Are we close to topping out on graphics?

[Cyclonus]

From what I've seen of the new consoles, the graphics aren't that much better than the last generation. Hell, there's PS3 and Xbox 360 games that wouldn't be considered to look too bad if they were released today. This is the point where the PC master race come in to sneer at us filthy console peasants, but seriously, even with the best graphics cards, is it really going to get that much better in the future? If graphics finally top out we might be finally able to free ourselves of the curse of having to buy new consoles every five to seven years, and maybe, god forbid, it might actually set us down the road to finally agreeing on a standardised gaming platform that can play anything.

 

[9263900263]

If graphics finally top out we might be finally able to free ourselves of the curse of having to buy new consoles every five to seven years, and maybe, god forbid, it might actually set us down the road to finally agreeing on a standardised gaming platform that can play anything.

Are you retarded? Games are so unoptimized they will continue to bloat any system they touch. It doesn't matter how good the machine is because the creators will take the lazy path and let excess hardware replace hard work. It's why we have 100 gig game installs instead of properly managing texture compression.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

There is a standardized gaming platform that can play anything. It's called the WonderSwan.

 

[ZMOT]

even with the best graphics cards, is it really going to get that much better in the future?

diminishing returns make it more and more unfeasible, till the tech catches up for real time and stuff. doesn't make the creation of assets any cheaper tho

If graphics finally top out we might be finally able to free ourselves of the curse of having to buy new consoles every five to seven years, and maybe, god forbid, it might actually set us down the road to finally agreeing on a standardised gaming platform that can play anything.

lolno, you gonna buy the new phone console and you gonna like it. now keep consooming peasant.

 

[Caddchef]

The push for photorealisim has always adversely affected the creativity of developers, fite me.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I agree the leap with the new consoles isn't as big as I was expecting... for now, because you do have to give it some time, the PS4 wasn't a big leap either... at first, but after a year or two I would say the leap from PS3 to PS4 was actually bigger than PS2 to PS3 (compare say Silent Hill 3 with The Last of Us, two games ten years and two different consoles apart, then compare The Last of Us with The Order 1886 or Uncharted 4)

So it's quite possible that we're just on the verge of games reaching what is basically photorealism within this gen, if not then I would say next gen is when graphics will basically "top out"

From there I guess what will evolve will be more how we interact with games, ie VR and stuff.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Short answer. No.

Long answer. It's complicated, but barring a major computer revolution, we could max out graphics in our lifetime.

First, the lack of noticeable difference between console and PC games these days. This video is the definitive explanation.

The TL:DR, it used to be the difference between low and ultra was night and day, now games are targeted for medium settings (ie. consoles) and anything above that is just a bonus.

I'd add that video compression can destroy the finer details of a games graphics.


As for diminishing returns. That has been a complaint since games went 3D. Part of it is that being able to push higher resolutions and more frames has little benefit beyond a certain point. I still play on PC at 60fps 1080p just fine. There's also the not-so-secret that PC games are often nerfed graphically so console peasants don't feel like they're missing out.

In theory CGI could be 100% realistic, and in theory computer games just have to be fast enough to make that render many times a second. In practice, you have things @ZMOT mentioned with assets and animations being a limiting factor. People often underestimate how much work goes into a game, and how much effort goes into getting games to look good, run well, and play well.

However, in the Joe Rogan interview with John Carmack, Carmack mentioned in the next 20 years cpu's will be so small they can't get any smaller due to the physical properties of the universe, and unless there's an unforeseen breakthrough in quantum computing or some other computer tech, it will be the end of Moore's law. What would that mean for the computer industry? I don't know. Maybe console makers would agree on a standard once that happens.

Finally, there's another problem when it comes to "graphics" and that's storage. All these super high res textures and models have to be put somewhere, and with games frequently creeping above 100gb, there's going to have to be advances in storage, compression, decompression, etc. to make these super realistic graphics you crave work. To double the texture resolution, you have to quadruple the size of the file. (1x1 = 1, 2x2 = 4, 4x4 = 16). People are angry when a game is 100gb, imagine the rage if a game was 1.6tb.

 

[User names must be unique]

No, texture work might be good but thats about it, there's more to good graphics than just slapping 4k textures on everything.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Graphics are weird sometimes, while there's definitely some super impressive stuff going on now I feel like there's a lot of old 3D games that still look really fucking good, games like Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3 (especially 3), the Resident Evil Outbreak games, Haunting Ground and Rule of Rose.

