• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

mrMUR_96 said:
I usually agree with you on most takes, but to just say bake your lighting as if it's just a quick stage is baffling. It's not that simple even for a static game, what about when they have dynamic time of day, weather, dynamic environments etc. Ubisoft did a whole presentation on how much more work it was for static lighting in AC Shadows and that's a massive studio. Smaller studios either need to start with baked lighting from the start and plan their design around it or go with dynamic lighting and accept the performance cost. To just say oh they can just bake it in quickly is crazy. Wukong only adding a lumen disabled option a whole year later is clear evidence of that.
Click to expand...
It's more work but not that much more work. I have posted some youtube videos of UE5 editors where you can see how developers go about enabling and disabling lumen. Yes, baking out lighting is an extra step. yes it will require extra space. yes, it will require fallbacks to be implemented. Yes, its probably not ideal for games with day night cycles, but game developers have been doing this for generations. You mentioned AC shadows, they did it and they have so many different time of day, season and weather to account for. Games like high on life 2, mgs delta and expedition 33 do not have day night cycles. hell, i cant think of a single UE5 game out at the moment that has a day night cycle. edit: i was just told avowed and outer worlds had a day night cycle, but so many other UE5 games dont.

I play these games at 4k dlss quality on my PC. Low resolutions like 720p with TSR are not a problem for me. But at some point, a developer has to make some common sense decisions. You can have all the fancy ray tracing in the world but if its running at 720p, why bother? Either lock it to 30 fps or work on a non ray tracing solution to get 60 fps. Several UE5 games have done this recently. Split Fiction, Reanimal, Arc Raiders isnt using nanite. Phantom Blade zero isnt using Lumen or Nanite from what DF could tell. It looks stunning regardless. Great lighting that looked lumen caliber to me. Asset quality that looked nanite quality.

You mentioned Wukong, it doesnt work because devs never bothered to bake in the lighting. they just removed lumen without any kind of fallback. I am not seeing its not more work, im saying it shouldve been part of the development when they were lighting the game. You can watch youtube videos on this. Devs still have to place invisible light sources and what not to light each room since Lumen, especially software lumen cant offer precise results like path tracing can. Hell, the latest versions of UE5 can even bake in lumen reflections. What I am saying is that they can take that pre-lit version and bake that out into light maps that can then be shipped with the game for the 60 fps mode.
 
Last edited:
H . R . 2 said:
y15piz79lvvWT2gU.png

Speaking of fast-moving scenes in linear games:
This was Advanced Warfare in 2014

maxresdefault.jpg

aw-do-you-remember-this-scene-from-cod-advanced-warfare-v0-anF0eXBhZ3N4ZDRmMVfECsK8ZBlEfZfa0QQaUf0O5bVS6_oOvfo_msPHiZtV.png


and it looked far better in motion
that iteration of the engine was simply sublime

we had Arkham Knight, DriveClub, a visually stunning COD of all games, The Order, Unity ,etc. and then
it's like suddenly the entire industry formed a coalition to furtively downgrade their games in a [failed] attempt to reduce costs
... from which the industry hasn't even partially recovered

look at the quality of the lighting and textures in these games, the amount of technical effort they invested in the new gen, the fact that they still look impressive is a testament to that
the industry either had a talent hemorrhage or decided to go in a different direction with regard to visual improvements

it is as if their attention was suddenly diverted to 'something' [the emergent RTX? DEI? A survey saying graphics don't matter anymore, I don't know ] that consumed them entirely and
prevented them from making all the right decisions and eliminated all the progress they had made, like a supernova explosion that destroyed the technical aspect of the gaming civilisation
Click to expand...
Last gen games fared much better on youtube. Watch this GOW trailer. Looks amazing. We now know its inconsistencies and last gen assets and lighting that the youtube trailer cleverly hides.



Conversely, Modern games, especially UE5 games, do not show up well on youtube. The detail that makes these games stand out is lost. Especially in fast moving trailers like this. Just look at the DS2 trailers. Kojima did a great job keeping the camera static and it made the game look way better than it did on our tvs.

Wolverine may not have the best realtime GI implementation or nanite quality meshes, but they are one of the few Sony devs who do think graphics matter. Their target list for wolverine was full of modern tech that has been completely MIA from Sony games this gen.

yes, the industry is hemorrhaging talent, but just like with AC shadows, Alan Wake 2, Avatar, and other UE5 games, just wait until the game comes out before digging too deep in youtube captured screenshots.

