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[SlimySnake]

Can anyone explain why the rocks don’t have a lot of detail when you zoom in?

vram. these are all pictures taken by the dev team anyway. they were all scanned in. they have the reference pics. if you are seeing low quality assets its likely because of vram concerns. nanite should, in theory at least, have lifted all the GPU bottlenecks leaving vram as the only bottleneck.

The game barely uses 7GB on my 10 gb 3080. So they couldve pushed the texture quality a lot more. But UE5 is still very new and we dont know for sure just how these textures work with nanite. Remember nanite can become CPU bound and who knows how it works behind the scenes when you have so much detailed packed in every single object/mesh that its probably not possible to have high res textures for each tree branch, ground level rock and pebbles even on a 24 GB 4090.

It could also be devs picking and choosing which textures to prioritize. Some rocks and pebbles look far more detailed than others.

 

[GymWolf]

vram. these are all pictures taken by the dev team anyway. they were all scanned in. they have the reference pics. if you are seeing low quality assets its likely because of vram concerns. nanite should, in theory at least, have lifted all the GPU bottlenecks leaving vram as the only bottleneck.

The game barely uses 7GB on my 10 gb 3080. So they couldve pushed the texture quality a lot more. But UE5 is still very new and we dont know for sure just how these textures work with nanite. Remember nanite can become CPU bound and who knows how it works behind the scenes when you have so much detailed packed in every single object/mesh that its probably not possible to have high res textures for each tree branch, ground level rock and pebbles even on a 24 GB 4090.

It could also be devs picking and choosing which textures to prioritize. Some rocks and pebbles look far more detailed than others.

They all look great from a distance, those gifs are not zooming at all, zooming is the whole point of the discussion.

B Balducci30

Still far from perfect but it's a start.

 

[Darsxx82]

It could also be devs picking and choosing which textures to prioritize. Some rocks and pebbles look far more detailed than others.

this

There are stones and rocks that I don't think could have more definition in real life. Not all assets are perfect, I don't think the Studio was thinking about 1000% zoom when creating those assets. The goal of visual fidelity and photorealism is already achieved by a long way from any other game.

 

[miklonus]

This thread is literally its own message board and its own site. That's not a criticism, by the way. Far from it. So much of this site is so pro-Sony that it's refreshing to constantly come in here and get people that aren't blindly kissing Sony's ass and sucking Sony's dick almost 100% like the rest of the site is. Even when I disagree with y'all, the few or not-so-few times that I do, this thread by itself is still a shining bright spot on here.
Any ESLs that get offended by this can fuck off.

 

[GymWolf]

This thread is literally its own message board and its own site. That's not a criticism, by the way. Far from it. So much of this site is so pro-Sony that it's refreshing to constantly come in here and get people that aren't blindly kissing Sony's ass and sucking Sony's dick almost 100% like the rest of the site is. Even when I disagree with y'all, the few or not-so-few times that I do, this thread by itself is still a shining bright spot on here.
Any ESLs that get offended by this can fuck off.

The people who post here don't pull any punches in the other topics aswell.

But tbh, i see a lot of sony bashing even outside of this topic...

I think nintendo and fromsoft are way more dick-sucked than sony on gaf.

 

[miklonus]

Why would you expect 60 fps from consoles? In most cases, devs have to sacrifice half of the GPU horsepower to double the framerate and even then its not enough, and other graphics concessions have to be made that ultimately make the game look last gen as fuck as we have seen so many times this gen. RT is typically the first thing to go. Then level of detail and volumetric effects. And then the resolution is halved. And thats the best case scenario. Most games in the 60 fps modes are dropping to 720p and their reocnstruction techniques introduce all kinds of pixel crawl and ghosting that coupled with all the dialed down effects just completely removes the next gen sheen of these games.

I am convinced that most gamers have such a low opinion of graphics this gen because they are playing these games in shitty 60 fps modes.

Will the pro be capable of 2k60? I just need to know that the PS5 pro will be capable of giving me, giving us, the full load without having the need to adjust the settings in the in-game menu. I'm sick of choosing between 60 and 30 when the goal is to have it run at 60 frames per second AND 4k resolution.
I just want to know that the PS5 pro will be capable of that, otherwise........it's worthless. What's the point of it? It's worthless if it's still having the same struggles of the base PS5. The PS5 already has no games worth owning, and now you're gonna have "this"?

 

[SlimySnake]

Will the pro be capable of 2k60? I just need to know that the PS5 pro will be capable of giving me, giving us, the full load without having the need to adjust the settings in the in-game menu. I'm sick of choosing between 60 and 30 when the goal is to have it run at 60 frames per second AND 4k resolution.
I just want to know that the PS5 pro will be capable of that, otherwise........it's worthless. What's the point of it? It's worthless if it's still having the same struggles of the base PS5. The PS5 already has no games worth owning, and now you're gonna have "this"?

Pro is using AI upscaling and has way better RT capabilites. it's basically like going from an AMD card with FSR upscaling and terrible RT performance to an Nvidia card with DLSS and great RT performance. If you are ok with 4k DLSS Performance upscaling image quality, you will be happy here with 60 fps modes.

