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[FyreWulff]

Speaking of which, what I'd really like to see is a patch to Halo 3/ODST which changes it's rendering path to be like Halo Reach (2-pass rendering changed to 1 pass, 640p resolution bumped up to 1152x720 with TAA and some light film grain). I'd like to go back and play Halo 3 MP once in a while but those jaggies are probably going to look really rough now.

That's pretty much not possible as it'd require reworking half the engine. The reason 3 and ODST render at 640p is because of HDR. Bungie got Reach up to 720p by reducing the range and accuracy of the HDR.

 

[thatbox]

As far as I know you have been able to play Halo at 720p for ~5 years. The 360 runs it in native 720p in backwards compatibility mode. Obviously this is not standard for backwards compatible titles, but it's pretty obvious that the emulation software on the 360 was custom-tailored to accommodate Halo.

http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/10/halo-2-on-the-xbox-360-now-in-720p-w-aa/

Unless my memory is incorrect, that only works for Halo 2. I'm pretty sure Halo CE renders at 480p 4:3 on 360 BC (although obviously the 360 will upscale it to whatever you want it to spit out to your TV). I could easily be wrong, though. Since the emulation is so shitty I always made other people play on a 360 and hogged an Xbox spot at CE LANs.

 

[TheSeks]

All these people begging for a Duke controller from Bungie at any price, but nobody has the guts to throw down $30 on a couple adapters to see if it works?

MMMMMMMMmmmmmm... input lag... *drools*

No thanks, bro. 343i/MS can give me a native PC/360 Duke or give me death make me cry.

 

[wwm0nkey]

I still think there is $$$ to be made by releasing the Duke and S controllers for 360 via pre-order system where they only make as much as they have too, that way there are no left overs.

 

[infinityBCRT]

That's pretty much not possible as it'd require reworking half the engine. The reason 3 and ODST render at 640p is because of HDR. Bungie got Reach up to 720p by reducing the range and accuracy of the HDR.

It wouldn't require reworking of the engine, it'd require changing the 2 pass rendering to 1 pass as I suggested. The 2-passes (at different exposures) creates the HDR effect. When working on Reach they found out that they could get away with doing 1 pass with a little extra color depth and it would look almost the same.

 

[Shogmaster]

All these people begging for a Duke controller from Bungie at any price, but nobody has the guts to throw down $30 on a couple adapters to see if it works?




As far as I know you have been able to play Halo at 720p for ~5 years. The 360 runs it in native 720p in backwards compatibility mode. Obviously this is not standard for backwards compatible titles, but it's pretty obvious that the emulation software on the 360 was custom-tailored to accommodate Halo.

http://hd.engadget.com/2005/11/10/halo-2-on-the-xbox-360-now-in-720p-w-aa/

Unless my memory is incorrect, that only works for Halo 2. I'm pretty sure Halo CE renders at 480p 4:3 on 360 BC (although obviously the 360 will upscale it to whatever you want it to spit out to your TV). I could easily be wrong, though. Since the emulation is so shitty I always made other people play on a 360 and hogged an Xbox spot at CE LANs.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I saw stretched image in 360 for CE. And I also seem to remember that even Halo 2 wasn't really 720p, but just upscaled 480p. It was too blurry for native 720p, 2XAA or no. It wasn't 2XAA nice blur, it was very obvious upscaled blur, just slightly better than what my TV could do with CE on XBox original.

 

[FyreWulff]

It wouldn't require reworking of the engine, it'd require changing the 2 pass rendering to 1 pass as I suggested. The 2-passes (at different exposures) creates the HDR effect. When working on Reach they found out that they could get away with doing 1 pass with a little extra color depth and it would look almost the same.

Yes, I'm totally sure you can fit that into the 4MB patch Halo 3 is limited to, keeping in mind you still have to keep everything they added in TU2 in that patch as well. I don't think you're going to do that without Halo 3 having being engineered in the first place to have it's rendering method changed in a future patch.

ODST will also never be patched. They never even fixed how ODST delays 360 notifications.

