Support NeoGAF

[Ainem Enamas]

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.

I even don't care playing 360 games on 85inch TV, on Series X, with no or low AA. (And on low resolution, because of old game 720p)
I do like textures on high quality though, or at least as high as possible

 

[Mibu no ookami]

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?)

Here's my take on it. I think creating movies and tv show is an art form when done right (same as games). I'm very interested in what the creator is trying to tell me or convey. When someone puts a ton of effort into creating something, I want the product of that effort as unmolested as possible.

There are people who are okay with watching Schindler's List on a cell phone, but I don't think you're going to get the intended experience out of that and I feel like that's a shame.

I don't see this as just content to be consumed.

But at the same time, that's just me.

Edit: To add to that imagine that I put together a great scene and have chosen an amazing score to go along with it. The score is key to the scene, but you watch it on mute with subtitles and you come away having not felt anything. At the end of the day who's fault is that? I'd say it was on the audience, but the audience still gets to say "Oh, it was fine, but it didn't really do anything for me emotionally, I think it's overrated."

Well my take is, you never actually watched the scene or the movie.

It's the same with people who will watch gameplay on youtube, but they never played the game. I think the way we consume media today has a lot of problems. Tiktok generation (which isn't exclusively to age) has ruined media.

 

[Robb]

Not really, as long as whatever is going on is consistent I get used to it very quickly.

I'd be more annoyed about shadows glitching in and out (pop-in) than their quality, for example.

 

[Parazels]

I have Series X. I'm now playing Tomb Rider Underworld

Tested it a month ago on Series X, when completing my backlog. Found it boring and ugly by the modern standards.
Deleted forever!

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

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

As long as you're happy with it

 

[Ainem Enamas]

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

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

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.

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

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.

A game that is truly beautiful today, will still be beautiful 20 years from now.

Excellent read!

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Resistance 3 running at, like, 640p with jaggies everywhere and low res textures...

... 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.

This looks so soulful! I'm glad the Holy Trinity made gaming possible
Look how beautiful the colors look, the art in that screenshot makes me appreciate reality

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Tested it a month ago on Series X, when completing my backlog. Found it boring and ugly by the modern standards.
Deleted forever!

The gameplay, it's the old style Tomb Rider and I enjoy it

 

[Kataploom]

That's how console run the games lol

 

[Parazels]

The gameplay, it's the old style Tomb Rider and I enjoy it

I would rather play Tomb Raider 1-3 Classic Collection at 4k@60.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

That's how console run the games lol

Yea, but that's all I need

 

[a multicultural team of v]

Here's my take on it. I think creating movies and tv show is an art form when done right (same as games). I'm very interested in what the creator is trying to tell me or convey. When someone puts a ton of effort into creating something, I want the product of that effort as unmolested as possible.

There are people who are okay with watching Schindler's List on a cell phone, but I don't think you're going to get the intended experience out of that and I feel like that's a shame.

I don't see this as just content to be consumed.

But at the same time, that's just me.

Edit: To add to that imagine that I put together a great scene and have chosen an amazing score to go along with it. The score is key to the scene, but you watch it on mute with subtitles and you come away having not felt anything. At the end of the day who's fault is that? I'd say it was on the audience, but the audience still gets to say "Oh, it was fine, but it didn't really do anything for me emotionally, I think it's overrated."

Well my take is, you never actually watched the scene or the movie.

It's the same with people who will watch gameplay on youtube, but they never played the game. I think the way we consume media today has a lot of problems. Tiktok generation (which isn't exclusively to age) has ruined media.

Why doesn't this apply to video games though? A PSX game with wobbling polygons at 20fps was also the creators vision. People destroy pixel art using image smoothing and forcing wide screen. Adding ray tracing to a 30 year old game wasn't the creators vision. There are people who have put a thousand hours into Skyrim entirely with mods - did they even play Skyrim? When they say Skyrim is a good game, what does that even mean?

