Halo 3 not HD: runs at 640p, pixel counters claim

by Jason Dobson { Sep 28th 2007 at 11:34AM }

Halo 3 has quickly come under fire for disc-read errors and scratched discs, but now some tech heads on the Beyond 3D forums have found what they believe to be evidence that the quintessential game of Microsoft's 'all games in HD' console runs natively at a paltry 640p -- not 720p, not HD* -- and then upscales.

How did they come to this conclusion, you ask? By counting pixels. (Is this what we've come to as gaming enthusiasts -- measuring a game's visual fidelity with spyglass in hand?) ... Remember when we just played games?

Still, if true, Halo 3 would not be the first Xbox 360 game to compromise resolution for performance. Perfect Dark Zero also runs at 640p, and it's well known that Bizarre Creations dropped Project Gotham Racing 3 even lower, to just 600p, in order to achieve an acceptable frame rate. But this is Halo 3, and if you press your ear to the screen you can already hear the snarling internet mobs gathering up their pitchforks and nooses.

[*Note: We define "HD" as a resolution no less than 1280x720 pixels. According to the source, Halo 3 has a native resolution of 1138x640 pixels.]

[Via gamerawr]

Tags: 640p, breakingnews, bungie, halo-3, halo3, hd

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)

Silver R. Wolfe @ Sep 28th 2007 11:39AM

Wow this is really lame...

That people would really care so much about that when it looks fine (It's not the best looking game in the world anyway, but it's definitely damn acceptable).

borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 12:03PM

I don't think a ruckus will be raised because the millions that bought Halo 3 will think it is lame. I think the ruckus might appear because a flagship product of the system cannot manage a baseline HD resolution. This is a fair concern.

The Wii makes no claims to graphical "next gen" superiority or even equality. So no one is going to kvetch that Metroid Prime is SD. But if the system selling massive juggernaunt of Halo can't show off the good looks, what can?

This news tidbit doesn't really mean anything in the short term. I'm sure that Halo 3 is still going to sell. But it is troubling if the system is already hitting an HD wall for complex games. Over time, it'll mean more people will opt for a Wii or a PS3.

Why pay more if it looks like less?

mr nimblewick @ Sep 28th 2007 12:05PM

I'm glad I own a Wii and don't have to worry about it.

NATO_Duke @ Sep 28th 2007 12:10PM

You guys seriously think that because it may run at 640, that it doesn't look better than the Wii graphics by leaps and bounds? Seriously. Are you saying that? Seriously now. C'mon.

Thats just plain crazy.

Anticrawl @ Sep 28th 2007 12:16PM

Well for one it is pretty lame of Bungie to blatently lie to the media and fans about it running at 720p. That said I don't really care what resolution it runs at. Using a SDTV till I can save up to buy a new HD one, last one got stolen. If anything I'm glad that it's closer to the native resolution of 480p that my shitty tv has, was wondering why it looked as nice as it did.

borland502 (SDF - Macross Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 12:20PM

"You guys seriously think that because it may run at 640, that it doesn't look better than the Wii graphics by leaps and bounds?"

I'm certainly not suggesting that. But I guess this comes on the heels of my hands-on time with the 360 while visiting a friend. Neither Sylpheed, nor Chromehounds looked really stunning. I was a bit disappointed in the graphical capability of the 360. Once another friend gets his 360 back from the shop, I'll try GoW.

Anonim @ Sep 28th 2007 12:21PM

Halo 3 works in 1138x640 no AA
Why?
Halo uses (probably) their method for HDR (price for gorgeous light effects)
Bungie method: (34Mb PDF)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=995b221d-6bbd-4731-ac82-d9524237d486&displaylang=en

Still I don't like it - no AA and slightly lower resolution = more jaggies than necessary.

On X360 scaled games
Two 640p Perfect Dark and Halo3 (1138x640) (no AA)
Three 600p PGR3, Call Of Duty 3 and Tomb Raider (1024x600) (all have 2xMSAA)

RR6 is ~ 1440x810
1080p VT3 and NBA street (1920x1080)
thats all - all other games use 1280x720 (Tony Hawk on X360 is 720p))

On PS3 scalled games
540p - The Darkness (960x540) !!!
600p - Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Call Of Duty 3

Ninja gaiden Sigma 1280x720 (not 1080p game - software 2x scaller to 1080 from 960x720 - 1080p is more blurred than 720p!)

GTHD use 1440x1080
Rub'a'dub use 1600x1080
Stardust HD use 1280x1080

and more - mostly software scaling to 1080i (R6:Vegas - bad and blurry)

more info
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=43330

mr nimblewick (SegaDF - Jogurt Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 12:25PM

@ Anonim

Exactly why I'm glad I don't have to worry about resolution. SD for the win, as it were.

