• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Person 1: "What happend?"
Person 2: "He saw *insert random Sony 1st Party AAA PS5 game*"

Huh?

What do PS5 games have to do with hellblade 2. Does posting Xbox games here mean it some sort of reactionary, lol. You really need to spend less time here, its making you delusional.
 
Last edited:

Hunnybun

Member
It is easier to make pixar style textures than hyper detailed\realistic textures.

We are more severe when we judge realistic graphic compared to pixar style graphic, we tend to notice flaws more easily because we have a real life counterpart.

Nobody is gonna say that the aliens in ratchet don't look realistic enough.

And it is the same with destruction\interaction, nobody even called out ratchet when the wood boxes or the armours of the enemies disappear after a while but everyone noticed the rocks disappearing after a couple of seconds in the horizon 2 first gameplay when the mammouth destroy the rock structure.

People talked shit about water\sand interaction in horizon 2 but nobody talks about how shitty is sand\water interaction in ratchet.

If you want another example, old stylized\cartoony games looks better\gets old better than old realistic styles like from the ps2 era, why? because it is easy to forget graphical flaws in a cartoony looking games compared to games that try to emulate reality.

When kena was showed for the first time we were all talking about cg\pixar quality with ease even if the game has noticeable worse graphic than ratchet, that's how easy is to look good with that artstyle.

easy is the wrong word, i'm sure insomniac worked his ass off to achieve ratchet graphic level, easier compared to realistic style is more precise.

I think the reality is more complicated than you describe it.

I think cartoony games are easier to make look nice, insofar as that means to avoid being ugly.

But I think people are more easily impressed by realistic graphics.

I'd cite as an example the way everyone was raving about the graphics in Demon's Souls, even though it was only a modest improvement over something like God of War on the PS4.
 

GymWolf

Member
I think the reality is more complicated than you describe it.

I think cartoony games are easier to make look nice, insofar as that means to avoid being ugly.

But I think people are more easily impressed by realistic graphics.

I'd cite as an example the way everyone was raving about the graphics in Demon's Souls, even though it was only a modest improvement over something like God of War on the PS4.
Wasn't this the point of discussion? what is easier to make look good?

People get impressed more by realistic graphics because they are harder to do so they are intrinsically more impressive, it is something subtle and unconscious.

for example Cartony water with basic physics usually looks nice in games (botw, sea of pirates etc.) but is never gonna look more impressive than realistic water with realistic physics because it is way harder to do realistic water simulation.
 
Last edited:

Hunnybun

Member
Wasn't this the point of discussion? what is easier to make look good?

People get impressed more by realistic graphics because they are harder to do so they are intrinsically more impressive, it is something subtle and unconscious.

for example Cartony water with basic physics usually looks nice in games (botw, sea of pirates etc.) but is never gonna look more impressive than realistic water with realistic physics because it is way harder to do realistic water simulation.

The point is that I think cartoony graphics require less fidelity to look better than ugly - something like Mario Odyssey more or less achieves that, for example.

But once you go much beyond that, I think it becomes increasingly difficult to impress people, and that's not the case with realistic graphics, which most people have a strong bias for.

Essentially I'm saying that if you plotted the increasing fidelity of both styles against an audience's appreciation of that increase, then you'd have differently shaped curves.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This is a bad take, some games are ok as sandbox with total freedom, but some games need a structure if they have a story, sense of progression, introduction of new gameppay elements etc.

You have the fucking tlou as an avatar dude, that thing is the opposite of what you want.

I want a rich, paced story from horizon, not some shitty narrative like zelda botw where going into the final boss after 2 hours doesn't break nothing because you have nothing to break to begin with.

Thank god majority of games have a solid structure, botw was just one different way of doing things, not the only correct one.
Someone has added the makeup on Aloy's face.
of course, i don’t want every game to become an open world sandbox, tlou And gow can stay linear. That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying the open world games like horizon need to well open up more. Don’t take away tools like flying just because it might fuck with the campaign progression. After all, horizon’s story missions are all in caves and labs that spoonfeed you the story so You can still get that by simply locking out access to those indoor areas. They do that already actually since horizon pretty much opens up right after the proving. You can go wherever you want so why can’t you fly? Because it would break pacing and exploration? Who cares? Did planes beat exploration in gta games?

