weekend_warrior
Banned
I'm curious if next gen consoles will have enough power to create believable AI. Probably not.
What will next gen graphics look like?
- Thread starter Shadow of the BEAST
- Start date
Yes... When a.i. Is overlooked, the game feels buggy.
insert_username_here
Member
Well considering EA tries to nickle and dime everyone with day 1 DLC, and the fact that they basically kill off or radically dumb down any under preforming series doesn't help your case. Ubisoft outsources to jobs to areas where they can get cheaper labor, and they too have the bad habit of milking and dumbing down franchises. Such as an Assassin's Creed every year or the Call of Dutyfication of the Ghost Recon franchise.
As far as Square Enix, the CEO himself even said that Eidos in pulling much of companies weight and much of Square Enix has fallen back to portables, such as Kingdom Hearts only coming out for portables cause of smaller budgets.
And its true not all games need to look as good as the next Naughty Dog game but there is still a standard with console games and that standard will be raised by a lot. Some devs just can't put out that kind of graphical fidelity. Hell one of the main criticisms with Neir, which is a fine game, was that its graphics were technically unimpressive and it was bashed by mainstream gaming sites.
And your Japanese dev salary comment isn't as bad as you think, the cost of living in Tokyo is very high and the yen is incredibly strong right now. So in prospective that number really isn't as freakishly high as you might think.
Beginning of next gen:
About a year into next gen:
A few years into next gen:
End of next gen:
Wow when next gen start to look like this star wars game, it's time to upgrade. Hopefully my sli 3 gb 580 lightning extremes do the trick. how about the 680m? 20 fps, lol
This.
Optimizations made to Unreal, CryEngine and others immediately apply to PC.
Unless Naughty Dog comes out with a game specifically built for PS4 at launch, I don't think we'll see consoles beat PC this time.
Rumors are of parts that high end PCs already beat by 4x. Stuff like a single 7870 just doesn't compare to an existing PC with GTX 670 SLI. Or a bulldozer CPU compared to an i7 Sandy Bridge CPU from 2011, let alone Haswell which will be a major bump in PC performance the year consoles are released.
Cryengine 3 can already do this. I don't think next gen consoles could handle it without reducing settings.
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
Yep. With a few exceptions here and there, most PC hardware remains effectively "gimped" until the console gaming market offers the developmental incentive to leverage the bloody thing. That may ramp up a little faster next gen with a more common denominator. But it's still a bitter pill to swallow your $600 graphics card is virtually spinning its wheels until the console rabble decides it's time to really use your silicon. And by then you've probably bought the next piece of planned obsolescence. Enjoy the IQ.
u can say that again. bunch of dreamers in this thread. posting gifs of trailers, cutscenes etc which were rendered on high end pcs anyway lol.
Dictator93
Member
I like your post. It makes sense.
EricDiesel
Member
I expect more lighting effects, particles, higher-res textures, models to be near original poly counts, and better AI. That's about it. Huge big budget titles may have a boost in detail, impressive physics, and a slew of things we've never seen, but I think it unfair to expect a gigantic leap out of every developer. Unless more studio closures is a good idea.
I think most devs that aren't huge should (I'm not saying they will) just use this gen to figure out how to further make the HD games we have now easier to profit from. With of course whatever shader effects they can flip a switch on due to having a modern GPU and new middleware. Not a HUGE jump. That could possibly sink this industry. It might not, but I don't see the benefit in risking industry health by having 100s more artists per game, skyrocketing budgets just so some slack jawed do-nothing on a games forum can go "OOOOH PURDY". Hardly seems worth bankruptcy.
In short, I'm keeping expectations low. If the PS4/XBox3 can deliver current PC style visuals with an added boost due to it being a closed system, even at 720p? Good enough for me. Any more than that? Great. (So long as it doesn't mean absurd budget inflation.)
I honestly don't find this to look so great. Cars aren't made of rubber. If they can fix the rigidity to look right, this would be cool tech.
I think most devs that aren't huge should (I'm not saying they will) just use this gen to figure out how to further make the HD games we have now easier to profit from. With of course whatever shader effects they can flip a switch on due to having a modern GPU and new middleware. Not a HUGE jump. That could possibly sink this industry. It might not, but I don't see the benefit in risking industry health by having 100s more artists per game, skyrocketing budgets just so some slack jawed do-nothing on a games forum can go "OOOOH PURDY". Hardly seems worth bankruptcy.
