Is Next-Gen Visual Fidelity Really Worth It?
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 21 авг 2024
- ► Watch the FULL video here: • DF Direct Weekly #136:...
► Support us on Patreon! bit.ly/3jEGjvx
► Digital Foundry RUclips: / digitalfoundry
► Digital Foundry at Eurogamer: eurogamer.net/...
► Follow on Twitter: / digitalfoundry
The biggest issue is that the actual games have not evolved these past 10 years. Some enemy AIs from the 2000's are still better what we get today.
Fear
@@mattfm101 I saw somewhere that FEAR didn't even have a REALLY GOOD AI. The thing was that the guy who developed it worked together with the level designer, so the AI worked really well on those enviroments, so it wasn't that advanced, but the trick was really good and convincing
@@FoxDie77777 It is still good AI. Enemies react accordingly depending on the context.
Absolutely. Not to mention physics. There are games from the early 2000s that have incredible physics and AI. Games like Red Faction: Guerilla, FEAR, etc… I just started playing Rage 2 again and forgot how incredible the game is. Still amazing with AI, visuals and Physics that unfortunately destroy 99.9% of modern games.. Even the first Rage still looks great.
I agree that games have not evolved in easily, 10 to 20 years. We are still just playing the same old games, same old gameplay with Slightly upgraded visuals. Especially from last generation. There really hasn’t been anything that has pushed the modern machines all that far. Even now, three years in, and we haven’t seen much of anything that seems remotely next generation. very few games that make you think they are a leap over what we’ve seen before.
Gameplay wise, everything is the same. There really hasn’t been any innovation worth mentioning. I would love to see real world physics, allow for us to be able to shoot the statue that falls on the car that explodes and kills the enemy with a tire flying through the air. I would love to see enemies being able to do the same thing to me. Using the environment as a weapon, which means every step that you take and everything you see is possibly going to be used as a weapon to kill you.
AI that uses the environment intelligently. Understanding the intricacies and using them to keep from getting hit by a stray bullet… something that truly amazes me with FEAR and its sequels, along with games like Rage 2. Developers seem incessantly devoted to mediocrity. it seems very few take advantage of great AI or physics. As many have stated, at least so far… raytracing hasn’t really improved visuals enough to warrant the resolution drop or frame hit.
Raytracing means nothing, without Ray bouncing, which is very costly when it comes to GPU power. I think raytraced reflections are highly overrated. Quite frankly, because most developers use a screen space solution along side of it, and it ruins the fluidity of the visuals. Global illumination is awesome… especially when it’s real time. though, only at certain times of the day. just like in real life. Raytraced shadows are cool, until you realize that the real time solution that developers have been using for the past 10 years are fine on their own, without Raytracing.
It’s not that I don’t like raytracing, I really do. It’s just that, at least up till now, it hasn’t been enough of a leap to warrant the downgrade in anything else. Until we can get real time, ray bouncing… Where surfaces will take on the color and light from bounced rays around them. Which will make everything pop and give it a real world feel. Up until the point of time this is possible in gameplay, at least on consoles… I think developers should just focus on making the best looking, best playing game they can.
Instead of worrying about technical wizardry via raytracing… maybe think about adding real world physics and realistic AI to the games. Make us feel like we’re playing something that we’ve never played before.
There's an argument to made that AI (as in recent AI developments with machine learning) might make bots more interesting. Also AI might make NPC's actually talk without voice actors doing unlimited hours on scripts.
One of the reasons why games like RDR2 still feels ahead today is because of how the objects in the environment react to player actions.
Many modern AAA games look flashy but are so dead at the same time
But its the graphics to bro its being pushed
Interactivity makes such a huge difference. I remember being blown away by being able to flush toilets in games like Half Life back in the day
Red dead 2 literally was a groundbreaking game when it came to graphics tho
But none of those environmental interactions offered any meaningful interactivity. Functionally they were rarely more than a neat little flourish here or there. Breath of the Wild is _miles_ ahead of Read Dead 2 in that regard because not did it actually possess genuine environmental interplay, but it was deeper, more dynamic, and was far more integrated into the moment-to-moment gameplay experience.
@@joe9966it still is
I think were just entering areas of diminishing returns where we really have to sacrifice lots of performance for little perceived gain in graphics
Because the worst rendering methods were picked, until a few years ago there were many demos with comparable fidelity using a fraction of the hardware being pushed nowadays. And many other promising methods were abandoned due to the lack of interest by the big companies (which rely on accelerated planned obsolescence). This is also affecting raytracing since it's much more costly and it borrows a lot from the terrible choices made for rasterization (such as spatial subdivision, how to store geometry and textures, upscaling, lighting simplication methods such as probes or accumulation, ...).
Not to mention insane storage requirements.
for me its not about the graphics but the costs the developers have. to create nearly photo realistic graphics is very expensive and costs also a lot of time to create.
which mean the prices of games will rise over time, which we already seeing. imo we will reach 100 dollar per game soon if this goes on.
its much better if devs would invest these ressources in gameplay, not unnecessary graphics.
todays games on the ps5 and xbox practically play themselves, they are mostly nothing but glorified graphics demos which are playable to an extend.
but most of the games now only consist of cutscenes.
Rt is the biggest culprit especially with ue5 making lumen so easy to implement
This is the argument I wish they had actually discussed.
Ithink it's time for most AAA to push towards the other more important aspects of making a good game. Ie. Fun innovative game mechanics, engaging story and AI advancement in NPCs and such.
That would require actual talent and creativity and not just throwing money at things, like soulless husks that they are..
To me it's about interactivity. Either with NPCs (which will be enhanced by AI in the future) or with the environment. That's why HL2 was so revolutionary. We haven't seen anything like that before.
Nowadays, I think Control... So they can do crazy interactive stuff if they choose to do it. It was a conscious design decision and without it, the game wouldn't feel the same. Graphics go hand in hand.
For me personally, I am still amazed on how intelligent the enemies are in F.E.A.R. 1. A game released in 2005, having better AI than newly released games.
Nope I think they should keep on pushing graphics , I couldn’t care less about those things you mentioned , I play games for the graphics , everything else is secondary to me.
Games just need to be built better and people just need to quit buying bad games. Graphics aren't the issue. Poor game design is the true culprit and graphics is just the scape goat people are using. You can push foreword graphics without sacrificing game design. We just need to expect better and quit buying bad products at launch. The more people buy them at launch the less incentive they have to keep doing what they are doing
I'll settle for 60 fps over ray tracing 8 days out of every week.
30 fps at 4k with pretty lighting is not worth the downgrade in gameplay 99% of the time.
Strong art direction and style with a high framerate is desired.
Totally agree and we are not even getting 30 Fps at 4K in these modern games, we are lucky if we get 1080p native at 30 fps
The issue is that we arent even getting 4k 30, games now are around 1080p-1440p 30fps ussing FSr2 that end up on a blurry mess, i dont mind playing games at 30fps but even the 30fps modes dont bring the benefits it used to had like a sharp image
Raytracing allows developers to build much more advanced world interaction as well. Lightmaps are the primary reason why many games are so static and part of why it feels like high graphic games have stagnated.
RT lighting allows devs to make games that are both dynamic and amazing-looking. With RT many more games can utilize stuff like Bethesda's world interaction without any graphical downside.
@@TheLingo56 sounds like an AI response.
Final Fantasy 16 is the worst - not 60 FPS and not 4k either. But it has "ray tracing" so it's all worth it 😂
I think a big part of that problem is visual clarity and perceived resolution.
Sure, visual fidelity has improved a lot (with a lot of diminishing return from the layman's perspective), but still, when you see some recent releases, you can have the most impressive PBR materials with the best raytraced lighting, infinite polycount for your static meshes, but does it REALLY matter when everything becomes a blurry mess the second you turn the camera?
The image is always in motion during gameplay! I know AAA games like their "cinematic" look, but that also goes to hell the second the player gets control.
It feels like perceived resolution has dropped back to the ps3 era, even while running stuff at way higher resolution than back then.
