Bungie's Frank O'Connor has posted a detailed Halo 3 update this week, revealing that the game’s public multiplayer beta will allow players to play split-screen on one console and dishing out a little more about the ‘saved films’ feature.
Firstly, the Halo 3 beta will feature split-screen for two-players, as O'Connor outlines, "We've also done something cool with the splitscreen display for HD monitors - instead of stretching the horizontal or vertical axes into big, scary too wide or too tall horrors, we've sensibly windowed the action, maintaining lots of screen real estate, but preserving a proper, playable aspect ratio."
O’Connor also explains more about the saved films feature, noting, "The version you'll try in the beta, is very, very, very limited. We just want you to play around with the general concept. You'll be reading more about this in the gaming press in the next month or two, and of course you can try it out for yourselves in less than a month."
Finally, O’Connor comments on rumours from recent weeks, notably that Microsoft is somehow ‘forcing’ Bungie to make Halo 3 run at 1080p and 60fps. Not true, according to Frank:
"1080p at 60 fps is awesome for fighting games and barely a stretch for Live Arcade games. But if you want epic battles, dozens of bad guys, huge vistas and colossal structures, with advanced AI, HDR lighting and explosive physics, then you're not getting those at 1080p at 60fps…Most people, and I mean the VAST majority of people don't have a 1080p TV, so it would be foolish to sacrifice even a single feature for a bullet point number on the back of a box."
Halo 3’s beta goes live on 16th May.
Firstly, the Halo 3 beta will feature split-screen for two-players, as O'Connor outlines, "We've also done something cool with the splitscreen display for HD monitors - instead of stretching the horizontal or vertical axes into big, scary too wide or too tall horrors, we've sensibly windowed the action, maintaining lots of screen real estate, but preserving a proper, playable aspect ratio."
O’Connor also explains more about the saved films feature, noting, "The version you'll try in the beta, is very, very, very limited. We just want you to play around with the general concept. You'll be reading more about this in the gaming press in the next month or two, and of course you can try it out for yourselves in less than a month."
Finally, O’Connor comments on rumours from recent weeks, notably that Microsoft is somehow ‘forcing’ Bungie to make Halo 3 run at 1080p and 60fps. Not true, according to Frank:
"1080p at 60 fps is awesome for fighting games and barely a stretch for Live Arcade games. But if you want epic battles, dozens of bad guys, huge vistas and colossal structures, with advanced AI, HDR lighting and explosive physics, then you're not getting those at 1080p at 60fps…Most people, and I mean the VAST majority of people don't have a 1080p TV, so it would be foolish to sacrifice even a single feature for a bullet point number on the back of a box."
Halo 3’s beta goes live on 16th May.
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Comments
Andronix 30 Apr 2007 11:24
1/9
Dear Tim and the Spong team
Having been the person who posted the story about Halo 3 possibly being in 1080p, after receiving some solid info about a 1080p. I would like to highlight the fact that Frankie's weekly update concurs with the main points.
i.e. There IS a build of Halo 3 in True 1080p
Frankie Says "Every aspect of the game has to be tested at 480i (normal, ancient TV resolution) all the way up to 1080p resolutions to check for everything from graphical glitches to controller lag."
Poor performance in 1080p meant that Bungie thought it best to not include it Frankie says " it would be foolish to sacrifice even a single feature for a bullet point number on the back of a box."
So Bungie have a build in 1080p, but would rather not sacrifice features for resolution. Its not such a stretch to believe they tried to get it running without lag is it?
I have no interest in publishing a rumour without good reason. PlayThree.net is an independent website. Although the resources are limited in comparison to the major websites I do aspire to maintain proper journalistic standards.
Apart from that, all the best!
Andronix
http://www.playthree.net/2007/04/halo-3-1080p-on-xbox-360-elite.html
Having been the person who posted the story about Halo 3 possibly being in 1080p, after receiving some solid info about a 1080p. I would like to highlight the fact that Frankie's weekly update concurs with the main points.
i.e. There IS a build of Halo 3 in True 1080p
Frankie Says "Every aspect of the game has to be tested at 480i (normal, ancient TV resolution) all the way up to 1080p resolutions to check for everything from graphical glitches to controller lag."