P.S Sledgehammer is indeed a very talented studio. I'd recommend you check out all their COD games. WW2 and Vanguard both had some pretty cool looking levels by last gen standards. They are currently making a new IP, an action RPG.
 
Waiting for confirmation with the console specs for Crimson Desert which shouldn't be too long since release is near, and this could still change in the final release, but from Pearl Abyss's R&D report from late last year, they've implemented ray-traced reflections and ray-traced GI in the base PS5 version, and obviously Series X should be getting the same too, with PS5 Pro getting PSSR support. Their standard lighting uses a ray-marched real-time GI solution, which is still great even if not as accurate as RT.

crimson_desert_raytracing_by_scaledatten_dliopmw-fullview.jpg


crimson_desert_pearl_abyss_gi_raymarched_raytraced_by_scaledatten_dliopxw-fullview.jpg
 
Last edited:
benzy said:
Waiting for confirmation with the console specs for Crimson Desert which shouldn't be too long since release is near, and this could still change in the final release, but from Pearl Abyss's R&D report from late last year, they've implemented ray-traced reflections and ray-traced GI in the base PS5 version, and obviously Series X should be getting the same too, with PS5 Pro getting PSSR support. Their standard lighting uses a ray-marched real-time GI solution, which is still great even if not as accurate as RT.

crimson_desert_raytracing_by_scaledatten_dliopmw-fullview.jpg


crimson_desert_pearl_abyss_gi_raymarched_raytraced_by_scaledatten_dliopxw-fullview.jpg
Click to expand...
my guess is 4k fsr quality at 30 fps and 4k fps performance at 60 fps seeing as how they've been boasting about how performant their engine is. Other ray traced games bottom out at 720p-864p in the 60 fps modes so it will be interesting to compare this new engine's performance profile on consoles. maybe they've figured out some secret sauce other developers havent.
 
Lumen isnt that expensive in newer UE5 versions anymore, i am actually impressed by the small performance penalty compared to 5.0

Imgsli

High on life 2 (UE5.5)
lumen GI+reflections with some key upgrades over retail
lumen-full.png

Lumen GI + SSR
ssr-lumengi.png

Screenspace
screen-all.png

nothing
nothing.png

Ray Recon preset D + too many reflective surfaces (couldnt get the translucency to look good no matter what, flawed af)
tr-rr.png
 
If somehow the pc version of Crimson Desert manages to get rid of all that ghosting and shimmering while still running decently, it's going to be a real looker.

Scale, density, lighting all look amazing.
 
T4keD0wN said:
Lumen isnt that expensive in newer UE5 versions anymore, i am actually impressed by the small performance penalty compared to 5.0

Imgsli

High on life 2 (UE5.5)
lumen GI+reflections with some key upgrades over retail
lumen-full.png

Lumen GI + SSR
ssr-lumengi.png

Screenspace
screen-all.png

nothing
nothing.png

Ray Recon preset D + too many reflective surfaces (couldnt get the translucency to look good no matter what, flawed af)
tr-rr.png
Click to expand...
this is the area i was talking about in the DF video. looks really great.

What UE5 version are they using? I dont understand why its so expensive on consoles. What's the penalty on the framerate when you turn everything on?
 
SlimySnake said:
P.S Sledgehammer is indeed a very talented studio. I'd recommend you check out all their COD games. WW2 and Vanguard both had some pretty cool looking levels by last gen standards. They are currently making a new IP, an action RPG.
Click to expand...
very talented but for some reason their games went visually downhill from AW
WW2 was still quite good but Vanguard , despite being next-gen, had nothing to show for it
I played a few hours of it and quit on account of the game being dull both visually and narratively

I think it was Schofield who was pushing for better visuals
 
Last edited:

Splinter Cell Remake Development Continues Despite Studio Being Hit by Lay-Offs, Says Ubisoft

Ubisoft Toronto saw its workforce reduced by 40 roles, said a spokesperson, while work on Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six continues.


SlimySnake SlimySnake
 
Last edited:
mrMUR_96 said:
I usually agree with you on most takes, but to just say bake your lighting as if it's just a quick stage is baffling. It's not that simple even for a static game, what about when they have dynamic time of day, weather, dynamic environments etc. Ubisoft did a whole presentation on how much more work it was for static lighting in AC Shadows and that's a massive studio. Smaller studios either need to start with baked lighting from the start and plan their design around it or go with dynamic lighting and accept the performance cost. To just say oh they can just bake it in quickly is crazy. Wukong only adding a lumen disabled option a whole year later is clear evidence of that.
Click to expand...
Do you have a link to the presentation? Thanks.
 
