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[64bitmodels]

With all this arguing on the forum about crossgen and PS5, it makes me wonder if the PS4 getting a mid gen refresh contributed to everyone's apathy towards next gen graphics.

the PS4 pro and Xbox one X did not sell a lot, and seeing how this is an enthusiast forum, i'd imagine many of the people here owned a PS4 pro, or upgraded at launch. it might be a great explanation to why the outside gaming world is impressed and excited for Spiderman 2 while specifically here, everyone's unimpressed and disappointed. With that said, do you think the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X diminished the next gen returns? do you think that the PS5 and XSX would've been more impressive & exciting had we never got 8th gen midgen refreshes?

 

[Pelta88]

No.

The PS5 is on course to out pace the PS4. The PS4 outsold the PS3 launches aligned. The only impact on a console generation is games. If a console doesn't have any good games to build momentum and capture that all important mindshare, then the excuses start to flow. Excuses that range anywhere between the devs not having the right tools, non-existent world wide shortages, to Hulk Hogan tenure at the WWF.

 

[brian0057]

*glances at Tears of the Kingdom.
No, I just think devs are squandering the powerful hardware they have at their disposal.

 

[SEGA_2012]

Yes. Midgen updates are a terrible idea.

 

[mansoor1980]

yes , definitely

 

[Rendered Tangent]

I'm not "unimpressed" and "disappointed" by the Spiderman 2 trailer.

I thought it looked good and is clearly more of the same, which I'm happy about as I really enjoyed the first game and Miles Morales.

That said, I do get what you mean about the general attitude towards current gen graphics, though I suspect that is more to do with having to develop for last gen.

If you look at exclusive PS5 games they look phenomenal.

Demon Souls, Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, immediately spring to mind as showing us what can be achieved if the ps5 isn't held back.

There's no way any of those games could have run on PS4 or the pro looking the way they do at *4k60...not happening.

*I know it's not always legitimate native 4k

 

[EverydayBeast]

Consoles are amazing

 

[feynoob]

A device is a tool. The ones who make the shine the tool, are what makes it great.

 

[digdug2]

I think so to some degree. If The PS4 Pro and X1X didn't exist, imagine how blown away we would have been by the PS5 and XSX. That's not to say that the new consoles are only marginally better than the mid-gen refreshes, because that's not the case. However, as an example, the checkerboard rendering introduced by PS4 Pro showed us a very strong glimpse into what was possible for consoles. Same goes for the sheer GPU power of the X1X.

 

[SF Kosmo]

They definitely did, but there's also a diminishing returns effect that happens with each successive generation of new hardware. Even fairly large leaps in power don't have the same wow factor because we're fixing progressively smaller shortcomings in the graphics.

The difference between a character model with 50 polygons vs 200 polygons was massive. The difference between a character model with 250,000 polygons vs 1 million polygons is barely noticeable unless you get really close.

Path tracing and AI may offer enough of a paradigm shift that we get some wow factor again, but even then, you hear a lot of people argue that faked solutions are pretty good and they don't see that big of a difference.

 

[kikkis]

They were just upressed ps4 games on pro. Nobody made games specifically for pro.

 

[digdug2]

They were just upressed ps4 games on pro. Nobody made games specifically for pro.

Many games also had unlocked framerates on PS4 Pro. While they rarely hit a solid 60fps, the higher frames made a difference.

 

[64bitmodels]

However, as an example, the checkerboard rendering introduced by PS4 Pro showed us a very strong glimpse into what was possible for consoles. Same goes for the sheer GPU power of the X1X.

that's the thing. the PS5 resolution increase should've been one of the biggest and best strengths of 9th gen, but the 8.5 gen consoles faked it partway with checkerboard rendering, so even if the PS5 solution looks better it's stuff we've seen for years at this point, people are desensitized to it.

 

[Humdinger]

Yes. I was a Pro owner. You just don't see the big leaps forward that you'd see if it was base PS4 to PS5. Granted, some of this is because of cross-gen titles.

p.s. For the loser who can only "lol" at this remark, please check your supply of common sense. Of course there will be a less noticeable difference between PS4 Pro and PS5, compared to base PS4 and PS5. This should be obvious to everyone. Pro was 4 to 6x more powerful than the base PS4, so the difference will be much less noticeable.

