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[RibbedHero]

I think Uncharted 3 graphics rivals the best PC graphics so to answer your question no

If we're running these PC games at 720p with no AA, then U3 not only rivals, but beats many PC games. But the fact of the matter is that PC games can be run at much higher resolutions, with more AA and lots of advanced graphical techniques (tessellation, physx, etc).

 

[XiaNaphryz]

The funny part is, the cited qualities of Witcher 2 is largely an issue of art direction and craftsmanship. Aside from ram for loading assets, it doesn't take a load of power to craft a game in which every texture is pretty and every asset is well modeled.

I wouldn't say that - put enough high quality assets and textures in and you can bring down any system to its knees in terms of real-time performance, especially if you're combining that with a photo-realistic look in terms of the shaders, lighting, etc. Art direction and high quality assets are what high-end CG is all about, after all.

 

[amdnv]

If you play the same game at your 1080p TV on PC and PS360, sitting 8 feet away (as i play every game), the difference is just not there. The only people who would brag about it would be PC gamers playing both on a desk, on their monitor.

This line of reasoning is always weird to me. You're happy because you have a small image? One that may not even let you see everything that HD has to offer?

I consider a horizontal field of view of 45 degrees the minimum for good immersion. That's what you'd get on a 24" from just over 2 feet away. At 8 feet you'd need around 90" or more.

 

[Barack Lesnar]

[img.]http://www.abload.de/img/cryingwalt2nkn8.gif[/img]

lol seriously bro in the middle and later parts of next-gen we'll see some crazy looking stuff on PC and we will all remember back to this time and shake our heads. I don't think we'll see anything great at the start of the gen (similar to this gen save for a couple exceptions) but a couple years in? Git yo' FRAPS ready!

 

[Kerub]

lol pc what do pc have minesweeper?

look at this

 

[Dennis]

lol pc what do pc have minesweeper?

look at this

Jesus man, are you trying to put someones eyes out with those jaggies?

 

[Barack Lesnar]

Don't remind me of the 50 bucks i blew on that game :X Fuckin tf2 hat promotions

 

[Haunted]

lol pc what do pc have minesweeper?

look at this

I've put this screen on my TV and am looking at it from my neighbour's attic window, looks amazing.

 

[zoukka]

Some console games have assets that would look amazing in higher resolution and better image quality. Some of these games are not on PC. So the debate will be never over. If someone thinks Uncharted looks better than TW2, he is entitled to his opinion and it isn't all that weird of an opinion at all. The IQ is objectively worse than TW2 on a good rig, but the game has a lot of stuff TW2 doesn't.

 

[Dennis]

Yup, Two Worlds 2 does look a lot better than Uncharted.

 

[Derrick01]

Yup, Two Worlds 2 does look a lot better than Uncharted.

Oh you :lol

 

[zoukka]

Yup, Two Worlds 2 does look a lot better than Uncharted.

Even your supershots couldn't save that game lol

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

I've put this screen on my TV and am looking at it from my neighbour's attic window, looks amazing.

What I do is tape a pair of binoculars, the wrong way round, to my head which means I don't have to stand as far away and get all the benefits of the high quality graphical output consoles have to offer.

 

[Freshmaker]

And yet, they're porting it to the xbox pretty well. Sans the awesome IQ, ofcourse.

They ported VF2 to the Genesis.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Some console games have assets that would look amazing in higher resolution and better image quality.

Can't you make this argument about every game since Pong?

 

[zoukka]

Can't you make this argument about every game since Pong?

No since some games are best left in the lower resolution and shit image quality lane of memories. (I know I'm in the minority, but most PS2 games for example, look shit when emulated in high res).

 

[Stallion Free]

Can't you make this argument about every game since Pong?

I can't wait to play Pong in 4k.

 

[revolverjgw]

They ported VF2 to the Genesis.

That was a totally new 2D game, not a port in the real sense. The 360 can do a pretty solid port of The Witcher 2 (depending on who is doing it and how much effort they're putting into it). It won't have the fancy effects or razor sharp textures but it could look nice considering what the PS360 has done with games of comparable scope. It helps that it has small environments, the kind with lots of invisible walls.

