Do you care if shadows are low-mid quality, textures mid, no AA or very minimal AA, and so on?

I have Series X and 85inch Hisense, and TV has some image enhancers. I'm now playing Tomb Rider Underworld, there are some low quality graphical settings, and I don't care. This overall gaming experience is so enough for me.
Do you pay attention to this?
 
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Doesn't bother me.

Shit, in my day I've played everything from Starfox on SNES to N64/PS1 to Call of Duty on Wii to the likes of Witcher 3 and Doom Eternal on Switch.

Eye candy is nice and all, but it's not the be-all end-all. So long as the gameplay holds up, I'm good.
 
Do I care about good graphics?

Dumb And Dumber GIF


Enough to deter me from playing a good game? No.
 
I'm not too bothered. I usually try to optimise settings to maximise framerate. Shadows is the first setting to go from high to low/medium and then I work from there.
 
As long as it isn't actually distracting, like the shadows becoming a blocky flickering mess, I'll always go for better performance.

The one I use, it enhances the frame-rate. (I have calibrated picture for accurate colors) I turn on Smooth Motion enhancer for high frame-rate enhancement in 30fps games.
Turn that shit off right now

team america vomit GIF
 
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Yes and no. Shadow resolution for example I'll always lower that mid/high, no reason to have super crisp shadows since even irl they're not like that besides the fact that are considerably demanding. I also turn off motion blur, ca, camera shakes, the gray shit that makes it look old forgot the name atm, and yeah. I do want my textures to look good tho and I hate that modern games have worse texture quality than older games... and if you want the best ones, well good luck you'll need 100gb vram.
 
I'm not too bothered. I usually try to optimise settings to maximise framerate. Shadows is the first setting to go from high to low/medium and then I work from there.
I usually try to maximize graphics settings gtg s while still hitting 120fps. Shadows and skybox are the first things I turn down and they seem to be big contributors to slowdown.

Once I put the 5090 in I'll max things out :)
 
Shadow quality is the first thing I turn down when my gpu starts to fall behind.

Ultra shadows are crazy expensive and not that much better than medium especially in a fast moving game at 80-120 fps with VRR.
 
Yes and no. Shadow resolution for example I'll always lower that mid/high, no reason to have super crisp shadows since even irl they're not like that besides the fact that are considerably demanding. I also turn off motion blur, ca, camera shakes, the gray shit that makes it look old forgot the name atm, and yeah. I do want my textures to look good tho and I hate that modern games have worse texture quality than older games... and if you want the best ones, well good luck you'll need 100gb vram.
Recently I have noticed that IRL there are some low quality shadow maps. That's why I emphasized in my previous threads that gamers have this specific mindset, how we approach things. (I need to be cautious because I recieved a ban, and moderation of my posts, because of the last thread...I think because I talked about the Holy Trinity) On thread - I simply need high setting textures in games, and art in the visual style.
 
Recently I have noticed that IRL there are some low quality shadow maps. That's why I emphasized in my previous threads that gamers have this specific mindset, how we approach things. (I need to be cautious because I recieved a ban, and moderation of my posts, because of the last thread...I think because I talked about the Holy Trinity) On thread - I simply need high setting textures in games, and art in the visual style.
When you say "I have noticed that IRL there are some low quality shadow maps" are you referring to the actual shadows that you see in the real world?
 
I don't have an issue with old games on old consoles or PC because that's how the developers intended the game to look.

A modern game on PC or a modern console at medium or low settings is not how the devs intended it to be played at, so fuck that.
 
Most of us kill that feature instantly on TVs for a variety of reasons.

Does your TV not have a gaming mode to use instead?
I use game-mode because of reduced input. I have calibrated picture (white balance etc) for exact vision by artists. HDMI Enhanced Format. Then I have options - Ultra Smooth Motion or High Refresh Rate Mode. It's completely enough for me
 
Xbox 360 3d games didn't age well, excluding several titles with 4k patches.

Overall I don't like when a game is trying to punch above its weight. Developers, give me less advanced, but crisp graphics, and solid performance.
 
I usually try to maximize graphics settings gtg s while still hitting 120fps. Shadows and skybox are the first things I turn down and they seem to be big contributors to slowdown.