Provided you aren't necessarily looking at them in the harsh of light of HD though, which that kind of raw image isn't how the games were meant to be seen, on a CRT, which is what the games were designed for (or at least some kind of filter) they still look surprisingly good.

While they're dated, yeah, they still look very impressive for games that are fast approaching 20 years old.

 

[9263900263]

First, the lack of noticeable difference between console and PC games these days. This video is the definitive explanation.

As you said consoles hold back PC. But it's not that the PS5 and xwhatever are holding back PC either, since the 360/ps3 era we're still seeing Triple A games focusing on older machines which aren't suitable for running them. Cyberpunk is a prime example of a game which had no right being on most the machines it was on and yet it was. Fifteen years ago it would have been the killer title for the PS5 generation.

But then again most games these days are remakes or expansion packs so who gives a fuck?

 

[Boris Blank's glass eye]

4K gaming is a bloat designed to get people to buy new hardware.
If I understand it correctly, ray tracing in gaming is also artificial bloat designed to get people to buy new hardware, since the technology isn't very well-suited to gaming.

There's no need for full photorealism anyway: see TF2. XIII and other cel-shaded games, and retro faux 16-bit aesthetics games.

 

[William Tell Underpass]

Are you retarded? Games are so unoptimized they will continue to bloat any system they touch. It doesn't matter how good the machine is because the creators will take the lazy path and let excess hardware replace hard work. It's why we have 100 gig game installs instead of properly managing texture compression.

Undoubtedly correct.
Adversity / Restrictions has and will always breed innovation, see any of this guys videos for evidence of that, my autism hasn't been so stimulated since I discovered pannenkoek2012

I was going to call on World of Tanks as an example of having to build a graphically acceptable game for a soviet potato but they appear to have pulled up the ladder on that somewhat since I last gave a shit in 2015.

 

[Judge Dredd]

Provided you aren't necessarily looking at them in the harsh of light of HD though, which that kind of raw image isn't how the games were meant to be seen, on a CRT, which is what the games were designed for (or at least some kind of filter) they still look surprisingly good.

I remember when Gran Tourismo 3 was confused for real life footage back when it was first shown.

The examples you list are all horror games. Games in small environments with limited camera movement, dim light, and few on screen enemies. It's likely why RE7 looks amazing.

 

[9263900263]

RE7 looked like shit. Everything was too glossy and looked fake. DMC5 shows how bad RE engine's faces are.

 

[Analog Devolved]

There really isn't a graphics war so much anymore as there's a game play war.

The race to display colors on the screen ended in the 90's. With "32 bit" computing the consoles were able to display every color available to the human eye but were held back by TV screen technology.

The most popular games in the world aren't what you would call photorealistic graphics. Companies have a much higher incentive to improve framerate, animations and online play than they do to improve graphics.

If you compare the "8 bit style" games running on current hardware to actual 80's console and cabinet games there's a world of difference that couldn't be achieved 30+ years ago.

Current games for the new generation of consoles and high end PC's don't come anywhere near their potential. The new consoles have incredible loading times and can run older games without the limitations of older hardware.

Keep in mind "128 bit" (the reason for the quotes is graphics have nothing to do with bits) is an insanely huge number of computations that theoretically could compute everything on Earth, every piece of data ever created throughout history and the entire internet. The limitation is and always will be storage space.

Without a scientific breakthrough in storage space games will be limited on purpose so they run better. Ultimately a game should be fun, and you don't need good graphics for that.

Tl;dr you have to learn to walk before you can run.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I remember when Gran Tourismo 3 was confused for real life footage back when it was first shown.

The examples you list are all horror games. Games in small environments with limited camera movement, dim light, and few on screen enemies. It's likely why RE7 looks amazing.

Ah, you've stumbled upon one of the reasons why those horror games were my favorite type of game back then, because they looked so much better than any other game at the time.

I mean I had fun playing the PS2 era Grand Theft Autos same as anyone, but those games looked like shit even when they were new, something like Silent Hill 3 was so many leagues ahead in the graphics department that it was insane, I never understood why that genre wasn't bigger in the sales department because you'd think it would have "wowed" people more, but no.

