Page 3 of 5 FirstFirst
1
2
3
4
5
LastLast
  1. #41
    The Unstoppable Force Chickat's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Orgrimmar
    Posts
    20,511
    Quote Originally Posted by Edge- View Post
    They have improved considerably, especially on console. It's just not always as readily apparent, at least on PC, where they've always been able to push graphics more compared to console.

    We've had tons of new tech developed over the years, dynamic resolution scaling, DLSS anti-aliasing, HDR integration, ray tracing etc.

    And you can see in that video that poly counts and meshes are lower fidelity than you get from AAA games nowadays, in addition to texture resolutions that are as good if not better than what we see in that video which was more a RAM limitation based on my understanding. Just look at things like the fidelity of the "damaged" parts of the wall in the thumbnail.

    Progress isn't linear though, and you'll see spikes with certain advancements followed by smaller improvements over the years. The thing is more than we're going less for pure photorealism now and more for different art styles and directions to help games age better over time as photorealism ages very poorly. Not to mention that you similarly get decreasing returns on investment visually.

    Though your comparison videos aren't like for like. You have a PS1 game, a PS3 game that never pushed for graphics, and then a PC game where the graphical fidelity was one of the key selling points.
    I think a better example would be shooters from each gen.

    Ps1


    Ps2


    Ps3


    Ps4

  2. #42
    I actually feel like graphics have changed a lot if you take a good looking game like deux ex human revolution (2011) and compare it to more modern games but yeah it's not like comparing n64 to xbox.

  3. #43
    Scarab Lord Skorpionss's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Bucharest, Romania
    Posts
    4,102
    I mean yeah not all games are made equal even in 2020, in terms of graphics, but the top end from now (RDR2 and Gears of War 5 on PC in 4k and all max) are leagues above the best looking games from like 2 years ago not 10. It's just that most people don't have the PCs to run those at the highest settings on 4k.

  4. #44
    The biggest difference between MGS (2000) and Mass Effect (2010) ist the resolution. The PS1 had like 400x340 or something. Also they are 2 generations of consoles apart.

    And games are still getting better but mostly in things like lighting, particle effects and higher resolutions. The groundbreaking games like quake, half life 2 or crysis were all pc games and nowadays everything is developed for consoles first so we have to wait for new console generations to see big changes.

    For some reason people are pushing 4k resolutions instead of high framerates although more fps are way easier to achieve and way more important. Nobody needs 4k on a 30 inch screen.

  5. #45
    Scarab Lord Skorpionss's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2010
    Location
    Bucharest, Romania
    Posts
    4,102
    Quote Originally Posted by Exkrementor View Post
    The biggest difference between MGS (2000) and Mass Effect (2010) ist the resolution. The PS1 had like 400x340 or something. Also they are 2 generations of consoles apart.

    And games are still getting better but mostly in things like lighting, particle effects and higher resolutions. The groundbreaking games like quake, half life 2 or crysis were all pc games and nowadays everything is developed for consoles first so we have to wait for new console generations to see big changes.

    For some reason people are pushing 4k resolutions instead of high framerates although more fps are way easier to achieve and way more important. Nobody needs 4k on a 30 inch screen.
    Spoken like someone that never saw 4k on a 30inch screen (or even smaller). It looks incredible my dude, like legit I can't go back to even 2k not to mention 1080p. The difference is insane.

  6. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Chickat View Post
    I think a better example would be shooters from each gen.

    *snip*
    That's actually pretty perfect! You can see huge jumps between PS1-2 and 2-3 as they're all super obvious, but the leaps from 3-4 are less immediately obvious even if the scenery in the shot isn't directly comparable. Lighting, poly counts, shadows, reflections, you can see marked improvements in all these areas if you look. It's just not hitting you in the face because, as others have posted, there are diminishing returns over time.