As for tlou, i just think Joel looks good in this pic lol but tlou needs to big redesign too. They did a good job overhauling the animation and AI systems to keep the combat was getting stale but Its time to redefine what we expect from linear games. The best fight in the game was when the bloater was breaking through walls. They need to give us ability to do that.

Half life 2 revolutionized physics in games and we still can’t grab a chair or a lamp and throw it at someone in a video game 17 years later. Let’s change that
 
^Video Games definitely need a ground up redesign. I was talking to some friends about Flying in horizon, and they said it would break the game's narrative structure if you can just fly to the final boss area. Or break pacing. And Im like how is that a bad thing? Why have we shackled ourselves to these dated concepts? Why are we treating video games like movies? Who gives a shit about pacing or story structure in a video game? This is an interactive form of media and if I find myself at the boss' door at the start of the game then great. Lets design something for that scenario, but give players the freedom of flying, breaking walls, and levels, and skip half the level if they figure out the best way to beat the level.

Removing tools just so they can have artificial walls like they did in PS2 GTAs feels archaic to me. Same goes for not being able to blow walls and make my own path through the levels because devs are still designing A.I encounters like MGS2 in 2001. I.e., you enter a room and encounter some A.I soldiers, deal with them and move on. It's rigid and boring.

I would hate to see devs finally have access to these fantastic CPUs and do nothing with destruction, physics, fast traversal (not just flying) and A.I because it would break traditional game design principles and narrative heavy mission structures. Nah gut all that story bs instead and give me a fully interactive world I can tackle the way I want.
I'd like both types of games.
 

xPikYx

Member
On the top of my head only senua 2 is far better.

Ratchet is on par but it is easy to look good when you don't search for a realistic style (also not an open world)

Forza 5 looks great but not superior and matrix is a limited demo, not a real videogame.

And senua is a small game, not a full fledged open world.

In terms of open world i think that only heavily modded stuff on pc looks better\on par.
Well for sure an open world needs more resources than a "binary" game, but still, the Matrix demo shows the truly power of a "Next gen" game as I mean for this generation, and indeed, because it is just a demo, I expect more from a full game, because this demo is not super optimized and development was still in early stage for either the engine and the consoles themselves.

Speaking of Hellblade 2, taking as example a game of the same kind, The actual best of the previous generation, The Last of Us 2, the former truly demonstrate to be "a generation" ahead in every regard, and as such can be defined a "Next Generation game", if I then compare Horizon 2 with the first one, I can't say that, even though is quite good and advanced, but sorry I really cannot.

Forza Horizon 5 is indeed good, and they managed to make it scale quite well on next gen consoles, but it lacks of many things that don't let me state "it's a truly next gen game" even though looks quite brilliant. I've watched the digital Foundry comparision and I can definitely state that it is not more than the same game with higher settings on current gen consoles, not enough to declare it a next gen game.

Ratchet is good indeed, but I can't really take a cartoonish stylized game as example, even though it showcases some good technical goals
 

GymWolf

Member
Well for sure an open world needs more resources than a "binary" game, but still, the Matrix demo shows the truly power of a "Next gen" game as I mean for this generation, and indeed, because it is just a demo, I expect more from a full game, because this demo is not super optimized and development was still in early stage for either the engine and the consoles themselves.

Speaking of Hellblade 2, taking as example a game of the same kind, The actual best of the previous generation, The Last of Us 2, the former truly demonstrate to be "a generation" ahead in every regard, and as such can be defined a "Next Generation game", if I then compare Horizon 2 with the first one, I can't say that, even though is quite good and advanced, but sorry I really cannot.

Forza Horizon 5 is indeed good, and they managed to make it scale quite well on next gen consoles, but it lacks of many things that don't let me state "it's a truly next gen game" even though looks quite brilliant. I've watched the digital Foundry comparision and I can definitely state that it is not more than the same game with higher settings on current gen consoles, not enough to declare it a next gen game.

