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Which Devs do you expect to shine graphically Next-Gen (PS5/XSX)

VFXVeteran

Banned
Not to put down FS2020 but what's advanced about the lighting that you haven't seen in other games that you wanted to see for years?

I'm pretty sure driveclub did volumetric clouds and light propagation 7 years prior:


The clouds there use light propagation but there are grid artifacts and low sampled aliasing. I also can't see how many layers those clouds are made of because you can't go up to them.

The lighting in FS2020 uses a significant number of GI light probes that are highly accurate and change every few km (think of AC:Unity x10). They are sampling a very accurate representation of the sky with the clouds being a part of that environment lighting approximation. You could get rain clouds with rain a few thousand feet horizontally away from you while the sun is shining directly above where you are and the direct+GI lighting is accurate.

Their clouds have physical behavior in that the wind is used with heat from the surface for convection and go through the entire cloud lifecycle from accumulation, mature and dissipation stage. Some clouds displaying the upside down anvil in the mature stage just like in real life.

Their use of texture synthesis (using a procedural noise and baking it down to a texture map) has never been done in any game. It's been very prevalent in the film industry and is a very complicated pipeline.

I could do a full graphics analysis on FS2020 but it would take way too long to make trying to explain things.
 
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Shmunter

Member
I think most of them are going to deliver with Naughty Dog being the clear #1, but other games from Santa Monica, Guerilla Games, Rockstar, Square Enix, Gears people, Forza people, CD Projekt RED, EA and others are also going to look next gen worthy.

Like others have pointed out the jump might not be as drastic for 4k 60fps games as one would hope, because the resolution and framerate increase simply take up way too much performance on their own. Personally I am very happy that we have this "movement" towards 60fps games and I would be happy if most games (especially faster games) adopt this. Not every single game needs to, but I would definitely find myself using 60fps a lot.

Given that we have seen console games already adapting graphic options offering a variety of effects/resolution and framerate sliders we are in for a juicy generation and whenever the day will come we will know what next gen looks like. It might be as early as Battlefield 6 or as late as the next ND PS5 exclusive.

It also will be a process with the very best looking games coming out in 5-6 years from now, but starting in 2023 we will see what it means to have a new standard for graphics.
Hence why many are proponents off reconstruction, not native 4k.

No more 30 & don’t waste render budget on native 4k. The baseline needs to 60fps with a quality reconstruction.

I hope a 120fps trend doesn’t force devs to limit scene complexity.
 

Shmunter

Member
This has changed. Many of the 1st party companies are adapting their graphics engine to be portable to PC. A friend I know that used to work at ND told me they were refactoring their graphics engine for the PC ports to come.
Maybe one day, when pc can handle the compressed throughput from the ssd without swamping the cpu. Sony 1st party will most definitely lean heavily on streaming tech, , the console is designed for them.
 
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Ellery

Member
Hence why many are proponents off reconstruction, not native 4k.

No more 30 & don’t waste render budget on native 4k. The baseline needs to 60fps with a quality reconstruction.

I hope a 120fps trend doesn’t force devs to limit scene complexity.

It is a tough one. For me personally it is on a case by case basis. Usually I am a die hard PC gamer who has been flexing 120hz on a CRT in 640x480 in counter strike and nearly every monitor I had was high refresh rate and I optimized my graphic settings in games to have games running at 60fps at their lowest point.

But I also like the possibilities that a lower framerate brings to consoles. For a PC with mouse and keyboard and hyperfast ms monitor I notice differences in fps easily, but on a console I still think that a few games can get away with 30fps if the frametimes are a perfect 33ms throughout.

In the end I would probably play every single game at 60fps. Demons Souls is a good comparison of how much better 60fps is, but a very few selected studios in a few selected games could get away with aiming for a higher graphical baseline and running at 30fps. I still have this desire in me to see the best possible graphics. If they can do that while offering options to reduce resolution and increase framerate then I am all for it.
 

Derktron

Banned
Hmm it depends, I think EA would be the first because of their Frostbite engine if they use it right and do what they say they are going to do. Then sure but I also think Capcom will continue only because of the remakes they do. They actually put in enough effort, but again it depends. I wish Ubisoft updated their open-world engine and used something else.
 

Shmunter

Member
It is a tough one. For me personally it is on a case by case basis. Usually I am a die hard PC gamer who has been flexing 120hz on a CRT in 640x480 in counter strike and nearly every monitor I had was high refresh rate and I optimized my graphic settings in games to have games running at 60fps at their lowest point.

But I also like the possibilities that a lower framerate brings to consoles. For a PC with mouse and keyboard and hyperfast ms monitor I notice differences in fps easily, but on a console I still think that a few games can get away with 30fps if the frametimes are a perfect 33ms throughout.

In the end I would probably play every single game at 60fps. Demons Souls is a good comparison of how much better 60fps is, but a very few selected studios in a few selected games could get away with aiming for a higher graphical baseline and running at 30fps. I still have this desire in me to see the best possible graphics. If they can do that while offering options to reduce resolution and increase framerate then I am all for it.
I find that 30 is perfectly fine after a solid period of playtime. You get accustomed to it.

But it’s fucking rough coming on from a big diet of 60 on next gen. I still can’t believe they released horizon zero Dawn a freebie without getting a frame unlock for PS5? Bad Jim Ryan!
 

Three

Member
The clouds there use light propagation but there are grid artifacts and low sampled aliasing. I also can't see how many layers those clouds are made of because you can't go up to them.

