Why can't devs put maximum effort into visuals for games?

[ShadowCaptain]

 

What?

 

Witcher 3

Metro Last Light

Uncharted

The last of us

Far Cry 4

GTA V

Tomb Raider

The Order 1866

MGS V

Crysis

Mad Max

battlefield 4

Arkaham games

Star Citizen

 

 

 

etc etc-  there are tons of amazing looking games on the market

 

 

And you crossed those out because?

 

Mad Max looks amazing, i love going into the photo mode and panning around and making amazing screenshots 

 

TLOU + Uncharted has insane graphics - Uncharted 4 so far looks insanely good (considering its a shitty PS4)

 

Frostbite engine is impressive,and runs great

 

The arkahm games are amazingly well optimized (except for knight) and look really good!

[LokiFire]

And you crossed those out because?

 

Mad Max looks amazing, i love going into the photo mode and panning around and making amazing screenshots 

 

TLOU + Uncharted has insane graphics - Uncharted 4 so far looks insanely good (considering its a shitty PS4)

 

Frostbite engine is impressive,and runs great

 

The arkahm games are amazingly well optimized (except for knight) and look really good!

I have TLOU... it's pretty bad compared to what PC can do, it ticks boxes on PS3 because well.. PS3.

 

And we are fighting opinions now so this will not go anywhere.

[ShadowCaptain]

I have TLOU... it's pretty bad compared to what PC can do, it ticks boxes on PS3 because well.. PS3.

 

And we are fighting opinions now so this will not go anywhere.

 

Well yes, of course its bad to what PC can do, but you have to admit, for a console that came out over 10 years ago it looks insanely good! 

 

That means naughty dog put in maximum effort into visuals

 

 

Of course its opinion, but you presented it like a fact that no developers make good looking games, when im my opinon, plenty of modern AAA games look amazing, including some amazing indie games with impressive art styles

 

Since consoles are lead platforms, and since the average PC has a shit graphics card, there is no point making games like Metro Last light, when only 10% fo people can play it on max settings

 

When a game like Fallout 4 has great gameplay, functional graphics, and everyone can enjoy it even on a mediocre PC - it makes more sense

 

 

until the hardware catches up, and while consoles are still holding us back - its hard for a dev to put effort into visual when nobody will see them

[werto165]

I have TLOU... it's pretty bad compared to what PC can do, it ticks boxes on PS3 because well.. PS3.

 

And we are fighting opinions now so this will not go anywhere.

For the time it release the TLOU was very impressive, it was on PS3 for gods sake something that was 7 years old at the time. Even the PS4 version is very striking visually. I don't know how you cannot cross out MGS:V and then cross out the TLOU... 

[LokiFire]

Well yes, of course its bad to what PC can do, but you have to admit, for a console that came out over 10 years ago it looks insanely good! 

 

That means naughty dog put in maximum effort into visuals

 

 

Of course its opinion, but you presented it like a fact that no developers make good looking games, when im my opinon, plenty of modern AAA games look amazing, including some amazing indie games with impressive art styles

 

Since consoles are lead platforms, and since the average PC has a shit graphics card, there is no point making games like Metro Last light, when only 10% fo people can play it on max settings

 

When a game like Fallout 4 has great gameplay, functional graphics, and everyone can enjoy it even on a mediocre PC - it makes more sense

 

 

until the hardware catches up, and while consoles are still holding us back - its hard for a dev to put effort into visual when nobody will see them

I thought this was the PC section, consoles get more love when it comes to exclusives, we had ours with Crysis but that game is actually trash thanks to the way it was coded.

[ZetZet]

Witcher has nice textures, it however has pretty bad lighting..

 

Yet again we need mods.

 

I don't see how this is any better. The video quality is really shitty, I will give you that.

[LokiFire]

I don't see how this is any better. The video quality is really shitty, I will give you that.

Witcher unfortunately is complete garbage with lighting it just uses god rays everywhere, Ass Creed  does a better job except that's one buggy ass game

[werto165]

I don't see how this is any better. The video quality is really shitty, I will give you that.

I think lighting is very subjective most of the time, I think that exaggerated lighting mods for something like skyrim look better, are they realistic? no, not really but it all comes down to preference, if you can have a game that looks good to you through mods then great, but you don't play games for the visuals alone, I mean I played runescape for the longest time and I didn't really care about the visuals clearly. 

[JuztBe]

Answering your question
 

 

 

Why can't devs put maximum effort into visuals for games?

