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[IbizaPocholo]

Here’s What Breath of the Wild Looks Like in 8K And with Ray Tracing

Breath of the Wild may be approaching its fifth year, but it still looks gorgeous, even if a team of modders think it could look even more beautiful.

gamerant.com

In a video uploaded to YouTube recently, Digital Dreams has been showing off various locations in Breath of the Wild, only with a boost in graphics. In particular, this iteration utilizes ray tracing features and 8K resolution. The result, as many can image, is an incredible example of just how much better this already beautiful looking game can be when more advanced graphical technology is applied to older releases.

However, according to a report from DSO Gaming, Digital Dreams' version is being run through an emulation called Cemu. Cemu is a WiiU emulator for PC that has been used to run games like Breath of the Wild in the past. This means that this version of the beloved RPG is running on PC rather than through the Switch itself. But that shouldn't detract from what the end result is, which is an impressive display of visual acuity that makes the world, and lighting, around Link really pop. It shows just what can be achieved and how much can be improved on games that are now several years old.

 

[killatopak]

Imagine if Nintendo was part of the graphics race again with the other two companies.

I know part of their success is that they do lower end tech stuff but as a consumer, I really want them to be neck and neck with the other two again. Otherwise, I’ll always be imagining what could have been.

 

[Torrent of Pork]

That's purdey.

 

[Thanati]

I've been using Cemu now for years and it's come a LONG way. It runs all titles pretty much flawlessly and yeah, 4K at 60fps is a treat (My rig can't handle 8K ).

 

[Sosokrates]

Is there extra foliage and leaves?

 

[mortal]

Here’s What Breath of the Wild Looks Like in 8K And with Ray Tracing

Breath of the Wild may be approaching its fifth year, but it still looks gorgeous, even if a team of modders think it could look even more beautiful.

gamerant.com

In a video uploaded to YouTube recently, Digital Dreams has been showing off various locations in Breath of the Wild, only with a boost in graphics. In particular, this iteration utilizes ray tracing features and 8K resolution. The result, as many can image, is an incredible example of just how much better this already beautiful looking game can be when more advanced graphical technology is applied to older releases.

However, according to a report from DSO Gaming, Digital Dreams' version is being run through an emulation called Cemu. Cemu is a WiiU emulator for PC that has been used to run games like Breath of the Wild in the past. This means that this version of the beloved RPG is running on PC rather than through the Switch itself. But that shouldn't detract from what the end result is, which is an impressive display of visual acuity that makes the world, and lighting, around Link really pop. It shows just what can be achieved and how much can be improved on games that are now several years old.

BotW on PC is so beautiful, man.

These always makes me lament what a souped-up console could do for Nintendo games in general. The higher specs really elevates the art direction of their games to another level imo.

(stolen from Resetera)

 

[Dinkle]

Holy shit that looks good. It's damn a shame so many nintendo games are restricted to such shit hardware. I need a 4K60 Xenoblade 2 so bad.

 

[Kilau]

Haven’t tried CEMU in a long time, my Link always sunk into the ground when I tried.

 

[BigBooper]

That's purty.

 

[Buggy Loop]

…

I think I’ll stop using my switch. Don’t know why I bother lol. I can’t imagine that BOTW 2 will run better than the first one so…

 

[Tams]

It's not going to officially be like this anytime soon.

Nintendo, after being a business, also want games to be available to many people. Cheap consoles do that, Sure the games are expensive, but considering people but so few and Nintendo ones have a lot of playtime, that's not much of an issue compared to the PCs you need to pay at this level.

 

[THE DUCK]

That looks amazing. It also makes me angry that Nintendo has crap hardware from 2016.
Such artistic talent being held back.

 

[Coolwhhip]

We need a Gamecube 2.

 

[Dr. Claus]

It's not going to officially be like this anytime soon.

Nintendo, after being a business, also want games to be available to many people. Cheap consoles do that, Sure the games are expensive, but considering people but so few and Nintendo ones have a lot of playtime, that's not much of an issue compared to the PCs you need to pay at this level.

I would argue it isn’t even that. Its just cheaper to not chase the most popular trends and going for diminishing returns when it comes to graphical fidelity. They saved a TON of money with the Wii when everyone else was struggling to get into HD development.