Can't you make this argument about every game since Pong?

Well... no.

 

[Übermatik]

Gears 2 looked better, even. The aliasing is really bad, and essentially outweighs any updates they made to the lighting engine.

Now print off a picture of his avatar and piss on it.

Speaking of which, where's blamespace? Was he perma'd?

 

[Vulcano's assistant]

What I do is tape a pair of binoculars, the wrong way round, to my head which means I don't have to stand as far away and get all the benefits of the high quality graphical output consoles have to offer.

This seems like the solution I've been looking for. Can you do 3d with that?

 

[mxgt]

What I do is tape a pair of binoculars, the wrong way round, to my head which means I don't have to stand as far away and get all the benefits of the high quality graphical output consoles have to offer.

you are a genius

 

[Htown]

ITT console users lie to themselves.

The Witcher 2 and, to a lesser extent, Battlefield 3, do look like a generational leap forward.

I'm always tempted to go back into the post histories of dudes from these threads and find points where they're crapping on the Wii's graphics, then see if they switch sides in the graphics argument when talking about 360/PS3 vs PC.

 

[mxgt]

ITT console users lie to themselves.

The Witcher 2 and, to a lesser extent, Battlefield 3, do look like a generational leap forward.

I'm always tempted to go back into the post histories of dudes from these threads and find points where they're crapping on the Wii's graphics, then see if they switch sides in the graphics argument when talking about 360/PS3 vs PC.

they'll also be arguing about the ps3 version of a game having 2 more blades of grass than the 360 version

 

[Warm Machine]

Comparing Crysis 2 and Crysis 1 is like apples and oranges. The Crysis 2 environment would make the original Cryengine chug hard. Cryengine 2 was designed to do really nice heightmaps, time of day lighting, and instanced objects as well as a very nice but limited shader set. In the end, it was a very nice extension of FarCry with proper dynamic lighting.

Cryengine 3 takes that and extends it to large scale static geometry environments (the city). It is HARDER to do a city than a thousands of square miles of terrain. It is proven through games such as Skyrim, Just Cause 2, Test Drive Unlimited, Two Worlds II, etc that terrain is easy to create and easy to port. It is so easy that engines have been dealing with it for the last 8 years and big terrain shows up in games from basement devs, low budget eastern european RPG and MMO devs, to the big guys. The tech is no longer a mystery and everyone has it.

For ages, Crysis 1 was said unportable to consoles and now we have a very competent port of it that maintains much of the scale and asset count of the PC original (yes, it isn't 1:1 but it is far better than anyone expected). The port was on Cryengine 3 which did more or less an emulation of the original game, taking the technically imporant parts and transferring them over. It stands to reason that Crysis 1 could be ported back to PC, on Cry Engine 3, completely intact and then some, while getting fantastic performance gains over the orginal.

For the last time, Crysis 2 was not designed and hamstrug because of consoles. It was designed to use urban environments to help elevate the Cryengine brand as a middleware solution that companies can use whose games were NOT terrain based. Urban environments take up far more memory than terrain and are harder for the renderer to put up on screen because each triangle in a piece of static geometry is unique to that asset. Memory bleeds away as soon as you go with multiple unique objects. Crysis 2 couldn't even use their terrain solution for the city streets. They had to be built custom.

Yes, we have hard large scale urban environments put up on screen before, but nothing with the first person detail of Crysis 2. GTA is 3rd person game and its assets are designed to hold up at that camera postion. The closer you are to the ground, the higher your detail needs to be. From an ant on the ground to a jetfighter up in the sky the detail requirements change drastically.

I recommend people play Crysis 1 and then jump directly to 2. Crysis 1 is a better game but you have to put that aside. Crysis 2 is on another technical level of rendering detail in every aspect.

 

[RedSwirl]

See, the thing here is: you can get GoW with great IQ on PS3, but not on PS2. But you can't get GoW3 with good IQ on PS3. You could on PS4... or on PC now.

