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[Jigsaah]

Eh, graphics are secondary to begin with...but no there's hasn't been that paradigm shift in quality that we've seen in previous generations.

There's are really simple answers as to why.

A. Hardware graphical power has largely caught up to artistic vision.
B. Graphics are expensive. Hiring talent to produce current top-tier graphics could be somewhat prohibitory.
C. Graphics are secondary...putting too many eggs into the graphics basket could still result in poor ROI.
D. Rightly so, other aspects of game design are being improved first. Framerate, AI (?), Lighting, mechanics/systems.

Still there are those few games that are ahead of the curve IMO. Games like TLOU2, Baldur's Gate 3, Horizon Forbidden West and HellBlade II are actively taking graphics to the next level. TLOU2 does this while improving animation, hit detection/reaction, AI and environmental quality. Sure this needs to proliferate, but you can't just expect everybody to be on this level. Not everybody needs to be on this level.

 

[iCodec]

Honestly, the last time a game blew me away in terms of graphic fidelity was Demon's Souls, and I still think nothing has really come close to it this generation.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Companies are telling everyone graphics are going upwards, can I change the hardware in my PS5 right now? No. Ps5. Pro is expected in April 2025.

 

[Dacvak]

The closer we get to reality in our visuals, the wider the uncanny valley gets.

 

[Stuart360]

Part of it def is diminishing returns, but a large part of it is the jump to 60fps for most games, and the considerable jump in resolution.

I mean just to run a last gen game at like 1620p or 4k, and 60fps, well you need hardware many times more powerful than last gen, and thats just to run a last gen game.

I mean i have lost count of the amount of times i said on here before this gen started that there would be a large amount of 'next gen' games that look just like good last gen games at higher resolutions and framerate. And i think i have been proved right so far.

I think if current gen were targeting 1080p/60, we would of seen a decent jump from last gen, not a huge jump but bigger than we have seen so far. Ofcouse we have 4k tv's to sell so there was no chance of that.

i also think ray tracing should of been saved for the mid gen consoles, and next gen. Its just too hard on current consoles. In fact ray tracing would of been a good hook for the mid gen consoles because i dont know what the hook will be now, native 4k instead of 1440p etc?.

 

[K' Dash]

Last time I was wowed by graphics was with Gears of War in 2006.

 

[CherryFalls]

And hit detection/ physics hasn’t improved since 2012 with max payne 3

 

[Kerotan]

I think it's more the extra power goes towards ensuring 60fps modes and sometimes even 120fps and hitting 4k or closer to it. It's a welcome trend imo.

 

[DeathGuise]

Hotter take: it's been longer than that

This. Fucking kids

 

[bender]

Eh, graphics are secondary to begin with...

I wish this were true or more true as more often than not, it doesn't feel that way.

 

[Xyphie]

It's because art assets have to a large extent plateaued with improvements largely arriving by just throwing more GPU compute at them (higher resolution/FPS/RT etc). If you took a high fidelity early last-gen game like Ryse, The Order 1886 or Infamous Second Son and made a minor graphics patch with took advantage of the ~10-20x improvement in compute of modern GPUs they'd be mostly indistinguishable from the average AAA game.

 

[Knightime_X]

Graphics can't get better if hardware and technology isn't there to support it.
AI is the next evolutionary step.

You haven't seen anything yet.

 

[Jesb]

4K is all that's needed for the next 5-7 years. 4K/60 /120 /144 would be perfect. Than you can add your raytracing and other features. 8k is a complete waste

Agreed 100%. But we all know the next consoles are going to want to have 8K for the marketing. But all that’s needed is 4K and improving upon everything else.

 

[Azelover]

Do we really need more? I know more would be nice but with games costing 100 million, or more, do we want them really go down this path? It’s not sustainable imo.

Not on that end of the spectrum. Fortunately the market is large enough. The days of E.T. are long gone. We are big enough to sustain a few large companies going bankrupt. Maybe we can't increase the budgets that much, but it will be a smooth transition at least. We have nothing to worry about.

 

[ComputerBlue]

It has definitely been longer, but I don’t mind. Games have looked amazing for many years and I don’t need them to look better, I would rather devs use extra resources for smoother gameplay, better gameplay, smarter AI etc.

 

[_Idea_of_Evil_]

 

[iHaunter]

Diminishing, but not the same. Ratchet and Clank RR looks infinitely better than R&C Remake.

 

[Klik]

We probably gonna need PS6 and next Xbox to have true next gen UE5 graphics.

Hopefuly in 4-5 years they will stay at 4k and not try to push for 8k

 

[cireza]

More like "Since PS360".