 

[RaySoft]

Yes. Midgen updates are a terrible idea.

I voted no, but can agree with you that these midgen's kinda goes against the DNA of being a console.
Then again, it's us the consumers who makes it viable somewhat.
I have been so sure since before the PS5's launch that there would'nt be a "Pro" iteration this time around, but now we (the consumers) and the crossgen era have created the "new 4k" that is 60fps. Honestly it's actually been there all the time amongst the "hardcore" gamers, but I feel now a "perfect storm" could actually warrant a new midgen with stipulations of running games at >60fps. I feel sorry for the devs with all the different SKU's and the demands that follows them.

This in turn, I fear will lead to even more "highlevel" development cycles, which in turn will further diminish what used to be a consoles strength. (fixed hardware)
Everything is going the PC route now, wich is actually sad. Don't get me wrong, I use PC's all the time, but a homogenous nature is never good.

 

[RaySoft]

<sry, i f'ed up. mods pls delete>

 

[Bernardougf]

With all this arguing on the forum about crossgen and PS5, it makes me wonder if the PS4 getting a mid gen refresh contributed to everyone's apathy towards next gen graphics.

the PS4 pro and Xbox one X did not sell a lot, and seeing how this is an enthusiast forum, i'd imagine many of the people here owned a PS4 pro, or upgraded at launch. it might be a great explanation to why the outside gaming world is impressed and excited for Spiderman 2 while specifically here, everyone's unimpressed and disappointed. With that said, do you think the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X diminished the next gen returns? do you think that the PS5 and XSX would've been more impressive & exciting had we never got 8th gen midgen refreshes?

No.. it was the pursuit of very cheap hardware in 2020 when mobile phones costs thousands and people buy them every two year or even every year.

Scalpers came and sold a bunch of consoles for 300 400 dollars more than the original price

I think we are ready for two skus in the future.. one normal ps5 to ps6 conversion and one ps6 pro beeing launched together

 

[93xfan]

Yes. Forza Horizon 2 vs 5 is a fair comparison as they both came out a year after launch. The jump in graphics is very large between. It’s games and 2 was considered very nice looking when it launched.

 

[Aenima]

Yes, but also the increase in resolution and making 60fps the standard this gen, makes it feels we just getting diminishing returns from the graphics. While the games are still getting better visuals than before, the generation jump is not as noticeble as older gens because some games last gen already reached a very high level of photorealism. I remember Nissan posting a screenshot of Driveclub in its twitter thinking it was a real photograph, also some news site posting a screen of RDR2 landscape also thinking it was a real photo. So moving forward, even without a midgen refresh i think we just reached the fase of diminishing returns.

There are still room for hardware to be able to use full raytracing feautures, but after that i dont see much more room to big generation jumps.

 

[MALpractice311]

Path tracing and AI may offer enough of a paradigm shift that we get some wow factor again, but even then, you hear a lot of people argue that faked solutions are pretty good and they don't see that big of a difference.

Speaking for the "don't see that big of a difference" camp, I don't think we're saying that path and ray tracing don't make games look better. They unequivocally do.

The question is in reality, does this improved lighting technology make the image look SO GOOD that it justifies 4k30fps games having frame drops into the low and mid 20s or 1440p60fps games having frame drops into the 40s? For me, it's a resounding "No."

When I'm playing a game, I don't use photo mode. I don't stand around looking into puddles, windows, and mirrors. I don't monitor the accuracy of the shadows casted by the leaves of a tree. When I'm playing a game, I'm concerned with input response time and being able to clearly see moving objects all around me and increased, stable frame counts ensure I have both of those things.

 

[SF Kosmo]

The question is in reality, does this improved lighting technology make the image look SO GOOD that it justifies 4k30fps games having frame drops into the low and mid 20s or 1440p60fps games having frame drops into the 40s? For me, it's a resounding "No."

That's a different conversation. Obviously the current gen consoles and first gen RT cards on PC are not very powerful, and devs either settle for using RT in a very limited way, or major compromises on performance.

But that's changing. Thanks to massive improvements in both AI and RT performance, the newest nVidia cards can play Cyberpunk fully path traced at 100+ fps, for example. So if the question is about running the game at 200fps with no RT or 100fps with full path tracing, I think most people are going to opt for the latter.

