Microsoft told Blizzard that 900p was 'unacceptable' for Diablo III

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Microsoft told Blizzard that the Xbox One version of Diablo 3 had to render at 1080p because 900p resolution was "unacceptable", the game's production director has revealed.

Blizzard's John Hight told Digital Foundry that the Xbox One version's rendering resolution was initially lowered from 1080p to 900p in order to maintain performance.

"We did have 1080p, but we were finding it challenging to keep our frame-rate," he explained. "Because Diablo's so much of an action game, we wanted to have a responsive feel, especially with four players.

"When you get four witch doctors in a room full of demons, that's probably the worst case scenario for us because we have effects going off everywhere. We want to make sure that it still feels very glassy, very responsive, and that's why we dropped resolution down on it."

However, Microsoft was unhappy with this decision and requested that Blizzard address it.

"We did find it challenging early on to get it to 1080p," Hight says. "That's why we made the decision to drop to 900. That's what we demoed and were showing around E3 time. And Microsoft was just like, 'This is unacceptable. You need to figure out a way to get a better resolution.'

"So we worked with them directly, they gave us a code update to let us get to full 1080p."


Blizzard initially revealed the resolution discrepancy at E3 in June, confirming that the Xbox One version rendered at 900p while the PS4 version ran at 1080p.

But earlier this month the studio confirmed that a day one update for the Xbox One version makes the game run at 1080p and 60 frames per second.

It is believed the code update Microsoft gave Blizzard was related to the new Kinect-disabling developer tools, which turn off Kinect's body-tracking abilities and free up ten per cent of GPU memory.

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Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/474852/microsoft-told-blizzard-that-900p-was-unacceptable-for-diablo-iii/

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"Microsoft told Blizzard that 900p was 'unacceptable' for Diablo III" :: Login/Create an Account :: 45 comments

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AR15Posted:

fknvlink
-Swift
AR15
Inq 900p isnt that bad i think.


It really is not that bad. However, 1080P is what users were promised which is why MS is making such a fuss.


Because if the game is not 1080p people will think that the game should not be on the X1.

I mean come on its 180p, its not that big of a difference.


It sorta is. With computers able to run at 4k and beyond it should really be a simple task for a current gen console to do 1080p. My computer is more capable then current gen consoles and my computer is around 2 years old. I honestly believe anything below 1080p 60fps is simply unacceptable.


Even though it may be minor to others, I do agree.

I feel that they owe it to us to stay at least up to par with 1080p and what not.

GTXPlayerPosted:

xSTaTiCBLuEx Devs can already not make games to what was expected of them. What a flop the Xbox One is.


That's not the consoles fault. it's the devs fault

xSTaTiCBLuExPosted:

Devs can already not make games to what was expected of them. What a flop the Xbox One is.

GaryPosted:

marsupiallizard I love reading all the comments congratulating MS on stepping up their game.

But do you people even understand what this means?
It means that next-gen consoles are just barely capable of running present day games. The only reason that MS wants them to push out 1080p is so that players think their console is more powerful than it really is.
They don't want people to know that the brand new, top of the line Xbox One is already outdated.


You realize that Microsoft is letting developers only use 20% of what the console is capable of right? If microsofta decides to bump that up then it could run most of its games at 1080p

RailDexPosted:

Rocky5
Blizzard nah its a super dooper high end game.


Good joke, it requires literally nothing to run on Ultra for PC

Rocky5Posted:

Let's look at it this way, now I have come to this conclusion using all information released to date.

Blizzard couldn't reach 1080p with a decent frame rate.
MS thought hell no this came should be 1080p easily.
Blizzard nah its a super dooper high end game.
MS were sending over some engineers to do your job for you.
Blizzard ok :-/
MS done here is the code to get to 1080p at minimal FPS lose. (Min 53 - max 60)
Blizzard yeah.

Rest of the world, conspiracies as to why they done it, Xbox is underpowered & MS doing a 180 again (spencer saying resolution doesn't mater) the list go on & on. (The latter is not directed at this site, but more so the likes of N4G & Neogaf)

-GoldCoast-Posted:

Im glad microsoft are finally taking actions to all of these misled promises.

LatiasPosted:

-Swift
AR15
Inq 900p isnt that bad i think.


It really is not that bad. However, 1080P is what users were promised which is why MS is making such a fuss.


Because if the game is not 1080p people will think that the game should not be on the X1.

I mean come on its 180p, its not that big of a difference.

It should easily be a standard in 2014. A $500 pc can destroy a PS4 and especially Xb1, the consoles are already so underpowered.

322Posted:

-Swift
AR15
Inq 900p isnt that bad i think.


It really is not that bad. However, 1080P is what users were promised which is why MS is making such a fuss.


Because if the game is not 1080p people will think that the game should not be on the X1.

I mean come on its 180p, its not that big of a difference.


It sorta is. With computers able to run at 4k and beyond it should really be a simple task for a current gen console to do 1080p. My computer is more capable then current gen consoles and my computer is around 2 years old. I honestly believe anything below 1080p 60fps is simply unacceptable.

SwiftPosted:

AR15
Inq 900p isnt that bad i think.


It really is not that bad. However, 1080P is what users were promised which is why MS is making such a fuss.


Because if the game is not 1080p people will think that the game should not be on the X1.

I mean come on its 180p, its not that big of a difference.


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