 

[crackajack]

eg. Plague Tale Requiem had some truly stunning vistas. They used Quixel megascans, so asset creation was at least in parts heavily simplified which should make a ton of work a lot easier since you can scan chairs, buildings, cars, clothers, any fantasy figure ever created etc. The point that modern very detailed games have a lot more work to be done seems a bit BS with these new tools being available. Animation rigging for more accessories and also not lego hair on characters has possibly to do more, while better physics should also automate it more, collision detection, lighting has to do more work but just for more polygons and should not be actually more work, everything seems at least to do the same procedure for decades now. Ray Tracing is a fine advancement, but still too taxing to really commit to it, especially on console.
Generally the wow moments got fewer since Crysis or Uncharted2 set the bar on PC and console, all the extra power after was needed first for FHD and now for 4k/fauxK, and mostly also better framerates. The tools are better than ever but with mass hirings the quality of the average dev probably got lower.
I don't agree that it completely stagnated, the evolution is just less noticeable with several games pushing the bar in small steps and not one game blowing everyone away. Also tech demos that overpromise, but never deliver a game on that level, inflate the expectation without reality following immediately. I mean parts of Killzone or Motorstorm first trailers possibly have stuff that is still not possible in real time.

 

[Xtib81]

Let's say that progress has slowed down. Resolution and framerate are the culprit.
Still, the difference is notable.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Trying playing Microsoft Flight Sim and the likes of Alan Wake 2, A Plague Tale Requiem, Avtar and then also get a new TV *rollseyes*

 

[kungfuian]

The one area that does feel a bit stagnant to me is animation. Even some of the highest production games still have characters with very limited walk/run animations for example. I don't care how many pixels you throw at the screen. If it moves weird it's gonna stand out. Hopefully with AI and better tools more devs can adopt/replicate things like the motion matching in TLOU2.

Also; I keep hearing that FPS is to blame for lack of graphical improvement but that seems like a totally weird way of looking at it imo. Images appear much more solid and tangible at higher frame rates (the human eye doesn't really see in FPS technically, but having 60 is closer to replicating how we normally see than 30), so increasing frames is as much an improvement in graphics as anything else. Going from 30fps to 60fps is a graphical upgrade!

 

[rofif]

Graphics are fine where they are, 30fps is a rusty cobwebbed thing of the past and it truly belongs in a ancient civilizations museum

Your closed mind belong in a museum.
I will play the shit out of 30fps death stranding 2

 

[rofif]

This laughable reshade preset crap. Cmon now. Get that washed out sharpening away from graphics discussion

 

[Paasei]

I do not really think graphics are all that bad. However I do think a lot of games/franchises lack noteworthy artstyle, which make games feel bland rather quickly.

A prime example would be the Batman Arkham games compared to Suicide Squad and Gothamn Knights. Stating this one as it’s recent and a hot topic.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Ah, graphics discussions in games; GAF's favorite pastime.

 

[teokrazia]

for me personally this has been the most visually astonishing game i've ever played despite the conditions and path tracing was %300 worth it for me. ray reconstruction is a true blessing

Yup.
And Ray Reconstruction does its part.

The people that dimiss it as a sharpening filter or whatever simply have no clue of what they are talking about.
It helps raytracing to be more accurate in what ray tracing is supposed to do,
Starting from cleasing and creating details and shadows unavailable with previous denoising methods to affect light bounces and shadows behaviour.

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

But hey, "prebaked".

 

[rofif]

Yup.
And Ray Reconstruction does its part.

The people that dimiss it as a sharpening filter or whatever simply have no clue of what they are talking about.
It helps raytracing to be more accurate in what ray tracing is supposed to do,
Starting from cleasing and creating details and shadows unavailable with previous denoising methods to affect light bounces and shadows behaviour.

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

Alan Wake 2: Ray Reconstruction @teoKrazia - Imgsli

But hey, "prebaked".

Lol you acting like you pulled out your best card lol and the difference in there is so minimal, nobody ever would notice it lol.
This is nothing. This is no difference. One image looks tiny bit different from another. SUCH WOW GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCE
The game is baked.

Theonly thing that they path tracing fixes, is their terrible, incredibly grainy SSR... which if it was like in other games, pt would have even less effect

 

[teokrazia]

This is nothing. This is no difference. One image looks tiny bit different from another. SUCH WOW GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCE
The game is baked.

This is Path Tracing + Ray Reconstruction Vs. Path Tracing.
Try harder.

 

[TVexperto]

excuse me??

 

[Mato]

Having better hardware doesn't automatically mean you'll get better graphics. That takes real skill from the artists and devs. But, AI is shaking things up. Creating top-notch graphics could get a lot easier and faster, even for those who aren't super skilled. So yeah, AI might be the key to pushing game graphics forward again.

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

The only game that managed to make me go Holy Shit!!! was Robocop. It looks stunning in 4K with DLSS3 and everything ramped up to the max.