 

[Negotiator101]

Post Hellblade 2 and the new found confidence in Unreal 5 actually starting to deliver on that early tech demo and the fact that other engines are significantly behind Unreal 5 currently.

Do we think that developers should make their games with Unreal 5 and beyond? Or are there proprietary engines just as capable but the games haven't been seen yet? I'm not sure myself but after playing HB2 I could see a valid argument for using UE5 at least for AAA gaming.

 

[GymWolf]

How the fuck do people know that sony upscaling tech is on par with dlss? Wishful thinking i guess...

 

[GymWolf]

Post Hellblade 2 and the new found confidence in Unreal 5 actually starting to deliver on that early tech demo and the fact that other engines are significantly behind Unreal 5 currently.

Do we think that developers should make their games with Unreal 5 and beyond? Or are there proprietary engines just as capable but the games haven't been seen yet? I'm not sure myself but after playing HB2 I could see a valid argument for using UE5 at least for AAA gaming.

None of the big players has tried to make a fully nextgen 5 hours experience so you are comparing a playable tech demo with actual games...

How can you tell that they are vastly inferiors when all the big players are mostly doing open world and big sandbox games?

You think a super scripted, stricted 5 hours experience from nd or guerrilla or forza horizon team would look much worse?

 

[Negotiator101]

None of the big players has tried to make a fully nextgen 5 hours experience so you are comparing a playable tech demo with actual games...

How can you tell that they are vastly inferiors when all the big players are mostly doing open world and big sandbox games?

It's just a question really, I'm not saying that's the way to go, just imagining a new Resident Evil with this level of graphical fidelity as I'm playing the 4 remake currently (which is a fine looking game in its own right).

It's I guess looking at it as simply a visual benchmark without taking into account what's happening in the game as far as AI, scope and scale etc I don't think these visuals are possible in every type of game but there's alot that could don't you think?

 

[miklonus]

Pro is using AI upscaling and has way better RT capabilites. it's basically like going from an AMD card with FSR upscaling and terrible RT performance to an Nvidia card with DLSS and great RT performance. If you are ok with 4k DLSS Performance upscaling image quality, you will be happy here with 60 fps modes.

Fuck if "I'm" ok with it, are "YOU", SlimySnake , ok with it? You're the standard-bearer on here to me. I wanna know if "YOU" think it will be enough. I'm sick of these PS4-looking and PS4-playing games. (PS3 if you "really" wanna get technical.) Shit I wanna know if "you" think...the PS5 pro's upgrades, will suffice.
I'm sick of the options. A so-called high-end machine shouldn't offer options, because it should be able to cover 60 frames per second without compromise. I'm sick of the compromises. Unlike most, I'm willing to blame covid, or whatever, but did covid cause Rockstar to take OVER a decade to release a sequel? Did covid cause Abby to come out in 2020?
LOL. We got robbed in plain sight.

 

[GymWolf]

It's just a question really, I'm not saying that's the way to go, just imagining a new Resident Evil with this level of graphical fidelity as I'm playing the 4 remake currently (which is a fine looking game in its own right).

It's I guess looking at it as simply a visual benchmark without taking into account what's happening in the game as far as AI, scope and scale etc I don't think these visuals are possible in every type of game but there's alot that could don't you think?

Dude i imagined big games with this level of fidelity since the gen started

My point is that we don't know if it's all ue5 merit or if making such a small, scripted game also help a lot in putting all the rendering budget into pure graphic (i mean it sure help but by how much?)

We don't even know if the other engines have something like nanite because we haven't seen jack shit from the majority of them after 3 years of nextgen.

And even when we are gonna see something from them the question is always gonna be there, do these games look worse because of the engine or because they are actual big games?

Do you remember how that famous room in uncharted 4 looked much better than the rest of the game? Because they focused all the rendering budget in a single room.

 

[SlimySnake]

Or are there proprietary engines just as capable but the games haven't been seen yet?

It's this.

Wait for GG, SSM, ND, Sucker Punch, Rockstar, Playground Games, and Ubisoft.

UE5 isnt magic. Lumen is basically raytracing. Hellblade 2 isnt even using hardware Lumen so its software ray tracing. Starfield, Forza 8, Demon Souls all use software based realtime GI. Avatar, Dragons Dogma, Star Wars all use RTGI or hardware Lumen equivalent which has not been used in any game yet.
Nanite is basically delivering on the promise of mesh/primitive shaders that were introduced all the way back in 2016 on Vega and pascal cards. Alan Wake 2, Avatar and even FF7 Rebirth are using it.
Metahuman is available for everyone to use, and Death stranding will be using it. It's engine agnostic like Quixel Megascan assets.

The main draw of UE5 is that the tech has already been built. it's there. you dont need a small tech team of maybe 30 graphics programmers to get your engine up to speed. Aside from GG and Insomniac, most Sony studios 100-200 devs. Of them, maybe 20 graphics programmers who need to add support for all those features.