Poor performance in 1080p meant that Bungie thought it best to not include it Frankie says " it would be foolish to sacrifice even a single feature for a bullet point number on the back of a box."
So Bungie have a build in 1080p, but would rather not sacrifice features for resolution. Its not such a stretch to believe they tried to get it running without lag is it?
I have no interest in publishing a rumour without good reason. PlayThree.net is an independent website. Although the resources are limited in comparison to the major websites I do aspire to maintain proper journalistic standards.
Apart from that, all the best!
Andronix
http://www.playthree.net/2007/04/halo-3-1080p-on-xbox-360-elite.html
crs117 30 Apr 2007 16:26
2/9
So Bungie have a build in 1080p, but would rather not sacrifice features for resolution. Its not such a stretch to believe they tried to get it running without lag is it?
no offense but if you run a gaming website you should be somewhat familiar with gaming technology and terminology. for instance running a game at 1080p should not introduce "lag",. lag is when the networking components of a game talking with other games on the network is breaking down...thus causing missed packets...thus causing lag.
to be quite honest...i dont think that its going to make that much of a difference....most folks think that watching an hd signal over cable presents a good hd picture in when in reality most hd channels on cable are sooooo compressed they look almost worse than the regular channels.
-c
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vault 13 1 May 2007 00:03
3/9
Lag in it's definition, is in relation to mechanics being the most relevant. Lag: the amount of retardation of some motion. So slowness to do exceedingly high poly counts and CPU clock cycles OR do to a bottleneck in internet connection. We most commonly use lag to describe the latter but the former applies very appropriately too. As for your HD television crack. Makes no sense that a higher resolution and richer picture HD channel would look worse than a non HD lower resolution one. You are obviously using crappy cables or having major interference issues or just plain hooked your set up wrong.
I will refrain on commenting on Microsoft's "Golden Child" and play the wait and see, then I will comment.
I will refrain on commenting on Microsoft's "Golden Child" and play the wait and see, then I will comment.
hollywooda 1 May 2007 09:23
4/9
All this f**king fuss you read constantly over resolutions!?! drives me nuts, ohh it's not in 1080p then it's s**t, that's not "next gen", unless you've got a 100 inch telly the human eye cant tell the difference between 720p & 1080p anyway. I'd rather games developer concentrated on making solid games then trying to justify the latest buzz word
crs117 1 May 2007 13:03
5/9
vault 13 wrote:
Lag in it's definition, is in relation to mechanics being the most relevant. Lag: the amount of retardation of some motion. So slowness to do exceedingly high poly counts and CPU clock cycles OR do to a bottleneck in internet connection. We most commonly use lag to describe the latter but the former applies very appropriately too. As for your HD television crack. Makes no sense that a higher resolution and richer picture HD channel would look worse than a non HD lower resolution one. You are obviously using crappy cables or having major interference issues or just plain hooked your set up wrong.
I will refrain on commenting on Microsoft's "Golden Child" and play the wait and see, then I will comment.
I will refrain on commenting on Microsoft's "Golden Child" and play the wait and see, then I will comment.
vault...
i am not sure why you would be interested in perpetuating ignorance...but if you want to try to correct me with more ignorance then feel free. if i am talking about video games that are playable over the network and i refer to lag....i am simply referring to communication issues over the network...nothing more or less. if you want to try to rationalize how lag refers to something else in gaming then feel free to sound like a total dumb ass.
as far as hd channels are concerned...its about the noise in the compression that makes the channels look like s**t. i dont care how many pixels your tv is capable of displaying if you introduce compression you introduce noise into the picture regardless of the "resolution". if i take a non compressed sd channel and compared it with a overly compressed hd channel many times the non-compressed sd signal looked better over our satilite.
as far as great looking hd...broadcast hd (nbc, cbs, etc over the antenna) is completely beautiful...because it is uncompressed.
