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[Great Guy]

Over the past 15 years of watching the amazing tech gains in pc hardware, I must say that things really have slowed down the past 3 years. Maybe the realized improvements of process shrinks and Moore's Law can only go so far. ARM gpus have made leaps and bounds, but from a very modest (shitty) beginning.

1440p seems unlikely, due to televisions leapfrogging from 1080 to 2160p. 120hz/fps seems unlikely, also due to how televisions are standardized.

If I had to guess, we'll be stuck with 1080p with stable 60fps, and insane lvls of eye-candy for the future console gen. And that will probably look just fine on a 2160p screen.

Unless VR really takes off, you can simply side-step the standardization of tv screens with specialized headgear. Then any aspect ratio, fps, resolution combo can be imagined. Whatever company gains mass appeal there will set the standards.

 

[Xenus]

4k is nice but I'm not sure I want it as it will take most of the new graphical power of a new gen and will leave us with slightly better looking games in 4k unless there is a major graphical leap be now and then. Aka 3d stacking finally becomes viable or PVR's raytacing accelerator takes off some other major disruptive style leap.

 

[Niwa]

I'm fine with 1080p forever.

 

[shandy706]

But the PS4/X1 have a game running at 1440p

Spoiler

Downsampled to 1080p

 

[velociraptor]

4k is nice but I'm not sure I want it as it will take most of the new graphical power of a new gen and will leave us with slightly better looking games in 4k unless there is a major graphical leap be now and then. Aka 3d stacking finally becomes viable or PVR's raytacing accelerator takes off some other major disruptive style leap.

Honestly I don't even know how much more powerful GPUs are going to get in 5 years time.

Will we see a single GPU packing the power of three SLI TITANS?

3x TITANS runs Crysis 3 at 4k very high = 38-40FPS.

 

[ChipotIe]

If console games actually played at a consistent 60FPS at 1080p that would be great.

Doesn't seem like it's for this generation though.... so I'm hoping for 60fps on next gen instead.

Or you know, an upgradable/ modular model for current gen consoles to get them to run games more akin to what I'm used to on PC.

 

[Hawk269]

I'm fine with 1080p forever.

People said the same when it was 480i, then 480p etc.

We have yet to see what a 4k game that was made from the get go to be 4k would look like. All we have is games that run at a higher resolution etc. What would a true game that was made with 4k in mind really look like? Imagine the hardware to run it??

 

[butman]

That's the sad truth.

Not surprise

 

[Hawk269]

Honestly I don't even know how much more powerful GPUs are going to get in 5 years time.

Will we see a single GPU packing the power of three SLI TITANS?

3x TITANS runs Crysis 3 at 4k very high = 38-40FPS.

Something is wrong then. I can run Crysis 3 with 2 Titans in SLI at 4k at very high and get around 45-50fps in most areas.

 

[ArchedThunder]

People said the same when it was 480i, then 480p etc.

We have yet to see what a 4k game that was made from the get go to be 4k would look like. All we have is games that run at a higher resolution etc. What would a true game that was made with 4k in mind really look like? Imagine the hardware to run it??

The problem is that the gains from 4K are small unless you are very close to the display or the display is very large.

 

[velociraptor]

Something is wrong then. I can run Crysis 3 with 2 Titans in SLI at 4k at very high and get around 45-50fps in most areas.

Digital Foundry:
3x TITAN, 40FPS, very high, 4k.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUd9o81rdUA

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7457/the-radeon-r9-290x-review/12

2x GTX 780 SLI = 48 FPS with medium settings 4k.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/pq321q-4k-gaming,review-32782-6.html

2x TITAN SLI = 37 FPS high settings 4k.

 

[Hawk269]

The problem is that the gains from 4K are small unless you are very close to the display or the display is very large.

I disagree. As a owner of a 4k Set and watching some movies in 4k, even 1080p up scaled to 4k there is a noticeable difference. True 4k is pretty amazing, but even up scaled blu ray movies look good. For gaming, there is a difference, even sitting at normal seating range. I know some do not feel the same, but in my house me and wife can easily tell the difference between our 4k in the living room and my 1080p in the gaming room when watching movies etc.

 

[Lecker_Duplo]

4k needs to much resources and will never be standard in console gaming. Performance increases way to slow..