SlimySnake said:
What UE5 version are they using?
Click to expand...
5.5.4.0 exactly
Cant wait to see how much better UE5.7 games run
SlimySnake said:
this is the area i was talking about in the DF video. looks really great.

I dont understand why its so expensive on consoles. What's the penalty on the framerate when you turn everything on?
Click to expand...
Game is very solid visually, yeah. I am gonna check once i finish the mission if its possible to return there, there was one bar area with fish tanks very close from here which was awesome for testing every little tweak, especially reflections. Its kind of hard for me to measure since i am CPU bound, so going by usage, i think itd be like -15fps to go from basic lumen to using the advanced features.

HW Lumen seems very cheap on Blackwell just to turn on, on vs off cost ~20% GPU usage and about twice as much if you want to enable most major features on top, really need to go way past the point of diminishing returns to get it to run bad. To enable reflections on rougher surfacess was just like an extra 1-2fps, major enhancements like making lumen work on Nanite meshes cost more, good value, but they can accumulate fast. Lighting is the truly expensive part of lumen, but ive tried some games where its quite a negligeable cost to turn on just lumen to high (great lumen calc speed), like ~15%, with complex objects (think vegetation) turning stuff up still gets expensive.

The key enhancements (for meshes+reflections+lighting combined) were a very noticeable improvement to me, thing is i suspect this to be the most intensive location in the game, so i expect other areas to have a lower hit. Honestly kind of baffling why devs wont use the more robust lumen features on PC, they seem very worth it to me. So "high quality" lumen can be quite expensive, but relative to a more barebones lumens its not that big of a jump.

Everything major on will slash framerate by 1/3rd assuming you also turn up settings reasonably relative to just using lumen. Youd be looking at less than 50% relative to last gen techniques if you push it truly hard just from lumen. At some point with older gpu architectures, especially amd ones i can see how realistically a lot (possibly even majority) of power goes just straight into lumen this gen which i dont think is worth it there.
 
Last edited:
Xtib81 said:
Looks great but the amount of pop in I saw in recent videos has me concerned. Like, full bodies popping 20 meters away or grass popping right in front of you.
For example, at 0.34, WTF is that !!?
Click to expand...

They said they are proud of their view distance with the proprietary engine, maybe the final game is gonna be better.
 
7PoRQ1xC32QZdx7l.jpg

These repeating water tiles are either teasing some Minecraft-style gameplay, or they just don't know how to add a proper noise filter to the water to avoid it.
The cliffs on the water's edge on the right are also rough. And this is a bullshot—enhanced for marketing.
I'd bet Phil Spencer's last paycheck that this will be rough to play on consoles.
 
CartesianMan said:
7PoRQ1xC32QZdx7l.jpg

These repeating water tiles are either teasing some Minecraft-style gameplay, or they just don't know how to add a proper noise filter to the water to avoid it.
The cliffs on the water's edge on the right are also rough. And this is a bullshot—enhanced for marketing.
I'd bet Phil Spencer's last paycheck that this will be rough to play on consoles.
Click to expand...

avRBm7Z22cFgnDqa.gif
 
T4keD0wN said:
5.5.4.0 exactly
Cant wait to see how much better UE5.7 games run

Game is very solid visually, yeah. I am gonna check once i finish the mission if its possible to return there, there was one bar area with fish tanks very close from here which was awesome for testing every little tweak, especially reflections. Its kind of hard for me to measure since i am CPU bound, so going by usage, i think itd be like -15fps to go from basic lumen to using the advanced features.

Lumen seems very cheap on Blackwell just to turn on, on vs off was -20% performance and about double that if you want to enable most major features, so 40%+ in total, really need to go way past the point of diminishing returns to get it to run bad. To enable reflections on rougher surfacess was just like an extra 1-2fps, major enhancements like making lumen work on Nanite meshes cost more, good value, but they can accumulate fast.


The key enhancements (for meshes+reflections+lighting combined) were a very noticeable improvement to me, thing is i suspect this to be the most intensive location in the game, so i expect other areas to have a lower hit. Honestly kind of baffling why devs wont use the more robust lumen features on PC, they seem very worth it to me.

Everything major on will slash framerate by 1/3rd assuming you also turn up settings reasonably.
Click to expand...

5.5 added mega lights and has 5.4 cpu optimizations so that's probably why lumen is cheaper in this game.

Too bad it's not 5.6 with even more CPU optimizations (making hardware lumen possible on consoles) and potential stutter fix from CDPR!
 
