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Frequency on 25 October 2013
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joora said:
Frequency said:
joora said:
Frequency said:
Not seeing how this is any different than running a modern game on a 4k monitor Tbh.


Well, it's almost the same as you've said that you don't see how it is any different running a DVD-quality video on a FullHD screen compared to running a blu-ray disc with 1080p video on a FullHD screen.

Hint: if you have a 4k monitor you can set most PC games to its native res.


Hint: that only gives you smoothness of object edges, not higher-res textures or other assets. So there is a difference bettween running a modern game in 4K natively and running a 4K optimized game (as in texture quality and other things) in 4K.

Edit: It also means that your GFX card and other PC components must be up to snuff to actually run all that smoothly, ofcourse.

If you genuinely think that current games do not have the texture capability to display on 4k just fine youre mistaken, many of the latest games for PC have shipped with, or optionally had available, high resolution textures up to 4096x4096, but even when for the most part the textures are 2048x2048, or even 1024x1024 or any power of two variation, the likelyhood of that texture being displayed on the screen where the full resolution of the texture is displayed at native or stretched, is extremely small.

When youre looking at a wall in the distance, the image on screen shows that wall as being only a few hundred pixels high and a thousand or so long, meaning the amount of texture you actually see is for example, 256x256 tiled, if, and in most cases will be the actual case, the wall texture is a power of two such as 1024x4096, or 512x2048, you would need to be close enough to the wall for it to be filling that amount of screen realestate JUST TO GET IT TO SHOW AT ITS NATIVE RESOLUTION, and when it does end up closer, shader effects, bump mapping and detail textures muxed in with the material maintain a level of detail higher than the original texture asset anyway.

In short, you do not need "special 4k textures" to display games at 4k and see a benefit.

Of course, if you feel a far off object on screen taking up a few hundred pixels, but the object itself having a 1024x1024 texture applied, somehow wont look better if the amount of that texture being shown is higher, then you have some major issues.

 

In short, higher resolution doesnt just "smooth the edge of objects", you dont "need 4k specific textures and assets" for a game to be the first "4k next gen", increasing the resolution, increases how much of the texture on each and every object drawn, is visable.

There are no ways about it, you cannot just say "all textures will be 4k" then, because for one, no graphics card around will have the vmem for it, and for two, its an absolute waste of memory for anything other than ground and wall, and skybox textures - and guess what, most modern games use high res textures for those already.

But please, go ahead, tell a game dev shes wrong, see how far it gets you.

Bonus tip, not many of the textures in the game linked will be 4096x4096 either, and the specular maps on the asteroids are definitely below half the resolution of the asteroid itself.