Valve Reportedly Working on Source 2 Engine

[aggroboy]

[citation][nom]aftcomet[/nom]I'll face giant backlash for this, but in MY opinion I don't get the fuss over Half-life. I find it really overrated. I loved Portal/2 but HL1/2/e were major "mehs" for me. Are they bad games? Not at all. But they're not nearly as amazing as people make them out to be.At least that's how I feel.[/citation]
HL2 wasn't that gamechanging for me either. But TF2, Portal and L4D really blew me away.

Seeing the massive backlash Blizzard received for a long-delayed D3, Valve should just make a quick HL3 before fan expectations balloon into Duke Forever levels.

 

[Guest]

@aftcomet So you listed ALL console games. While they are good games, your point is now moot

 

[maigo]

[citation][nom]dalethepcman[/nom]now if they would actually release info on HL3...[/citation]
They've always kept HL games secret. That's how they roll.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]aftcomet[/nom]I'll face giant backlash for this, but in MY opinion I don't get the fuss over Half-life. I find it really overrated. I loved Portal/2 but HL1/2/e were major "mehs" for me. Are they bad games? Not at all. But they're not nearly as amazing as people make them out to be.At least that's how I feel.[/citation]

ill agree with you, but i want to note that i played halflife FAR after initial launch because my pc wasn't good enough at the time, and dropping 1000$+ for gaming isn't something i would ever see as an option, and at the time it would have been close to a 1000$ upgrade from what i had.

halflife 2 played with physics, and wasn't a corridor shooter, and mix that with the fact it was the best looking game ever made at the time of release, while requiring FAR less hardware than doom 3.

but lets say halflife came out... now, the same everything. would it be that special still?
im leaning toward no.
and lets forget that it had physics and made the gravity gun popular, because physics would happen regardless of halflife, and the gravity gun is obvious addition to a game if you have physics.

game play, its not a mindless fps. thats rare and commendable.
but the the status that the game reached... i just cant see it...

now take into account that when i played half life 2 was when it first came out, but i got no less than 2 hours into the game, not even to the gravity gun yet, when i ran into game breaking glitches... apparently i was invisible, nothing could see me or interact with me. and i restarted the game 3 times, and the glitch happened at random. i never finished half life 2 on the pc because of that, bu did on the 360 when the orange box came out... so that may skew my view of the game quite a bit.

[citation][nom]BigMack70[/nom]This just means you didn't play Half Life when it was originally released. It was a major game changer for the FPS genre. Hasn't aged well though IMO.Half Life 2 was an excellent game. It's not nearly as good as many praise it to be (e.g. best or one of the best ever) but it was very good.[/citation]

i can see half life changing how a fps was made... kind of... if i had to think of it, its kind of like goldeneye if every stage you went to was connected to the last one, and without the re spawning enemies.

[citation][nom]leongrado[/nom]Frankly, I don't play Valve games for graphics. I've been playing Counter Strike Source for years and the graphics are extremely outdated compared to modern games. It's just a fun game though so it doesn't matter. Half Life 2 had good graphics for it's time but even playing it now, you don't notice the outdated graphics because the game emphasized environment and immersion without having anything that looked extremely realistic.[/citation]

actually you dont notice the graphics being old, because even by todays standards, the graphics arent bad. we hit a graphical plateau a while ago, where if you double or even quadrupedal the polly count, no one can see the difference. its all about how the world works now, and making the physics believable than real world simulations, (believable requires far less than real world simulation, and for the most part, no one will be able to tell the difference)

im getting off on a tangent there

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]actually you dont notice the graphics being old, because even by todays standards, the graphics arent bad. we hit a graphical plateau a while ago, where if you double or even quadrupedal the polly count, no one can see the difference. its all about how the world works now, and making the physics believable than real world simulations, (believable requires far less than real world simulation, and for the most part, no one will be able to tell the difference) im getting off on a tangent there[/citation]

Um.. no... We have not reached a graphical plateau. We are far from that, upgrade resolution of textures 4x, increase polygon count by 4x and you will see a major difference in image quality supposing you have hardware that can keep a solid 60+ FPS with that quality. Download Fakefactory's Cinematic Mod 11, it's a 12GB download, but he has recreated HL2, Episode 1, and Episode 2, remaking all models, increasing resolution of all textures, and even redesigning all levels so that it has modern day HD-like graphics. Another example is the difference between Napoleon Total War and Shogun 2 Total War, one year difference between releases, but quadruple the image quality. There is a lot that can be done to increase quality of graphics in games, just that developers have hit a console plateau in management, where console level graphics is 'good enough' and little effort is spent on packaging an ultra mode with original model and texture assets, and the laziness to improve level design.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]Um.. no... We have not reached a graphical plateau. We are far from that, upgrade resolution of textures 4x, increase polygon count by 4x and you will see a major difference in image quality supposing you have hardware that can keep a solid 60+ FPS with that quality. Download Fakefactory's Cinematic Mod 11, it's a 12GB download, but he has recreated HL2, Episode 1, and Episode 2, remaking all models, increasing resolution of all textures, and even redesigning all levels so that it has modern day HD-like graphics. Another example is the difference between Napoleon Total War and Shogun 2 Total War, one year difference between releases, but quadruple the image quality. There is a lot that can be done to increase quality of graphics in games, just that developers have hit a console plateau in management, where console level graphics is 'good enough' and little effort is spent on packaging an ultra mode with original model and texture assets, and the laziness to improve level design.[/citation]

http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/32/files2/77368_1.jpg

thats an image i found of it.
also found a video comparing them.