Personally I just want fun games. The only people who give a damn about graphical fidelity are console warriors anyway. I would be perfectly fine if Gran Turismo 7 looked like a PS2 era game, as long as it had plenty of content, fantastic controls, and addicting gameplay.

 

[Johnny Concrete]

‘With ray-tracing’. Ok. And what is exactly ray traced in this footage? The shadows, GI, reflections, everything?
And at what resolution? A ray traced reflection at 1/16th of the res is still looking like crap.

Saying ‘look this game has ray tracing’ is just as vague to me as saying ‘look this game has graphics’.

 

[Fake]

Raytracing destroy the game IMO. Add realism that a totally art direction game don't need at all.

Just bump res, fps and texture would be fine.

 

[REDRZA MWS]

Perfect example of how great it would be to release hardware at very minimum current with its competitors. There game developers are wizards. They should be allowed to work on better hardware with less limitations.

 

[Notabueno]

And to think BoTW2 won't and can't look that good on switch when basic RTX cards can.

 

[Hardensoul]

Damn! That looked better than previous versions.

My only issue is where’s the fog in Lost Woods. It doesn’t feel eerie or scared you my get lost.

 

[yurinka]

Looking great. It would be awesome if they also manage to increase the distance of the the floor detail popping, because the top LOD ends on a few meters in front of the character, so you see flowers and so on constantly popping.

It would be aweome to do something with the shadows, since they seem to have aliasing or something like that, at least when watching it on a 1080 screen. Have no idea if it would be increasing their resolution, softening them or applying some AA or something like that.

Other than that looks great, heavily improved from the original game. Which already is beautiful on a Switch.

 

[Umbasaborne]

Wow..i should really buy a powerful pc huh?

 

[Shubh_C63]

Zelda on emulator looks insane even on 1660ti.

 

[Guilty_AI]

something something pixar movie

 

[Rickyiez]

BOTW 2 will not look even half as good sadly

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

.

 

[Mozzarella]

The PC version for this game is fantastic.

 

[BlackTron]

We need a Gamecube 2.

So N64 3?

 

[M1chl]

Looks like discounted Sea of Thieves, good job for Nintendo to be almost at Xbox one level with 4K worth of PC HW in this case.

 

[Zenaku]

In "Ask Iwata: Words of Wisdom," Iwata recounts time spent with predecessor Hiroshi Yamauchi, who told him, "If Nintendo tries to fight, it's gonna lose. Don't waste your energy on fighting."

The words of a loser.

He who quits a race before it's begun has lost more than a race.

I don't care about Nintendo being competitive with Sony or MS, but at least put in the extra effort to help make the talented teams there truly shine. Most of my favourite games have been from Nintendo, and I'm looking forward to what might be on the horizon for them more than any other company, but it'd be nice to see some effort; the absolute best possible for their price range.

 

[Dr. Claus]

The words of a loser.

He who quits a race before it's begun has lost more than a race.

I don't care about Nintendo being competitive with Sony or MS, but at least put in the extra effort to help make the talented teams there truly shine. Most of my favourite games have been from Nintendo, and I'm looking forward to what might be on the horizon for them more than any other company, but it'd be nice to see some effort; the absolute best possible for their price range.

Their games *do* shine. If you think they need pretty graphics to “truly shine” then I think you may be the loser here.

 

[Captain Toad]

We need a Gamecube 2.

We're more likely to get a Dreamcast 2 unfortunately.

 

[Mr Moose]

The grass pop-in is distracting, but overall looks pretty good.

 

[OverHeat]

Need a guide to play this on my PC

 

[Freeman76]

I wish Nintendo cared about keeping up with current visuals. They are so far behind and with things like this a possibility it actually annoys me that they dont do better

 

[Solrac]

for god lord, stop calling "raytracing" a visual mod ( sweetFX )

 

[daveonezero]

Imagine if Nintendo was part of the graphics race again with the other two companies.

I know part of their success is that they do lower end tech stuff but as a consumer, I really want them to be neck and neck with the other two again. Otherwise, I’ll always be imagining what could have been.

You have it. Literally the point of this thread.

More than anything I think this proves Nintendos point in that a balanced game with well executed art is more worthwhile and efficient than spending all your labor and hardware resources on textures and geometry.

Call Nintendo and Indie company if you must and then we can stop having this discussion.

A console at the end of its life has always been less powerful than a current spec PC.

