All game engines pretty much look the same now

[Midwayman]

I just meant that we don't need 4k and higher resolution won't necessarily improve how games look. Low resolution textures and environments with 2D looking trees will still look that way in 4k.

Sure, but useful draw distance is largely resolution dependent. I know in BF4 its a huge deal to be able to pick a soldier out of the background when you're talking a couple pixels of height.

 

[Grooveriding]

There are some examples in shipped games. If you want to see incredible global illumination, The Division at night has the best lighting I've ever seen. Incredible faces, Crysis 3 has that.

I agree that we have not gotten a game since the first Crysis that has raised the bar. There certainly is a lot of bar left to raise though if photo realism is what you want to see. My understanding is that this will require ray tracing and GPUs are nowhere near able to handle the processing required to render a game using ray tracing in real time. It really seems like it's only shooters that are chasing this realism goal. I expect Battlefield 1 will deliver some pretty awesome visuals.

 

[HeXen]

The UE4 apartment demo's, I thought definitely stood apart with such photo realism. The upcoming game Paranormal Activity *Edit: oops, it's called Allison Road* certainly featured an apartment that looked just as good.

Here, the engine definitely sets itself apart. A few other demo's were made that are quite amazing. However, it's doubtful very many larger scale games will be able to do this without serious performance issues. But I have not seen any other engine demo that looked quite like this

And here is Allison Road. I think Paris apt looks a bit crisper or this image was compressed.

 

[desura]

The UE4 apartment demo's, I thought definitely stood apart with such photo realism. The upcoming game Paranormal Activity *Edit: oops, it's called Allison Road* certainly featured an apartment that looked just as good.

Here, the engine definitely sets itself apart. A few other demo's were made that are quite amazing. However, it's doubtful very many larger scale games will be able to do this without serious performance issues. But I have not seen any other engine demo that looked quite like this

And here is Allison Road. I think Paris apt looks a bit crisper or this image was compressed.

Okay, that is amazing,

 

[HeXen]

Okay, that is amazing,

Well check it out in motion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6PQ19BEE24

Here is the Allison Road gameplay. I just use this as a comparison since it was more of an actual game....I think it's been canceled however. Went the way of PT..shame if true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__i_LoRKhJ0

 

[datalink7]

To be honest, for the most part I haven't seen much which is as impressive as Half Life 2's facial animations, I'm dead serious. Half Life 2 from like 2005.

Instead, most games have taken the same models and map boxes that they've always had and simply used DX calls for more painted layers, more brush strokes basically of effects. But underneath it all there isn't really much intelligent interaction, it's just more heavily painted with different effect brushes.

 

[Stringjam]