Crytek: It's Getting Hard To 'Wow' Gamers With Graphics

[turkey3_scratch]

To be honest, I'm pretty happy with where graphics are at. What i'm not happy with is the amount of absolutely crap games out there. There are a few cames i've played recently for only a few hours, before getting bored and deleting them from my hard drive. Make good games and people wont care so much about the graphics. Look at Minecraft...hardly a breakthrough in graphics technology.

Yes it seems that many developers these days use graphics, especially on PC gamers, as a decoy for how truly poor gameplay is. Don't let graphics ever fool you into buying a game.

 

[flowingbass]

I do agree that what we have now for graphics is enough to be content with. Enough with the whining and ask for optimization. Be glad that your hardware canot be taxed by current games. That leaves you with financial freedom to spend on other things, like getting a cruise vacation. Instead of budgeting up for another 1000 dollar gpu next year.

Every part that you buy for your pc is an investment which quickly loses its useful purpose of running games at your desired level of visual fidelity through the pushing of bigger eye candy just for the sake of taxing high end hardware.
Thus resulting to unoptimized games for pc. Just look at watchdogs.

Its like increasing the fuel consumption of a motor vehicle just for the sake of a wow factor. It kinda makes you scratch your head.

It makes it hard for people who are who minds the money you drop on things to keep up.

It makes one ever question on why should i keep throwing money on my pc if it loses its potential in a year and a half.

 

[daekar]

I have to admit, it's really getting to the point where I have to take people's word that graphics are getting better from game to game, because a lot of times I can't tell the difference. Perhaps DX12 will open up some new lighting possibilities, which I suspect I will notice when well implemented... but honestly, if game graphics never got better than they are now, I'd still be a gamer til death parted me from my keyboard. In fact, the games I play don't even have cutting edge graphics (SWTOR and Path of Exile) and I never even notice their deficiencies. I think a more interactive game world is more important than pushing every polygon, texture, and local lighting effect possible. I actually will turn graphics settings down until I can set the AA to a point where I don't see any shimmer.... shaders and lights be damned.

Honestly, I don't see much difference (barring frame rate and resolution) between most console and PC games. If the next round of consoles rendered at 1080p and 60+ fps with decent AA, I doubt I would ever notice any subsequent changes for another two generations.

 

[TheMentalist]

Well I agree that gameplay has a higher priority BUT we should at least have 1 game that is a graphics game. Crysis 3 especially is that right now, gameplay sucks but graphics are pretty sweet. The very best thing they can do is start developing for PC and combine their speciality(graphics) with some gameplay they had with C1.

 

[chicofehr]

We need a new workflow that enables developers to create amazing textures, models and special effects with much less effort and still look finished. Right now, making fancy graphics takes many man hours and isn't very feasible financially. Making it easier to make amazing visuals will take away developers excuses for not making better graphics.

 

[daekar]

I don't think developers have been resting on their graphics laurels. The nature of the console space means that the graphic fidelity of many mainstream games simply doesn't change from year to year, and that's not the fault of the devs. Indeed, many devs were really excited about how much they're going to be able to do with all the RAM the new systems have. I can't stand low-res and low FPS experiences, so consoles aren't for me, but most people don't notice - and if they can't tell the difference, then there is a good argument that improvements aren't better, they're simply more.

I'm looking forward to the day when I get game at 4K and never worry about AA settings again.

 

[firefoxx04]

I find it kind of Ironic that PC users tend to hate on consoles and talk down on their graphics ability but when it comes to gaming at 4k we as a group tend to say "well graphics do not really matter"

Im not trying to favor the consoles but come on now. Crytek puts out the best graphics in the industry and its nice to see them to continue putting out games that will take advantage of your million dollar gaming rig. For most of us who cannot afford to game at 4k, the minimum requirements are easily fulfilled.

Sure most of us cannot afford it but at least for those who do put down serious cash, they can be confident that the Cryngine games will take full advantage of their hardware unlike most games that are just a quick and dirty port. COD Ghost, Watch Dogs, GTA4 come to mind.

