Why don't 8th gen games look THAT much better than 7th gen?
Now, everyone here knows I'm very much a traditionalist retro gamer. That being said, I have nothing against modern gaming at all, even though I don't really understand a lot of it (I don't do online gaming and what is up with all this stream and cloud stuff?). But I can't help but wonder when I look at videos of upcoming X1/PS4 games (like that recent side-by-side comparsion video IGN just did a few days ago) I can't help but wonder...can't the PS3/X360 do the same thing if they really try to push the system?
See, with previous generation transistions, the difference in graphics (and sound) was like night and day. Those of you like myself who were kids back when the SNES was first released in 1991, remember how blown away we all were by Super Mario World? Super Mario Bros 3 clearly pushed the NES with everything it had but Super Mario World was so much more colorful and detailed and bigger.
When the N64 came out, remember how blown away people were by Super Mario 64 and how much crisper and less jaggedy the visuals were compared to the early PS1 games? How about when the PS2/GC/Xbox came out and showed 3D games where everything didn't have those sharp points?
UPDATE: Here's another really perfect example of exactly what I mean...I just recently got a copy of Luigi's Mansion for the GC (the launch title if you recall; I had one right at launch but I stupidly sold it years ago). Now, this is only the launch title and I believe I read somewhere that Nintendo said it was only using about 5% of what the GC was capable of. But even so, it was very VERY clear that even this launch title looked WAY better than even the very best N64 graphics. And I was totally blown away seeing the Super Smash Bros Melee intro for the first time in 2001...I never seen graphics like it! And again, that was a game that came out right after launch! See, THIS is the kind of graphical leap we all fully expected with each new generation of gaming. But now when I see videos of the PS4/X1 games, I often can't help but wonder if the PS3/360 could do those same kind of graphics if the system was really pushed. But with the GC, there was never any doubt the N64 was no match for even the earliest GC games.
See what I mean? It used to be the difference between generations was like night and day. But now when I see videos of say PS4 vs PS3, why is it that I can't help but think that the PS4 isn't making it look all that much better?
Am I just blind? Am I so out of touch with current gaming and pop culture? Or have we reached a point where graphics just can't get much better?
See, with previous generation transistions, the difference in graphics (and sound) was like night and day. Those of you like myself who were kids back when the SNES was first released in 1991, remember how blown away we all were by Super Mario World? Super Mario Bros 3 clearly pushed the NES with everything it had but Super Mario World was so much more colorful and detailed and bigger.
When the N64 came out, remember how blown away people were by Super Mario 64 and how much crisper and less jaggedy the visuals were compared to the early PS1 games? How about when the PS2/GC/Xbox came out and showed 3D games where everything didn't have those sharp points?
UPDATE: Here's another really perfect example of exactly what I mean...I just recently got a copy of Luigi's Mansion for the GC (the launch title if you recall; I had one right at launch but I stupidly sold it years ago). Now, this is only the launch title and I believe I read somewhere that Nintendo said it was only using about 5% of what the GC was capable of. But even so, it was very VERY clear that even this launch title looked WAY better than even the very best N64 graphics. And I was totally blown away seeing the Super Smash Bros Melee intro for the first time in 2001...I never seen graphics like it! And again, that was a game that came out right after launch! See, THIS is the kind of graphical leap we all fully expected with each new generation of gaming. But now when I see videos of the PS4/X1 games, I often can't help but wonder if the PS3/360 could do those same kind of graphics if the system was really pushed. But with the GC, there was never any doubt the N64 was no match for even the earliest GC games.
See what I mean? It used to be the difference between generations was like night and day. But now when I see videos of say PS4 vs PS3, why is it that I can't help but think that the PS4 isn't making it look all that much better?
Am I just blind? Am I so out of touch with current gaming and pop culture? Or have we reached a point where graphics just can't get much better?
Comments
But still, look at the one Xenoblade game for Wii or WiiU or whatever it was for, you'll see poping textures and such everywhere. This next gen should highly eliminate that from being even viewable. I hope they do at least. EA had it PERFECT with BFBC2. But when BF3 came out, they sacraficed every close texture to become smugy messes to not work on the game as much and just made it only look good on PC with tons of texture RAM. That's where the improvement is this gen. Also, Battlefield 4 looks just as bad on consoles. Don't waste money on it on older consoles.
Basically next gen games will essentially look close to current gen from afar, but close up, you should be able to notice improved details, specifically lighting / shadows being more realistic.
Originally posted by: KHAN Games
There's no way this gen will last "10+ years." They'll release new systems even if they aren't huge advances, just to cash in and not lose staying power.
Nobody will buy it, or they'll build PC's instead. We're at the point now we can not see the differences. This gen will be the last until 4K TV's are common because...well, the hardware is good enough now. 8GB GDDR5!
