" the achievement of Halo3's gameplay (except those that...you know, may not exaclty like it for various reasons), but certainly some reviewers have pointed out the graphics are less than what they expected. And...? It still gets supreme reviews, and will the best selling 360 game to date, and likely throughout the lifespan of the system.

Again, how exactly is this affecting Bungie or Halo3?. Simple: It's not, which is why their overly defensive reaction is so unecessary.

And just because Quaz haven't done it earlier, and there's no media attention, it'll somehow give a free pass to any other game that has done this before? This is hypocrisy at its worst.

Being "hypocritical" would be to never ask a developer the true resolution of the game from this point on, or never publish it if you have the means to determine it yourself. That's the task of the interviewer or websites hyping a game with screenshots supplied by the publisher.

It's not about getting a "free pass" (which implies Bungie is being unfairly "hurt" here, which I see no evidence of), the fact remains that most reviewers likely didn't know of other games being upsampled because no one had bothered to check before. They're not "getting away" with anything, no one had bothered to bring it up - the upscaling thread is only now getting attention because someone at Gamespot finally noticed it with Halo3 (and perhaps some other critical comments indicated that it may not have been 720p, I'm certainly not the only one who has noticed more jaggies that in most 360 games with this title).

No we know there is a method, and it may be standard fare not to take MS's word that a game is 720p just because the checkbox on the back of the case is filled. I see that as a good thing, but ultimately very minor - it's hardly going to spell success or doom for a product release if it's found out it's slightly below 720p.

Bungies equivocation and overly sensitive tone in their reply has stoked whatever minor brushfires this has caused in the community ("You could say we run at a much higher res because we have two buffers" - and yes, I see that ridiculous reasoning being parotted around already on other forums by the fanboys).

 

[kyleb]

2. As RobertR1 pointed out it's also not a very good comparison..

Heh, Robert's comparison isn't at all good. The "source" is only 1152x640 when the game is being rendered in real time. However, then the screenshot is taken that "source" is some massive resolution many times beyond that, producing far higher fidelity than what I produced at 2560x1440.

Hmm, I see what he was saying. The bilinear mushiniess does give it a SD quality as it blurs out detail so when a lot of the mushiness was reduced as a result of the resolution raise the difference is almost comparable from when you're going from SD to HD. Lots of people at the AVS forum would consider that a vast difference.

Exactly, and if I could have rendered the screen at something close to what Bungie uses for the Halo screenshots, things like where the double yellow line turns to mush wouldn't even show up because the mipmap LOD would be pushed that far back, and of course even more detail would also come though in all the textures in the distance like the mountain sides and such.

 

[RobertR1]

Heh, Robert's comparison isn't at all good. The "source" is only 1152x640 when the game is being rendered in real time. However, then the screenshot is taken that "source" is some massive resolution many times beyond that, producing far higher fidelity than what I produced at 2560x1440.

Would be interesting to ask someone at Bugie how much and where the picture is being upscaled. For some reason my gaf account hasn't been approved to post for a month now (since I signed up)! or I'd ask.

 

[specwarGP2]

It can render at any resolution they want. Only thing that matters is what resolution provides the best trade-off between appearance & performance. If a game can be rendered at 1080p but the framerate is forced to drop to 15fps then the decision to use 720p or some other less orthodox lower resolution could be made. It remains to be seen how much the RSX can offload to the cell. But the RSX alone isn't powerful enough to run complex 3D w/ all the bells & whistles at 1920x1080 from what I've been reading on this forum. I by no means am an expert, I'm just referencing what i understand other people much more in the know here have expressed. :smile:

Ok fine I get that, but which PS3 games are actually rendered at less than 720p?

 

[AlphaWolf]

Ok fine I get that, but which PS3 games are actually rendered at less than 720p?

tony hawk proving ground, the darkness, there maybe others, but this isn't the thread for that discussion,

This thread is about Halo3 IQ.

 

[Carl B]

^^^^^^

Exactly. Guys, please stop bringing up other games.

@Robert: This post answers your question: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1072168&postcount=467

 

[Hardknock]

^^^^^^

Exactly. Guys, please stop bringing up other games.