 

[RaySoft]

Speaking for the "don't see that big of a difference" camp, I don't think we're saying that path and ray tracing don't make games look better. They unequivocally do.

The question is in reality, does this improved lighting technology make the image look SO GOOD that it justifies 4k30fps games having frame drops into the low and mid 20s or 1440p60fps games having frame drops into the 40s? For me, it's a resounding "No."

When I'm playing a game, I don't use photo mode. I don't stand around looking into puddles, windows, and mirrors. I don't monitor the accuracy of the shadows casted by the leaves of a tree. When I'm playing a game, I'm concerned with input response time and being able to clearly see moving objects all around me and increased, stable frame counts ensure I have both of those things.

RT hardware isn't ripe yet, but it's getting there. In two-three years RT shadows & GI have taken over from pre-baked with minimal fps hit.
Don't forget that RT comes with two fold improvements; Everyone wins. It's not just more true to life, but it makes the dev cycle faster as well. No more need to particularly ligh every scene, the hw just does it itself. That frees up alot of "man-years" (Im not sure if the word is the same in english, since we have a specific word for it in norwegian) internally at the studios.
Edit: Path tracing is even further away, but is the "holy grail" and will be the goal.

 

[TGO]

You think?

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

100% yes, PS4 Pro and the like gave console players an early taste of 4k (via checkboard) and sometimes 60fps.

Without the refresh, we'd have jumped from 1080p and 30fps to what we have now and I feel it would have had a bigger impact.

 

[ReBurn]

Graphics have been on the downward side of diminishing returns for some time now so, no, I don think the mid gen refreshes are the culprit. If anything they were an attempt to correct issues with the grossly underpowered launch consoles of last gen. The notion that Sony and Microsoft should have let games suck longer last gen to give the illusion of gains this gen is absurd to me. I'd rather have a more powerful console every three years than having to play mediocre games for years just to get that new gen feel.

 

[Caio]

I think so. I bought a XBox One X and I was shocked when I played Forza Horizon 4. Then I played FH5 on XSX, and even though it looked great, it missed to impress me like FH4 did, just to make an example. That thing, the XBox One X, was 4 times and something more powerful than the Base model. Sure this has a impact on Next Gen coming 2-3 years later...

 

[ungalo]

The midgen had absolutely no impact i think. No game was ever made just for them.

 

[Leonidas]

I think what has a worse impact on current gen is the fact that the consoles use RDNA2 AMD GPU hardware, it's just not that capable at RT and image upscaling. RDNA2 is the worst RT hardware available on PC. The worst out of 6.

This generation would look a whole lot better if consoles had access to DLSS and Nvidia level RT.

At least current gen consoles have a decent CPU and an SSD so there was still a nice jump from last gen in other areas.

 

[analog_future]

Absolutely. It’s unquestionable IMO.

The jump from One X to Series X is pretty meager. You’re pretty much gaining SSD load times and 60fps.

The jump from base Xbox One to Series X? Absolutely massive. From 900p/30fps/low settings to Series X is a colossal jump.

I think we’d be a lot happier with the state of modern consoles if we weren’t spoiled by mid gen refreshes.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

By about 50%.

I'm less inclined to buy a product at launch if I'm trained to expect to be made to look like a fool when four years from now the same product will be repackaged, smaller, sleeker, better performing and usually cheaper.

It also makes me less inclined to buy the PRO BRUH edition with the knowledge that a new console will be out in four years time.

Repeat step one.

 

[SF Kosmo]

RT hardware isn't ripe yet, but it's getting there. In two-three years RT shadows & GI have taken over from pre-baked with minimal fps hit.
Don't forget that RT comes with two fold improvements; Everyone wins. It's not just more true to life, but it makes the dev cycle faster as well. No more need to particularly ligh every scene, the hw just does it itself. That frees up alot of "man-years" (Im not sure if the word is the same in english, since we have a specific word for it in norwegian) internally at the studios.

That's really only true when we get to the point where RT is a given/requirement, which is just not the case yet. PC min spec and console performance modes still mean devs have to consider both, which is really not ideal.

