Best graphics of any game?

Earthbound. The graphics for that game were perfect for what the game was. You couldn't improve them to enrich the experience for the game.

Graphics are going to always get better, I suppose there's a theoretical ceiling on graphics, so I think a better metric is what graphics are just about perfect for what game.
 
I don't accept that Graphical Prowess (Realism) vs. Stylized dynamic. Every game is stylized, it's just a different art style, I don't think I've ever seen a graphically "realistic" game. Sure, the rock may have some realistic qualities or the environments my look somewhat real, but there's an art style there at the end of the day - What's the saturation level? What colors did they choose? etc. Even the most "realistic" games like Crysis have a very clear art style and they look pretty much nothing like anything I've ever seen in real life.
The question is, how well did they execute this art direction and how well does the game actually looks. It's about what you feel and appreciate when you look at the game.

True
But ideally with games like wind waker or even uncharted the goal that developers are ultimately trying to reach is looking as good as a pre rendered movie in real time.

So i think the debate should be what game has done that the best.
 
There are almost no native 720p TVs, what is it?
I can't quote TheExodu5 since his tag covers the quote button with my theme, but I'm almost positive it's 720p. Whenever I set it to 1366x768 with my PC, I have to drag the cursor over the sides of the screen to see the whole thing. That doesn't happen with 1280x720 though.

However, with my 360 I can set it to 1440x900 with no issues, though doing that with my PC causes some issues (blue and green scanlines on the TV). I don't know why the 360 can do it, I assume it has something to do with it [the xbox] scaling it internally or something.

As for the model, I'm not sure what it is, but it's a Proscan 32" TV. I'll see if the label on the back has the model number.
 
True
But ideally with games like wind waker or even uncharted the goal that developers are ultimately trying to reach is looking as good as a pre rendered movie in real time.

So i think the debate should be what game has done that the best.

In the end, it's simple a subjective debate.

I mean, look at my example. Friggin' Dark Souls. I truly think it's the best looking game I've ever played. I can't really argue my point due to technical reasons beyond SSAA and texture resolution. It's a pretty simple game, technically speaking. The art and sensibility of the lighting is really what sets it apart from many games I've played.

That's one point I'd like to hammer...lighting sensibility. It really drives me bonkers when games like The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 have such technically proficient lighting engines...yet they device to coat every surface in a highly reflective radioactive substance.
 
I guess it gets more colorful in later chapters? I was early in Chapter 2 and it was still pretty much exclusively brown.



Maybe I exaggerated a bit. I'll admit it's technically accomplished, has great lighting, depth of field, and great animations. I actually really like UE3.5. I just feel the lack of AA, in my situation, really destroys any sense of immersion to the point where I'd rather give up some of the bells and whistles for a more coherent image.

The game gets really colorful towards the end. I mean Uncharted colorful. (Not kidding)
 
No, Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 are two of of the only few console games that pushes over a million polygon per frame. The only other console games I can think of that go this high (and surpass) are the Capcom MT Framework games like Resident Evil 5. And to even think that Halo 3 is even remotely anywhere near Uncharted in terms of Technology makes me laugh. The character model of Drake alone approaches 37k triangles (Chloe is 45k) and he gets no LOD at all in single player, that's higher than any game out there regardless of platform or genre.
There are definitely a decent amount of console games that push over 1 million polygons per frame.
Even some of the first efforts from a few developers go over that number, like the firsts MT Framework games (3 - 4 M per frame), Heavenly Sword (~3 million poly per frame) and I'm sure several others.
Games with lots of characters on screen are good candidates, I'd bet we can add to the list Kameo and Lair, speaking always of "first effort" games. Also sport games with polygonal crowd can throw around lots of polygons.


It's more of a guess, had some numbers but beyond3D forum is down at the moment. Also had proper numbers for MT Framework games (pushing high amounts of polygon is one of the engines best known feature).

