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

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It really is an extremely defensive and rather immature reaction from Bungie. The only "drama" being created is that of Bungie & MS's doing; by releasing 720p shots, the usual bullshots, stating Halo3 is 720P, and never just honestly answering the question in the first place, the "drama" was entirely self-created.

If Bungie had just said this when asked what resolution/AA levels Halo3 is running at:

"Halo3's framebuffer actually runs at 1138x640. The reason for this is our HDR implementation; we choose to sacrifice a small bit of resolution in order to provide some of the best lighting in the industry. We think this tradeoff is more than worth it, and we belive the vast majority of Halo3 players will agree."

DONE. There certainly would have been some outcries from some, but irrelevant in light of Halo3's potential sales. It would have quickly blown over as people accepted it.

More to the point: It would just be Bungie and MS being honest. If it "truly doesn't matter", then why the effort at deception? Why call it a 720p game, when it isn't? The people who are saying "SHUT UP! DON'T TELL US WHAT RESOLUTION THE GAME REALLY RUNS AT!" are basically asking for MS/Bungie "Please keep lying to us".

It's very simple: If it doesn't matter now, then finding out the true resolution beforehand wouldn't have mattered either. Actions speak louder than words, so apparently Bungie is saying yes, this does matter - or else they wouldn't have seeded 720p shots and never just directly answered the question until the proof was in their face.

Turning around then with this response is just pathetic. Well, at least it explains the dialogue and storytelling in the game. :rolleyes:
 
If Bungie had just said...

I strongly disagree.

Bungie is 100% correct on this and if they would have said the game wasn't 720p and had no AA at all, the entire prerelease talk of the game would shift to: "why is the flagship title an underachiever?!?" or "xbox 1.5!!!111!!" or "It's not TEH HDz!!!11".

That was never the focus of the title and by not addressing the situation, they avoided the sidetracking of focusing on something that in the long run, doesn't matter.

I disagree with their choice on the matter and I would have been happier with slightly worse lighting and better AA/res, but it is what it is. Frankly, I'm surprised they would invest so heavily in lighting for this title as realism was never a big aim for the franchise.
 
I strongly disagree.

Bungie is 100% correct on this and if they would have said the game wasn't 720p and had no AA at all, the entire prerelease talk of the game would shift to: "why is the flagship title an underachiever?!?" or "xbox 1.5!!!111!!" or "It's not TEH HDz!!!11".
From who, exactly? Is Bungie actually terrified of what a few webboard posters would be saying? Would it actually affect professional reviews of the game?

Saying the "entire" pre-release talk about it would focus on the resolution doesn't equate to the vast majority of responses from the Halo3 fans so far, which is "I don't care".

It would have avoided any sensationalism (which Bungie seems to be prime instigator in this) if they would have just answered the question from the outset, as it wouldn't look like they were trying to hide the fact of it's less-than-720p resolution, and would actually give some credence to the hand-waving that is now taking place.

Can't have it both ways. Can't say it doesn't matter after you've tried to obscure the aspect of the game you think is irrelevant, then when the truth is found respond with a childish insult to those that took a few minutes to find out the true resolution.
That was never the focus of the title
Then being honest from the outset to a question wouldn't have mattered, would it?
 
It certainly would've created negative hype for their title, and considering the nature of the title itself, that information would've garnered FAR more attention than it really deserved.

There's a difference between saying it doesn't really matter to the end visuals of the game, and saying it wouldn't have negatively impacted the hype for their game.

In other words, just because they feel that it rationally doesn't matter, doesn't mean they aren't aware that thousands of irrational posters would sieze on the information and drown out any pre-release talk of the game or it's features.
 
Dave,

What you're asking for is a PR nightmare to satisfy a small niche. It's not gonna happen.

if you don't think releasing such statements would ripple through the net before release, you're not living in the real world. The boards would be flodded with negativity and whatever bungie said to justify it would be discarded.

I wouldn't expect ANY company to subject themselves to such and understandably so.
 
Dave,


I wouldn't expect ANY company to subject themselves to such and understandably so.
Really? You wouldn't expect ANY company to actually tell you what resolution their game is running at, for fear that people ON THE INTERNET may be critical of it?

Poor, poor Bungie. Such a predicament - be honest about the resolution, or lie about it to avoid negative criticism beforehand. Obviously, you must lie - we can't have any negative talk about Halo3's graphics because it's uh...Halo3!

Makes...perfect...sense....
 
So it's a "small niche" that would care.

...yet it would be a PR NIGHTMARE.

Doesn't compute, sorry.

It's really not that difficult of a concept to grasp.

Only a small niche really cares about the internal rendering resolution of a game, however if the info was revealed pre-loaunch it would've be sensationalized and attracted the attention of MANY mainstream gamers.

Essentially, a mountain would've been made fron this mole-hill, so I think any rationale person can see why Bungie avoided that situation.
 
It's really not that difficult of a concept to grasp.

Only a small niche really cares about the internal rendering resolution of a game, however if the info was revealed pre-loaunch it would've be sensationalized and attracted the attention of MANY mainstream gamers.

Essentially, a mountain would've been made fron this mole-hill, so I think any rationale person can see why Bungie avoided that situation.