notice i said noting about textures in my comment... looking at the witcher 2, we are also getting close to a wall with reasonable texture sizes too. but lets put that aside.

there are mods in the cinematic version that effect how lighting works and how it tints things, so i cant make an accurate comparison, but if you took that change in the way lighting works, i would have a hard time telling which is which.

i notice the glareing flaws more than i notice anything else, the first 2 videos, the train area
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVSkr9UBAU4&feature=related
i notice the water surface in both, but its a sore thumb in the cinematic version that i cant ignore like i can in the original.

there is a reason why we are trying to go toward tessellation, we wont notice 2 or 4 times the poly count, but we sure as hell notice 20-50 times.

also. look at metal gear solid 4 for a texture example. there are a few areas that stick out as being poor, but from what i remember, they give you a zoom button daring you to find flaws in how its presented.

once we get 2gb as a standard size ram in video cards, and not just a higher end cards, than we will see textures hit the same plateau that polys hit years ago. and as for comparing the textures lets look at this.

origional half life requirements (recomended) .
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128 MB or ATi Radeon X800 128 MB
Intel Pentium 4 2 GHz or AMD Processor
1 GB of RAM
4.6 GB of free hard disk space

lets see what their requirements are.
from size to download it all, i'm assuming at least 5gb additional space.
a DX9 capable graphics card with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)
at least 3 GB RAM
a fast dual-core processor or better

now 5 and up require 64 bit, so im assuming the ram requirement is far higher than 3gb by now
1gb gpu recommended, so lets assume that's unnecessary, and lets also assume that a quad core is almost required.

does the game now look 8 times better than it did before (128mb into 1gb for math that way)
because to me... it doesn't.

thats the meaning of the graphical plateau, the hardware required to get to the next noticeable step is many times greater than what is currently required.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]http://screenshots.filesnetwork.co [...] 7368_1.jpgthats an image i found of it. also found a video comparing them. notice i said noting about textures in my comment... looking at the witcher 2, we are also getting close to a wall with reasonable texture sizes too. but lets put that aside.there are mods in the cinematic version that effect how lighting works and how it tints things, so i cant make an accurate comparison, but if you took that change in the way lighting works, i would have a hard time telling which is which. i notice the glareing flaws more than i notice anything else, the first 2 videos, the train areahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS [...] re=relatedi notice the water surface in both, but its a sore thumb in the cinematic version that i cant ignore like i can in the original.there is a reason why we are trying to go toward tessellation, we wont notice 2 or 4 times the poly count, but we sure as hell notice 20-50 times.also. look at metal gear solid 4 for a texture example. there are a few areas that stick out as being poor, but from what i remember, they give you a zoom button daring you to find flaws in how its presented.once we get 2gb as a standard size ram in video cards, and not just a higher end cards, than we will see textures hit the same plateau that polys hit years ago. and as for comparing the textures lets look at this.origional half life requirements (recomended) . NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128 MB or ATi Radeon X800 128 MBIntel Pentium 4 2 GHz or AMD Processor1 GB of RAM4.6 GB of free hard disk spacelets see what their requirements are.from size to download it all, i'm assuming at least 5gb additional space. a DX9 capable graphics card with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)at least 3 GB RAMa fast dual-core processor or betternow 5 and up require 64 bit, so im assuming the ram requirement is far higher than 3gb by now1gb gpu recommended, so lets assume that's unnecessary, and lets also assume that a quad core is almost required. does the game now look 8 times better than it did before (128mb into 1gb for math that way)because to me... it doesn't.thats the meaning of the graphical plateau, the hardware required to get to the next noticeable step is many times greater than what is currently required.[/citation]

Lighting is part of the graphical quality equation, so your argument against the enhanced lighting is moot. Also, stop looking at YouTube videos of an older version, and stop looking at YouTube videos when trying to compare graphics (I know for fact that you lose over 90% of texture quality due to Youtube bitrate compression as compared to actually playing it).

Most graphics cards do have 2GB of VRAM, if you don't have a GPU with 2GB or more, then you are either PC gaming is not your forte, or you do some seriously extreme budgeting with your hardware upgrades. When we are talking about graphics here, at least get some modern graphics hardware.