GoW3 looks the way it looks because it's sacrifying IQ. Is it worth it? Probably it is. In PC you don't need to sacrifice it, and that's why it's a generation ahead. You can discuss how worthy it is sacrificing the IQ or not, but that's not the debate. The thing here is that in PC games IQ is not sacrified. And not only that, you get better effects, better framerate and less artifacts. It's in fact, a generation ahead, because you can get better results without having to sacrifice anything. Would it be great if they sacrificed IQ to get more impressive looking games? That's an entirely different debate.

I don't think so. If there conceivably was a PC version of God of War III that looked just as good as the PS3 version but you could run it in 1080p at 60fps with some more AA, It wouldn't be a generation ahead of the PS3 version.

 

[SmokyDave]

I don't think so. If there conceivably was a PC version of God of War III that looked just as good as the PS3 version but you could run it in 1080p at 60fps with some more AA, It wouldn't be a generation ahead of the PS3 version.

But what if you used the excess power of the PC to pile on some sexy effects?

Mmmmm....

 

[XiaNaphryz]

No since some games are best left in the lower resolution and shit image quality lane of memories. (I know I'm in the minority, but most PS2 games for example, look shit when emulated in high res).

I interpreted your comment as saying "if the assets were made in higher resolution," not a simple upscaling of the game renderer.

 

[LabouredSubterfuge]

This seems like the solution I've been looking for. Can you do 3d with that?

Yes, if you attach two.

That no-performance cost 3D that Crytek was talking about? Achieved with binoculars.

 

[RedSwirl]

The funny part is, the cited qualities of Witcher 2 is largely an issue of art direction and craftsmanship. Aside from ram for loading assets, it doesn't take a load of power to craft a game in which every texture is pretty and every asset is well modeled.

I could call Yoshi's Island one of the best looking games of all time, and better looking today than most 2D games because of the sheer perfection of its art direction and the perfect craftsmanship of its assets.

Ironically, this is a reason why a lot of people with consoles don't get simply blown away by a shot of a PC game with nice textures and AA. It's impressive, but it may not make a given console game look "shitty" by comparison. Like the people saying Gears of War 3 looks impressive in its own right. GoW3 has great craftsmanship put into it. It's very impressive. Would it look even better on PC at higher res with amazing AA? Sure. Just as Yoshi's Island would look better if drawn natively at 1080p. Doesn't mean YI as it is looks like"shit".

It's a values argument. For some people what matters most is seeing the assets on their screen that most look precisely look like real life or flawless CG. I am reminded of Skyward Sword threads where some people shit bricks if they believe motion control is only 97.8 percent accurate, as opposed to 100%.

As is typical with people though, everybody wants to rationalize that their standards are entirely objective and true. So if all that matters to you is IQ, it becomes objectively true that IQ is the dealbreaking element in any visual package. And anyone who disagrees is in denial, has "stockholm syndrome" or whatever other weird rationalizes that get thrown around.

This right here.

This thread has become an argument about what people consider to constitute "next gen" graphics.

But what if you used the excess power of the PC to pile on some sexy effects?

Mmmmm....

Unless the model detail and assets received a massive upgrade, I think to most people it wouldn't look a generation ahead.

 

[lowrider007]

A generation ahead?, I think that's a simple question to answer, you might as well ask "do you think next gen console games will look and run better than current maxed out PC games?", personally I think they will be very similar, so yes, I do think that current PC games maxed out are a generation ahead, mostly though in terms of clarity, high resolution and AA/AF, 60fps, and higher texture resolution, pretty much what we expect to see in the next gen console games.

 

[Haunted]

The most important part is that people who downplay IQ and framerate advantages now ("720p is good enough" and "25fps with stutters looks more cinematic than 60fps") will be the first to praise the new consoles for doing exactly that once the marketing goons tell them.

What I do is tape a pair of binoculars, the wrong way round, to my head which means I don't have to stand as far away and get all the benefits of the high quality graphical output consoles have to offer.

Brilliant. Then again, doing it from the neighbour's house means I can kinda talk to people while I play because I can shout over the 360's running noise when I try really hard.

 

[ColonialRaptor]

This is not a question that any of us can answer right yet - how much of a leap is the next 'Generation' of video game consoles going to bring in Graphical fidelity.

