They're arguably a generation behind on paper, but as far as the images they can produce, they're just not. On Xbox 1 we had characters that were usually around 2,000 or 3,000 polygons, and this gen they went up to around 15,000 - 20,000. That's a huge leap. But if we make the same leap to characters to characters with 100,000+ polys (and it's debatable if we're there yet), the perceptible difference is not nearly as noticeable.Originally Posted by Yoshi
Every time you double visual fidelity, the difference becomes less and less. It's not about computation, we don't buy consoles to do math. The graphics might be twice as complex, but if they don't look twice as "good", it really doesn't matter.
You're measuring it a certain way though. Those 15,000-20,000 polygons are running at 20-30 fps, which is atrocious. I'll readily admit that the masses may not care about frame rate, but that is one very noticeable current difference. I'm not sure polygon count really is where we're headed. Physics and AI are two more possibilities. Could we see consoles with two GPUs with one being just for physics, for example? Unlikely next generation but possible.
It was a hypothetical example. Let's assume all the things mentioned are running at 60fps. My point is that a model with a million polys and a model with 10 million polys look exactly the fucking same because we can't see shit that small. The more detailed something gets the less you see the difference, and thus the larger the computational power delta needs to be to get the same "wow factor."
Rage, for example, runs at 60 fps on PS3 and 360. So pretend we were talking about that.
Totally agree. But there are still enough ugly games in this generation that I feel that wow factor is possible today. I'm not talking about replacing Uncharted 2, just like the 360 didn't immediately blow God of War II or other similar high end away. It's the middle of the road stuff that looks terrible already.
No shit, huh?
can't wake up
Think about it this way - there's really only one game (actually two) which has come out the past several years designed to take full advantage of the PC platform, and that's Crysis. Of course, even three years later it still looks better than pretty much anything out there. But what would game graphics look like had developers been able to work beyond Crysis technology the past three years? Three years is an eternity in computing hardware and realtime 3D rendering.
Of course, the entire computing industry is moving away from faster and faster. But we are soon going to be at the point where cell phones are more advanced than consoles and that just shouldn't be.
Exactly. That's the point I was trying to make, but you stated it better by using the three year argument.
I can't wait to play Gears of War through my cell phone provider. Better hosting.
I think it's going to be a few years before the value proposal and the cost balance out, though. I'm not saying there's no benefit yet, but it's not where it has been. We won't be there for a couple years.
Saying even mediocre games on the new gen will look like top-end last-gen games is not enough. Even the ugliest 360 games look miles above the best Xbox 1 games.
Really, we need something architecturally that would change the game in the way shaders did this gen. DX10 and DX11 have offered new features but nothing really mind blowing yet. Maybe when we see hardware accelerated hybrid radiosity integrating ray-tracing and traditional rendering, or something like that. People need to be able to look at it and go "Holy shit, 360 could NEVER do that" not "Oh, ALL the games look as good as Uncharted 2."
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