NATO_Duke @ Sep 28th 2007 12:26PM

"while visiting a friend. Neither Sylpheed, nor Chromehounds looked really stunning. I was a bit disappointed in the graphical capability of the 360"

OK, trust me, those are not the games pushing the graphic capabilities. If I make pong for the 360, do you rate its graphics power off of them? I would hope not.

Look at reviews for those games you mentioned - they did not push graphic boundries. I have chromehounds, and think the game looks awful - as did many others. That isn't the 360's fault, thats the game developer's. Games like GoW and Oblivion look great.

Spidermoon @ Sep 28th 2007 1:05PM

Like only a total idiot would think Halo 3 looks great..

Nice Jaggelies. PS2 era all over again!!

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t168/kelioos/Niketalk/IMG_4267.jpg

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t168/kelioos/Niketalk/IMG_4269.jpg

Seems obvious why Microsoft had to pay all the review sites off with goodie bags..

Anticrawl @ Sep 28th 2007 12:41PM

Yeah Oblivion wouldn't be one of those games Nato, considering the nasty pop-up from not being able to install some of it on a harddrive. Plus it feels kinda like a B anyway. For graphical prowess GoW, Viva Pinata, or Bioshock are nice. But the real thing about the xbox is the extra power adding a great deal of real-time depth and scale to games that can't be done on the Wii. But I would have to say the graphics aren't leaps and bounds better, and sometimes really nothing special when you compare the two but what is impressive is the scale, depth, options, online play, interactive environments, physics, textures, lighting and shadows. More often than not when your playing a game on the 360 you'll think of something and wonder, "can I do that" and you can where as the Wii and older systems you would be disappointed to find out there are things keeping you from doing said 'thing' to compensate for the lack of processing power. I do own a Wii and love platformers though, which you don't see on the 360 so I guess it's just what you prefer game wise.

Joe Schmoe @ Sep 28th 2007 1:00PM

To easily define the "amount" of definition you are receiving vs other resolutions, merely paying attention to the number of lines (i.e. 640p) isn't giving you the complete picture. SD-480 is actually 640x480 (some enhanced widescreen DVD'S have 854x480 or 720x480). 640x480=307,000 pixels. So SD is a pixel count of 307,000. Since 640p is 1138x640=728,320, that would mean that the amount of definition in 640p is double that of 480p. Over twice as detailed, and I wouldn't scoff at that. 720p is 1280x720=921,600. That means that 640p is 80% of 720p, 300% 480P. What that calculates to is this: 480P is SD > 640P = 2x480P > 720P = 3x480P. So while 720P is 3 times the detail of standard definition, 640P is 2 times the detail of standard definition. And for future reference, 1080P is 6.75 times standard definition.

In the end, for halo fans, and even HD fans who love halo, what this means is Halo 3 is twice the resolution of Halo 2, which means it is improved graphically. In the end the game is uber-fun, and I won't be counting pixels as long as people love to play this game. I'm glad there is twice the definition, I wish it was 3 times the definition, but at least it is better.

I don't blame Bungie for this, because in all honesty they are working with what they have. I blame MS for that. Bungie did an awesome job, and I'm sure it is the best they could do. Praise them for that.

Thanks you.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Sep 28th 2007 1:00PM

"That people would really care so much about that when it looks fine (It's not the best looking game in the world anyway, but it's definitely damn acceptable)."

I hope that at least the MS fanboys will now admit that Nintendo was right regarding their stance on graphics...

Anticrawl @ Sep 28th 2007 1:10PM

While I agree entirely with you Samfish on all this silly HD makes your dick bigger stuff 360/PS3 fanboys love to spit out, I can't agree with the lack of power. I love my Wii for platforming and fighters, that's pretty much all I'll use for it, well that and Mario Kart. I love the power of the 360 for everything else, brings everything to a more lifelike scale and allows for deeper games. From physics and size of levels to being able to pull off those over-the-top moves you see rendered in Final Fantasty games but in real-time in a first-person shooter.

Vidikron (FU) @ Sep 28th 2007 1:42PM

@samfish

{I hope that at least the MS fanboys will now admit that Nintendo was right regarding their stance on graphics...}

How would anyone get that out of this? Even if this is true about Halo 3, it's still far, far beyond anything on the Wii. I don't think graphics are everything, but I do think they should noticeably advance from one generation to the next and I don't think that's an unreasonable expectation.