Temporal artifacting, dithering for transparency, lack of msaa, fine mesh details, all coupled with reconstruction techniques, low framerates and bad framepacing ruined visual clarity!
Some old 3D games with higher internal resolution look absurdly good. You take MGS2 and run it in 4k on an emulator and it's like a new game. Or Silent HIll 3. Half-Life 2. Hell, even Virtua Fighter 3.
We traded visual clarity for excess detail.
What good are your fancy PBR materials and infinite geometry if I can't see shit the moment the camera moves? A waste of money, effort and talent.
That's why the AAA industry is unsustainable, the diminishing graphical returns for exponentially increasing budgets DO NOT match.
I feel some studios should pair some stuff back at this point, specially action games. Maybe invest in stylization. Games look too similar, art direction seems to have also vanished from 'realistic' games at some point. It didn't feel like that in the PS3 era.
Agreed, a game being super sharp, not aliased and a high frame rate more important than super realistic models and lighting. The former is much more pleasant to look at and more immersive. The latter is nice but in a game the fun comes from the gameplay and distracting blurring and frame drops take away from the experience.
What Oliver said at 1:49 is true but he acts like that is not a negative thing but it really is a problem.
You really hit the nail on the head when you said that we traded clarity for excess detail. That's actually part of why I loved cross gen games on PS5 was because those games usually had great clarity since they were initially designed for last gen consoles/lower end pc's. The devs could usually use a good anti-aliasing solution combined with some upscaling or even checkerboarding to give us clean looking games. But they didn't go overboard with the upscaling solution either, they did what really looked good.
Perceived resolution is much higher if you're actually playing on a high resolution screen. Anti aliasing has gotten better too and playing those modern games on a 1080p or even 1440p monitor doesn't do them justice. Same goes for the motion blur issue you mentionned, if you play on an OLED screen you have instant response time, meaning zero added motion blur, which can look unpleasant if you don't add back some motion blur into the picture, especially at 30fps.
At some point, upgrades aren't gonna look very substantial if you don't upgrade your screen to something that will make the difference more apparent.
Is the blurriness from camera movement due to LCD technology (sample and hold)?
Hmmm, I want to agree but im playing 2077 with all rt features and dlss, so I have to disagree. Sure , there is slight loss of resolution but the trade off is higher frame rates. Frames affect clarity in motion, not resolution.
I think the "worse graphics" argument is more concerned with swollen budgets + AAA games playing it increasingly safe (in terms of gameplay types, writing, themes and so on). Everyone wants better graphics, but it now feels like shiny graphix come at the cost of everything else
And graphics end up getting mixed with the hate
This is precisely it. Better graphics are nice in a vacuum, but the cost in terms of money and labor feels like it's scaling faster than the impressiveness of the graphics themselves, and that extra cost means the games have to be as safe as possible to appeal to the widest possible audience and often have to include as many revenue streams as they can fit.
Well what were some of the biggest not playing it safe AAA games. Forespoken is probably the most unique and redfall was a huge divergence from what the studio used to make. Both bombed. Innovative games are usually failures. Also i mean look at the game of the year. All sequals or remakes. 2022 only 2 new IP 2021 2 new IP 2020 new IP. The market has spoken 18 GotYs are sequals or remakes IP 6 are new IP in the past 4 years. Best selling games are annualized like CoD, Madden, Fifa.
@@jiggerypokery2962 They weren't exactly innovative either though, they both followed a model from previous service or open world action RPG's and made a bad impression from the whedon-like writing of character dialogue. IP doesn't mean much when the games between them are samey.
@@j377yb33nforspoken feels very different from previous square rpgs, but the visuals look just like final fantasy
I value higher framerates, art style and interesting gameplay. I don't really care to see every droplet on a leaf fall, it's cool if it's there but it isn't all that necessary to me. I find things much more visually appealing when they have a distinct style/art direction compared to just looking more true to life.
That "worse graphics" quote in full:
"I want shorter games with worse graphics, made by people who are paid more to do less. And I'm serious."
Translation: "Modern games are too long and too focused on graphics, and the developers are overworked and underpaid."
And the budgets and development cycles are crazy. Which amounts to less experimentation and even raw output by the studios. Everybody loses (except for the shareholders).
And it has been like this for >20 years.
Thanks for putting that here. It’s a shame someone would try and put it out of context
I think the core issue is that many of us are upset that too much development effort is put on graphics and not enough on gameplay, leading to broken releases at worst and release delays at best. And of course, too often there's a price to be paid for FPS. We really thought that with current-gen consoles 30 FPS would be dead and gone! It's not that we don't want good visuals, it's that we think the priorities and balance are wrong.
This is the reason why I'm still playing the Switch and haven't gotten any interest in upgrading from a PS4.
@@Sir_Psych Right on. Although, I would consider upgrading to a PS5 because it can play many 30-FPS PS4 games at 60 FPS. You can treat it kinda like a PS4 Pro Pro. :)
@@EmblemParade lol giving Pokemon GO Plus+ vibes. Definitely will get one at some point, just not rush so I can wait for a real good deal (which doesn't look like any time soon)
@@Sir_Psych This is the right approach. Gaming is for gaming. Too many people spend so much time and effort and money, especially in the PC space, on the technology. If you enjoy it as a hobby in itself and can afford it, great! The bigger problem is the one I started with: devs and some console makers (not Nintendo) want you to keep spending money on new hardware. Many of us are tired of it because for a long while now new consoles barely deliver new gaming experiences.
Where? Cyberpunk and rdr2 r the best in graphics right now in terms of open world while capcom has the best graphics overall with Sony but ppl saying what your saying makes no sense to me
Interactability is where they should be pushing next. In essence Physics, especially now that we have great CPU's for these consoles. Mindset wise a lot of developers and managers still function that of last gen.
The issues right now are:
a) core utilization is still very inefficient even on modern software, so performance is heavily limited.
b) CPUs don't advance that much gen-on-gen compared to GPUs.
c) CPU performance is poorly scalable in most games (particularly the ones where a GPU bottleneck is intended, which is again most games) for whatever reason, so if you get undesirable CPU performance on default settings, chances are that lowering the settings won't do enough for you.
CPUs have proven capable of handling physics of a much greater quality than the buggy ones we're used to in mainstream games, but we aren't really at the point where we have enough resources to do truly lifelike physics simulations. In essence, we need software innovationsthat makes it possible and convenient for developers to take full advantage of CPUs, and better hardware would certainly help too, but until then, developers need to do a better job at optimizing their games and making their settings reasonably scalable for a reasonable variety of CPU hardware.
I agree. Just look at the two most recent Zelda games.
And they run on a mobile chipset.
I'm excited for what Nintendo presents to us next year.
It's also worth noting that part of the reason physics objects are unpopular is because they break lightmaps. With raytracing devs can make worlds with much more dynamic interaction where the lighting doesn't break.
@@fabior.9326 The newer Zelda games are also built around fully dynamic lighting by using stylized graphics. Most modern games take the realistic lighting approach which means lightmaps. With lightmaps you're far more restricted in how dynamic you can make the game design because moving objects too much breaks the lighting. With raytracing you can have both great lighting and dynamic worlds, so odds are in the future we'll be seeing games with more world interaction.
Gran Turismo 7 is a great example of the problem, it does look amazing, however, Kazunori Yamauchi was quoted saying that each car takes about 270 days to be developed for the game. When you balance the huge list of cars and tracks in the game and the small amount of single-player progression the game was released with, and even now after the Spec II update it still pales in comparison with the older games.
A lot of people, me included, consider that game to be a lot less fun and shallower than the older games from GT to GT6, and wouldn't mind a less graphically impressive, but more fun game to play with.
Art direction, animations, physics and interactivity, lighting quality, consistent performance, visual clarity, and sound design are some of the things I look for over raw graphical fidelity.
I think this gen has been focusing so much on looking real that it neglected making games feel real and fun to control and play. Not that every game needs to be play realistically. I just think the games that market themselves as realistic should also feel realistic. Even something "simple" and cartoony as Mario Wonder feels a lot livelier than a lot of these super realistic looking games.
