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[64bitmodels]

While I can appreciate a good looking environment, a great artstyle and amazing models, Great lighting, modeling and VFX don't mean shit if the textures look omega blurry.

I noticed this when I was playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake the other day, (which frankly feels like a massive downgrade from the original in most areas) the games modeling, lighting and animations were on point but even high textures looked really blurry and pixellated. It takes away a lot of my immersion when I notice that the walls and floor look like they were smeared all over.. A similar thing occurred with Gran Turismo 4, the game looked realistic, but very dated thanks to the old ass textures. When I applied an unofficial AI texture overhaul though, everything immediately looked far more convincing and I was able to suspend my disbelief more. There were still some errors in some areas but overall the game felt more.... realistic.

This I think should be the focus of the next gen, visually. A bigger focus on textures. Up until this point, game textures looked blurry and stood out like a sore thumb. But now thanks to direct storage, rtx io, the ps5 io, we can have more realistic textures and I seriously want to see ps5/Xbox devs capitalize on that because I'm tired of seeing these beautiful visuals suddenly interrupted by a blurry looking floor texture.

(I can't provide pictures now, but I will have examples when I get home!) <----- this aged very poorly

 

[DeepEnigma]

Textures and lighting. Flat lighting just kills great textures, etc..

Lighting is every bit as important to show the details in the textures.

 

[RoadHazard]

Textures, sure, but in modern engines I would rather say materials, and their PBR properties.

 

[Soodanim]

Nah, it's art style then lighting for me

 

[Jennings]

Textures mean little without a good frame rate.

 

[Kimahri]

Disagree. Lighting is key. Lighting can make anything look real and like you can reach out and touch it.

The lighting can take something like minecraft and turn it from, well, minecraft, to something that looks like it was physically built and painted.

It can also break any texture, no matter the quality, if used poorly.

 

[kyussman]

I love a good wall texture......cobbled stone is my favorite.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Lighting. It's always lighting.

 

[GymWolf]

Textures and lighting. Flat lighting just kills great textures, etc..

Lighting is every bit as important to show the details in the textures.

You can light on a super detailed texture with silent hill 1 torchlight and the texture is still gonna look pretty good.

You can light on a shitty, low res texture with pixar rtx tech and it still gonna look trash because you can't show details that are not there.

So no, not equelly important, textures always wins.

Ask yourself, what you would notice first in real life? Incorrect lights and shadows in a room or your fiance looking like a plastic doll?? (Ok i'm not sure if you would notice anything wrong but you get the gist)

 

[DeepEnigma]

You can light on a super detailed texture with silent hill 1 torchlight and the texture is still gonna look pretty good.

You can light on a shitty, low res texture with pixar rtx tech and it still gonna look trash because you can't show details that are not there.

So no, not equelly important, textures always wins.

Ask yourself, what you would notice first in real life? Incorrect lights and shadows in a room or your fiance looking like a plastic doll?? (Ok i'm not sure if you would notice anything wrong but you get the gist)

To me personally, both are equally important for one another. BOTH. BOTH!!! I WANT BOTH!

 

[GymWolf]

Disagree. Lighting is key. Lighting can make anything look real and like you can reach out and touch it.

The lighting can take something like minecraft and turn it from, well, minecraft, to something that looks like it was physically built and painted.

It can also break any texture, no matter the quality, if used poorly.

Minecraft still looks absolute shit if you don't mod the textures tho





You are not gonna convince me of the opposite.

 

[GymWolf]

To me personally, both are equally important for one another. BOTH. BOTH!!! I WANT BOTH!

But didi i said something wrong?? Can you bring light to details (literally) when details are just not there??

 

[GHG]

I'd say lighting and image quality.

 

[DeepEnigma]

But didi i said something wrong?? Can you bring light to details (literally) when details are just not there??

I agree with you, but in todays gaming graphics, I want both. Flat lighting makes the overall scene look "cheap" no matter how nice the textures are. And yes, bad textures are crap as well.

 

[64bitmodels]

Nah, it's art style then lighting for me

Art style is massively helped by great textures. There's a reason why everyone points to wind waker as an example of excellent art style in games and not phantom hourglass or spirit tracks. The latter have terrible looking textures.

 

[kanjobazooie]

It takes away a lot of my immersion

I grew up with shit like Half Life 1 and it hardened me. Low textures can't break my immersion.

 

[64bitmodels]

I grew up with shit like Half Life 1 and it hardened me. Low textures can't break my immersion.

I used to play N64 games when I was a kid, and for 10 years every PC game I played was on low settings
I understand the struggle, but rx 6650 and ryzen 5600x have spoilt me

 

[jm89]

Seeing games with ps3 era textures is painful. Japanese devs are the biggest culprits.