No, that is not what tessellation is for, it doesn't give 50x more polygons (realistically it only gives 4-8x more), the purpose of tessellation is to smooth objects and add minute detail to near-camera objects, but it does not improve the quality of the model itself.

Yes, the game looks far 8 times better than it did before, because unlike you.... I've actually played it on my 1920x1200 res monitor, and you? Youtube video? Rofl.

There is no graphical plateau, you would realize this if you had been keeping up with graphical enhancements over the last 5 years. I've owned every major AAA game released over the last two decades, with graphics card updates every year to stay on top of the game. There are plenty of console ports, and many indie games actually look better than a lot of AAA games, Valve always demonstrates how much you can improve graphics with just a bit faster hardware, compare HL2, with the original HL2 engine, the old ugly Source engine, to Portal 2. See the specs for both, that's a major increase in texture detail, lighting, model quality, level design, etc. In much the same way as Cinematic Mod proves, anyone who thinks there is a graphical plateau is insane. If you make a game look 2x better, it WILL look 2x better, the difference is huge. We aren't talking cheap console ports where some parts are improve but the overall picture is the same, ugly, washed out mess.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]http://screenshots.filesnetwork.co [...] 7368_1.jpgthats an image i found of it. also found a video comparing them. notice i said noting about textures in my comment... looking at the witcher 2, we are also getting close to a wall with reasonable texture sizes too. but lets put that aside.there are mods in the cinematic version that effect how lighting works and how it tints things, so i cant make an accurate comparison, but if you took that change in the way lighting works, i would have a hard time telling which is which. i notice the glareing flaws more than i notice anything else, the first 2 videos, the train areahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS [...] re=relatedi notice the water surface in both, but its a sore thumb in the cinematic version that i cant ignore like i can in the original.there is a reason why we are trying to go toward tessellation, we wont notice 2 or 4 times the poly count, but we sure as hell notice 20-50 times.also. look at metal gear solid 4 for a texture example. there are a few areas that stick out as being poor, but from what i remember, they give you a zoom button daring you to find flaws in how its presented.once we get 2gb as a standard size ram in video cards, and not just a higher end cards, than we will see textures hit the same plateau that polys hit years ago. and as for comparing the textures lets look at this.origional half life requirements (recomended) . NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128 MB or ATi Radeon X800 128 MBIntel Pentium 4 2 GHz or AMD Processor1 GB of RAM4.6 GB of free hard disk spacelets see what their requirements are.from size to download it all, i'm assuming at least 5gb additional space. a DX9 capable graphics card with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)at least 3 GB RAMa fast dual-core processor or betternow 5 and up require 64 bit, so im assuming the ram requirement is far higher than 3gb by now1gb gpu recommended, so lets assume that's unnecessary, and lets also assume that a quad core is almost required. does the game now look 8 times better than it did before (128mb into 1gb for math that way)because to me... it doesn't.thats the meaning of the graphical plateau, the hardware required to get to the next noticeable step is many times greater than what is currently required.[/citation]

List one game with graphics high enough that any extra polygons would barely improve detail, that textures are about to hit a plateau. Trust me, I can find major flaws in every single game that could be fixed with slightly faster hardware Shogun 2 demonstrated how they could take the same hardware Napoleon used, and enhance it 4x higher, higher resolution textures, higher polygon counts, graphics engine redone, better lighting/shadows, improved animation quality, DX11. The differences? Gigantic.

Actual in-game screenshots from myself:

Napoleon:
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1153172334305780068/66845B7B3DF6E38E1B59F9102C1D476CDA21B1BF/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/1153172334305804081/30834A35921BEA103A58C52085C4C7914DE55C53/

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/1153172334305844361/68087A5213615C01622A21D1F4D6B4D7E5ADD977/


Shogun 2
http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/651000615238619461/2AD249BA146E70C381CD62397428B3BB547EBB8D/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/651000615238444575/274808BB5FD40D0909B4BF45723C8BEEAA8FC341/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/595811297753845706/C87E8D0014985BC545D0D15C8CE3D4301A3F30C7/

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/595811297754292415/0DA20E131380E24CE35B3E45D8D03980D3A7DD56/

Napoleon Requirements:
Processor: 2.6 GHz Dual Core CPU
Memory: 2 GB RAM (XP), 4 GB RAM (Vista®/Windows® 7)
Graphics: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0c shader model 3 compatible GPU (Realistically Radeon HD 5800/HD6900 for maximum framerates)

Shogun 2 Requirements:
Processor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 processor (or greater), or AMD equivalent
Memory: 2GB RAM (XP), 4GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series graphics card or equivalent DirectX 11 compatible card (Realistically 3GB HD 7900 for maximum framerates)

