graphics trends whats your opinion

Half life 2 came out almost a decade ago
Crysis 6 years or so ago

Graphics cards power is doubling every year, yet the game that come out don't look any better.

Using ultra settings vs medium adds an invisible improvement in image quality

Are people that gaming on pc being duped with the graphics settings. I think so based on the fact I own every good game in existance.

Could someone post pictures justifying ultra vs medium or high.

 

its been a while since i played crysis, but i was playing crysis 2 last night, i thought the graphics was better than crysis from what i remembered, i was especially impressed by the water in crysis 2. also i think 1080p wasnt as prevelant as today

 

I play everything on my 540M GT at 1080p no matter what settings so yes unless you need ultra then GPU's are a gimmick, a very good gimmick but the same as Intel and theirs CPU's being releaed in a way to make maximum gain and profit.

It is true that games are being ported more and more and only a couple of developers still produce the top games like The Witcher as PC only and demand the GPU power. Expect it to continue as well companies trying to create PC only games now require the PC users to pay up front before they begin creating as clearly consoles have made things far to easy to mass produce.

 

One, I have to question your claim that you own every good game in existence.

Two, if you don't think recent games look any better than Half Life 2, consider getting your eyes examined.

 

seriously, how in the heavens are you able to graphics-wise compare HL2 to Witcher 2, Skyrim, Crysis/Crysis2, BF3 is puzzling me...

 

I think he meant "since Crysis"

What you need to consider is that high end graphics like BF3 / Skyrim / Crysis etc are extremely expensive to produce, not just computationally expensive.

You're only going to see some games push the envelope in that way, but there have certainly been improvements since Crysis. Another thing that you should consider is that while graphics hardware is improving at a fast rate (probably not doubling every year, maybe 1.4x per year?) - keep in mind when Crysis was released, people were struggling to run it at acceptable performance levels, and Crytek lost a lot of sales over that. Generally, PC developers want gamers to be able to run the games they release.

So Crysis was a bit ahead of its time, and there have been improvements since then.

Another thing you should look at is your expectations of how rendering performance changes affect potential image quality changes. Being able to render twice as much when there is already a lot of detail is not going to make an image look twice as good.

 

Then why mention HL2?

 

you are either blind or trolling... if you cant see the difference between medium and ultra go get your eyes checked cuz you definitely need glasses. If you cant tell the difference between HL2 and crysis... I dont even know how to respond to that

 

In my opinion, Battlefield 3 looks better than Wolfenstein 3D.

 

Ofcourse it does! *chuckles*

 

The biggest thing I notice between low-medium-max settings is the texture quality. The other big one is shadow quality and ambient occlusion. Try running ARMA 2 with different settings and the differences are pretty easy to notice.

As for trends in gaming, I think MSAA is going to take a back seat to FXAA and TXAA. I have seen some people argue that AA in general is going to become less of a priority for developers since current displays have good enough pixel density that AA isn't necessary (I personally disagree).

Texture quality should get a big bump (fingers crossed) with the introduction of next gen consoles, I would be quite interested in seeing if I.D can improve their super streaming process used in RAGE. Personally I hope Bokeh DOF will hopefully get used more and more (love how it looks in Skyrim).

Will be keeping an eye on those so called 'unlimited detail' engines to see how they turn out (would be amazing to implement on a Freelancer/Elite/X series game, going from planet side into space and beyond seamlessly).

Ray tracing still seems like a long way off (though I think Crysis 3 is using a limited form of it).

Anyway thats my 0.02.

 

My opinion is that it all boils down to art quality no matter how technologically advanced games you make.

Hence why games from the 90s can still look great today and games from 3050 can look like desaturated crap. I honestly think games like Psychonauts look far superior to something like Crysis not because of any shaders used or dynamic shadows or whatever, but because they have such distinct and unique art that's taken genuine effort to create. By hand, instead of just adding more mathematic calculations for generating better bloom or whatever.

Half-Life 2 had a great art style with lots of attention to detail and that's why it still looks great today and will continue to do so. It isn't necessarily good graphics you're perceiving but art. And since game devs in the past didn't have all these shaders and other nice effects to work with, they had to make their games look nice in other ways, by focusing on the texture design for instance, which is why older games tend to have more unique styles (though there are some nice exceptions even now like TF2 which use hand painted textures rather than photorealism).

(I just lurk here most of the time but I just had to post in this thread )

 

Usually Ultra vs "High" or "Very High" difference is minimal visually. There are definitely newer games that push GPU limits, not to mention the ability to game with multiple monitors, and much higher resolutions than you could in the past. Today I can play pretty much every game at high to ultra detail at 1080p with mid to high end hardware, where 10 years ago, I needed the absolute highest end hardware, let alone be able to play it on any laptop.