It would be nice to see more studios prioritize smooth performance and higher framerates. The controls feel so much more responsive with higher framerates.
I would rather see gameplay evolve rather than graphics…
Like I wanna see 100 enemies on screen with some mind bending physics
We’re just waiting for Rockstar to raise the bar again.
Honestly art direction is a much bigger factor in a game looking good imo. Every game these days looks so samey, there's nothing to give the wow factor. Everybody pursues photorealism like its the only thing people want to see. "Guys you can see each hair on Kratos beard if you pause the game and zoom in! Aren't we amazing!!?"
(Didnt pick god of war for any reason, just a modern game I'm aware of)
And as others have said. Sure the games are getting more graphically intensive, but the way we interact with games has not been innovated since the PS2 imo. We have lots of interesting tech, even if maybe not feasible to use yet, I'd like to see more ways to interact with the game worlds.
Art direction and graphics are one and the same. Realism is just one style ina sea of different art styles
In my opinion this generation has brought almost instant loading and game switching (series x) and developments on quality of life improvements (Cross-Play, Cross-Save) that transcend graphics. That is way important to me I would say. I would stay at the graphics level we're at and focus on 60 FPS entirely if I could. Nintendo and Blizzard take that approach where they priority is gameplay and not JUST graphics. Graphics to them seem like a 3rd or 4th priority
I'd say Blizzard's focus is monetization. ;)
Vampire Survivors GOTY
I think a big thing that is kind of missed in the 'new gen games, particularly UE5 ones, don't look much better than previous gen games' is the amount of work it took for previous gen games to look that good versus the amount of work it takes to get the same results in UE5 (or engines that have or are developing similar tech). The point of tech like Nanite and Lumen isn't so much 'make game look more good' as it is 'make game take less work.'
In previous gens the art pipeline involved hundreds of man hours of taking high fidelity assets and retopologizing and UVing and baking to get game ready assets that would be almost indistinguishable from the originals, and then more time making LODs and tuning LOD transition distances to avoid noticeable popping. Nanite (or, to a lesser degree, mesh shaders like Alan Wake II uses) all but eliminates that workload (at least for static meshes. But that's still a LOT of time saved).
And then lighting is a whole other kettle of fish: baking lighting can take DAYS (unless you dump an absurd amount of money on a render farm for it), and involves a lot of time adjusting lightmap resolutions and lightmap UVs for different assets, and that has to be done over and over again as assets get updated or layouts change. Or if you're doing real-time lighting having to do tons of lighting hacks to fake global illumination and having to settle for 'good enough.' Lumen makes that easy because you don't have to bake lighting any more. Or you can use Lumen for the overwhelming majority of the development cycle to tune your lighting and get the look where you want it, and then go through and do many fewer passes at baking lighting now that all the assets are finalized (assuming of course that you don't want things like a real-time day night cycle or something).
Baked lighting hasn’t taken more than an hour since like 2009 - a single consumer GPU can lightmap even a large level quickly.
It’s really not about time that much, schedules are similar, so I don’t think this argument really works
@@nolram Yeah, no. I've worked on games in the past couple years where the light bakes took over night on multiple Threadripper farms. And these weren't huge AAA game worlds.
"In previous gens the art pipeline involved hundreds of man hours of taking high fidelity assets and retopologizing and UVing and baking to get game ready assets that would be almost indistinguishable from the originals, and then more time making LODs and tuning LOD transition distances to avoid noticeable popping."
That's literally what your job is, if every dev had your mentality gaming wouldn't be where it is right now as we'd still be stuck making PS3 tier visuals because boohoo we wanna skip the optimization part and just throw more hardware at the problem hoping that will fix it (in practice it doesn't because one shitty mindset leads to another, and as we've seen countless times, Lotf as a prime recent example the result is a game that even on a high end build still suffers from things like shader compilation stutters, traversal stutters....
When it comes to alot of things in IT, and even in EE (specifically signals) you're never supposed to retain 100% of something, the sweet spot is the effective value which happens to be around 70%, you can compress a png by 70%, reduce its file size by 80% while still looking as you put it "almost indistinguishable from the original", same thing with a blender render with 1024 samples instead of the default 4096, you can even take a look at the evolution of UE3 and how we went from games like the original gears of war to arkham knight, or how games in UE4 like Days Gone stack up against State of Decay 2 which is another UE4 game, Lies of P was made in UE4 and looks better than Lotf while still delivering a performance mode that isn't a blurry mess.
Refusing to do a decent job just to make life easier for yourself while knowing full well the result is gonna be a blurry mess that in no way lives up to the standards of the generation will always lead to your game not selling and your studio potentially shutting down or suffering massive layoffs (Ascendant Studios as an example), and you're going to be overshadowed by people who actually know what they're doing, I can already tell you GTA 6 is gonna wipe the floor with anything that's come out this gen while still using classic rasterization methods, and the people who will make it are also paid workers, the difference is they don't cut corners then act surprised when the result is shit.
theres games developed by 1-5 devs that look better than UE4 triple a studios popping up
@@nolram I'm not sure where you got this info from. Having to manually place and adjust thousands of light sources in a way which looks good when rasterized is far more time-consuming ray-tracing which does everything in real-time and only needs a few light sources.
With Nanite is the same, having to create different LODs for every asset and making sure each version looks good, then tuning it so it adjusts the LOD properly... it's super time consuming, in fact I'm pretty sure it's one of the most time consuming elements of game development.
Ray tracing and stuff like Nanite will become the norm because they look better and cut down on time, the performance cost is too large for the most part right now though.
Yes! This is what I have been thinking for a while. I was so perplexed by all the reactions to the matrix demo and felt that the game was a complete visual mess with awful clarity when I played it on PS5 and then the city demo on PC. Same goes for games like Spider-Man 2 and even big stylized games like Kena or Ratchet and Clank, which have more visual clarity than Unreal games but still fail to look pleasing in my eyes.
Some weeks back I played Cocoon on a whim and I was absolutely stunned by the graphics on a 4K screen. It is a very simple style but artistically driven and executed with perfection. There are no artifacts whatsoever, everything is crystal sharp and clean in motion, and the materials are free of any shimmering and noise. I wish the big players would dare such styles.
Graphics are in the diminishing returns part of the curve. It has always been the case but I think will become more evident in a few years: artists and good programmers (quality of professionals, not quantity) can make a lot more difference than hardware.
Adding here, I can't think of any games for ps5 that couldn't be done with simpler graphics on ps2.
Exactly. We're at the point where major developers cannot deliver graphics impressive enough to distract audiences from the fact that indies are doing more interesting things mechanically while looking good enough.
No they aren’t we still haven’t reached realistic graphics yet. However graphics getting to that point bores the hell out of me and the industry is far to focused on realistic graphics.
@@flink1231That’s a really flawed argument right there.
@@flink1231 didn't ratchet and clanck used the ssd to do instantaneous in game teleportation or some shit?
Loading times and responsiveness of the console is a huge upgrade for me this generation. I see the visual upgrades too, but for people who are not nerding over games, I think reduced loading-times and more stable performance are more important than the "minimal" improvement to graphics. A friend of mine invited me over to play Lego Skywalker Saga on PS4, the constant stutter in multiplayer got me a headache. The graphics weren't as great as I am used to on PC, but it was the lack of smooth of gameplay that made me want to stop playing. I imagine playing the same game on PS5 is a huge upgrade in overall experience, disregarding graphical upgrades.
Bad graphics can reduce the immersiveness of a game, but bad responsiveness can destroy it completely.
Yup I agree completely. Also from the tests I've seen the game runs far better on PS5/Series S|X. People miss the QoL updates in better looking games or other smaller things. You don't realize how much it changed until it was gone like with your experience with Lego Star Wars on PC vs PS4
The push for systems were never about loading up game, that was just part of the reason. The whole point was to revolutionize game development so developers could literally do anything they wanted without having any bottlenecks.
The Cherno (game dev) said it himself that games with the new technology specifically in consoles could now be possible to make infinite in size without lowering graphics, but also making graphics better.