In short, I'm keeping expectations low. If the PS4/XBox3 can deliver current PC style visuals with an added boost due to it being a closed system, even at 720p? Good enough for me. Any more than that? Great. (So long as it doesn't mean absurd budget inflation.)
I honestly don't find this to look so great. Cars aren't made of rubber. If they can fix the rigidity to look right, this would be cool tech.
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
Take the top 5 or 10 exclusive developers for MS and Sony. Or even some of the big gun third parties. I would be shocked if their efforts on the new consoles didn't eventually make that cryengine demo look downright quaint in retrospect. Once the closed platforms have their second and third generations of development you're going to see some jaw dropping stuff, as we always do.
IMO a lot of peeps are lowballing the next gen compared to what I would consider historically established patterns of development.
It's a demo of an engine. That engine will be optimized and replaced by a newer engine. We'll be on CryEngine 5 or whatever with GTX 970 by 2015.
If next gen consoles cannot beat that day 1, they'll never beat PC. With Intel Haswell and GTX 770 or AMD 8950, PC will double in performance by mid 2013 over today's high end PCs that are running the demos of next gen consoles that people are pointing to.
We're in a different market than in 2005. High end PC hardware needs 600+ Watt PSUs, and consoles are becoming general purpose media centers.
disappeared
Banned
I really don't know if I'm looking forward to violent games next-gen. Things are going to start looking a tad too realistic for my tastes.
What I'd really like to see most of all Next Gen are advances in Cloth and Hair physics. Nothing annoys me more in video games then the "Plastic Hat" syndrome. Do we know if U4 and other Next Gen engines will be capable of producing realistic hair and cloth physics like we see here in these tech demo's in realtime?
Cloth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtwESnTOwY
Hair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlQ_YeR6Gc
Fur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkBKW4dClRw
Cloth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrtwESnTOwY
Hair
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOlQ_YeR6Gc
Fur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkBKW4dClRw
shinobi602
Member
The PS3 launched with a GPU equivalent to two 6800 Ultras.
Next gen consoles will be fine.
But Uncharted 3 itself is a result of a 1st party studio coding to the medal of a customized CPU. The perfect example of what aolist was saying was how all the best-looking PS3 games (and really best-looking console games right now) are all 1st party. Also, by bringing up Uncharted 3 you're asking a possibly more important question: what will console games look like in 2017? Will they, generally speaking, look better than any PC game from 2013 or 2014?
If things turn out the way aolist suggests though, does that mean console visuals won't progress all that much from 2013/2014 launch games? If you ask me console graphics haven't gotten much better at all since 2008/09, but that's just me talking.
of course they'll be fine. I'm talking about those that claim that the consoles will far surpass what the current high end PCs can do today. I'm talking about those that think 1080p and 60fps will be a standard.
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
Wait a minute, first you said the new consoles wouldn't be able to handle this engine demo 'without reduced settings'. I disagreed with that. Now we're talking about CryEngine 5?
Of course it will be optimized and replaced. But you know what a large portion of that optimization will be for. The most profitable common denominator, the consoles.
Again, hardware doubles in performance, but most PC development will not leverage it. It's a moving target. Those cards will be spinning their wheels on AA and resolution. That's the basic point. The console ghetto, as a fixed target (and more importantly a profitable one), sets the base.
You can say it till you're blue in the face and many will still overlook it...even with proof right now. SW 1313, Watch_Dogs were shown, as well as two techs, (UE4, Luminous) and they witnessed what developers pushing graphics for more powerful systems looks like. And the reason it's being pushed is because more powerful consoles are on the way.
Today's PCs will benefit greatly due to more powerful consoles. PCs will handle the graphics that will be achieved on PS4/Nextbox, it's just that games for PC will finally get the graphical jump that more powerful consoles will usher in, and not look like 360 games with better IQ.
Wait a minute, first you said the new consoles wouldn't be able to handle this engine demo 'without reduced settings'. I disagreed with that. Now we're talking about CryEngine 5?
Of course it will be optimized and replaced. But you know what a large portion of that optimization will be for. The most profitable common denominator, the consoles.
You introduced the moving target with "eventually will make these demos look quaint", but by then PC will be way beyond those consoles. That's why I brought up CryEngine 5.