 

[infinityBCRT]

Yes, I'm totally sure you can fit that into the 4MB patch Halo 3 is limited to, keeping in mind you still have to keep everything they added in TU2 in that patch as well. I don't think you're going to do that without Halo 3 having being engineered in the first place to have it's rendering method changed in a future patch.

ODST will also never be patched. They never even fixed how ODST delays 360 notifications.

Changing a few lines of code for their rendering stuff would be the same size as any other patch where they have to recompile the executable.

 

[FyreWulff]

Changing a few lines of code for their rendering stuff would be the same size as any other patch where they have to recompile the executable.

You'd need to change more lines of code than that, and also include new 720p native HUDs for 3 different characters (Spartan, Elite, Forge Monitor) and ....

It's not that easy nor would it be worth pleasing about the 10 people that care. TUs cost tons of money after the first one.

 

[infinityBCRT]

You'd need to change more lines of code than that, and also include new 720p native HUDs for 3 different characters (Spartan, Elite, Forge Monitor) and ....

It's not that easy nor would it be worth pleasing about the 10 people that care. TUs cost tons of money after the first one.

It's a first party game. lol. Who are they paying?

I'm a Programmer so I have a good idea of how it would work. Unless their code is really bad and not modular (unlikely) it wouldn't be too hard to adapt Reach's rendering to Halo 3

I realize it's not realistic that they will do it but it would be nice to have all Halo games looking sharp, as they will inevitably do a Halo 2 anniversary (they've already hinted at it) and probably won't do a Halo 3 anniversary as the assets are good enough.

 

[FyreWulff]

It's a first party game. lol. Who are they paying?

I'm a Programmer so I have a good idea of how it would work. Unless their code is really bad and not modular (unlikely) it wouldn't be too hard to adapt Reach's rendering to Halo 3

I realize it's not realistic that they will do it but it would be nice to have all Halo games looking sharp, as they will inevitably do a Halo 2 anniversary (they've already hinted at it) and probably won't do a Halo 3 anniversary as the assets are good enough.

But you're not a programmer that worked on Halo 3.

And they have to pay the programmers and certification department employees that make sure the TU wouldn't set the 360 userbase aflame.

In theory, you can patch whatever you want on a 360 game. But you have to weight the cost/benefit and the implications of touching the HDR/rendering portion of the engine, as that code is pretty important (since it's literally present everywhere in the game). You want to make that kind of code solid, a known factor, and not a moving target. You'd have to make sure Campaign, Forge, the lobby system, and Theater mode do not get affected. You'd have to change the screenshot system to accomodate the change in rendering. You'd have to weigh pleasing a minority of people that actually cared that they were only getting 640 vertical pixels and not 720, keeping in mind the vast amount of people playing on SDTV and are getting their "full" resolution already. These people would get angry that their screenshots look "worse" after the patch.

On a big game like that, you can't be Programming Rock Star and just change a few lines of code. You need to weight the risks, benefits, and costs and plan for the future if adding the feature would lose room for potential future and more important bug fixes. When patching a 360 title you have to choose your battles.

 

[Ryaaan14]

If the Reach engine isn't re-worked to resemble the player movement in CE, it'll be interesting to see how that affects the maps themselves. :_\

 

[border]

Unless my memory is incorrect, that only works for Halo 2. I'm pretty sure Halo CE renders at 480p 4:3 on 360 BC (although obviously the 360 will upscale it to whatever you want it to spit out to your TV). I could easily be wrong, though. Since the emulation is so shitty I always made other people play on a 360 and hogged an Xbox spot at CE LANs.

Bungie themselves said:

But here's another bonus - the hardware in the 360 can do a lot of nifty stuff, and specifically in the cases of Halo and Halo 2, it can display the graphics in wide screen, at 720p, with full scene anti-aliasing. And it doesn't look kludgy, artifacty or smeary like an upscanning DVD player. The best way to describe it is that both games look like they're running on a PC at those resolutions.

I can't find a link to the posting on the official site though -- maybe it was taken down for a reason

 

[Steelyuhas]

If the Reach engine isn't re-worked to resemble the player movement in CE, it'll be interesting to see how that affects the maps themselves. :_\

The maps have been confirmed to have some subtle changes for Reach's gameplay. Although they likely won't be as great as they were in Halo CE simply because that game is wildly better than Reach, they will still likely be better than most/all of the maps in Reach.