NATO_Duke @ Sep 28th 2007 2:10PM

In reference to some of the comments above, I agree that Nintendo is great for platformings and their ip, I just think that in the graphics area, Nintendo is not on par with the 360 and ps3, and an issue such as this article covers cannot be used to suddenly say that the Wii looks as good as those consoles.

morganfell @ Sep 28th 2007 2:16PM

Iagree it doesn't matter and the game looks great, but....If this were Sony you wouldn't have seen this in the blog:

"How did they come to this conclusion, you ask? By counting pixels. (Is this what we've come to as gaming enthusiasts -- measuring a game's visual fidelity with spyglass in hand?) ... Remember when we just played games?"

Riding around pedaling a biascycle doesn't get you very far.

why not the LS2LS7? @ Sep 28th 2007 9:16PM

Joe Schmoe:
All NTSC DVDs are 720x480. Anamorphic ones are still 720x480, bigger numbers you come up with is the scaled-up horizontal size when an anamorphic DVD is displayed at full resolution.

See, you have 720x480 pixels, but the pixels are 1/3rd wider than they are tall. So you make the window 480 pixels tall (so you don't lose any pixels) and then make the window 480/3*4/3*4, or 854 pixels wide so that the image retains its aspect ratio.

In this final image on screen, each pixel vertically represents a real pixel, but every 4 horizontally (roughly) are sharing the data from only 3.

Back to 360, it looks fine, but when a game cannot be fully realized at even 720p on 360, you have to wonder why, and if the hardware is beginning to become a factor in how good games can look. I'm not saying it is, perhaps it's just developer laziness. But you have to factor that in too (it sure factors in on PS3 where programming is more difficult!).

mfed3 @ Sep 28th 2007 11:40PM

all you wii / ps3 noobs do is talk about games all day and never play them. ps3 and wii supporters are just non gamers that hate on the 360 endlessly. the 360 is a gamers console. halo 3 is an amazing work of art and a very fun game. nubs get a life.

Brad Lee @ Sep 29th 2007 4:42PM

This is silly.

Just because Halo 3 is in a lower resolution than HD does not mean the 360 "can't handle it."

As someone pointed out, Chromehounds looks like shit. That's not the 360's fault, it's just that Chromehounds looks like shit. You can blame it on the developers if you want, but more often than not I'd say it has to do with time and money.

I'm sure if Bungie spent another year on this game they could have made it look better. But who cares? I have the game now and I love it. If I had to wait another year just so Bungie could improve the graphics a bit so whiney internet nerds don't bitch incessently about it, then I'd be pissed.

arrrgh @ Sep 28th 2007 11:41AM

Yeah that's what I was thinking....

i think they're doing it because the n00bs/media are treating this game like the 2nd coming of Christ. When it's a good game...short assed 5.5 hour campaign and solid multiplayer. It's DEFINITELY not breaking any GFX records that's for damn damn damn sure

Matt B @ Sep 28th 2007 11:42AM

Yet it still gets a lot of 10/10. Something is wreaks in the reviewers booth.

Crono (NDF - French Taunting from Holy Grail Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 11:46AM

You mean "reeks", right. Cuz if something is wreaking in their booth, somebody must be throwing down.

arrrgh @ Sep 28th 2007 11:47AM

unless theyre wreaking smelly havok ;)

Ross Miller @ Sep 28th 2007 12:17PM

I actually had a similar discussion with a friend the other day, and we concluded the Second Coming of Christ would probably only garner a 72% on Rotten Tomatoes -- still fresh, but the general consensus was it didn't live up to the enormous hype.

Spiza @ Sep 28th 2007 12:23PM

Wait for PC review game reviewers to get their hands on it. They trashed 1 and 2.

Freelance @ Sep 28th 2007 12:28PM

Yo Matt B!
What reeks is the rancid meat in those suspiciously generous Halo 3 gift bags all the reviewers received.

samfish (MSDF- Nurse Outfit!) @ Sep 28th 2007 1:04PM

I highly doubt anyone was bribed in any way, if that's what you're suggesting.
Reviewers are just caught up in the whirlwind of hype. That says a lot about their integrity, sadly, but it isn't uncommon.

See also: Mario Sunshine, Halo 2, any Final Fantasy game.

Abbas @ Sep 28th 2007 11:41AM

Yeah, why is this game getting such high marks in graphics with such horrendous pixelation??

upz @ Sep 28th 2007 11:55AM

I've been wondering the same thing. It's a great game, no doubt, especially for multiplayer, but definitely not deserving of the 9's for graphics it's been getting.

hotnutz @ Sep 28th 2007 1:50PM

OMG? Some game website gave it a 9? Oh... are they in trouble now. Microsoft paid big money to ensure they get 10/10 everywhere but they broke their agreement by giving it a 9. Tsk tsk... The game that makes teenage boys purr and hump their 360s is not to be trifled with!