@Robert: This post answers your question: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1072168&postcount=467

But why is this game being singled out Carl B if you don't mind me asking? Shouldn't this Halo discussion be discussed with the rest of the games in the 'upscaling thread'? A thread like this makes a bigger deal out of the issue than what it really is don't you think?

It just seems everyone is only focusing on the few negatives of Halo 3 and nothing is being said of the dozens of other things the game does great. And threads like this are somewhat exuberating the problem.

 

[Carl B]

But why is this game being singled out Carl B if you don't mind me asking? Shouldn't this Halo discussion be discussed with the rest of the games in the 'upscaling thread'? A thread like this makes a bigger issue out of the issue than what it really is don't you think?

The game is being singled out because that's the purpose of the thread itself - I would no more ask why it's being singled out for IQ here than I would ask why Halo is being singled out for gameplay in a Halo gameplay thread. If someone wants to start a "Resistance IQ" thread or a "Survey of Present Titles IQ Comparison," that's certainly ok by me. If the OP had started this thread in a trolling or baiting manner, believe me it would have been locked; but he didn't.

I don't know that having this thread makes a bigger issue out of it or not... and I don't even know that the issue itself is "big," and I'm not making that judgement on behalf of others. But, it is of interest - at least to this forum - I think I can say that honestly.

If/when trolling occurs, people should report it. I know that there's Halo "opportunism" at play in a couple of threads presently... believe me I wish there wasn't - there's a lot of attention on this forum right now and that's not the image we want. You'll trust when I say a *lot* of posts have been deleted these last couple of days from people who joined simply to post short barbs over this resolution thing.

However, most larger titles that come out get some sort of IQ shakedown on this forum; it would be wrong to shift all of the general IQ discussion occurring here into the upscaling thread, I'm sure you'll agree, because it would simply be out of place there - it would derail an already strained thread. And by the same token it would be wrong to lock down conversation of the topic unilaterally outside of that context.

Hardknock I'm very sympathetic in terms of the place where your post is coming from, but... all I can say is, if you have a suggestion for how you think Halo threads should be handled in the immediate term, I am more than happy to hear it. Until then though, what we have is...

In console games a Halo IQ thread, a Halo single player impressions thread, a Halo how-long-to-finish thread, a Halo screenshots thread, a Halo matchmaking thread, a Halo sales poll... in console we have a Halo $170 million thread... and in console tech we have the upscaling thread and the HDR thread. That's nine Halo 3 threads!! And I think that's just a function of the enormity of this game. Each of these threads is so specific in theme, that it's just simply counterproductive to merge or close them. Why of all the threads would the IQ thread alone be considered superfluous?

 

[Hardknock]

Thanks for the response. I guess it's just perplexing to me that this thread has more posts/views than all the other Halo threads combined (which I'm sure we can agree this thread, although innocent, is pretty negative in nature). Great reviews, amazing sales, yet everyone seems to be focused on this? It's a damn shame I say.

 

[Carl B]

Thanks for the response. I guess it's just perplexing to me that this thread has more posts/views than all the other Halo threads combined (which I'm sure we can agree this thread, although innocent, is pretty negative in nature). Great reviews, amazing sales, yet everyone seems to be focused on this? It's a damn shame I say.

If you had written sad instead of perplexing, I would understand. But I think *all* of us know why this thread among all the Halo 3 threads is the busiest. All I can say is, people who want to talk about Halo IQ are going to be talking about Halo IQ; nothing is going to stop that. I definitely, definitely would love to see some of the more feel-good Halo threads get more hits/posts/attention - I think it'd be a nice counterpoint to the general focus being placed on the res thing. But that's not up to me, that's up to you guys! People that want some of the focus to shift to the positives of the game, start putting some more posts into the other Halo threads rather than the circular discussions going on in here. The fact is, as epic as this upscaling thing has become - and as focused as this forum is on it - in spite of it all I still thing the general "vibe" for the game here is a positive one. Some members who've played it have been tepid, but the vast majority have been very enthusiastic.

 

[kyleb]

Would be interesting to ask someone at Bugie how much and where the picture is being upscaled. For some reason my gaf account hasn't been approved to post for a month now (since I signed up)! or I'd ask.

The "screenshots" aren't being upscaled at all, they are being rendered at some masive resolution, and rendering at a higher resolution is a competely different thing than upscaling. As for what resolution it is rendered at, you can watch it render 49 tiles in a 7x7 grid whenever save a shot. Most likely they are using the same resolution the render the game at for each of those tiles, in which case those 1080p shots are rendered at and downsampled from 8064x4448.