Anyway Gran Turismo is a good example, I remember watching the Gran Turismo PS5 trailer expecting it to basically look like real footage of a car race but it definitely wasn't quite at that level.

 

[Alrakkan]

Are you retarded? Games are so unoptimized they will continue to bloat any system they touch. It doesn't matter how good the machine is because the creators will take the lazy path and let excess hardware replace hard work. It's why we have 100 gig game installs instead of properly managing texture compression.

Reminder to never ever buy new games on launch. This is a lesson that needs to be learned by anyone who likes keeping up with vidya but isn't a blind consoomer. Cyberpunk 2077, Dragon Age Inquisition, Every Assassin's Creed since 2, Mass Effect Andromeda, Fallout 3/4/76, Anthem, Call of Duty : Ghosts, The Last of Us II, Star Wars Battlefront I/II, No Man's Sky, Destiny I/II, Watchdogs I/II/III and countless other games are not one-offs; they all sucked at launch and only a handful of those mentioned EVER got to a point for which it worthwhile to put any going figure down and Destiny II has even come on and then off that list with Beyond Light.

Do not give these people your money at launch and never, ever use their as-a-service bullshite unless you get lots of high-value currency over the course of playing the game or the game is completely free. You encourage the practise of low-quality releases and the abuse of hard-working people.

This doesn't apply to the fucking morons who get/want seats at the VGAs or who unironically pre-order/want to pre-order collector's editions of the above titles. They're such thick pigshit that they aren't even worth thinking about as acting either in their own interest or selflessly, they're just the swinecack that made Cyberpunk 2077 profitable for CDPR despite them lying in real terms.

I'm MATI because the only solution to ongoing developer laziness is to, somehow, get the living bollocksweat that is people like this to stop giving this multi-billionaires money for fucking them over. It's just hopeless and more gay internet consoomer drama will be manufactured by the absolute cattle that will moo over CDPR just fucking lying to them and still buy their games and the games of people who act like them at full fucking price. It's stupid, man.

 

[Lady Adjani]

AAA gaming is all but dead to me at this point, how many PC games have we had in the last ten years that could even justify a hardware upgrade? You're essentially paying a premium just so you can play poorly optimized console ports.

And lets not forget how every single publisher under the sun needs to have their own launcher, don't you just love having to use uPlay, origin, steam and the epic game store just because you want to play that one game from their library.

 

[Coolio55]

Honestly, we don't really need super HD graphics. I'd be fine if everything still looked like the PS2 because it would force everyone to make good textures instead of just using PBR shaders as a crutch. Would normies even notice if everything still looked like the PS3?

4K gaming is a bloat designed to get people to buy new hardware.
If I understand it correctly, ray tracing in gaming is also artificial bloat designed to get people to buy new hardware, since the technology isn't very well-suited to gaming.

There's no need for full photorealism anyway: see TF2. XIII and other cel-shaded games, and retro faux 16-bit aesthetics games.

I especially love it when those retro 16 bit games take up 15GB and need multiple gigabytes of ram to run.

 

[A Cardboard Box]

Lmao no. Absolutely not. The 30xx and 6x00 series had an improvement so large that they made literally every card before them immediately obsolete. Once in a decade leap in performance. Moreover, the Ampere architecture, like the Pascal, without getting too far into it, is fundamentally flawed, and the fix that is likely coming with the 40xx will increase performance by up to 60% for little increase in production price. We have so far to go in GPU tech it is insane. We are still looking at 40%-60% jumps in performance with each generation as AMD catches up to Nvidia in both raw performance and technology, and Nvidia tries to stay ahead. Things are just now ramping up.

As for consoles? Literally who cares. Consoles are going the way of the dinosaur as it becomes harder and harder to enclose the needed tech in a cheap box small enough that the consumer doesn't revolt. People are already pissed at the size of the new generation of consoles, and they already have overheating problems. You cannot run CoD: BOCW in 4k or it will overheat your PS5 and potentially brick it. Compare that with my 6700K/1080 rig that is years old that can handle the same game in 4k with better fps. The chips in the PS5 will regularly stay at 95-98°C under heavy load and spike to over 100 and force a shutdown. If consoles want to keep up they will need more active cooling and larger cases for more conducive airflow. This is a deal breaker for a lot of consumers, and I expect within the next two generations consoles legitimately being in danger of going extinct.