Progression in 3d graphics quality throughout console generations.

[Baroque_Dude]

WereKitten said:

Baroque_Dude said:

How will we call the next generation? The "true HD" generation? And the next one, the "photorealistic" generation?

The next generation looks like it will be a refinement of this one, with even more power offered by PC-like cards strong on special shaders/stream processors. It will probably finally reach what was sort-of-promised by the current generation of HD 3d consoles: 1080p @60fps with evolutionary improvements all around. Possible new techs hitting mainstream: stereoscopic 3D and headtracking.

Now the one after that might be a totally different beast, because if we really move to general-purpose many-cores CGPUs, we could abandon the current DirectX/OpenGL pipelines and see the rise of alternative techs such as ray tracing etc. Such alternative techs will surely bring with them new stylistic options for designers, and we'll probably see completely new kinds of 3d graphics being born.

I agree on the assumptions of the first paragraph, especially on the HD and stereoscopic 3d.

The second paragraph is a guess, and I also wonder what will happen. Ray tracing would mean the end of graphics cards as we currently know them and it's difficult to think that such a great market will disappear or migrate into another similar market. I admit that I feel "attracted" to ray tracing, but in practical terms, when we have the hardware to run games in the current image quality using ray tracing, "normal" GPUs will have also evolved in such a way that they will be able to perform even better graphics... or the GPU technology will get stuck, maybe, and developers will consider that ray tracing allows even more possibilities at the end.

By the way... there are some "ray tracing cards", already (http://www.caustic.com/).