I don't have an answer for any of this I'm just rambling into the void. Personally I'm a huge "artist vision" person myself (I'm not an artist, I pay artists to provide me art) so I just struggle to understand why videogames are somehow exempt from this. It particularly gets weird when someone like Miyamoto creates a game, then some random dude in Kansas is like nahhhh I'm gonna change it to something else. Um, sorry bro I'm gonna go with the art Miyamoto created, thanks though.

 

[RCX]

I want some form of AA for sure. That nintendo stair-step look is too distracting. But low shadows and decent (not ultra) textures are fine with me.

FPS comes first, always.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Shadows is the first thing I start downgrading when I need to claw back some performance. Textures and lighting especially indirect are very important to me.

 

[Flabagast]

Is motion plus on Samsung oled TVs good to activate for 30 fps content ?

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Can I quickly post my song here, can you guys give a quick opinion on this? (If this can't be done, I'll delete, - only one random instance)

 

[Ainem Enamas]

I want some form of AA for sure. That nintendo stair-step look is too distracting. But low shadows and decent (not ultra) textures are fine with me.

FPS comes first, always.

Nintendo first party never uses AA but why
I'm so hyped for TOTK S2 version, less than a month until S2

 

[Mister Wolf]

Is motion plus on Samsung oled TVs good to activate for 30 fps content ?

Yes. I even use it with 60fps games on the Switch.

 

[DirtInUrEye]

Optimised settings only ie High and Ultra for the good stuff, but god rays and volumetric clouds can be fine on medium.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Why doesn't this apply to video games though? A PSX game with wobbling polygons at 20fps was also the creators vision. People destroy pixel art using image smoothing and forcing wide screen. Adding ray tracing to a 30 year old game wasn't the creators vision. There are people who have put a thousand hours into Skyrim entirely with mods - did they even play Skyrim? When they say Skyrim is a good game, what does that even mean?

I don't have an answer for any of this I'm just rambling into the void. Personally I'm a huge "artist vision" person myself (I'm not an artist, I pay artists to provide me art) so I just struggle to understand why videogames are somehow exempt from this. It particularly gets weird when someone like Miyamoto creates a game, then some random dude in Kansas is like nahhhh I'm gonna change it to something else. Um, sorry bro I'm gonna go with the art Miyamoto created, thanks though.

As you can see I think it does apply to video games.

I think there are some caveats to that though.

If you look at George Lucas, he created the special edition star wars movies that have a very mixed reaction, but that was his vision. He just didn't have the technology to achieve his vision.

I think there are some technological barriers in games that are not necessarily part of the creators vision but rather a restriction based on the resources available at the time. That being said, I think you need to be really careful in modifying around those barriers, but I'm not sure that image smoothing breaks the intent.

I remember I bought an RX7 and I wanted to keep the car as stock as possible, but were a lot of limitations involved with that. There was an overflow tank for example that was part of the cooling system. This was originally made out of plastic; now RX7 rotary engines get hot, when you heat plastic and have it cool over and over again, that cycle results in the part cracking wide open, which happened to me. I could have got a stock part, but instead I replaced it with an aluminium overlow tank. I felt like the change would be in keeping with the spirit of the car and all the modifications I did were generally in the spirit of the car's original design with maybe some caveats here and there.

I think when it comes to technology you can do some tasteful things that don't break the spirit of the original especially over time as technology advances.

I can tell you I bought FF7 on PC and tried out some of the mods, and I can tell you I thought they absolutely broke the spirit of the game.

At the end of the day it's up to everyone's individual interpretations and barometer and maybe their own justifications. I can justify upgrading the lighting in a game if I feel like the original lighting artist would have done this if they had the time or resources, but I'd want to make sure it didn't take anything away from the game.

You also have to consider a creator's original intent vs what their future intent might be and which is more important? If a creator remasters or remakes their game with up to date technology, which is the true vision? Does changing how fog works in a game because the original game needed fog to hide the technical limitations? What if the fog played a key role in how the rest of the game was designed?

Was putting MGS2 style first person controls into MGS Twin Snakes in line with the original vision? I think we can assume that it wasn't if it breaks the game. Does it make a difference if the director is involved or not?

In short, I don't know if there is any hard and fast rule.

