| ethomaz said: Resolution is one of the key points that affect image quality and if you are a PC user you will know the last thing you will drop in game is resolution... everything else will be second to resolution except framerate... effects, textures, AA, etc, etc will be all dropped before resolution for better image quality. |
No, that's not true at all. Except for some strategy games, a PC game at 1080P or 1440P with maximum IQ and AA will always look better graphically than a game at 4K with Low or Medium settings, unless the PC version is broken whereby there is no IQ change going from Medium to Very High which happens often with half-assed console ports. Resolution does nothing to fix low polygon character models, broken shadow/lighting model, low resolution textures, lack of realistic physics effects, etc. If you were a PC gamer, it was evident that Crysis 1 in 2007 at 1280x1024 fully maxed out look better than any PC game ever made at that time at 2560x1600. If you take a game like Super Mario 64 or Quake 3 and play it at 8K, it's never going to look at good as Crysis 3 at 1280x1024. The reason why PC games look so horrible at lower resolution is the lack of proper scaling in LCDs when playing in non-native full window mode. If however you fired up Crysis 3 at 1080P, it would look better than AC Unity on a 32" 4K monitor just because the complexity of the graphics and the lighting model is far superior since CryEngine 3 is a superior game engine all around.
| Pemalite said: And the only way consoles next gen will be capable of 4k gaming is actually, up to the PC... And lets face it, the PC is slowing down in terms of performance increases, AMD for instance has pretty much been stagnant for 3 years, maybe 4 (Remains to be seen.). |
You are way off there. HD6970 came out Dec 2010 vs. 290X that came out November 2013. In 3 years AMD increased performance 2.3X. In 4 years from HD5870 that came out Sept 2009, AMD increased performance 2.95X.
http://www.computerbase.de/2013-12/grafikkarten-2013-vergleich/10/
In 2015 we will have an AMD GPU 2X faster than HD7970. Both AMD and NV now double GPU performance in 3 years. The conclusion of your statement I agree with though because even if GPUs are 10X faster by 2020, games will also become 2-3X more complex. The law of diminishing returns will also mean that 10X the graphics horsepower will not make a giant leap in graphics anymore.
That's Crytek says it's more difficult to wow gamers graphically now. Simply said 10X the increase in graphics power from 2000 to 2010 is not the same as 10X the increase in power from 2010 to 2020. Graphics are already so good relative to early 2000s, that the next leap in graphics will require GPUs 50-100X more powerful. The first time you saw a game like Unreal 2 or Crysis and your jaw dropped...well that's not going to happen anymore. Crysis 3, Metro LL, Ryse Son of Rome and Project CARS are already so good looking on the PC that improving beyond that requires an exponential increase in GPU power. I would even say if PS5 focused on 1080P 60 fps gaming for all games at max IQ by 2020, that would be far more preferable than 4K games at low/medium details. Alas, marketing will try to spin 4K gaming as the future despite most people owning < 65" TVs.
