Why can't devs deliver a "Next gen" graphics moment with PS5/XSX?

[SvennoJ]

Pemalite said:

There are some very simple reasons why the visual jump isn't seen as significant from a technical perspective.

It's all about how graphics are being rendered, I won't go into it to much...

But to make Playstation 3/Playstation 4 titles "shine" developers used a TON of baked details for things like lighting and shadowing which came with a minimal corresponding requirement for more hardware resources.

Today? It's all dynamic effects in real time.
Environments are more reactive and dynamic because of that visually, but when looking at a still image, it's not going to showcase massive differences.

Dynamic effects require more resources. It's that simple.

It's more "high res textures" that require more resources, not the dynamic (environmental) effects.
From Dust was a ps3 / 360 game with total terrain deformation. It had a lot more going on than modern games.

But true, dynamic lighting, shadows, reflections, those dynamic 'effects' are all very costly. And those have huge diminishing returns between pre-baked and doing it for real. Plus the pre-baked lighting was always set to the ideal lighting for the scene while dynamic real time lighting can look worse just because light sources are in different places.

From a technical (software) perspective the jump is still there, yet from an end result perspective the jump is more like "sometimes it looks better if you pay attention".

So yep, you have to see it in motion and pay close attention to see what is improved.