I really like the Series X quick resume feature
What's the point of progressively better graphics if the games themselves are not as fun as something like Vampire Survivors?
Buddy flappy bird was fun… But that doesnt mean we should base game design on it.
Those games are fun because they are simple as hell, while being simple is exactly the issue with todays games blowing up too much budget on visuals, therefore having to end up with simpler gameplay.
Yeah gameplay wise you're totally right my friends and I have said feels like the whole world of creative is blocked and new ideas are rare
It's a false dilemma.
I'm kinda tired of the logic that 2D games have "worse graphics" than their 3D counterparts. I think it's a disrespect to the work put into 2D games as a whole
@crestofhonor2349 yes 2d or 2.5d or even sidescrolling 3d if some devs want a pixelart or cell shade or even hand drawn art style that's somehow worse graphics not everything needs be photoreal Jusant is a beautiful example of how UE5 can be used in stunning effects without photo realism or even textured at all great gameplay as well
The issue is, we're getting games that are using new technology so poorly, that people are having to turn down settings and resolutions to the extent that they look worse than their predecessors on the same hardware. I don't think we've ever experienced anything like this.
Energy prices are forcing that on me.
I’m putting 60fps caps and turning settings down from ultra cause 500w per hour for me is 15p.
Lowering setting and framerates I’m down to 8p per hour.
Frames Per Second is more important than Resolution, I'd rather have a game run at 60Fps at 1080p over 30Fps at 4K.
Somehow you guys missed the law of diminishing returns. Even jumping from PS3 to PS4, the uptick in geometry detail, resolution, and framerate was noticeable. Then the PS4 started showing games at 1080p60, or 4k30. Now the PS5 shows games at 1080-1440p60 and 4k30, and the increase in geometry is much less noticeable. We've pretty much passed the point where adding more geometry makes a visual difference. UE5 now has Nanite, which is theoretically cool, but realistically makes everything everywhere run bad because it's largely using geometry at such a high scale you can't see it anyway. So now we're in this area where it's taking more and more processing power for less and less returns, and the processors themselves are starting to hit that diminishing return.
Raytracing is cool, I played through Metro Exodus entirely in RT, but over the last 20 years we've gotten so good at faking lighting that doing raytracing is a massive performance hit for not much different visuals, especially for anyone who doesn't know how insane it is to be running RT in real-time. Like any time people showcase RT they look at reflections, which is neat, but I've never had screen space reflections ruin my game enjoyment. They also don't know how beneficial RT is to all the other aspects of lighting, because we've faked it so well.
So at the end of the day, the 3070ti I just bought is already struggling when previously I had my 2gb 960 for like 6 years.
The fact that tech like raytracing makes good lighting easier than baking means that more time can go to those other important details. So it is not all just about absolute theoretical fidelity, but also how can it improve dev and the overall game as a result (nanite fits into that bucket as well). Once mainstream hardware can easily handle RT, the same that happened with shaders, it could prove that plugging in the sun or a few lights is quick and straightforward.
Nanite is a net fps gain though (unless you are planning to make a very small game with low end requirements). Raytracing is not.
yeah but it doesnt translate to that does it. These games are still at the same level as they were over 10 years ago and you need 2000 dollar to run them. None of this is good
I imagine a big part of the focus on "next gen visual fidelity" by developers is to avoid fielding questions from investors like: "Hey, that game looks just the same as the last one, why do you need a bigger budget?"
Short answer, yes.
Long answer: the graphical upgrade is too minimal for the cost, and the cpu could be used to create a more interactive world, not a correctly reflective world. Same with gpu utilization, which could be used to generate more fluid gameplay.
TBH, I wouldn't mind at all if we stuck with graphics just the way they are now or even if they where like last gen games, as long as Dev's instead focused on improving several other important aspects of games. Things like higher frame rates, decent game content, a well created world, engrossing gameplay, well written storylines, accurate object physics and innovative new ideas. I'd sooner play a game that runs buttery smooth, which has creative gameplay, is engrossing, captivating and a lot of fun to play, with the caveat of only having fairly 'Meh' graphics. Rather than play a very shallow, generic and dumbed down borefest, which plays like a drunken slug travelling through mud, with it's only boon being "It looks stunning" (Just like several AAA games released this year). Dev's are just far too focused on chasing after the graphical golden goose and trying to out do each other with all thier flashy but highly demanding fluff, instead of focusing on other aspects of the game that are really in dire need of improvement (and have been for quite some time).
Video game graphics peaked when characters got individual fingers.
I'm not so old (35), but I never cared much about the graphics. The gameplay comes first and foremost for me, that's never changed for almost 30 years of gaming. If the game not fun, no matter how good the graphics are or other elements, it's not worth playing. When it comes to visual presention of the game -- the most crucial part for me is ART. Yeah, it can be clunky and rough technically (like many japanese games) but if the art is great I'll get the visual satisfaction 100%. If it's comes down to the tech stuff -- I'll always prefer FPS over picture quality. Especially games with fast-paced gameplay, like shooters, fightings and actions. In terms of visuals overall I'll say that I'm comfortable with first years PS4 games level of graphics, like Infamous: Second Sun, Order 1886, Bloodborne and etc.
I'd say the newest stuff is just a justification of nickel&diming for the the new graphic cards. What I most appreciate about the new gen is definetely loading times. It's a miracle for me especially because I am playing many games and most of them are kinda long, like RPGs. It's a game changer for a smooth experience.
The ART is part of the GRAPHICS. You do care about the graphics and I'm tired of people saying they don't. A game that looks like crap will rightfully be called out for looking like crap. You can't have good graphics if the art sucks.
@@crestofhonor2349 You're obviously misinterpreting the words. In this context, graphics is talking about sharting out the most realistic image you can, whether it looks nice or not.
Art is looking not at individual pixels, but at the broad concept of what is on the screen and why.
This is why people talk about graphics being overhyped - A game can be beautiful without having the best graphics in the universe. Take "Satisfactory" as an example - It's nothing close to realistic. But that doesn't stop it from being beautiful.
Now I don't think that means graphics have no place at all, pushing technological boundaries is good. But game designers shouldn't be scared to say that not every game they make doesn't need the latest and greatest rendering pipeline with all the best whiz bang features.
@@almc8445 Graphics was never about how realistic a game is otherwise any game that strays from graphical realism automatically is worse than anything that has a slight leaning towards realism. Graphics is the visual presentation of the game itself and all of it's elements. Art direction is how to describe a specific part of how the game looks visually, specifically the style of the art. Realism, cartoon like, anime, hand drawn, pixel art, and low poly are all part of the style of the graphics shown.
This is why 2D games are inherently worse looking graphically just because 2D games rarely strive for realism. You can push the graphical boundaries while still having an extremely stylized look to the game.
People ultimately are talking about the same thing and your preference for the art style for the games will vary from person to person. Presentation is important because it's often your first impressions of the game before you even play it. Having bad graphics, which often has poor art direction, ultimately leads to poor first impressions leading people to want to avoid it.
@@crestofhonor2349okay zoomer 😂
My age has nothing to do with this and neither does yours @@artbyddp
Tears Of The Kingdom proved that artstyle still trumps visual fidelity. Armored Core 6 proved that performance still trumps visual fidelity. At the end of the day striking artstyle and smooth performance will always be more important to gamers than photorealistic graphics fidelity.
Facts!
TotK is the best game I have played this year and that conveys an important point as the games I want to play in the future.
As a guy who still prefers playing retro games such as classic Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem, etc, I personally don't give a shit about graphics. Gameplay is what matters to me. The graphics could be literal stick figures for characters. As long as the game is fun and engaging, I don't care. I'm among those who wishes developers would stop putting so much focus and obsession on ultra photorealistic graphics, tons of post processing effects, ray tracing, etc.
Art style is huge , the ‘realism’ is secondary to me
The problem with newer game is that the visuals are pretty much impossible to run at great settings and make them run smoothly. A prime example is FF16 on PS5, it looks good but only when standing still. For the most part it’s choppy and jittery in motion at both 30 and 60 fps, not to mention the drops to 720p.