Ratchet is good indeed, but I can't really take a cartoonish stylized game as example, even though it showcases some good technical goals
Senua is a jump compared to tlou2 except for the animations, there were som kinda clunky moment in that gameplay reveal.

Same for the digital acting, i don't think that senua screaming his ass off was more convincing than ellie crying when joel tells her the truth in the sequel, on par maybe but not superior.

But tbf animations and digital acting are not really related to how powerfull these console are.
 

GymWolf

Member
of course, i don’t want every game to become an open world sandbox, tlou And gow can stay linear. That’s not what I’m saying.

I’m saying the open world games like horizon need to well open up more. Don’t take away tools like flying just because it might fuck with the campaign progression. After all, horizon’s story missions are all in caves and labs that spoonfeed you the story so You can still get that by simply locking out access to those indoor areas. They do that already actually since horizon pretty much opens up right after the proving. You can go wherever you want so why can’t you fly? Because it would break pacing and exploration? Who cares? Did planes beat exploration in gta games?

As for tlou, i just think Joel looks good in this pic lol but tlou needs to big redesign too. They did a good job overhauling the animation and AI systems to keep the combat was getting stale but Its time to redefine what we expect from linear games. The best fight in the game was when the bloater was breaking through walls. They need to give us ability to do that.

Half life 2 revolutionized physics in games and we still can’t grab a chair or a lamp and throw it at someone in a video game 17 years later. Let’s change that
I think that any game that tries to tells a decent story needs a structure.

Halo infinite would work as a complete sandbox where you can go to the final boss after one hour because let's face it, that game is 99% gameplay and the story\presentation is crap.

The flying mechanic ruining the game is a bullshit narrative, you can made up a lot of way to limit where you can fly, especially in a game like horizon where flying dinobots are a thing, many games have flying mechanics and still manage to have a solid structure, just make the advanced areas off limits for any stupid reason.
 
Last edited:
There’s a lot of pretty games that a surface level deep on looks. Give me realistic destructive environments, and enemies and better physics. Give me improved AI that makes fighting/competing against NPCs comparable to human players (on the hardest settings).
 

xPikYx

Member
Senua is a jump compared to tlou2 except for the animations, there were som kinda clunky moment in that gameplay reveal.

Same for the digital acting, i don't think that senua screaming his ass off was more convincing than ellie crying when joel tells her the truth in the sequel, on par maybe but not superior.

But tbf animations and digital acting are not really related to how powerfull these console are.
Indeed, animations depends on game studio not on hardware, especially when we have better accomplishments on previous hardware generation, and for physics is the same, half life 2 is still a masterpiece on this regard. There is actually a game demostration of an early stage fps which has a next gen physic, but I don't remember the name

EDIT: found it, I didn't remember the name because it has no name yet lol
 
Last edited:
This
LoathsomeLikableBuckeyebutterfly-size_restricted.gif
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I think that any game that tries to tells a decent story needs a structure.

Halo infinite would work as a complete sandbox where you can go to the final boss after one hour because let's face it, that game is 99% gameplay and the story\presentation is crap.

The flying mechanic ruining the game is a bullshit narrative, you can made up a lot of way to limit where you can fly, especially in a game like horizon where flying dinobots are a thing, many games have flying mechanics and still manage to have a solid structure, just make the advanced areas off limits for any stupid reason.
Yeah, even Spiderman lets you swing around the entire city from the beginning. Flying doesnt hold back anything.
 

Lethal01

Member


Yeah, even Spiderman lets you swing around the entire city from the beginning. Flying doesnt hold back anything.

It's just something that forces the Devs to design around it, you can make a game where you can fly a lot but it will have to be structured very differently from one where you can't, maybe not better or worse but sometimes you want to stick to your vision.
 

GymWolf

Member




It's just something that forces the Devs to design around it, you can make a game where you can fly a lot but it will have to be structured very differently from one where you can't, maybe not better or worse but sometimes you want to stick to your vision.

Not really, you can always design the map as you want and just put some artificial limits like anti-aerial missiles in a certain zone so you can't go there until you conquer that zone and stuff like that.
 

