Are We Approaching the Graphical Wall? - Gamers Riot

TheDetails always believed that at some point, the laws of diminishing returns would catch up with graphics technology. This would eventuate with real-time rendering hitting a “wall” of sorts, where adding exponential performance would not result in perceivable gains in image quality. This circumstance would lead to a period where real-time graphics would become “good enough”, causing hardware innovation to stagnate while software developers, blessed by a stable hardware feature and performance plateau, would embark on a renaissance of game design....

[Pandamobile]

There's still tons we can improve on, just not with this generation of consoles.

[ATiElite]

Sorry but they are limited in GPU power and limited in Ram. They struggle to do 720p at 30 fps when Devs really pile on the eye candy and you can forget about AA as that just kills them. Sure many many games look great but lack so many new graphical features that have come out in the past few years.

The Witcher 2 PC is DX9 but it just kills any console game because of the all the eye candy and graphical features that would make a console choke. So yes it's time for new consoles cause at this point Crysis 2 or Uncharted 3 is as good as it's gonna get while Metro 2033 PC signaled the new era of graphical power not too mention Crysis PC 2007 still kills any console game.

and before anybody says "Graphics aren't everything" then I suggest you trade in your console for an Atari 2600. As graphics evolve so does game play.

[SkyCrawler]

Guess we're at our communication limits also. Lord knows we only use the telephone cause we're struggling to find ways of talking to each other any other way.

[ATiElite]

@ SkyCrawler

What the hell are you talking about? I don't think you thought your statement out very well B4 you typed it.

I'm talking about consoles which are CLOSED SYSTEMS that are not going to be upgraded and have reached their limits. Your talking about Communications which is a "category" that telephones, telegram, radio, voice etc. fall under.

Go back to the drawing board and try again...actually DON'T cause you will just embarrass yourself again.

[SkyCrawler]

so you did get what I was saying? :D

P.S. don't try so hard to sound like a douche. It makes you look..well douchey.

[BrianG]

There is a flaw with your "Graphics aren't everything" argument.

I like the games I play now better than the games I've played on previous consoles, not just because of the graphics, but because of the story telling evolution's, connection to characters, gameplay mechanic evolution's, etc... etc...

Some of them are aided by graphics of course, like immersion.

So even if graphics aren't everything, I would still want a PS3 in my house, because everything else that makes up the game is available, and frankly better than it was in previous generations.

[reynod]

Lol we have been stagnant for quite afew years when it comes to graphics due to console tech.

[Active Reload]

A graphical wall? I'm not sure, but I do encompass art style into graphics and PC has hit a wall in that respect.

[SpartanQ8]

^^^^^^

[SpartanQ8]

ATiElite you're right man>> Big Agree

[NukaCola]

Newer hardware will allow for 120hz 1080p 3D realism, sure but then you have to factor in the devs artistic approach. Graphics =/= Realism. Okami, WindWaker,& Flower are examples of graphical masterpieces. FFXIII is gorgeous as hell but the game is weak sauce. Just my thought. That's why I personally am excited for Last Gaurdian. Art style is what I look for the most in graphics.

[RedDead]

I have to say, no game this gen has dragged me in to the characters like FF(2001 and before) other Square games for that time, Suikoden 2, MGS 3 and 1. Graphics are a bonus to me, sometimes they make you stop to look in awe, but for me they are of lower priority than..everything else(you can mix and match art style or graphics I think , although some games Art just destroys the 'quality' type like Gears and KZ"

So long as a game has decent graphics these days I'll accept it, Cod is fine for me. or atleast it's graphics are good enough for me, it's the gameplay and BS it has about it that I don't like.

[longcat]

I would much rather see some software diversity that prettier graphics.

Another jump will result in another generation of 'safe" gamemaking.

[ProjectVulcan]

The nearest thing to a wall being hit will be the current processes for building semi conductors, which are predicted to stop shrinking by around 2025. New methods of construction or even entirely news ways of computing will be needed at that point to improve on any computing performance.

Just as it has been doing for the past 20 years the game industry will evolve, from sprites/vector to polygons to pixel shading. Rasterization might still be around in some form, while other methods of graphics could begin to become more viable as power increases.

While computer technology still moves forward then i believe we will see developers always hungry for more performance.

However if, and maybe when it stops or slows right down, then developers will be more satisfied with what they have and try to make the best games with the capabilities available to them. Be under no illusions though, that capability will be hundreds of times over and above what is in current consoles....

I believe that the first genuinely photorealistic games will end up racing sims. Capturing the human form or organic movement is far more difficult than capturing a car and a racetrack. GT5's replay mode with all the extra post processing isn't a million miles away now, so imagine what it will be like with one more generation.

[Louis_Guzman]

Atielite: You mad, bro?

[HeavenlySnipes]

isn't the best looking game I've ever seen. Sorry if I disappointed you man....

[DeadIIIRed]

It wasn't a wall it was a guard rail

[subtenko]

Ok so ima pick up UNCHARTED 3 for PC in that case..oh wait... its not on pc..well gee...I wanna play alot of these great Sony PS3 1st party games :/ oooh wait! I'll just use my PS3 and get the game I wanna play!! Games that arent on PC :O

and before you say you would rather have the best graphics period with 2 PC games vs having hundreds of EXTREMELY fun games not on PC, then well...sucks for you!

Graphics are great but I dont just want great graphics, I want both games and graphics. So I got a ps3. I still pc game at times tho

P.S. (the human eye argument), do games look exactly like real life 100% in real time? nope.. games have a lot of work to do still..

