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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

It's a plot thing, they can't justify floating islands, don't be silly.

The floating isles in tokt are ubersimple and a big letdown, it's not like they are particularly good except the starting one.

Horizon has much more imagination where it count like the cast of enemies.
Nintendo has been making Zelda games for what 30 years? Not particularly creative. Their plot is also razor thin but Nintendo has never cared about decent writing. Just rehash what works and put on a new coat of paint.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
What is atrocious?
wall and ground textures. but i do wonder if its the poor lighting bounce thats causing that. maybe something went horribly wrong in the light baking process lol.

the dragons dogma 2 PT mod shows that even RTGI can hide texture details due to poor GI and shadowing. Look at the bricks here. Maybe the same thing is happening in that horizon shot? who knows. Dragons Dogma 2's basic RTGI also uses fewer light bounces so maybe upping that would get them closer to those PT bricks. actually, i might try that today.

XdDFOH5.png
 

ChiefDada

Gold Member
wall and ground textures. but i do wonder if its the poor lighting bounce thats causing that. maybe something went horribly wrong in the light baking process lol.

the dragons dogma 2 PT mod shows that even RTGI can hide texture details due to poor GI and shadowing. Look at the bricks here. Maybe the same thing is happening in that horizon shot? who knows. Dragons Dogma 2's basic RTGI also uses fewer light bounces so maybe upping that would get them closer to those PT bricks. actually, i might try that today.

XdDFOH5.png

Almost certainly the case for Horizon
 

GooseMan69

Member
I absolutely love, LOVE Stellar Blade, but some of the texture work in the open world desert area is rough to say the least. Truly PS3 era stuff. Not sure what happened there.

Otherwise, it actually looks quite nice I think. It’s not exactly a next gen showcase but it performs very well and has good art direction.
 
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SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I absolutely love, LOVE Stellar Blade, but some of the texture work in the open world desert area is rough to say the least. Truly PS3 era stuff. Not sure what happened there.

Otherwise, it actually looks quite nice I think. It’s not exactly a next gen showcase but it performs very well and has good art direction.
It's a first game from a south korean studio that has only made mobile games. I got that PS3 era feel instantly and dropped it. Combat was too sekiro/souls for my liking too.

That Horizon screenshot reminded me just how awful the interiors look. Looks like fallout 3 or something, embarrassing.
The weird thing is that the cauldrons look great with high quality assets. The lighting is still somewhat last gen but it still looks great in comparison to other interiors. The interior in that DLC where you visit the villain's lair was so poorly lit and textured i couldnt believe. the amusement park too. just ugly as sin. not sure why some interiors can look ok while others just fall apart. maybe because there is a loading screen before you enter this cauldron and they treat this as a new level while others are treated as open world and streamed in??

Fz_VhhSXsAE0JNM
 
Honestly pretty much every current gen game I play wows me to some extent - they almost all look fantastic in their own right. But then I take this stuff pretty seriously and never buy any of those games with really terrible sounding performance modes like Jedi Survivor.

So stuff like TLOU P1, Spider-Man 2, and RE4 Remake look amazingly good imo, despite their clear last gen roots. But the fact remains that STILL - even after nearly 4 years since its reveal - the one game that feels like a true generational leap over anything on PS4 is Ratchet & Clank. IMO it's still the best looking game on console ever made - and by a distance (big caveat: haven't played Avatar or Alan Wake 2 yet as refuse to play the compromised performance modes).

So I do still think we'll finally see a big step when we actually get other big (especially first party) games releasing that have been designed from the ground up for next gen, on proper next gen engines. We're already seeing that from the glimpses at GTA V, Death Stranding 2, and of course from Avatar and AW2.