Hardware is not powerful enough. Some games are already using full or almost full potential of flagship GPUs. And those games looks really well as guys mentioned above.
Lets imagine that there are game witch you can run only with SLI 980Ti or greater setups. And now lets imagine game's sales

[LokiFire]

I think lighting is very subjective most of the time, I think that exaggerated lighting mods for something like skyrim look better, are they realistic? no, not really but it all comes down to preference, if you can have a game that looks good to you through mods then great, but you don't play games for the visuals alone, I mean I played runescape for the longest time and I didn't really care about the visuals clearly. 

I play CSGO not for visuals... i know what you are saying, perhaps i went a bit far with my argument

[werto165]

Answering your question

 

Hardware is not powerful enough. Some games are already using full or almost full potential of flagship GPUs. And those games looks really well as guys mentioned above.

Lets imagine that there are game witch you can run only with SLI 980Ti or greater setups. And now lets imagine game's sales

exactly, they're companies after all, if the hardware isn't there to support the increased visual effects there is no point in developing them, you're developing nicer graphics for the sake of the 0.2% of the pc gaming market, I guess they could do it and lie to the consumers *cough* *cough* the division.   

[ShadowCaptain]

I thought this was the PC section, consoles get more love when it comes to exclusives, we had ours with Crysis but that game is actually trash thanks to the way it was coded.

 

Sure but your question is still related, we cannot escape that there are not many exclusives since most deves are mutliplatform

 

But we do still have PC games designed to run and look amazing on top end beastly PCs

 

But yeah, since the target audience of beastly PCs is tiny, its silly for a game dev to make games for these people since nobody will buy it

[werto165]

speaking of good looking games I'm really looking for kingdom come deliverance. It looks rather sweet. 

[ShadowCaptain]

speaking of good looking games I'm really looking for kingdom come deliverance. It looks rather sweet. 

 

Looks like Chivalry a bit

[iamdarkyoshi]

Goat simulator runs fine and looks half decent

[typographie]

And we are fighting opinions now so this will not go anywhere.

 

The answer to the original question—'why can't devs put maximum effort into visuals?'—is that there is a balancing act to be made between accessibility for the audience, budgetary constraints, time, and manpower. It's a game, not an art installation, and that's why "maximum" effort cannot be put into visuals.

 

I know that's a mind-numbingly obvious answer, but my point is that's about all there is to this discussion that isn't based in opinion.

[No Nrg]

Doom 3, while still a good looking game is not all that impressive to todays standards if you take away the mods.

[MEC-777]

Surprised nobody has mentioned AC; Syndicate. It's one of the best looking games I've ever played and has some of the best lighting I've ever seen in a game, without mods. It's also fairly demanding. I can't run it at 1080p ultra on my 980 and maintain 60fps, even with a hefty OC on the card. I have to run it on the very high preset (which still looks amazing, IMO) to maintain 60. 

 

One thing holding back gaming visuals is the conslows (consoles). Limited hardware = limited visual fidelity/capability. That being said, I am surprised at how well games do look on the consoles. But that, of course, comes at the cost of significantly reduced frame rates.

[ivhyn]

Surprised nobody has mentioned AC; Syndicate. It's one of the best looking games I've ever played and has some of the best lighting I've ever seen in a game, without mods. It's also fairly demanding. I can't run it at 1080p ultra on my 980 and maintain 60fps, even with a hefty OC on the card. I have to run it on the very high preset (which still looks amazing, IMO) to maintain 60. 

It really is a good looking game in many areas, although it's a downgraded Unity (that game has glorious interiors).

[MEC-777]

It really is a good looking game in many areas, although it's a downgraded Unity (that game has glorious interiors).

 

I never played Unity, so I can't make the comparison, but I'll take your word for it. I remember seeing footage of Unity thinking it looked really good - a step closer to realism in game graphics. But it had so many problems, I didn't want to touch it with a 10 foot pole, lol.

 

In AC:Syndicate there are moments where my mind is telling me I'm looking at a real image. It's boarding that uncanny valley of environment. I believe the lighting plays a significant role in this. If you look at textures up close, yeah some of them aren't so great, but that's the thing; in real life you don't walk up to walls and stare at them 12 inches from your face. You take in your surroundings as a whole and very rarely is anything directly right "in your face".  

 

A lot of people praise Wicher 3 for it's graphics, but IMO it doesn't look real to me. It looks good, but not real. In that sense, I don't find the visual in TW3 all that impressive, tbh.