 

[Todd33]

I don't see the surprise of discussing the 360's largest 2007 title, the Killzone 2 thread has 1500+ replies and it's not even a released game. People are nitpicking an E3 demo, why not a released title like Halo 3?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Er..."condoning" would be supporting their decision/explanation, so I'm not sure you intended to use that word.

I wanted to say "condemn". English is not my first language.

 

[Fafalada]

Yeah, it's also interesting to see how many people have agreed when Carmack stated that the HD push is the wrong direction and it'd be interesting to see what these consoles can do at 480p, using their resources on doing more complex stuff istead of a higher resolution.

Actually this topic has been brought up on this board ages before any of the HD consoles were even close to release date. And while I always saw the reason in it, I am also 100% certain that a 400$ SDTV 360 would have fared far worse in sales(remember, same console hw, there's no price breaks for sticking a different CRTC in there), and the idea of a 600$ SDTV PS3 is beyond absurd.
From market perspective all that would have done is cemented Nintendo as the market leader.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Actually this topic has been brought up on this board ages before any of the HD consoles were even close to release date. And while I always saw the reason in it, I am also 100% certain that a 400$ SDTV 360 would have fared far worse in sales(remember, same console hw, there's no price breaks for sticking a different CRTC in there), and the idea of a 600$ SDTV PS3 is beyond absurd.
From market perspective all that would have done is cemented Nintendo as the market leader.

The truth of it is, many people really don't know what they are buying. If games had just progressed into better developed 480p games (more effects, better lighting etc) people might have accepted it, but the fact is that the execs like to talk up the hardware so much that they create a certain level of expectations.

Halo3 looks much better than any game on the PS2, or Xbox, and if they had decided to run it at 480p with AA instead of 640p, it would still look better than last gen games. I'm sure the guys at Bungie picked a range which they thought worked best, but there's certainly an expectation of HD that's been put out there by the PS3 and XBox360 mouthpieces. That's really what all this is about. In a normal play setting 90%+ of people probably couldn't spot the difference between 640p and 720p without using animated gifs, but 640 is still a long ways from 480.

 

[RobertR1]

Actually this topic has been brought up on this board ages before any of the HD consoles were even close to release date. And while I always saw the reason in it, I am also 100% certain that a 400$ SDTV 360 would have fared far worse in sales(remember, same console hw, there's no price breaks for sticking a different CRTC in there), and the idea of a 600$ SDTV PS3 is beyond absurd.
From market perspective all that would have done is cemented Nintendo as the market leader.

If a developer wanted to do a 480p game with all the bells and whistles they could still output at 720p using the scaler. The mass consumer doesn't exactly visit B3D and really wouldn't know the difference especially if the end product was visually pleasing, which it very well could be. Regardless, if the game was big enough, you'd see an exaggerated effect as the one being demonstrated currently with halo3.

Ofcourse, no studio wants to handle such a PR mess and I'm sure MS wouldn't be too thrilled with it either (or Sony if you wanted to use them for the example). However a 480p game pushing the 360 or PS3 to it's known limits would likely be an amazing sight and might even put some 720p/1080p to shame.

 

[deathkiller]

The truth of it is, many people really don't know what they are buying. If games had just progressed into better developed 480p games (more effects, better lighting etc) people might have accepted it, but the fact is that the execs like to talk up the hardware so much that they create a certain level of expectations.

Halo3 looks much better than any game on the PS2, or Xbox, and if they had decided to run it at 480p with AA instead of 640p, it would still look better than last gen games. I'm sure the guys at Bungie picked a range which they thought worked best, but there's certainly an expectation of HD that's been put out there by the PS3 and XBox360 mouthpieces. That's really what all this is about. In a normal play setting 90%+ of people probably couldn't spot the difference between 640p and 720p without using animated gifs, but 640 is still a long ways from 480.

I am sure that most people would notice that 720p looks better in a typical half-image image comparison (half of the image rendered at 640p and the other half rendered at 720p the same way that some tvs show filters in "demo" mode). It would be more interesting if you compared their 640p with 720p using a "standard" HDR implementation.