But I don't think this will be true next gen, assuming we are talking like 2026 or so. Already the new gen cards have 10x performance improvements over first gen RT hardware (and could be 20x by then), and by 2026 PC RT hardware will be 7 years old, so devs will finally be able to move on from considering non-RT lighting.

 

[01011001]

*glances at Tears of the Kingdom.
No, I just think devs are squandering the powerful hardware they have at their disposal.

it's both. because they did that on last gen as well lol.

but it's undeniable that, measured from the most powerful console of one gen to most powerful console of the next, the jump from Xbox One X to Xbox Series X is the smallest jump in hardware power that I personally know of from one generation to another.

we are talking only 2.x times the GPU power with only a 0.3x increase in RAM.
the CPU jump is really big, and the storage speed is nice, but even with those the jump from One X is tiny.


in fact, the Series S has literally less GPU grunt than the One X even...

 

[Drizzlehell]

I think that it was bollocks and I hope that it will never happen again. Consoles aren't PCs, it shouldn't be necessary to swap to a newer, full-priced model just to get better performance with exactly the same software. When I buy a console then I expect it to last an entire generation until they announce a brand new system with its own dedicated first and third party support for games and peripherals.

I never upgraded to PS4 Pro and I stuck with the base version until the bitter end, and once I switched to PS5 I was blown away by it. I doubt that my impression would be the same if I bought the Pro.

 

[RoboFu]

Of course they did

 

[RaySoft]

That's really only true when we get to the point where RT is a given/requirement, which is just not the case yet. PC min spec and console performance modes still mean devs have to consider both, which is really not ideal.

But I don't think this will be true next gen, assuming we are talking like 2026 or so. Already the new gen cards have 10x performance improvements over first gen RT hardware (and could be 20x by then), and by 2026 PC RT hardware will be 7 years old, so devs will finally be able to move on from considering non-RT lighting.

I agree, that's why i wrote two-three more years. But the RT implementation in hardware of today eats too much cycles from the rest of the hardware. The shift in hw design has already happened, so in a few years time RT will be more and more "cheaper" to use. You can add to that two more years before it's affordable enough to hit mainstream.

 

[Captain Toad]

I think diminishing returns limited the impact from all consoles after the PS360 generation.

There won't be any more generational leaps as mind-blowing as we had each cycle from Atari 2600 to PS2.

 

[64bitmodels]

e

AI may offer enough of a paradigm shift that we get some wow factor again, but even then, you hear a lot of people argue that faked solutions are pretty good and they don't see that big of a difference.

maybe for pathtracing but AI can do big things for RPGs.

 

[SportsFan581]

With all this arguing on the forum about crossgen and PS5, it makes me wonder if the PS4 getting a mid gen refresh contributed to everyone's apathy towards next gen graphics.

the PS4 pro and Xbox one X did not sell a lot, and seeing how this is an enthusiast forum, i'd imagine many of the people here owned a PS4 pro, or upgraded at launch. it might be a great explanation to why the outside gaming world is impressed and excited for Spiderman 2 while specifically here, everyone's unimpressed and disappointed. With that said, do you think the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X diminished the next gen returns? do you think that the PS5 and XSX would've been more impressive & exciting had we never got 8th gen midgen refreshes?

I think that's the bigger issue right there, more so than users having Pro or 1X systems. The more general market is just looking at games for what they are, where enthusiasts might be quicker to point out areas that they think should improve, etc.

 

[Madserb2023]

Yes, it minimised the impact. If I had only now seen resolutions above 1080p I would have been more impressed.

 

[rofif]

Of course yes. How could it not.
Otherwise this would be first time people see 4k or 60fps games both of which were on mid gen but not base least gen

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

I am shocked by what I am reading in this thread lol.

Of course NOT, 8th-gen mid-gen refreshes had nothing to do with what we are seeing with 9th-gen. People are forgetting that all those mid-gen refreshes offered over the OG 8th-gen consoles were in most cases just higher rez.

Anyone that is saying they did, is really just saying that 9th-gen development so far isn't far removed from what we were getting last-gen. This is actually true, as so far most of the games we have got on the 9th gen are built on engines that were designed for 8th-gen consoles.

let's be honest, currently, the only thing most of these 9th-gen games have over their 8th-gen counterparts are usually better geometry and draw distance, higher rez textures, more particles, better lighting and/or RT, higher resolutions, and faster loading.