If we're talking about Wii U, which we've seen already, then we know that for sure the current PC's wipe the damn floor with with that.

Even with the new Consoles, I believe that the most top end PC's will still be more powerful than them, so I believe that answers the question that yes, PC's are a full Generational Leap ahead of Consoles.

I play NOTHING on consoles these days. The only game that I played on console last year was Uncharted 3. I bought Dark Souls and Ace Combat Assault Horizon, but I haven't played either yet. I'm kind of hoping that this Dark Souls petition will pay off and I'll get a PC version - that would be HEAVEN on a stick.

The problem is, that the area of graphics that we are currently moving towards and into is that of diminishing returns.

But, that is no questioning the fact that the Witcher 2 is a prime and clear example of the generational leap. It was developed for the PC and then back ported, so you can clearly see the difference.

Here are a few pictures I've found on the web of the game's 'Uber Mode' at only 1080p, however I play the game like this at 2560x1440, that's DOUBLE the resolution that most of the current console games are putting out and I'm locked at 60fps+. It all comes down to fancy effects like Depth of Field, Anti Aliasing and High Resolution Frame Rates now, as well as huge levels of interaction and destruction that are going to make the difference. Look at BF3 on Consoles compared to PC now.

Here are four shots from 1080p Uber Mode (I think).

Here are some shots from the Xbox 360 Version, to me it's Black and White, but as I said, it's diminishing returns.

 

[Haunted]

Oh God, I just had a terrible nightmare.

What if the next consoles are announced and the graphics shown are underwhelming?

 

[abunai]

Oh God, I just had a terrible nightmare.

What if the next consoles are announced and the graphics shown are underwhelming?

I think i might stop visiting all forums if that happens, the amount of dumb things I will read will be off the hook.

 

[Corky]

So is the witcher 2 ss thread?

 

[The Albatross]

Nah, it isn't a generational leap ahead, and I even think that relative to the time, PC games are less impressive now than compared to their console bretheren than at other times. Compare top games from previous generations to their PC top games, and the difference is really staggering.

In 1998, there were some huge releases on both console and PC. Compare some of them...
(edit: I picked 1998 because it was a good average year in the middle of the console cycle, not the end, when differences should be exacerbated)

Turok2, N64

THis is one of the better looking shots of Turok 2, as well. Other's are just completely repulsive.

Compare to Half-Life, PC

(Note, I wanted an outdoor shot, but the shot on Wikipedia was taken uploaded in 2006 and looked too smooth for 1998 graphics, so I didn't use it)

or Rainbow Six (original), PC

(please let me know if this is not original R6, I think that it is)

Tomb Raider III, PSX

Again this is one of the better pictures available of TRIII.

Compare to Thief: Dark Project, PC

If anybody has a 3rd person PC game from 1998 that they'd rather use. Please do.

There were only a few console games that I thought held their own with PC games, shooters or otherwise, and that would be Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo Kazaooi, and Metal Gear Solid

There are other games that really show the disparity. Unreal, Starcraft, more.

 

[Durante]

Here are some shots from the Xbox 360 Version, to me it's Black and White, but as I said, it's diminishing returns.

Those are almost certainly bullshots, I highly doubt the 360 version will run at 1080p with AA.

 

[sleepykyo]

Oh God, I just had a terrible nightmare.

What if the next consoles are announced and the graphics shown are underwhelming?

Isn't that a given? I'm a PS3sant, pretty much anything will be an upgrade. But 1080p at 30fps isn't really going to impress the master race.

 

[KKRT00]

Comparing Crysis 2 and Crysis 1 is like apples and oranges. The Crysis 2 environment would make the original Cryengine chug hard. Cryengine 2 was designed to do really nice heightmaps, time of day lighting, and instanced objects as well as a very nice but limited shader set. In the end, it was a very nice extension of FarCry with proper dynamic lighting.

