Epic VP: Unreal Engine 4 Demo Makes Samaritan Look Feeble

This year's Samaritan demo, however, was highly optimized and according to Epic's Mark Rein, it could be running on a laptop next year or a smartphone the year after. This is where Rein pointed out that the UE4 demo will make the Samaritan look feeble by comparison and will generally be crap next to what they show off for the next generation engine, saying "Imagine if that were a piece of crap, what would the next thing look like?"

[DeletedAcc]

Holy Crap o.O

[Tonester925]

Isn't this just a video though? The in-game graphics have to look like this. Look at Assassins Creed's trailers. They're all stellar but the in-game graphics aren't even close to that. I'll wait until I see some REAL footage.

[Hassassin]

Thats what so impressive.... Samaritan IS real-time footage

[Tonester925]

Until I see someone with a controller or mouse in their hand PLAYING the game I'll change my mind.

[aznrunner1881]

You're confusing pre-rendered footage with real-time footage. Something like the Assassin's Creed trailer is rendered ahead of time. Think a pixar movie. However trailers like Grand Theft Auto 4 or this Samaritan demo, it's essentially an in-game cutscene.

[SonyPS360]

It's real time buddy. Accept it.

The unreal engine 3 had a real time demo when it was first announced and it was never falsified.

"Bullshots" and other childish drivel don't apply to when new game engines are being demonstrated.

[Tonester925]

Wouldn't it make sense to show what the actual gameplay will look like. Isn't that what matters. I mean.... That's what we are going to notice when we are playing. That's just me I guess. I'd rather see the new engine in action as I would see it if I was playing.

[Hassassin]

Some one else found this videos, they're not mine...
but they show most of the effect that where used in Samaritan and more.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
http://www.youtube.com/watc...
some destruction also:
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

(there are more videos out there if you search)

[gypsygib]

This just shows how important optimization is, from 3 580s to one card. Also, the Samaritan demo on smart phones is two years is CRAZY.

[DeadlyFire]

Its not that crazy really. Technology in phones is shifting pretty fast. Will have GPUs within the year on the market that can match/surpass PS3/X360. Its not to far behind.

Optimization will be key in Unreal Engine 4.0 as well as 3.9 either way. Noone wants to play a game on the engine running at 15 fps.

[Omega Zues]

It just goes to show 2 very important things.

Optimization and a good solid graphics card.

I know theres a mountain of people just waiting for the day next-gen to be revealed so they can cry "LULZ DATED GRAPHIX CARDZ" sad but true, however that misses the entire point. Its what the developers can access and how well they can perform on the tools their given.

Right now my computer rig has 2 ATI 5870s and their wickedly powerful. I still remember seeing several tech demos based on these cards and I wouldnt complain one bit to see next gen perform at the same level. Sure, their a few years old with 6000 and 7000 series now out but as consumers have shown, they dont want to spend over $299 - $399 for a new console.

but hey, just my 2 cents.

[vortis]

Well said. I'm gonna give you some bubble lovin'.

I also have a Crossfire setup and to be honest to be in the 5xxx series they run all the latest games great. The only games that run poorly are PC games that suffer from consolitis.

[Autodidactdystopia]

exactly how i feel about my 6970.

+bubbs

[DeadlyFire]

Well its either $3xx-5xx for a new console with a year old graphics card or $3xx-5xx bucks for a bleeding edge graphics card.

Graphics cards can easily last a console cycle on PC games and keep better or same quality graphics. As cards aim for higher resolutions. You don't even need a high end card to run most games at high FPS on the mid-range resolutions.

[Honest_gamer]

my setup has a 2GB 9600GT, no where near the best, however if i ration the graphics setting on games i can get something like hight/ultra texture however that comes with no shaddows as i have to take them of (which is ok as most of the time shadows on this graphics card just dont look right), i can get full model details if i take of reflective water, etc i'm saving up to make my own pc however being a poor studen who has to spend over half my student loan of the train and my girlfriend being pregnant it's a bitch to save up lol

[kungfuian]

Cant wait

[esemce]

Bull$hit!

[FrigidDARKNESS]

I think it will. epic has had ample time to optima the UE4 to make it visually stunning than the Samaritam.

[Braid]

Yeah right, as if Samatrian's visuals are already used up and became obsolete. I don't care what your tech demo looks like, Square Enix could probably make a CGI trailer and make your UE4 look like crap. It's not about what we are shown but what we actually get. There is no single GPU that can run a Samatrian quality game, and how in the holy hell are you expecting the next gen consoles to run it? These high end cards will be twice the price of the upcoming consoles and that's just a SINGLE piece of hardware we're talking about here. And to add more comedy to the absurdity of this situation, they are NOT talking about The Samatrian demo which no hardware can and will be able to run in the near future, but an IMPROVED version of it which will make it look pale in comparison. Am I the only person that can catch the smell of utter bullshit coming from this whole graphics showcase thing?