Xtib81 said:
Draw distance is amazing, even better than rdr2 (at last) but close to mid distance LOD is pretty bad and I'd say it stands out particularly.
Click to expand...
When i said view distance i really meant view distance without pop in, they said that it was impossible to completely eliminate it on such a huge open world but they were proud of their results.
 
GymWolf said:
When i said view distance i really meant view distance without pop in, they said that it was impossible to completely eliminate it on such a huge open world but they were proud of their results.
Click to expand...
I mean, they can be proud all they want but look at the gameplay. That's very aggressive pop in.
 
SW BF2 (just bought it on EGS for peanuts) - I still can't belive how good this old (2017) game looks. Images will suffer from usual HDR->SDR degradation.

s5omEYy.jpeg
alybni1.jpeg
OmkK395.jpeg


Game reserves 11GB of VRAM but uses just a bit more than 3GB... DX12 mode goes out of VRAM lol - was this thing even tested?

Meanwhile "king of baked lighting" Naughty Dog in 2020:

wH1LWaW.jpeg


l3E6uhDAN3W7vylji.webp
 
Xtib81 said:
Looks great but the amount of pop in I saw in recent videos has me concerned. Like, full bodies popping 20 meters away or grass popping right in front of you.
For example, at 0.34, WTF is that !!?
Click to expand...

I believe the footage shown is from over 6 months ago. Joraptor hasn't played any recent builds of the game. It was just a click bait headline
 
Last edited:
Bojji said:
SW BF2 (just bought it on EGS for peanuts) - I still can't belive how good this old (2017) game looks. Images will suffer from usual HDR->SDR degradation.

s5omEYy.jpeg
alybni1.jpeg
OmkK395.jpeg


Game reserves 11GB of VRAM but uses just a bit more than 3GB... DX12 mode goes out of VRAM lol - was this thing even tested?

Meanwhile "king of baked lighting" Naughty Dog in 2020:

wH1LWaW.jpeg


l3E6uhDAN3W7vylji.webp
Click to expand...
The forest-y areas in TLOU2 look fantastic tbh. it's the indirectly lit indoor areas that suffer due to poorly baked GI. Battlefront 2 doesnt have that issue in its indoor areas because they are all lit by dozens of lights whereas TLOU2 really cant have any artificial light sources in its post apocalyptic world. Even Silent Hill 2 which is mostly set indoors in a town with little

The lighting in the outdoor areas looks great.

Pj4aOcA.gif


eOn4Y5k.gif


I think they shouldve tried to add RTGI in the Part1 remake and then ported it to the PS5 remaster for Part 2. They had four years.
 
SlimySnake said:
The forest-y areas in TLOU2 look fantastic tbh. it's the indirectly lit indoor areas that suffer due to poorly baked GI. Battlefront 2 doesnt have that issue in its indoor areas because they are all lit by dozens of lights whereas TLOU2 really cant have any artificial light sources in its post apocalyptic world. Even Silent Hill 2 which is mostly set indoors in a town with little

The lighting in the outdoor areas looks great.

Pj4aOcA.gif


eOn4Y5k.gif


I think they shouldve tried to add RTGI in the Part1 remake and then ported it to the PS5 remaster for Part 2. They had four years.
Click to expand...

Yeah, many environments look very good but I was shocked to discover places that didn't have any baked lighting. Looks like some areas got less love than others.

Part 1 is more consistent in this aspect. It also shows that even linear games would benefit greatly from RTGI.
 
Bojji said:
Yeah, many environments look very good but I was shocked to discover places that didn't have any baked lighting. Looks like some areas got less love than others.

Part 1 is more consistent in this aspect. It also shows that even linear games would benefit greatly from RTGI.
Click to expand...
yeah, the game is just too long and its clear that even the mighty ND dont have the resources to properly baked out every single room. Ive posted dozens of examples of these poorly lit interiors. Part of the reason is that 90% of the game is set in cloudy skies so there is even less light bounce in interiors than there is during brightly lit mid day sunlight.

Some of the game was scrapped and rebuilt late in the dev cycle because of poor focus testing especially in Abby's chapters. that could also be the reason why it feels so inconsistent.
 
Msamy said:
They closed the studio before any of this tech used on actual game
, truly fuck those cunts
49ePcw3VDDbBYfVA.jpg
Click to expand...