 

[Fafalada]

‘With ray-tracing’. Ok. And what is exactly ray traced in this footage? The shadows, GI, reflections, everything?

GI. But it's screenspace, so "raytracing".

 

[Velius]

I know I'm going to get flamed. And I do think this looks amazing.

But more than anything it's a testament to how amazing Nintendo's games look without the higher end tech.

 

[mortal]

Their games *do* shine. If you think they need pretty graphics to “truly shine” then I think you may be the loser here.

I get what you're coming from, but video games are both about the visual presentation and the interactive mechanics.
Videos games need both graphics and gameplay, it's literally in the name of the medium.

Admittedly, there are some of us that lean into extremes in either direction due to bias and preference.
You have the so called graphics whores that put visuals above all else, often to the detriment of engaging game design or performance.
You also have the "graphics don't matter" crowd that put gameplay above all else, often to detriment of interesting visual presentation or good image quality.

Imo both play vital roles in the overall experience. It's about finding a balance, and that balance will not always the same for every single game.
Nintendo games are not exempt from this simply because they often have heavily styled art directions. Neither is this exclusive to games with photorealistic visuals.
Good visual presentation + image quality = pretty graphics.

 

[Kuranghi]

Looks ace, I'm not a fan of screen-space/reshade RT but the resolution bump really cleans up the image. Lets not pretend this is 60fps though, its holding/duplicating frames constantly due to improper frame-pacing and emulator reasons, should've just capped to 30fps unless its the same.

60fps with constant stuttering is awful compared to perfectly paced 30fps, constantly changing input lag is just horrible, you need consistency to have something feel good, regardless of framerate (within reason, minimum 30 ofc).

Do 10/12K 30hz instead since the IQ is still muddy/aliased even at 8K/

 

[fart town usa]

Do they AI upscale the textures and everything else in the game in order to get it to display properly at 8k? I don't really know how these things work.

 

[Mister Wolf]

Amazing how much improved lighting through screen space global illumination can help the look of a game. Imagine if they were able to implement Voxel GI or Triangle RTGI. Too bad Nvidia's SSGI through GeForce Experience only works for a limited amount of games.

 

[Mister Wolf]

‘With ray-tracing’. Ok. And what is exactly ray traced in this footage? The shadows, GI, reflections, everything?
And at what resolution? A ray traced reflection at 1/16th of the res is still looking like crap.

Saying ‘look this game has ray tracing’ is just as vague to me as saying ‘look this game has graphics’.

The raytracing is Screen Space Global Illumination.

Screen Space Global Illumination | Unreal Engine 4.27 Documentation

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Imagine if Nintendo was part of the graphics race again with the other two companies.

I know part of their success is that they do lower end tech stuff but as a consumer, I really want them to be neck and neck with the other two again. Otherwise, I’ll always be imagining what could have been.

I hear ya.

But their success since Wii has been low price, low specs, some kind of new gameplay twist, and churn out tons of last gen looking games. They got a super loyal base where even the worst first party game probably sells at least 10 million as most third party devs avoid the platform. Their fanbase has a set of expectations knowing it wont be Xbox, PS, PC kinds of visuals.

If Nintendo gets into a specs race, the system will be $200 more, the games take longer to make, and if Ninty allows third party devs to unleash their games, it means more people will buy them and buy less Ninty games. And more importantly, once you set a benchmark for specs and visuals, you cant go back. All the Nintendo first party games would be held to higher cost production values going forward.

 

[CS Lurker]

 

[Ebidramon]

Unlocking framerate, and increasing resolution is one thing, but isn't adding raytracing into the game which originally didn't had it, well...

Modding, and therefore different from how authors envisioned it?

 

[VN1X]

Lets hope Nintendo do a remaster of BOTW themselves in a decade or so on whatever device they have out then. It would surely be able to do 4K/60 at the very least I'd imagine.

 

[Mozza]

I know I'm going to get flamed. And I do think this looks amazing.

But more than anything it's a testament to how amazing Nintendo's games look without the higher end tech.

Played some Zelda for the first time in ages on my new LG C1 OLED T.V, and it still looked awesome to me, the art style is stunning.

 

[Represent.]

Its a complete joke how they just completely stopped giving a shit about graphics. Havent played a Nintendo game since Gamecube because of it.

 

[VeganElduderino]

I run it at 4k 60fps , i din't know the ray tracing was a option , i looked today , i din't find it