 

[infinityBCRT]

But you're not a programmer that worked on Halo 3.

And they have to pay the programmers and certification department employees that make sure the TU wouldn't set the 360 userbase aflame.

If you're implying that you're a programmer that worked on Halo 3 I'm disappointed that you think your code would set the 360 userbase aflame.

Seriously though, yeah they'd have to pay for cert but thats about it. Any programmer worth their salt could make the change in their spare time (unless they are being absolutely overworked-- which I guess is a possibility).

 

[SkyMasterson]

Bungie themselves said:

But here's another bonus - the hardware in the 360 can do a lot of nifty stuff, and specifically in the cases of Halo and Halo 2, it can display the graphics in wide screen, at 720p, with full scene anti-aliasing. And it doesn't look kludgy, artifacty or smeary like an upscanning DVD player. The best way to describe it is that both games look like they're running on a PC at those resolutions.

I can't find a link to the posting on the official site though -- maybe it was taken down for a reason

Bungie said a lot of things. If you played Halo 1 or 2 via the 360, you could tell that statement was false.

Edit: Plus playing those games stretched is just gross. I always stuck with 4:3 when playing them. In fact I found playing Halo 2(and maybe 1 if memory serves) much better with the 360 settings to 480p rather than 720p. 720p just made it looked washed out and yes my HDTV is calibrated haha.

 

[Slightly Live]

Bungie themselves said:

But here's another bonus - the hardware in the 360 can do a lot of nifty stuff, and specifically in the cases of Halo and Halo 2, it can display the graphics in wide screen, at 720p, with full scene anti-aliasing. And it doesn't look kludgy, artifacty or smeary like an upscanning DVD player. The best way to describe it is that both games look like they're running on a PC at those resolutions.

I can't find a link to the posting on the official site though -- maybe it was taken down for a reason

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=h2anniversary&p=5312619
(Dead Link)

Archived Version

They took down the news story from Bnet but the image comparison on the site remains.

 

[Trunchisholm]

The resolution for original BC Xbox games on the 360 is 480p with 4X MSAA. From there, the image gets scaled to the output resolution set by the user, being it 720p, 1080p or any other resolution. Ultimately, you only get a 720p upscaled image, not a native one. The difference is IQ is due to the antialiasing.

 

[The Real Napsta]

All these people begging for a Duke controller from Bungie at any price, but nobody has the guts to throw down $30 on a couple adapters to see if it works?

See if it works? We already know it works from the video. How well it works is another story.

 

[Infamous Chris]

Bungie themselves said:

But here's another bonus - the hardware in the 360 can do a lot of nifty stuff, and specifically in the cases of Halo and Halo 2, it can display the graphics in wide screen, at 720p, with full scene anti-aliasing. And it doesn't look kludgy, artifacty or smeary like an upscanning DVD player. The best way to describe it is that both games look like they're running on a PC at those resolutions.

I can't find a link to the posting on the official site though -- maybe it was taken down for a reason

Why would it be taken down, though?

 

[GhaleonEB]

Why would it be taken down, though?

bungie.net does not archive all of its news content. If you go to HBO's BWU archive, they maintain a local copy in addition to the link to the original. Looks like updates from 2006 back are now dead on bungie.net. Since the quote was about the 360's scaling capabilities for Halo titles, something in effect from launch day, it was probably written before then and has since dropped off the site.

 

[Infamous Chris]

bungie.net does not archive all of its news content. If you go to HBO's BWU archive, they maintain a local copy in addition to the link to the original. Looks like updates from 2006 back are now dead on bungie.net. Since the quote was about the 360's scaling capabilities for Halo titles, something in effect from launch day, it was probably written before then and has since dropped off the site.

Ah, thanks.

 

[MrBig]

The resolution for original BC Xbox games on the 360 is 480p with 4X MSAA. From there, the image gets scaled to the output resolution set by the user, being it 720p, 1080p or any other resolution. Ultimately, you only get a 720p upscaled image, not a native one. The difference is IQ is due to the antialiasing.