Yes it will. Multi-platformers run on the same engine. There will be some minor effects thrown in, but yeah much of the power gained will be > 1080p resolutions, better IQ, bigger draw distances. That can only take you so far, sure, but it's nice icing on the cake for a few years.
There will be PC specific games that run on updated engines as there have been too.
This, plus better animations. It's one thing to look good, but I'm tired of everything looking so stiff.
lol pd0
Come on now
Next gen launch games will look TONS better than anything out on PC at that time probably. Just as Kameo did back in 05.
You are forgetting that the unified shader stuff came about with the 360 launch. That was just not a thing on PCs at the time. There is not really any new tech that will give a distinctive visual upgrade for the next set of consoles. Any improvements will be stuff like Tessellation and some of the newer DX11 effects consoles just can't do at the moment.
Avatar in real time
Seriously though, graphics will be noticeably better than currently possible on PC, but not so significantly that they blow Maxed Witcher 2/Crysis 2 out of the water.
As a benchmark, the better looking games will look better than Watch Dogs looked at E3, in 1080p30fps(minimum).
6fps
Seriously though, graphics will be noticeably better than currently possible on PC, but not so significantly that they blow Maxed Witcher 2/Crysis 2 out of the water.
As a benchmark, the better looking games will look better than Watch Dogs looked at E3, in 1080p30fps(minimum).
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
AI has little to do with processing power, unfortunately. We don't have true artificial intelligence. AI in gaming is all about creating variables and functions that give the impression of an intelligence. It's really all just about trickery, convincing the player that the AI character is thinking intelligently.
We won't see an AI boost next generation much in the same way we didn't see a boost this generation. What it will come down to, as it always has, is how the AI is programmed, and how clever the trickery works.
Spazznid
Member
But wasn't Watch Dogs in 720p? on a 680?
I'm only going on the fact that I can't find any direct 1080p footage of it but plenty of 720 direct.
Still, as much as I'd love to see Watch Dogs in 1080p on my new Playstation 4, I don't see it happening, and DEFINITELY not at 60fps.
I'll happily be playing it on PC with either 4x SGSSAA or Downsampling from some absurdly high resolution.
IMO, PC games go on sale like crazy, so the price to achieve these absurdly high settings is pretty justified.
Artistically, sure, there MAY be a game or two that out-classes Watch Dogs, The Witcher (Debatable), or Star Wars 1313 (Also Debatable). Technically, however, the PC variants of these games can't be touched by consoles and I'll be surprised if this changes next gen. I can see the witcher running on Maxed settings (Not ubersampling, of course) next gen if some of these supposed leaked specs are true, but that's at either 720p or sub 60fps.
Uncharted and God of War AMAZE me. But whenever I see them I can only ponder what these devs could achieve with higher limits.
BTW, It's 3AM here and I think I may be rambling nonsense, forgive me if nothing makes sense...
hukasmokincaterpillar
Member
It's nice, but it ain't no cake . If we fully embrace this metaphor, the consoles are the cake. Simply because most of the development expertise is focused on the cake. And you buy the icing because there's a cake to put it on, etc.
Oh no doubt, and many will kick ass as they always do. But even the PC exclusives have to account for the open platform its on. The thing about a closed system is it's always surprising what people can squeeze out of constrained environments. You don't know what that silicon can do until you 'do', and the modularity of a PC environment generally prevents that from happening.
To paraphrase Majanew above me, the new consoles 'usher in' the baseline for PC development over a certain period. For better or worse all PC firepower remains effectively tethered to lead development.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Umm unified shaders didn't really bring anything new, just a more effecient way of using shaders. If anything this new compute class GPU hardware will bring more than unifed shaders ever did.
Not for sheer graphical fidelity.
With perfect tessellation and no jaggies. SO REAL!!
MickeyKnox
Member
Which is constrained by animation, which in turn is constrained by memory limitations
iamshadowlark
Banned
What does this even mean? Unified Shaders did absolutely nothing for "fidelity" and they were touted as "revolutionary".
Thunder Monkey
Banned
Time factors into it as well.
Why work on believable AI for years when getting a little more juice for the shiny is the imperative.
FlutterPuffs
Member
True, although it seems like The Last Of Us may hit that sweet spot in believable AI at the moment.
Hope it is as it's hyped, and become the benchmark for the next generation of games.
Lol, I read your comment as "The new compute GPUs will allow unified shaders to do more than they ever did." My bad.