That division trailer brings back memories. I was literally floored when I saw that gameplay trailer back in the day. I couldn't believe how much detail they crammed into the scene with all the trash and the small details like shooting out the car windows and how the character closes the car door. All of that stuff just seemed really impressive back then. These days though, I haven't seen anything on PS5 (besides the matrix demo) that really pushes the hardware to new heights.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Well, it is a video game lol

And to reiterate once again, this is year one running a console. I'm not worried whatsoever about amazing visual fidelity this gen.
But the demo on console is extremely limited in graphical fidelity because it is very low res (every single sample taken for lighting/shading as well as rendering framebuffers).

Also, Epic guys are a gen ahead of most other studios concerning graphics tech so it's not going to get much better than this I'm afraid. They are already hitting the limits of the console hardware.
 
Last edited:

mortal

Banned
But the demo on console is extremely limited in graphical fidelity because it is very low res (every single sample taken for lighting/shading as well as rendering framebuffers).

Also, Epic guys are a gen ahead of most other studios concerning graphics tech so it's not going to get much better than this I'm afraid. They are already hitting the limits of the console hardware.
Hey man I don't know what to tell you lol. After witnessing this demo, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, & Hellblade 2, it's hard for me to be that cynical tbh
 
Last edited:

VFXVeteran

Banned
Hey man I don't know what to tell you lol. After witnessing this demo, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, & Hellblade 2, it's hard for me to be that cynical tbh
Understand. It doesn't do many any favors that I know what I'm looking at and have seen much much better in the offline world.
 

Hunnybun

Member

Yeah I think people are sleeping on this. I thought it looked really great while still being realistic for the new consoles.

This and Arc Raiders are probably the best indications we've yet had of what most realistic looking graphics will end up being like, imo.

I'd personally much prefer games like that with good image quality than something more like the Matrix but at 1080p30 and shimmering everywhere.
 

Lethal01

Member
Understand. It doesn't do many any favors that I know what I'm looking at and have seen much much better in the offline world.

Most people have seen better in the offline world since they've seen move level CG, we have all seen movie level CGI. Doesn't mean you are suddenly.
Doesn't mean something isn't ridiculously impressive just because you can tell it's still a game nor would it lead you to believe something as idiotic as this being the best the hardware can do. The very people who made this demo would tell you that's ridiculous.
 

xPikYx

Member
Understand. It doesn't do many any favors that I know what I'm looking at and have seen much much better in the offline world.
Well comparing real time graphic to offline graphic is unfair. As real time graphic for this generation the matrix demo is a good achievement even if it is the very best these consoles can do, even though I believe there is still margin to improve even if not so much
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
But the demo on console is extremely limited in graphical fidelity because it is very low res (every single sample taken for lighting/shading as well as rendering framebuffers).

Also, Epic guys are a gen ahead of most other studios concerning graphics tech so it's not going to get much better than this I'm afraid. They are already hitting the limits of the console hardware.
Fucking hell. When has a console EVER hit its limits in year one lol.

99% of PS5/Series games are last gen games running at 60fps and this is a demo.

On a semi related topic the new Mateix movie is fucking diabolical. I thought the two sequels were shit but fuck me that was bad. Interesting first 30 mins which then turns into a typic modern remake filled with female power, pocs and gays.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Fucking hell. When has a console EVER hit its limits in year one lol.
Insomniac was able to literally double the resolution of reflections in Spiderman from 1080p to 4kcb in the 6 months between launching ratchet and spiderman. Just simple optimization and learning the entirely new ray tracing structure. Yes, the Matrix demo is running at only 1080p 25 fps but Ratchet is running at native 4k 40 fps locked on the PS5 right now. It doesnt look nearly as good as the Matrix, but they have almost 5x more raw power available if they settle for 1080p 25 fps like the Matrix demo.

UE5 hasnt even released yet. Just last year, they were unable to get hardware accelerated GI working in the first PS5 UE5 demo. in just a year and a half, they went from a 1440p 30 fps demo set in a small linear level using software based Lumens to a fully open world city using ray traced reflections, GI and shadows at 1080p in a bustling city with literally 50,000 cars and pedestrians.

