Halo 3 Beta, Part 2 : What’s Wrong With My HUD?
May 19, 2007 7 Comments
My Halo 3 HUD is broke. It literally falls off my screen. Before we get into the specifics, let’s cover the basics of a HUD just in case there are any non-gamers here.
From Wikipedia :
The HUD, short for Heads-Up Display, is the method by which information is visually relayed to the player in computer and video games. The HUD can be an important part of a game’s user interface.
Taking its name from the real-life version, the HUD is frequently used to simultaneously display several pieces of information including the main character’s health, items, and an indication of game progression (such as score or level).
I need my HUD. Eventually I will be good enough at Halo 3 that I will need to know how many of each grenade I am carrying and which one I currently have access to. Right now, I just need to know if the Spartan I am fighting is actually dead or not. A few times I have thought I killed someone but I actually didn’t and they popped back out and got me. Yeah, I’m a noob.
The Halo 3 HUD is curved to give the impression that you are truly looking out of a helmet. However, mine curves right off my screen. If I am only carrying one type of grenade, the number of grenades I am carrying is not on my screen. Part of my ammo count and weapon info in the top right corner is also missing. It is obvious some of the text that should be there is not.
A few people have told me they have read somewhere on the Bungie forums that it is because of the kind of tv I am using. I am not willing to wade through the flaming posts there to look for that information, but that explanation is certainly plausible.
I play on a Samsung TXR3075WH 30″ Widescreen Dynaflat TV. It’s not the newest HDTV but it is nice enough. I haven’t experimented with my tv settings yet to see if it can be fixed that way. If anybody has any suggestions of things to try on my end, I am all ears.
Something my tv can’t fix however is the difficulty in reading the overall HUD. The in game messages in particular (who killed who, what weapon you are walking over, etc) are very difficult to read. On Snowbound, they are near impossible to make out. My thoughts are that making the font slightly larger and changing the font color would be an improvement.
I, personally, don’t like the curved HUD. But I could learn to live with it if all the information showed up on my screen and all the text was readable.
The Halo 3 Beta Series
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
I found this on B.Net
When you buy a CRT TV the manufacturer’s overscan settings are usually too high. The reason they do this is because getting perfect geometry is difficult and they don’t want to be bothered perfecting it. The largest distortions are most noticeable towards the edge of the frame. A lot of TV’s have really bad geometry with an hourglass effect ) ( bowed in. Other times the geometry may look like this ( ) bowed out. They set the overscan high and chop off the sides so that you get a relatively straight image in the center. This is bad because you are losing information and are not seeing the entire frame. The only remedy short of an ISF calibration is to learn about your service menu and carefully adjust the overscan yourself. This is not an easy task and you will need to educate yourself about e-w, trapezoid, corner functions etc. You can do this using tools such as “video essentials or avia.” Try to get 5% overscan which is a good compromise. The cardinal rule is always write down your default settings so if you screw something up you can go back to the original settings.
NJ, thankyou so much for that information.
Changing the settings that need to be changed sounds like a daunting task. Perhaps I will pass the information along to someone a little more versed in tvs (i.e. add it to the honey do list!).
Sorry your display settings are messed up! I would suggest tooling around with your widescreen settings. You should be able to access that through the remote.
I actually really like the curved HUD. I think it adds to the realism. The coloring is a little faint. But I’m am starting to get more used to it. I still have a little trouble on Snowbound when I’m outside, but other than that I can make out text okay.
The blue flashes on the HUD when your getting shot really annoy me. They really obstruct my vision. Like you, I’ve also thought I delivered a killing blow, only to find the enemy still alive and then I’m caught with my proverbial pants down. I think the flashing in the HUD is a major factor in such encounters.
I don’t have an HDTV, just a regular ol’ one. I have noticed, though, that some stuff falls slightly off the bottom corners. Nothing major – I can still read it – but it’s only the top 3/4 of it. I don’t think it’s something I can actually fix on my TV, though.
And I agree. Snowbound makes it really difficult to read messages. I was VIP the other day and had no idea until someone killed me. Of course, it probably didn’t help that I didn’t notice I had the overshield, either.
I have to agree. I’m not loving the new HUD. Everything fit on Chris’s screen just fine, although it was a bit squished by being split-screen… I just couldn’t ready any messages without having to really concentrate on them.
The entire environment is so much more rich and complex than H2, so it’s not too surprising that it’s tougher to overlay the HUD in a way that is very visible and readable. Hopefully they can find a tweak for that because until I learned weapon spawns, I had no idea what I was standing on half the time.
The more I play it, the more I don’t like the curved HUD. I would much rather have a flat H2 HUD that is readable than a realistic curved HUD that you can only make out some of the messages. The trade off is not worth it in this case in my opinion.
I see your point but i have to say that in an ever evolving society games will change for better or for worse.