On the AA front, I don't see it as necessary at all at native resolution, all it does is makes everything look artificially smooth. I see little to no improvement running with high AA or no AA when playing at native resolution.

 

Nice post, and I must say I agree that art direction can no doubt change how a game looks, for better or worse. However I don't like to think of art/design as part of game graphics, more specifically the underlying technology.

I like to think of game engines and the associated tech as being a canvas which the artists and designers can go to work on. Someone might improve said canvas to make it retain colour better, or make paint seem more vibrant. Or maybe someone else invents a better brush, or paint, or whatever. At the end of the day all the tools are getting better and better and its up to the artists to decide whether or not to use them. Sometimes the artist will purposely not use them to suit their own style/theme.

Some of my all time favourite games (Fallout 1, Arcanum) are isometric games with horridly old tech but still look great all down to the art direction. Then again there are plenty of games which would be amazing if they got an overhaul/remake. Look at the buzz around Black Mesa, or the Morrowind Overhaul. Personally I would love to see a modern overhaul of the Wing Commander games, it would be amazing.

Anyway, enough ranting from me.

 

I only use AA in certain games with a environments with lots of straight lines that set off the jagged edges. TXAA is absolute crap. I currently play the secret world and let me tell you... YOU LOSE ALL DETAIL! Its like I took off my glasses to play. Its atrocious.

 

Oh yes. I would also like a 2012-2013 version of Deus Ex updated to take advantage of the atmosphere created in Human Revolution.

 

I guess what im saying is graphics power is tremendously better each year but the graphics are not. and I wonder why?

Im curious about next gen, microsoft said the graphics will be as good as avatar aka photo realistic. i hope thats true!

crysis warhead is an old game and still remains king in the graphics department, if you disagree you need your eyes checked out.

 

As I see it, the increased number of polygons and textures is not a problem. These new GPUs eat polygons easily, and texture is no issue with most dedicated GPU with 2GB of DDR5 now.

The big issue is the physics and post processing, like HBAO, SSAO, DOF, Blur etc, which aren't available on HL2. The other issue I see is...

HL2 and Crysis were games and back then were made exclusively for PC. Now games are developed with consoles first and then ported to PC, but no optimization done. So PC hardware while incredible powerful, isn't used to do more amazing stuff, but to just brute force bad coding. At least that's my impression.

Nope. Witcher 2 on Ultra blows away Warhead. Metro 2033 is more sophisticated, though 4A Games need better artists and better animators, it was not up to par considering the features it was toting.

Also I don't see an issue with current graphics. Even LoL is more sophisticated than HL2, with the game mechanics and the calculations on dmg etc. The algorithms LoL uses is more sophisticated than what HL2 has. There is more to games than just graphics.

Personally I think current games look substanitally better than HL2. Bulletstorm, Max Payne 3, Crysis 2, Borderlands 2 etc, all have far more polygons, better textures, better tech than any Source game.

 

If you take the tiles that push PC hardware hard, the improvements are there, but they aren't as noticeable as say the passage from 2D to 3D and the early 3D to what we have now. The improvements are often in things that aren't as easy to notice: better lighting, more accurate reflections, better minute details, better shadows. Compare screenshots of those effects on and off and you will definitely see the difference in some games. To my knowledge, it's pretty much always been this way too: incremental improvements with the occasional easily noticeable change.

Also, don't bother comparing console ports if they are just direct ports without any extra options added. Compare Skyrim PC to Skyrim console and you'll definitely see improvements though.

 

Witcher 2looks great but doesn't have the same level of detail

 

What is this?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9900 using Tapatalk

 

MSAA is expensive, but not that expensive. If we're looking forward, MSAA is only going to become more relevant compared to post-processing AA methods. All post-processing AA methods reduce image detail, they approach the jagged-edge-smoothing problem by blurring the image. MSAA increases detail by selectively rendering the image in high resolution and downsampling. Both techniques are somewhat expensive, MSAA is somewhat more expensive, but that computational cost only becomes less and less relevant as hardware gets better and better.

No comment on unlimited detail until something gets released.

You're definitely right that the next big step is more about improving the model of world rather than increasing the polygon count. As far as games all being made for consoles and then ported to PC without any optimization done, that claim is not supportable. There are a lot of games that are coming out PC only these days (Tribes, Blacklight, Blizzard, Hawken, many more) and there are a lot of games that are going cross-platform with PC clearly as the lead platform (BF3, Skyrim, all Valve games). There are also a lot of games that are platform neutral (no platform gets significant extra features, but all are optimized well, or equally well). And there are a lot of games that are clearly tuned for consoles and ported to PC quick-n-cheap, just like you said. All flavors, and quick-n-cheap PC ports aren't dominating the gaming space, they aren't even that common.