The only way to make the most recent eye candy titles is to have a top end gpu like a 7900xt or 4080; anything less will look good but run at 30fps, stability not guaranteed.
I disagree. You don't need a 7900xt or 4080, but you also don't need to play everything in 4K.
Just give me good performance and focus on fun. Last of Us 2 was a ps4 game that looks amazing and runs perfect on ps5. I feel like we can chill with advancing visuals and prioritize games running well
I mean, thats one of the most expensive games ever made and it still is a better visual showcase than a lot of current gen games are
I wouldnt set myself those expectations, id just end up dissapointed.
Or even better, lets start making good games rather than the same gameplay ideas reskinned over and over and over.
@@markedone494 but then surely that level of visuals should be less expensive and difficult to achieve now in the next generation right? People should demand more in my opinion. We should not settle for games that run so much worse just to accommodate such subtle improvements.
I love seeing the new shiny graphics. Diminishing returns gen on gen now. How many more generations until they are of photorealism? Is that the goal? It what I wished for standing in an arcade as a young un. The days of Megadrive to Saturn & PS1 to PS2 leaps in graphical fidelity will never come again.
As a kid, each leap in graphics meant seeing something you've never seen before. Now that each leap isnt as impressive,
I guess we need new types of games/stories/experiences to really impress people again.
We've had diminishing returns for decades now. From ~1980 to ~1990 to ~2000 was the jump from Pac-man to Doom to GTA 3. We've not made nearly that amount of progress in the last 20 years, even though processing power exploded exponentially. But that's to be expected with maturing technology.
My biggest issue is that games are becoming blurrier, and I hate it. Crisp, good native resolution, or close with anything other than TAA, is so much more important than ray tracing reflections!
Gotham Knights VS Arkham Knight
I remember watching the ps5 announcement and the only game that felt like "the next big step" being Ratchet and Clank.
It weren't the graphics, it was the way the rifts work, thanks to the console's ssd.
And yes, older games feel more unique. Big companies spend millions to give us the best graphics, but games tend to feel a dime a dozen.
What I want today is: more power to run other types of physics simulations and more advanced server technologies. This should bring a more distinctive imersive experience to the players.
I'm playing red matter 2 on quest 3. While it's not the pinnacle of graphics, for a mobile chip I was fairly blown away by it. The fine details and higher resolution of the textures in that game give it the illusion of looking almost like low settings on PCVR, compared to other titles that have the flat, half assed "mobile game" textures. So I agree, the devs have to care about what they're doing when attempting to make a game look good on any platform, but at the same time the new hardware and updated engines will take time to work out the kinks.
My problem with most new games is the overly soft and blurry presentation. 1440p TAA looks like 900p with FXAA, even if no DLSS/FSR is used.
agreed
As so many people said again, new graphic but old games, bring innovation in gameplay!
I've heard that for 20 years.
I think there really needs to be a push for environments that actually react to your presence/actions and generally deeper interactivity. Sure, raytraced lighting, reflections and shadows look stunning and help with "realism" but the illusion immediately falls apart when I try to actually interact with anything the game doesn't want me interacting with and I'm reminded that 99% of everything I'm looking at is completely static.
As much flak as it gets, Star Citizen is where the industry should've been 5-8 years ago. The reveal of Star Engine and the ways you can interact with your surroundings is incredible while also still looking like a AAA game. This just goes to show that this level of interactivity is possible, but that nobody wants to do it either out of sheer laziness or publisher meddling
The peak of Next-Gen graphic leap was Console Generation 5 to 6. We've been in diminishing returns ever since.
The jump from 6 to 7 was still big, but noticeably not as big as the jump from 5 to 6, and it was mostly carried by the jump to HD resolution, rather than actual fidelity. The jump from 7 to 8 wasn't fully apparent until two years into the generation's cycle ("Bloodborne" was the turning point, IMO). And the jump from 8 to 9 has been so small that we've been three years with cross-generation games without any major complaints aside from the most fidelity-obssessed gamers.
ps1 to ps2 is still the greatest 3d jump ever. It was insane to see at the time
The problem is that 99% of gamers are not DF subscribers. Most people don't care about the small details of how RT works, or know what ambient occlusion even is. For the vast majority of people graphics have gotten as good as they need to be. You could honestly stay on PS5 and XSX for a decade or more and I don't think most would be asking for new hardware. I was (and still am) of the opinion the 8th gen didn't really NEED to end, at least from a sheer graphical horsepower perspective. I've yet to see any game come out that truly justifies a new PS5 purchase. And by that I mean something that could ONLY be done on PS5, and something that truly elevates the gameplay experience. RT is not that.
The SSD
Barely even noticeable in most cases. Barely any games use them to their fullest. Could easily have been added to a newer model PS4 without a press release, barely anyone would've noticed until a teardown was done. @@mlgcactus1035
@@mlgcactus1035 so thats a no then
@@TurboMintyFresh on what?
I think the inflated prices of hardware, and the less disposible income everyone has nowadays plays a part in it too. people arent as willing to upgrade as they would be 10 myears ago.
As a game dev and artist I can absolutely appreciate what the new tech provides, but when you balance that with every cost it's often not worth it. Like you said there's the cost in time, in hardware, in performance and even in energy consumption. I believe that once the current tech matures, devs make better use of UE5 features and better hardware is in circulation we'll truly see the difference, and that will be the last time. Right now a well crafted last gen game is more appealing than a mediocre current gen game, and whatever comes next will truly be impossible to tell from a well crafted game made with current tech.
I can't imagine needing better graphics than Cyberpunk on a high-end computer, but 25 years ago I said I couldn't imagine needing better graphics than Gran Turismo on the PS1. I guess I was right, though, because that game still looks awesome.
Agreed that it's also about the minute details, not only raw graphics. Creativity and having a good "feel" for a cinematic approach almost always trumps raw graphical fidelity.
I think graphics and art direction are two different things. When you just look at ticks on a chart on what a game has graphically, you miss out on the game's direction. For instance, Monster Hunter World still looks amazing. The art direction was so well done that I sometimes forget it's a 5 year old game.
I think art direction and graphics are one and the same thing. They both ultimately contribute to the same thing, the game's presentation. Without the game's presentation being good it won't work. A game pushing more advanced techniques doesn't make it graphically better than a game that pushes less advanced tech
@@crestofhonor2349 I use graphics as a measure of a machines capabilities and art direction as in a studio's creative vision based off of hardware. Monolith Soft has made fantastic Xenoblade games on Nintendo's hardware, taking advantage of what strengths the system has. That said, more demanding titles made for other hardware, like The Outerworlds, is too much of a cutback. Beauty can be made on anything provided the canvas and the tools are appropriately laid out.
The last dude nailed it, a good looking game is not good looking because of the tech it uses, it's a question of presentation (camera angle, color contrast, etc), so to some the evolution of the hardware might not matter that much.
Asking for worse looking game is incomprenhensible tho.
Yes exactly. His commentary should be heard by the entire community of video game, because everything is in shambles, and games aren’t gettin any better and people are making up ways to justify it.
Coff Coff “Lower you’re expectation” 😂
Totally agree with John here. Great tools and hardware mean nothing if they aren't used fully. The switch is in the same power bracket as PS3 but games for it are often praised for their stunning art direction and use of the available horsepower.
Will also add the proliferation of TAA I think is having an effect as people that play games unconsciously are put off by how blurry everything has gotten, esp as Rich mentioned, low res-upscaled to high res blurry soup games. Bring back raw pixels, even if it's lower fidelity. If the PS5 can't render a game at 1080p they need to turn down the graphics or figure out better software optimizations.
I see the argument that a lot of developer are pushing themselves to the wall because of how resource intensive next gen games are... And in that sense I'd say it isn't worth it. If a truly innovative game was released with last gen graphics similar to Uncharted 4 or God of War would anyone say it looked bad?? Look at Elden Ring.
It's also worth remembering that a lot of the best games of the last few years have come from Nintendo, on a 2015 mobile chipset.
60FPS\steady frame rate should be a bare minimum requirement for most games. GoW: Ragnarok in performance mode should be where we're at in the current console generation.