 

[brian0057]

Lighting reigns supreme.
I can take or leave HD or 4K textures. But lighting can make or break the atmosphere of a game.

 

[Soodanim]

Art style is massively helped by great textures. There's a reason why everyone points to wind waker as an example of excellent art style in games and not phantom hourglass or spirit tracks. The latter have terrible looking textures.

That's probably also because one's a GameCube game and the others are DS games. 3D DS games were rarely praised for their visuals in the same way that console games were.

And to an extent, you're right. Textures, even moreso than models, are the baseline of everything visual in games. Everything else is additional. So in a sense, there's no room for discussion because it's like asking what's more important between food, the plate it's on, and the cutlery. Of course the food is the most important. But if you're having soup, the rules change. In this metaphor the soup is realism and the bowl is lighting. You need it, because without it you've failed.

But it also depends on what the aim is for a given game's visuals. You can have a game with basic textures that holds up because of the art style if you're not going for realism, which is why certain classics still hold up. Super Mario 64 still looks great, for example. I can't be bothered to extend the metaphor to cover this, because I'm lazy.

 

[tommib]

I grew up with shit like Half Life 1 and it hardened me. Low textures can't break my immersion.

I had a PowerVR at the time and thought that the card was shit for HL1. A friend had a Voodoo 2 and I ran to his place to see how much better it looked on his computer. Textures looked just as shit. Puts some hair on your chest.

 

[TGO]

Nah lighting and particles effects & geometry
A game with great lighting and particles effects and good geometry but average textures will look better then a game with Super Res textures with hardly any of the above

 

[Putonahappyface]

Accurate physics are just as important to me as lighting, textures and VFX.
If any of these are sub-par in a modern game I'll be disappointed.

 

[winjer]

While I can appreciate a good looking environment, a great artstyle and amazing models, Great lighting, modeling and VFX don't mean shit if the textures look omega blurry.

I noticed this when I was playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake the other day, (which frankly feels like a massive downgrade from the original in most areas) the games modeling, lighting and animations were on point but even high textures looked really blurry and pixellated. It takes away a lot of my immersion when I notice that the walls and floor look like they were smeared all over.. A similar thing occurred with Gran Turismo 4, the game looked realistic, but very dated thanks to the old ass textures. When I applied an unofficial AI texture overhaul though, everything immediately looked far more convincing and I was able to suspend my disbelief more. There were still some errors in some areas but overall the game felt more.... realistic.

This I think should be the focus of the next gen, visually. A bigger focus on textures. Up until this point, game textures looked blurry and stood out like a sore thumb. But now thanks to direct storage, rtx io, the ps5 io, we can have more realistic textures and I seriously want to see ps5/Xbox devs capitalize on that because I'm tired of seeing these beautiful visuals suddenly interrupted by a blurry looking floor texture.

(I can't provide pictures now, but I will have examples when I get home!)

The main reason for blurry textures on consoles is that most games use Tri-linear filtering, or low sampled Anisotropic filtering.

 

[GymWolf]

The main reason for blurry textures on consoles is that most games use Tri-linear filtering, or low sampled Anisotropic filtering.

Not sure why when on pc, anisotropic 16x is usually super duper light.

 

[Soodanim]

Not sure why when on pc, anisotropic 16x is usually super duper light.

I do remember seeing an analysis that showed 16x sometimes being heavier than expected because noone ever checks anymore and sticks it straight on 16x, but generally I agree that anything less than 8x is giving away free improvements AFAIK. I would love to know why it's ever not 8/16x.

 

[eastcoastkody]

then explain why BOTW is so immersive

 

[GymWolf]

I do remember seeing an analysis that showed 16x sometimes being heavier than expected because noone ever checks anymore and sticks it straight on 16x, but generally I agree that anything less than 8x is giving away free improvements AFAIK. I would love to know why it's ever not 8/16x.

I usually do that, but for the love of cthulhu, every single time i follow a guide, from df or official from nvidia, anisotropic has like half frame of difference from low to max...

 

[bentanchorbolt]

It depends on the game and what the intent is. If we are talking realistic visuals, I think lighting, textures, and material quality, in that order. Also for the record and I don't know if you guys do as well, but shadows to me is part of lighting.

 

[Captain Toad]

I noticed this when I was playing Final Fantasy 7 Remake the other day, (which frankly feels like a massive downgrade from the original in most areas) the games modeling, lighting and animations were on point but even high textures looked really blurry and pixellated.

Yeah, FF7 Remake is a major graphical downgrade from the PS1 original. Show the two side by side and I'm sure most people will think the PS5 game is the original PS1 game and vice-versa.