This is brand new tech. Devs will find a way to optimize it before they start to downgrade features.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Understand. It doesn't do many any favors that I know what I'm looking at and have seen much much better in the offline world.
I’m sure there’s a CGI forum somewhere online where you can be in your element then. Comparing CG to real time games is utterly pointless. You only do it to troll especially PlayStation fans. Time and time again. Alt and alt again. Ban and banned again. Seriously. Get a life.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Fucking hell. When has a console EVER hit its limits in year one lol.
The fact that you think every generation will always be the same forever is quite telling. We know what these consoles can do at the hardware level. There won't be any magic "secret sauce" performance to untap like previous generations. We are looking at the 2nd generation with typical PC hardware components. Last gen developers had to implement PBR into their pipeline and most devs only make at most 2 games every generation. PBR was the only unique crowning achievement among all game developers last generation.

This generation, we aren't going to magically see that Matrix demo run at higher resolution, more ray-traced samples, more geometry added and higher fidelity FX @4k/60FPS. So yea, the performance/rendering sample numbers you see in this demo won't change this entire generation with this hardware.
 
Last edited:

Lethal01

Member
The fact that you think every generation will always be the same forever is quite telling.
Not as telling as this

unknown.png


We know what these consoles can do at the hardware level.

This generation, we aren't going to magically see that Matrix demo run at higher resolution, more ray-traced samples, more geometry
Except we already saw big leaps from the initial unreal engine 5 demo to this one, acting like there will be no improvement is idiotic.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
The fact that you think every generation will always be the same forever is quite telling. We know what these consoles can do at the hardware level. There won't be any magic "secret sauce" performance to untap like previous generations. We are looking at the 2nd generation with typical PC hardware components. Last gen developers had to implement PBR into their pipeline and most devs only make at most 2 games every generation. PBR was the only unique crowning achievement among all game developers last generation.

This generation, we aren't going to magically see that Matrix demo run at higher resolution, more ray-traced samples, more geometry added and higher fidelity FX @4k/60FPS. So yea, the performance/rendering sample numbers you see in this demo won't change this entire generation with this hardware.
IT WAS A DEMO USING AN UNFINISHED AND UNOPTIMISED ENGINE DEVELOPED IN LESS THAN A YEAR…

I guarantee you AAA developers like Sony, MS, EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar’s teams will provide visuals significantly over the Matrix demo because they will have an almost unlimited budget of time and money.
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
IT WAS A DEMO USING AN UNFINISHED AND UNOPTIMISED ENGINE DEVELOPED IN LESS THAN A YEAR…
You are free to wait for "that game" this generation. I will set my sights on next-next gen's more powerful hardware.

I guarantee you AAA developers like Sony, MS, EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar’s teams will provide visuals significantly over the Matrix demo because they will have an almost unlimited budget of time and money.
Good Luck with that.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
IT WAS A DEMO USING AN UNFINISHED AND UNOPTIMISED ENGINE DEVELOPED IN LESS THAN A YEAR…
Agreed.

I guarantee you AAA developers like Sony, MS, EA, Ubisoft and Rockstar’s teams will provide visuals significantly over the Matrix demo because they will have an almost unlimited budget of time and money.
Not so much on this one. With the demo already going down to 20 fps, in order for them to hit 1080p 30, they will have to somehow find 30% more performance. I think they can get there in a few years, but going to 1440p 30 fps is going to require them to find 100% more performance from the same set of hardware. That I find hard to believe.

Also, significantly better visuals than Matrix? How? we are already at photorealism in cutscenes. How do you get significantly better than this on the same hardware?

EG6Cscb.gif
 

xPikYx

Member
The fact that you think every generation will always be the same forever is quite telling. We know what these consoles can do at the hardware level. There won't be any magic "secret sauce" performance to untap like previous generations. We are looking at the 2nd generation with typical PC hardware components. Last gen developers had to implement PBR into their pipeline and most devs only make at most 2 games every generation. PBR was the only unique crowning achievement among all game developers last generation.