There is simply no contest. Not only can you see an insane amount of 2D sprites in Napoleon in DX9, with the same hardware running Shogun 2 we no longer have 2D sprites and insanely more detailed landscapes/units with better lighting, and ironically, higher framerate. It doesn't use tessellation for anything other than tessellating distant terrain (where it is harder to see texture warp due to tessellation), one of the major features tessellation is for.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]http://screenshots.filesnetwork.co [...] 7368_1.jpgthats an image i found of it. also found a video comparing them. notice i said noting about textures in my comment... looking at the witcher 2, we are also getting close to a wall with reasonable texture sizes too. but lets put that aside.there are mods in the cinematic version that effect how lighting works and how it tints things, so i cant make an accurate comparison, but if you took that change in the way lighting works, i would have a hard time telling which is which. i notice the glareing flaws more than i notice anything else, the first 2 videos, the train areahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVS [...] re=relatedi notice the water surface in both, but its a sore thumb in the cinematic version that i cant ignore like i can in the original.there is a reason why we are trying to go toward tessellation, we wont notice 2 or 4 times the poly count, but we sure as hell notice 20-50 times.also. look at metal gear solid 4 for a texture example. there are a few areas that stick out as being poor, but from what i remember, they give you a zoom button daring you to find flaws in how its presented.once we get 2gb as a standard size ram in video cards, and not just a higher end cards, than we will see textures hit the same plateau that polys hit years ago. and as for comparing the textures lets look at this.origional half life requirements (recomended) . NVIDIA GeForce 6800 128 MB or ATi Radeon X800 128 MBIntel Pentium 4 2 GHz or AMD Processor1 GB of RAM4.6 GB of free hard disk spacelets see what their requirements are.from size to download it all, i'm assuming at least 5gb additional space. a DX9 capable graphics card with minimum 512 MB VRAM. (1 GB recommended)at least 3 GB RAMa fast dual-core processor or betternow 5 and up require 64 bit, so im assuming the ram requirement is far higher than 3gb by now1gb gpu recommended, so lets assume that's unnecessary, and lets also assume that a quad core is almost required. does the game now look 8 times better than it did before (128mb into 1gb for math that way)because to me... it doesn't.thats the meaning of the graphical plateau, the hardware required to get to the next noticeable step is many times greater than what is currently required.[/citation]

To lay down even more on you, because you seem to have problems Googling.

http://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_11/comparisons/cm_11_13.jpg
http://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_11/comparisons/cm_11_12.jpg
http://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_11/comparisons/cm_11_11.jpg
http://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_11/comparisons/cm_11_14.jpg

More here

http://cinematicmod.com/cinematic_mod_11.php

Yeah, better luck next time.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

Can't wait

The Source engine has been the backbone for a while now.

 

[Brogan]

[nom]tlm man[/nom]from what I've played of Portal 2 so far, it really feels like a shameless sellout[/citation]
Clearly then you have not even gotten past the first few sequences... P2 is just as amazing, both puzzle wise and story wise, as the original title.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]Lighting is part of the graphical quality equation, so your argument against the enhanced lighting is moot. Also, stop looking at YouTube videos of an older version, and stop looking at YouTube videos when trying to compare graphics (I know for fact that you lose over 90% of texture quality due to Youtube bitrate compression as compared to actually playing it).Most graphics cards do have 2GB of VRAM, if you don't have a GPU with 2GB or more, then you are either PC gaming is not your forte, or you do some seriously extreme budgeting with your hardware upgrades. When we are talking about graphics here, at least get some modern graphics hardware.No, that is not what tessellation is for, it doesn't give 50x more polygons (realistically it only gives 4-8x more), the purpose of tessellation is to smooth objects and add minute detail to near-camera objects, but it does not improve the quality of the model itself.Yes, the game looks far 8 times better than it did before, because unlike you.... I've actually played it on my 1920x1200 res monitor, and you? Youtube video? Rofl.There is no graphical plateau, you would realize this if you had been keeping up with graphical enhancements over the last 5 years. I've owned every major AAA game released over the last two decades, with graphics card updates every year to stay on top of the game. There are plenty of console ports, and many indie games actually look better than a lot of AAA games, Valve always demonstrates how much you can improve graphics with just a bit faster hardware, compare HL2, with the original HL2 engine, the old ugly Source engine, to Portal 2. See the specs for both, that's a major increase in texture detail, lighting, model quality, level design, etc. In much the same way as Cinematic Mod proves, anyone who thinks there is a graphical plateau is insane. If you make a game look 2x better, it WILL look 2x better, the difference is huge. We aren't talking cheap console ports where some parts are improve but the overall picture is the same, ugly, washed out mess.[/citation]

i call spending 3-400 $ on a gpu a high end card, there are the 600 and 1000$ cards, but those are stupidly high end, beyond any reasonable need. the mid range cards are still stuck with 1gb, i think in nvidias case may be up to 1.5gb, not sure, and very tired so i dont want to do digging.

point me to the comparison than, that shows off half life 2, and that mod, and does a decent job, because the one that i found is filled with bloom, and makes any quality improvement that the mod gives and makes it look like hell. and the other one that shows off a fight, is filled with fog, and again, looks like hell.

