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[Threat Interactive] Dynamic lightning was better nine year ago | A warning about 9th gen neglect.

Power Pro

Gold Member
Good Burger Reading GIF
 

RagnarokIV

Battlebus imprisoning me \m/ >.< \m/
I hate the look of most games now with fuzzy reflections and noisy FSR image.

Also modern Call Of Duty games (except Cold War) seem to look like shit unless I research a ton of settings to change, which is something I've never had to do for any other game - and I've played PC games for decades.

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Fabieter

Member
Was it dynamic at all? Most games used tricks to get there. We are one gen away from path tracing on console, we have to wait for that i guess.
 

Vick

Gold Member
Loved every video I've seen from this channel.

This one's amazing. We've had plenty of "Weak consoles are the problem" messages just yesterday in another Thread, it's refreshing to see the narrative being completely crushed while smartly addressing the resolution-graphics-performance compromises.

Extremely interested to see the fruits of their work, I like the enthusiasm he has for base PS5 and Series X (and the disdain for Series S).
 
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Spiral1407

Member
Was it dynamic at all? Most games used tricks to get there. We are one gen away from path tracing on console, we have to wait for that i guess.
More like 2 gens. I doubt the PS6 will match the 4090, which already requires a ton of assists (DLSS, frame gen etc) to do proper path tracing. Remember that we still can't get native 4K on console for most games, despite it being introduced in 2016.
 
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The bane of modern gaming, reconstruction/upscaling and postprocessing. When everything comes together the image quality is often enough...crap.
The other side of the medal is that we simply couldn`t advance graphically anymore if we didn`t use all that because we can`t build affordable GPUs with the necessary power to bruteforce everything.
 
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Fabieter

Member
More like 2 gens. I doubt the PS6 will match the 4090, which already requires a ton of assists (DLSS, frame gen etc) to do proper path tracing. Remember that we still can't get native 4K on console for most games, despite it being introduced in 2016.

It depends. If it has 2027 or 2028 hardware than it's possible.
 
It depends. If it has 2027 or 2028 hardware than it's possible.
More like "depends on how high Sony is willing to go with the price". Because the silicon price development pretty much makes "rather high end" (on release) hardware as we`ve had it with the PS5 impossible without absolutely shattering the current base console price targets.
 
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FeralEcho

Member
Most of the most impressive games visually are still from 2014-2016. It's ridiculous how talentless and lazy devs have become.

Image reconstruction and rtx can't fix a weak looking ass game yet devs still peddle that shit as if it's GOD's gift to development.

And now we also have the laggy as shit frame generation to contend with from devs that can't optimize if their lives depended on it.

And lets not forget Lumen and Nanite because who doesn't like playing at 15 fps on a high end gpu.

Gaming is evolving....just ass backwards.

Arkham Knight and Uncharted 4 are still somehow more impressive than 99% of the games released in 2024.

Just play Arkham Knight at 4k and you'll have a hard time picking a game that looks better....9 years later....

Driveclub,outside of the resolution jaggies visually it is still more impressive than GT7 with all its technologies....10 years later....on an older console lol

That's not to say there aren't impressive games nowadays but they are so few and far between that it makes you wonder where the fuck 10 years worth of "improvements" went??? Probably out of the industry alongside the talented devs that were replaced by DEI substitutes.
 
Most of the most impressive games visually are still from 2014-2016. It's ridiculous how talentless and lazy devs have become.

Image reconstruction and rtx can't fix a weak looking ass game yet devs still peddle that shit as if it's GOD's gift to development.

And now we also have the laggy as shit frame generation to contend with from devs that can't optimize if their lives depended on it.

And lets not forget Lumen and Nanite because who doesn't like playing at 15 fps on a high end gpu.

Gaming is evolving....just ass backwards.

Arkham Knight and Uncharted 4 are still somehow more impressive than 99% of the games released in 2024.

Just play Arkham Knight at 4k and you'll have a hard time picking a game that looks better....9 years later....

Driveclub,outside of the resolution jaggies visually it is still more impressive than GT7 with all its technologies....10 years later....on an older console lol

That's not to say there aren't impressive games nowadays but they are so few and far between that it makes you wonder where the fuck 10 years worth of "improvements" went??? Probably out of the industry alongside the talented devs that were replaced by DEI substitutes.

Might be that devs are lazy, DEI hires but also it could be the publisher is cutting costs with optimalization proper usage of AA technics they probably say why bother when AI uscaler will take of the rest.

But it shouldn't be like this.

Also it's funny that a bunch of younger passionate dudes like Threat Interactive do their own fork of UE5 with optimalizations for devs and Epic has like 3500 programmers and can't optimaze this engine.

It all still feels like UE5 is in alpha or beta state.