 

I agree, some of the biggest issues of why GPU's are more powerful but games don't look drastically different is due to things like shadows, lighting, physics, etc....
Compare the PhysX in some games to older games like Half Life and you definitely see a difference. Mirror's Edge - PhysX Comparison (Game Trailer HD) - YouTube
Whereas Half Life had physics just for computing ragdoll physics and basic large objects, PhysX simulates up to thousands of particles in real time and this is a good chunk of processing on the GPU's part.

Console graphics are only as strong as a powerful desktop from 5 years ago. Hence why most games don't look much better (since a lot of games that come out don't look drastically different from what they were 5 years ago due to being multiplatform).In fact, textures and detail don't take up much processing anymore (any GPU from the last few years can display high texture settings) but it is the advancement of shadow and physics settings that force GPU's to have to become stronger. Comparing PC shadows vs. console shadows and you'll notice they are a lot more pixelated. This is because the consoles can't 100% process these shadows due to their hardware whereas computer's can always be upgraded to have better shadow resolution.

Another big difference is draw distance or the distance that objects and scenes can be generated from far away. PC's can create more objects with a powerful GPU. Look at this Skyrim video. Elders Scroll's Skyrim - Xbox 360, Ps3 & PC comparison - YouTube
Notice how the graphics at 1st glance aren't drastically different. However look at the the shadows vs. the PC. They tend to be lower resolution. And in one part of the video showcasing the landscape, it is highly apparent the PC is stronger when on the mountains in the background you could see trees whereas on the consoles the trees are nonexistent at the same distance.

Another good example is in Borderlands, where every time you entered a new area on the Xbox 360, everything wouldn't be completely rendered yet resulting in fuzzy textures. This is noticed right away in this video. Borderlands PC vs Consoles [Graphic Comparison] - YouTube

So yea, stronger GPU's doesn't mean that it is because it makes everything look better right away but its also for the increasing complex processing from different things that makes stronger GPU's necessary.

 

Are you kidding me? Horrible examples. BF3 is far from the PC being the lead platform, EA even said so, same with Skyrim. Valve games yes, but they rarely require top end hardware to run with high detail.

 

Skyrim is definitely a console port. The morons at Bethesda couldn't even port it properly so it would use GPU properly, instead you need the CPU to brute force it, like shadows. Even the UI screams console port, Skyrim is just another Bethesda console port fail, among many. FO3, FO NV, Rage, etc. Bethesda sucks, don't like em at all.

BF3 is also a terrible console port. All the things that tax the PC are garbage, just adds stupid amounts of bloom, lens flare and blurring. I believe there is a video showing even with a black screen, lens flare, bloom still shows up in BF3. Gameplay etc, all console oriented. Console was definitely the priority platform.

And as for Valve? They are not liking Windows PC gaming. I see them putting a lot more effort in consoles, Mac and possibly Linux now.

As for Borderlands? Borderlands 2 on PC does the same thing, looks fuzzy first before becoming clear. Console was definitely the priority platform again, though it is a very fun game.

As for why graphics don't look that great? That's because it costs a lot more money and resources with a smaller profit margin, return on investment than if you just make a cross platform game. Creating a game on UE3 that was built for being cross platform is a lot more profitable than what CD Projekt did for Witcher 2. Sure Witcher 2 is IMO the best looking game ever. But it took CD Projekt years to develop the engine and it did not sell as well on PC than Skyrim did, which used the horrible Gamebryo cross platform engine. Bethesda can say all they want about Skyrim Engine being different, but it's Gamebryo, it looks and feels Gamebryo through and through and just as buggy. Now CD Projekt had to spend a lot of resources to make the engine cross platform for 360.

Just saying. There are a lot more games coming out on CryEngine 3 than CryEngine2 which was made ground up for PC. CryEngine3 has focus on consoles, is much more profitable for CryTek. You wonder why graphics isn't progressing as fast as PC hardware? MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY.

 

Threads actually decent. Answered my questions.
Sucks we have to wait on the next consoles for truley next gen graphics

 

Yes it does, except for a few titles, but consoles are where the money is at.

 

I believe we will see greater leaps in graphics quality for games when the new consoles xbox 720 and ps4 come out. Basically developers have to hold back on games (for the 6+ year old consoles) so they can make the same game look nearly the same across all platforms in regards to porting to pc. Like someone else said, money money money drives everything,and since today's world wide economics are struggling, we are seeing a longer life for today's consoles and a delay in more advanced game quality graphics. But this is challenging developers to squeeze the most out of the limited consoles.

Companies make more money off console games rather than PC so we have to wait for the next gen consoles to be updated before seeing the next leap in graphics. But developers may be curious to see how well their games can look and presently offer many of the same titles to PC allowing superior resolutions and shader qualities running under much more superior processor power; plus the graphic card companies must be giving the incentive to PC game developers to try pushing the envelope a little furthur. (no facts to prove what I said above, but just my own opinion)