Well put. Thanks for saving me the post :)
 
The presence of such sensational sites as SDF, Threespeak, and companies placing paid shills on forums makes pre-release of information management a priority. Reviewers appeared oblivious to the issue, and most notibly almost every other game with a lower than 720p framebuffer has pretty much skated by on the PS3 and 360. This is only an issue (outside of technical note) for obvious reasons and is the sort of thing consumers can discuss freely once the game is locked down and shipped.

e.g. The lack of MSAA and AF (like a slew of games on both platforms) sucks. Seeing as hundreds of games so far are guilty of one and/or the other, are we now expecting pre-release info on such? And where is the torch and pitchforks for companies who actually advertised a said feature (like a Factor5 and Turn10) and then changed later? I find that more dubious when you check box features as selling points (always dubious to begin with! show it don't talk it up!) and then slyly change it later without saying anything.

Of course that all goes toward transparancy. Devs try to talk, but the nature of their product is things change in development. Who wants to get nailed by some pimply fanboy--or paid forum shill--because they were trying to communicate to fans, only to run into an issue that required some product changes. Now they are "liars" instead of "friendly". It must have sucked for the Warhawk devs to announce they were cutting out SP. Odd how something like that is forgiven, yet Peter Molenuex still gets bashed over his unrealized vision for Fable.
 
It's really not that difficult of a concept to grasp.

Only a small niche really cares about the internal rendering resolution of a game, however if the info was revealed pre-loaunch it would've be sensationalized and attracted the attention of MANY mainstream gamers.

Essentially, a mountain would've been made fron this mole-hill, so I think any rationale person can see why Bungie avoided that situation.

Exactly.

...and further: see post above.
 
It's just that this new announcement from Bungie regarding the resolution could suddenly open up a whole new can of worms.
Personally, I'd say no matter what, what we see is what we get.
640p with no AA is 640p with no AA. The lower resolution and the lack of AA were traded off for superior HDR+LDR lighting. That's the whole story.
I expected non-HD rendering, but not lack of AA. A simple question after that story would be "will there be future 360 games with both richer graphics and anti-aliasing?" This AA doesn't include "new Microsoft-TRC AA" such as motion blur.
 
Frame rate

Have any of you encountered frame rate problems? I have a friend who emailed me saying his game stutters sometimes. I have yet to experience this in either single-player or multi-player.

Just curious if it could be a problem w/ his 360 or if I just haven't played the game enough. He has the standard edition & the disc isn't scratched.

Thanks :smile:
 
I strongly disagree.

Bungie is 100% correct on this and if they would have said the game wasn't 720p and had no AA at all, the entire prerelease talk of the game would shift to: "why is the flagship title an underachiever?!?" or "xbox 1.5!!!111!!" or "It's not TEH HDz!!!11".

That was never the focus of the title and by not addressing the situation, they avoided the sidetracking of focusing on something that in the long run, doesn't matter.

I disagree with their choice on the matter and I would have been happier with slightly worse lighting and better AA/res, but it is what it is. Frankly, I'm surprised they would invest so heavily in lighting for this title as realism was never a big aim for the franchise.

Just like Watergate, it wasn't the crime it was the cover up. Bungie could have presented this in some slides months ago and only a few geeks would have took notice, instead they tried to slip it by the public. Thanks to some good technical work the truth came out and now it a big deal.

I don't think anyone should reply in a technical thread about IQ with "it's no big deal" and the like. Let the conversation run its course, don't make it worse by acting like non-paid PR people.

I get back in town today, so I'll be playing tonight to see what the hoopla is all about.
 
For a minute there I thought you were trolling, but maybe your point is Bungie's definition? If they can call there's 1280 pixels of vertical resolution because they use 2 buffers, KZ2 using multiple buffers can post the aggregate resolution too. Yep, that'd be a preposterous claim! That seems like a 'diffusion' remark to me, but it's probably warranted. Some folk are going to be kicking up a stink, and in layman's terms Bungie want to get across the idea that their game is doing 'twice the work' for each pixel you see, as it were, and then give people a number to bandy about as some folk just compare numbers.

Yes, that was my point. I was just trying to make a silly joke intended for people that clearly understand how ridiculous such a statement would be. I can certainly understand if you'd like me to be more careful in the future, given recent attention the Halo 3 threads have been getting as well as the influx of newer members.
 
Have any of you encountered frame rate problems? I have a friend who emailed me saying his game stutters sometimes. I have yet to experience this in either single-player or multi-player.

Just curious if it could be a problem w/ his 360 or if I just haven't played the game enough. He has the standard edition & the disc isn't scratched.

Thanks :smile:

It's been a steady 30 fps for me, with hitches popping up only during extreme circumstances (lot's of explosions on-screen, etc.)
 
It's been a steady 30 fps for me, with hitches popping up only during extreme circumstances (lot's of explosions on-screen, etc.)
Same for me. I have to really pay attention to notice anything, if i were to guesstimate I would have to say 25fps at the lowest on legendary w/ the most going on. I have only gotten through about 1/2 of the game so far though. That's partially why i was curious.

Just thought I'd get a couple other opinions too see what the story was.

Thanks :smile:
 

Your argument would work only if Bungie would have been the first developer releasing such a game, but this whole thread is full of dozens of other high profile games, some of these X360 launch titles, others PS3 flagship games. Letting them get away with this has justified this practice already and made the issue irrelevant.

Edit: and it's very disappointing to see Bungie getting singled out on Beyond3D as well just because of some people's platform preferences. Not to mention that anything beyond the technical aspects of this issue just doesn't belong here anyway.
 
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Oh yeah, I'm 100% sure that if Halo3 would run at 720p native, with framerate issues, it'd get the same amount of flak as well.
 
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