By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - Now that next gen is here, diminishing returns is a real problem

Arius Dion on 30 October 2013

better graphics also means higher budgets. Many Dev companies are already hurting, hence why cross gen ports are happening. Financial uncertainty in the world at large is affecting everything. Also, just look at later gen games on gen 7 consoles, they look amazing. Sure Gen 8 consoles will look more amazing. But so what?



Bet between Slimbeast and Arius Dion about Wii sales 2009:


If the Wii sells less than 20 million in 2009 (as defined by VGC sales between week ending 3d Jan 2009 to week ending 4th Jan 2010) Slimebeast wins and get to control Arius Dion's sig for 1 month.

If the Wii sells more than 20 million in 2009 (as defined above) Arius Dion wins and gets to control Slimebeast's sig for 1 month.

Around the Network
Zappykins on 30 October 2013
JustThatGamer said:
lol diminishing returns won't be a problem until video games can rival 2009 CGI like Avatar in real-time, we're nowhere near there yet. The PS5 might come close but it's only by the time the PS6 launches, 20+ years from now, when diminishing returns means that games won't get much or any better looking. Until then there's loads of huge improvements to be made to lighting, character models, animation etc.

Besides, PS4/X1 launch exclusvies already completely blow PS3/360 launch exclusives away and this is just the start, they will get better and better looking.

Good point, But if we get games half as good looking as Avatar, they would look pretty darn good.

For fun I crunched some numbers.  Some frames in Avatar took 4 hours to compile.  Now this is (someone correct me if I am wrong) a 4K movie, 8K for Imax, if we drop that 4k down to 1080P we would use an estimated 1/4 less time.  So 1 hour.  (Might actually be a lot less.)

Cut out the 3D and you are at @ 45 minues. 

Now, let's go buy the fact that Avatar was rendered on basically 2008 equiptment.  If we throw in 'Moore's Law'  we are still at approximately 5 minutes to render a single mono frame at 1080p (Should hit 2.5 mins next summer.)  So we still have a ways to go.  These are still just estimates and appoximated guesses, but give an idea about how not only we need more powerful hardware, but also more efficient ways of rendering to get to realism.



 

Really not sure I see any point of Consol over PC's since Kinect, Wii and other alternative ways to play have been abandoned. 

Top 50 'most fun' game list coming soon!

 

Tell me a funny joke!
selnor1983 on 30 October 2013

Considering this is old build AND is fully gameplay realtime. Well ALL of Ryse is in engine. In fact Crytek claim its the first game ever to not change any assests from Gameplay to Cutscene. Id say it pi**es all over last gen. It makes TLOU and HALO 4 look seriously dated. The detail on the facial expressions and the characters is mindblowing.

 



Zappykins on 30 October 2013
JoeTheBro said:

Eh Google has issues doing searches by date, but here is a different forum talking about diminishing returns back then. Pretty amusing reads.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=129088

... ...

Oh, man, great find!  I also really liked the part about the PS3 not being a gaming device, but a device where you can connect with the rest of the world.



 

Really not sure I see any point of Consol over PC's since Kinect, Wii and other alternative ways to play have been abandoned. 

Top 50 'most fun' game list coming soon!

 

Tell me a funny joke!
theRepublic on 01 November 2013
JoeTheBro said:
theRepublic said:
JoeTheBro said:
They say this every gen. Seriously I'll look through this site and find an example for you.

I would say this wasn't a problem at all in Gens 1 to 6.  It was easily recognizable to the casual observer that there was a big difference between those machines.  But we really are starting to see diminishing returns here in 7 and 8.  There is only so realistic you can get before you are pretty much there.

Zappykins' post shows that very well.

Not really.

It's almost impossible to search the internet for forums from before PS2, but people still said and thought the same way. Plus saying graphics have little left to improve is just silly. I know Avatar is used way too much in these threads, but please point out which game looks even remotely close to this pic:

On top of this you need to understand Avatar itself is far from perfection. CGI and even next gen graphics will look better than you can currently imagine.

 

As far as Zappykins post, I don't believe in diminishing returns with graphics. Do you have diminishing returns with polycounts, textures, resolution, etc. ? Of course, but graphics are the result of tons of different techniques being combined. If you took a game from the 64 and made an HD version with no new techniques, just much larger numbers for resolution, polygon, texture size, etc., it would still look worse than modern games. Golden Eye with 3 trillion polygons per character and super duper high res textures wouldn't look that amazing compared to Halo 4 even though it technically is leaps and bounds better, going by the numbers. It's why CGI with all the time in the world to render a single frame keeps looking better and better too. Why haven't they reached the point of diminishing returns?

Just ignore this rant if it doesn't make sense or is phrased poorly. I meant to retire a few hours ago but the Nintendo financial report kept me up.

There have been massive, easily recognizable differences between early generations that we just won't see again.  It is going to be a much slower progression from here into the future.



Switch Code: SW-7377-9189-3397 -- Nintendo Network ID: theRepublic -- Steam ID: theRepublic

Now Playing
Switch - Super Mario Maker 2 (2019)
Switch - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019)
Switch - Bastion (2011/2018)
3DS - Star Fox 64 3D (2011)
3DS - Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (Trilogy) (2005/2014)
Wii U - Darksiders: Warmastered Edition (2010/2017)
Mobile - The Simpson's Tapped Out and Yugioh Duel Links
PC - Deep Rock Galactic (2020)

Around the Network
iamdeath on 01 November 2013

No, foolish thread.... Play a game on a high end PC, only reason people think in 2013 PS3 and 360 games look great is they have not seen any better. Worlds can be vastly larger and more detailed then what we have seen. They looked great for awhile but in 2013 look dated.



ListerOfSmeg on 13 November 2013
CGI-Quality said:
Xenostar said:
ListerOfSmeg said:
I think some people are confused with diminishing returns and are pulling up examples of games that used beyond what was previously used to show improvement. Now I will try to explain this as best I can but some still may not get it.

Okay make a face using 5,000 polygons. Now make the same face only this time use another 5,000 for a total of 10,000. you just put in the same effort but got less results. Now make another and add another 5k to it for 15k. the results are even less dramatic.
You guys are comparing 20k polygon counts to 60k polygon counts and saying that diminishing returns aren't happening, yet your examples are in some cases contain 3-4 times more work put into them to get to those results.
Devs today are putting in far more work, for far less results.
I think most of you showing off pics of PS3/PS4 games need to start showing PS2 game pics as well but then again that will only make your point less valid to do so.
Lets look at Ryse. Originally going to use 150k polygon count. Cut to 90k and still looks amazing even though its using 60k less polygons than was originally announced. a 60k cut is more than some contained. That's enough cut from it to make another decently looking model.


But Polygons are not the only thing to take into account, Texture resolution, lighting, post process effects, shaders and Physics is where you will see the massive improvements. 

Exactly. Poluygon count isn't even half of the story. The best way to challenge this, go from console-only gaming and then play many of those same games on PC. The higher resolution(s), bigger texture size(s), draw distances, lighting, SSAO, AO, etc, etc....make for, sometimes, night-and-day differences.

I never said polygons were all that mattered. Is it really that hard to comment on what was actually said, not what you wanted to say in order to have a valid response back?