Okay G80/R600, but when's the next quantum leap in video?

[trOver]

By eyeballs, I wasnt wanting to know what we could SEE, but the amount of hertz and memory that are needed so that we CAN see things...

 

[sparkuss]

Maybe I asked the question from the wrong perspective.

Should the 8800GTX already have been able to run Oblivion at max settings, even at the most detailed (read rendering intensive) location at more than 30-40 FPS even with current technology?

Or are even the current game engines/rendering at such a level beyond current hardware that the gap simply won't be overcome, meaning we can't reverse the equation.

I'm not necessarily talking about photo-realism, but simply the game running max everything with the current hardware with no gpu-limiting at all.

Meaning are crysis and others already being written well beyond even the next 5 years hardware? Sure they'll look as good as they do but there still won't be hardware that allows their existing engine to run high enough to be "current tech" photo-realistic.

So maybe the question is, is there a chance for hardware to be at least in parity with the game engines any time soon, or is that chasing the train that already left the station.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Very very unlikely. Devs aren't competing with the hardware, they're competing with each other, so it will always be in their best interest to push the limit and advise players to turn down the specs to what the find playable.

Simply put, your game isn't going to be as pretty as your competitors if you're aiming to let people on the 8800gtx play it at playable framerates with full detail and 16xAA, ect, at some absurd resolution, and your competitor is advising them to simply turn down the specs.

And even if it weren't, you have to know how to use the hardware - I've heard some talk, though I don't know how true it is, that oblivion's performance issues are caused by oblivion being coded poorly - something to the effect of it doesn't do z-culling.

Hardware can't solve people problems.

 

[Munky]

I read somewhere that game devs design their games with unreleased future HW as the performance target. So, chances are the devs are already working on some games that dont run smoothly on a 8800gtx, but they plan on faster cards being available by the time the game is released.

 

[aka1nas]

Originally posted by: PhatoseAlpha
Very very unlikely. Devs aren't competing with the hardware, they're competing with each other, so it will always be in their best interest to push the limit and advise players to turn down the specs to what the find playable.

Simply put, your game isn't going to be as pretty as your competitors if you're aiming to let people on the 8800gtx play it at playable framerates with full detail and 16xAA, ect, at some absurd resolution, and your competitor is advising them to simply turn down the specs.

And even if it weren't, you have to know how to use the hardware - I've heard some talk, though I don't know how true it is, that oblivion's performance issues are caused by oblivion being coded poorly - something to the effect of it doesn't do z-culling.

Hardware can't solve people problems.

Oblivion uses a newer version of GameBryo's 3d engine, which was used in Morrowind. Morrowind's version of the engine definitely did not do Z-culling, which is part of why the game can still lag on modern hardware. I don't know if this is still the case with Oblivion.

Oblivion can also be somewhat CPU-limited at times as it does a lot AI processing in the background.

 

[Chaotic42]

Stereoscopic displays. This is where I'd love to see some improvement. That and greatly increased pixel density.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Well... The last quantum leap happened in the voodoo days right? 3D acceleration... Will there ever be anything as revolutionary?