i hope this is resolved.

I just got done reading Bungie's weekly update and there wasn't a single mention of this widescreen/splitscreen problem at all. They did take the time to address the 640p issue, which isn't really an issue when you compare it to the fact that widescreen HDTV owners are having their entire screen shrunken just by playing in splitscreen. Bungie's silence is completely intentional and they are either doing 1 of several things. 1) The technical guys are talking amongst themselves to see how soon or if possible a patch could remedy this problem (which is probably the least likely scenario). 2) Ignoring us widescreen/splitscreen users because they believe we are such a small minority of the Halo community that our complaints don't warrant a response. 3) They are conspiring with the upper management over at M$ to get us splitscreen users to purchase another 360 and another Halo 3 disc, just to play the game properly with friends and family. If you think about, this last scenario makes sense for them. They are able to report in their sales material and press releases that Halo 3 comes with splitscreen just like every other shooter and at the same time almost force the splitscreen users into purchasing another 360 and game. When Bungie does finally publically address this problem they will say something in this manner. "To preserve the quality of picture and ideal aspect ratio for splitscreen users, we shrunk down the screen size and added black bars on the sides of the screen. If you are a widescreen/splitscreen player and you and your Halo partner want to experience the true Halo co-op/multiplayer experience, we highly recommend getting another 360 and playing Halo 3 via Xbox Live or system link." I will be shocked and amazed if Bungie doesn't try to coerce their loyal fans to purchase another 360 just to experience Halo how it is truly meant to be played, over Live and on 2 seperate screens. I am not a betting man but I would put money down on this last scenario occuring over everything else.

Add my name to the list of disappointed Halo 3 fans. I waited in line till midnight to get the game. As soon as I got home, my bro and I fired up splitscreen co-op. As soon as I saw the blacked-out screen, I assumed it was a problem w/ my resolution settings. I spent 30 minutes trying every resolution on my xbox and tv. We finally just set the tv to 480p standard and played without HD. The next morning I called Microsoft Customer Support, thinking this was a bug in the game. At that point, there wasn't much on the Internet about this issue. Now come to find out, Bungie intentionally put this in the game. I am EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTED, and would like to have the option of how splitscreen is displayed. I love the game, but would love having the option to fill my screen even more.

Listen fellow gamers, I'll admit that I have been pretty passionate and vocal about this issue. So let me preface what I am about to say by saying this: HALO (1) was by far the best gaming experience of my adult life. I loved every minute of it. And my best friend and I spent months playing the campaign on Legendary. And for me, honestly, campaign co-op is where it's at. In HALO or any game. I personally buy games based on whether or not they offer split-screen co-op play. And HALO 2, although rushed and flawed, was again an outstanding co-op experience. So now here comes the 3rd chapter of the gaming franchise we have all come to know and love. This is the game I dreamed about playing on my new HD plasma TV for the past year. And like a little kid nearing Christmas, I counted down the days and then waited in line at Gamestop on the eve of the release. When I got the game home I didn't even mess around with the solo campaign or online play. Heck no, I set the baby for split-screen co-op and sat back. Now imagine my disappoinment when I saw almost half my screen blacked-out? Surely there was something wrong with the way I had it configured. This can't be right. This is going to burn black bars into my screen. But no, no mistake - that's the way they designed it. Now I know that HALO 3 is a remarkable game. And I know all you gamers that play online multi-player are in gaming heaven. And all you gamers that only care about the solo campaign are having the time of your lives as well. But please, Bungie, I implore you, on behalf of the all the rest of us gamers that live for split-screen co-op, isn't there anything that can be done?

I agree and this is why I'm back to continue to try and find a answer to this problem. Bungie might want to do things their way, but it's wrong. You don't damage people's expensive HDTVs, because you want them to play Halo3 the way you want them to. I know plenty of people that burn-in their HDTV cause of stupid -blam!- like this. Also why would waste 25% of the screen space? Is it not a disadvantage right out the box using such a small screen area? Give us a vertical or horizontal split that fills the screen. Also until then 1280x1024 workaround is working great for me, but having to change resolutions sucks.

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Jumbo McNasty People don't like this choice, if it's POSSIBLE to fix it we'd all like to know.[/quote]Everything is possible. They just need to get off their high horse and stop pretending they are the center of the universe. Yes, they make great games. But people make mistakes. Just look at Microsoft's attempt to instantly replace Windows XP with the very flawed Windows Vista. But they are improving it as we speak. With patches. And that is also possible for Bungie. They can make a patch through Xbox Live and give a proper response, rather than being arrogant like they did earlier in this thread.