And for the ones who have experience in this field and have weighed in so far, here's what really want to know...what is it that the PS4 can do for games that most definetly can't be done on a PS3? Thing about the PS3 though, Sony did TOO good a job making it a big leap up from the PS2 (in the sense that it was so expensive for the first few years and struggled for awhile really getting its library to catch up)!
Originally posted by: Estil
I guess on that note the WiiU is often ridiculed by X1/PS4 fanboys and such as not being a "real" 8th gen system. But I don't see anything wrong with say, the visuals in Super Mario World U, or the previews I've seen for Mario Kart 8 and Brawl, and I'm sure the new WiiU Zelda game in 2015 will make a believer out of most everyone.
I've been very happy with the graphics as well. I think most people who criticize the graphics are people who don't understand that we don't want Mario to look like a real man and pikachu look like a real mouse. lol they're supposed to look like cartoons
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
The biggest improvement is textures. Get that draw distance up! They look great, honestly. The PhysX built in to next-gen hardware (Hopefully) will help a ton of offloading for tons of stuff too. It'd not the biggest leap graphically, but it's still a good one. I mean, this is probably the generation that will last another 10+ years. The only thing they have to work on now is even more textures, add more shaders, and just rendering 4K. Not much for next gen, hopefully GDDR5 RAM gets cheap enough and they get some newer RAM working to do it all in about 10 years. We should be okay until then.
But still, look at the one Xenoblade game for Wii or WiiU or whatever it was for, you'll see poping textures and such everywhere. This next gen should highly eliminate that from being even viewable. I hope they do at least. EA had it PERFECT with BFBC2. But when BF3 came out, they sacraficed every close texture to become smugy messes to not work on the game as much and just made it only look good on PC with tons of texture RAM. That's where the improvement is this gen. Also, Battlefield 4 looks just as bad on consoles. Don't waste money on it on older consoles.
And all in glorious 30 FPS
Originally posted by: pujolsfan
Originally posted by: Estil
I guess on that note the WiiU is often ridiculed by X1/PS4 fanboys and such as not being a "real" 8th gen system. But I don't see anything wrong with say, the visuals in Super Mario World U, or the previews I've seen for Mario Kart 8 and Brawl, and I'm sure the new WiiU Zelda game in 2015 will make a believer out of most everyone.
I've been very happy with the graphics as well. I think most people who criticize the graphics are people who don't understand that we don't want Mario to look like a real man and pikachu look like a real mouse. lol they're supposed to look like cartoons
I guess one example I personally saw recently was how Final Fantasy Origins did a really nice job beefing up the grpahics/sound of FF1/FF2 (so it looks like slightly dressed up versions of SNES FF games) but with the DS/PSP versions of FF3, they had to go making it all wierd looking. I mean, SNES style visuals worked just fine with all the other FF's up to FF6 right?
I guess the moral is just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it SHOULD.
Originally posted by: buttheadrulesagain
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
The biggest improvement is textures. Get that draw distance up! They look great, honestly. The PhysX built in to next-gen hardware (Hopefully) will help a ton of offloading for tons of stuff too. It'd not the biggest leap graphically, but it's still a good one. I mean, this is probably the generation that will last another 10+ years. The only thing they have to work on now is even more textures, add more shaders, and just rendering 4K. Not much for next gen, hopefully GDDR5 RAM gets cheap enough and they get some newer RAM working to do it all in about 10 years. We should be okay until then.
But still, look at the one Xenoblade game for Wii or WiiU or whatever it was for, you'll see poping textures and such everywhere. This next gen should highly eliminate that from being even viewable. I hope they do at least. EA had it PERFECT with BFBC2. But when BF3 came out, they sacraficed every close texture to become smugy messes to not work on the game as much and just made it only look good on PC with tons of texture RAM. That's where the improvement is this gen. Also, Battlefield 4 looks just as bad on consoles. Don't waste money on it on older consoles.
And all in glorious 30 FPS
TIME OUT here *does T thing with hands* What's with all this 30FPS??? I thought for at least the past 10-15 years or so games (at least the major blue chip ones) routinely ran at a crisp full 60FPS without giving it a second thought. Wow, I guess I'm REALLY out of it...
Originally posted by: pujolsfan
Originally posted by: Estil
I guess on that note the WiiU is often ridiculed by X1/PS4 fanboys and such as not being a "real" 8th gen system. But I don't see anything wrong with say, the visuals in Super Mario World U, or the previews I've seen for Mario Kart 8 and Brawl, and I'm sure the new WiiU Zelda game in 2015 will make a believer out of most everyone.
I've been very happy with the graphics as well. I think most people who criticize the graphics are people who don't understand that we don't want Mario to look like a real man and pikachu look like a real mouse. lol they're supposed to look like cartoons
I always wondered what Pikachu and the other Pokemon were; are they robots or animals or people? I could never figure it out but now all of a sudden I wanna catch 'em all
But I think the real change is going to be things that might not be as apparent like allowing 64 player maps and seamless open worlds without loading screens.