On a less serious note, why are people upset by Microsoft and Bungie lying? I mean with a 30% failure rate, loud as an ascending hot air baloon, iMac styles from the 90's you would think that the 360 owners are used to the lies that Microsoft continues to propagate.

Who cares about the pixel count? 360 owners bought their cheap Halo 2.5 and feel justified in paying for a piece of junk that breaks 30% of the time.

There are always those people who enjoy American "quality" products (like GMC, Ford and Dodge) and think they got a good deal and that it's perfectly acceptable to have your console in the shop for 8-16 weeks a year.

Everyone is entitled to their view. Heck, the US population fell for the whole Iraq war thing - what makes you think they would see through the crap that the Xbox 360 is? Can you really fault people for being dumb? Remember, these are the people who voted for George Bush a SECOND time. haha

hotnutz @ Sep 28th 2007 1:54PM

Drew @ Sep 28th 2007 2:52PM

@hotnutz "Everyone is entitled to their view. Heck, the US population fell for the whole Iraq war thing - what makes you think they would see through the crap that the Xbox 360 is? Can you really fault people for being dumb? Remember, these are the people who voted for George Bush a SECOND time. haha"

what the hell is wrong with you? Your post is all over the place from xbox to the u.s. citizens. Take your bitter tirade somewhere else.

xXFenixKnight13Xx @ Sep 28th 2007 11:41AM

When will it end? Its a great game that was worth my $60 and just leave it at that. Still looks amazing to me with all of its massive environments.

Trev @ Sep 28th 2007 12:55PM

And yet, even if people bought and enjoyed Madden on the PS3, there was a huge fucking deal made about it running at 30fps. At least madden isn't the PS3's flagship game that people had been hyping up since the end of the last one.

Badboy1979 @ Sep 28th 2007 4:00PM

I think people made a big deal about Madden because it's 360 counterpart ran at 60fps.

Robby W @ Oct 19th 2007 3:58PM

you do realize TVs only run at 26FPS right?

bean @ Sep 28th 2007 11:41AM

I would still consider 640p HD...

blooh (CDF - Ass Ring) @ Sep 28th 2007 11:45AM

yeah, the wii does like 480p or something. i thought anything over that was HD?

Korova @ Sep 28th 2007 1:16PM

HD resolution seems to start at 720p, but whats 80 pixels between friends.

beans @ Sep 28th 2007 1:43PM

it's stupid that joystiq would make their own definition...like 718p isn't hd...

jug6ernaut @ Sep 28th 2007 11:42AM

ok i dont wanna b blunt here....BUT WHO CARES?? i mean idk about anyone else but when i went to go by halo 3 i didnt check the box to see what resolution the game was in......

i bought the game to play the game....not to care if microsoft lives up to there "hd bla bla bal" stuff....seriously ppl....

upz @ Sep 28th 2007 12:03PM

You should realize that this day and age, no one gets away with saying anything. I bought a console that was supposed to be in 4D because I wanted to be able to scream the mantra that rumble was last gen. Now I want my money back! That'll teach you to open your mouth, Phil Harrison!

NaeemTHM @ Sep 28th 2007 11:42AM

Talk about splitting hairs. Get a life losers.

NaeemTHM @ Sep 28th 2007 11:43AM

And whatever happened to actually PLAYING these video games. We've become such graphic whores.

religiousjedi @ Sep 28th 2007 11:47AM

Amen. If the game is fun...then why worry about the little pixles? Just like Wii.

In any case, if Halo is enjoyed by many, then there is no point to complain about some pixles.

ill trooper @ Sep 28th 2007 1:14PM

Yeah, that's the thing: I did play the game and it looked pixelated.

Stop being the abstract and annoying "Why not go outside and play football instead of playing Madden" guy. We are talking down-to-earth stuff here, no one is saying they won't play because of this. Truth is, Halo 3 is pixelated, and people are just shocked after all the HD talk we hear from MS and Sony.

Micheal82 @ Sep 28th 2007 3:27PM

Whatever happened to playing games just for fun and enjoying them? Fanboyism is slowly destroying the gaming community. My system is better than yours my flagship game is better than yours bullcrap needs to stop! Play the games that you like and enjoy them and stop complaining.
For those who spent time counting pixels on a screen please get a life.