Once I put the 5090 in I'll max things out :)
This is why this thread was made
My setup is completely enough. It's great to max out everything, it is clearly enhanced experience, but I personally don't need it. I think the Holy Trinity taught me that
 
When you say "I have noticed that IRL there are some low quality shadow maps" are you referring to the actual shadows that you see in the real world?
Yes. I only recently noticed that in the actual real life there are shadows, like from the tree or something, that looks like low settings in some game...
 
I replay Skies of Arcadia every year, just to make sure my Dreamcast still works.

This is what it looks like:
i6Az5jv.png


A lot of the shadows are painted into the textures.
This Ninjas hands dont even have fingers........but I still have an absolute blast going through this game.
It generally doesnt take long to get used to a games artstyle even the older ones.



If im playing a more modern game, shadows is usually the first thing I tweak to get the game to look right because lighting affects how a game looks so much, by proxy the shadows need to look good.
Texture quality is usually next cuz nothing more grating than a low res texture in an otherwise amazing environment.
Anti-Aliasing isnt too expensive these days, especially with DLSS if I can push higher I will......in more fast paced games i might lower AA if its costing me frames.
 
I replay Skies of Arcadia every year, just to make sure my Dreamcast still works.

This is what it looks like:
i6Az5jv.png


A lot of the shadows are painted into the textures.
This Ninjas hands dont even have fingers........but I still have an absolute blast going through this game.
It generally doesnt take long to get used to a games artstyle even the older ones.



If im playing a more modern game, shadows is usually the first thing I tweak to get the game to look right because lighting affects how a game looks so much, by proxy the shadows need to look good.
Texture quality is usually next cuz nothing more grating than a low res texture in an otherwise amazing environment.
Anti-Aliasing isnt too expensive these days, especially with DLSS if I can push higher I will......in more fast paced games i might lower AA if its costing me frames.
THAT GAME LOOKS SO GOOD BECAUSE OF THE ART! Just look how soulful it looks!!!
 
This is what it looks like:
i6Az5jv.png
Looks better than many modern games imo and I'm not joking. Wide variety of vibrant colors, you can clearly discern what is what no matter the distance even given the low resolution, no yellow paint anywhere telling you what's important or not...

Most modern game look washed out, blurry, give you sensory overload and have to resort to tricks like yellow paint because otherwise the player wouldn't be able to tell shit from shit. The chase for realism is a blight on videogames.
 
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Give me the best graphics I can get without nerfing how the game feels to play please. If it's a FPS game, that means 120 frames.

If it's an RPG, I honestly don't really GAF if it's 30FPS, but 60 would be preferred in this day and age. If it has timed hits like E33, the exemption is dubious.

Most typical games, action or third person, should simply all be 60 now. It's a failure when they aren't.
 
Shadows I can take a hit on, it's usually not noticeable as long as it retains the general shape. Nowadays a lot of lighting is handled by ray tracing and that's something that you often can't really compromise on, otherwise you get a lot of boiling noise in dark areas.

Textures I can live with going below the max setting. From a reasonable distance in-game, it's almost impossible to tell unless you go really close. Shouldn't be any reason to limit textures nowadays unless you are really VRAM limited and are getting stuttering or some not loading in.

TAA and upscaling techniques like DLSS have basically solved aliasing for me (AND they boost performance usually) and the developer would have to be extremely incompetent to not implement those in their engine.

I'm not a massive AA whore though and if the resolution is high enough then I can even live with something really basic. I'm playing Oblivion 2006 right now with plain old SMAA slapped on it and it looks fine in 1440p. If anything imperfect image quality kind of adds to the charm of an old game.
 
Its pains me to turn down shadows since I feel it adds so much visually and tonally to the environments. That said, it is one of the first things I'll turn down if performance is under an acceptable level.
 
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It bothers me a lot.

In Expedition 33 the shadows flicker a lot in character's faces which really ruins my immersion sometimes. Thank god I found a fix for it and they look much better now

But yes visual flaws in general bother me, if textures are ugly I dont like it at all, Final fantasy VII Remake traumatized me, and games with no AA are a deal breaker for me and tend to avoid although with a powerful computer using DLDSR and reshade you can make miracles. I have ocd so I guess that's the reason why I struggle with these things
 
Only if it's so bad that it becomes distracting.
The worst offenders for me, really immersion brakers, are pop in (NPCs, trees, shadows appearing in front of you), clipping (weapons, capes, hair) and big animation gaps (incomplete jump animations).
 