The true next gen games ARE coming. They're just painfully slow.
GTA6 is the one I’m counting on. All games look pretty good at this point - I agree, but I thought Spider-Man 2 would be the next step after what we saw with Ratchet - somehow it didn’t impress me as much. Hellblade 2 looks good but super limited, I need to see more of DS2 gameplay to make a full judgement call. Jedi Survivor actually looks pretty great imo, some parts at least, but not truly “Next Gen”. I guess I just keep expecting we’re going to level up graphically but once I get my hands on a game I’m left somewhat disappointed. Especially compared to when PS4 was releasing showpiece after showpiece with Naughty Dog, SSM etc
 

JCreasy

Member
I absolutely love, LOVE Stellar Blade, but some of the texture work in the open world desert area is rough to say the least. Truly PS3 era stuff. Not sure what happened there.

Otherwise, it actually looks quite nice I think. It’s not exactly a next gen showcase but it performs very well and has good art direction.

Stellar Blade 2 will likely arrive on PS6 with Unreal Engine 5. There are apparently so many devs in Korea working on UE 5 projects, Shift Up will have an amazing talent pool to draw from.

Nanite will solve those texture issues, especially in the desert. I was up late last night thinking about this, while simultaneously looking up all the Korean UE 5 projects in development right now.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Xbox-Games-Showcase_REDACTED-Direct-1024x576.jpg


will we FINALLY see some next-gen goodness?
Tom Warren said next Gears will be shown here. It's UE5 and in development since 2019 so they better bring it. Their tech demo was rather meh so hopefully they are on par with the Matrix or 1943 in cutscenes.

The fact that its taken so long means they are likely rebooting it so who knows maybe we will get a next gen leap in gameplay systems too. Bigger setpieces, destruction etc.

I really hope the new ID Tech game is there. Doom games last gen were good looking but definitely not the best looking. Likely because of the 60 fps target. These guys used to be the best of the best so im hoping to see something truly next gen from them.

Other than that, Fable and thats about it. CoD will be last gen trash and i dont have faith in any other zenimax or MS studio.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Stellar Blade 2 will likely arrive on PS6 with Unreal Engine 5. There are apparently so many devs in Korea working on UE 5 projects, Shift Up will have an amazing talent pool to draw from.

Nanite will solve those texture issues, especially in the desert. I was up late last night thinking about this, while simultaneously looking up all the Korean UE 5 projects in development right now.

But nanite is about geometry, not texture streaming.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
But nanite is about geometry, not texture streaming.
This is something that I just dont understand. Nanite = virtualized geometry. Nanite takes in a 3d object modeled by an artist and imports it into the engine creating different LODs and reducing the memory footprint among other things.

At that point, the texture is built into the 3d object. So if an artist places that chair or table in the level, the textures on that nanite object should be part of that object right? Why would they need to load in textures separately? Wouldnt it become part of the geometry?

or are they layering it? nanite loads the geometry and then textures are loaded in on top? But with a reduced streaming load, we are not supposed to see the textures stream in?

I am bringing this up because UE5 games in general have these insanely high quality models with no texture streaming, and while UE4 games like callisto and Star wars Jedi Survivor also have them, I can definitely see texture streaming in Jedi in open world areas. So what gives? Clearly, UE5 is helping with texture streaming. Is it just a byproduct of nanite or is nanite storing texture data as well as geometry?

P.S if you know how mesh/primitive shaders play into this, id love to know that as well.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
This is something that I just dont understand. Nanite = virtualized geometry. Nanite takes in a 3d object modeled by an artist and imports it into the engine creating different LODs and reducing the memory footprint among other things.

At that point, the texture is built into the 3d object. So if an artist places that chair or table in the level, the textures on that nanite object should be part of that object right? Why would they need to load in textures separately? Wouldnt it become part of the geometry?

or are they layering it? nanite loads the geometry and then textures are loaded in on top? But with a reduced streaming load, we are not supposed to see the textures stream in?

I am bringing this up because UE5 games in general have these insanely high quality models with no texture streaming, and while UE4 games like callisto and Star wars Jedi Survivor also have them, I can definitely see texture streaming in Jedi in open world areas. So what gives? Clearly, UE5 is helping with texture streaming. Is it just a byproduct of nanite or is nanite storing texture data as well as geometry?