 

[Davil]

Graphics don't interest me nearly as much as solid game design and a bug free experience. Shadow of Mordor was a lot of fun but I never really though oh wow these graphics are amazing. Shovel Knight is still also super fun and I'm enjoying trying to find everything. Even minecraft is entertaining and it has no plot and block/pixel graphics. Really wish designers would spend more time developing things that are fun and engaging than things that just look nice. Although Skyrim is probably the best example of doing everything right, 457 hours logged on that one.

 

[alidan]

I find it kind of Ironic that PC users tend to hate on consoles and talk down on their graphics ability but when it comes to gaming at 4k we as a group tend to say "well graphics do not really matter"

Im not trying to favor the consoles but come on now. Crytek puts out the best graphics in the industry and its nice to see them to continue putting out games that will take advantage of your million dollar gaming rig. For most of us who cannot afford to game at 4k, the minimum requirements are easily fulfilled.

Sure most of us cannot afford it but at least for those who do put down serious cash, they can be confident that the Cryngine games will take full advantage of their hardware unlike most games that are just a quick and dirty port. COD Ghost, Watch Dogs, GTA4 come to mind.

AA for a lot of people inst something we turn on after we got to 1920X1080 at 21-24 inches, because the only time you see aliasing is on high contrast areas and if the game is put together with any sort of aesthetics, you will rarely see jaggies outside of a screenshot or in game if you just try to find them.

the only advantage 4k at 24-28 inches has over 1080p is less jaggies... which lets be honest, are NOT AN ISSUE ANYMORE. i have this argument with my brother all the time and i'm honestly sick of it, some how even after i explained it to him 10 times over, he still doesn't understand ui scaling and how all the benefit of sub 48 inch 4k is lost for general purpose computing, or how gpus aren't going to magically be able to handle 4k in 4 years. we got to the point where single gpus can just barely push 1080p maxed at 60fps, and somehow he thinks going to 4k is doable off a single gpu at 60+fps right now... god i hate this conversation with people who dont get it.

i got off on a tangent.

4k is useless for gaming, as all it will be used for is antialiasing which many people don't have a problem with...

what devs need or focus on is 1 gpu and hardware set, and it sure as hell isn't the best of the best. just go mid range, 1-2gb vram and 2-4gb dedicated to the game system ram, lets say dual core cpu, possibly 4 core if you aren't using it to be lazy.

take that space, and optimize the graphics, i said it before, there are sub 2k retextures for skyrim that use the space given SO much better than the devs did that they get so much more and better detail out of that smaller size than bethesda does out of their high res texture pack.

 

[saintstryfe]

Wow me with consistent, clean graphics with good frame rates at reasonable system settings. Then impress me with simple, clear controls and the options I want. Then don't parcel the game out to me with "Season Passes", let me pay for it and enjoy it, and let DLC just be either a large expansion to the game, or cosmetic if I want it.

 

[jasonelmore]

We haven't reached the ultimate graphic fidelity yet. Just wait until you see large scale ray tracing Lighting, similar to what you see in Pixar movies, but multiply that by 100.

Lighting is where it's at. Textures make it look good, but lighting is what makes it look real and amazing.

 

[gio2vanni86]

They still have a long ways to go in terms of photo realistic graphics. But i don't care what a developer from crytek thinks. He doesn't drive the GPU market, Nvidia and AMD do. Only they can deliver the hardware its up to the developers to utilize it. And i have yet to see a game fully utilize a games potential for graphics. Were getting there but theres a lot of room to improve. Gameplay is important but honestly graphics drive us to buy new parts to play at 4k or whatever Res we play at it. To each his own. But its the truth, indie games are great, but any PC can run them and i'm never impressed.

 

[tristanx]

If you ask me, I'd take gameplay over just graphics any day. Any game with addictive gameplay with decent graphics will glue the user. Also, character design also affects it.