 

[Thrakier]

VR

 

[Thrakier]

I disagree. As a owner of a 4k Set and watching some movies in 4k, even 1080p up scaled to 4k there is a noticeable difference. True 4k is pretty amazing, but even up scaled blu ray movies look good. For gaming, there is a difference, even sitting at normal seating range. I know some do not feel the same, but in my house me and wife can easily tell the difference between our 4k in the living room and my 1080p in the gaming room when watching movies etc.

How so? I'm guessing the 1080p on the 4k material is blurrier?

 

[Hawk269]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUd9o81rdUA

That is weird. Perhaps my overclock on both the GPU and CPU are making up the difference. As those same areas, I was getting higher FPS. I was also not limited as when I did my tests I was using Panasonics 4k 65" TV with Display port which allowed full 4k at 60fps. Thanks for the video though because at one point I was thinking of adding a 3rd Titan, but ended up returning the TV due to banding issues. Now I am waiting for Panasonics next 4k sets in 65" size since they are the only ones putting out a 4k set at that size with Display Port.

 

[ethomaz]

At least 4k @ 30fps

 

[Durante]

Can developers even afford to develop native 4K games when costs are ballooning now?

Resolution doesn't cost developers money.

 

[elektrixx]

I think 21:9 support should be standard. 60FPS in everything is an unrealistic dream and 4k is too hard to make playable.

 

[Metalingus5150]

It's gonna be 1080p.
lol

 

[Hawk269]

How so? I'm guessing the 1080p on the 4k material is blurrier?

Not blurrier, cleaner. The set has to up scale the image to display at it's native resolution. Whatever tech they have in the sets, it does a fantastic job at up scaling the image. I have a very good 1080p set (Sony 850 65") and a Sony XBR-x900a 65" 4k set and when me and my wife or friends come over to watch movies, they all see a noticeable difference in Blu Ray movies from one set to the other. It is just a cleaner image, but no match for true 4k media that is pretty amazing to see. I have the Sony media player that has a lot of short films in 4k and it is just stunning.

 

[GifGafIsTheBestGaf]

Great thread op. Since I just have a vague notion of the supposedly incoming new technologies I'm eagerly waiting for zombie's thread about it. (I think it was in the possibility of a slimmer PS4 thread.)

I personally wish 4K gaming but if it's not possible then ultra settings @1080p60fps will be ok for me.

 

[martino]

Considering what is happening i'll be happy with 1080p / 60 fps with more effect / IQ

 

[Thrakier]

Not blurrier, cleaner. The set has to up scale the image to display at it's native resolution. Whatever tech they have in the sets, it does a fantastic job at up scaling the image. I have a very good 1080p set (Sony 850 65") and a Sony XBR-x900a 65" 4k set and when me and my wife or friends come over to watch movies, they all see a noticeable difference in Blu Ray movies from one set to the other. It is just a cleaner image, but no match for true 4k media that is pretty amazing to see. I have the Sony media player that has a lot of short films in 4k and it is just stunning.

Weird. I've never seen upscaling improving image quality. Seems like it's against the laws of physics. Anyway, there is probably some magic scaler involved, just like in the XB1.

 

[Milestoned]

If 4K is then what 1080p is now, it will be 4K/30fps. If 4K TVs won't succeed it will be still 1080p/30fps, since 60fps on a closed system will still be a design choice.

VR might be an interesting twist if 4K won't be the standard in a couple of years. Maybe are going to see 4K/30fps downsampled to 1080p for TVs and 4K/60fps with reduced details for VR.

1440p is bullshit, because this is even more uncommon than 60fps for the masses and I have yet to see a TV that has a native resolution of 1440p.

 

[velociraptor]

That is weird. Perhaps my overclock on both the GPU and CPU are making up the difference. As those same areas, I was getting higher FPS. I was also not limited as when I did my tests I was using Panasonics 4k 65" TV with Display port which allowed full 4k at 60fps. Thanks for the video though because at one point I was thinking of adding a 3rd Titan, but ended up returning the TV due to banding issues. Now I am waiting for Panasonics next 4k sets in 65" size since they are the only ones putting out a 4k set at that size with Display Port.

2x TITANS or 780 Tis (both similar cards) is not enough to run 4k60 for Crysis 3.

