Are we close to topping out on graphics?

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Wow Kirby's Epic Yarn came out ten years ago. That flew by. Great looking game, too. One of the better ones that year.

Imagine the cost of making that even remotely good in 1999. It's never been easier, it's never been cheaper.

 

[Dark Edea]

Imagine the cost of making that even remotely good in 1999. It's never been easier, it's never been cheaper.

And yet modern developers still fuck up things like doors and AI path finding.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

And yet modern developers still fuck up things like doors and AI path finding.

That's not graphics though, that's on the CPU and it was very weak on consoles last gen.

 

[AsbestosFlaygon]

We don't have the huge leaps anymore, but I imagine we're a ways off from truly topping off. I mean how many people complained about the lack of advancement in the beginning of the PS3 & PS4, and yet by the end of both you could easily see a leap from their last gen counterparts. Also a lot of the gains that were made in graphics now go into other things, like bigger worlds, or better AI, so it's not like there's no advancement.

 

[Abradolfus_Linclerson]

Not that I know shit about this--I just play the damn games--but...haven't we hit the point where further improvements won't even be noticeable to the human eye because our graphics tech is better than the Binocular ~60fps ~100million CYMK Mark-1 eyeballs we're all equipped with?

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

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.

Try playing the PS2 version of Okami on a modern TV. One of the few times where a game becomes mostly unplayable due to graphics. Atlus's Nocturne engine games seem to be quite resilient to the stretching. Haven't booted it up in awhile, but remember Digital Devil Saga looking really good at the TV's default aspect ratio.

Doom and Wolfenstein 3D look great at 1080p. Not sure what John Carmack did to achieve that.

 

[Full Race Replay]

The most modern racing sims on pc look pretty god damn photorealistic but computer models of humans are not there yet. Also, character animations have a long way to go. But that is not related to the thread.