 

[Bernardougf]

Ever since 2019/2020 there hasn't really been any significant noticeable improvements in terms of graphical prowess, despite the release of the 9th gen consoles. There have been improvements in terms of frame rate and faster loading however.

I think the graphical leap next gen will be absolutely insane where borderline augmented reality visuals such as the matrix tech demo will be the norm, but this current gen feels like one massive waiting period before then where we bridge the gap to 60fps(which is definitely worth it).

I agree ... and thats why ANY game coming out without 60 fps option on consoles (after all the games we already have with this option) has to justify this choice with something we didnt see before AND that effects significantly the gameplay experience. Until now this didnt happened and it seems the case of brute forcing games with minimum optimization and settling for 30 fps.

I wont buy any game that do this and predict that this kind of thing will progressively hurt game sales until they eventually realise is not acceptable anymore... people give too little credit to the average joe in this informative age we live in.

 

[Jakk]

The graphical leap will never again be as huge as when we went from for example PS2 to PS3 or PS3 to PS4. Diminishing returns.

 

[DAHGAMING]

Why are you getting defensive? I'm not even saying it is that big of a deal that graphics have stagnated.

Be carefull, them/they might die there hair blue and glue themself to a road in protest of your vile accusation.

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

Dimishing returns.

Not that it matters as the best and most memorable games tend to be the ones without the best graphics.

 

[E-Cat]

Do we really need more? I know more would be nice but with games costing 100 million, or more, do we want them really go down this path? It’s not sustainable imo.

Photorealism will eventually have nothing to do with the cost of development. The more processing power we get, the more we can use first-principles rendering techniques like path tracing, or new approaches like neural rendering that skip the traditional pipeline altogether. Traditional rasterization is more of a drag on human resources than anything

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

It is basically about lighting and reflections now. The better lighting and reflections are, the better image is - even if graphics does not improve.

 

[Hoppa]

Your closed mind belong in a museum.
I will play the shit out of 30fps death stranding 2

I can’t imagine a worse combination of words

 

[KungFucius]

Why? He's not wrong .. this gen has been disappointing for graphics

If it is so disappointing, why did Sony remaster The Last of Us 2 from PS4 to PS5?

Seriously though, Cyberpunk is still the go to game for benchmarking on PC and that was developed last gen and released on PC in 2020. Sure it has had some work done on graphics, but there still hasn't been much that does better. This is the age of diminishing, diminishing returns. The things that get improved will be framerate and then AI and other parts of the game that are harder to capture in a video.

 

[Matt_Fox]

rock technology has never been better.

 

[Hugare]

We have been at "budget and talent" territory for quite a while now. Even before 2019.

Technological evolution helps, but it wont make studios suddenly be able to make games like TLOU Part II or RDR 2

The result will be a lot of uncanny valley and games with lots of inconsistencies

 

[CuteFaceJay]

Do you understand the concept of diminishing returns?

And then That suicide squad shows up.

 

[Allandor]

Do you understand the concept of diminishing returns?

Yeah, RT might make it a bit better, but overall the fake light is already quite good looking. Yes, I know it is not accurate and has some problems, but it doesn't need that much horsepower that might be better spend in other areas.
Problem is, for a big jump in that department, we need much, much better hardware. But the hardware cycles got way longer and the jumps are much smaller. Yes, there are RTX 4090 chips, but they cost way much and the performance was bought by size and price. Yes, Nvidia could lower the prices, but that costs much more.
If we just check the RTX 3070 vs 4070, there is not that much more performance in that chip, but used a much smaller process node.
Comparison of Rx 6800 xt vs 7800 xt is even worse. The GPU hardware stagnated over time. So I don't really see much better consoles on the horizon. Only if they cost much more. That's also why I think that PS5 pro won't make a big difference. It will be better for sure, but not make a huge difference. I guess this time it is really a premium priced console that won't make the PS5 much cheaper.

 

[bbeach123]

Well when we had some monster like Rdr2 , forbiden west ,lou2 run on the ps4 . Its pretty fucking hard to make a game that look one gen better than these game .

 

[RCU005]

Ever since 2019/2020 there hasn't really been any significant noticeable improvements in terms of graphical prowess, despite the release of the 9th gen consoles. There have been improvements in terms of frame rate and faster loading however.

I think the graphical leap next gen will be absolutely insane where borderline augmented reality visuals such as the matrix tech demo will be the norm, but this current gen feels like one massive waiting period before then where we bridge the gap to 60fps(which is definitely worth it).

That’s because everyone is still releasing cross-gen games! It’s ridiculous!

Also, Sony put all their budget into GaaS games.

 

[lmimmfn]

Does that mean........we have graphics as good as Toy Story now?

 

[rofif]

Does that mean........we have graphics as good as Toy Story now?

We have much better graphics.

 

[Shake Your Rump]

Cross generation games certainly had an effect. We are still mostly playing what are basically PS4 games in higher resolution.