Have we hit the technology wall?

[cAPSLOCK]

misteromar mk4 said:
"Doesn't matter, the PC constantly shows what can be done with increases in technology. This is the most ridiculous thread topic. There is no wall. "

That was my point there is no wall for the technology but there is limit to what a human can do.

I think we are hitting a cross over point, in the past games where limited to what the hardware could do. but now we are reaching a point where we are not so much limited by hardware but how much code people can write to use the new tech.

Sure we can have hardware in the future that can make games look as good as "real life" but if takes 1000 programmers 5 years to make the game, its not gonna happen.

People will get more skilled and efficient etc, but the problem is the tech advances 10 times faster than are human ability to get the most out of it.

With consoles its like as soon as the devs start getting the best out of them, the next gen comes along and we back at the start.

I see what you mean there. Another thing that's been happening lately is some development tools making the process easier. Euphoria is a nice example of how animation has been made a whole lot easier. If you haven't youtubed it, Euphoria is definitely worth taking a look at.

I imagine a lot of those kinds of tools will be coming out in the future, but the biggest change over these next few years is probably going to be the scale of games. Simulation and strategy games especially stand to gain a lot.

The tech jumps lately have been huge, but it hasn't all been just in games. There's a lot of things that are (in a purely direct sense) of peripheral significance, but will impact gaming in some interesting ways. AI is a nice example of this.

A lot of things have been done the slow and roundable way in games. For example, if you wanted to detroy a building you had to it all piece by piece in very specific way, or a tree would have to be done leaf by leaf, and that's not the case anymore. Computers can grow plants to where each individual leaf for each tree grows in a unique way procedurally, and something like destroying a building is done procedurally.

Edit-Videos

Procedural Terrain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTyBFvg0e4I

Procedural Tornado: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRiJcF4r3vU&feature=related

Euphoria: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae3fgj2x1aI