P.S if you know how mesh/primitive shaders play into this, id love to know that as well.

The geometry is projected onto the texture, just like before.
The reason why it's called virtualized geometry, is because it uses compute to rasterize, instead of using ROPs.
Nanite has it's own streaming system, but it's for the meshes it uses.
 
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DanielG165

Member
Still playing through Forbidden West, and the game is visually stunning, which the cutscenes being the major standout to me. Zero Dawn is quite a looker even today, but Forbidden West blows it away in every aspect, graphics-wise. That said, I’m starting to feel a little… Bored? It may be simply because it’s another massive and stuffed open world game, but I don’t feel exactly giddy while playing it. It reminds of a scenario where you go out with a supermodel, but her personality is dull.

Hopefully that’ll change as I get deeper into it, but RDR2 is still very much the golden standard for open world games, and no other game has reached that level as far as sheer immersion, realness, complexity, and expansiveness. It on PC may as well be a current gen game lol.
 

JCreasy

Member
But nanite is about geometry, not texture streaming.

Well . . . bad, dated, asset issues.

And it'll be a combo of nanite (with some use of virtual texturing) and lumen, respectively.

They can use densely detailed assets, like Quixel megascans, to make all that stoney topography in the desert look amazing. And the bounce lighting will add the "depth" we're craving in gen 9 games. Except at that point it'll gen 10, or as I liked to call it, the "no excuses" generation.

At least that's what my sleep deprived brain came up with.

You know, like the stuff shown off here . . .



Game Science (Chinese, not Korean, I know) switched to UE5 for their project. I know a lot of folks here lost there enthusiasm for Black Myth, but this gets closer to the detailed environments we expect in gen 9 games.

 
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Flabagast

Member
Still playing through Forbidden West, and the game is visually stunning, which the cutscenes being the major standout to me. Zero Dawn is quite a looker even today, but Forbidden West blows it away in every aspect, graphics-wise. That said, I’m starting to feel a little… Bored? It may be simply because it’s another massive and stuffed open world game, but I don’t feel exactly giddy while playing it. It reminds of a scenario where you go out with a supermodel, but her personality is dull.

Hopefully that’ll change as I get deeper into it, but RDR2 is still very much the golden standard for open world games, and no other game has reached that level as far as sheer immersion, realness, complexity, and expansiveness. It on PC may as well be a current gen game lol.
it's a boring game yes, the major reason because the writing is really subpar but the overall game design is also very tepid.
 
Well . . . bad, dated, asset issues.

And it'll be a combo of nanite (with some use of virtual texturing) and lumen, respectively.

They can use densely detailed assets, like Quixel megascans, to make all that stoney topography in the desert look amazing. And the bounce lighting will add the "depth" we're craving in gen 9 games. Except at that point it'll gen 10, or as I liked to call it, the "no excuses" generation.

At least that's what my sleep deprived brain came up with.

You know, like the stuff shown off here . . .



Game Science (Chinese, not Korean, I know) switched to UE5 for their project. I know a lot of folks here lost there enthusiasm for Black Myth, but this gets closer to the detailed environments we expect in gen 9 games.



Yeah...even though I see people calling out a downgrade with WuKong, it still looks more next gen than 95% of games and will be a benchmark gamble on PC.
 
wall and ground textures. but i do wonder if its the poor lighting bounce thats causing that. maybe something went horribly wrong in the light baking process lol.

the dragons dogma 2 PT mod shows that even RTGI can hide texture details due to poor GI and shadowing. Look at the bricks here. Maybe the same thing is happening in that horizon shot? who knows. Dragons Dogma 2's basic RTGI also uses fewer light bounces so maybe upping that would get them closer to those PT bricks. actually, i might try that today.

