My view on pc game graphics progress...

[Malladine]

...is simply this: with the advent of Doom 3 I believe a plateau of sorts has been reached. With no games (that I know of) released using the latest Unreal engine yet, not to mention the Doom 3 and Half-life 2 engines, and considering that games are still being released using the years old Quake 3 engine (Elite Force 2, albeit an improved version...), it seems to me that it will be quite a while before games which require the power of the 5900 Ultra will make up even a small percentage of the pc game market.

IMO, if your system can run Doom 3 at 40+ fps on high quality settings, you're set with that GPU (rapidly leading the "most expensive element of a system" competition) for a good chunk of time

 

[dexvx]

Everyone's always claiming something or another is plateauing. IMO, its too early. Until we get realtime full lightning and photorealistic worlds in real time, theres no room for plateauing.

Unless you live on the Star Trek world, where you play with holograms. And computers have the ability to calculate 300 million years of evolutionary math probablities of a fish in O(1) time.

 

[squidman]

The game industry and the h/w industry cooperate together to get the $ out of the customer. Rmember Total Anhilation: Magic Kingdom? Well, when it came out, people realised, that in order to run it at high q. settings, they would have to upgrade. Now doom 3 would come out - "optimized for 5800 ultra, and 9800 pro". Its like this: if your impatient (and most would be), you will spend 1000+ on upgrades, and 50+ on the game today, or just wait 2-3 years, get same upgrade for 500-, and game for 14.95. Thats how it is. I was like that before: Q3 came out, and i realised: i needed the Voodoo 3. Then, something else came out - yet another upgrade. I upgraded my PC 2 weeks ago: and only now, i am able to run games at full q that are 1-2 yrs old! I realised (see my sign below), and calmed down. It happened after i put 2000 in my pIII system in 2000, and it became (as crisis in Taiwan settled) 1000 after 6 months! I was upset - and promised to myself, that never shall i chase the newest technology.

 

[BenSkywalker]

With no games (that I know of) released using the latest Unreal engine yet

UT2K3, Unreal2 and SplinterCell are all out now, DeusEX2 is coming soon.

As far as games not requiring the power of the 5900U, we can go back for years and look at the highest end boards and see that the games weren't really using all of their power when they launched. The V2 SLI, the GF DDR, the GF2U, GF3, GF4 and then the R300 core boards all were more then what games needed. We have had evolving standards as to the resolution and quality expected, and that won't stop. What about 64x AF with 16x stochastic AA? Any of the boards would roll over and die using those settings, even under Quake3. There is still quite a bit of improvement available even looking at existing games with hardware.

It certainly would be nice for those that drop $500 on a board to be able to see more of those features put to use sooner, but they are getting something others can't do for the here and now.

Look at the bottom chart on this page.

That is a $500 board pushing 14FPS average in a current game. We still have a long way to go

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

I agree, chasing technology you'll leave a lot of money behind you that could've went towards more useful things.

 

[p0b0ye]

C+C Generals needs some decent power to play it well. I mean, at least a ti4200 to play on a lan or you WILL be the lagger!!

 

[igowerf]

Rmember Total Anhilation: Magic Kingdom?

I think you mean Total Annihilation: Kingdoms.... no magic.

 

[Malladine]

Ben: Ok, few games, relative to the quake 3 engine's popularity. I also agree that there is a lot of room for improvement but I maintain that if you can run Doom 3, or a game "powered" by that engine, at high quality, you're set for a long time. I've been gaming long enough to remember being amazed at the quality of doom 2. Compared to say quake 3, those graphics are absolute crap. Consider this though: is there an equally huge difference between quake 3 and doom 3? Granted, there is a time disrepancy, but I argue that even a year and a half from now, there will be nothing which can come close to the graphical advancements displayed from d2 to q3.

Dexvx: What I meant by a plateau is that there is a limit to what we as human beings can visually process. The graphical quality seen in doom 3 is such that the gap between that and photorealistic realtime lighting etc is significantly less than has occured at any other point in the evolution of pc game graphics. The closer we are to achieving said ideal graphics, the more the graph itself levels off.

squidman: I certainly agree that chasing technology is futile. That's one of the points I want to make. I have watched my father sit 4+ yrs behind the pc hardware curve and am forced to admit a degree of envy

 

[T9D]

..

