Halo 3 Widescreen-Splitscreen Opinions

[kyleb]

In Bungie's weekly update relased yesterday, the addressed the complaints with Halo 3's widescreen-splitscreen implementation:

POLOFOLKS asks,
Is there a fix in the works for the split screen issue? For most of us it’s killing us to see 2 black bars every time we play with a buddy.



We do that to maintain a proper field of view and aspect ratio on HDTVs. The alternative is a broken Field of View or stretching. One awkward trick you could use is to set your box to 480p and non-widescreen, then let your HDTV stretch the signal. That would be sorta fugly, however.

In contrast to the above claim, the truth is they did nothing to maintain the proper 16:9 aspect ratio of HDTVs in two-player splitscreen. Rather, they simply avoided the issue outright by using a pillarboxed 4:3 SDTV aspect ratio instead. To illustrate that, here is an example of Halo 3 running in widescreen-splitscreen, taken in theater mode while both players are observeing from the same perspective:

Now, to address the field of view issue, here is how the game looks from the same perspective with one player widescreen:

Clearly, they are maintaining the same vertical FOV (with silight differences in the hight of the view to compensate for underscan), and the horizontal FOV is widened considerably to account for the difference in aspect ratio without stretching. Here is are the two images composted to illustrate the difference:

Personally, I would have much rather they at least gave us widescreen-splitscreen users the option to have that wider horizontal field of view across the full width of the screen, along with a smaller vertical field of view to compensate for the difference in aspect ratio while avoiding stretching. Here is a rough approximation I created to demonstrate what that would look like (the HUD would need to be reworked to fit, so I turned that off for the shots)

*Note that it looks blurer becuase of how I created it out of the SD captures I've been using here. If the method were actually implemented into the game it would not effect on the precived resolution.*
:

Granted, that is just one example done using the screenshots I have, and various adjustments could be made to provide splitscreen a somewhat different view while filling the screen. But anyway, my question to the forum is; do you think Halo 3's splitscreen is best left how it is, or do you think it could be done better?

 

[zed]

they had to do 640p over 720p cause the extra pixels were to expensive, ie thats the major bottleneck for the game.
asking for more pixels on the screen sides is no doubt gonna run into the same issues ie its prolly not an option of choice but necessity

 

[AlNom]

Well, kyleb's suggestion could reduce the vertical resolution, so it would be possible to keep the same # of pixels being rendered. But the issue is of just stretching the image and scaling it better as opposed to changing the rendering resolution.

Taking id Tech 4's widescreen, you can have the resolution's aspect ratio independent of the preset FOVs -> non-square pixels.

 

[Cyan]

I didn't test the split screen option and, apparently, I'm glad I didn't because the game doesn't look right as I'm used to widescreen resolutions.

However I've made some image quality tests just for the sake of testing in a 4:3 old PC monitor (following joker454's advice about HDR in different displays). playing the campaign in SP mode and the fov is so awful because the aspect ratio is totally wrong.

There aren't black bars so no widescreen field of view, nothing. In fact, you have a much broader fov setting a traditional widescreen resolution with the dashboard options.

Everything looks stretched and kind of weird on 4:3 displays but the fov is considerably better.

Unlike Gears of War upscaling issues, being Halo 3 a first party title I haven't read any complains about this on the forums. Strange....

[SIZE=-1]Fortunately, my X360 is always connected to a 16:10 LCD display. I’ve set the resolution to 1280×768 to fit the optimal resolution as it has an aspect ratio of 1.66, the closest to my LCD screen, and the game looks fine but the upscaling in 4:3 screens is just buggy or something.[/SIZE]

 

[AlphaWolf]

There's no good solution, someone would complain no matter what choice they made.

 

[AlNom]

IIRC, Gears of War not only renders a 4:3 resolution in SD mode, but also changes the vertical FOV, so it provides more vertical view. Of course, it's a bit easier to get away with for a TPS, but I like kyleb's solution.