and to me, the mod 11, just tries to make alex look sexier and over all, meh... i cant call it an improvement, though i need detailed comparison to really tell you...

and as for lighting... what i mean is how everything looks, look at it. its not even using the same color pallet anymore. so its hard to make a good comparison... but lets go into lighting a bit.

you can fake a shadow, which takes very little, or you can make it dynamic which takes a hell of allot, for roughly the same effect. lets take a building, if in the game, the sun doesnt move, there isnt a day night cycle that you can witness if you stand still, do you make the shadow dynamic, or fake it? answer is you fake it... why? because making it dynamic, even if it doesn't move, that's a crap ton to processing power.

i don't have half life on my computer right now, and not enough space to install it and the cinematic mod to real look at it, so all i get is youtube video or pictures. and what the mod looks like it does is adds a crap ton of unessassary lighting effects for the soul reason of covering areas they think look bad. the fog... im guessing that was added so you dont see how plane the ground is, a few other effects like particle things falling, just because they thouht it looked good. again, show me the vanilla hl2 to cmhl2 comparisons.

do you really understand how tessellation works? in a video game sense?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQQpCd_vvGU
its older, but it shows you exactly how wrong you are. tessellation takes detail away from far objects and gives you more detail to close ones, with a full world. instead of characters that are only 50 or 100k models, you can use the full million polly model that they pull the bump mapping from

---i was replying to the first comment, before i saw the other one that did have half life 2 comparisons -----

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]List one game with graphics high enough that any extra polygons would barely improve detail, that textures are about to hit a plateau. Trust me, I can find major flaws in every single game that could be fixed with slightly faster hardware Shogun 2 demonstrated how they could take the same hardware Napoleon used, and enhance it 4x higher, higher resolution textures, higher polygon counts, graphics engine redone, better lighting/shadows, improved animation quality, DX11. The differences? Gigantic.Actual in-game screenshots from myself:Napoleon:http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] CDA21B1BF/http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] 14DE55C53/http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/ [...] 7E5ADD977/Shogun 2http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] B547EBB8D/http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] EAA8FC341/http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] 01A3F30C7/http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ug [...] 0D3A7DD56/Napoleon Requirementsrocessor: 2.6 GHz Dual Core CPUMemory: 2 GB RAM (XP), 4 GB RAM (Vista®/Windows® 7)Graphics: 256 MB DirectX® 9.0c shader model 3 compatible GPU (Realistically Radeon HD 5800/HD6900 for maximum framerates)Shogun 2 Requirementsrocessor: 2nd Generation Intel Core i5 processor (or greater), or AMD equivalentMemory: 2GB RAM (XP), 4GB RAM (Vista / Windows7)Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 5000 and 6000 series graphics card or equivalent DirectX 11 compatible card (Realistically 3GB HD 7900 for maximum framerates)There is simply no contest. Not only can you see an insane amount of 2D sprites in Napoleon in DX9, with the same hardware running Shogun 2 we no longer have 2D sprites and insanely more detailed landscapes/units with better lighting, and ironically, higher framerate. It doesn't use tessellation for anything other than tessellating distant terrain (where it is harder to see texture warp due to tessellation), one of the major features tessellation is for.[/citation]

screenshots don't to that game justice, because i just don't see the major difference from them. watching the two side by side, i see very little difference between them. but i do see a significant jump in hardware requirements for very little obvious improvement. you would have to point it out to me for me to see it, and even than, in game play would i realistically notice it, and think doubling the cost of the hardware to run the game would be worth it?

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]To lay down even more on you, because you seem to have problems Googling.http://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_ [...] _11_13.jpghttp://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_ [...] _11_12.jpghttp://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_ [...] _11_11.jpghttp://cinematicmod.com/images/cm_ [...] _11_14.jpgMore herehttp://cinematicmod.com/cinematic_mod_11.phpYeah, better luck next time.[/citation]


lets take the first and last one, and the middle one and look at them separate

the middle ones, if you just told me it was half life 2, i wouldn't think anything of it, i wouldn't even notice that its modded.

now the first and last ones, those i would notice a bit, but really, i forgot that halflife 2 and rubble blobs, the right side of the last image half life no cm.

most of the improvement that i see there, is backgrounds. the skyline, and its not close enough to

now, on that cm page i found the comparisons, and all that sticks out to me an abuse of bloom, and it looks like hell to me, no mater how much detail they add, the lense flares and bloom kill many of those scenes for me. but the last page, i see an improvement in smoke, at least i hope thats smoke and not fog... point being, you sit me down with any random piece from that, and i don't notice it much, yea, side by side, i can see there are changes. but nothing is like crysis on low to crysis on ultimate.

now lets bring this into the discussion.

ps3 game, resistance 1 and resistance 2.
resistance 2 actually doubled the poly count on screen and on enemies from game 1 to game 2, and the only reason people know, is because they were told.