I have played Immortals, Remnant 2, Robocop and Lords Of the Fallen, all UE5 games, and nothing even comes close to Hellblade 2. It's mostly about how you use it. You need devs talented enough to utilize the hardware to its fullest potential. Ninja Theory didnt just slap realtime GI on there and made a last gen game. They made levels thick with fog and made sure to illuminate them with fancy fire effects. They didnt just use nanite to push last gen assets like Immortals and Remnant 2 do. They created high quality assets and then utilized nanite. Star Wars and Callisto has similar asset fidelity but not at this level of density.

 

[Lethal01]

I’m all about zooming in, halo 1 blew my mind back in the day precisely because of the detail holding up no matter how close you got.

Can anyone explain why the rocks don’t have a lot of detail when you zoom in? The trade off is totally worth it imo - because it seems like it’s somehow actual micro geometry with light reacting to it and everything. I’m just confused on why it works like that

one reason is just storage, they may go all out for things you are meant to focus on but may not want to double the size so that the 5 people who care can take the worlds best feet pics.

 

[Balducci30]

vram. these are all pictures taken by the dev team anyway. they were all scanned in. they have the reference pics. if you are seeing low quality assets its likely because of vram concerns. nanite should, in theory at least, have lifted all the GPU bottlenecks leaving vram as the only bottleneck.

The game barely uses 7GB on my 10 gb 3080. So they couldve pushed the texture quality a lot more. But UE5 is still very new and we dont know for sure just how these textures work with nanite. Remember nanite can become CPU bound and who knows how it works behind the scenes when you have so much detailed packed in every single object/mesh that its probably not possible to have high res textures for each tree branch, ground level rock and pebbles even on a 24 GB 4090.

It could also be devs picking and choosing which textures to prioritize. Some rocks and pebbles look far more detailed than others.

I agree with GymWolf tho - and going through the game from the third person perspective (like your gifs here) everything looks extremely high quality. It’s only when you zoom in a lot that it breaks down.

They all look great from a distance, those gifs are not zooming at all, zooming is the whole point of the discussion.

B Balducci30

Still far from perfect but it's a start.

that looks great, Is this from hellblade?

 

[SlimySnake]

Fuck if "I'm" ok with it, are "YOU", SlimySnake , ok with it? You're the standard-bearer on here to me. I wanna know if "YOU" think it will be enough. I'm sick of these PS4-looking and PS4-playing games. (PS3 if you "really" wanna get technical.) Shit I wanna know if "you" think...the PS5 pro's upgrades, will suffice.
I'm sick of the options. A so-called high-end machine shouldn't offer options, because it should be able to cover 60 frames per second without compromise. I'm sick of the compromises. Unlike most, I'm willing to blame covid, or whatever, but did covid cause Rockstar to take OVER a decade to release a sequel? Did covid cause Abby to come out in 2020?
LOL. We got robbed in plain sight.

im not the guy you want to talk to in regards to image quality. Id rather play a 1080p game like hellblade 2 than a native 4k game like god of war, but 4k dlss performance is fine for most PC gamers. its what most people use including Alex from DF. There is no shimmering or artifacts you get in FSR or native 1080p so it will be a massive upgrade from checkerboarding, FSR, native, and insomniac's temporal AA techniques. I prefer DLSS quality which builds from 1440p but my 3080 cant handle that in most graphics intensive games. No PC gamer would tolerate playing at 30 fps but i played Alan Wake 2 and hellblade 2 at effectively 30 fps, and Avatar at 40-60 fps because i prefer 4k dlss quality over 4k dlss performance.

So yeah, not the best guy to ask. But i think 4k dlss performance image quality will be a huge boost over the 720p games 60 fps people have been playing on consoles since last year. Best of all, you get to play these games with RT on at 60 fps. No more removing RT from Star Wars, Callisto, and other games just to play at 60 fps. Sony docs even mentioned adding more RT effects in games. The hardware they have added for AI and RT is on par with mid to high tier Nvidia cards. It will be a worthwhile upgrade as long as people understand it wont be native 4k 60 fps.

 

[Balducci30]

Post Hellblade 2 and the new found confidence in Unreal 5 actually starting to deliver on that early tech demo and the fact that other engines are significantly behind Unreal 5 currently.

Do we think that developers should make their games with Unreal 5 and beyond? Or are there proprietary engines just as capable but the games haven't been seen yet? I'm not sure myself but after playing HB2 I could see a valid argument for using UE5 at least for AAA gaming.

I mean it makes me think of UE4 last gen vs Naughty Dogs proprietary engine. I bet if a company like that put the effort in they could surpass UE5 easily. Hell as evidenced in this thread not all UE5 games look on par with HB2, far from it. Although hopefully this makes them raise the bar. I know Remedy has its own nanite type solution as well - so it shouldn’t be something exclusive to one engine conceptually.

 

[Balducci30]

Fuck if "I'm" ok with it, are "YOU", SlimySnake , ok with it? You're the standard-bearer on here to me. I wanna know if "YOU" think it will be enough. I'm sick of these PS4-looking and PS4-playing games. (PS3 if you "really" wanna get technical.) Shit I wanna know if "you" think...the PS5 pro's upgrades, will suffice.
I'm sick of the options. A so-called high-end machine shouldn't offer options, because it should be able to cover 60 frames per second without compromise. I'm sick of the compromises. Unlike most, I'm willing to blame covid, or whatever, but did covid cause Rockstar to take OVER a decade to release a sequel? Did covid cause Abby to come out in 2020?
LOL. We got robbed in plain sight.

Fuck 60FPS and 4K for consoles. That’s what holding graphics back more than anything. If you want high framerate/resolution - get a PC. How are we supposed to demand 4-7 year old consoles to push graphics if they’re concerned about that shit.

 

[GymWolf]

I agree with GymWolf tho - and going through the game from the third person perspective (like your gifs here) everything looks extremely high quality. It’s only when you zoom in a lot that it breaks down.

that looks great, Is this from hellblade?

Nope, quixel scans.

From distance the rocks in hb2 looks better, from up close this one looks better.

 

[ChiefDada]

How the fuck do people know that sony upscaling tech is on par with dlss? Wishful thinking i guess...

From a hardware perspective it's literally using the same playbook as nvidia. Frame gen, ray reconstruction is all on the table and will be able to perform at 4070S level, give or take. It all comes down to API, which Sony has never skimped on tbh

 

[GymWolf]

From a hardware perspective it's literally using the same playbook as nvidia. Frame gen, ray reconstruction is all on the table and will be able to perform at 4070S level, give or take. It all comes down to API, which Sony has never skimped on tbh

Yeah but nvida trained its IA when it still wasn't cool to do, so they have an enourmous advantage over anyone else, wasn't that a huge reason why their upscaling was much better than amd solution? plus dedicated hardware inside their gpus.

 

[ChiefDada]

Yeah but nvida trained its IA when it still wasn't cool to do, so they have an enourmous advantage over anyone else,

#SonyToo

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/research/technologies/super-resolution_technology/#sm_section7

wasn't that a huge reason why their upscaling was much better than amd solution plus dedicated hardware inside their gpus.

I think the ML piece (which includes the hardware acceleration) is the biggest factor.

 

[ChiefDada]

Fuck 60FPS and 4K for consoles. That’s what holding graphics back more than anything. If you want high framerate/resolution - get a PC. How are we supposed to demand 4-7 year old consoles to push graphics if they’re concerned about that shit.

With Nvidia, PS5 Pro, Switch 2, Steam Deck going all in on ML upscaling, I think it's safe to say native pixel rendering is a thing of the past. Good riddance. Any hardware that continues to brute force will be looked at as inferior because of the final results not matching those from the more sophisticated hardware.

 

[SlimySnake]

I mean it makes me think of UE4 last gen vs Naughty Dogs proprietary engine. I bet if a company like that put the effort in they could surpass UE5 easily. Hell as evidenced in this thread not all UE5 games look on par with HB2, far from it. Although hopefully this makes them raise the bar. I know Remedy has its own nanite type solution as well - so it shouldn’t be something exclusive to one engine conceptually.

Yeah. I mean GTA5 was the best looking game in a gen that started off with a bang with UE3 flagship Gears that looked light years ahead of anything else out there at the time. RDR2 and TLOU2 are the best looking games of last gen. I have no doubt that GTA6 and TLOU3/Next ND game will be the best of this gen.

I think Sony's studios did themselves no favor by limiting their own cross gen games to last gen tech. Cyberpunk and Callisto were also cross gen but they really pushed RT and other features to give their games that next gen look completely missing from Ragnorak, TLOU Part 1, and GT7. Had they utilized RT and produced something like Star Wars or Callisto, we might not be so harsh on them right now. TLOU1 especially is a huge missed oppurtunity because they couldve tested RTGI or nanite style solutions with a game of that size.

Even Insomniac who had the opportunity to make next gen games is only now working on adding next gen features for their 2026 games. These shouldve been included in 2023's spiderman 2.

If Sony studios drop their fascination with 60 fps and go back to 30 fps modes then they will easily be able to top these UE5 games. hellblade 2 might not be topped similar to how The order is still king of the linear genre, but in terms of overall scale and fidelity, we will definitely have games from other engines that keep up if not top the UE5 games.

P.S A lot of Hellblade 2's achievements can be directly attributed to the talent over at Ninja Theory instead of simply UE5. The extra work they did on combat animations, water streams, ocean waves, fog and smoke effects, color saturation, and HDR highlights are all custom and no amount of UE5 horsepower can help other lesser devs recreate that magic.

 

[GymWolf]

Yeah i don't think that gta5 looked better than unchy 3 or tlou or kz2 or maybe even some other ps3 title tbh...

Since when gta5 is the best looking 7th gen game?

 

[DanielG165]

P.S A lot of Hellblade 2's achievements can be directly attributed to the talent over at Ninja Theory instead of simply UE5. The extra work they did on combat animations, water streams, ocean waves, fog and smoke effects, color saturation, and HDR highlights are all custom and no amount of UE5 horsepower can help other lesser devs recreate that magic.

Yup. UE5 is merely a good tool, but it’s up to the developers and artists to properly take advantage of it and innovate with it. NT did just that with Hellblade 2.

 

[Darsxx82]

I guess we can say that it retains more details than other games ground textures but it doesn't retain its own details that you can admire from bigger distance.

That's not possible even in real life, imagine in a game

Also, dude YOU posted the pics with that description, did you expected no one talking about the pics you post? This is what you do in a forum and especially in a graphic whore topic, i just noticed that between the shoes and the rocks, only one actually has all the details intact because leather is way easier to render than rocks.


And btw, analizing details from up close as been a thing in graphic discussion since forever, i still remember the discussions about the famous rocks in halo 1 not losing definition when going up close, i remember analyzing the texture of the rocks and trees in the jungle forest of kz shadow fall because it was the first taste of nextgen details, we even had a discussion about the rocks in robocop looking great from mid distance but losing details the more you get close.

I've described the visual fidelity of the game, including 1000% zoom. There's no game with that visual fidelity and that's why its level of visual fidelity is being highlighted, not because it's perfect . It's not hard to understand.

What's hard to understand is that, something that is ahead of anything seen before and how difficult it is to render something with geometry, someone's first reaction be to detract from how they look in a 1000% zoom

And before photo mode was a thing, we analized characters details by going close to a wall, rotating the camera until it bump on the wall and zoom super close to the character models to analyze the finer details.

The fact is that here we are not only analyzing textures (visual fidelity is more than textures), there is much more to those stones and rocks than just their appearance in an exaggerated zoom

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a significant amount of assets in the game that are not rocks and stones with a visual fidelity at the same level or higher. Many objects and the characters' own clothes are top. Because the fact that the game looks fantastic and photorealistic isn't just Nanite/LUmen (or UE5) reason. As comrade SlimySnake rightly says, there is much more that makes the whole set stand out also in these screen with extra zooom. How NT use Lumen GI effects, particle effects and atmospheric effects (NIagara), clothing and hair physics need to be praised.

 

[GymWolf]

That's not possible even in real life, imagine in a game



I've described the visual fidelity of the game, including 1000% zoom. There's no game with that visual fidelity and that's why its level of visual fidelity is being highlighted, not because it's perfect . It's not hard to understand.

What's hard to understand is that, something that is ahead of anything seen before and how difficult it is to render something with geometry, someone's first reaction be to detract from how they look in a 1000% zoom


The fact is that here we are not only analyzing textures (visual fidelity is more than textures), there is much more to those stones and rocks than just their appearance in an exaggerated zoom

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a significant amount of assets in the game that are not rocks and stones with a visual fidelity at the same level or higher. Many objects and the characters' own clothes are top. Because the fact that the game looks fantastic and photorealistic isn't just Nanite reason. As comrade SlimySnake rightly says, there is much more that makes the whole set stand out also in these screen with extra zooom. Lumen GI effects, particle effects and atmospheric effects (NIagara), clothing and hair physics

Dude i know that the game is the best looking game out there, but if you post a super zoomed screen, i'm gonna fucking talk about it, especially when some people say that the game lose zero details from up close when it's CLEARLY not the case.

There is nothing hard or easy to understand, people post pics and other people discuss, we already had this discussion for robocop and probably many other times when someone posted super zoomed pics to check the materials, i'm not even criticizing the game at all, i said multiple times that in a 3d camera game there is no reason to zoom that much on the ground (i mean except those tight passages where the camera zoom in) and these consoles don't have enough horse power to waste details that you can't even see in normal gameplay, it's really not that deep, the topic would be fucking boring if everyone just praise the fuck out of everything, you have the official screenshot topic for that.

I repeat again in case i wasn't clear enough, i'm not saying anything bad about the game, at worse i'm a bit disappointed because it was a personal dream of mine to see assets that don't lose any details from up close, especially rocks because they are a bitch to render and they are fucking everywhere in 95% of games (also, first person camera game exist and more than often you look at things from super up close so it's a tech that we need)

 

[DanielG165]

We’ve never seen the level of fidelity that Hellblade 2 has in a video game before, and what’s incredible is that said fidelity is consistent throughout. It’s not just ground textures, it’s cloth textures, skin, eyes, teeth, grass, water, moss, trees, wood… Everything is at a level that simply has not been done, ever.

I keep saying this: When you only look at HB2 through the lens of 2D images and videos, you have an incomplete understanding and opinion of the game’s graphical and artistic quality. You simply have to see it in person natively, or else you won’t properly fathom it.

 

[miklonus]

Fuck 60FPS and 4K for consoles. That’s what holding graphics back more than anything. If you want high framerate/resolution - get a PC. How are we supposed to demand 4-7 year old consoles to push graphics if they’re concerned about that shit.

Whoa, time out! I hear you, but my point is you "STILL" shouldn't have to have that option, because the game should be optimized to run at its full potential, whether that is as a fast-paced action game that requires 60 frames, or a slower-paced game that could perfectly work at 30 frames per sec.
I didn't word it as well, and for that I apologize, but I was more lamenting the lack of brand new game designs, and brand new engines that would help bring those game designs to life. I'd be ok with 1080p too as SlimySnake said if the games were bring us new, original, unprecedented gameplay and game styles and game design. We've been fuckin' playing Devil May Cry 3 since PS2! Part of that is the industry refusing to move on from sequels, which makes them refuse to move TO new ideas and FROM old/out-dated ones, and the other part is, I guess, things like covid, or just the budget of games itself becoming more unsustainable for companies to continue to either bring games out sooner, or innovate entirely altogether with new shit/ideas.
John (Linneman) said that Stellar Blade plays like a PS2/3 game, and that's not the compliment that he thinks it is, because that game plays like a severely dated thing from the past. Go to The Wasteland, or Great Desert areas, and some of those rocks are baffingly and staggering low-res. I thought my SSD had blown out. I transferred the game from both my SSDs within the PS5, and the issue remains. It's like that door in Final Fantasy 7 remake that wouldn't load on PS4, but would on the 5.
Panty shots can only carry your game so far when you got low-res rocks, and questionable game design and gameplay.

 

[Lethal01]

Dude i know that the game is the best looking game out there, but if you post a super zoomed screen, i'm gonna fucking talk about it, especially when some people say that the game lose zero details from up close when it's CLEARLY not the case.

There is nothing hard or easy to understand, people post pics and other people discuss, we already had this discussion for robocop and probably many other times when someone posted super zoomed pics to check the materials, i'm not even criticizing the game at all, i said multiple times that in a 3d camera game there is no reason to zoom that much on the ground (i mean except those tight passages where the camera zoom in) and these consoles don't have enough horse power to waste details that you can't even see in normal gameplay, it's really not that deep, the topic would be fucking boring if everyone just praise the fuck out of everything, you have the official screenshot topic for that.

I repeat again in case i wasn't clear enough, i'm not saying anything bad about the game, at worse i'm a bit disappointed because it was a personal dream of mine to see assets that don't lose any details from up close, especially rocks because they are a bitch to render and they are fucking everywhere in 95% of games (also, first person camera game exist and more than often you look at things from super up close so it's a tech that we need)

This a nitpick but you keep talking about "losing details upclose" but no detail is lost from going closer, that's when its at its max detail. it loses detail when you go further, getting closer just lets you see that the detail was never that high.

 

[GymWolf]

We’ve never seen the level of fidelity that Hellblade 2 has in a video game before, and what’s incredible is that said fidelity is consistent throughout. It’s not just ground textures, it’s cloth textures, skin, eyes, teeth, grass, water, moss, trees, wood… Everything is at a level that simply has not been done, ever.

I keep saying this: When you only look at HB2 through the lens of 2D images and videos, you have an incomplete understanding and opinion of the game’s graphical and artistic quality. You simply have to see it in person natively, or else you won’t properly fathom it.

Someone between amazon, vodafone and netflix just gifted me 1 or 3 months of gamepass (didn't checked if it was for pc aswell) so i'm probably gonna play this damn thing in the near future, but we judged games from blurred 1080p youtube trailers, low quality pics etc, it's a bit too late to draw the line for 4k high quality pics, especially when they are so zoomed in that really leave no doubt about what are you looking at.

This a nitpick but you keep talking about "losing details upclose" but no detail is lost from going closer, that's when its at its max detail. it loses detail when you go further, getting closer just lets you see that the detail was never that high.

Losing details from my point of view is probably the right term...i guess??

 

[ChiefDada]

This a nitpick but you keep talking about "losing details upclose" but no detail is lost from going closer, that's when its at its max detail. it loses detail when you go further, getting closer just lets you see that the detail was never that high.

Losing details from my point of view is probably the right term...i guess??

Yep. It sounds like you're asking for ultra high res textures, like 8k and above providing supersampled quality. Otherwise yeah, not even 4k textures will suffice.

 

[GymWolf]

Yep. It sounds like you're asking for ultra high res textures, like 8k and above providing supersampled quality. Otherwise yeah, not even 4k textures will suffice.

Yeah i guess that's why slimy said that the vram is not enough.