How many people are really going to bitch about not having as high a vertical view in split-screen? By its nature it's already a compromise. Might as well have it use the full HDTV... I have enough trouble squinting as it is right now. :|

 

[kyleb]

they had to do 640p over 720p cause the extra pixels were to expensive, ie thats the major bottleneck for the game.
asking for more pixels on the screen sides is no doubt gonna run into the same issues ie its prolly not an option of choice but necessity

They render at 1152x640 to fit their rendering method to the EDRAM. Regardless, I never suggested changing the rendering resolution, just formating the view to fill the screen rather than pillarboxing it. Also, not only did Bungie's response suggest nothing about performance, 4 player splitscreen as well as the bottom two players on 3 player splitscreen fills the whole width of the screen. Cearly, performance wasn't the reason for the pillarboxing.

With that explained, what is your opinion now?

I[SIZE=-1]Fortunately, my X360 is always connected to a 16:10 LCD display. I’ve set the resolution to 1280×768 to fit the optimal resolution as it has an aspect ratio of 1.66, the closest to my LCD screen, and the game looks fine but the upscaling in 4:3 screens is just buggy or something.[/SIZE]

Rather off topic, but there is no difference in aspect ratio between the 360's 1280x768 output and any other widescreen resolution option. They all use the same 16:9 aspect ratio.

 

[kyleb]

IIRC, Gears of War not only renders a 4:3 resolution in SD mode, but also changes the vertical FOV, so it provides more vertical view. Of course, it's a bit easier to get away with for a TPS, but I like kyleb's solution.

How many people are really going to bitch about not having as high a vertical view in split-screen? By its nature it's already a compromise. Might as well have it use the full HDTV... I have enough trouble squinting as it is right now. :|

Exactly, with my proposed solution you lose vertical FOV compared to one player 16:9 but maintain the same horizontal FOV as the the method the game currently uses for 2 player widescren-splitscreen. I think that is a fair compromise in FOV, and it would make distant players and such notably easier to see as well.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Rather off topic, but there is no difference in aspect ratio between the 360's 1280x768 output and any other widescreen resolution option. They all use the same 16:9 aspect ratio.

1280x768 isn't a 16:9 aspect ratio. 1280x720 is.

 

[kyleb]

Sure, assuming the pixels are square, but the 360 doesn't do that. As I stated above, it presents 1280x768 as 16:9.

 

[Cyan]

Sure, assuming the pixels are square, but the 360 doesn't do that. As I stated above, it presents 1280x768 as 16:9.

I've set the resolution to 1280x720 twice and a small black bar appears at the right of the screen while it doesn't happen when I set the resolution either to 1280x768 (15:9) or 1360x768 (16:9).

An old pic showing the X360's supported resolutions and their aspect ratio:

As we all know 1920x1080 is currently supported by the console.

 

[Acert93]

Kyle, I prefer Bungie's method over yours simply because (to my eyes) the reduction to vertical resolution is quite jarring.

 

[kyleb]

Cyan, my point is simply that you'd be better off using 1366x768 or better yet 1920x1080 to avoid any unnecessary downsampling before output on the few games that do use higher rendering resolution. Again, the 360 outputs 1280x768 at the same 16:9 aspect ratio as it does all the other widescreen resolution options. So, despite what the chart implies, using that resolution isn't getting you any closer to the aspect ratio of your display. I felt that was a valuable fact to share with you any anyone else who might be confused on the matter, but I'd apprecate it if we could aviod derailing this thread any further with such tangents.

So, back to the subject at hand:

Kyle, I prefer Bungie's method over yours simply because (to my eyes) the reduction to vertical resolution is quite jarring.

As I stated above, I'm not suggesting any changes in rendering resolution. Again, my example of an alternative is simply a rough approximation. I used a SD capture like the rest of the shots to create it, but for that example I had to upscale shots of the splitscreeen view, resulting in it looking notably lower resolution. However, if Bungie implemented it into the game engine there would be absolutely no difference in resolution.

Thank you for explaining your choice though, I suppose I should have noted that in my original post though, so I'll go back and edit it. Anyway, with confusion out of the way; what is your opinion now?

 

[Cyan]

Cyan, my point is simply that you'd be better off using 1366x768 or better yet 1920x1080 to avoid any unnecessary downsampling before output on the few games that do use higher rendering resolution. Again, the 360 outputs 1280x768 at the same 16:9 aspect ratio as it does all the other widescreen resolution options. So, despite what the chart implies, using that resolution isn't getting you any closer to the aspect ratio of your display. I felt that was a valuable fact to share with you any anyone else who might be confused on the matter, but I'd apprecate it if we could aviod derailing this thread any further with such tangents.