XdDFOH5.png

I don't even consider DD2 to have RT gi it's so ineffective
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Still playing through Forbidden West, and the game is visually stunning, which the cutscenes being the major standout to me. Zero Dawn is quite a looker even today, but Forbidden West blows it away in every aspect, graphics-wise. That said, I’m starting to feel a little… Bored? It may be simply because it’s another massive and stuffed open world game, but I don’t feel exactly giddy while playing it. It reminds of a scenario where you go out with a supermodel, but her personality is dull.

Hopefully that’ll change as I get deeper into it, but RDR2 is still very much the golden standard for open world games, and no other game has reached that level as far as sheer immersion, realness, complexity, and expansiveness. It on PC may as well be a current gen game lol.
RDR2 is GOAT. It's one of those masterpieces that will probably never be topped for the reasons you mentioned. That said in terms of graphics, while its definitely aged better than most games from 2018, t still looks fairly last gen. the textures while detailed in spots are distinctly last gen. character models are dated in comparison to the best from last gen. Lighting goes from looking absolutely amazing in the wilderness to simply ok'ish in St. Denis. I wonder if its the lack of bounce lighting in the cities but as detailed as it is, it looks last gen.

Also, The big city doesnt feel all that lived in because of their silly decision to focus on fewer NPCs. Its cool that you can talk to everyone but come on, its a big city. put some more people in there.

Other than that, the game has aged very well because of its amazing art direction and cinematography and superb draw distance. Maybe I will do a HFW vs RDR2 vs Avatar vs Dragons Dogma 2 video. I think DD2 and RDR2 will age better because of their more realistic lighting and art style, but Avatar and HFW might look better right now due to being more flashy in general.

HFW as a game is a huge misfire. They went full WRPG and completely ruined an otherwise great action adventure game. There is fun to be had here if you like mix maxing and creating builds, but it lost its original charm thanks to a lot of bloat and some absolutely moronic combat design choices. I picked HZD as my GOTY over zelda, but HFW just might be the most disappointing sequel ive ever played.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I don't even consider DD2 to have RT gi it's so ineffective
That screenshot makes it look bad and frankly it is, but trust me, it comes in handy when needed most. The way it handles AO and indirect lighting is way better than the standard solution which is simply too bright and just feels gamey and last gen.

On PC you can up the bounces and it is far more accurate and more in line with Avatar.
TotK was a big old disappointment ...6 years!
We are talking about creativity and totk is more creative and ingenious than anything sony, microsoft, ea and ubisoft have come up with over the last 3 generations. The problem is that the player has to be creative to fully enjoy the game, and I am as creatively bankrupt as Marvel writers. But I youtube'd all the best creations and had an absolute blast. It's my first physics driven game after Half Life 2 and I was in love for the entire 150 hour run.
 

hlm666

Member
Black Myth
This could be using nvidias branch of ue5 where they have basically added the ability for lumen to used restir and in turn use hardware RT. Nvidia talked about this version of lumen at gdc and digital foundry went through the gdc info last direct I think. No mention of the possible issues it will have when using nanite though so that game could be quite interesting from a tech perspective.

On PC you can up the bounces and it is far more accurate and more in line with Avatar.
Do the bounces really make that much difference? because the digital foundry comparison of 2 vs 7 (just like cp2077 mod going to 8 bounces) make marginal differences for the most part. Maybe it was lost by youtube and I can't test this myself so if you had the time to make a comparison or 2 would be appreciated.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Well . . . bad, dated, asset issues.

And it'll be a combo of nanite (with some use of virtual texturing) and lumen, respectively.

They can use densely detailed assets, like Quixel megascans, to make all that stoney topography in the desert look amazing. And the bounce lighting will add the "depth" we're craving in gen 9 games. Except at that point it'll gen 10, or as I liked to call it, the "no excuses" generation.

At least that's what my sleep deprived brain came up with.

You know, like the stuff shown off here . . .



Game Science (Chinese, not Korean, I know) switched to UE5 for their project. I know a lot of folks here lost there enthusiasm for Black Myth, but this gets closer to the detailed environments we expect in gen 9 games.