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This is still one of the best looking games I've ever seen. Why because it was consistent with its own art direction. And that's so key to making beautiful looking games that stay in the mind years or even decades later.

Meanwhile, Star Fox was considered a technical marvel, but doesn't hold up at all

starfox.jpg


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I can still play SOTN today on PS1 without feeling like I've lost something.

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Final Fantasy 7 on the other hand does a couple of things wrong. First, the character designs don't match up to the rest of the world aesthetic which really highlights how visually lacking the character models have. Second, in direct contrast to the cutscenes, the game doesn't hold up to what our memories filled in for the game.

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A similar problem with Devil May Cry. The game looked amazing at the time, but you could almost feel how dated the gameplay and graphics were off the bat. It was never going to stand the test of time.

Meanwhile, Metal Gear Solid 2 still looks striking
remembering-metal-gear-solid-2-as-it-turns-20-years-old-1636806337035.jpg


At the end of the day, art direction and consistency wins over any special techniques. It's why TLOUP2 still looks way better than 95% of next gen games.

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A game that is truly beautiful today, will still be beautiful 20 years from now.
 
I play on PC and frame rate is top priority. I will turn down any settings needed to get a smooth 60fps. I also upgrade my PC as needed to get the power I need.

That said, I often find:
  • If you have settings with four levels - Low, Medium, High, and Ultra - the difference between Ultra and High is often indistinguishable when a game is in motion. I don't mind dialing down to High on some things to get more performance.
  • Shadows are often a major factor in performance. In older games, Medium shadows would often look pixelated. But in modern games, all levels of shadows look good. Now it's about how much fine detail vs blur the shadows have. If there's no pixelation, I prefer shadows that are more blurry than sharp.
  • A lot of PC ports ship with motion blur, chromatic aberration, bloom, etc. turned on by default. I usually turn all of that off.
 
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Shadows and visible shadow cascades are my biggest issue with graphics right now and why I deem RT shadows a necessity, more than GI, at least in games that are pushing for fidelity. Nothing looks worse than seeing shadows turn to shit or vanish once you are a couple meters away from them. Old GTAV with it's 2x2m shadow cascade box is prolly the worst example for this.
 
I care about good art direction with decent IQ at 60fps or more.
Everything else is basically just a bonus in the sense that it's nice to have but not really a dealbreaker when its not there.

Like on PC going from mid graphics to ultra settings doesn't seem worth it to me unless you have a really high end system where you don't have to compromise on resolution or framerate to do so. Otherwise I usually find the differences to be stuff that's noticeable in direct comparisons but that I don't actually give a shit about when playing the game
 
I don't really care


i replay this game every year just because how fun it is lol
even controls are jank, textures are low or whatever, and are there even actual shadows ?
but the game is so fun

i can go play skyrim tomorrow with no mods at all and I will have more fun than half the graphically superior games i've played past 6 months
 
I don't really care


i replay this game every year just because how fun it is lol
even controls are jank, textures are low or whatever, and are there even actual shadows ?
but the game is so fun

i can go play skyrim tomorrow with no mods at all and I will have more fun than half the graphically superior games i've played past 6 months


That chase at the end always stressed me the fuck out as a kid lol
 

I will never understand why people take such an moralist "filmmakers vision" stance on this. If Top Gun was a PC game gamers would have modded Tom Cruise into a hot chick with huge tits, used Reshade to completely fuck with the color grading, made every plane Thomas the Tank engine, and made it turn based. But God forbid someone use motion smoothing on a movie!

(Editors note: motion smoothing looks like absolute shit. That's not my argument - my argument is why can't people fuck with movies in any way they want?)
 
Resistance 3 running at, like, 640p with jaggies everywhere and low res textures...

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... is still incredibly beautiful nowadays, which is to say that great art design will absolutely save your game's visuals regardless of pretty much any shortcomings on the technical side of things.

Bloodborne is another outstanding example of this.
 
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