the whole concept of the graphical plateau is this.
it takes a disproportional amount of hardware to make a graphical change noticeable.
and we hit that point with pollies. would you notice the difference between 4.5 million pollies (i believe what crysis 1 had at max any given scene) and 9 million? the correct answer there is no.
with textures, we are to the point that unless you walk head first into a wall, and scope it, you shouldn't see a bad texture, if you do, and it was build for a 2gb gpu, than its bad game design.

i had to re read the first comment to remember what i was originally talking about.
it originally started with talking about a 2-4x poly count wont be noticeable
how instead of trying to make that number go higher, making the game feel more real is what increases the over all graphics quality
i even have proof that no one notices that small of a jump unless they are specifically told,
you went to a cinematic mod, which im guessing comes closer to a full remake of the game, but ill admit im bias because of my disdain for bloom.

and while writing this, i was reminded of serious sam, the original ones, not the remake, they did something with their bad textures. if you got close to a wall or anything, a new texture would over lay itself onto it and give it more detail, hiding poor over all textures... even though that game is 11 years old, it hides its texture quality so well, i think that over all they look better than some of today's games textures.

ill end it here, as again im tired, and think im going of on a tangent again.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i call spending 3-400 $ on a gpu a high end card, there are the 600 and 1000$ cards, but those are stupidly high end, beyond any reasonable need. the mid range cards are still stuck with 1gb, i think in nvidias case may be up to 1.5gb, not sure, and very tired so i dont want to do digging. point me to the comparison than, that shows off half life 2, and that mod, and does a decent job, because the one that i found is filled with bloom, and makes any quality improvement that the mod gives and makes it look like hell. and the other one that shows off a fight, is filled with fog, and again, looks like hell. and to me, the mod 11, just tries to make alex look sexier and over all, meh... i cant call it an improvement, though i need detailed comparison to really tell you...and as for lighting... what i mean is how everything looks, look at it. its not even using the same color pallet anymore. so its hard to make a good comparison... but lets go into lighting a bit. you can fake a shadow, which takes very little, or you can make it dynamic which takes a hell of allot, for roughly the same effect. lets take a building, if in the game, the sun doesnt move, there isnt a day night cycle that you can witness if you stand still, do you make the shadow dynamic, or fake it? answer is you fake it... why? because making it dynamic, even if it doesn't move, that's a crap ton to processing power.i don't have half life on my computer right now, and not enough space to install it and the cinematic mod to real look at it, so all i get is youtube video or pictures. and what the mod looks like it does is adds a crap ton of unessassary lighting effects for the soul reason of covering areas they think look bad. the fog... im guessing that was added so you dont see how plane the ground is, a few other effects like particle things falling, just because they thouht it looked good. again, show me the vanilla hl2 to cmhl2 comparisons. do you really understand how tessellation works? in a video game sense?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQQpCd_vvGUits older, but it shows you exactly how wrong you are. tessellation takes detail away from far objects and gives you more detail to close ones, with a full world. instead of characters that are only 50 or 100k models, you can use the full million polly model that they pull the bump mapping from---i was replying to the first comment, before i saw the other one that did have half life 2 comparisons -----screenshots don't to that game justice, because i just don't see the major difference from them. watching the two side by side, i see very little difference between them. but i do see a significant jump in hardware requirements for very little obvious improvement. you would have to point it out to me for me to see it, and even than, in game play would i realistically notice it, and think doubling the cost of the hardware to run the game would be worth it?lets take the first and last one, and the middle one and look at them separatethe middle ones, if you just told me it was half life 2, i wouldn't think anything of it, i wouldn't even notice that its modded.now the first and last ones, those i would notice a bit, but really, i forgot that halflife 2 and rubble blobs, the right side of the last image half life no cm. most of the improvement that i see there, is backgrounds. the skyline, and its not close enough tonow, on that cm page i found the comparisons, and all that sticks out to me an abuse of bloom, and it looks like hell to me, no mater how much detail they add, the lense flares and bloom kill many of those scenes for me. but the last page, i see an improvement in smoke, at least i hope thats smoke and not fog... point being, you sit me down with any random piece from that, and i don't notice it much, yea, side by side, i can see there are changes. but nothing is like crysis on low to crysis on ultimate. now lets bring this into the discussion. ps3 game, resistance 1 and resistance 2. resistance 2 actually doubled the poly count on screen and on enemies from game 1 to game 2, and the only reason people know, is because they were told. the whole concept of the graphical plateau is this. it takes a disproportional amount of hardware to make a graphical change noticeable.and we hit that point with pollies. would you notice the difference between 4.5 million pollies (i believe what crysis 1 had at max any given scene) and 9 million? the correct answer there is no. with textures, we are to the point that unless you walk head first into a wall, and scope it, you shouldn't see a bad texture, if you do, and it was build for a 2gb gpu, than its bad game design. i had to re read the first comment to remember what i was originally talking about. it originally started with talking about a 2-4x poly count wont be noticeablehow instead of trying to make that number go higher, making the game feel more real is what increases the over all graphics qualityi even have proof that no one notices that small of a jump unless they are specifically told,you went to a cinematic mod, which im guessing comes closer to a full remake of the game, but ill admit im bias because of my disdain for bloom. and while writing this, i was reminded of serious sam, the original ones, not the remake, they did something with their bad textures. if you got close to a wall or anything, a new texture would over lay itself onto it and give it more detail, hiding poor over all textures... even though that game is 11 years old, it hides its texture quality so well, i think that over all they look better than some of today's games textures.ill end it here, as again im tired, and think im going of on a tangent again.[/citation]