So, back to the subject at hand:


As I stated above, I'm not suggesting any changes in rendering resolution. Again, my example of an alternative is simply a rough approximation. I used a SD capture like the rest of the shots to create it, but for that example I had to upscale shots of the splitscreeen view, resulting in it looking notably lower resolution. However, if Bungie implemented it into the game engine there would be absolutely no difference in resolution.

Thank you for explaining your choice though, I suppose I should have noted that in my original post though, so I'll go back and edit it. Anyway, with confusion out of the way; what is your opinion now?

Ok thanks kyleb, I will try your advice by setting up the resolution to 1360x768 or even better 1080p. Surprisingly I didn't try this one out as I am guided by simple maths because I'm not a tech guy, but it should work great.

My point was that I always believed, except in the case of some buggy games like PGR3 -it looks stretched in 4:3 displays if you set the res. to 1280x1024-, the XTS' scaler chip worked miracles regardless the resolution the game is natively rendered at, so the black bars should be always active in 4:3 displays, especially current games.

As I already pointed out, I tested this with Halo 3 and the game only works fine when both Bungie and MS Studios logos appear, once you are in the main menu or in-game the black bars mysteriously disappear.

Cheers

 

[Shifty Geezer]

IMO the best solution is to render as they've got it, with the same vertical FOV, and just extend the image out to the borders. It'd be the same as a cropped image on a on an APS camera - it takes a photo that's a 3:2 ratio and crops out the bit you want to make a widescreen image. Keep the same perspective as the single player campaign and 'crop' (only render the cropped area of course!) the image to the split-screen aspect (32:9). This would give the same amount of vertical view as singleplayer, or slightly less if they go that way, and extend the horizontal view giving a wider amount of coverage, the same perspective, and reduced resolution. Why wouldn't you want to extend the horizontal FOV to fit the screen?

 

[zed]

They render at 1152x640 to fit their rendering method to the EDRAM. Regardless, I never suggested changing the rendering resolution, just formating the view to fill the screen rather than pillarboxing it. Also, not only did Bungie's response suggest nothing about performance, 4 player splitscreen as well as the bottom two players on 3 player splitscreen fills the whole width of the screen. Cearly, performance wasn't the reason for the pillarboxing.

With that explained, what is your opinion now?

so with 4 players theyre still rendering into a 1152x640 sized window? if so then i cancel my post

WRT my opinion about what method they should use?
easy just include the option for the player to choose what they want (then the issue would not exist), not exactly that difficult a change to make to the game (the only possible probs are HUD aspect stuff but this aint a biggie)

 

[AlNom]

so with 4 players theyre still rendering into a 1152x640 sized window? if so then i cancel my post

From what I understand split-screen rendering is just a division of the screen and hence the set resolution into view ports that are assigned individual camera control for each player. Effectively, each split screen's resolution is divided according to how the developer wishes the viewports to appear. FOV can be adjusted as well.

Geometry load is a definite increase I would think.

Short version:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb203889.aspx

The dimensions of a viewport default to the dimensions of the render target, but may be a subset of the render target. For example, you might render multiple viewports to a single render target to create a split screen game.

Code version:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/li...amework.graphics.graphicsdevice.viewport.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb313965.aspx

Viewport defaultViewport;
Viewport leftViewport;
Viewport rightViewport;
[COLOR=blue]protected[/COLOR] override [COLOR=blue]void[/COLOR] LoadGraphicsContent( [COLOR=blue]bool[/COLOR] loadAllContent )
{
    [COLOR=blue]if[/COLOR] (loadAllContent)
    {
        ...
    }

    defaultViewport = graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport;
    leftViewport = defaultViewport;
    rightViewport = defaultViewport;
    leftViewport.Width = leftViewport.Width / 2;
    rightViewport.Width = rightViewport.Width / 2;
    rightViewport.X = leftViewport.Width + 1;

    projectionMatrix = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.PiOver4, 4.0f / 3.0f, 1.0f, 10000f );
    halfprojectionMatrix = Matrix.CreatePerspectiveFieldOfView( MathHelper.PiOver4, 2.0f / 3.0f, 1.0f, 10000f );

