Are PS/Xbox getting less interesting?

[PlayStation 2]

On 5/5/2020 at 3:00 PM, Lord Vile said:

You brought up Pixar and their “goofy characters”. It’s really not, it’s still a video game, it has nothing on actual studio quality animation. It’s good for what it is but claiming it’s close to an actual animation studio is laughable. Probably why you had to compare it to a 25 year old movie which was the first computer animated movie instead of anything remotely modern. 
 

Play SoTR, go into the jungle, max settings in HDR. Makes UC4 look last gen. 

I think his point was less that we're at the point of full quality modern CGI animation (or even the point of the original Toy Story), moreso his point was we're doing graphics processing that was once only possible on server farms in a pre-rendered state. And when you think of where the PS5 and the Xbox Series X (alongside the RTX cards and whatever AMD wants to do) are going with ray-tracing, it's damn impressive that we're in a realm of processing power allowing any form of ray-tracing, even if it's not even remotely as crazy as a modern film.

And we're almost certainly going to be pushing that kind of power at a higher resolution than what the original render of Toy Story was pushed at (according to old documents and shit, 1536x922). We're still many ways off from reaching what modern supercomputers can push relative to what consumer hardware can push, but the fact that we're even talking about real-time ray-tracing is fucking insane. 

[Lord Vile]

3 hours ago, handymanshandle said:

I think his point was less that we're at the point of full quality modern CGI animation (or even the point of the original Toy Story), moreso his point was we're doing graphics processing that was once only possible on server farms in a pre-rendered state. And when you think of where the PS5 and the Xbox Series X (alongside the RTX cards and whatever AMD wants to do) are going with ray-tracing, it's damn impressive that we're in a realm of processing power allowing any form of ray-tracing, even if it's not even remotely as crazy as a modern film.

And we're almost certainly going to be pushing that kind of power at a higher resolution than what the original render of Toy Story was pushed at (according to old documents and shit, 1536x922). We're still many ways off from reaching what modern supercomputers can push relative to what consumer hardware can push, but the fact that we're even talking about real-time ray-tracing is fucking insane. 

It’s just advancement of technology... it’s not even that rapid compared to the leaps made in the 60’s to 90’s.

[PlayStation 2]

2 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

It’s just advancement of technology... it’s not even that rapid compared to the leaps made in the 60’s to 90’s.

Eh, I’d argue that objectively so, but things like this always require perspective. Proper ray-tracing calculations, even when they aren’t rendered at a high quality, aren’t particularly undemanding even to this day. My RX 580 sure as fuck can’t really do proper ray-tracing in real time. 

I guess this is less of an argument on how perspective matters to advancements like this moreso that you’re unimpressed by it.

[Lord Vile]

9 minutes ago, handymanshandle said:

Eh, I’d argue that objectively so, but things like this always require perspective. Proper ray-tracing calculations, even when they aren’t rendered at a high quality, aren’t particularly undemanding even to this day. My RX 580 sure as fuck can’t really do proper ray-tracing in real time. 

I guess this is less of an argument on how perspective matters to advancements like this moreso that you’re unimpressed by it.

AI has gotten better. The 580 can’t do it because it’s an nvidia feature and nvidia cards without AI specific cores can’t do it really. Would say the 580 would have a better shot vs a 1070 as it has more raw computational power. 
 

If they could actually do ray tracing in real time sure but it’s not really, they’re only ray tracing parts of a scene not all of it and they can’t do it properly without a top end GPU running DLSS which is kinda a cheat. It’s not exactly a solution to P versus NP. 

[JoostinOnline]

On 4/29/2020 at 6:46 AM, minibois said:

The graphical advancement can somewhat be answered with this:

I think the PS3 was at the 6000 triangles point.

In my experience, the advancement aren't in general graphics, but more in lighting tech and facial details.

 

Game consoles these past couple of gens have been trying to do different stuff, with motion controls, body tracking, VR now too.. etc. But in general we have reached a plateau for companies to just send out another PC like device running their proprietary OS and running games. Most people will accept that.

 

I'd be happy if developers just gave games a stable 60fps. After going to PC gaming and having the option to sacrifice barely perceptible details for a smooth animation, I can't go back. I'm not the kind of person who's crazy about high refresh rate. I'm even okay playing older console games at 30fps (I've been playing Twilight Princess and SM64 lately, both which are fine) as long as they're stable. Red Dead Redemption 2 on PS4 made me feel like I was going to throw up though. The Korok Forest in Breath of the Wild had the same effect. A framerate that bounces around is just awful.

[JoostinOnline]

1 hour ago, handymanshandle said:

Eh, I’d argue that objectively so, but things like this always require perspective. Proper ray-tracing calculations, even when they aren’t rendered at a high quality, aren’t particularly undemanding even to this day. My RX 580 sure as fuck can’t really do proper ray-tracing in real time. 

I guess this is less of an argument on how perspective matters to advancements like this moreso that you’re unimpressed by it.

It can do software ray tracing. You should check out Crytek's Neon Noir demo.

[dalekphalm]

On 5/5/2020 at 1:25 AM, JZStudios said:

-snip-

100% agree here - the difference between PS3 and PS4 (and by extension, X360 and XBO) is massive. The PS4 and XBO were underpowered compared to modern high end PC's, but they were still massively ahead of the previous generation (even the CPU, but especially the GPU).

[PlayStation 2]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

100% agree here - the difference between PS3 and PS4 (and by extension, X360 and XBO) is massive. The PS4 and XBO were underpowered compared to modern high end PC's, but they were still massively ahead of the previous generation (even the CPU, but especially the GPU).