I've read other threads where people are throwing tantrums; this thread is pretty reserved. People don't like this choice, if it's POSSIBLE to fix it we'd all like to know.

it comes down to this: Bungie did the best they could to make a game that people will enjoy. Obviously you can't please everyone, and people are going to complain; I understand this. What bothers me is that all of this discussion is going on HERE in THIS forum. I like reading about people trying to get the skulls, doing cool things in the game, discussing storyline... But all I see on the Bnet forums is "Bungie -blam!- us" or "Bungie broke it's promise" or "I was too naive and thought that there would be nothing wrong with Halo 3." It's swallowing everything else. This is because everyone who likes the game discusses in threads that already exist, but all these whiners create hundreds of new threads. Get over yourself. Halo 3 is a good game in my opinion. Is it perfect? By all means, no. But I at least have the composure to not throw a god damned temper tantrum, whining that they made an arbitrary decision to have top/bottom split screen. Personally, I'm happy it's no longer left/right split screen, because of that in H2, I played with my system set to standard mode and not HD. Do you know what that did? that meant I had my HDTV set to 4:3, and a top and bottom 16:9 split screen. It's all the same, but now it's in HD. And I'm happy. Next thing you know, people will be complaining that Halo 3 didn't come with a hot chick and a puppy; and I will shake my head in shame at the human race that Master Chief has fought so dilligently to protect.

i am very dissapointed with this.... almost all may halo gaming is done as 2 player split screen. please bungie give us a choice, i personally prefer to increase the FOV, but any choice would be better...\ but what i don't understand is if the reason Bungie chose this option was so that every one will have the same FOV then why do they let both widescreen and 4:3 players go to live?? the widescreen players see more don't they? i hope that by the time the game arrives here they will create some sort of patch.

Oh hell no...this thread ain't dying People confused how black bars cause burn in - burn in might NOT be the best term but here it is the screen degrades ever so slightly ALL the time for the whole picture probably 0.00001% for every hour or whatever Suddenly, black bars are there and the pic isn't degrading for X amount of hours; now it's behind the rest of the screen in degrading and can be noticeable. there's your ruined screen. Thanks Halo 3 for being cool with your new feature NO ONE asked for. As I said yesterday, people complained about this in the beta too, isn't the beta for TESTING! Put in "black bars" in the search and other terms and you can read how people didn't like this is May!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Tengaport here's a quick pic in case anyone was wondering what it looks like: http://www.flickr.com/photos/popkid/1439832913/ that's a 46" displaying as a 36" :([/quote] This article pretty much sums up the exact same disappointment I've had with splitscreen when playing with my brother. Imagine though, instead of it being 46" it is a 37 or 32 incher, which then equates to 27 or 22 inches. With this screen size in splitscreen, the game is practically unplayable. My brother and I are now literally a few feet away from the screen when we play Halo 3. This is inexecusable. I paid a good amount of money to play splitscreen with my brother and now here we are, on the the 4th day of the release of Halo 3, eager to put Gears of War back in our system because we plain and simply can not see what we are shooting at. I thought we were finally done with Gears upon the release of Halo, but who would have thought that this simple design flaw would actually make me consider going back to Gears of War and trading in Halo 3. And we are HUGE Halo fans and before this splitscreen dilemma, trading in a Halo game would have been considered sacrilegious, but now it is to the point where all the fun we once had playing the game is gone. When the fun is gone then the game is gone. Goodbye Halo 3. I'm sure we could have had lots of fun if only we could have only seen you. [Edited on 09.28.2007 8:51 PM PDT]

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Krono89 Goddamnit my TV is -blam!- up! Somebody tell me what the -blam!- is being done to fix it goddamnit![/quote] apparently, nothing. It's your own fault for using such a "cool" feature for so long at once.

Goddamnit my TV is -blam!- up! Somebody tell me what the -blam!- is being done to fix it goddamnit!

Organ Thief I did not even think of this and of course I bet you have this nailed correctly. There have been a bunch of games for the 360 that I thought why did they not allow the split screen of Halo2 and I have not purchased them just for this reason (some I purchased and when I found out that they did not work I traded them in and lost some hard earned money) and of course im sure it is to push more sales! I wonder if on the games that do offer this feature how someone got it pushed through.........No black bars, no black bars, no black bars!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Clarkodom This is why widescreen is the worst invention since war and bullying.[/quote] lol, agreed