For me, the one aspect of cutting edge games like AW2 and UE5 games on console that bothers me, is a general feeling of fragility. Things shimmer and fizz, aliasing isn’t great and it’s made more noticeable by 4K displays. I’m finding myself seeing the imperfections more than what’s working, the flaws just scratch my eyeballs a bit.
GTA 5 PS5 update is bafflingly stable. Nothing is jaggy, nothing shimmers or fizzes. Its an old game, and so this make sense, but it showed me how important a stable and consistent image is.
It’s as simple as companies doing the bare minimum because bone heads think everyone needs to have low expectations/standards for a game.
Now it seems that everyone is starting to notice that 4K 60fps is completely useless and just advertised for cash grabs.
@@balloonb0y6774k60 looks beautiful and those games dont achieve it on console, so i dont get your point. Fast paced games would also be unplayable on console with less than 60fps
@@cooltwittertag beautiful?? Do you you even know what 4K is??? All it is, is a higher pixel count. For any monitor that’s 32inches or under, you literally can’t tell the difference from 1080p to 4K because the pixels are already so small. Hell, my phone isn’t even close to 4K and yours probably isn’t either. Sometimes I literally think my phone doesn’t have pixels because of how small they are.
@@cooltwittertag ps5 and x are very capable of doing 4K60. Just because a couple last gen games don’t do it doesn’t mean they are incapable
@@balloonb0y677 this is quite literally not true, stop spreading misinformation. Just because you dont even know the basics about our eyes doesnt mean you get to just lie about it
I add another thing. Environments were more interactive before. Now things may look graphically better but it’s mostly non interactive eye candy.
I think it's true for the average PC owner. Only the most expensive systems can run those high end games at a playable frame rate. It's so much nicer when you play a 10 year old game and it runs at 4k 60 flawlessly.
I actually recently stopped playing Alan Wake 2, because the gameplay was excruciatingly boxed in for me. I think the game looks quite good! But a gen ahead? For the performance cost? I don't think so. I started playing Ratchet and Clank in stead of AW2 (a polar opposite title in terms of gameplay and stimulation) and I think the game looks INSANELY good. Maybe because it's not going for realism stylistically- but maxed out, the game runs at about 3-4 TIMES the framerate of AW2, in huge open environments, with lots more going on game-engine wise.. (and on par with alternate dimensions on tap behind the scenes.) Both games absolutely maxed at 1440p, DLSS quality in both titles.
The problem with today's "next gen" visuals is that they are simply trying to compensate for real-time vs prebaked effects. Most of the time, they look exactly the same! Until something dynamic happens, the pre-baked effects probably still look BETTER. This is the gaming gen that will go down as wasting our resources switching from baked effects, to real-time traced effects.. much in the same way that ps3-ps4 era generational uplift was "spent" on going from horrible performance to stable performance.. with somewhat similar visual fidelity.
Alan Wake 2 is one of the most overrated games I've seen in a while. I have no idea how so many people are praising that game like it's the best game so far of this generation. It's gameplay is not that good and graphically it just looks alright, it doesn't compare to A Plague Tale Requiem from last year.
The graphics industry could really benefit from better displays that are not sample and hold by nature.
I have a pair of Nebra Anybeam MEMS laser projectors that on the whole cost less than $500, they run a signal at 720p 60 Hz but at that resolution it is capable of CRT style motion clarity while displaying true black.
The real world resolution of two of them running in tandem is about 640x720 but it's crystal clear in motion and at about a 98 inch display size.
The problem isn't with using low resolutions it's with having displays that simply cannot accurately display that data.
That's another reason why I love CRTs. Having no native resolution mans that pure pixel count doesn't really matter. I can play at 720p or 1080p and still have the game be just as sharp as it is at both resolutions
For me the defining PS4 generation wow-title was Driveclub. Almost a decade after it still looks and feels on par or even better than the recent titles. And it haven't even had a PS4 Pro update...
So even though simulating an object is easier than a human body (and advancements in animation & organic materials are great), but yeah, the point is kinda valid.
Agreed. We don't really need 4k digital eyelash rendering 😀
My first gaming experience is the Sega Master System 2, anything looks good to me. Im all about the gameplay. All the looks in the world wont save a bad gaming experience. Art direction is also a massive thing to me, solid art.
Damn. Ouch.
The Master System was a high end beast of a console when it launched, and graphics alone nearly sold me one.
Damn. Ouch.
The Master System was a high end beast of a console when it launched, and graphics alone nearly sold me one.
Honestly I think graphics looked better 10 years ago when the devs really concentrated on the art direction. These days it's like the devs expect the tech to cover for the lack of art direction. There was a time where you could say objectively that there was a graphics improvement. At the moment it's purely subjective, and if the implementation kills the framerate then it's all for nothing. Give me a game that will maintain 120fps over any imaginary graphic improvements.
Why I personally can't be excited for RT today, or graphical improvement in general, is primarily the performance cost. And even if you have access to an insanely powerful graphics card I still don't think the leap in graphics does a huge difference to my enjoyment of a game (only about 5% or so compared to good rasterized graphics). The only game that has TRULY excited me on a new level these last couple of years was Half Life Alyx. And guess what? it uses baked lighting and parallax corrected cube maps for reflections... It looks incredible! And it is the most engaging and fun experience I have had in decades. And guess what? Innovation didn't come from graphics improvements (although the game looks amazing), but rather the interactivity and how I engage with the game world. So yeah, I'm on the camp that I wish AAA VR development was more of a thing. Where developers are forced to be creative again.
I think going forward visually will depend on conpanies like Ninja Theory and Remedy who've come up with innovative ways to eek more juice out of their budget with less toward the end of the gen as always well get surprised by some maybe more unlikely devs
Ninja Theory sucks
Gameplay & Art Direction > Graphics 100% of the time
After playing RE3 & Ghost Of Tsushima on PS5 with the graphics features turned on when available I'd say we are in a good place right now. They should just iron out the framerate to run smoothly when raytracing and other graphics features are on. I don't see why we need to push graphic fidelity further atm. I would just be happy with smooth framerates to match the amazing raytracing & image quality.
I noticed in RE3 with raytracing on, it looks amazing but when I see zombies moving in the distance you can definitely tell somethings off. So yeah just get smooth framerates to run with the graphical features maxed. I'll be happy.
I would say it is worth it in the long run for a variety of reasons. There are so many advancements being made within the tech used in these engines that there is still a lot of headroom left. The consensus every gen, going back to the PS3 era and earlier is always ‘games look fantastic, how much better can they look?’. Now people would shit if we kept PS3 graphics to this day in the name of 120 fps on console or something. Consoles will always struggle like this though as advancements are outpacing the hardware, which over a 6-8 year gen becomes outdated quite quickly. Last gen would have been even worse had it not been for pro consoles and the mid gen refresh. If console players continue to want 60 fps, they need to accept a 2 console purchase per gen or deal with 30 fps. Updating visuals every 10 years is going to hold the industry back as this is the draw for casual players and why gaming is such a huge industry today. Make it more niche, and we’ll get far less games, and variety, year over year as less devs throw their hat in the ring. I think the problem today is that console players look at the hardware as if it should do what a current gen high end PC can do, and that is just never going to be the case. With how scalable engines are these days, and this will continue, consoles and low to mid range PC’s will get a lower end version. I don’t think that’s a bad thing in itself. Expectations just need to be reasonable. Although I blame Microsoft and Sony for setting the 60/120 fps at 4K with RT marketing standard that people ate up, but was never going to be feasible.
But even if we did all agree. Visuals sell. So you’d always get devs trying to one up each other. If everyone else scaled back visuals, someone would buck the trend and make a powerhouse and take the lions share of cash. It’s competitive and this is how it goes. It’s really more about art style than anything anyway though. We have some games from 7-8 years ago that rival triple A titles today due to technical prowess, smart art design, and great optimisation. What I think we’re seeing today is more devs getting a handle on new engine tech and things will settle down at least a bit. Especially when upscaling methods become better over time.