People forget just how much of a power boost the current consoles brought to the table compared to the Xbox 360 and PS3. Battlefield 4 on the Xbox One ran at 1280x720, with 4x MSAA. Not that much better than the Xbox 360's 1280x704 and some post-processing AA. But the game runs considerably closer to 60fps on the Xbox One while looking massively better.

Or how about Grand Theft Auto V? 1280x720 with 2x MSAA or something on both the Xbox 360 and PS3 with a fairly wavering 20-30fps, brought up to 1920x1080 with better AA at a much closer lock to 30fps (in single player, at least), plus it looks better graphically to boot. 

I think the game that told me "damn, this really is nice" on the Xbox One was Star Wars: Battlefront. 720p, 4x MSAA. Not a great resolution but the game was still fucking gorgeous. Not even remotely close to possible on the 7th gen hardware.

[JZStudios]

On 5/7/2020 at 3:34 PM, handymanshandle said:

I think his point was less that we're at the point of full quality modern CGI animation (or even the point of the original Toy Story), moreso his point was we're doing graphics processing that was once only possible on server farms in a pre-rendered state.

My point was that a $400 home console is now doing more than a state of the art production team and super computer was capable of doing just 20 years ago. I stopped arguing with him because it's dumb and he doesn't know what he's talking about. And yeah, the original Toy Story was rendered at a mind boggling almost 1080p, and there's games on a $400 console running at double the framerate and 4x the resolution.

 

Compare these images;

 

Excuse me for believing that Pixar is noticeably behind, considering I can watch their new releases today and still pick out bad and blurry textures. Also excuse me for believing that animation in games, like Uncharted 4 shown above, is significantly better than what's displayed by Pixar. As far as that clay looking Brave goes, he specifically mentioned hair, which... I don't understand, but Uncharted has great hair. There's also Horizon Zero Dawn.

He also argues that Uncharted 4 doesn't look that good and SOTR looks better. Whether that's true or not (I'm inclined to disagree) it still proves my point right that there's a massive increase over the previous gen in terms of graphical fidelity while also pushing higher resolution and framerate in certain cases. And yeah, there's games on the Xbox One X that run at 4k60.

 

Some comparison shots of very good looking PS3 titles and newer PS4 titles.

God of War

Vastly improved shaders and lighting, higher res textures and model geometry, denser beard and full fur pelt (meaning alpha processing), increased world detail

Spoiler

Killzone... and BF3

Note the significantly improved texture clarity, lighting detail, and nary a sharp triangle in sight while also having more scene complexity. Shadowfall was a PS4 launch title.

Spoiler

Heavy Rain and Detroit Become Human.

Notice in particular the complete dead vacant look in the eyes of the characters in Heavy Rain deep in the creepy and uncanny valley compared to the real time rendering of characters in Detroit that surpass the uncanny valley. This wasn't a selected shot, they all look that dead and vacant. Detroit has incredibly impressive skin textures. You can even see the pierced ear on the black guy, along with sub surface scattering.

Spoiler

But yeah, all these games look like PS2 titles, so throw it all in the trash.

And then just... Dreamworks, what are you doing?

[Agonizel]

Yeah, I see there's lot's of debate going on about graphics. More important than the numbers, resolutions etc... is the perception of graphics. Undeniably, the perceived progression is lower than before.

Also, I wasn't only referring to graphics, but to usability as well. Remember: controllers (right/left triggers), features (shift to online play, netflix, blu-ray player,...)

The further we go, the more consoles feel like a washed down gaming PC with a washed down OS.

[PlayStation 2]

9 hours ago, Agonizel said:

Yeah, I see there's lot's of debate going on about graphics. More important than the numbers, resolutions etc... is the perception of graphics. Undeniably, the perceived progression is lower than before.

Also, I wasn't only referring to graphics, but to usability as well. Remember: controllers (right/left triggers), features (shift to online play, netflix, blu-ray player,...)

The further we go, the more consoles feel like a washed down gaming PC with a washed down OS.

It's still a massive pain in the ass to use a PC only with a controller, to this day. An Xbox One X can do it all, with less effort than a PC can do it all: play 4K Blu-rays, Netflix, browse the internet if ya wanted to, listen to music, playing games of course, etc. 

When PCs are able to be fully utilized with a controller without needing 74 applications to use a controller, then consoles will be rendered more pointless.

[dalekphalm]

10 hours ago, Agonizel said:

Yeah, I see there's lot's of debate going on about graphics. More important than the numbers, resolutions etc... is the perception of graphics. Undeniably, the perceived progression is lower than before.

Also, I wasn't only referring to graphics, but to usability as well. Remember: controllers (right/left triggers), features (shift to online play, netflix, blu-ray player,...)

The further we go, the more consoles feel like a washed down gaming PC with a washed down OS.

Usability is precisely where consoles shine. 
 

I used to rock an HTPC in the living room. It sucked. No matter what, we were always breaking out the keyboard (even got the Microsoft K400 rip-off), constantly having to move the mouse or type something. 
 

I’ve been using a XBO S as my media centre device for a few years now and it’s way more convenient. 

 

Also I heavily disagree that there’s a perceived quality reduction between PS3/360 and PS4/XBO. Anyone who has actually used both will immediately recognize the massive limitations the previous generation hit, and how much better even launch titles were on the current gen. 

 

Obviously high end PC gaming has better quality. But the jump between PS3 and PS4 is just as big as the jump between PS2 and PS3. 
 

The main difference is that the jump is more obvious with older generations because of how simplistic the graphics were.

 

Take N64 vs GC - N64 had very rudimentary 3D graphics. So does the GC, but when you double the poly count on a low poly model it looks a lot more obvious. 
 

If anything, consoles are becoming more interesting to me, as they bridge the gap between PC performance. 
 

Now if you could build your own PC and load XBO OS onto it, maybe we’d be talking. That *would* eliminate the need for consoles completely. We aren’t there yet.