[lil Titan]

they still haven't maxed out the PS3 yet so what is this graphical limit im hearing about? exclusive after exclusive PS3 games look better than the last and without upgrading a graphics card or ram. i can only speak for the PS3 when i say its far from over in the graphics department

[meetajhu]

The day we will hit graphical wall is when Santa Monica or Idsoftware optimizes games to run on DirectX 11 on PC!

[Spydiggity]

lol...a "renaissance of game design."

like hell we would. we'd just get a 'new' COD, Madden, and NFS every year.

[fatstarr]

I totally agree with you man

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

not even 5xbox 360s taped together could produce these results ( sorry for the gamecube/wii joke)

but seriously if you took the processing powers of 10 ps3's or 360's i don't think it could do these visuals at that resolution at that frame rate.

[50Terabytespersec]

LOL all I see in this witcher 2 is RAM RAM RAM!!!
Nothing special or complex in terms of Graphics Rendering and Physics or models that are sheer amazing or massive depth of onscreen characters and Ai..
Same BS PC games with RAM RAM bloated 400 dollars GPU.
(better spent on a night out dancing with a human being or friends!)

[ASSASSYN 36o]

Totally agree ATIELITE.

[ChrisW]

Every time someone brings up this arguement, we all seem to forget about Moore's Law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

[RedSky]

No, but we have hit the wall of never ending generic FPSs.

[RedSky]

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

^ Flick to half way through.

And yeah, Witcher 2 slays everything on consoles on a souped up PC. I have a PS3 and have played Uncharted 2 on it. See clip above on 1080p if you don't believe me. And 1080p youtube streaming pretty heavily blurs it by the way.

Not trying to start a flame war or anything but all I do is walk around a forest and cum starts shooting out of my eyes. It's really that good.

[drosera1]

I love my PS3, but this man speaks the truth. I also have a powerful PC, and games optimized for it (like the Witcher 2), blow consoles out the water. I can't believe you got disagrees, there really is no accounting for intelligence.

[RedDragan]

There is an 8THz (8,000GHz) processor that was built in 2008, or maybe 2006, but we still do not see that sort of technology on the market.

It is an optical processor which uses laser light photons, instead of the more conventional 'electrical' electrons. The result means this processor is far more efficient in the cooling department, in fact, it is far cooler than todays readily available Intel, AMD and IBM processors.

This ultra fast processor is not really designed for general purpose processing so it would not be suitable to replace the i7's or Cell's, but it is intensively mathematically based and thus it can easily replace the sort of processors that Graphics Cards use, the motherboard on which is sits is also optical in nature and there in lies the problem with intergrating it with current widely available technology.

We could not get the most out of it because the conversion from optical to eletron and electron to optical means we would not see the full 8THz performance, but I would imagine they are working on an optical General Purpose processor... when they make that then there will be no 'Wall' for another few decades. Capacitors will be a thing of the past and so would fans and other cooling methods, that is, as far as the processors are concerned. Cooling would still be required for memory etc.

The big question is though, why are companies like Intel, nVidia and AMD not using this optical technology in their graphics cards? Although the conversion will be needed because the motherboard will remain electron based, that processor would still deliver better results than the current technology used on Graphic Cards.

[Treyb3yond]

Pc is expensive, unreliable and have few exclusives worth playing.

Pc gaming is nigh on dead. If all pc gamers have to boast about is better lighting and high resolutions, I'd be concerned if I were you.

And this is coming from a Starcraft player.

[Kleptic]

Spydiggity...that is exactly what a 'renaissance of game design' is...when developers stop pushing visuals, and focus more on retelling the same story over and over...i.e. CoD...

Developers as a whole are not overly pushing any hardware...be it consoles or PC...sure a few games here and there break out and move forward, but they make up less than 5% of the games released each year...

look at recent graphical arguments objectively...and what do you get?...a bunch of console gamers more or less perfectly satisfied with what is being released...and a bunch of PC gamers high fiving each other non stop about having some better AA, a higher framerate, and higher resolution...but overall no more geometry, no 'bigger environments'...its the same exact game, just in slightly higher fidelity...

the cost of production on one of those top 5% games is still WAY to high for it to become normal...we are approaching the area of this generation where developers and hardware makers are going to make most of their money...development costs on 'normal' current generation games are less than half of what they were when these consoles showed up...and because PC gaming is absolutely riddled with piracy, and is + always will be the WORST way for developers to make money...no one is overly pushing PC even though its technically ready to render a hell of a lot more than either console...

if people stop fighting about which versions look better...and actually consider everything on the table...we're in a dip technology wise that will last at least a year or 2...2 or maybe 3 games a year will release that truly impress us and absolutely crush everything else available visually...honestly, look at even recent graphical arguments from PC gamers...and any time any recent game looks close across all platforms, they throw Crysis 1 back in the mix and say 'its still visual king'...when did that release, like 2007?...ever wonder why you don't see a game that pushes the bar like Crysis every year?...because its too expensive and not enough people actually buy it...

[Lykon]

It depends if you are getting bored with your generic COD version x.xxxx and think slightly better lighting or environment destructibility will improve the experience....personally I think the graphical abilities of the current gen (ps3,360....i'm not including the wii in this) are very good and just want to see more interesting, enjoyable games using current hardware, rather than experience the big development slowdown we will experience with new hardware. There is always the option of becoming a high end PC hobbiest for those that want to play a couple of multiplats in higher definition, but personally I don't think it's worth all the expense and agro...driver updates, peripherals, compatibility issues with operating systems etc etc etc...just my opinion.

[KRATOS-PS3]

Naughty Dog crushing through that wall with a m1 abrams and sing while driving.