 

[64bitmodels]

Yeah, FF7 Remake is a major graphical downgrade from the PS1 original. Show the two side by side and I'm sure most people will think the PS5 game is the original PS1 game and vice-versa.

LOL I don't mean visually, it's clearly very good looking and superior to the original on that front (though I prefer the fixed camera angles of the original)
I mean in terms of story and gameplay doesn't feel as good as the original, and I played remake right after 7.

 

[Captain Toad]

LOL I don't mean visually, it's clearly very good looking and superior to the original on that front (though I prefer the fixed camera angles of the original)
I mean in terms of story and gameplay doesn't feel as good as the original, and I played remake right after 7.

I'm just messing. I agree, it's not as good as 7, but I still thought it was awesome.

I think it's important to recognize FF7R is not a Remake on 7, but a strange sequel. So, it isn't replacing it or the definitive version, or anything like that. I've replayed 7 1000 times and am actually doing so right now on SteamDeck. The games should be treated as seperate entries, just as Crisis Core, etc is.

 

[Fbh]

For me it's lighting.
Yeah of course shit tier PS1 era textures are still going to make the game look bad even with good lighting, but I'd rather play something with amazing lighting and average textures than amazing textures and average lighting.

The textures in FF7 Remake didn't bother me too much, and most of them aren't as bad as the infamous N64 door. The worst part about FF7 was the inconsistency, how the main cast and NPC's look a gen apart, how some areas look great and other dated. That and how Midgar seen from the lower sectors was clearly just a JPG pasted on the sky.

 

[Imtjnotu]

for me its LOD. seeing shit pop in and out has always been more distracting than textures

 

[64bitmodels]

for me its LOD. seeing shit pop in and out has always been more distracting than textures

Thank Mark cerny for nanite, the pop in is now so advanced you won't even notice it

 

[existensmaximum]

I can't pick the most important aspect but textures is up there, yeah you're not wrong. Textures and animation.

 

[64bitmodels]

Lighting reigns supreme.
I can take or leave HD or 4K textures. But lighting can make or break the atmosphere of a game.

Thats fine. Personally I don't care for 4k textures, but I don't want ps2 level textures either. Also, textures play a lot into atmosphere too. They have to fit the mood and look crisp and clear to immerse you into said atmosphere.

 

[PaintTinJr]

Considering that a lot of a (3D) game's screen - beyond the foreground - will show relatively low frequency information that could be rendering at fragment level accuracy(sub pixel) with a procedural shader (and noise shader) all the way to the frustum back plane and independent of screen resolution- something texturing and filtering could never match - I would say it is definitely not textures.

Even the most complex surface material in the foreground like wood grain or marble - performance allowing - can be far better rendered with procedural shaders instead of finite textures being used - textures, which themselves were produced by capturing those procedural shader results at a finite resolution, of say 8192x8192 which results in lower quality than real-time fragment generated results.

Despite Astro's playroom on PS5 being less than cutting edge visual fx, the heavy use of shader generated materials in real-time create some well lit materials that look completely flawless and free of texture filtering noise artefacts at all viewing angles IMO.

 

[Stuart360]

Lighting and good quality shadows also have an effect but yeah i have talked about this before. Take a PC game and mess around with the graphics settings and yeah textures are always the one setting that makes the most difference.
In factyou can often take a PC game, put the settings on the lowest settings, but keep textures on the highest setting, and the game will often still look quite good.

 

[squarealex]

Nah, it's art style then lighting for me

Art Style IS a part of textures...

Best Texture not means "All in 8K ultra HI-RES lol"

 

[Chronicle]

Minecraft still looks absolute shit if you don't mod the textures tho





You are not gonna convince me of the opposite.

Holy shit!

 

[phil_t98]

I still thin the textures on god of war Kratos are the best around

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Lighting.

 

[ahtlas7]

Light, shadow, color. I’m not sure you have texture without them.

 

[zcaa0g]

then explain why BOTW is so immersive

It's not.

 

[SlimySnake]

Matrix has the best texture/material work ever.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Control, Game Mechanics, Level Design, Sound Fx(including voice), Music, Atmosphere, Theme. In descending order of importance. After that you take whatever you got in your budget and pour it into your graphics, including textures.

 

[Lady Jane]

Matrix has the best texture/material work ever.

> Photorealism in games

 

[winjer]

Not sure why when on pc, anisotropic 16x is usually super duper light.

Lack of memory bandwidth. Consoles have just one memory pool, so that bandwidth has to be shared between the CPU and GPU.
Then there si the issue with memory contention, between CPU and GPU, that further reduces memory bandwidth.

 

[Kimahri]

Minecraft still looks absolute shit if you don't mod the textures tho





You are not gonna convince me of the opposite.

Getting the feeling you're not understanding me at all.

There's more to lighting than ray tracing btw.