}
[COLOR=blue]protected[/COLOR] override [COLOR=blue]void[/COLOR] Draw( GameTime gameTime )
{
    graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear( Color.Black );

    [COLOR=green]// TODO: Add your drawing code here[/COLOR]
    graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport = leftViewport;

    DrawScene( gameTime, Camera1, halfprojectionMatrix);
    graphics.GraphicsDevice.Viewport = rightViewport;

    DrawScene( gameTime, Camera2, halfprojectionMatrix );

    [COLOR=blue]base[/COLOR].Draw( gameTime );
}

Sorry for the OT.

 

[kyleb]

so with 4 players theyre still rendering into a 1152x640 sized window? if so then i cancel my post

Yep, it's just two player splitscreen and the top view on three player splitscreen that gets pillarboxed to 864 pixels of width. The bottom two players on three player splitscreen along with four player splitscreen both make use of the full width of the screen.

Geometry load is a definite increase I would think.

It would with Shifty's suggestion of keeping a constant vertical FOV and expanding the Horizontal to match, but on the other hand it would be less with my example of cropping the vertical to keep the horizontal FOV the same as splitscreen is now. The only difference there is the full rendering resolution would be used for the geometry rather than having a quarter of it displaying black bars, but the of course that's still not pushing any more pixels of content than single player or 4 player splitscreen currently does.

And yeah Shifty, keeping the height constant is a valid option. I doubt the added geometry load would be a problem assuming 4 player splitscreen runs well, as the geometry load could easily be more with four separate views. Your suggestion would look like it does now in the middle 4:3 area, but with more view on the sides where the black bars currently are. Personally, I'd rather loose a bit off the top and bottom than have such a wide view.

 

[AlNom]

Why wouldn't you want to extend the horizontal FOV to fit the screen?

Perhaps they were thinking of balance in multiplayer (really dumb reason IMO given the inherent handicap of being in splitscreen anyway)

What you described is pretty much how Gears of War split the screen for HDTVs. I'd hate to jump to conclusions, but I chalk it up to the same mentality that brought us vertical splitscreen in Halo 2.

It would with Shifty's suggestion of keeping a constant vertical FOV and expanding the Horizontal to match, but on the other hand it would be less with my example of cropping the vertical to keep the horizontal FOV the same as splitscreen is now. The only difference there is the full rendering resolution would be used for the geometry rather than having a quarter of it displaying black bars, but the of course that's still not pushing any more pixels of content than single player or 4 player splitscreen currently does.

ah whoops, I meant that in reference to split-screen in general (duplication of geometry).

I agree with what you say though. The performance detriment for this specific case shouldn't be a huge issue at all if they can manage four views.

From a development standpoint it'd just be a check to see if the user selected widescreen/HDTV on the dashboard (whether or not to stretch further), no?

*headache*

 

[kyleb]

I'd hate to jump to conclusions, but I chalk it up to the same mentality that brought us vertical splitscreen in Halo 2.

Vertical splitscreen isn't inherently bad though, both Resistance and Warhawk do it well. Warhawk's vertical splitscreen is actually excellent, because they mix the surroundsound to create left and right sound fields rather than just mishmashing it all together like pretty much every other console game does.

The Halo games on the other hand have always had a rather narrow FOV, and giving us just half that FOV of full widescreen when running splitscreen is just absurd. I always turned off widescreen to play splitsceeen Halo 2, prefering to run it pillarboxed like Halo 3 does automatically now. So in that regard Halo 3 splitscreen is an improvement for me, but not nearly the one I was hoping for.

From a development standpoint it'd just be a check to see if the user selected widescreen/HDTV on the dashboard (whether or not to stretch further), no?

They already do the check to see if the whole game should be rendered for 4:3, or just the splitscreen pillarboxed to it. But filling the screen with splitscreen isn't isn't a matter of stretching anything. Rather, it is a matter of rendering a lower vertical FOV, a larger horizontal FOV, or some combination of the two, precisely to present a wider aspect ratio while avoiding stretching.