Cryengine 3 takes that and extends it to large scale static geometry environments (the city). It is HARDER to do a city than a thousands of square miles of terrain. It is proven through games such as Skyrim, Just Cause 2, Test Drive Unlimited, Two Worlds II, etc that terrain is easy to create and easy to port. It is so easy that engines have been dealing with it for the last 8 years and big terrain shows up in games from basement devs, low budget eastern european RPG and MMO devs, to the big guys. The tech is no longer a mystery and everyone has it.

For ages, Crysis 1 was said unportable to consoles and now we have a very competent port of it that maintains much of the scale and asset count of the PC original (yes, it isn't 1:1 but it is far better than anyone expected). The port was on Cryengine 3 which did more or less an emulation of the original game, taking the technically imporant parts and transferring them over. It stands to reason that Crysis 1 could be ported back to PC, on Cry Engine 3, completely intact and then some, while getting fantastic performance gains over the orginal.

For the last time, Crysis 2 was not designed and hamstrug because of consoles. It was designed to use urban environments to help elevate the Cryengine brand as a middleware solution that companies can use whose games were NOT terrain based. Urban environments take up far more memory than terrain and are harder for the renderer to put up on screen because each triangle in a piece of static geometry is unique to that asset. Memory bleeds away as soon as you go with multiple unique objects. Crysis 2 couldn't even use their terrain solution for the city streets. They had to be built custom.

Yes, we have hard large scale urban environments put up on screen before, but nothing with the first person detail of Crysis 2. GTA is 3rd person game and its assets are designed to hold up at that camera postion. The closer you are to the ground, the higher your detail needs to be. From an ant on the ground to a jetfighter up in the sky the detail requirements change drastically.

I recommend people play Crysis 1 and then jump directly to 2. Crysis 1 is a better game but you have to put that aside. Crysis 2 is on another technical level of rendering detail in every aspect.

I saw the comparison on earlier site and i was thinking to answer, but said 'hell with that, even if he learn, 20 other ones will repeat same crap in next 20 pages'. Its good that You wrote that up and i agree completely, but probably it was just a waste of time for You ;\

But nevertheless i would add how many fucking amazing features CE 3 brought in comparison to CE 2, its mindblowing how they refined engine, add so much and still optimize it to death, truly the next gen capable engine and the best out there.
And anyone who talks about anti-aliasing in C2, should read about deferred shading and CE 3 solutions for it http://iryoku.com/aacourse/
Next CE 3 game from Crytek should be much better in that regard, because FXAA evolved drastically [Crysis 2 used pre-released version of it, like 0.8 or smth], their TAA and QSSAA also, they are also cooperating with SMAA team a lot.

 

[Corky]

What's wrong with the 360 shots?

Looks like some 6-bit color up in here.

 

[Ghost_Protocol]

Oh God, I just had a terrible nightmare.

What if the next consoles are announced and the graphics shown are underwhelming?

It already happened. FF 13's in game graphics looked better than those CG trailers running on Wii U.

 

[KKRT00]

What's wrong with the 360 shots?

http://www.abload.de/img/capture9dr3z.png[IMG]

Looks like some 6-bit color up in here.[/QUOTE]

Looks like crappy quality JPG image upscaled to almost 1080p, then converted to BMP, and then to 100% JPG lol

 

[word up]

Nah, it isn't a generational leap ahead, and I even think that relative to the time, PC games are less impressive now than compared to their console bretheren than at other times. Compare top games from previous generations to their PC top games, and the difference is really staggering.

Contemporary IGN gallery for Turok 2
http://uk.media.ign64.ign.com/media/001/001969/imgs_1.html
(your screenshot seems to be some emulated shot of Turok 1)

Contemporary IGN gallery for Rainbow 6 on the PC
http://uk.media.pc.ign.com/media/003/003836/imgs_1.html
(your image isn't R6 for PC from 1998)

Quite different to the pictures you posted.

The technical gulf between a high spec PC and a mainstream console is larger than ever but the cost of making it show and diminishing returns means until companies invest for PS4 and Xbox3 we won't see it being used outside of isolated examples, and the jump will be harder to appreciate when it does come.

 

[MNC]

This is not a question that any of us can answer right yet - how much of a leap is the next 'Generation' of video game consoles going to bring in Graphical fidelity.