This channel feels like a breath of fresh air while channels like Digital Foundry can't explain this stuff and honestly I will support this channel and watch every video, it's definitely more interesting than any Bugaga video with 4090 not explaining shit whatsoever.
 
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Vick

Gold Member
I think a recall reading somewhere that this guy is a bit full of shit when it comes to some of his claims. Something about him acting a bit unhinged on the unreal developer forums and being called out on it? And that his “company” doesn’t actually exist and has zero development games to his name.
You think you recall reading somewhere.. some source would be nice.

And pretty sure his "company" is just him developing an indie sort of game. But we've had countless good games made from a single developer, and this dude obviously knows what he's talking about since he's simply using common sense and referencing existing, effective and cheap techniques that have been replaced by the heavy automation thanks to lazy talentless hacks completely neglecting the optimization that has always been vital in the industry.

9ZtE28P.png
 
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Zathalus

Member
You think you recall reading somewhere.. some source would be nice.

And pretty sure his "company" is just him developing an indie sort of game. But we've had countless good games made from a single developer, and this dude knows what he's talking about.








As someone pointed out:

- Knows enough to point out various well-known optimization and image quality issues games these days (in a very angry and condescending tone, as if he knows better than all of the developers who disagree with him).

- Doesn't know enough (and/or lacks the real-world experience on large projects) to understand why developers don't just implement his solutions.

He talks a big game, but I’ve seen no concrete evidence of the supposed brilliance of their UE fork or any real development history. Wake me up when he has something to actual show instead of a nicely produced YouTube video.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.


Nice channel I stumbled while ago about SH2 situation.

Seems to connect to this vid



While also pointing out the errors in this vid.

Apparently they take optimalization seriously and are working on their own UE5 fork since it's industry standard and want to fix it. Worth a watch.


The second video explains the downsides of TAA: how blurry the image becomes when in motion.

There's a Reddit dedicated to this subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/FuckTAA/
 

Vick

Gold Member
He talks a big game, but I’ve seen no concrete evidence of the supposed brilliance of their UE fork or any real development history. Wake me up when he has something to actual show instead of a nicely produced YouTube video.
We'll see. At the very least, he's so far doing a great job at opening eyes to the vital importance of optimization rather than the awful overreliance on heavy automation ultimately ending up in worse looking and performing games than what we should have, and had in the past.
 

Buggy Loop

Member
I understand the original need for TAA to remove aliasing while in motion but it’s insane how bad it can look in some implementations



And the crazy thing is that UE and other devs when abusing/forcing TAA is that generally they will put effects at half resolution, clouds, hair, trees, etc. They have this dithered look on them. This is to save performances. So where the fuck is the performance?? There’s games from a decade ago that pushes better graphics than some modern attempts and they have good image quality without TAA. Or hell, Doom with SMAA looks bloody amazing.

In fact, forced TAA with no option to remove it is pretty bad for PC long term. If I want to SMAA 8x a game in 15 years from now because computers are super powerful, you should let me.

Zathalus Zathalus yes he’s a grifter for sure, but at least makes some good points unlike most of YouTube influencers, just have to take his dramatic tone with a pinch of salt.

On the topic of lighting, Quantum Break had amazing lighting system for its days, still holds up.



Games that are DYNAMIC or massive open world where it would take artists 10 years to put the lights, should chase ray/path tracing.

Anything small scale and static, should have been baked this gen. The solutions the industry came up with to make it look good, have indirect lighting, etc is pretty ingenious. There’s absolutely no reasons for Silent Hill 2 to use Lumen. But even if devs want the shortcut (understandably), it should not be refreshing the global scene like they are doing because the scene is static. Lumen should be used intelligently…
 
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Anything small scale and static, should have been baked this gen. The solutions the industry came up with to make it look good, have indirect lighting, etc is pretty ingenious. There’s absolutely no reasons for Silent Hill 2 to use Lumen. But even if devs want the shortcut (understandably), it should not be refreshing the global scene like they are doing because the scene is static. Lumen should be used intelligently…
I kind of agree. SH2 is pretty much static lighting, except for some doors opening in dark area's and your flashlight, but that could've been dealt with in a different way (by dynamically adding point lights on opening doors for instance, or the bounce light system of the flashlight in TLOU).

Baking lights every time you change something is a bitch, though. I think the Lords of the Fallen devs used Lumen just in the Editor, to see how their lights would behave in the scene and then change all those lights to static and bake them. Saving the time of constantly having to bake the lights.
 

Denton

Member
There's a reason AC Unity still holds up, going for set static times and then baking the shit out of shadows and lighting is better then dynamic time of day with weak visuals.
Unity looks brilliant but making every game have completely static lighting and time of day is a horrible non-solution.
SVOGI in Cryengine is much better.
 

hyperbertha

Member
Most of the most impressive games visually are still from 2014-2016. It's ridiculous how talentless and lazy devs have become.