And you gotta think about the additional calculations as well if you're talking about running it on a device. This demo is a cutscene only, when you're actually in control of the game, you add physics and other variable calculations to the already extensive burden on your hardware as well. What kind of a beastly configuration will be able to handle all of this? It's good that we know the new GPU that they're referring to as Kepler can run the pre-scripted Samatrian demo, but then my question would be "Will it be able to run it when I actually control the Samatrian character and interact with the world?" I think you know the answer. If the cutscenes are regarded as "games" nowadays then you can obviously say that the 3DMark is the most gorgeous looking game out there.

Ah anyways... Gotta love modern marketing tactics.

[Autodidactdystopia]

yo i have always had a good feeling about optimisation my 6970 in theory should be able to show visuals superior to the Samaritain demo the problem is ..... that HW manufacturers arent slowing down on pc as the dev companies have so we are getting more and more exponentially more powerful hardware, AND!!!! i still remember being able to play crysis on a 8800 gtx IMO no game not even the sequel has come close to touching the technical expertise of the grapical side of that game/engine.

just wait you'll see.

my 6970 should kill samaritain and for you to say otherwise is just (super amazing makes you look so cool)

our current hardware is so far outpaced to anything you likely can imagine its F'in funny. :) lol

Oh yeah.. "Actual controll" ?

there is no difference to the gpu. Cpu takes care of entire scene build and composition before gpu takes over. so more complex control schemes including physics can also be handled by today's massively improved cpu architectures.

stop using your console to guage future performance capabilities, my i5 Kills the old benchmarks you've been shown the last few years.

trust me we have WAY MORE THAN WE NEED NOW/CURRENTLY

[Braid]

Hey mate, I have a gaming rig as well, it has i5 2500k with 8gigs ram, and an AMD 6870 GPU. It blows the sh#t out of console graphics when I play the multiplatform games on my PC and compare them side by side, I'll give you that.

Allright, let's assume that our hardware is good enough to run the demo, then the question is, what game studio will be able to produce a game that looks as detailed as Samatrian demo? It's a tremendous deal of work to begin with, and they have limited resources to be able to profit from their games, and it would take way too long to develop a game which has that kind of crazy visual details. It's not feasible for game developers to focus their limited resources and manpower on the visuals of a game that extensively , and alas we don't usually get what our hardwares are capable of on PCs.

So in other words, what the tech demos show do not really matter, it's up to developers to decide to what extend the features of these engines will be used. Don't you think they can already deliver better graphics than Samatrian? And they don't really need to use the UE as well, they can just quadruple the resolution of the textures, use more volumetric effects and more detailed reflections, lens flares, bokeh DOF and they can implement a truck load of anti-aliasing to make the jaggies disappear. Combine that with playing this theoretical game on a high end 2560 x 1600 monitor and that Samatrian will get his arse handed to what you see on your PC. But the question remains the same, what kind of a hardware configuration will be able to run that game right now? Kepler is not out yet, and the consoles are already obsolete.

Anyways, I think you understand what I'm trying to get at. It's not only a problem of harware but a couple of other things as well that hold these kind of graphics back from our screens.

[Frankfurt]

The best part? Epic has said they are under NDA... so they can't show their own engine (UE4) until another company says so.

That means either MS or Sony are showing the UE4 demo later this year. Probably at E3.

[JellyJelly]

Seeing how big of a part Epic had in the Xbox 360's architecture, and how influential the UE3 engine has become this gen, I think Epic and their UE4 engine will make sure Microsoft dominates next gen.

[DeadlyFire]

I think its more broad of a range this time. As they stated they want their engine on all platforms. Its very likely WiiU will get UE4 slim edition, PS4, X720 get HD edition of UE4.

There is no Probably. We all know its going to be at E3.

I believe honestly Nintendo and Microsoft both have agreement already with Epic for Unreal Engine 4. I believe Sony does as well which is why they are waiting. Everything in recent news is PS3 still has more power. Means 2012 is not a year to showcase PS4.

[Megaton]

Charting new territory in blowing smoke up peoples' asses. It took 3x $500 GPUs to run Samaritan. Call me crazy, but somehow I don't see that kind of tech being consolidated into a single laptop card by next year, or into a phone in 2 years... or 10 years for that matter.

[BlackKnight]

The demo has already been optimized and running on a single GTX 680, which is the successor to the GTX 580 (the GTX 580 was the 3 cards previously down for the original Samaritan demo).

It's amazing how fast things can actually change in the tech world.

[honkyjesus]

It's amazing that Epic has two of the biggest douchebags in gaming, Cliffy and Mark Rein. At least Cliff has done something for gaming.

[fullmetal297]

"Imagine if that were a piece of crap, what would the next thing look like?" -VP of Epic Games

Put his words out of context and assumes that the next unreal engine will make the Samaritan demo look like crap.

Unreal Engine 4 is shown in the next E3 and everyone is disappointed and calls Epic Games a liar.