This generation, we aren't going to magically see that Matrix demo run at higher resolution, more ray-traced samples, more geometry added and higher fidelity FX @4k/60FPS. So yea, the performance/rendering sample numbers you see in this demo won't change this entire generation with this hardware.
I expect some improvements from games running on this engine in close environment. In open world space probably there is not much room for improvement over the matrix demo , what we can expect though is that graphic in a proper game, that would be a great achievement for this generation. AMD could also come up with a comparable dlss like solution on consoles, you never know. AFAIK it is already under development
 

VFXVeteran

Banned
Agreed.


Not so much on this one. With the demo already going down to 20 fps, in order for them to hit 1080p 30, they will have to somehow find 30% more performance. I think they can get there in a few years, but going to 1440p 30 fps is going to require them to find 100% more performance from the same set of hardware. That I find hard to believe.

Also, significantly better visuals than Matrix? How? we are already at photorealism in cutscenes. How do you get significantly better than this on the same hardware?

EG6Cscb.gif
That's the hyperbole that I speak about. Assuming that the consoles are so underutilized right now JUST because they have only been out for a year and totally disregarding the platform type (i.e. x86) being the same as last gen is being way too wishful.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
You are free to wait for "that game" this generation. I will set my sights on next-next gen's more powerful hardware.


Good Luck with that.
And good luck acting the way you do because it’s exactly why you’ve been banned several times from every known game / tech forum you’ve ever been a part of as far as going to make alts to get around bans then you’re caught because your embarrassing behaviour for a 50 year old man is soooo obviously to anyone who’s ever heard you ramble and bad mouth consoles before.

Just because you worked on one of the worst sequel movies ever doesn’t mean you know about 2021 rendering
 

xPikYx

Member
And good luck acting the way you do because it’s exactly why you’ve been banned several times from every known game / tech forum you’ve ever been a part of as far as going to make alts to get around bans then you’re caught because your embarrassing behaviour for a 50 year old man is soooo obviously to anyone who’s ever heard you ramble and bad mouth consoles before.

Just because you worked on one of the worst sequel movies ever doesn’t mean you know about 2021 rendering
Guys I don't know where so much hate in his regard come from, he shares his opinion from a professional point of view, simple. You can take it as cannot, time will prove whether he's right or not
 
Last edited:

Gamer79

Predicts the worst decade for Sony starting 2022
Agreed.


Not so much on this one. With the demo already going down to 20 fps, in order for them to hit 1080p 30, they will have to somehow find 30% more performance. I think they can get there in a few years, but going to 1440p 30 fps is going to require them to find 100% more performance from the same set of hardware. That I find hard to believe.

Also, significantly better visuals than Matrix? How? we are already at photorealism in cutscenes. How do you get significantly better than this on the same hardware?

EG6Cscb.gif
I wonder if GTA 6 (if it releases in the next decade) comes close to those visuals.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
That's the hyperbole that I speak about. Assuming that the consoles are so underutilized right now JUST because they have only been out for a year and totally disregarding the platform type (i.e. x86) being the same as last gen is being way too wishful.
Developers like Insomniac have spoken about how there’s massive amounts of performance still left on the table on PS5 and that’s after an insane looking first year game like Rift Apart.

Anyone would think its just over a year into the new generation where developers are still getting to know the hardware, updating and changing their tools (for a massive change in rendering that’s currently happening), being held back by PS4/XBo (due to cross gen because of chip shortages) and let’s not forget most developers have been working from home for the past two years due to Covid which brings its own challenges and delays.
 

Polygonal_Sprite

Gold Member
Guys I don't know where so much hate in his regard come from, he shares his opinion from a professional point of view, simple. You can take it as cannot, time will prove whether he's right or not
Because he appears in every single graphics / tech thread downplaying console visuals and banging on about bleeding edge PC hardware which is irrelevant considering the average PC gamer is still running 8gigs of ram and a 1060.

He’s a troll. Always has been and it’s why he’s been banned so many times on so many forums.
 
Top Bottom