 

[Ulysses 31]

Upon watching this, the inventor of video interpolation:

What are you guys smoking? Motion interpolation is needed for movie watching on today's sample-and-hold displays. The trick is to use just the right amount so you don't get 24 fps stutter and stroboscopic effect. I assume Tom Cruise and that other dude were talking about motion interpolation levels that give the soap opera effect. Motion interpolation is not automatically bad.

HDTVTest points it auto in most TV reviews.

 

[poodaddy]

Oh boy, here come the guys who grab someone else's remote and start calibrating their TV without even asking

We have to save the primates who are destroying their image quality with awful TV features from themselves. You're welcome.

 

[Flabagast]

Yes. I even use it with 60fps games on the Switch.

Can you elaborate ? Does it make the quality modes more viable ? Has it no impact on image quality ?

 

[lughnasadh123]

Shadows are usually the first thing I stop noticing when doing almost anything. It's nice, but usually not something high on the list of must-haves. Low quality textures are always noticeable.

 

[Deerock71]

What are you guys smoking?

 

[R6Rider]

Better ambient occlusion is more important to me than shadows.

Most games still get it wrong.

 

[Danjin44]

No I played and enjoyed Drakengard 3 and that game was technical disaster.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Can you elaborate ? Does it make the quality modes more viable ? Has it no impact on image quality ?

I have a Samsung QN90A. I have used Game Motion Plus extensively when playing the Xenoblade games at 30fps. I have also used it when playing Metroid Prime Remastered. The judder setting is for smoothing out 30fps games. The blur setting is for games that are 60fps. Makes them look more like 120hz. The small hit in latency is worth the increase in motion clarity.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Better ambient occlusion is more important to me than shadows.

Most games still get it wrong.

What is ambient occlusion?

 

[Ainem Enamas]

I have a Samsung QN90A. I have used Game Motion Plus extensively when playing the Xenoblade games at 30fps. I have also used it when playing Metroid Prime Remastered. The judder setting is for smoothing out 30fps games. The blur setting is for games that are 60fps. Makes them look more like 120hz. The small hit in latency is worth the increase in motion clarity.

Yes, this exactly

 

[R6Rider]

What is ambient occlusion?

Essentially the lighting/shadows of items when close together or in the corner of rooms.

You can probably get a much better explanation on just Google, but here is an example:

Ambient Occlusion | PlayCanvas Developer Site

Ambient Occlusion is a technique to approximate how much light gets onto the surface based on its occlusion by the environment.

developer.playcanvas.com

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Essentially the lighting/shadows of items when close together or in the corner of rooms.

You can probably get a much better explanation on just Google, but here is an example:

Ambient Occlusion | PlayCanvas Developer Site

Ambient Occlusion is a technique to approximate how much light gets onto the surface based on its occlusion by the environment.

developer.playcanvas.com

How I like this stuff! Gaming is awesome

 

[KungFucius]

Do I care? Yes, but only for the first few minutes if the game is good. When I played TotK right after a modern PC game, I was a little distracted by low level of detail and jaggies, but forgot about it after an hour or so.

 

[Guardian Monkey]

This overall gaming experience is so enough for me.

 

[DirtyBast8rd]

I want everything maxed out graphics wise. No point in having a 4k Oled beast and then have messy textures and low details. But graphics have to go hand in hand with good gameplay.

 

[StereoVsn]

I would like to see well done shadows, especially if we are talking immersive sims or stealth based titles.

However, that takes backseat to performance, textures, distance pop-in and more. So it's pretty far on list of priorities, just don't make it crazy blocky.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

This is enough

 

[hououinkyouma00]

I play games not stare at 400% zoom shots.

Resistance 3 running at, like, 640p with jaggies everywhere and low res textures...

... 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.

I'm actually playing through all of the Resistance games right now and they all look great for being so old. I still think Resistance Fall of Man despite being relatively primitive looks good for being a PS3 launch title. Resistance 3 is beautiful though.

I thought the same thing when I played through the Wii remake of Fatal Frame 2 and played through Calling. Both games are obviously simple and low res but looked "better" than a lot of newer games to me just due to environment/atmosphere/art.