But most importantly, even if that's all they are doing on top of their last-gen engines, the problem is that they are not doing enough of it for it to feel current-gen. Eg. Take HZFW, it's still the Decima engine that was used on the PS4. It's still a cross-gen game, but there is enough that has been done to the PS5 version to make it feel next-gen. Can't say the same for SM2. It looks a lot better than OG SM. But about the same as SM.MM, which just looked like SM.Remastered with RT reflections. It's not a bad-looking game, not in the same way that say Halo Infinite was and needed to be delayed. It just doesn't look different from SM.MM.

Of course yes. How could it not.
Otherwise this would be first time people see 4k or 60fps games both of which were on mid gen but not base least gen

Just like this... this is the common misconception. 4K or 60fps is NT what makes a game look next-gen.

That nanite pre release PS5 demo, the matrix demo.... those things are not running in native 4K at 60fps. Resolution and framerates is not why those demos impress so much.

 

[Krappadizzle]

The lack of exclusive next-gen games has diminished the next-gen consoles for me. I saw the writing on the wall almost immediately and it's made waiting for PS5Pro/XXX so incredibly easy.

 

[rofif]

I am shocked by what I am reading in this thread lol.

Of course NOT, 8th-gen mid-gen refreshes had nothing to do with what we are seeing with 9th-gen. People are forgetting that all those mid-gen refreshes offered over the OG 8th-gen consoles were in most cases just higher rez.

Anyone that is saying they did, is really just saying that 9th-gen development so far isn't far removed from what we were getting last-gen. This is actually true, as so far most of the games we have got on the 9th gen are built on engines that were designed for 8th-gen consoles.

let's be honest, currently, the only thing most of these 9th-gen games have over their 8th-gen counterparts are usually better geometry and draw distance, higher rez textures, more particles, better lighting and/or RT, higher resolutions, and faster loading.

But most importantly, even if that's all they are doing on top of their last-gen engines, the problem is that they are not doing enough of it for it to feel current-gen. Eg. Take HZFW, it's still the Decima engine that was used on the PS4. It's still a cross-gen game, but there is enough that has been done to the PS5 version to make it feel next-gen. Can't say the same for SM2. It looks a lot better than OG SM. But about the same as SM.MM, which just looked like SM.Remastered with RT reflections. It's not a bad-looking game, not in the same way that say Halo Infinite was and needed to be delayed. It just doesn't look different from SM.MM.


Just like this... this is the common misconception. 4K or 60fps is NT what makes a game look next-gen.

That nanite pre release PS5 demo, the matrix demo.... those things are not running in native 4K at 60fps. Resolution and framerates is not why those demos impress so much.

I know res and frames are not next gen. But they are a part of it.
Besides... I don't think we have games that look better than last gen games on pro.. And the only way these games look better no is with 4k or 60fps ps5 patches.
The next gen visuals are starting to slowly creep in though... finally.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

The lack of exclusive next-gen games has diminished the next-gen consoles for me. I saw the writing on the wall almost immediately and it's made waiting for PS5Pro/XXX so incredibly easy.

Unfortunately... PS5pro/XXX does not solve this problem.

The problem is not that we are getting true next-gen (current gen) looking games that happen to be running at 1080p/30fps that we need mid-gen refreshes to bump up rez and/or framerates like they did last gen. The problem is that current-gen games are still being built on what are mostly last-gen engines or design philosophies. They just bolt-on features that are a direct by-product of the hardware improvements over the last gen. higher rez textures (simply cause we have more RAM), higher rez + more geometry (we have more TFs), RT (we have RT cores) and faster loading (we have SSDs, I mean we still get games with those craw spaces for crying out loud even though we no longer need them lol.).

It's quite honestly the easiest and laziest approach these devs can take to building games on these current-gen consoles.

 

[64bitmodels]

Of course yes. How could it not.
Otherwise this would be first time people see 4k or 60fps games both of which were on mid gen but not base least gen

to be fair 60fps games aren't new.... lol

I know res and frames are not next gen. But they are a part of it.
Besides... I don't think we have games that look better than last gen games on pro.. And the only way these games look better no is with 4k or 60fps ps5 patches.
The next gen visuals are starting to slowly creep in though... finally.