I think a lot of people lose interest in graphics because people start to realize they just want GOOD.. GAMES.. FIRST. You can make it as pretty as you want but gameplay always wins. Graphics draws people in and draws attention but the product we buy is called a videogame, not a video. not ''a graphic''. Its the game we want, its gameplay we want.
Maybe im just speaking for myself but even for a graphics junkie like myself im starting to lose interest in the newest triple A Unreal engine 5 games and getting more interest in the good old games, indie games, etc.
I could see the improvement for PS3 to PS4 instantly and it blew me away and bare in mind the first PS4 game I played was an indie game. I forgot what it was called I think it was a PS+ and the gameplay involved light and shadows. The jump to 1080p with detailed textures was mindblowing to me. With the jump from PS4 to PS5 to be honest I also thought the games looked like PS4 games. The thing that actally impressed me was the loading times in Spider-man. The reflection just had me thinking, is that an N64 alternate universe in there.
Contrast? (PS+ title)
I remember how even DF looked at some early PS5 game trailers like Horizon 2 and Miles Morales, saying that they’re so much more advanced than PS4 games… only then to find the exact same games released on PS4. When even DF can’t tell what’s next gen or not, you k ow we’ve hit a wall.
Gotta say ark on ue5 looks stunning compere to ue4 it would be a good video to compere these two engines since it's the same game
There are comparison videos of the same scenes being ported from UE4 to UE5. It looks better but not enough to justify the hassle.
@@vitordelima but optimize setting is much needed I have 150hour on the game still haven't got my settings right
@@infidel6347UE4 during the end of its life had both baked and realtime GI in such advanced stages it's hard to see any improvement compared with Lumen.
On gt7 what looks really bad are the environments (trees, bushes)
The car models and the road look really good.
IMHO games end up looking worse because of the sacrifices to image quality needed to make for example the shadows look "more realistic" that I wouldn't even notice unless DF pointed it out.
Art style vs Matrix-like "visual fidelity" any day of the week.
Artyle+ Graphics > Artstyle > Graphics
@@masterodst1 I agree with your premise when graphics are in service of the art style. Say, Cyberpunk 2077 as a recent example, but not when the graphics technology is subject to mediocre art direction (and at the cost of performance), like Immortals of Aveum/Forspoken/Starfield.
@@ignaciojaramillo6232 That's a really good example. I remember people saying Immortals of Aveum didn't look impressive or look boring. THAT is what happens when you've got a fancy new engine with all the bells and whistles going but the art direction is yawn inducing. It reminds me of how tech demos are TECHNICALLY impressive but artisitcally they're reguuarly really dull and uninteresting.
More games like Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Stars the better.
@@ignaciojaramillo6232 To be fair that Matrix stuff is purely a demo. There wasn't really much of an artstyle with that one. If you're pushing tech, you need artstyle as well. The Rockstar Games, and even Horizon series have incredible artstyle.
@@awsomeboy360 When I referenced the Matrix I was thinking about the movie, rather than the UE demo, because as Mobius says, the simulated world looks realistic, but "off".
The biggest thing is devs are trying to push more assets and more graphical fidelity without considering resolution (they are but just not in the way that would be ideal; visual clarity) so what happens is they rely so heavily on FSR2 to the point where the benefits of higher resolution is lost inadvertently turning the goal of more assets into a less ideal venture. So there really needs to be a more balanced approach rather than saying whether they can but if they should
A lot of people are saying games not looking as good back then but they actually do look really good it’s just the clarity is lost in this upgrade
I agree. Another issue is games just not using hardware properly which leads to overly heavy games. The issue also doesn't help when many games launch with poor CPU utilization so tech like FSR and DLSS do nothing when the GPU can't even stretch its legs to begin with because it's hampered by the CPU being underused. Jedi Survivor and Starfield are great examples of this in action. Doesn't matter how good the GPU is if your CPU can't let your GPU work hard. Ultimately I don't really blame upscaling because when used right it's a massive benefit allowing for prettier visuals at a much higher perceived resolution
You're absolutely correct! I understood people teasing gamers who emphasized the essence of resolution last gen but we can see now that in spite of better hardware , we have significantly worse looking games because of the pathetic upscaling technologies that developers have embraced for their games.
Advance warfare ps4 disc on my ps5 which is a native 1080p game looks better than some so called current gen games now.
@@lordspalse0062 I wouldn't go that far to say Advanced Warfare looks better than modern games. It looks nice but there are plenty of games that look better on current gen
@@crestofhonor2349 Resolution wise he's objectively right, upscaled 720p with FSR 2.0 doesn't look as good as native 1080p, it looks like you splattered vaseline all across the screen and it's shit, you should be upscaling from 900p to 1080p as the worst case scenario if you want it to still look okay-ish but you have a bunch of clown ass 3rd party devs thata didn't get the memo yet, hopefully the GTA 6 teaser next week makes them get their shit together.
@@crestofhonor2349 what I mean is that sometimes a simple native 1080p resolution with tangible visual settings on a 4k Tv looks better than the so called upscaling technologies many modern games use today that simply mess up the game's graphics.
I think there are a few factors at play here. There was time when console manufactures used unique hardware and those differed drastically from PC. Because of that you didn't have to say anything to convince people that Strider on the Genesis looked different than anything on the NES or how amazing the Dreamcast looked. It didn't matter the TV or other variables, it pretty obvious. Nowadays all the games look, sound and control pretty much the same and that includes PC. I feel we reached a point with PS4 and XB One that games look good enough. You really need to split hairs to really see a difference anymore and to see a difference requires specific TVs or monitors and setups. I mean the difference between 480 and 1080 is huge, but the leap from 1080 to 4k really isn't that impressive.
I simply think not all games should strive to push the graphics to their absolute limits, it's just not always appropriate or the best choice for every single project. There's definitely a time and place for absolutely stunning visuals, but I don't think it should be considered a standard, unless you're willing to wait a long time for game releases.
Consoles need to stop trying to display pc high end settings
They should make a pc only game that pushes the tech like crisis 1ndid way back. It would never happen but would be cool to see how it would look
Problem is very few PCs and even top end PCs display PC high end settings with good performance.
I use my 3060 ti to regularly go back to System Shock, Thief, and Deus Ex. It doesn't matter how advanced the graphics are by modern standards if the game itself isn't up to the design of 20-30 years ago.
Yep, with my 3060 most of the games I have installed is still stuff from late 90s-early 2000s. Games were never as good since that era.
1440p-2160p at 60fps is all i need just give me that every game am satisfied.
I think I have some of my own thoughts on thie topic. I think the new gen graphics are greatly advanced indeed, actually so much more advanced than previous gens. But we have to look at this with the question - does it necessarily enhance the gaming experience? Gaming is an interactive media and we can't separate the visuals and look at it alone.
In my opinion - Because of fidelity of the new gen graphics are largely increased, it actually made the experience worse. There are simply so many elements on screen for a human to perceive in every frame of the render. In contrast to that - the interactive definition is reduced. When I play Alan Wake 2, the first thing come to my mind is OMG that looks awesome, then following the question like "Ok where am I going now? I can't see my path clearly" Because the forest looks so much detailed and the intented "designed" element is sometimes invisible. I had that exact same feeling when I played Dishonored 2 in contrast to Dishonored 1. Dishonored 2 is a much more realistic and artistic archieved game, but the game experience is far worse than the first one because of the same reason I guess.
When we humans perceive clearly defined things, we feel nice, otherwise we feel lost and confused. I think a lot of new gen titles are falling under the confused category, and high graphical fidelity definitely are contributing to it if not well utlized.
At the same time, higher frame rate is making graphics weaker in some ways imo - think about this, a 30 fps game and a 120 fps game, which one is easier to hide it's flaws? Of course it goes to the 30 fps one because it simply has less frames showing any potential flaws of the visuals if there's any. The real world is full of motion in every blink of a second, and with today's tech, it's still too hard to simulate all of them. Actually the higher I go with frame rates, I find that the graphics tends to look faked. If I wanna have a realistic gaming experience, the first thing I do is to lower frame rate to a 30-40 range, maybe with a bit of motion blur - that will erase the potential flaws we can perceive by a huge percentage and game all of sudden looks more believable. So I'd say, going after numbers is not always making things better, like the fps, the screen resolution etc. The most important thing is to keep a balance between how to maintain an overall believability of the visual, and reducing perceivable visual flaws.