  7. #47
    The Unstoppable Force Chickat's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Orgrimmar
    Posts
    20,511
    Quote Originally Posted by Skorpionss View Post
    I mean yeah not all games are made equal even in 2020, in terms of graphics, but the top end from now (RDR2 and Gears of War 5 on PC in 4k and all max) are leagues above the best looking games from like 2 years ago not 10. It's just that most people don't have the PCs to run those at the highest settings on 4k.
    Tbh Red dead 2 is kinda what I expect the average AAA game to look like next gen. Good, but not of the line for its time.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Skorpionss View Post
    Spoken like someone that never saw 4k on a 30inch screen (or even smaller). It looks incredible my dude, like legit I can't go back to even 2k not to mention 1080p. The difference is insane.
    I havent really made any direct comparisons, but I plan on using a 1440p monitor for the next 5 years until 90+ fps is common in 4k games. Id rather have a pc that runs games at 1440p on high/ultra at more than 60fps than a pc that can drop to the 30s and 40s at 4k.

  8. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by Chickat View Post
    Tbh Red dead 2 is kinda what I expect the average AAA game to look like next gen. Good, but not of the line for its time.
    Probably, I mean the average AAA game this gen looked comparable to GTAV or TLOU at times. You have studios like Rockstar and Naughty Dog that are head and shoulders above most others when it comes to visuals and they almost always look a gen ahead, especially with their late gen releases.

  9. #49
    Quote Originally Posted by gd8 View Post
    because capitalist greed is causing us to stagnate in every single aspect of society - technology, medicine, science, art & entertainment, etc.
    This is flat wrong. In addition to making huge leaps and bounds in tech, meds, science (maybe not so much art, but who cares), even if we WERE stagnating, it would be thanks to people continuing to accept the status quo and continuing to dish out more money for essentially the same product without demanding improvement. Sounds like people are the problem for enabling the greed.


    it generates more profit to make the millionth version of an existing product with very minor improvement than working on something innovate
    Again, fault of who for making it more profitable to do that? Also, still kinda false. Plenty of revolutionary things have come out and trounce the current environment.

    Tesla being probably the most prominent and well-known example.

    Quote Originally Posted by tikcol View Post
    If anything games nowadays forfeit complex and engaging systems in favor of pretty pixels.
    This is my biggest gripe. I want more games with complex systems like dark souls, not more FPS point+click to win games.
    Last edited by BeepBoo; 2020-02-12 at 05:47 AM.

  10. #50
    Consoles are kept in mind. We've just reached the end of this generation's life span. We're about to see what the PS5 and Xboxcock are about to be able to pull off. That's when we'll see the massive improvements in graphics and tech.

  11. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    This is my biggest gripe. I want more games with complex systems like dark souls, not more FPS point+click to win games.
    Dark Souls and complex systems being used in the same sentence. I guess we have come full circle with the dark souls meme to where people relate it to everything. There is nothing complex about a handful of stats and a punish/don't get punished combat system.

  12. #52
    The Unstoppable Force Chickat's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Orgrimmar
    Posts
    20,511
    Quote Originally Posted by Tech614 View Post
    Probably, I mean the average AAA game this gen looked comparable to GTAV or TLOU at times. You have studios like Rockstar and Naughty Dog that are head and shoulders above most others when it comes to visuals and they almost always look a gen ahead, especially with their late gen releases.
    Im almost as amazed by Read dead running as well as it does and looking as good as it does as I was with GTA5 on the 7th gen. That was a technical masterpiece.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Stardrift View Post
    Consoles are kept in mind. We've just reached the end of this generation's life span. We're about to see what the PS5 and Xboxcock are about to be able to pull off. That's when we'll see the massive improvements in graphics and tech.
    I mean most games will look about as good as Red Dead, but imagine how good ps5 games will look in 6 years when devs learn how to squeeze out every ounce of power from next gen systems.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by Tech614 View Post
    Dark Souls and complex systems being used in the same sentence. I guess we have come full circle with the dark souls meme to where people relate it to everything. There is nothing complex about a handful of stats and a punish/don't get punished combat system.
    Dark Souls is kinda like a fast paced rock paper scissors in a way.