Pretty much. PS4 Pro added enough power for the games to truly go insane.

The visual jump on PS5 isn't that much larger when considering PS4 Pro to PS5, you're in it for everything else. But the Dualsense features and the fast loading IMO were supposed to be a compliment to 4k, 60fps and the improved general visuals, not the main thing. thus, people jumping from Pro won't feel like they really had a generational jump. And it's also probably why many people stay on PS4.

 

[rofif]

to be fair 60fps games aren't new.... lol

Pretty much. PS4 Pro added enough power for the games to truly go insane.

The visual jump on PS5 isn't that much larger when considering PS4 Pro to PS5, you're in it for everything else. But the Dualsense features and the fast loading IMO were supposed to be a compliment to 4k, 60fps and the improved general visuals, not the main thing. thus, people jumping from Pro won't feel like they really had a generational jump. And it's also probably why many people stay on PS4.

60fps games are new compared to last gen only It was a bit 1080p30fps gen.
Yeah I agree. Duualsense and image quality improvements are worth it for me on ps5

 

[Krappadizzle]

Unfortunately... PS5pro/XXX does not solve this problem.

Def. doesn't, but the expected baseline is at least moved up a bit. Problem is that there are so many last-gen consoles sold that to leave that market alone would be a less-than-savvy business move when the investments are so substantial to create something.

I do think we'll start seeing things that actually feel next-gen very soon even if we've had some amazing and underappreciated examples across the platforms the last few years. I also think that with how ubiquitous development tools are becoming that we're gonna start seeing more unique things on consoles in the indie/AA space that will be far more interesting than the recycled trite we get from MSFT/Sony.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Def. doesn't, but the expected baseline is at least moved up a bit. Problem is that there are so many last-gen consoles sold that to leave that market alone would be a less-than-savvy business move when the investments are so substantial to create something.

I do think we'll start seeing things that actually feel next-gen very soon even if we've had some amazing and underappreciated examples across the platforms the last few years. I also think that with how ubiquitous development tools are becoming that we're gonna start seeing more unique things on consoles in the indie/AA space that will be far more interesting than the recycled trite we get from MSFT/Sony.

Agreed. And the baseline hasn't just moved up a bit.. technically it has moved up a lot.

The problem is that devs are still building to the baseline of the previous-gen consoles.

 

[Rendered Tangent]

I kind of look at this way; PS1 to PS2 saw a massive leap in what could be achieved, the quality of the textures, the detail, the interactivity, the complexity of the game worlds etc...

Going from PS2 to PS3 saw another huge leap in the scale, quality, and complexity, of the game worlds.
Remember, PS2 gave us GTA San Andreas, and PS3 gave us GTA4 and 5 at the end of its life.
Look at San Andreas and GTA4 and tell me they don't look like generational leaps.

Moving from PS3 to PS4 was a big jump, perhaps not quite as remarkable as the previous ones, but it was still impressive.

Again, think The Last of Us on PS3, which came out at the end of the ps3 life cycle by which time Naughty Dog had gained considerable experience on the platform (making all 3 Uncharted games), and the PS4 remaster barely a year or so later.
You could use Uncharted too - if you look at the difference between UC3 on PS3 and UC4 on ps4, it's a pretty remarkable upgrade.
Both were higher resolution, better looking, and had a more consistent frame rate with a 60fps offering compared to the previous generations offering.

I think that's the big take away from the PS4 and the pro and onto ps5 - we saw more of a new coat of paint than a full renovation...to use a decorating analogy.

That said, could PS4 or PS4 pro have done Demon Souls?

At *4k60 as well?

Could it do Ratchet and Clank without the high speed SDD?

No, it couldn't.

So, we are definitely seeing visual upgrades, as well as the scale and detail, and complexity, improving, but it's not as great a leap as previous generations.

At least, that's my general impression.

*Not necessarily native 4k

 

[SF Kosmo]

e

maybe for pathtracing but AI can do big things for RPGs.

Well I am not really talking about AI content, I mean using AI for things like denoising, upscaling, frame generation, etc that allow graphics beyond what the hardware would otherwise be capable of.