If we're talking about Wii U, which we've seen already, then we know that for sure the current PC's wipe the damn floor with with that.

Even with the new Consoles, I believe that the most top end PC's will still be more powerful than them, so I believe that answers the question that yes, PC's are a full Generational Leap ahead of Consoles.

I play NOTHING on consoles these days. The only game that I played on console last year was Uncharted 3. I bought Dark Souls and Ace Combat Assault Horizon, but I haven't played either yet. I'm kind of hoping that this Dark Souls petition will pay off and I'll get a PC version - that would be HEAVEN on a stick.

The problem is, that the area of graphics that we are currently moving towards and into is that of diminishing returns.

But, that is no questioning the fact that the Witcher 2 is a prime and clear example of the generational leap. It was developed for the PC and then back ported, so you can clearly see the difference.

Here are a few pictures I've found on the web of the game's 'Uber Mode' at only 1080p, however I play the game like this at 2560x1440, that's DOUBLE the resolution that most of the current console games are putting out and I'm locked at 60fps+. It all comes down to fancy effects like Depth of Field, Anti Aliasing and High Resolution Frame Rates now, as well as huge levels of interaction and destruction that are going to make the difference. Look at BF3 on Consoles compared to PC now.

Here are four shots from 1080p Uber Mode (I think).

Here are some shots from the Xbox 360 Version, to me it's Black and White, but as I said, it's diminishing returns.

I stand absolutely corrected. I thought the Xbox version ran on medium/high without good IQ?

 

[evil solrac v3.0]

It already happened. FF 13's in game graphics looked better than those CG trailers running on Wii U.

but they did say that the Wii U is only a bit stronger than PS3/xbox. so we have to wait un til those two release consoles.

 

[ColonialRaptor]

Those are almost certainly bullshots, I highly doubt the 360 version will run at 1080p with AA.

I think they said that it will run at 1080p and with AA.

To get it though, they are sacrificing frames (30fps) and textures, the textures look like bollocks, and a shit load of extra detail, so much is missing it's not funny.

I know it's not crazy different and it's not in motion, but I already know now that I would hate playing the game like that, it's going to be just yukky.

Like BF3 is on Consoles.

I stand absolutely corrected. I thought the Xbox version ran on medium/high without good IQ?

Looks like Low with elements of Medium with average IQ to me.

 

[Omikron]

lol pc what do pc have minesweeper?

look at this

I can't tell if there is 2,3, or maybe even 4 people under that swing frame :-/

 

[Corky]

I can't tell if there is 2,3, or maybe even 4 people under that swing frame :-/

It's just because it's a static image...
In movement, the game's beauty comes across.

a lot of IQ issues go down the drain once things start moving. There may be jaggies in the background and those trees may not be drawn perfectly, but unless you're playing Hyper Pokemon Snap the goal is not to take screenshots, and a lot of those imperfections are forgotten about. IQ issues become even less of an issue with FPS's since you're so often facing enemies at a distance where fine details are indistinguishable. All the while, the game we're playing is probably a rehash of what was already available 5+ years ago.

I buy PC parts based on need to play, but atm it doesn't seem like there's a new game where you just can't get a similar experience on consoles.

Truer words...
...probably spoken.

 

[Raitosaito]

How can anyone argue that the PC is not a generational leap ahead?

Does anyone even remember when Half Life 2 came out. Nothing on consoles even looked close back then, and the overall console experience back then was way behind those PC exclusive games. For those who say IQ/Resolution/AA doesn't matter, I really can't understand why not. If the experience isn't that different for you that's fine, but you can't just deny the difference and say it "plays the same." The core mechanics aren't going to change; that isn't an argument for saying a generational leap didn't happen.

 

[jaypah]

I think PCs could be considered next-Gen. As a console only gamer until last year I jumped on with a relatively low-end 5770 and my games look better than my console games. The PC shots that I see around here from guys/gals with beefy gpus just look...fucking wow. And to hear that it runs at 60fps yeah, that's a generational leap to me. And this is coming from someone who still loves his consoles and can't wait for the next round.