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[SABRE220]

PS4 was an absolute banger. You have a point. But where else?

The PS3 gen was where Sony's studios really went all out in terms of innovation and optimization. It's the gen that solidified their reputations as pioneers and mavricks in graphics tech. They pulled fkn miracles off of a console with a weak GPU and 400mb~ of segregated ram pulling every ounce out of the cell. Gow3(insan scale, detail and developed mlaa, unchartd 2 and 3, Killzone2 and 3, gt6(tesslation), tlou, infamous2. It was when devs showed us how coding to the metal is done.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=killzon++graphics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w41v_RmRpsM&list=PL_1B8AfSxGBwa89HijOjB2lTub0rVtvXm&index=2

This is the pedigree of these devs, which has unfortunately been forgotten in this gen of low standards, and might finally make some understand the disappointment we feel knowing their potential.

 

[Beechos]

Still sad there is no gow trilogy remake.

 

[Shmunter]

The PS3 gen was where Sony's studios really went all out in terms of innovation and optimization. It's the gen that solidified their reputations as pioneers and mavricks in graphics tech. They pulled fkn miracles off of a console with a weak GPU and 400mb~ of segregated ram pulling every ounce out of the cell. Gow3(insan scale, detail and developed mlaa, unchartd 2 and 3, Killzone2 and 3, gt6(tesslation), tlou, infamous2. It was when devs showed us how coding to the metal is done.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=killzon++graphics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w41v_RmRpsM&list=PL_1B8AfSxGBwa89HijOjB2lTub0rVtvXm&index=2

This is the pedigree of these devs, which has unfortunately been forgotten in this gen of low standards, and might finally make some understand the disappointment we feel knowing their potential.

PS4 too - Infamous Second Son, Killzone Shadowfall, Uncharted 4, Last Of Us 2

 

[SABRE220]

PS4 too - Infamous Second Son, Killzone Shadowfall, Uncharted 4, Last Of Us 2

True, PS4 was brilliant as well, but the PS3 gen was something else in terms of a technical masterclass. The PS4 was pretty simple to code around and well-designed with plenty of RAM and a good GPU. The PS3 was a nightmare machine with an upside only after coding to scale a sheer cliff. These same devs didn't bitch then and took up the challenge and innovated, optimized, and coded so granularly to the metal that bc is still a headache to this day. Honestly, them literally carrying the PS3 on their shoulders via their technical mastery for a massive comeback after a bomba start was something to behold.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

PS4 too - Infamous Second Son, Killzone Shadowfall, Uncharted 4, Last Of Us 2

Ssbers post is on point the ps3 was where Sony reallu upped their game. The ps3 Ratchet game was also super impressive if I recall. Mgs4 too. God of War 3, killzone 2+3, Uncharted 2+3 and Last of Us were next level amazing tho

On xbox we had Gears and i personally think Halo 3 was really something despite the rep Bungie has now of "not pushing graphical boundaries" which is BS

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

But other studios like Ubisoft Massive and Ubisoft Montreal also only made one game. But they did have the foresight to switch to RT way back in 2019. You can read their presentations where they did the math and realized that creating massive open worlds using baked lighting would take forever and hinder development progress. Avatar came out in 2023 and Shadows got delayed from 2024 to 2025. We know from Kojima that the game was supposed to be out by 2023, who is to say Ghosts didnt get delayed like AC shadows as well?

The difference is that almost every other third party studio was able to realize that they needed to leverage RT or mesh shaders or both to get next gen lighting and asset fidelity. Even fucking bethesda knew they had to upgrade their Creation engine and they were a gen behind ND with Oblivion, Fallout 3, skyrim and Fallout 4.

I am not saying you are wrong that they wouldve slowly improved. We saw this with insomniac, but ND was making a remake. perfect opportunity to try out RT effects or mesh shaders early on in the generation. they didnt. Instead, those lazy bastards just copied and pasted assets from TLOU2 and repackaged it as a next gen game that was a generation behind Bluepoint's own Demon Souls remake. SSM and GG couldve implemented RT like Insomniac did in Miles.

All these guys had the opportunity to slowly learn and improve their skills. They chose to stick with last gen tech and design paradigms instead.

This is the truth ^

 

[SlimySnake]

Well yeah.. cerny is cool but he is no.....

Cerny gave these guys a 100x faster SSD after they spent an entire generation begging him for it.
Cerny gave these guys an 8 core 16 thread 3.5 GHz CPU after they blamed lack of physics on the 1.6 ghz jaguar CPU.
Cerny gave them a fucking Ray traced capable GPU in a $399 console.
Cerny gave them a modern GPU capable of mesh shaders.
Cerny gave them an IO that lets devs fill up vram upto 22GB per second.