Yes, the game wouldn't be running in actual 720p since it's basically running inside a virtual xbox1 but has access to the upscaling and memory of the 360. I'm quite certain that Halo 1 can't have AA because it just wasn't a supported feature at the time and so is not a part of the original Blam! engine. You can't even force it on PC.

 

[godhandiscen]

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=h2anniversary&p=5312619
(Dead Link)

Archived Version

They took down the news story from Bnet but the image comparison on the site remains.

[http://www.bungie.net/images/news/inlineimages/comparison2.jpg

Not to troll, but I can't believe H2 ended up looking crisper than H3. That was dissapointing.

 

[The Real Napsta]

Halo CE fans, especially those with modded Xboxes, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqWocKN1g5Y&

 

[thatbox]

Halo CE fans, especially those with modded Xboxes, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqWocKN1g5Y&

There used to be a fairly standard set of extra maps called like the New Map Experience or something. I think XBC even had its own section for people with them installed. One of them was this huge rectangular prism set in Blood Gulch with a shotgun that shot rockets instead of shotgun pellets, and you could use it to propel yourself around.

So much time spent in CE multiplayer!

 

[Devin Olsen]

Halo CE fans, especially those with modded Xboxes, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqWocKN1g5Y&

* Immediately starts searching Craigslist for a Modded Xbox*

Thank you for the inspiration

 

[The Real Napsta]

* Immediately starts searching Craigslist for a Modded Xbox*

Thank you for the inspiration

This is actually the third map pack to come out of the mlgpro H1 forum. Here are the first two:

http://forums.majorleaguegaming.com/topic/164527-insidi0us-and-pwnytar-map-pack/

 

[CrazedArabMan]

Halo CE fans, especially those with modded Xboxes, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqWocKN1g5Y&

Yup, I have a whole bunch of these maps for my modded box, I have a few with AI and so on as well, those were the days.

Ah here we go, found some videos of the maps that I have.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HRuDuWRUHQ

Here are the AI encounter maps I have as well, the second video is so much fun because the AI can drive, and they drive like they are drunk, mixed with Halo 1 physics and it is a blast. Also for System link all you need is one xbox with the AI map and everyone can play it, well at least it worked last time I tried it. Here is the link to a thread with them. http://www.pwnall.com/showthread.php?t=174

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SL8q9E96WQ


This is the PC version but there is an xbox one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2CPEi4zfA0

 

[FyreWulff]

http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?story=h2anniversary&p=5312619
(Dead Link)

Archived Version

They took down the news story from Bnet but the image comparison on the site remains.

I actually asked if anyone knew what happened to that story. Wu found it on Bungie.net with what I assume was magic, because I have no idea how he did that.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=7139

I think what happened is at some point they switched how their news feed worked but didn't set up a forward for old links.

Not to troll, but I can't believe H2 ended up looking crisper than H3. That was dissapointing.

You clearly haven't played Halo 2 in a while. Besides the fact that Halo 2 used tons of mattes whereas Halo 3 had tons of actual full 3D skyboxes, bigger textures, and more variety of said textures..

Bungie said a lot of things. If you played Halo 1 or 2 via the 360, you could tell that statement was false.

Edit: Plus playing those games stretched is just gross. I always stuck with 4:3 when playing them. In fact I found playing Halo 2(and maybe 1 if memory serves) much better with the 360 settings to 480p rather than 720p. 720p just made it looked washed out and yes my HDTV is calibrated haha.

Halo 1 doesn't have widescreen support but Halo 2 did.

If you're implying that you're a programmer that worked on Halo 3 I'm disappointed that you think your code would set the 360 userbase aflame.

Seriously though, yeah they'd have to pay for cert but thats about it. Any programmer worth their salt could make the change in their spare time (unless they are being absolutely overworked-- which I guess is a possibility).

I think the fact that ODST still ran at 640p even without having to worry about the implications of a TU should tell you that changing how the Halo 3 engine rendered was not a priority or something worth doing in Bungie's eyes.