Nanite, Lumen, Texture, Compute, they are all different stages in the pipeline renderer.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
This could be using nvidias branch of ue5 where they have basically added the ability for lumen to used restir and in turn use hardware RT. Nvidia talked about this version of lumen at gdc and digital foundry went through the gdc info last direct I think. No mention of the possible issues it will have when using nanite though so that game could be quite interesting from a tech perspective.


Do the bounces really make that much difference? because the digital foundry comparison of 2 vs 7 (just like cp2077 mod going to 8 bounces) make marginal differences for the most part. Maybe it was lost by youtube and I can't test this myself so if you had the time to make a comparison or 2 would be appreciated.
I think that was in Path tracing, no?

Before the path tracing mod, this guy released a quality Ray tracing mod that upped the bounces and it resulted in far more accurate AO coverage.

You can see the comparison here.

I think these compromises devs are making are an excellent way to optimize RT performance especially on consoles. The difference is there but might not be apparent at all times due to time of day and other lighting conditions, but with Dragon's Dogma 2, switching between RTGI and baked lighting means a far less gamey looking game. PT just takes it to the next level.
 

DanielG165

Member
HFW as a game is a huge misfire. They went full WRPG and completely ruined an otherwise great action adventure game. There is fun to be had here if you like mix maxing and creating builds, but it lost its original charm thanks to a lot of bloat and some absolutely moronic combat design choices. I picked HZD as my GOTY over zelda, but HFW just might be the most disappointing sequel ive ever played.
Not to derail the graphics thread, but I absolutely agree with this. Zero Dawn’s combat felt tight, responsive, straight forward, and most importantly, fair. Forbidden West just bloats that system up, throws too much at you at once, and cranks the enemy aggression and hit boxes up to 11 without giving Aloy much in the way to counter it, outside of a really slow dodge roll. How a leaping robot raptor is able to change the direction of its jump attack in midair to hit me, despite me having already rolled out of the way, is a baffling choice.

Hopefully, with the third game, GG will focus on tightening down all of the many systems they threw into FW, trimming the access fat, and returning to a gameplay feel that is more in line with Zero Dawn. The visuals are already there, and I can’t imagine how a proper current/next gen Horizon will look. It’s just the bloat that needs serious attention, which is a commonality for most Sony exclusive sequels.
 

hlm666

Member
I think that was in Path tracing, no?

Before the path tracing mod, this guy released a quality Ray tracing mod that upped the bounces and it resulted in far more accurate AO coverage.

You can see the comparison here.
I thought it was about path tracing seeing it came from your post with the DF screenshot my bad.

That quality raytracing mod doesn't change ray bounces either.

"Increases ray tracing resolution to full resolution instead of the default 0.4 (halved)
and disables the aggressive denoiser which causes lots of smearing during movement."
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Modders enabling path tracing in other RE engine games now.


OMG the lack of self shadowing on Leon's face is what was causing those horrific looks lol. I always wondered why the fuck the character model would go from looking amazing in cutscenes to absolutely atrocious during gameplay. This is why hero lighting is important. You cant be relying on Path tracing to provide proper shadows on characters.

Jill looks amazing too. The modders actually managed to fix the noise issues in a couple of days. They added some kind of fix for the Sun lighting and now the noise is pretty much gone in the city. Foliage is still an issue though and performance is absolutely trash on my 3080.

But RE3 i can run at native 4k 120 fps locked so going to try and run it with path tracing tonight. Even if it cuts down my performance by 4x like it does in Dragons Dogma 2, i should still be able to run it at 1440p 60 fps.

EDIT: i need to see this lab with path tracing. Best looking area in the game.