I do agree with you that unified shaders architecture brought more efficiency (because it's true). While compute shaders does allow more possibilities than unified shaders brought, it's going to end up being used for physics and I guess lighting (not sure about that one). Again, it won't necessarily increase visuals. Most of the visual upgrades (sheer graphical fidelity, for the lack of a better phrase :/), I feel, will come from tessellation and the overall power increase of the hardware.
I do get the feeling, though, that many people on this forum expect dramatic changes due to the fact that GPGPU functions are involved. This isn't true.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Hardly constrained by animation limits at all. Marginally constrained my memory. The onus is on the programmers to come up with believable AI. The problem has never been how characters animate and look, but how convincingly they behave.
It does look good. None of the Uncharted games had particularly amazing AI, but the greater emphasis on stealth for The Last of Us could lead to great things.
Well the human brain is pretty powerful, you know.....
MickeyKnox
Member
Any AI routine that an npc can perform is communicated to the player by the animation(s) the character model has to execute. The more numerous and complex the animation(s) the more ram gets eats up.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
It is, but we don't have any real artificial intelligence, and that's the problem. We don't have programs capable of true sentient intelligence and problem solving. Creating AI in a video game is all about trickery. It is about creating functions and variables that are balanced to respond to player actions and the environment, along with a healthy dose of randomness, and doing all of this with balance in order to be convincing.
Right, but a multitude of routines and convincing animation does not necessarily make an AI 'smart' or behave in a believable way, nor do animation limitations prevent an AI from acting what we perceive as intelligently.
You could have an incredibly complex animation system with a multitude of routines and variables, but the underlying AI programming still dictates how convincing their behaviour is.
Lol it was a joke referring to your "my memory" that I bolded, which I assume was meant to be "by". I do know that AI is up to the programmers, and not much up to the hardware.
EatChildren
Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
I didn't pick it up even after you highlighted it. Clearly my AI is poorly programmed.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Yea I agree. Due to budget constraints, going foward advancements will come more from things you can code rather than what you model.
MickeyKnox
Member
Of course! That's the whole point!
Software isn't some disembodied thing that just exists without hardware to run it.
It's like BRD vs DVD all over again.
You could program the most advanced AI yet seen, but once it's in the context of a 3d video game you need hardware capable of presenting to you. Otherwise it's like taking the brain of a brilliant concert pianist and sticking it in the body of a quadriplegic and asking him to perform a piece by Mozart.
the same as every gen?
will be ahead of pc at the start due to coding to dedicated hardware, then around 6 months to a year later, pc catches up again for the hardcore money is no object loons, then stagnation for a while, after year or so, the hardware will become affordable, and cue the whiners in the console threads from people who dont even play on consoles.
will be ahead of pc at the start due to coding to dedicated hardware, then around 6 months to a year later, pc catches up again for the hardcore money is no object loons, then stagnation for a while, after year or so, the hardware will become affordable, and cue the whiners in the console threads from people who dont even play on consoles.
Yep. With a few exceptions here and there, most PC hardware remains effectively "gimped" until the console gaming market offers the developmental incentive to leverage the bloody thing. That may ramp up a little faster next gen with a more common denominator. But it's still a bitter pill to swallow your $600 graphics card is virtually spinning its wheels until the console rabble decides it's time to really use your silicon. And by then you've probably bought the next piece of planned obsolescence. Enjoy the IQ.
this is hugely important. Its not just about power, its about using it properly. Right now what do you get for your 670 SLI setup? Higher resolution and textures, and some AA. Are you really happy with that?
I'm looking forward to seeing what happens when most of the developers in the world start on a new baseline of technology. This gen brought us decent multicore engines, where PCs still aren't leveraging the CPUs properly. Streaming worlds to get the most out of limited RAM. Smart AA that takes a fraction of the power of PC driver based AA (no, its not perfect, but its a good start)
star wars 1313 looks great, but not that different from what I'd expect an uncharted 4 to look like
since when does PC hardware double in power in a year? Most of the time with GPUs/CPUs you get 10-15% increases with each new model revision.
I see mid-range cards in the consoles up against tech-demos that were ran on high-end PC hardware (GTX680). The consoles will definitely boost the graphical details on most games, that's for sure, but out of the gate, PCs already outclass the next-gen systems. Whatever gets ported to PC on launch will run and look better on a PC. It won't be a 6 month wait or anything. It'll be instant since PCs already outlcass the rumored specs of the next gen systems.
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