  13. #53
    you arent going to see much improvement of the primary character model anymore, right now we are seeing a significant increase in detail to all the subtle little things. liek the way individual leaves blow on a tree, instead of a uniform tree motion with its leaves. the spring back of grass blades being blown at varying rates. terrain remaining changed when you walk over things, instead of a foot path that disappears about 10-20 steps past the camera. the reflective patterning of light against high gloss leather pants, significant improvement to shadow casting and light sourcing, the little shit that the majority of us dont even notice, because of the game play drawing our attention to the games objective instead of pretty scenery.

  14. #54
    Quote Originally Posted by Tech614 View Post
    There is nothing complex about a handful of stats and a punish/don't get punished combat system.
    Spoken like someone who hasn't played the game and can't comprehend the nuances it offers.

    Timing, positioning, stat break points, gear heavily influencing stuff, etc. It is a game where literal microseconds makes the difference and precision is demanded. The gameplay is as skillful as FPS (note: skill and complexity are not interchangeable) but not as boring because there is a lot more variety. In every FPS it's just "get fucking shot by something".

    I don't expect someone who reduces a game with as many systems in place as dark souls to "some stats and punish/don't get punished" to understand, though. You probably think something like turn-based RPGs are king.

    What is more complex? Keep in mind, complexity is all in the ACTIVE gameplay, not the builds behind the scenes before you start clicking buttons. Buttons behind the scenes are not gameplay. They are things that affect the gameplay itself. Case-in-point: Path of exile. Can make some incredibly wild and crazy builds, but they all amount to the same thing: spam one skill and murder/move as fast as possible.

    Quote Originally Posted by Chickat View Post
    Dark Souls is kinda like a fast paced rock paper scissors in a way.
    Not really. It's like rock paper scissors gun, where the better player gets the gun and beats everything else if the build is done well.

  15. #55
    Hardware is too expensive and people are hanging onto their old hardware longer these days, so to sell units devs have to cut back a bit on how games look.

  16. #56
    Because advancing graphic technology is an expensive undertaking compared to say making 10 mobile games hoping 1 will stick and earn you gazillions

  17. #57
    Some people must be completely blind or havent played as many games.

    Sure, the character models have reached a peak for the last few years that aint new, even then they fixed a lot of things, on the models themselves when it comes to clarity/cleaniness.

    But pretending the graphics havent changed is being literally blind, the changes in physics/lightning, even shadows in some engines are massive.

    I still get an "Oh" moment in BFV and i am playing at mostly ~mediumish graphics when the reflections/lightning and even the grass moving compared to 5 years ago, and dont get me started to 10 years ago.

  18. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by BeepBoo View Post
    Spoken like someone who hasn't played the game and can't comprehend the nuances it offers.
    Wrong, have the platinum in all 3. Didn't even bother reading the rest of your post with the whole "you didn't play it!!!!" response back.

    The game is quite simple. You either block, circle strafe or use i-frames to avoid damage and when the mob uses a punishable attack you punish it with damage. This is a very basic concept that dates back to beat em ups in the arcade and a core concept of fighting games that have far more complexity to them then Dark Souls circle strafing for free punish opportunities. In a fighting game you have to actually create your opportunities, not wait on a dumb AI to use an unsafe move with too many recovery frames because good players don't use trash like that outside of hit confirms.

    Just because something has tighter tuning then most SP games and doesn't hold your hand through it doesn't magically make it "complex".

    But this is getting pretty off topic and not sure why Dark Souls got brought up in a thread about graphics to begin with since from software will likely never be that great at visuals.
    Last edited by Tech614; 2020-02-12 at 08:38 AM.

  19. #59
    Epic! Pakheth's Avatar
    7+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Location
    The cold hell known as Norway
    Posts
    1,738
    Quote Originally Posted by PACOX View Post
    Graphics have improved. A lot. Improvements might be as obvious as going from 2D to 3rd, from cubes molded together to actual shapes.

    Graphics improvements now are based on how much subtle/impressive details you can place on a screen. Grass that's not just a single 2D sprite repeated at set intervals. The same repeating bump map for terrain. NPCs that are really just recolor of 3 models.