 

[MrBig]

I actually asked if anyone knew what happened to that story. Wu found it on Bungie.net with what I assume was magic, because I have no idea how he did that.

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=7139

I think what happened is at some point they switched how their news feed worked but didn't set up a forward for old links.

He used googlefu: site:"bungie.net" "Halo 2 Anniversary Special"

 

[FyreWulff]

He used googlefu: site:"bungie.net" "Halo 2 Anniversary Special"

That could work NOW since Google indexed the HBO post. Alternately: Google costs MP to use.

 

[Broman1978]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????


http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

 

[MrBig]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????

http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

He didn't even go into specifics about what extraneous features were added and you're already mad. Good job.

I don't understand where the ubiquitous hate for kinect as a concept on GAF is coming from. Did no one here ever happen to watch Star Trek or any other future sci-fi series/literature and are able to understand that is what the kinect technology as a concept is the beginnings of?

 

[derFeef]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????


http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

Neat, wonder what it is.

 

[S1kkZ]

Neat, wonder what it is.

i say voice control and headtracking.

 

[jgminto]

Hopefully this is the thing that gets me to pull Kinect out of the closet.

 

[TheOddOne]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????


http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

From what we have seen before, these things are optional. No need to get mad at that, if it was forced then there is certainly a reason to complain.

Intresting part was him talking about user generated content on Minecraft and how it he wants to push Live more in that direction.

 

[scar tissue]

So the old map packs for halo reach are not included with this, right?
what a ripoff

 

[nomis]

All these people begging for a Duke controller from Bungie at any price, but nobody has the guts to throw down $30 on a couple adapters to see if it works?

Who needs "guts" and 30 bucks when a pretty quick google search finds people who have tried buying an Xbox 1 proprietary USB to regular USB and plugged it into their 360 already? Apparently... it doesn't work. Bummer.

 

[Raide]

Might be in a weird minority but I love fighting the Flood. Cannot wait to get them back and start shooting those little popcorn ones.

 

[teraMEL0S]

Yeah, just saw this. Really interested in seeing what Kinect integration they will have!

 

[infinityBCRT]

I think the fact that ODST still ran at 640p even without having to worry about the implications of a TU should tell you that changing how the Halo 3 engine rendered was not a priority or something worth doing in Bungie's eyes.

And if it was a priority, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

That being said, ODST did a lot to mitigate the 640p resolution issues by going to a darker palette and adding in film grain.

 

[DaveVoyles]

Would most console gamers even notice if the game is running 720p or not? I doubt that many of them would even spot it out if there wasn't some tool for measuring it. Or even know what AA and anisotropic filtering is?

If they were so concerned with graphical fidelity, I would imagine that that they would be playing their games on a gaming PC.

 

[Flipyap]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????


http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

 

[Hypertrooper]

(Sorry if old)
WTF! Kinect in Halo CE Remake!!! (Phil mention it at the start of the video)
For fucks sake Microsoft! Must you do Kinect in all your games????


http://e3.gamespot.com/video/6320281/interview-with-phil-spencer

I don't mind. I'm not a Kinect enemy and would love to have Kinect in some Hardcore games. But this should be only optional. tbh. controlling the Terminals via kinect would be awesome.

i say voice control and headtracking.

Serious reply or just a joke?

BEST KINECT SUPPORT EVER!

Spoiler

don't post your old pics again

 

[Flipyap]

Spoiler

don't post your old pics again

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/ryJie.jpg

 

[godhandiscen]

Yeah, just saw this. Really interested in seeing what Kinect integration they will have!

Most likely they will have special features like terminals being able to be controlled by Kinect. I would welcome things like that.

 

[Painkilller]

All I'm hoping for is that this "remake" has a "remade" Library level!!! Talk about monotonous and boring!!!

Other than that, I can't wait to play this!!! Should be fantastic, imho.

 

[godhandiscen]

All I'm hoping for is that this "remake" has a "remade" Library level!!! Talk about monotonous and boring!!!

Other than that, I can't wait to play this!!! Should be fantastic, imho.

They improved the look and feel of the level thanks to texture work, but it seems the challenge will be the same.