Then dont talk about it without first playing it (and no, there are about 12 models for each character and you get to pick which HD model you want to use or not use), and buy a better, higher resolution monitor, sounds like you have a 4:3 640x480 CRT rofl.

Don't talk about console games on a hardware/PC gaming site please, consoles are already breeding people like you who think we have reached a graphical plateau.

Crysis 1 looks worse than Cinematic Mod, on many levels. No, crysis was nowhere near that amount of triangles, its actually quite low on triangle count, not to mention a gigantic lack of content, ugly buildings, lack of buildings, level design was OK for the island, just that there wasnt a single good architectural structure anywhere, if you doubled the triangle count and used those triangles to make structures, there would be significant improvement to image quality. And yes, I would notice if there is double the amount of triangles, I certainly noticed it in Shogun 2, Metro 2033, Fakefactory Cinematic Mod, Battlefield 3, which still has garbage textures from consolitis and more effort should have been put into level designing actual buildings.

With textures, we already have washed out garbage all over the screen, literally, I can count each individual PIXEL in a texture with my 1920x1200 monitor in almost every game, especially console ports. Scoping into a wall has little to do with it, their is the pure fact that textures beyond 10 feet look like pure garbage.

I don't think you understand what VRAM in a GPU does, let me enlighten you. VRAM in a GPU is designed to hold onto texture assets as well as the image being rendered by the GPU to send to the monitor. The higher resolution your screen the more VRAM you need, and if you need lots of VRAM for textures there is a good reason for that, there is no such thing as wasted VRAM. There is a significant advantage in quadrupling texture assets, and I don't mean some rushed garbage patch like Crysis 2 or Skyrim got. I mean pure textures, Shogun 2 and Metro 2033.

If you want real proof, learn how to 3D model, make a simple 3D animation with high polygon models, make an entire scene, now double the polygon count. Take one of HL2s models, now double the polygon count, huge difference, double it again and you get an even bigger difference, but dont forget you need to make the scenery around you, even distant scenery, look just as good.

Serious Sam 3 BFE works perfectly fine, it looks amazing, there is nothing wrong with textures. If you think the original Serious Sams have better textures than todays game textures, you serious need some help with your eyes. I have the classics, and the HD remakes as well, they look like utter garbage, and at my resolution, thats multiplying garbage by ten times so it looks even more garbage.

Also, your knowledge on tessellation is wrong. Your video is wrong, it doesnt work that way. There is no such thing as how it works in a games sense. Tessellation would NEVER reduce quality. Tessellation is the product of a texture map, similar to a bumpmap, with parameters in the games executable, which can be override by your graphics card control panel, it simply beats the flat model to scale with the texture associated with it, to sort of give it a crude method of adding detail. If designed properly, you would have varying levels of tessellation, depending on how close or how far the model is, though not many developers in this console port era want to spend a day tweaking parameters. When you get closer to a tessellated model it simply pops out, but you have to watch because the textures do get warped around, and can look like crap. Tessellation is mainly only useful for creating finite details such as little rocks in the ground, detailed walls (dont tessellate them too much or it looks like garbage). Distant terrain can be greatly enhanced by tessellation as well, the original demo of tessellation from AMD showed distant mountains look amazing, as does Shogun 2 demonstrate that distant terrain, and the campaign map are great enhanced by tesellation, because it is able to add lots of finite detail quickly. Tessellation is not, however, a replacement to real modeling, and should never be. You may use it for scars and other little details, but everything should be properly modeled first or it looks like pure garbage.

I have a Radeon HD 7950 3GB VRAM GPU, and trust me, I can see these things REALLY quick. Graphics look like garbage today, its always looked garbage, each year graphics look twice as better on PC than the last year, though its getting hard to find PC titles that remain true to PC upgrades, most everything is poorly optimized console ports. Total War is one of the only true PC games that keeps up with advances, and Rome 2 Total War is bringing even more fantastic graphics next year. And really, if you are a gamer, you can afford to spend 200$ to buy yourself a decent 2GB HD 7850, but any real gamer would at least drop 300$ for a 3GB HD 7950. The GPU should always be the most expensive component in your system.