When you take a look at the game itself you can see the edges very easily on objects and characters, an experienced modeler would be able to guess the numbers pretty accurately but you need not be one to make out that its not pushing as much as Uncharted.
About the first MT Framework games:

"In Lost Planet, each character is 10-20K polys. A VS robot is 30-40K polys. A background is about 500K. With shadows and other hidden rendering cost, it's about 3 million polys per frame. In Dead Rising, it's about 4 million polys. In Lost Planet special effects have more load but in Dead Rising they focused on polygon budgets for zombies."

Source, on Beyond3D, here
 
True
But ideally with games like wind waker or even uncharted the goal that developers are ultimately trying to reach is looking as good as a pre rendered movie in real time.

So i think the debate should be what game has done that the best.

All games wants to look like something, but it's a matter of what game does it in the prettiest way :P
I still think games like Another World or Diablo 2 look better than many modern games because the way they executed their graphics is just so amazing and memorable. They get you into the game instantly and they still look good so many years later...
With Another World, for example, they did some amazing things. Most games just put your character in the foreground, have some details in the midground and then the background/ Another World is one of the lone games who learned that putting the player in the midground is much more interesting (and more importantly, pretty.)
You can see what I'm talking about here.
 
No, Uncharted 2 and Uncharted 3 are two of of the only few console games that pushes over a million polygon per frame. The only other console games I can think of that go this high (and surpass) are the Capcom MT Framework games like Resident Evil 5. And to even think that Halo 3 is even remotely anywhere near Uncharted in terms of Technology makes me laugh. The character model of Drake alone approaches 37k triangles (Chloe is 45k) and he gets no LOD at all in single player, that's higher than any game out there regardless of platform or genre.

Large draw distance means nothing when the geometry itself is simple in the first place, name me one level with large draw distance with jam packed geometry. The ONLY technical aspect of Halo 3 worth mentioning is that it has mathematically correct dual buffer HDR lighting but so does Uncharted with it's logluv HDR implementation . In terms of polygon count, shaders (it's practically last gen in this area), post processing, shadowing (there's barely any real shadowing) and especially animation Halo 3 is so far behind that it's not even funny to compare them.

Look at the water in Halo 3! It's amazing! Realistic ripples! Objects float realistically. The water makes the uc3 water look like a joke. In many ways Halo 3 (2007) is technically and visually more impressive than uc3 (2011). This is the truth but many people especially ps3 fanboys are scared to admit it!
 
Look at the water in Halo 3! It's amazing! Realistic ripples! Objects float realistically. The water makes the uc3 water look like a joke. In many ways Halo 3 (2007) is technically and visually more impressive than uc3 (2011). This is the truth but many people especially ps3 fanboys are scared to admit it!
I can't believe your name is Uncharted Waves, it's just so perfect.
 
Look at the water in Halo 3! It's amazing! Realistic ripples! Objects float realistically. The water makes the uc3 water look like a joke. In many ways Halo 3 (2007) is technically and visually more impressive than uc3 (2011). This is the truth but many people especially ps3 fanboys are scared to admit it!

faq me....
 
In the end, it's simple a subjective debate.

I mean, look at my example. Friggin' Dark Souls. I truly think it's the best looking game I've ever played. I can't really argue my point due to technical reasons beyond SSAA and texture resolution. It's a pretty simple game, technically speaking. The art and sensibility of the lighting is really what sets it apart from many games I've played.

That's one point I'd like to hammer...lighting sensibility. It really drives me bonkers when games like The Witcher 2 and Crysis 2 have such technically proficient lighting engines...yet they device to coat every surface in a highly reflective radioactive substance.

While its true there will always be a subjective quality to what graphics look the best, in order to find out what really does look the best we need to seperate them into some sort of tangible categories that we can actually define as the best of its category.

Right now we are debating whether or not Monet is a better artist than Renoir.

But we cant do that, we need to look at impressionist paintings alone then decide if Monet is even the best at that.

Until we do this is a pointless debate.

EDIT:
Renoir is an impressionist also lol

But you get my point.