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
Originally posted by: KHAN Games
There's no way this gen will last "10+ years." They'll release new systems even if they aren't huge advances, just to cash in and not lose staying power.
Nobody will buy it, or they'll build PC's instead. We're at the point now we can not see the differences. This gen will be the last until 4K TV's are common because...well, the hardware is good enough now. 8GB GDDR5!
You are dreaming If this were true it would be happening already. People will buy it for the same reason they will buy this gen, because they will stop making games for the previous gen.
Originally posted by: cradelit
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
Originally posted by: KHAN Games
There's no way this gen will last "10+ years." They'll release new systems even if they aren't huge advances, just to cash in and not lose staying power.
Nobody will buy it, or they'll build PC's instead. We're at the point now we can not see the differences. This gen will be the last until 4K TV's are common because...well, the hardware is good enough now. 8GB GDDR5!
You are dreaming If this were true it would be happening already. People will buy it for the same reason they will buy this gen, because they will stop making games for the previous gen.
This isn't the Wii, they will support games on consoles with people on them until they're not on that console. If they try to release a console in 5 years, who will buy it? Not me. I'd go out and build a gaming PC because the cost vs how long it will last will apparently be better than consoles. Like I said, we're at the point where we can't even see differences, just more details. 2GB of textures should be enough for any developer, for now, until we get to next gen with 8GB textures and 4GB draw distances or whatnot. We'll just see over time if I'm right, but like all tech, it's slowing down now. We're reaching the end of Moore's Law. Consoles won't over come that by any magic.
Also with optimization of 3D engines, that was true when 3D systems all had different hardware and tradeoffs. Now it doesn't matter nearly as much. 360 engines will likely be enhanced for the bigger textures and such, but they'll probably be ported to nearly every console. Only differences are OpenGL vs Direct X 11. We don't have much more to optimize, there's nothing extremely different, just have to refine it all for what this new generation of 3D hardware offers.
The raw "graphics" can only really improve with higher resolution textures, and won't really matter until 4k, or higher, TVs become consumer-grade.
Basically, think about Oblivion on modern systems being detuned to low/mid-grade settings on the consoles, versus the PC options where some guys built insane rigs with "infinite" draw (i.e. the screenshot online that shows ALL of Cyrodill from some mountain vista).
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
Originally posted by: cradelit
Originally posted by: 3GenGames
Originally posted by: KHAN Games
There's no way this gen will last "10+ years." They'll release new systems even if they aren't huge advances, just to cash in and not lose staying power.
Nobody will buy it, or they'll build PC's instead. We're at the point now we can not see the differences. This gen will be the last until 4K TV's are common because...well, the hardware is good enough now. 8GB GDDR5!
You are dreaming If this were true it would be happening already. People will buy it for the same reason they will buy this gen, because they will stop making games for the previous gen.
This isn't the Wii, they will support games on consoles with people on them until they're not on that console. If they try to release a console in 5 years, who will buy it? Not me. I'd go out and build a gaming PC because the cost vs how long it will last will apparently be better than consoles. Like I said, we're at the point where we can't even see differences, just more details. 2GB of textures should be enough for any developer, for now, until we get to next gen with 8GB textures and 4GB draw distances or whatnot. We'll just see over time if I'm right, but like all tech, it's slowing down now. We're reaching the end of Moore's Law. Consoles won't over come that by any magic.
Also with optimization of 3D engines, that was true when 3D systems all had different hardware and tradeoffs. Now it doesn't matter nearly as much. 360 engines will likely be enhanced for the bigger textures and such, but they'll probably be ported to nearly every console. Only differences are OpenGL vs Direct X 11. We don't have much more to optimize, there's nothing extremely different, just have to refine it all for what this new generation of 3D hardware offers.
Maybe not you, but people will buy it.. They will stop supporting PS4, stop making PS4, it will be illegal for anyone to make or support anything that can play PS4 games, probably even illegal to release anything that can run on PS4 without permission which they won't get. Everyone will move to the next one regardless, there doesn't need to be any actual improvement at all. Sure people could switch to PC, but thats always been an option.
Originally posted by: marvelus10
As far as I'm concerned with the power these systems utilize you shouldn't be able to tell a video game character from a photo of a real person. Maybe my expectations are too high, but thats how I feel.
I have to agree. There has been not one game ever created where I couldnt tell it was a video game character. In a few anime movies with extreme closeups like in the eyes, they can look near real-life, but as soon as they pan back a bit you know its not real. Is the overall goal to make games look photo realistic? If so they are quite a ways off. Look how much time they have worked on just making water look like water. It looks pretty good but still doesnt look just like water ya know?
I think graphics can (and will) get a ton better. They haven't even gotten close to what a real face looks and moves like. Moving water still looks meh.