According to benchmarks that I have googled, they won't even run Battlefield 4 maxed out at 4k60.

It seems to me that you simply need to much power too actually max out a game at 4k60.

 

[Foxyone]

Please tell me you don't believe this BS? Cloud computing, maybe for the AI stuff, but not for processing. No way, maybe it'll gain traction when it comes to PlayStation Now, but there's no way console makers will offset the chunk of the processing to an ever fluctuating internet speed.

Kind of a weird question regarding the "cloud", but could "render farms" just be used for things like mmos with massive worlds to render the whole (basically static, unchanging) world in all its beauty and simply stream it via cloud at no performance hit to players for all that is rendered?

 

[-COOLIO-]

I'd rather see more graphical effects at 1080 over 4k. Leave 4k to pcs.

Then again I don't think we'll get another console generation anyway.

 

[Loofy]

Weird. I've never seen upscaling improving image quality. Seems like it's against the laws of physics. Anyway, there is probably some magic scaler involved, just like in the XB1.

I dunno about that. Ever use a dvd upscaler?
Upscaled DVD>>>DVD on SDTV>>>Non upscaled DVD on HDTV

 

[Krusenstern]

4k doesn't seem too far stretched for the coming generation.

I also can't imagine how a 9th generation is going to be like. Will we still have traditional consoles?

 

[velociraptor]

I'd rather see more graphical effects at 1080 over 4k. Leave 4k to pcs.

Then again I don't think we'll get another console generation anyway.

Really? People said the exact same thing last gen.

'NEXT-GEN IS DOOMED'.

If the price is right, people will buy. Simple as that.

 

[Hawk269]

Considering what is happening i'll be happy with 1080p / 60 fps with more effect / IQ

In the end that is exactly what I think will happen with future console tech. 1080p/60fps standard with 16xAF and good AA is what I am hoping for in the next batch of consoles, perhaps more emphasis on physics as well.

 

[Chamber]

1080p and you'll still have 30 fps games so you all might as well start accepting that now.

 

[Eusis]

Since they can't even hit 1080p consistently this generation, I think it will be 1080p/60.

Given that they failed to reliably hit 720p last gen and that most games on XB1 and basically all games on PS4 are above that I think it's safe to say we'll be at >1080p at worst.

I don't know if they CAN reliably pull off 4k given the greatly increased processing power needed, but I CAN see 4k output being supported and thus any >1080p game would show its full resolution rather than being downsampled to 1080p as the case is with games like Lego Hobbit.

 

[...Scatter...]

1080@60 for every game and insane effects would be sufficient for next 10 years

I agree with this. I'd love to see what they could do with 1080p 60fps with minimal limitations. All the effects, all the lighting, all the shading, all the AA you could throw at it. Then we can start making headway in other areas such as more lifelike movements and depth in gameplay with less canned animations and more real-world physics.

 

[justsomeguy]

I think it will be safe to say we'll finally have 1080p/60fps as a minimum standard

Completely disagree. If you can get your game running at 1080p/60, you can get it running even prettier at 1080p/30, and 60fps isn't "required" in many, many genres of game so image quality will win out.

Also, it's reductionist to talk in terms of resolution, what's more interesting will be technologies - ray casting, volumetric lighting, AA techniques, etc.

 

[Vashetti]

1080p60fps isn't the ceiling though, see the Lego games on PS4.

I know of the downsampling with the Lego games, and Child of Light, but they're not the norm.

Most devs see 1080p/60 as the ceiling though.

Resolution doesn't cost developers money.

Textures expected of "4K quality" do though.

 

[Hawk269]

2x TITANS or 780 Tis (both similar cards) is not enough to run 4k60 for Crysis 3.

According to benchmarks that I have googled, they won't even run Battlefield 4 maxed out at 4k60.

It seems to me that you simply need to much power too actually max out a game at 4k60.

You are 100% right about that. I can make them run at 4k/60fps, but I have to turn things down. But I did make it work in some games. At 4k resolution you do not need as much aggressive AA because the nature of the resolution things are just cleaner, especially when you are at 4k level. So trade-off's would need to be made.