This issue will be debated for months to come. But the bottom line is this – MONEY! The almighty dollar. I know this because I am in marketing myself. Here’s a little Marketing 101 gamers: When a company like Bungie designs a game they conduct things called market research and test groups and focus groups. We’ve been reading and hearing about this ourselves for months now in their weekly updates and pod casts. They had testers playing the game for hours on end; monitoring and tweaking everything from button configurations and how much ammo would be available in a level – not too much and not too little – to showing graphs depicting where geographically on the map the majority of the players were dying. Every inch of this game was scrutinized. And we the fans were happy as hell for all that. So we must ask ourselves, How does such a major snafu like the co-op split-screen ratio occur? How does a developer that slaves over such excruciating minutia as 'When in the game does a player get bored or discouraged?' release a game with such a shamefully flawed split-screen co-op display? There is no way in hell you can tell me that if you gathered 100 hardcore and/or casual gamers and put them in a room and showed them how the co-op split-screen was going to look on an HDTV and asked their opinion, you wouldn’t have 99 gamers saying, “Please DO NOT do that! We do not want to lose one inch of our precious HD screen space. And we most certainly don’t want to worry about the “pillar box” black-bar screen burn-in.” So what the hell happened? Here is what happened: The marketing gurus and number crunchers at Microsoft/Bungie sat down and said to themselves, “Gee, if we have two people playing co-op on one screen then that only requires one Xbox 360 console, one game disc, and worst of all they don’t even need to subscribe to Xbox Live! Well we can’t have that. So let’s make the split-screen co-op play a substandard experience. We’ll shrink the screen down, put black bars on either side; make gamers have to pull their chairs closer and worry about screen burn-in.” So what happens now? Well if you and your friend want to really enjoy the co-op experience then guess what? You got to play Online. Now your friend had better have his own Xbox 360 console and his own HALO 3 game disc, and he has to subscribe to Xbox Live too. And to rub salt in the wound you have some Bungie lackey insult all of our intelligence and release a statement along the lines of, “This is the best solution to the problem...” So “best solution” means reducing our screen real estate and possibly ruining our HDTV’s with black bars on the sides? Gee, thanks. And then they’re going to ram this down our throats without any say-so from us, the gamers; whose input oddly enough they have solicited hundreds of other times in the past for every little detail. So there you have it. They’re not going to give us any options to change the formatting, because options to change mean potentially less sales of consoles and game discs and less people signing up for Xbox Live. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised with any of this. The writing was on the wall seven year’s ago when Microsoft “acquired” Bungie. We all knew this day would come… Remember the humble little game designer with a vision and a mission to make the best game possible for their fans? Yeah, well, they’ve been replaced by a company that stamps a .25 cent piece of tin with the HALO insignia, calls it a dog tag and charges you $9.00 for it. Sad times indeed…

Yes they sould put it in a patch .

Yesterday I was visiting a friend together with others and played the game on his Full HD 1080i TV. The black bars where irritating only for a view minuts. After a view moments nobody was complaining anymore. They where all screaming an shouting at the TV for in-game reasons (like getting shot).

Probably, it would not have an option (stretched vs pillar boxes) because this problema is very likely related to the upcaled game resolution (some are calling it 640p... whatever...) read about it: [url]http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=13229526&viewreplies=true&postRepeater1-p=2[/url]

I too would like this fixed,or at least be given a choice. My wife, who got out of bed at 1 AM on Tuesday when I got home with th game b/c she was so excited, was as disappointed as I was at how lame the co-op game looks on our 50" DLP Samsung widescreeen. She loves the games, finished the other 2 on campaign on NORMAL and was really excited that we would be playing H3 campaign together. I don't think so MELLON!!! It's a strain to see.... I may try the zoom or the 480p and see how that looks. Biggest let down- my kid brother is home from his 2nd tour in Iraq on Nov 2 and I took a week off to stay home and play all week and get drunk on Game Fuel cocktails and he's gonna be so disappointed at how it looks. We always have huge marathon game sessions in my living room- code named THE HALOTORIUM whenever he's staying with me- and we may just go back to H2 for online and co-op.... Fix this before Capt Chris comes home! -Danny

The other weird thing is I get the same result on my non wide screen 4.3 Epson Powerlite 76c XGA projector connected with the VGA Xbox 360 cable? Does this make sense? as now it is not trying to maintain the 16X9 ratio some one that understands the ratios better might be able to explain. You would think this would not be as big of a deal being able to project at 100 inch size but it is the resolution that is smaller so even at a really big screen size it still is a bad experience does not look correct and when you add in more then 2 players it really gets weird!

I'm also concerned about the burn in on my 57" Toshiba CRT based 1080i HDTV please give an option not just the run it at 480p work around..... Rainbow Six vegas works fine, GOW fine, COD3 fine, Warhawk fine, all in split screen! I'm sure there are others as well that support filling the entire screen.

hear hear.. give us the option of choice

Me and my brother have always finished the Halo games together. And now when we get to finish the fight we get 1/4 smaller screen then when you play slingleplayer?? Please Bungie fix this! Let the players determine whats good / bad for them. Give us the choise!!

[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] Vidoo Agreed too I'm voting to have the choice[/quote] Agreed as well. I can't see -blam!-.

Agreed too I'm voting to have the choice