PAL Halo on 360

[sj33]

I remember before the 360 launched, there was a lot of fuss about Bungie making it so Halo 1/2 worked in native 720p on 360 as opposed to just upscaled.

Does this apply to the PAL version too?

[EvilBoris]

I think so, it just isn't widescreen.

[randombs]

is it really native?

[NekoFever]

It's native in that it's actually rendering in 720p. It still uses the same 480p textures, though, so it basically amounts to it looking a bit cleaner and less jaggy.

GameSpot did a good comparison here.

[andrewfee]

Remember the PAL version of Halo was optimized for 50Hz though, so it won't work if you're using a VGA lead. (for some reason it would run in 60Hz on the original Xbox so you had to manually disable it, or it would stutter like crazy)

[randombs]

It's native in that it's actually rendering in 720p. It still uses the same 480p textures, though, so it basically amounts to it looking a bit cleaner and less jaggy.

GameSpot did a good comparison here.

so basically it's like when you play a ps1/n64 game on a pc emu at a high res, where the objects look sharper but the images (textures, text, etc) are just resized or what-have-you?

just tried that gamespot link, and while i was wowed by the 360's handling of halo2, it looks like they're using vga for the 360 and some other connection for the xbox so alot of the blurriness could be down to the capture, especially with all the othe non-native upscaled examples (i liked the extra tower in the hulk pic, that has promise)

[MJ]

My best friend and I have been playing Halo in co-op mode, before we move onto Halo 2 ready for Halo 3, but it runs quite bad on the 360. When there's a lot going on the framerate suffers. Changing the PAL setting to 60 Hz helps a bit but then you get the brief pause every few seconds.

Please can you suggest how I should set up the 360 to get the best out of this game.

[EvilBoris]

It won't make an difference the emulation isn't quite good enough to keep the framerate up in split screen.
If you are using component you could try setting your console to 480p, which will hopefully stop the game being rendered at 720p and save the framerate a little.
Leave it on 50hz as Halo always went a bit weird on 60hz.

[MJ]

480p was no better because even setting the dash to PAL-50 it defaults to 60 Hz when in HD mode. Normal mode and 50 Hz it is then.

[Concept]

Halo's skybox doesn't corrupt as in 2 so that's a huge plus. I've been playing through it on the 360 lately - the main differences are that it feels as though there's some slight frame-rate loss, and this is really being nitpicky, whatever pseudo bump mapping technique Bungie were using back in 2001 doesn't seem quite as indent-y on the Forerunner architecture on the 360.

As for it upscaling - yeah, it definitely seems as though there's an improvement in resolution (more so than other 360 titles).

[egparadigm]

480p was no better because even setting the dash to PAL-50 it defaults to 60 Hz when in HD mode. Normal mode and 50 Hz it is then.

On a side note, I notice from my TV's info that Psychonauts runs at 50hz in 720p (my dash is set to 60hz). Is that because the game is made for 50hz and/or is it something determined by the emulator?

[EvilBoris]

Pshychonauts is 50hz only, that be why

[sj33]

50Hz games run in 50Hz, and that includes Halo. No forced 60Hz.

[MJ]

50Hz games run in 50Hz, and that includes Halo. No forced 60Hz.

That's what I thought should happen and is the case with Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil, which I tested recently at 720p with the SDTV mode set to PAL-50 and the info button registered this at 1280x720 50 Hz, but Halo with SDTV mode set to PAL-50 and then 480p registered at 60 Hz and the PAL-60 skipping frame rate was present.