1F34A4FB8A883220934797CACD3BFC22784C6F6B
 
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TLOU1/TLOU2 inspirations were obvious in that particular scene and many others
they did a best-in-class job with the mo-cap and facial expressions too

In another news:
assassins-creed-codename-hexe-1-1024x576.jpg

Assassin’s Creed Codename Hexe Will be Linear with Open World Elements – Rumour​



I don't have high hopes for RED in terms of visuals. it's reportedly another pseudo-RPG that will probably only build slightly on their already outdated engine.
but this, this is music to my ears, hopefully, Ubi will push the visuals with HEXE or switch entirely to Snowdrop
Anvil looks way better than snowdrop
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I guess Sony's big game this year could be the Horizon ZD remake lol

The first game is leaving PS+ and the game was confirmed from the leak of Sony Europe's lineup.

I am really hoping GG doesnt just copy paste HFW assets and lighting to HZD and call it a day like ND did with TLOU part 1. That is just lazy and boring.

Now if they add RTGI, Reflections and Shadows, and maybe even support for virtualized geometry than i would plunk down $70 for it in an instant. Really really hope thats the case. it would be insane if we have to wait till 2027 or 2028 to see nanite and lumen equivalent in a GG game.


i-guess-hzd-is-leaving-v0-xr5c04ijmsxc1.jpeg
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Ghost recon breakpoint looks way better than division 2 for a last gen game, wait until next gen anvil
Thats an example of last gen. We dont know what a next gen Anvil game looks like so lets just wait a few weeks until E3 before making any claims like 'Anvil is WAY better than Snowdrop'. Right now Avatar takes a big shit on Ghost recon and every other Anvil game.
 

winjer

Gold Member
Because it would've hurt performance? Lack of resources? Talent?

Modern games take quite a long time to develop. There are still games being released now that use UE4, because they started development in UE4.
Switching engines is not easy and cost more time and money. Even more, the greater the amount of custom code the game uses.
And then there is the risk that something breaks and there are massive delays.
So some companies prefer to play it safe and just continue to use UE4.

There is another problem with UE5. Although it looks better than UE4. It is also a lot heavier.
A game like Stellar Blade, that targets 60 fps in 2 of it's main modes, would have to sacrifice resolution to get to that frame rate.
We already have a few examples of games that use UE5, that when targeting 60 fps, run at sub 720p resolution. And even then, have trouble maintaining a frame rate close to 60 fps.
 
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JCreasy

Member
Modern games take quite a long time to develop. There are still games being released now that use UE4, because they started development in UE4.
Switching engines is not easy and cost more time and money. Even more, the greater the amount of custom code the game uses.
And then there is the risk that something breaks and there are massive delays.
So some companies prefer to play it safe and just continue to use UE4.

There is another problem with UE5. Although it looks better than UE4. It is also a lot heavier.
A game like Stellar Blade, that targets 60 fps in 2 of it's main modes, would have to sacrifice resolution to get to that frame rate.
We already have a few examples of games that use UE5, that when targeting 60 fps, run at sub 720p resolution. And even then, have trouble maintaining a frame rate close to 60 fps.

Will any of PS5 Pro's hardware upgrades make UE 5 more performant?
 

JCreasy

Member
The Pro has a bit more compute power. And supposedly, it has much better RT than RNDA2. And AI hardware.
So it should bring better performance and better visuals.

Sounds like Shift Up has hit the upper limit of what UE4 can provide. Seeing as future hardware (PS6 included) will make it easier for devs to use UE5 and exploit it's most advanced features, can you see any reason why Shift Up wouldn't make the transition to UE5 now?
 

winjer

Gold Member
Sounds like Shift Up has hit the upper limit of what UE4 can provide. Seeing as future hardware (PS6 included) will make it easier for devs to use UE5 and exploit it's most advanced features, can you see any reason why Shift Up wouldn't make the transition to UE5 now?

I already told you in the previous post.
 

JCreasy

Member
I already told you in the previous post.

I'm assuming Stellar Blade 2 hasn't begun production yet. Wouldn't the best time to switch be now, at the end of a project? It isn't the same as switch while a project is in flight. Wouldn't it be like starting fresh?

And doesn't Epic provide tools to make the porting to UE5 easier?
 
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