    Now particle effects have weight and volume. You can do a lot more with lighting. Props and backgrounds can be more uniquely detailed and dynamic.

    There's also less emphasis on pure polygon count and more on stylistic approaches and optimized approaches. There's no point in in making a game as groundbreaking as say Crysis at its time where you trade substance and system power just to say you have the most realistic looking game. Also doesn't help if most people can run it or have to turn the settings down to the point they can't see the work put into the game.

    People want to blame consoles but forgot that consoles give devs a controlled environment to work in. The risk of weird hardware anomalies are cut down due to working on dedicated, static hardware, built on top of of a custom OS. PC can be a lot harder. You have worry about what Nvidia is doing, what AMD is doing, how is Windows going to treat your game, drivers breaking your game, other software breaking your game, the multitude of rigs you need to account for. Do you shoot for people with high end rigs? Midtier? Do you need to future proof your game?

    That's why on PC you'll see devs use old engines until the owner of the engine refuses to maintaining legacy support out of letting the dead die. Why a dev might choose a kinda crappy/limited engine because it's at least battle tested and won't just break. Why you might have had DX-xxx on your PC for years but no dev will implement it.

    Pushing the boundaries on PC is risky, expensive, an no one is going to give you money if you were brave enough to take a risk that will benefit devs 2,3 years down the line but your actual project was DoA.
    Thank you for mentioning how much of a pain in the @$$ game development for PC is. For all the "PC master race" people crying PC is best it is a harder medium to develop for and companies will prefer the stability of consoles.
    My husband is a game programmer and he very much prefer the rigidity of console development and one of the games they made they still have a PC bug they have no solution for even years later because it is so rare(only 2 reported cases) and they don't even know where to start to fix it. Too many factors, usually on the user side due to all the different hardware and software that they need to accommodate for. It can be a true nightmare.

    And to be honest when companies do commit to only one console we usually get some really impressive games because the devs don't have to worry about having it run on multiple different systems. Look at Horizon: Zero Dawn for example. That game is gorgeous and runs smooth as butter on PS4 Pro. I bet my ass that on PC most players would have to be grateful for a bit toned down graphics and probably a bit of stuttering should it have come out on PC. I feel very few players(due to cost and constant need for upgrades)can truly play PC games at the highest settings aka "the best".

    @OP
    So yes, consoles are holding graphics back per se, bit this is very much a choice by the devs due to cost and general sanity. On the other hand things tend to run smoother, we have more objects/NPCs on screen at the same time and there is more focus on physics, particles and lighting, not to mention texture depth.

    Another little thing people forget is that game devs use everything they can to make a game run smoothly, often using simple things that the player doesn't notice to simulate good graphics while it necessarily actually can do those things. Field of depth, pretend group AI, static backgrounds, or something as simple as billboards on objects in the background. However as the technology has advanced we can now do the same things but without the smoke and mirrors which is very impressive but something most players will never notice.

    And like others have mentioned a stylised art direction is usually chosen to avoid things like uncanny valley and because stylised games usually age better. With a stylised style you can also exaggerate and make it more relaxed than a strictly realistic style.
    Also:
    Graphics =/ photo realism
    Graphics is a collected term and can mean anything from visuals, style, lighting and so on. A stylised game can have great graphics.
    Spyro: Reignited Trilogy is a good example of great graphics with a stylised look. It sadly has some FPS stuttering on PS4 though.

    Also as many others have mentioned it is harder to sell games today on looks alone. Back in the day all you had to do was make an impressive CG trailer and you would sell games. Today people are a lot more critical and care more about gameplay(demanding actual gameplay trailers) so the devs do too. And to be honest I am glad.

    I wouldn't say we have peaked, just that there is a lot more going on under the hood than before.

  20. #60
    Stood in the Fire Penegal's Avatar
    10+ Year Old Account
    Join Date
    Jan 2010
    Location
    Bulgaria
    Posts
    454
    Graphics haven't improved because there's no damn sense in wasting money on something like that considering such a small part of the playerbase will play with them maxed out. It's just a financial decision.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •