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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

peish

Member
The cross gen collusion from both MS and Sony at the start of this generation was basically the first step to this. They realized that they dont need to have high end AAA next gen exclusive software to sell their expensive boxes. Currently there is no competition with Nintendo effectively conceding the console market to focus on low tier handhelds, and MS effectively conceding to Sony through sheer incompetence.

i would not expect the PS6 until 2028 and i would not expect PS6 exclusive titles until 2031. Zero competition means zero incentive to push the bar.


most games i play (aside from some UE5 exceptions) look better on my tv than they do in gifs, youtube videos and even screenshots. The lack of HDR, addition of compression artifacts and loss of all kinds of detail from volumetric effects to small geometric detail completely undersells most games.

I find that gifs make last gen games or even PS360 era games like killzone and uncharted look better because they hide the lack of detail in those small aspect ratios. GTA6 actually looks very gamey compared to UE5 demos and other games, and thats by design. They are focusing on delivering an unprecedented amount of detail. Be it in terms of NPC density or just sheer level of detail packed in every shot. Flamingos, convenience store objects, packed strip clubs, beaches etc. it already looks like a game, just one with the most insane level of detail we've ever seen.

Idk man, even the best UE5 games now, looks better in gifs posted in a forums

I get the high fidelity in actual 4k presentation, but the games still have polygon edges and lighting issues which smaller gifs can trick your eyes
 

Hunnybun

Member
Idk man, even the best UE5 games now, looks better in gifs posted in a forums

I get the high fidelity in actual 4k presentation, but the games still have polygon edges and lighting issues which smaller gifs can trick your eyes

I think it's a mixed bag. I've experienced both extremes.

Callisto Protocol imo looks WAY better in gifs and youtube videos than playing (either performance OR fidelity mode btw). It just doesn't hold up very well to scrutiny in my view.

Spider-Man 2 otoh just looks much better on a big HDR display. I think more often than not the real benefit of a tv is the HDR tbh, and to a lesser extent just the quality of OLED if you have one. Proper HDR implementations are just incredibly beautiful.
 

Hunnybun

Member
Spiderman 2 looks much better in gifs, on a big screen you start to notice how much of minor jump it is from something like morales crossgen (and for some things it's even worse) fidelity wise.

Nope. It's a game that looks SUPERFICIALLY similar to the PS4 games, therefore it looks similar in things like gifs. You need that bigger view to appreciate the actually fairly substantial upgrades, which when combined present an improvement basically on a par with something like HFW. Not exactly next gen, but the very best cross gen can offer.
 

ckstine

Member
I beat HB2 this morning, and I gotta say, I am not impressed. There were moments of extreme detail and realism, but, just like AW2, it just never felt like something that far from things we've seen before. AW2 had major asset quality issues, and HB2 has the same, but with worse lighting and ultra-linear design. I really hope GTA6 will be as good as it looks in the trailer, but luckily r* don't downgrade, they upgrade. I really feel like this generation has been such a let-down graphically and gameplay-wise. I have yet to see that AC Unity type watershed moment for this generation, and even then, Unity was only *that* much better than the 7th gen offerings. All in all, we are really starting to experience diminishing returns graphically, with the major modern advancements slowing to a trickle. It is getting better, just very slowly, and hardly noticeably. I honestly feel like with UE5 that the ball is in indie dev's court.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Nope. It's a game that looks SUPERFICIALLY similar to the PS4 games, therefore it looks similar in things like gifs. You need that bigger view to appreciate the actually fairly substantial upgrades, which when combined present an improvement basically on a par with something like HFW. Not exactly next gen, but the very best cross gen can offer.
Dude i played the game on a 55 oled and it never looks as good as curated gifs posted in here, agree to disagree i guess.

But yeah, except for the fast traversal, the game is a crossgen at most but it doesn't impress me nearly as much as hfw.

And logan doesn't look much better but i have a small hope that the smaller areas are gonna help with better fidelity, the female lead alone seems to have 2x times the jaw details compared to mj from the leaks :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
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ckstine

Member
Dude i played the game on a 55 oled and it never looks as good as curated gifs posted in here, agree to disagree i guess.

But yeah, except for the fast traversal, the game is a crossgen at most but it doesn't impress me nearly as much as hfw.
Completely agree! It never looks that much better than MM, and at its worst, it looks downright awful. The weird tentacles in the last 3rd of the game (insert hentai joke) were fugly and ruined the presentation even more.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Completely agree! It never looks that much better than MM, and at its worst, it looks downright awful. The weird tentacles in the last 3rd of the game (insert hentai joke) were fugly and ruined the presentation even more.
People are gonna say that the light system is more advanced etc.

When you have to point out what is advanced in your game to make people say wow, you already fucking lost as a graphic designer.
 
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GymWolf

Gold Member
indie devs have figured out the NPC numbers on modern CPUs.


battlefieldAztec.gif


IIRC, matrix UE5 demo had 35k pedestrians being governed in realtime by their system. I think Rockstar with their 3000 devs probably have even better systems to handle the insane number of NPCs and NPC variety we saw at the beach and strip clubs. That said, with RDR2 and even GTA5, they had a lot of scripted stuff for pedestrians which is something no other dev can do.
Silly ass example.

I saw the trailer multiple times and the npcs behaviour, animations and physics is dogshit basic if not downright absent, you can't compare people achieving that with what is gonna be the game with the most complex npcs interactions, animation and physics in the market (gta6).

There is a world of difference between what gta6 npcs try to achieve and what that war game is trying to achieve.

Just watch the damn video, the hit reaction are scripted, the horse dying is scripted, the ragdoll is terrible if not downright absent, when the tank walk over the people the reaction are far worse than what you see in fucking saints row 1.
That game looks more and more like a big smoking screen, they are not using any magic, to get that result they are cutting down so many things physics and animation wise.

It remind me of days gone that completely cut ragdoll or any physics when more than 20 infects are on screen...
Yeah the 500 zombies hordes are nice but at what cost?
 
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Hunnybun

Member
Dude i played the game on a 55 oled and it never looks as good as curated gifs posted in here, agree to disagree i guess.

But yeah, except for the fast traversal, the game is a crossgen at most but it doesn't impress me nearly as much as hfw.

And logan doesn't look much better but i have a small hope that the smaller areas are gonna help with better fidelity, the female lead alone seems to have 2x times the jaw details compared to mj from the leaks :lollipop_grinning_sweat:

Yeah exactly, agree to differ.

I would just ask: have you actually gone back and played the original Spider-Man since?

I did and I thought the difference was really fucking big. And I'm talking about the Remaster, so good resolution at 60fps. The difference between SM2 and the original on PS4, at 1080p30 - well, that's a pretty fucking major leap, really. Yeah, not quite generational cos of the shared assets, but still completely unmistakable.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Yeah exactly, agree to differ.

I would just ask: have you actually gone back and played the original Spider-Man since?

I did and I thought the difference was really fucking big. And I'm talking about the Remaster, so good resolution at 60fps. The difference between SM2 and the original on PS4, at 1080p30 - well, that's a pretty fucking major leap, really. Yeah, not quite generational cos of the shared assets, but still completely unmistakable.
Like you say, Shared assets and not much of an improvement on the character models (with some being arguably worse especially faces) is enough to not consider the improvements as unmistakable.

I'm not much of a light system guy so if your raw level of details is not considerably higher than your previous game on a fucking ps4 i'm barely gonna notice a difference.

The only unmistakable improvement for me was the traversal speed.
 
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Hunnybun

Member
Like you say, Shared assets and not much of an improvement on the character models (with some being arguably worse especially faces) is enough to not consider the improvements as unmistakable.

I'm not much of a light system guy so if your raw level of details is not considerably higher than your previous game on a fucking ps4 i'm barely gonna notice a difference.

The only unmistakable improvement for me was the traversal speed.

Have you actually gone back and played the original, though? Fair enough if you have, then it's just a difference of opinion. If not, you might be surprised just how much you're taking for granted. It's not just the traversal speed that's starkly improved: the original game - even with improved density on PS5! - feels like a fucking ghost town now, it's that damn empty.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Have you actually gone back and played the original, though? Fair enough if you have, then it's just a difference of opinion. If not, you might be surprised just how much you're taking for granted. It's not just the traversal speed that's starkly improved: the original game - even with improved density on PS5! - feels like a fucking ghost town now, it's that damn empty.
It didn't passed much time from the replay to playing sp2, like 6 months at most.

Yeah npcs and cars were more numerous, too bad their interaction with the world is more basic than infamous 1 on ps3...
 

Hunnybun

Member
It didn't passed much time from the replay to playing sp2, like 6 months at most.

Yeah npcs and cars were more numerous, too bad their interaction with the world is more basic than infamous 1 on ps3...

Right so I'll take that as a no.

You need to go back to make a proper judgement. That was when I really saw how big a jump it was.
 
Dude i played the game on a 55 oled and it never looks as good as curated gifs posted in here, agree to disagree i guess.

But yeah, except for the fast traversal, the game is a crossgen at most but it doesn't impress me nearly as much as hfw.

And logan doesn't look much better but i have a small hope that the smaller areas are gonna help with better fidelity, the female lead alone seems to have 2x times the jaw details compared to mj from the leaks :lollipop_grinning_sweat:
It’s not a huge leap over Morales - maybe it is over the sp2 on ps4. But I was not impressed with the game - there are a few moments that looked good tho (that section in the hotel with Kraven)
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Right so I'll take that as a no.

You need to go back to make a proper judgement. That was when I really saw how big a jump it was.
Nah, i made a proper judgement based on my taste, you just disagree with it.

Let me put it this way, i don't need to replay hzd to notice the big jump in hfw.
 
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Hunnybun

Member
Nah, i made a proper judgement based on my taste, you just disagree with it.

Let me put it this way, i don't need to replay hzd to notice the big jump in hfw.

It's just a fact that you haven't gone back, and it's a fact that I only appreciated the difference when I DID go back, so it's therefore a fact that you're simply not qualified to have an opinion on that specific matter.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I beat HB2 this morning, and I gotta say, I am not impressed. There were moments of extreme detail and realism, but, just like AW2, it just never felt like something that far from things we've seen before. AW2 had major asset quality issues, and HB2 has the same, but with worse lighting and ultra-linear design. I really hope GTA6 will be as good as it looks in the trailer, but luckily r* don't downgrade, they upgrade. I really feel like this generation has been such a let-down graphically and gameplay-wise. I have yet to see that AC Unity type watershed moment for this generation, and even then, Unity was only *that* much better than the 7th gen offerings. All in all, we are really starting to experience diminishing returns graphically, with the major modern advancements slowing to a trickle. It is getting better, just very slowly, and hardly noticeably. I honestly feel like with UE5 that the ball is in indie dev's court.
Gameplay wise I agree. it's been a dud.

But graphically ive seen improvements that have made me sit there in awe. I understand that its mostly been incremental but there are times where all the new next enhancements come together to deliver truly CG quality visuals I never thought possible until we got to 40 tflops. But yeah, diminishing returns was a thing even with the PS4 generation in comparison to the massive leap we had going from PS2 to PS3. The asset quality and lighting upgrades were basically the main things we saw get improved going from PS3 to PS4 but it felt like a huge upgrade because so many PS3 games were open world and devoid of any detail. If you compare something linear like Uncharted 3 or Beyond to say AC Unity, it might not feel like a gargantuan leap either.

Remember this Beyond gif? It was used to show how PS4 games didnt really get a big boost either.

iHPSqU839KOvt.gif


The desert levels in uncharted look on par with stuff we saw last gen.

tumblr_pk7taiyAlo1s30kt9o1_540.gif


CIJt.gif

Then there is this legendary battle in GOW.

main-qimg-d4a62ddacf3a0512a077822184415eba


Looks on par with ragnorak doesnt it?

My point is that it was incremental even back then, but we appreciated having insane visuals in open world games that we would typically only expect in linear games. This time around, the gap is smaller but they are fixing things like draw distance, level of detail, lighting accuracy and volumetrics. They dont pop out at you immediately but just go back and compare some early gen games and those incremental upgrades will become obvious and significant very quickly.

You brought up AC Unity. Look at the texture quality and LOD draw distance here. i used to post this shot as an example of amazing next gen graphics. Below that is an ugly screenshot from AC Origins. I think that game still looks stunning but it had these really bad issues with LOD transitions on foliage and just really poor lighting during transitions. You can see the same thing in Infamous and uncharted 4. Stuff like this should be resolved thanks to virtualized geometry, use of RTGI and other realtime GI solutions, and a way better use of volumetric effects that hide any flaws in those transitions. I think Spiderman 2 is a lazy ass game but even that game has done a lot of work on LOD transitions and draw distance despite relying upon baked lighting and normal maps. Avatar, Alan Wake, Hellblade and Star wars to a lesser extent go nuts with detail without sacrificing that draw distance and lighting flaws we saw in so many levels even in the best looking games of last gen.

DHWhue0UMAUDA8V


DOoKgubWsAQ2dZ_


Here are a couple more:

GDFiEE5WQAAH6wx


F7zsksHXAAAZTiA
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
It's just a fact that you haven't gone back, and it's a fact that I only appreciated the difference when I DID go back, so it's therefore a fact that you're simply not qualified to have an opinion on that specific matter.


Dude i'm pretty sure that 95% of people in this topic doesn't immediately replay the previous game to judge how a sequel look, if you need that to convalidate an opinion, you can discard most opinions in this topic i think, i don't need to replay infamous 2 to know that inf3 is a generational massive upgrade.

I know the theory of diminishing returns but we are still light years from actual photorealism so it's too soon to talk about DR when spiderman 2 still look gamey as a whole fuck.
(and i didn't forced sony to make such an underpowered hardware that can't guarantee a generational jump)

I'm gonna give you this, even if sp2 is a big jump from sp1\morales (imo it is not, at least not in all the aspects that you would expect) it's still not impressive as fully nextgen sony first party, ESPECIALLY when way bigger, crossgen hfw look arguably on par or better.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Completely agree! It never looks that much better than MM, and at its worst, it looks downright awful. The weird tentacles in the last 3rd of the game (insert hentai joke) were fugly and ruined the presentation even more.
Spiderman 2 is a weird one. The upgrade is there. its been documented numerous times in this thread. But i agree, its not a generational leap over Miles. Had they gone with a realtime lighting solution with some higher quality materials and assets for both buildings and cars it wouldve looked a whole generation ahead.

That said, their day time and dusk time lighting bakes are really fucking good. night time is absolutely trash even in comparison to cyberpunk which came out 3 years earlier. the complete lack of volumetric effects just makes it look dated and boring in night time, overcast and some day time shots where its supposed to rely on indirect lighting and it just doesnt work despite the fact that the lighting bakes shouldve handled it. Alan Wake 2 uses baked lighting and it does not look dated like spiderman 2.

Anyway, here are some comparisons. I think its a substantial leap over miles, maybe not generational but a substantial one nonetheless.



QekiqI2.gif
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Now show some characters comparisons and let's see this substantial upgrade.

The fact that the last gifs looks identical except for more cars and npcs is kinda hilarious in a graphic comparison :lollipop_squinting:
 
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CGNoire

Member
Silly ass example.

I saw the trailer multiple times and the npcs behaviour, animations and physics is dogshit basic if not downright absent, you can't compare people achieving that with what is gonna be the game with the most complex npcs interactions, animation and physics in the market (gta6).

There is a world of difference between what gta6 npcs try to achieve and what that war game is trying to achieve.

Just watch the damn video, the hit reaction are scripted, the horse dying is scripted, the ragdoll is terrible if not downright absent, when the tank walk over the people the reaction are far worse than what you see in fucking saints row 1.
That game looks more and more like a big smoking screen, they are not using any magic, to get that result they are cutting down so many things physics and animation wise.

It remind me of days gone that completely cut ragdoll or any physics when more than 20 infects are on screen...
Yeah the 500 zombies hordes are nice but at what cost?
Yep reminds me of the same issues (letdowns) of total war.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
DF's Biggest Game Changing Graphics discussion was interesting. John picked Tekken 2 and MGS2, Alex Crysis and Oliver Half Life 2. All good picks.



To me, Tekken 2 was like seeing magic. The way the camera moved around in the 3d world and all those fancy takedowns by King were insane. I didnt know such a thing was possible. After that it has to be Gran Turismo which looked straight up photorealistic to me running on a CRT at a shop. Since then the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer, Uncharted 2's E3 2009 building collapse demo, Killzone Shadow Fall's PS4 reveal and the Matrix demo's car chase scene are games that made me go this is next gen.

What's everyone else's this is next gen moment?
 

Mobilemofo

Member
By the hype in this thread and the budget size, teams across the world, all the pressure is on rockstar. 😅 I can only imagine the decent into chaos if the game is even remotely downgraded or not as hype as expected. Will be biblical.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Doom 1993. The jump in rendering was gigantic, so much that it made everything look obsolete.
At a time, when there were no graphics accelerators, the amount of things rendered on screen were very impressive.
The implementation of BSPs to remove hidden surfaces was something that only a genius like Carmack could do.
And then there was the gameplay. Both things redefined the genre, to the point that for a decade, these type of games were just called Doom clones.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
I think the jump from tekken 2 to tekken 3 is higher than tek1 to tek2 tbh.

Tekken 2 models still look like shit compared to tek3.

Mgs2 trailer was a goddamn nextgen moment for sure, i bought the magazine with the tape of the trailer and showed that thing to everyone, my father, my mother, my sister, her boyfriend etc. :lollipop_squinting:
 
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Hunnybun

Member
DF's Biggest Game Changing Graphics discussion was interesting. John picked Tekken 2 and MGS2, Alex Crysis and Oliver Half Life 2. All good picks.



To me, Tekken 2 was like seeing magic. The way the camera moved around in the 3d world and all those fancy takedowns by King were insane. I didnt know such a thing was possible. After that it has to be Gran Turismo which looked straight up photorealistic to me running on a CRT at a shop. Since then the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer, Uncharted 2's E3 2009 building collapse demo, Killzone Shadow Fall's PS4 reveal and the Matrix demo's car chase scene are games that made me go this is next gen.

What's everyone else's this is next gen moment?


Well the ultimate is and always will be Mario 64. Genuinely fucking unbelievable leap back in 1995. Part of that was obviously just the incredible innovation of a fully 3d 3rd person game, but a lot was the visuals themselves, which just looked like magic to me.


Otherwise I'll just list the various runners up:

Virtua Fighter 2 arcade - maybe the first 3d game that looked pretty on its own terms
MGS 2 - obvious reasons
PGR3 - one of the most impressive early gen showcases I've ever seen, just radically better than anything prior gen
Uncharted 2 - probably the most impressed I've ever been just by pure fidelity, played through it countless times just to gawp at the scenery...
Uncharted 4 - specifically the "Marooned" chapter, just blew me away
Ratchet PS5 - the state of play pre release is the most impressive next gen showcase for a LOOOONG time, at least for a couple of gens. Pity it's taken so long to get similar quality games even revealed, let alone released, but better late than never.
 

Portugeezer

Member
I'm still really questioning if they can actually get that much stuff on-screen at all. Looks like something that could be really downgraded by the game release. The amount of characters and things is a bit too insane to find believable imo.
It's Rockstar, so it'll probably be like that in the game. Real question will be if they can maintain a stable framerate.
 

Rain432

Member
DF's Biggest Game Changing Graphics discussion was interesting. John picked Tekken 2 and MGS2, Alex Crysis and Oliver Half Life 2. All good picks.



To me, Tekken 2 was like seeing magic. The way the camera moved around in the 3d world and all those fancy takedowns by King were insane. I didnt know such a thing was possible. After that it has to be Gran Turismo which looked straight up photorealistic to me running on a CRT at a shop. Since then the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer, Uncharted 2's E3 2009 building collapse demo, Killzone Shadow Fall's PS4 reveal and the Matrix demo's car chase scene are games that made me go this is next gen.

What's everyone else's this is next gen moment?

for me it was Sony Exclusives during the ps3 era Killzone 2, god of war 3, uncharted series, the last of us and ratchet and clank series
 

PeteBull

Member
What's everyone else's this is next gen moment?
Gran Tourismo and tekken3 on first playstation, then TTT at launch ps2, then bit after gt3, on ps4 infamous SS and the order 1886( despite gameplay, altho i bought it discounted few weeks after launch, since game bombed, that 7h playtime at those crazy visuals was well worth it ;p).
Current gen: the matrix demo and gta6 trailer but yeh, those arent real games so nothing i guess :(
 

sncvsrtoip

Member
DF's Biggest Game Changing Graphics discussion was interesting. John picked Tekken 2 and MGS2, Alex Crysis and Oliver Half Life 2. All good picks.



To me, Tekken 2 was like seeing magic. The way the camera moved around in the 3d world and all those fancy takedowns by King were insane. I didnt know such a thing was possible. After that it has to be Gran Turismo which looked straight up photorealistic to me running on a CRT at a shop. Since then the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer, Uncharted 2's E3 2009 building collapse demo, Killzone Shadow Fall's PS4 reveal and the Matrix demo's car chase scene are games that made me go this is next gen.

What's everyone else's this is next gen moment?

Tekken 2 ? Wtf ;d When there was better looking Virtua Fighter 2. Tekken 3 tough thats a different story... For my choice, as kid tyranosaur in Tomb Raider 1 looked awsome ;d
 
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Portugeezer

Member
I was probably too young to appreciate it, but I don't remember feeling anything special about the jump from SNES to N64 at the time, it just kind of happened and I accepted it. Obviously looking back, I can see how insane it was.

But when I played PS2 and GTA3 that was the first time I remember being blown away by a newer console.

Lost Planet on 360 also springs to mind... am I crazy? I remember seeing the motion blur, the particle effects, the flying insect thingies, and thinking the graphics were amazing.
 

KXVXII9X

Member
Was about to post this

It looks really good, almost too good for a dev we haven't heard of before, I would expect a big budget for how it looks and move but it could also be the new gen of UE5 tricking us and indies can manage to make something a looker.
The cynical side of me says it won't be quite like this.

This is what I thought this gen would be like gameplay wise with how dynamic things are presented with the camera, animations and the physics. This and DokeV kind of give me that true "next gen vibe" but I feel that both had concept trailers like with the first Watchdogs which still feels a step ahead this generation gameplay wise.
 

GymWolf

Gold Member
Was about to post this

It looks really good, almost too good for a dev we haven't heard of before, I would expect a big budget for how it looks and move but it could also be the new gen of UE5 tricking us and indies can manage to make something a looker.
It also look fake as fuck tbh.

This is a concept video more than a gameplay video.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Growing up playing PS2 on a CRT TV then all of a sudden seeing Heavenly Sword and Motorstorm running on an HDTV in 2007 was some crazy shit
honestly, i didnt really enjoy next gen games until my brother bought a 1080p 55 inch tv in 2009. Going from a 32inch CRT to a tiny 24 inch LCD TV at the start of that gen was rather underwhelming. the picture clarity on the LCD was meh at best.
 
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