 

[ohim]

The problem is in polygons and how GPUs render .... of course you guys could make a difference between a Lara Croft of 80 polygons and a Lara Croft of 10.000 polygons or 30.000 one ... but there is a point where even if they 100.000 polygons you won`t see the difference and say the graphics are the same. There was a tech around youtube few years ago about rendering with individual pixels and thus making unlimited detail...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00gAbgBu8R4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AvCxa9Y9NU

 

[NightLight]

i'd rather be wowed with a game you can't finish in 4 hours, and there is only one possible way to go. Farcry is a good example, just give the player freedom. Doom was so succesfull because it was a puzzle shooter. Better story and gameplay please!

 

[ohim]

i'd rather be wowed with a game you can't finish in 4 hours, and there is only one possible way to go. Farcry is a good example, just give the player freedom. Doom was so succesfull because it was a puzzle shooter. Better story and gameplay please!

Let`s not forget removing all the "disabled mind" things in games like "Press Jump to Jump, move your mouse to Look around, you don`t know what do to next? Well follow the big glowing arrow and finish the game like a zombie"

 

[tolham]

i have this argument with my brother all the time and i'm honestly sick of it, some how even after i explained it to him 10 times over, he still doesn't understand ui scaling and how all the benefit of sub 48 inch 4k is lost for general purpose computing, or how gpus aren't going to magically be able to handle 4k in 4 years. we got to the point where single gpus can just barely push 1080p maxed at 60fps, and somehow he thinks going to 4k is doable off a single gpu at 60+fps right now... god i hate this conversation with people who dont get it.

actually, umm, you're the one who doesn't get it. you apparently don't understand where technology is at and where it's going. we're not "just barely" pushing 1080 @ 60fps, we're pushing 1080 @ 120hz with a single GPU. we can already game at 4k with SLI (hell, tomshardware even wrote an article about it a year ago), and you can bet the farm we'll have a single GPU that can drive 4k gaming in the next 2 years. I don't think you've been following the news for the last couple years.

 

[fcabanski]

Oh no, you mean you might have to focus on game play? To me, all shooters are alike. They look different - some better and some worse - but they're all very much the same monotonous action.

 

[shahrooz]

games are kind of an art IMO. art does not need to be realistic to be good

 

[remosito]

Crytek:

How about you WOW me with kickass Oculus Rift support. As well as VR input device (Leap, Hydra, Stem, prioVR) support and easy integration.

 

[demonhorde665]

really where things are with graphics I think devs need to stop trying to push graphics further and just try to maximize resources with the graphics they can achieve. What I mean by that is they need to explore ways to make games look as good as they do currently while being less demanding on hardware. IE they need to work on optimizing from the ground up. DX 12 seems to be a great step in that direction as well as AMD Mantle API (both are going to give devs direct access to the hardware layer as opposed to running through the API/OS itself). what they need to obassically is stream line code to be more effective maybe even come up with an entirely new code language just for that purpose. I think as we push into the future streamlining code itself will be key especially in light of the ever growing mobile market thanks to tablet PC's

 

[Novuake]

All aboard the VRAM hype train, choo choo...

Such BS, much wow...

 

[red77star]

A reason is that Microsoft didn't really came up with anything innovative since DirectX 9 because they are being busy developing dumb shit console called XBOX.

 

[Novuake]

A reason is that Microsoft didn't really came up with anything innovative since DirectX 9 because they are being busy developing dumb shit console called XBOX.

Typical opinion based on ignorence. No offence meant, just the truth.

 

[cptnjarhead]

There are so many other ways to push games forward besides graphics.
Better AI, bigger levels, better physics and so on. Most of these fall into “playability” not eye candy.
Take Liberty City in GTA 4, imagine if you could go into all the building?, or having the NPC’s exist in the game world as part of the city, with AI that was unique to each NPC, instead of popping in and out of the map doing repetitive scripted events. The replay factor alone would be huge.