 

[Balducci30]

Whoa, time out! I hear you, but my point is you "STILL" shouldn't have to have that option, because the game should be optimized to run at its full potential, whether that is as a fast-paced action game that requires 60 frames, or a slower-paced game that could perfectly work at 30 frames per sec.
I didn't word it as well, and for that I apologize, but I was more lamenting the lack of brand new game designs, and brand new engines that would help bring those game designs to life. I'd be ok with 1080p too as SlimySnake said if the games were bring us new, original, unprecedented gameplay and game styles and game design. We've been fuckin' playing Devil May Cry 3 since PS2! Part of that is the industry refusing to move on from sequels, which makes them refuse to move TO new ideas and FROM old/out-dated ones, and the other part is, I guess, things like covid, or just the budget of games itself becoming more unsustainable for companies to continue to either bring games out sooner, or innovate entirely altogether with new shit/ideas.
John (Linneman) said that Stellar Blade plays like a PS2/3 game, and that's not the compliment that he thinks it is, because that game plays like a severely dated thing from the past. Go to The Wasteland, or Great Desert areas, and some of those rocks are baffingly and staggering low-res. I thought my SSD had blown out. I transferred the game from both my SSDs within the PS5, and the issue remains. It's like that door in Final Fantasy 7 remake that wouldn't load on PS4, but would on the 5.
Panty shots can only carry your game so far when you got low-res rocks, and questionable game design and gameplay.

Oh, I agree with you then. I still don’t understand why we’ve put ZERO effort into improving the physics side of graphics and vfx like interactive water/fire. Feels like those elements have stagnated/barely improved since the ps3 era.

 

[Lethal01]

Yeah i guess that's why slimy said that the vram is not enough.

If the asset streaming is good enough the Vram won't be an issue since you wont need that super detailed model and high-resolution textures outside of that zoom. but again, it's just likely to multiply the asset size by 2 or 4.

on the terminology, I would just say that the models hold up when close.

again, it was a nitpick, nobody else would care anyway.

 

[SlimySnake]

DF Direct had a segment this week where they asked if Hellblade 2 wouldve won last year over Alan Wake 2 and Avatar, and they all said no and picked Avatar because it feels more interactive compared to the more linear Hellblade 2. They ranked AW2 second last year and said HB2 would tie with it.

I might agree with Avatar still taking the top spot, but HB2 is way ahead of AW2. Right now, i want to pick HB2 over Avatar, but i will wait a few days to get over the honeymoon period.

Timestamped:

 

[GymWolf]

Gee why rockstar take 10 years and spend a huge budget to make one game?!

 

[Self_Destructive]

DF Direct had a segment this week where they asked if Hellblade 2 wouldve won last year over Alan Wake 2 and Avatar, and they all said no and picked Avatar because it feels more interactive compared to the more linear Hellblade 2. They ranked AW2 second last year and said HB2 would tie with it.

I might agree with Avatar still taking the top spot, but HB2 is way ahead of AW2. Right now, i want to pick HB2 over Avatar, but i will wait a few days to get over the honeymoon period.

Timestamped:

Hellblade 2 takes it easily IMO. Also, if Ninja Theory wanted to, Hellblade 2 could be big open areas which stream in as well. There's nothing stopping this fidelity being the same in an open world. That's literally one of the features of UE5.

 

[Darsxx82]

DF Direct had a segment this week where they asked if Hellblade 2 wouldve won last year over Alan Wake 2 and Avatar, and they all said no and picked Avatar because it feels more interactive compared to the more linear Hellblade 2. They ranked AW2 second last year and said HB2 would tie with it.

I might agree with Avatar still taking the top spot, but HB2 is way ahead of AW2. Right now, i want to pick HB2 over Avatar, but i will wait a few days to get over the honeymoon period.

Timestamped:

Well, more precisely, it is Alex who says that he would continue to give first place to Avatar because he highly values interactivity on a personal level when deciding.
Then Jonh is more doubtful and puts on the table how at the level of visual fidelity HB2 is another level and that also weighs.
Richard is more neutral but would also lean towards Avatar for the same reason as Alex.

In the end they say that they would have kept Avatar first for size and to be more interactive. Hellblade 2 is second vs Alan Wake 2 on console and perhaps more even with AW2 pathTracing on PC but they still see HB2 ahead because of that level of detail and visual fidelity.

They end by saying that right now it would clearly be the top 1 of 2024 but that they hope that at the end of the year some will be able to enter the fight. Personally, I think it all depends on what each person values most. Visual fidelity vs interactivity.

 

[DanielG165]

Also, if Ninja Theory wanted to, Hellblade 2 could be big open areas which stream in as well. There's nothing stopping this fidelity being the same in an open world.

You can see that with the transitional moments between chapters where the camera swoops over the environment. That level of detail being maintained is amazing.

 

[Balducci30]

DF Direct had a segment this week where they asked if Hellblade 2 wouldve won last year over Alan Wake 2 and Avatar, and they all said no and picked Avatar because it feels more interactive compared to the more linear Hellblade 2. They ranked AW2 second last year and said HB2 would tie with it.

I might agree with Avatar still taking the top spot, but HB2 is way ahead of AW2. Right now, i want to pick HB2 over Avatar, but i will wait a few days to get over the honeymoon period.

Timestamped:

Idk to me there’s such a gap between AW2/Avatars visuals and HB2 that I have to give it to HB2 no matter what. I appreciate Avatars doing quite a bit more, but it just doesn’t look on the same level at all to me in any way.

if GTA 6 matches the trailer tho I’d definitely put it over HB.