 

Star Wars: Battlefront is a great example of a game that looks really good with almost photo-realism, yet isn't hard to run on lower end hardware. Great visuals with good performance can be done, but it depends on how well the game engine is optimized and how much detail the devs want to cram into the game. There's a heck of a lot going on in AC:Syndicate at any given time, which puts an additional workload on the CPU and GPU.

[iamdarkyoshi]

Star Wars: Battlefront is a great example of a game that looks really good with almost photo-realism, yet isn't hard to run on lower end hardware. Great visuals with good performance can be done, but it depends on how well the game engine is optimized and how much detail the devs want to cram into the game. There's a heck of a lot going on in AC:Syndicate at any given time, which puts an additional workload on the CPU and GPU.

Until you realize that EA sucks at making games without freaking bugs EVERYWHERE @Iamdarkbowser

[ivhyn]

In AC:Syndicate there are moments where my mind is telling me I'm looking at a real image. It's boarding that uncanny valley of environment. I believe the lighting plays a significant role in this. If you look at textures up close, yeah some of them aren't so great, but that's the thing; in real life you don't walk up to walls and stare at them 12 inches from your face. You take in your surroundings as a whole and very rarely is anything directly right "in your face".  

 

A lot of people praise Wicher 3 for it's graphics, but IMO it doesn't look real to me. It looks good, but not real. In that sense, I don't find the visual in TW3 all that impressive, tbh.

 

Star Wars: Battlefront is a great example of a game that looks really good with almost photo-realism, yet isn't hard to run on lower end hardware. Great visuals with good performance can be done, but it depends on how well the game engine is optimized and how much detail the devs want to cram into the game. There's a heck of a lot going on in AC:Syndicate at any given time, which puts an additional workload on the CPU and GPU.

I get what you are saying, the Witcher 3 looks good (it has superior character models imo), no doubt, but it doesn't look very real, its environments are very artistic but the lighting in Unity/Syndicate gives it a very smooth and realistic look. On the other hand I'd say it is easier to make a city photorealistic than it is to make a farmland photorealistic as plants, trees and grass need a lot more processing power.

 

"Optimized" is such a buzzword anyway, all of the games you mentioned run on very scalable engines (turning back the settings results in playable framerates even with lower end hardware), Battlefront is a very pretty game (arguably the most beautiful around) and DICE are masters at creating convincing visuals, but I wouldn't compare it with a gameworld as dense as TW3/Syndicate.

[MEC-777]

Until you realize that EA sucks at making games without freaking bugs EVERYWHERE @Iamdarkbowser

 

We're not talking about bugs though. We're talking about graphics/visuals and performance, specifically.

 

I get what you are saying, the Witcher 3 looks good (it has superior character models imo), no doubt, but it doesn't look very real, its environments are very artistic but the lighting in Unity/Syndicate gives it a very smooth and realistic look. On the other hand I'd say it is easier to make a city photorealistic than it is to make a farmland photorealistic as plants, trees and grass need a lot more processing power.

 

"Optimized" is such a buzzword anyway, all of the games you mentioned run on very scalable engines (turning back the settings results in playable framerates even with lower end hardware), Battlefront is a very pretty game (arguably the most beautiful around) and DICE are masters at creating convincing visuals, but I wouldn't compare it with a gameworld as dense as TW3/Syndicate.

 

Yep, totally agree. 

 

As for creating/rendering realistic forests, grass, countryside etc. check out a game that's currently in development called Kindom Come: Deliverance. If you look for footage on youtube, make sure it's fairly recent footage as they've been making more improvements to the lighting/environment over time. Needless to say, they've done an amazing job so far. Makes TW3 look like a cartoon. (I'm exaggerating, of course).

 

https://www.kingdomcomerpg.com/media

[cortexcortex]

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter.

Witcher 3, SW: Battlefront, Battlefield 4, Killing Floor 2, Shadow of Mordor, Arkham Knight.. the list goes on. There are games which have stunning graphics, but point taken, there are some old games which look just as good as an average game of today.

[don_svetlio]

Witcher 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Rise of the Tomb Raider (technically 2015, but on pc 2016), Bloodborne

I can add a few as well

Witcher 2 (It still runs at 50fps maxed on a 980 Ti )

Battlefield 4

Legend of Grimrock 2 is impressive

Dragon Age Inquisition looks good

MGS V

GTA V is neat as well

Homeworld Remastered

SC2 has the best CGI I've ever seen

Black Mesa (Source engine)

Divinity: Original Sin (can't wait for 2 )

As for older games,

Half Life 2 (2004) was a milestone

Witcher 1 (2006-ish IIRC)

FEAR 1/2

And of course, Guise of the wolf deserves a mention