 

[DragonNCM]

Ofc I care !!!
About x4 zoom shadows, grass/tree motion & pixelization , always zooming X4 on textures, RT, global illumination, TAA, lumen density.
Actually I'm always playing with x4 zoom so I can see when graphic reconstruction will activate & from what resolution to what resolution is reconstructed.

 

[ReasonBeing]

I like to limit pvp games to 30fps and use my smoothing option in my TV for the best experience. You get the best graphics with the responsiveness of 60fps. It can actually make you better at the game.

Now there is a learnlng curve to get used to this enhanced experience. Like currently my k/d ratio has dropped some, but that's because my aim is a little off due to me not being used to how responsive the game is.

 

[Ainem Enamas]

Do I care? Yes, but only for the first few minutes if the game is good. When I played TotK right after a modern PC game, I was a little distracted by low level of detail and jaggies, but forgot about it after an hour or so.

S2 is so soon, less than a month - I want to finally play TOTK, with that upgrade

 

[Kataploom]

Yea, but that's all I need

I don't care about running the games in ultra, even on PC I run everything at High with ultra textures only, one never know when a graphical settings is just too demanding for what it delivers, as long as I get minimum 60 fps that's ok.

I was about to switch to consoles then A Plague Tale Requiem and Gotham Knight came out that Fall with only 30 fps mode and I decided to upgrade my GPU instead.

 

[Kataploom]

Do I care? Yes, but only for the first few minutes if the game is good. When I played TotK right after a modern PC game, I was a little distracted by low level of detail and jaggies, but forgot about it after an hour or so.

I'm in the same spot but couldn't forget about the frame rate for long, less than 60 really bothers me

 

[a multicultural team of v]

As you can see I think it does apply to video games.

I think there are some caveats to that though.

If you look at George Lucas, he created the special edition star wars movies that have a very mixed reaction, but that was his vision. He just didn't have the technology to achieve his vision.

I think there are some technological barriers in games that are not necessarily part of the creators vision but rather a restriction based on the resources available at the time. That being said, I think you need to be really careful in modifying around those barriers, but I'm not sure that image smoothing breaks the intent.

I remember I bought an RX7 and I wanted to keep the car as stock as possible, but were a lot of limitations involved with that. There was an overflow tank for example that was part of the cooling system. This was originally made out of plastic; now RX7 rotary engines get hot, when you heat plastic and have it cool over and over again, that cycle results in the part cracking wide open, which happened to me. I could have got a stock part, but instead I replaced it with an aluminium overlow tank. I felt like the change would be in keeping with the spirit of the car and all the modifications I did were generally in the spirit of the car's original design with maybe some caveats here and there.

I think when it comes to technology you can do some tasteful things that don't break the spirit of the original especially over time as technology advances.

I can tell you I bought FF7 on PC and tried out some of the mods, and I can tell you I thought they absolutely broke the spirit of the game.

At the end of the day it's up to everyone's individual interpretations and barometer and maybe their own justifications. I can justify upgrading the lighting in a game if I feel like the original lighting artist would have done this if they had the time or resources, but I'd want to make sure it didn't take anything away from the game.

You also have to consider a creator's original intent vs what their future intent might be and which is more important? If a creator remasters or remakes their game with up to date technology, which is the true vision? Does changing how fog works in a game because the original game needed fog to hide the technical limitations? What if the fog played a key role in how the rest of the game was designed?

Was putting MGS2 style first person controls into MGS Twin Snakes in line with the original vision? I think we can assume that it wasn't if it breaks the game. Does it make a difference if the director is involved or not?

In short, I don't know if there is any hard and fast rule.

This is a really good post and you make lots of interesting points (I could go off on Twin Snakes for like an hour), I just don't have the energy

 

[M.W.]

Yes, that's why I game on PC.

 

[awwr999999]

Oh boy, here come the guys who grab someone else's remote and start calibrating their TV without even asking

This is one massive advantage that Switch has over TV consoles and PCs - studios making games for the same display that users play on.
The best we can ever hope for is a Sony TV that's plug-and-play with a future Sony PlayStation.
Studios use that display when making games and we use that same display when playing them.