It's not his fault that his lazy developers chose not to use ANY of it. Chose to make cross gen games. Chose to waste the GPU rendering 4k pixels. Chose to use the SSD only for loading. Chose to completely skip utilizing ray tracing and mesh shaders.

If Kutaragi had given them 20 tflops and an nvidia GPU these frauds wouldve continued making last gen games.

The PS5 is an amazing piece of hardware for something that launched at $399-499 in 2020. Other developer HAVE used it to its fullest potential. It's capable of stuff like this:

 

[SlimySnake]

Ssbers post is on point the ps3 was where Sony reallu upped their game. The ps3 Ratchet game was also super impressive if I recall. Mgs4 too. God of War 3, killzone 2+3, Uncharted 2+3 and Last of Us were next level amazing tho

On xbox we had Gears and i personally think Halo 3 was really something despite the rep Bungie has now of "not pushing graphical boundaries" which is BS

Everyone thinks PS3 gen started to take off in 2009 when KZ2 and Uncharted 2 came out, but i think it was back in 2007. This was back when no one had PS3s because they were $599 but as an early adopter I was playing games like Motorstorm and being blown away by the visuals. Then there was basically nothing until around August when Heavenly Sword came out and once again, there was nothing like it. It was the first true cinematic game on the PS3 and mocap, number of enemies on screen and sheer fidelity was off the charts. Then ratchet came out two months later looking like a pixar movie and then Uncharted which was slept on initially because it came out the same month as Mass Effect and Bioshock. I didnt care for those games back then but uncharted's visuals were so far ahead of anything else. Gears was supposed to be this graphics peak but it didnt have the detail, variety and colors of uncharted.

MGS4 was a technical tour de force. its chase sequences still the best in gaming. Then Motorstorm Pacific Rift later in 2008. Yes, KZ2 came out in February 2009 set the bar and convinced everyone that the PS3 was no slouch but i was there in March 2007 and i knew that console had potential and that these developers were only just starting to get the most out of it.

P.S Halo 3's massive scarab battles still havent been topped 18 years later. still the most next gen level ive ever played in terms of scale. Bungie never cared about visuals but man the cared about pushing spectacle. So sad whats become of them.

 

[Shmunter]

True, PS4 was brilliant as well, but the PS3 gen was something else in terms of a technical masterclass. The PS4 was pretty simple to code around and well-designed with plenty of RAM and a good GPU. The PS3 was a nightmare machine with an upside only after coding to scale a sheer cliff. These same devs didn't bitch then and took up the challenge and innovated, optimized, and coded so granularly to the metal that bc is still a headache to this day. Honestly, them literally carrying the PS3 on their shoulders via their technical mastery for a massive comeback after a bomba start was something to behold.

Yes, Sony had to prove the technology with 3rd party usually deficient compared to 360. And subsequently build a reputation of flagship gaming. This carried over to the early ps4 where everything Sony was a showpiece. That light is now dimmed.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

Sony had their balls clipped this generation.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

No they do not. ive done this with you before. if you stick with 30 fps most UE5, Snowdrop, Anvil, RE engine, and Northlight engine games average out at 1440p 30 fps reconstructed to 4k. basically the norm on the PS4 Pro last gen.

people need to simply stop playing these games at 60 fps. ive done it all gen. they are not bad at all.

I agree that for next gen graphics these ps5 games must be played at 30 (or 40 fps) but some of them are bad at these framerates compared to 60 fps. For example yesterday I played Forbidden west at 30 on the Pro and it played SO much worse than 60. If I had only ever played it at 30 it may not bother me as much but the added input lag is real and affected my ability to play well. It affects aiming in a game like that.

Playing Silent Hill 2 and Cronos at 30 is the only way to get a next gen visual

Everyone thinks PS3 gen started to take off in 2009 when KZ2 and Uncharted 2 came out, but i think it was back in 2007. This was back when no one had PS3s because they were $599 but as an early adopter I was playing games like Motorstorm and being blown away by the visuals. Then there was basically nothing until around August when Heavenly Sword came out and once again, there was nothing like it. It was the first true cinematic game on the PS3 and mocap, number of enemies on screen and sheer fidelity was off the charts. Then ratchet came out two months later looking like a pixar movie and then Uncharted which was slept on initially because it came out the same month as Mass Effect and Bioshock. I didnt care for those games back then but uncharted's visuals were so far ahead of anything else. Gears was supposed to be this graphics peak but it didnt have the detail, variety and colors of uncharted.

MGS4 was a technical tour de force. its chase sequences still the best in gaming. Then Motorstorm Pacific Rift later in 2008. Yes, KZ2 came out in February 2009 set the bar and convinced everyone that the PS3 was no slouch but i was there in March 2007 and i knew that console had potential and that these developers were only just starting to get the most out of it.