Renoir vs Monet is the debate we WANT.
 
I thought Crysis and Alan Wake PC were two of the most gorgeous games on my PC, until I played Sleeping Dogs with the high-res textures and super-duper AA and saw the game when it rains... Daaaaaaaaaamn.

On PS3, GOW3 and UC2/UC3 both look amazing. Also, while the image quality has rough spots on closer inspection, RDR looks like a Western landscape painting in motion when you view it from the proper distance.

On 3DS, I think RER, KIU, SM3DL, MK7 and OoT3D are all gorgeous, especially in autostereoscopic 3D. Obviously they're not technical feats on the same scale as the PC heavyweights, though!

On Wii, the first Super Mario Galaxy stands out in my mind as especially beautiful. Excellent color composition, textures and specular highlights (that's what they call the "sheen" on certain planetoids, right?).
 
I guess it gets more colorful in later chapters? I was early in Chapter 2 and it was still pretty much exclusively brown.
Like Bruce and Gaming Noob said there is. The underwater level was freaking brilliant. It's not like the game turns into Okami all of a sudden but there is a lot more of a range in color palette compared to the previous Gears games.
 
Like Bruce and Gaming Noob said there is. The underwater level was freaking brilliant. It's not like the game turns into Okami all of a sudden but there is a lot more of a range in color palette compared to the previous Gears games.

I was shocked when Gears 3 turned tropical. I mean sunny weather and gore? lol
 
There are definitely a decent amount of console games that push over 1 million polygons per frame.
Even some of the first efforts from a few developers go over that number, like the firsts MT Framework games (3 - 4 M per frame), Heavenly Sword (~3 million poly per frame) and I'm sure several others.
Games with lots of characters on screen are good candidates, I'd bet we can add to the list Kameo and Lair, speaking always of "first effort" games. Also sport games with polygonal crowd can throw around lots of polygons.
Ah yes just remembered a couple of old posts from beyond3D regarding those games, but it didn't occur to me that time. MT Framework games are heavy polygon pushers as I already mentioned, though a lot of that is including the shadow maps too. Anyways as it's agreed upon, the number of polygon isn't really that important, its the quality of the polygons they push.
 
GAF doesn't get it when it comes to graphics discussions. Time and time again people confuse art style (hugely subjective) for graphics (arguably, still subjective, but definitely less so). Discussing what game looks better is absurd, because that's entirely up to each person's taste. Discussing technical merits using some objective criteria is entirely possible and really interesting.
 
GAF doesn't get it when it comes to graphics discussions. Time and time again people confuse art style (hugely subjective) for graphics (arguably, still subjective, but definitely less so). Discussing what game looks better is absurd, because that's entirely up to each person's taste. Discussing technical merits using some objective criteria is entirely possible and really interesting.

Why is that absurd?
 
Indeed. Gears 3 was a greenish brown mess. And holy hell one of the most heavily aliased console games I've ever played.

I don't really think Gears 3 is technically impressive at all. Pushes nicer lighting than Gears 2 at the expense of anti-aliasing. And it has motion blur. That's about it. There are a lot of better looking console games out there.

I guess it gets more colorful in later chapters? I was early in Chapter 2 and it was still pretty much exclusively brown.

Maybe I exaggerated a bit. I'll admit it's technically accomplished, has great lighting, depth of field, and great animations. I actually really like UE3.5. I just feel the lack of AA, in my situation, really destroys any sense of immersion to the point where I'd rather give up some of the bells and whistles for a more coherent image.

You don't change your mind easily I see...you also don't criticize games that you haven't finished.
 
Hmm, well, I haven't seen that scene in person, so I guess I can't say. Shame if it looks ugly from a technical standpoint, since the creature design and animation certainly looks strong.

I have played it. Gears 3 is certainly one of the best-looking console games out there, easily top 5. The main issue seems to be some of the textures not being high quality, and some of the mountains in the far distance looking really simplistic.
 