 

[DanielG165]

Yeah, I don’t know where AW2 would “tie” HB2, despite the former being an excellent looking game. If we’re just purely speaking on graphics and fidelity, Hellblade 2 wins, and will likely win the year less something else comes out to truly challenge it.

That said, stuff like this always has a measure of subjectivity to it.

 

[CGNoire]

The game is really not made to zoom that much on the terrain.

Look at the difference between the shoe retaining all the details and the rocks becoming a mushy surface and losing all the granular details.

Its the lack of 8k textures which where in use in the OG UEV demo.

 

[CGNoire]

Yeah i guess that's why slimy said that the vram is not enough.

Thanks XSS

 

[SlimySnake]

I still don’t understand why we’ve put ZERO effort into improving the physics side of graphics and vfx like interactive water/fire. Feels like those elements have stagnated/barely improved since the ps3 era.

Even in the PS360 era, only a few devs were doing it and then they themselves stopped doing it. We bring up Far Cry 2 but Far cry 3 ditched the fire spreading tech. Battlefield Bad Company 2 had amazing destruction but BF3 scaled that back instead of expanding upon it. Red Faction was basically the only game with real destruction. Even Fear 2 got rid of the great AI of Fear 1 for some reason.

Crysis 2 was another big downgrade from Crysis 1 and especially Warhead. Just linear, less systems driven, and far more basic.

I dont know why devs stopped. I always figured it was a push for graphics, jaguar CPUs and physics wouldve stopped them from producing games that looked look good. But now im not so sure. I think they just dont want to. The people in the industry dont care about this stuff. They mainly want to tell stories or if they are into gameplay, they go make pvp gaas trash. The physics stuff was never really that popular with devs.

I was wrong to think that with the new CPUs, devs would embrace destruction, physics and other simulation systems, but it seems they all want to just make the same game over and over again. Even Avatar ended up disappointing me because the systems they promised dont really come together. no major stampedes. no major fires. no dynamic encounters. Everyone just wants to make 100 hour long games with fetch quests and dialogue trees instead of systems driven stuff.

 

[Balducci30]

Even in the PS360 era, only a few devs were doing it and then they themselves stopped doing it. We bring up Far Cry 2 but Far cry 3 ditched the fire spreading tech. Battlefield Bad Company 2 had amazing destruction but BF3 scaled that back instead of expanding upon it. Red Faction was basically the only game with real destruction. Even Fear 2 got rid of the great AI of Fear 1 for some reason.

Crysis 2 was another big downgrade from Crysis 1 and especially Warhead. Just linear, less systems driven, and far more basic.

I dont know why devs stopped. I always figured it was a push for graphics, jaguar CPUs and physics wouldve stopped them from producing games that looked look good. But now im not so sure. I think they just dont want to. The people in the industry dont care about this stuff. They mainly want to tell stories or if they are into gameplay, they go make pvp gaas trash. The physics stuff was never really that popular with devs.

I was wrong to think that with the new CPUs, devs would embrace destruction, physics and other simulation systems, but it seems they all want to just make the same game over and over again. Even Avatar ended up disappointing me because the systems they promised dont really come together. no major stampedes. no major fires. no dynamic encounters. Everyone just wants to make 100 hour long games with fetch quests and dialogue trees instead of systems driven stuff.

You’re right it was ps2/early ps3/360 where devs started abandoning complex physics systems. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to push those elements forward in games every time someone does actually focus on it they are lauded for it, see Half Life 2 and recently TOTK. Hopefully GTA 6 will do something new in this area. That’s all I have faith in currently.

 

[GymWolf]

You’re right it was ps2/early ps3/360 where devs started abandoning complex physics systems. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to push those elements forward in games every time someone does actually focus on it they are lauded for it, see Half Life 2 and recently TOTK. Hopefully GTA 6 will do something new in this area. That’s all I have faith in currently.

I guess that it's not only a challenge about hardware, but also something to consider when you calibrate your gameplay etc.

More physics, more interaction, more possible bugs and glitches and way more betatesting, it's a marvel that tokt was pretty much bug free.

On a sidenote, have you played just cause 4, that game has some crazy interaction and physics and it did a mix of fuse\superhand before zelda, people who extensively played that game know what i'm talking about.

No video on yt is gonna cover all the crazy shit you can do in that game, and the tornados are a bit of a marvel if you consider the lack of physics in most games.

It's dirty cheap right now, if you just want a physics sandbox open world with guns, it's your game.

 

[Balducci30]

I guess that it's not only a challenge about hardware, but also something to consider when you calibrate your gameplay etc.

More physics, more interaction, more possible bugs and glitches and way more betatesting, it's a marvel that tokt was pretty much bug free.

On a sidenote, have you played just cause 4, that game has some crazy interaction and physics and it did a mix of fuse\superhand before zelda, people who extensively played that game know what i'm talking about.

No video on yt is gonna cover all the crazy shit you can do in that game, and the tornados are a bit of a marvel if you consider the lack of physics in most games.

It's dirty cheap right now, if you just want a physics sandbox open world with guns, it's your game.

Sounds right up my alley. I’m gonna get it