-c
config 1 May 2007 13:17
6/9
agree with crs here - context is the key. besides, how often do you hear of poor frame rate being terms as "lag"? pretty much never. "jerky" or "stuttery", but rarely "laggy".
Which is why, amongst other things, Sky's HD offering is a complete f**king scam. The other things being;
1. A lot of the purported HD programming is actually upscaled SD - which your TV will probably do without the 10 quid a month surcharge
2. There are only 12 HD channels. Get this; a third of these are documentary channel - who gives a s**t about watching bottles being made or seeing grainy WW2 footing in HD?
crs117 wrote:
as far as hd channels are concerned...its about the noise in the compression that makes the channels look like s**t. i dont care how many pixels your tv is capable of displaying if you introduce compression you introduce noise into the picture regardless of the "resolution". if i take a non compressed sd channel and compared it with a overly compressed hd channel many times the non-compressed sd signal looked better over our satilite.
as far as great looking hd...broadcast hd (nbc, cbs, etc over the antenna) is completely beautiful...because it is uncompressed.
as far as great looking hd...broadcast hd (nbc, cbs, etc over the antenna) is completely beautiful...because it is uncompressed.
Which is why, amongst other things, Sky's HD offering is a complete f**king scam. The other things being;
1. A lot of the purported HD programming is actually upscaled SD - which your TV will probably do without the 10 quid a month surcharge
2. There are only 12 HD channels. Get this; a third of these are documentary channel - who gives a s**t about watching bottles being made or seeing grainy WW2 footing in HD?
vault 13 2 May 2007 00:58
7/9
config wrote:
agree with crs here - context is the key. besides, how often do you hear of poor frame rate being terms as "lag"? pretty much never. "jerky" or "stuttery", but rarely "laggy".
crs117 wrote:
as far as hd channels are concerned...its about the noise in the compression that makes the channels look like s**t. i dont care how many pixels your tv is capable of displaying if you introduce compression you introduce noise into the picture regardless of the "resolution". if i take a non compressed sd channel and compared it with a overly compressed hd channel many times the non-compressed sd signal looked better over our satilite. [/quote=crs117]
You spelled satellite wrong, making your post null and void. It's a scientific fact. Heh anyways, I was under the assumption that all the cable channels are under the same compression coming from the same provider and all. Also to boot, your probably only considering HD/SD on a tube tv. Take a look at SD on a LCD or Plasma. Looks like you threw up after a night of drinking then s**t on top of that and then fell in it being drunk and all. Then someone taped it and showed it on the MTV standard definition channel. I disagree with your comment that SD uncompressed it better than HD compressed, I have yet to see it.
You spelled satellite wrong, making your post null and void. It's a scientific fact. Heh anyways, I was under the assumption that all the cable channels are under the same compression coming from the same provider and all. Also to boot, your probably only considering HD/SD on a tube tv. Take a look at SD on a LCD or Plasma. Looks like you threw up after a night of drinking then s**t on top of that and then fell in it being drunk and all. Then someone taped it and showed it on the MTV standard definition channel. I disagree with your comment that SD uncompressed it better than HD compressed, I have yet to see it.
crs117 3 May 2007 17:35
8/9
vault 13 wrote:
You spelled satellite wrong, making your post null and void. It's a scientific fact. Heh anyways, I was under the assumption that all the cable channels are under the same compression coming from the same provider and all. Also to boot, your probably only considering HD/SD on a tube tv. Take a look at SD on a LCD or Plasma. Looks like you threw up after a night of drinking then s**t on top of that and then fell in it being drunk and all. Then someone taped it and showed it on the MTV standard definition channel. I disagree with your comment that SD uncompressed it better than HD compressed, I have yet to see it.
i guess your name is an indication of your age....and it shows.
-c
vault 13 3 May 2007 18:27
9/9
Oooooh, I have as they say, "been served".