P.S Halo 3's massive scarab battles still havent been topped 18 years later. still the most next gen level ive ever played in terms of scale. Bungie never cared about visuals but man the cared about pushing spectacle. So sad whats become of them.

Yes, I didn't have a ps3 early on but was drooling looking at clips (or was it images in magazines) of Heavenly Sword and Uncharted 1. I missed out on early ps3 stuff including Motorstorm. Though I remember playing UC1 at Gamestop at a kiosk and was blown away by seeing Nathans facial expressions during combat when taking cover. Ratchet indeed was something else.

Gears though was my jam back then. Even without the colors i remember thinking that we had finally arrived ha. Probably the peak for me that gen wouldve been God of War for me. The Gaia and Poseidon battle. Naughty Dog though.

Im a big fan of ps3 and ps4 generations in general. To think they were accomplishibg all that on a console notoriously hard to program for with such a small amount of memory.

 

[nordique]

I thought ratchet and clank and spiderman 2 were solid personally

 

[mrMUR_96]

Wonder what happened with the sony ice team? They used to have devs share their tech among 1st party studios. Was very apparent in the PS3 days, cell optimsation, AA techniques etc. Insomniac should be sharing their RT optimisations, Guerrilla sharing their cloud and water tech and AA techniques, Naughty Dog their motion matching animation tech etc. Obviously they use different engines, but it just doesn't seem like these studios are sharing their tech and research with each other like they used to.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Good for their shareholders.

Bad for their console owners.

Yeah but as the saying goes: "Money talks", and as long as would-be console owners are lapping it up in terms of what Sony brings out and the shareholders are happy then that is all they care about

 

[RoboFu]

Cerny gave these guys a 100x faster SSD after they spent an entire generation begging him for it.
Cerny gave these guys an 8 core 16 thread 3.5 GHz CPU after they blamed lack of physics on the 1.6 ghz jaguar CPU.
Cerny gave them a fucking Ray traced capable GPU in a $399 console.
Cerny gave them a modern GPU capable of mesh shaders.
Cerny gave them an IO that lets devs fill up vram upto 22GB per second.

It's not his fault that his lazy developers chose not to use ANY of it. Chose to make cross gen games. Chose to waste the GPU rendering 4k pixels. Chose to use the SSD only for loading. Chose to completely skip utilizing ray tracing and mesh shaders.

If Kutaragi had given them 20 tflops and an nvidia GPU these frauds wouldve continued making last gen games.

The PS5 is an amazing piece of hardware for something that launched at $399-499 in 2020. Other developer HAVE used it to its fullest potential. It's capable of stuff like this:

ken kutaragi gave developers a passively cooled 3d machine that could push tons of transparencies for pennies on the dollar at time where the best 3d in the arcade was a flat shaded fighting game.



but you champion a power hungry / high heat / super inefficient design if you want to. What you are showing is just prettier PS3 graphics. not a zeitgeist changing leap like the original PS1.

 

[SlimySnake]

ken kutaragi gave developers a passively cooled 3d machine that could push tons of transparencies for pennies on the dollar at time where the best 3d in the arcade was a flat shaded fighting game.

He also gave them the cell. a fucking disaster. in fact, his design was so poor they had to pivot at the last moment, and go to nvidia for a GPU he didnt think they needed because he thought his precious cell would be able to render graphics. Something that blew up in his face when nvidia gave him a shitty GPU. he also split the ram and gave devs just 256mb of vram. what a genius!

but you champion a power hungry / high heat / super inefficient design if you want to. What you are showing is just prettier PS3 graphics. not a zeitgeist changing leap like the original PS1.

gifs can only show what devs are making nowadays. Cerny's SSD and IO improvements shouldve allowed the devs to have a 'zeitgeist changing leap' a la PS1 to PS2 but third party devs were never going to use that custom tech, and their first party devs are now full of lazy frauds.

I cant stress enough just what you can do when you can literally load 5-9GB of data in a second. Upto 22 GB in best case scenario. You can do insane things with levels never done before. The ratchet portal tech is just the most basic application for it. but no one anything with it. its been five years now. its not cerny's fault.

Also, the cpu is insanely powerful. and should be allowing devs to push physics, destruction, npc behavior, and other simulations to make games feel more alive than ever. I legit think the hardware on the whole when combined with the cpu, ssd, io, mesh shader and ray tracing upgrades is better than the 35x leap in graphics we got when we moved from ps2 to ps3. both cerny and the xbox architect gave these guys an incredibly powerful machine that is not bottlenecked like kutargi's ps2 and ps3 were.