My personal problem is that I am one of those people that if there is a setting in a PC game and I cannot run the game at MAX it irks the hell out of me. I have gotten better with that when I was testing 4k because I was not seeing a difference between some of the AA solutions due to the high res, but I don't see 4k/60fps with most/all things set to max until the next gen of high end cards come out (Nvidia 800 series). I just wish someone would release a high end GPU with HDMI 2.0 or someone make a Display Port to HDMI 2.0 adapter. My current Sony 4k has HDMI 2.0, but no GPU exists with 2.0 to take advantage of it. That is why I am eyeing the Panasonics since they have display port.

 

[El_Chino]

16GB GDDR5/6?
SSDs as standard, you can't use a HDD as games are designed to take advantage of SSD speeds
HDMI 2.0
12x Blu-ray drive (capable of reading 4K Blu-ray?)
USB 3.1

I dunno.

I agree with everything you said plus a 12 core CPU and a 6 tflop GPU.

 

[Krusenstern]

Textures expected of "4K quality" do though.

I thought assets are already being made at higher resolutions and just scaled down in the end for the final builds.

 

[IcyEyes]

I don't know ...
I'm confused right now ...

I love PS4, but 1080@60 in 2014 should have been the starting point for *every* game.
A couple of years ago I was ready to bet that both PS4 and X720 would have been able to do more than they have shown so far.
I know, a superior resolution for Ps4 and X1 would be a "waste" for the masses.

So talking about the next 5/6 years I rather not be so optimistic and I will be happy with 1080p@60 but with *any* kind of rendering technique.

Unfortunately, this gen, even if really (really!) nice and for some aspects pretty powerful, will show it's age pretty quickly.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

They probably won't be powerful enough to drive 4K and a next gen graphics boost without the usual shitty frame rates.

With that said I would mandate locked 60 fps, native 1080p and high quality AA.

That won't happen though so yeah, another gen of up-scaling, poor AA and roller coaster frame rates.

Should be fun!

 

[Mike Golf]

Next gen 4K? No, in five years I doubt it will even be a standard for HDTVs as broadcasters as well as physical and digital distribution of video have to get there first. Not to mention internet connections need to be beefed up considerably to stream 4K video at a decent quality. Hopefully they will stick with 1080p next gen and we can see more refinement in graphics with less of a cost to performance and gameplay. Think about it, every console up until the sixth gen output primarily 320x240, every time a new generation came out they didn't have to contend with a bump in native resolution so they could utilize that power at making the games look even better. When you consider the fact that both the sixth and seventh gen machines had to contend with a fairly massive resolution jump along with making the graphics looks considerably better than the previous gen, they were pretty damn impressive. Now this all depends on developers of course, the next generation of consoles could still have a 1080p/60 ceiling and devs will just utilize all that new power even without the resolution bump to make the best looking games possible down to getting sub 30 fps and sub 1080 resolution just like this gen. As many others have said, this gen could have come with 680s in them and we would still probably see devs pushing shiny effects until the games are sub native res and sub 30 fps.

 

[Chamber]

16GB GDDR5/6?
SSDs as standard, you can't use a HDD as games are designed to take advantage of SSD speeds
HDMI 2.0
12x Blu-ray drive (capable of reading 4K Blu-ray?)
USB 3.1

I dunno.

I agree with everything you said plus a 12 core CPU and a 6 tflop GPU.

Sounds awful. When do you expect these machines to hit the market?

 

[-COOLIO-]

Really? People said the exact same thing last gen.

'NEXT-GEN IS DOOMED'.

If the price is right, people will buy. Simple as that.

I think we'll all game on living room pcs.

 

[Scorpion Soldier]

1080p/60fps, possibly 2k but definitely not 4k.

 

[Vashetti]

1080p/60fps, possibly 2k but definitely not 4k.

2K is 2048x1080 = 2,211,840 pixels

Ever so slightly above 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels

 

[Portugeezer]

1080p with good anti aliasing is the next step.

 

[Rushersauce]

16GB GDDR5/6?
SSDs as standard, you can't use a HDD as games are designed to take advantage of SSD speeds
HDMI 2.0
12x Blu-ray drive (capable of reading 4K Blu-ray?)
USB 3.1

I dunno.

I agree with everything you said plus a 12 core CPU and a 6 tflop GPU.

??? Is next-gen coming in 2 more years? These are horrible predictions.

 

[Chamber]

I think we'll all game on living room pcs.

I don't want your future!