This will be my last generation. After Saros and GTA VI, I'm out. We are in the midst of a renaissance period for remakes and remasters and Sony decides to shut down the studio that develops them better than any other. I was banking on Sony realizing just how profitable the power of nostalgia is with remakes such as TLOU PT.1. But no, Sony has no interest in retaining the older generation that got them to where they are. I'm coming to grips with the fact that Roblox, Fortnite, etc. is what the kids want and I'm just an old man harping about "back in my day". From a business perspective I think it is a mistake for them to chase this but again as a man in my mid-late 30s I don't have the time to wait for them to realize this.
 
ChiefDada said:
This will be my last generation. After Saros and GTA VI, I'm out. We are in the midst of a renaissance period for remakes and remasters and Sony decides to shut down the studio that develops them better than any other. I was banking on Sony realizing just how profitable the power of nostalgia is with remakes such as TLOU PT.1. But no, Sony has no interest in retaining the older generation that got them to where they are. I'm coming to grips with the fact that Roblox, Fortnite, etc. is what the kids want and I'm just an old man harping about "back in my day". From a business perspective I think it is a mistake for them to chase this but again as a man in my mid-late 30s I don't have the time to wait for them to realize this.
Click to expand...
Sony output this gen broke you didnt it. lol
 
ChiefDada said:
This will be my last generation. After Saros and GTA VI, I'm out. We are in the midst of a renaissance period for remakes and remasters and Sony decides to shut down the studio that develops them better than any other. I was banking on Sony realizing just how profitable the power of nostalgia is with remakes such as TLOU PT.1. But no, Sony has no interest in retaining the older generation that got them to where they are. I'm coming to grips with the fact that Roblox, Fortnite, etc. is what the kids want and I'm just an old man harping about "back in my day". From a business perspective I think it is a mistake for them to chase this but again as a man in my mid-late 30s I don't have the time to wait for them to realize this.
Click to expand...
Hopefully ND and SSM could give us great late/cross generation games on ps5, specially that Rummored uncharted 5 and God Of War Egypt spinoff
 
March Climber said:
I said this in the other thread, SlimySnake SlimySnake based on this video I think they are going more for a 'Japanese Sunrise' feeling with their game rather than a night life/street culture experience.



I hope that maybe I am wrong.
Click to expand...

I mean, the game doesn't release until May; there's plenty for PGS to reveal that hasn't been shown off yet. Underground car culture is a massive part of the community in Japan; there will very likely be said representation in FH6.
 
DanielG165 said:
I mean, the game doesn't release until May; there's plenty for PGS to reveal that hasn't been shown off yet. Underground car culture is a massive part of the community in Japan; there will very likely be said representation in FH6.
Click to expand...
I hope you are right. Going by their previous entries, only FH 1 (and to a lesser degree FH 2) have given those underground car culture feelings.

Since FH3 things have felt a bit sterile in terms of personality.
 
March Climber said:
I said this in the other thread, SlimySnake SlimySnake based on this video I think they are going more for a 'Japanese Sunrise' feeling with their game rather than a night life/street culture experience.



I hope that maybe I am wrong.
Click to expand...

the game looks pretty much identical to AC Shadows. You would think that would make me love it, but racing games are held to a higher standard. Always have been. I expected it to look better.

Not to say it wont look great. That franchise has always produced great looking games. I just expected a bigger leap after FH5. This looks like a Ghosts 1 to Ghosts 2 leap.
 
SlimySnake said:
yeah, the game is just too long and its clear that even the mighty ND dont have the resources to properly baked out every single room. Ive posted dozens of examples of these poorly lit interiors. Part of the reason is that 90% of the game is set in cloudy skies so there is even less light bounce in interiors than there is during brightly lit mid day sunlight.

Some of the game was scrapped and rebuilt late in the dev cycle because of poor focus testing especially in Abby's chapters. that could also be the reason why it feels so inconsistent.
Click to expand...
The game is a great length, bang for buck and I'm glad they made it that long, you people pretend save files don't exist...haha.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Graphical fidelity I expect next gen
33
5K
Corporal.Hicks replied
What is your 3 top games of last Gen and this Gen?
2
62
874
Putonahappyface replied
NateTheHate on Red Dead Redemption 2 next-gen: “As far as I know, its this year”
Opinion Rumor Platform 
45
361
ComputerBlue replied
What modern game is worth to play on a high-end PC, with max graphical settings - if you would compare it to the current gen consoles?
2 3
101
2K
Fortress of Regrets replied
WindowsCentral: Xbox in 2026 — What to expect from Team Green this year, and beyond
Opinion Rumor Platform  2
50
604
Artistic replied
Top Bottom