The future of gaming graphics

I was curious as to how you all felt about graphics in gaming. Do you care how much better it gets? I find myself perfectly satisfied with the current level of top tier gaming graphics. It would be nice if Crysis level graphics became the new standard, or even low end, but I don't really care if it gets much better than that.

 

I think that graphics are very important in all games just as much as the gameplay is. It is when one exists without the other that it can destroy a game or make it much less worthy. Maybe at a time where we did not have any 3D graphics and only had gameplay it didn't matter simply because you didn't know what you were missing (pacman).


I hope graphics improve as much as possible because it increases the suspension of disbelief and allows us to get more lost in an environment.

I am satisfied at the current level but would be disappointed if it didn't continue to advance.

 

Graphics are great, but I am more after "effects" and physics. Immersion in a game environment is more important to me than the overall graphics quality. Of course, in some ways these two factors are linked.

I always loved the Crysis engine because the whole gaming environment felt believable, everything reacted to you and other objects, it didn't feel fake, and the graphics were frigging great. Compare this to COD4, which does have good graphics, but has no physics, and feels completely "fake". When you shoot someone, a set graphics takes over for how they will die. Plus there were no physics involved.

The good thing about COD4 was it could run well on most setups, plus the gameplay was great. Crysis on the other hand, needed a beast to play it with any of the settings near high. This of course, cuts out alot of the PC player market.

But a game can strike a happy medium between the two. ARMA was a great game, yes difficult, but had a great mix of graphics with gameplay. It just lacked a little in the sound department.

My overall favourite, and one that I really do hope most games will start following is Battlefield Bad Company. Great graphics, with an awesome physics engine. All buildings and terrain are destructible. Nothing better than an environment that was pristine turning into a smoldering ruin to simulate the battle. It completely immerses you. Theres a sniper in that building? You can go in and try flushing him out. Or just bombard the building with grenade launchers, rockets and tanks to flush him out. Adds a new angle to how games can be played.

And finally the sound. They use HDR sound technology, which in short is frigging amazing. Most games just don't get across the desired affect that you are shooting highpowered, "loud" rifles. Plus the weapon sounds don't interact with the environment you're in ie. sounds stay the same whether you're shooting inside or outside. BF:BC models this perfectly. When you fire off a rifle, you actually feel like you're shooting an assault rifle! Explosions look and sound scary! Rounds make the proper noises as they fly by your position. Coupled with a half decent sound system, and you have one of the most immersive games one can play. Awesome.

So yeah, I went a little off topic there, but I am a big believer in the whole package. Yes, graphics do play a part, but its more the underlying stuff as I've gone over that makes a game for me.

Lastly, kudo's to the Crysis team for building a beautiful engine, that pushes what gaming can be forward. I am looking forward to no. 3 in the series...

 

Graphics have never mattered much to me, but about 3-5 years ago, they've hit the point of diminishing returns. That is, there is still a difference in quality, but it is far, far smaller than what it used to be over the same interval of time. The asymptote for all graphics is either photorealism or a stylized version thereof and we are sufficiently close to it that improvements are becoming increasingly difficult to notice.

I would like to see fully interactive environments though and this hasn't been done yet -- at best you are allowed to destroy stuff or clumsily push it around.

 

Games are great at this level of Graphics, but i remember thinking the same thing about Supermario 3

As far as the point where graphics will stop... Holo-Deck, then we will offically not have to go any further

 

Gameplay > Graphics, let the FPS freaks wet themselves over the latest eye-popping graphics available. I'd rather have a game from a genre I like which looks great without showing off its technical mastery of shaders and that I can come back to long after the hype over its looks has gone.

 

Here's how I see it:
murphy's law sees us taper off in a few years, then increase (GPGPU) or breakthrough (quantum) in computing and we move to real-time ray-tracing. Then breakthrough in biology and we develop brain-computer interface and all rendering + physics + all other sensory data is exported directly to the brain. If I wasn't probably going to be dead by then, I'd say "I can't wait!"

 

Thanks for all your input guys. I'm glad each of you had something unique to offer, instead of just blindly supporting better and better graphics. I had forgotten about in-game physics, and I completely agree that it would take gaming to a whole new level. Anyways, keep your thoughts coming.