 

[Malladine]

Seems cards are lasting longer and longer

True that. I remember how quickly my voodoo 1 1000 became obsolete
Having said that, there are always exceptions. That voodoo card ran deus ex easily as well as my radeon 7000! Now that's optimisation

 

[SexyK]

I'm just curious who's going to bring about then next big leap in 3d engines after Doom 3. Someone's going to have to step up to the plate, since it looks like Carmak will be out of the game for a while at least. We can have all the power in the world, but if there's no one to code a better engine, then were all SOL.

Kramer

 

[THUGSROOK]

IMHO: they put way too much emphesis on graphics and not enough on game play.

some of my favorite FPSers are DOS games, and are very ugly

 

[Malladine]

I can't answer who, but we could guess as to when...

To figure this out we need to ask: which game represented the last huge leap in 3d?

 

[Malladine]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
IMHO: they put way too much emphesis on graphics and not enough on game play.

some of my favorite FPSers are DOS games, and are very ugly

Duke Nukem, Doom...help me out here

 

[BenSkywalker]

I've been gaming long enough to remember being amazed at the quality of doom 2. Compared to say quake 3, those graphics are absolute crap. Consider this though: is there an equally huge difference between quake 3 and doom 3? Granted, there is a time disrepancy, but I argue that even a year and a half from now, there will be nothing which can come close to the graphical advancements displayed from d2 to q3.

You are talking about the leap from 2D to 3D though, that is a shift that could only ever happen once. Compare the rift between Quake1-Quake3 and then Quake3-Doom3.

 

[Malladine]

Good point. I suppose I was equating FPS with 3D

Nevertheless, that gap is close to as meaningful as the one I mentioned previously, wouldn't you say?

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Malladine
Dexvx: What I meant by a plateau is that there is a limit to what we as human beings can visually process. The graphical quality seen in doom 3 is such that the gap between that and photorealistic realtime lighting etc is significantly less than has occured at any other point in the evolution of pc game graphics. The closer we are to achieving said ideal graphics, the more the graph itself levels off.

It is extremely relative. For instance, physics is extremely limited in most modern games (something Doom III will obviously address), as are the item interactions. You can smack rockets, throw grenades at static objects and nothing will happen, short of a minor texture change, when in fact it should be obliterated (that includes walls).

Another short coming is collision detection between objects. It is very apparent in older games, and somewhat masked in newer games. However, it is still there. Then there is real time lighting. Doom3 is supposed to address some of that, but lightning is muhc more complicated in real life. Another thing is facial expressions. When humans look to another person, usually the first thing they notice is the face. Facial expressions are pretty dismal in games today.

Afterwards, the bottleneck will be the monitor. Instead of just looking at a panel displaying a square shaped view of the world, it would be prudent to assume that the user would want to immerse themselves in the world. That would be, interaction beyond a mouse and keyboard.

Compared to legacy DOS games, visuals have come a long way. However, there will always be room for improvement, until you get in the world of sci-fi like Star Trek.

 

[Malladine]

However, there will always be room for improvement, until you get in the world of sci-fi like Star Trek.

And show me a gamer who doesn't dream of that day

I absolutely agree with your listing of the three fundamental obstacles yet to be overcome in 3D gaming today. Collision detection, facial expression and lighting.

This said, I think you struck the heart of the matter when you said "it is extremely relative." Thinking on this led me to the next logical step: What are we willing to ignore for the sake of an enjoyable escape into another world? More, what power does a truly great game have over our physical senses?

In the end, as most of us know, graphics take a backseat to elusive "gameplay." The counter to this statement is that there is a limit. All gamers, without exception, hold that there is a point in the development of pc game graphics which they cannot return to unless driven by nostalgia. Of course, gameplay has it's hand in this as developers inevitably evolve along with graphics. However, the issue I wish to address is this: with this next leap in 3D graphics, led by D3, a stage has been reached which, I predict, will severely dent the trend I have spoken of here. I feel confident when I say that not until the vision of a holodeck is close to being realised will anyone look back on Doom 3 and it's progeny and refuse to play simply on the basis of graphics.

 

[Malladine]

*bump* for more discussion