The lighting in FS2020 uses a significant number of GI light probes that are highly accurate and change every few km (think of AC:Unity x10). They are sampling a very accurate representation of the sky with the clouds being a part of that environment lighting approximation. You could get rain clouds with rain a few thousand feet horizontally away from you while the sun is shining directly above where you are and the direct+GI lighting is accurate.

Their clouds have physical behavior in that the wind is used with heat from the surface for convection and go through the entire cloud lifecycle from accumulation, mature and dissipation stage. Some clouds displaying the upside down anvil in the mature stage just like in real life.

Their use of texture synthesis (using a procedural noise and baking it down to a texture map) has never been done in any game. It's been very prevalent in the film industry and is a very complicated pipeline.

I could do a full graphics analysis on FS2020 but it would take way too long to make trying to explain things.
Well I assume they are lower settings on a base PS4 vs a game on max on PC hence maybe lower layers or aliasing but I'm pretty sure it's the same tech not something new. That "aliasing" isn't actually aliasing btw. It's a timelapse video.


Driveclub:
"The cloud cover and conditions you choose will dictate how much snow and rain will fall. The wind direction and speed determines where snow will settle. Then when it stops, the temperature and height of the sun governs how quickly clouds evaporate and roads dry out. We’re really striving for consistency in every detail just like we have done with everything else in the game."
All clouds are full 3D models to ensure accurate light diffusion from the sun. They’re calculated at massive distances in a fully volumetric form, so thin clouds cast lighter shadows than dense storm clouds, and their colour impacts the feel of the landscapes and cars.

Skies are uniquely generated every time you play, so just like in real life you’ll never see the same sky twice. Unless you’re replaying somebody’s challenge, in which case it’ll replicate exactly to ensure a level playing field.

If you want to learn about the tech look up something called trueSky. Driveclub uses it i believe, so does Ace Combat 7 and I assume FS2020 uses the same because Dovetail Games were using it on MS Flight Sim games before Flight Sim World got killed and Flight Sim 2020 was born. It's all the same tech.

 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
Well I assume they are lower settings on a base PS4 vs a game on max on PC hence maybe lower layers or aliasing but I'm pretty sure it's the same tech not something new. That "aliasing" isn't actually aliasing btw. It's a timelapse video.
I know it's time lapse but there is sampling errors on the edges of the clouds. Possibly noise lookup tables that are low res.

If you want to learn about the tech look up something called trueSky. Driveclub uses it i believe, so does Ace Combat 7 and I assume FS2020 uses the same because Dovetail Games were using it on MS Flight Sim games before Flight Sim World got killed and Flight Sim 2020 was born. It's all the same tech.

That may be true, but that doesn't take away from what FS2020 is doing. We've had PBR shaders for a long time and they won't go away. They will be iterated upon so I wouldn't call the tech "old tech" just because it was introduced nearly a decade ago.

The SSD->VRAM is going to solve a bottleneck but I believe everything else in a game will be the same (baked lighting solutions, typical AF filtering, LOD, normal maps, tessellation, etc..). It's how you combine such features that will tell the difference in rendering. And right now, FS2020 does more to attain that jump in the previous generation than anything else we've seen so far. It really has some spectacular algorithms for realtime.
 
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Dolomite

Member
I predict Ninja Theory will make the most impressive game graphically speaking at the time of release. These guys will push mo-cap further than anyone (yes even Naughty Dog).
Senua's Saga is still my Dark Horse. If Ninja Theory can silence the questions about whether or not thier original trailer was in game, nothing else come close
 
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muteZX

Banned
Obnoxious, flying over google maps with PS1 level ground gfx, zero physics, AI. Volumetric clouds. hip hip hooray. Ubisoft, R* and 15-20 gig sec of SSD dat, a big budget = next gen gfx.
 
Playground Games - they've done an outstanding job with Forza Horizon and I can't wait to see what they come up with for Fable.

Moon Studios - I believe they are going to take a break from Ori and start a new project.

The Coalition - Hampered by the underpowered Xbox One, I think they'll make something absolutely beautiful with the Xbox Series X.

Rare - Everwild should be good, but I'm more interested in what they decide to work on next.

Over the course of the current gen it wouldn't surprise me if these studios put out some gems.

Hate all you want but I think 343 will surprise a lot of people with Infinite. Halo 4 was gorgeous and the underwhelming response to last year's gameplay reveal of Infinite will be all the needed motivation to put out a stunning game.
 
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EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
If you’re a Sony fan you have graphics locked down
Miles Morales GIF by izzyjames
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Sony:

- Insomniac Games.
- Polyphony.
- Naughty Dog.
- Sony Santa Monica.
- Sucker Punch.
- Bend Studio.
- Guerrilla Games.

Xbox:

- That studio that makes Forza Horizon.

3rd Party:

- Rockstar.
- EA in general, especial BF as they usual Quixel Megascans for photorealistic assets then nerf them down.
- Activision.
- Kojima Productions.

Those are some of what comes in mind, not all.
 
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sainraja

Member
I think this gen Sucker Punch and Insomniac will surpass even Naughty Dog and SSM. Sucker Punch did some weird magic with the loading times for GoT on PS4,a knowledge that Sony also took advantage for the PS5's loading times. So i really expect big things this gen from SP on the technical front.

Guerilla will also shine but only when they start to design with only the PS5 in their minds.
Naughtydog did the same on the PS3 (after the first load, the loads between checkpoints after you died were unnoticeable.)
 

ToTTenTranz

Banned
Whomever becomes successful at pushing UE5 to the max.
If we pick up the best examples of UE4 we'd have Coalition (Gears), Bend (Days Gone) and Square Enix (FFVII).
 
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