And last, realism is boring - because when things get more real, they are just more "accurate". After seeing many accurated rendered games, it's hard to ask people to continue keeping their interests in them. Instead, we are more easily attracted by older games, because they are less accurate and more "artistic", "inspiring" ... whatever you can call that. I worked in the industry as a concept artist for over 12 years, and realistic styled game is the last thing I wanna work on, because it simply lacks possibility for creativity on the visuals. Espeically for video games as a media, should be the most imaginitive and fun one among all the other medias on this planet. Stylized graphics just simply have so much more potential for this media as whole.
That's my personal thoughts I've been wanting to spill out for a long time, I think I rarely heard people mentioned some of the stuff I pointed out above, and I hope maybe my thinking can help.
Gameplay and graphics are not mutually exclusive. Neither are graphics and art. Video games are a synthesis of art and technology.
I think a hard requirement for all PS5 and Series X games is that they need to run at least 1080p internal resolution at 60 fps in order to be published. I care much more about a smoother experience than things like ray tracing and particle effects. FF16 I feel like would be just as good without all that and would run a lot better than it does in performance mode. I feel like devs should prioritize the performance mode then build the quality mode upon that.
A 1080p 60fps should be a mandatory option on Xbox series S titles. That's the part that really baffles me, only some games achieve it, when it should be all games at this point. I'm a series x owner, but when I see all these new games that lock series s to 30fps it makes no sense.. like 1440p at 30 and 1080 at 60 seems reasonable.. are the devs just getting that lazy? The console has a vastly better CPU than an Xbox one X..
I think that's still unreasonable. Won't happen in the slightest. Arbitrary resolution and frame rate requirements solve nothing about modern game and graphical design. It's simply a pointless thing to put a requirement on. Won't make games look any prettier or play any better. A poorly designed game running at 1080p 60fps is still a poorly designed game
"Visual fidelity" at 720p resolution! 😂👍
This guy Ollie Mack really knows his stuff. What a great addition to the DF team. ❤
Nintendo is blowing every competitor out of the water with exquisite game design and art design
low key it really is, threw gaming history I never understood how soon as Devs figured out hardware its time to move on and start over, Switch let Devs get use to the hardware, use it to the best of it capability and then move on but in same path so Devs never feel out of place so no odd shiny Unreal moments like other consoles and even PC, PS4 comes close to utilizing the hardware fully before moving on but only because its weaker PC related hardware like all consoles these days, Steam Deck is taking on Nintendo's Logic too and its a good thing
Nintendo is blowing every competitor out of the water with unquestioning fans who rush to buy every shovelware they make.
Granted, at this point, they know more than we'll how their hardware works, and what are its limitations
@@sapphyrus yes but the 1st party titles beat out Xboxs so theres value there even if 1 doesn't like Nintendo
And none of that has to do with the push for better graphics. Nintendo just approaches game design differently. Art direction and art style are all a part of graphics. You can't have a game with good graphics if the art direction sucks
As someone who both LOVES advancements in game tech + also thinks the artform is a healthier focus than specs in the broader enthusiast community...I would say the sentimemt is about the cost, in money, labor standards for workers, quality of gameplay, etc. that comes with (often exclusively) prioritizing clearing the uncanny valley with one's efforts as opposed to, say, new & varied gameplay ideas or art-styles
One thing I hate about current image reconstruction techniques is how unstable the image is. I fail to see an advantage of having higher pixel numbers when upscaling is combined with dynamic resolution scaling. Like... ok, go for something like 1440p upscaled from 720p, but MAKE THESE NUMBERS SOLID. If you want to upscale to 4K from 1080p, do so but do not set DRS to fluctuate wildly between 1080p and some weird numbers like 1236p. Also, in such scenarios please, please give us an optrion to turn software upscaling off and output raw 1080p signal, seeing that so many TVs do a great job of mapping it to 4K display.
I have two screens at home. Main one is 4K and another one is 1080p monitor (mid-range model). And let me tell you, even though TV is much better in terms of black levels and colour range, games look much better in terms of overall image clarity on a monitor. Why? Because it is essentially a MSAA image. In a game like CP2077, where there is a lot of bright colours clashing and sharp edges, jaggies are almost completely gone. And that's while Playing on PS5, not powerful PC.
Makes me wish that I woud have a 1080p TV with all the bells and whistles of my 4K one.
crowbcats RUclips videos more or less reinforce John’s point that modern tech doesn’t fix numerous small developmental issues. Things like older games getting better animations and environmental destruction features that the newer games lack. If anything the new tech is covering up for less refined development overall.
When you look at the development time of graphically dense games, we might be better served by shorter development cycles: 'rawer' games that are a generation behind perfection but can be done by a small and experimental team.
We'd still see improved graphics and performance over time as the 'easy baseline' went up, but the extra effort over 'easy' could be spent on refining gameplay, dialogue, character, story rather than reflections and vegatation. Then the breakout successes can get remasters with top-level fidelity.
That’s a great idea. I wish Sony or Microsoft would spotlight that on their online stores as a push for creativity. Sony seemed more supportive of indies in the PS4/Vita era.
Good graphics are fine until they hinder game performance. Starfield looks great at 30fps as long as the controller isn't being held.
From a PS5 perspective, I think the current fidelity seen in Spiderman 2 and Ratchet and Clank is great. I would say keep the fidelity the same and shift focus on increasing the framerate to 120fps for future games. It wouldn't hurt to also focus on gameplay and multiplayer. As good as those games are they don't have much replayability imo.
oh you're gonna get the monkeys paw treatment and every 60fps title will get frame gen
It's not gonna work. I'm happy with 60 FPS and rather have more eye candy than higher frame rates. The best devs can do is give us options to either have full fidelity at 60, or less fidelity and higher fps. But unfortunately, the higher FPS players complain when they have to turn down a few settings.
Killzone 2, to me, is still the best looking fps to this day.
Terrific.🍷🗿
I have a hope that games at some point will hit a sweet spot in photorealism that is both stunning whilst not hindering gameplay. If you put a Witcher 3 fight into a scene that actually looked like a dense forest it would be a nightmare - camera clipping through branches and tree trunks constantly. There's a balance to be found.
I think the issue is some of these games could run better and look just as good with older tech. Immortals of Aveum is one of these games. Image quality isn't great and it feels like it's sub 60fps nearly all the time. It doesn't have a day and night cycle so it could have used baked lighting. God of War uses baked lighting and looks way better in my opinion. Perhaps not a fair comparison but I think it shows baked lighting still has its uses. Maybe next gen we'll be able to do realtime GI (maybe even pathtracing) at acceptable frame rates and resolutions but until then I'd rather focus on 60fps and good image quality
Real time GI used to be done in real time easily before NVIDIA decided to shove raytracing into everything.
i remember the PS4 being a huge deal graphically when it first came out. Infamous Second Son, NBA 2K14, PT, Assassins Creed Unity, and Batman Arkham Knight are a few early releases for that generation that i can think of, and there was truly nothing else like them, especially coming off of a PS3.
going from PS4 to PS5 the leap isnt as significant because i think for the most part we are still just playing PS4 games. we still have yet to really get a true next gen experience, despite being in the generations life cycle for 3 years now. yeah, if these games ran on the PS4 then FPS and resolution would take a hit, but for the most part the visual makeup and game engine would be the same.
i think GTA 6 will be our first true next gen experience. it looks absolutely incredible and again, unlike anything we have ever seen.
There will never be a jump in generations more significant than 16 bit to 32/64 bit.
I thought the jump from PS1/Saturn/N64 to PS2/Gamecube was pretty significant too
The jump from PS2 to PS3 was really impressive and I think that is the last big jump we'll see in consoles. Everything feels like perfecting what's already there now.