as a PC gamer, i've never seen anything look as good as Driveclub and The Order 1886


the issue here is that there are less and less PC high budget exclusives. companies who made those went multiplat with consoles, and even though their PC version were the best, it's still held back due to multiplat development. After Crysis back in 2007, PC graphics pretty much hit a stalemate. Only a few improvements, nothing compared to 2000-2007.

some smaller companies are able to make impressive graphics for their size but there's only so much a limited budget and small studio can do, so they don't really take advantage of the powerful PC hardware to its maximum capabilities.

I'd say that with a new gen of consoles there could be another jump in PC graphics but that seems unlikely, who's going to do it? Not Witcher 3. Not The Division. Star Citizen? I don't even want to talk about that game, that is going to be such a huge disappointment...bigger than X: Rebirth.

Almost makes me regret getting a new gaming PC in 2 years ago but not really cause there's still some exclusives i want to play; difference is that they aren't particularly demanding or great looking, like Beyond Earth.. and the best versions of Arkham Knight, etc. Still worth it, but not the same as before. Whereas before i upgraded components every 2 years, i don't plan on upgrading now until the next generation of consoles.

How can you say that? If the hareware is not capable then no amount coding could fix that, surely?

Not sure what the implications are, because Uncharted and Driveclub look nice they will play like molasse?

I would argue to the contrary, many of the best playing games across all time were also considered the best looking games of their time:

 - Super Marion Bros 3

 - Sonic the Hedgehog

 - Grand tourismo

 - Doom (on PC)

 - Quake (on PC)

 - Tekken 2 (PSX)

 - Soul Calibur (Dreamcast)

 - Whatever version of Grand Turismo was on PS2 and Forza on the og xbox

 - Any Halo game upon release

 - Gears of War

 - God of War 1, 2 and 3

 - Uncharted 2

etc.

Good teams make games that play and look great, this is what budgets are for... obviously one does not guarantee the other, but implying that good graphics somehow lessen the playing experience is just plain ignorance.

Well I've heard great things about Skyrim, so I guess there are exceptions. But yeah, what you described seems to be the case, unfortunately.

This thread was a terrible idea. I love it.

Not really THAT impressed, nice graphics though certainly wouldn't say another level.

This is why IGN split its best Graphics award into two categories: technology and art. Every other media outlet should do the same imo because art is subjective while graphics is based on facts (res, fps, polycounts, physics etc).

Modded skyrim looks great but no..does not look better than this.

BTW OP i'd remove the last two pics. I don't care what ND says, U4 will not look like that. It's a pre-rendered in-engine cutscene. They can say they're targeting it all they want, it's not gonna happen.

Exactly. I don't really pay attention to IGN enough to even know they did that, but that's a good idea.

The hardware is more than capable, and the visuals will only get better over time. But the above games and tech demo's use ICE technology which is provided amongst first parties and some second parties.
When it comes to the exclusives, you wont see visuals like these elsewhere, not because of the hardware, but because of how well ICE uses the hardware.