Image reconstruction and rtx can't fix a weak looking ass game yet devs still peddle that shit as if it's GOD's gift to development.

And now we also have the laggy as shit frame generation to contend with from devs that can't optimize if their lives depended on it.

And lets not forget Lumen and Nanite because who doesn't like playing at 15 fps on a high end gpu.

Gaming is evolving....just ass backwards.

Arkham Knight and Uncharted 4 are still somehow more impressive than 99% of the games released in 2024.

Just play Arkham Knight at 4k and you'll have a hard time picking a game that looks better....9 years later....

Driveclub,outside of the resolution jaggies visually it is still more impressive than GT7 with all its technologies....10 years later....on an older console lol

That's not to say there aren't impressive games nowadays but they are so few and far between that it makes you wonder where the fuck 10 years worth of "improvements" went??? Probably out of the industry alongside the talented devs that were replaced by DEI substitutes.
Disagree. From a rasterized visual standpoint, sure, ac unity is at the top. But fully rtxed games like cyberpunk and dragon dogma 2 have surpassed these games handily. Rtx is the real deal. Devs need to abandon rasterized graphics rast, or else choose static baked lighting like ac unity did.
 

Laptop1991

Member
This doesn't surprise me in the least, anyone who has gamed over these periods could just see it right in front of their face when playing the games, none of the new games or those in the last 5 years or so have impressed me or wowed me with graphic's or visual's, that hasn't happened since Crysis in 2007 with a few exception's here and there since, new games either look cartoony like Avowed does to me or the same as games from the past, as Indiana Jones does looking like Wolfenstein!.
 
Its sad that there are more 4k or near 4k games on xbox one x than the current gen. Upscaling is pretty amazing when done well, unfortunately only nvidia can do it justice. Pssr still in beta mode and amd fucked up means we are stuck in blur until next gen.
 
All because Nvidia invented a marketing buzzword that would destroy the performance of every game. Fucked up.
Nvidia established RT in gaming. The birthing pains are real, but there is absolutely no question that the tech itself is essential for the future of real time graphics. And DLSS, when used correctly, is also a net positive, so I don`t really get your negativity here.
 
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Damn, that explains so much. Always felt that modern games are too blurry and the overuse of buzz words and emergent technology just means that games barely look better than ps4 games. Infact, I would argue that some ps4 games still look better than most ps5 games.
Dude, BF3 on PS3 looks better than some PS5 games, especially BF 2042. The ONLY difference is resolution.
 
The issue with PS3 games today is that the textures often look really bad. Not enough memory. PS4 had sixteen times the memory of PS3 (PS5 only has 2x the memory of PS4).

That said BF3 is a great looking PS3 game.
In general and if you play them on large format screens yes. But I've been playing a bunch of different PS3 games on my 1080p 24" Sony Vaio and they look awesome.
 

Filben

Member
The Division was something else visually. Shame not many ppl talk about it, but I consider it the modern Crysis. The things that game did visually/detail was was insane and still surpasses modern games.
Also the image quality, properly adjusted with TAA and the sharpness filter, is amazing. No shimmering, no jagged edges and yet a sharp and clear image.
 
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Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
I'm glad people are finally waking the fuck up about upscaling as a silver bullet to solve any problem. It can be effective, but it's not and end-all solution. Somehow, we've ended up in the timeline where both image quality and responsiveness are just getting worse and worse, and nobody dared to ask why we've accepted that.
 

Vick

Gold Member
The issue with PS3 games today is that the textures often look really bad. Not enough memory.
Not every game though.

*Gravel below is not a simple 2D texture, but the best use of bump mapping I've ever seen:
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And in case someone would says these are the Remaster textures, these Uncharted 3 textures haven't been touched one bit by Bluepoint and looked absolutely identical on PS3 with same exact internal (insane) resolution, with the only difference of being shown via native 720p output resolution.

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And it's not the only game, Drake's Fortune textures are possibly even more impressive, and GoW III and Ascension are as well.
 
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Fbh

Member
4 years into this gen I've come to the realization that I prefer last gen graphics with smooth performance at decent REAL resolutions instead of any of the "next gen" stuff.
This gen feels like some transition phase where it can do last gen stuff real well but it just doesn't have the power to pull off any of this "next gen" tech without destroying the IQ and performance in the process.

Better graphics aren't worth it anymore if they come attached with 30fps and a blurry image that starts smearing all over the place as soon as you start moving.
 

Myths

Member
This guy has a lot to say about what devs ought to do but the UE sub and many other devs have already wiped the floor with him. He might be more informed about technical terms than the average gamer, but he has no clue what encompasses dev pipeline and internal workflow. He just hates TAA.
 
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