Look at the water in Halo 3! It's amazing! Realistic ripples! Objects float realistically. The water makes the uc3 water look like a joke. In many ways Halo 3 (2007) is technically and visually more impressive than uc3 (2011). This is the truth but many people especially ps3 fanboys are scared to admit it!

Is this sarcasm?
 
Look at the water in Halo 3! It's amazing! Realistic ripples! Objects float realistically. The water makes the uc3 water look like a joke. In many ways Halo 3 (2007) is technically and visually more impressive than uc3 (2011). This is the truth but many people especially ps3 fanboys are scared to admit it!

I hope he is joking. I really do. Lol! I cant believe there was someone arguing that Halo 3 is technically superior to UC3 just because it is more open. What next. GTA San Andreas is technically superior to Halo Reach because it is far more open than Reach? As if being sandboxy is a suffucient condition for some game being technically superior over a non sandbox game. Halo 3 looks like poop compared to UC3.
 
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King of Fighters 99
 
You don't change your mind easily I see...you also don't criticize games that you haven't finished.

Why can't I criticize games I haven't finished? Do you really need to play an entire game before you can form an opinion on whether it looks good or not?

And yes, I admitted that exaggerated in my first post. The lighting is better than I remembered, so I took back my previous statement. I am not infallible, and I admitted my mistake. I'm not sure what more you want.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by complex interactions including large, complicated objects, since your examples were both, to the best of my knowledge, pre-animated stuff, not actually physics-powered.

Well, then your knowledge is incomplete. The motion of the ship in Uncharted 3 is not pre-animated. The ship actually floats on a dynamic physics-powered ocean, and the waves of said ocean determine how the ship moves (which will be different every time you play). So there you go.

The train in Uncharted 2 does move according to a pre-determined path, of course, but it's still a large object actually moving though an environment (as opposed to the fake train levels in most games), upon which you run, climb, shoot, etc.
 
Unless it's an actual HD remake and not a digital re-release of the GCN version it won't look as good as those shots

Since those shots are very literally just the GC version upressed and anti-aliased, doesn't that mean that an HD rerelease would actually look EXACTLY like that? Except with a higher res UI.
 
I only have an Xbox 360 and an old ass PC, so I can't really make suggestions for this thread myself, as I don't have the hardware to run most games with nice graphics, but looking at everything in this thread, those Journey GIFs posted by Kinyou really steal the show imo. I've never played it or seen it myself, but it looks amazing. Absolutely stunning. One of only two or three occasions where I really feel like I'm missing out by not owning a PS3.

Project CARS to me looks by far the best in terms of trying for a more realistic style from everything posted in this thread. And Killzone 3 is ugly.
 
Killzone 3 would be my pick, might now be too advanced in some places (the water) but animations and effects make up for it. Kind of regret selling my ps3 now...
 
Yeah those KOF sceneries are amazing but it is hard to notice them when it isn't zoomed out or you are too distracted fighting. That journey GIF is probably one of the big surprises of the thread.
 
Well, I don't know about most posters here, but when I consider "awesome graphics" my checklist goes in that order :

Artistic design > Technology

I DO love things like Battlefield 3 or modded Crysis and appreciate the awe-inspiring technology behind it but I'd rather take a really nice art-style over a bland technology prowess.

That's why games like Rayman Origin or Journey rank higher that technological masterpieces in my eyes.

What I do appreciate, is when they try to put a nice emphasis on the art while still backing it up with good tech (like Witcher 2 or the Uncharted games for instance)

In 10 years time, I will certainly look at Crysis and BF3 as "meh" games as far as presentation is concerned, whereas Rayman Origin would probably still rock my eyes (just like Okami and Wind Waker still rock my eyes nowadays)
 
A quick tip to all who want to impress us with the graphics of games that are actually ugly but you claim otherwise:

Make sure to post postage stamp-sized pics and gifs - that'll fool everyone!

Almost everything will look good at 300 x 300 pixels......
 
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