 

[eddieroolz]

About frigging time.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]Then dont talk about it without first playing it (and no, there are about 12 models for each character and you get to pick which HD model you want to use or not use), and buy a better, higher resolution monitor, sounds like you have a 4:3 640x480 CRT rofl.Don't talk about console games on a hardware/PC gaming site please, consoles are already breeding people like you who think we have reached a graphical plateau.Crysis 1 looks worse than Cinematic Mod, on many levels. No, crysis was nowhere near that amount of triangles, its actually quite low on triangle count, not to mention a gigantic lack of content, ugly buildings, lack of buildings, level design was OK for the island, just that there wasnt a single good architectural structure anywhere, if you doubled the triangle count and used those triangles to make structures, there would be significant improvement to image quality. And yes, I would notice if there is double the amount of triangles, I certainly noticed it in Shogun 2, Metro 2033, Fakefactory Cinematic Mod, Battlefield 3, which still has garbage textures from consolitis and more effort should have been put into level designing actual buildings.With textures, we already have washed out garbage all over the screen, literally, I can count each individual PIXEL in a texture with my 1920x1200 monitor in almost every game, especially console ports. Scoping into a wall has little to do with it, their is the pure fact that textures beyond 10 feet look like pure garbage.I don't think you understand what VRAM in a GPU does, let me enlighten you. VRAM in a GPU is designed to hold onto texture assets as well as the image being rendered by the GPU to send to the monitor. The higher resolution your screen the more VRAM you need, and if you need lots of VRAM for textures there is a good reason for that, there is no such thing as wasted VRAM. There is a significant advantage in quadrupling texture assets, and I don't mean some rushed garbage patch like Crysis 2 or Skyrim got. I mean pure textures, Shogun 2 and Metro 2033.If you want real proof, learn how to 3D model, make a simple 3D animation with high polygon models, make an entire scene, now double the polygon count. Take one of HL2s models, now double the polygon count, huge difference, double it again and you get an even bigger difference, but dont forget you need to make the scenery around you, even distant scenery, look just as good.Serious Sam 3 BFE works perfectly fine, it looks amazing, there is nothing wrong with textures. If you think the original Serious Sams have better textures than todays game textures, you serious need some help with your eyes. I have the classics, and the HD remakes as well, they look like utter garbage, and at my resolution, thats multiplying garbage by ten times so it looks even more garbage.Also, your knowledge on tessellation is wrong. Your video is wrong, it doesnt work that way. There is no such thing as how it works in a games sense. Tessellation would NEVER reduce quality. Tessellation is the product of a texture map, similar to a bumpmap, with parameters in the games executable, which can be override by your graphics card control panel, it simply beats the flat model to scale with the texture associated with it, to sort of give it a crude method of adding detail. If designed properly, you would have varying levels of tessellation, depending on how close or how far the model is, though not many developers in this console port era want to spend a day tweaking parameters. When you get closer to a tessellated model it simply pops out, but you have to watch because the textures do get warped around, and can look like crap. Tessellation is mainly only useful for creating finite details such as little rocks in the ground, detailed walls (dont tessellate them too much or it looks like garbage). Distant terrain can be greatly enhanced by tessellation as well, the original demo of tessellation from AMD showed distant mountains look amazing, as does Shogun 2 demonstrate that distant terrain, and the campaign map are great enhanced by tesellation, because it is able to add lots of finite detail quickly. Tessellation is not, however, a replacement to real modeling, and should never be. You may use it for scars and other little details, but everything should be properly modeled first or it looks like pure garbage.I have a Radeon HD 7950 3GB VRAM GPU, and trust me, I can see these things REALLY quick. Graphics look like garbage today, its always looked garbage, each year graphics look twice as better on PC than the last year, though its getting hard to find PC titles that remain true to PC upgrades, most everything is poorly optimized console ports. Total War is one of the only true PC games that keeps up with advances, and Rome 2 Total War is bringing even more fantastic graphics next year. And really, if you are a gamer, you can afford to spend 200$ to buy yourself a decent 2GB HD 7850, but any real gamer would at least drop 300$ for a 3GB HD 7950. The GPU should always be the most expensive component in your system.[/citation]

1920x1200, and play all my games at 1920x1200, 1920x1080 if i play windowed.

and bringing up the consoles, where we have a clear, same game franchise, and they come out and TELL US they doubled the Polly count, that happened on consoles where you have a 500k polly limit about, not even close to what the pc can do and you still have to be specifically told that they doubled.

with battle field 3 and the textures, im going to assume thats not from the consoles, but the fact that you have such a big landscape and to avoid loading more textures, they cut back on them.

i bring up that serious sam had a good method to deal with textures, its 300mb, and ill assume you still have it on disc or on steam, try installing it and running to a wall to refresh yourself on what i'm talking about because you dont remember.

now with doubling the model on a 3d program, yea i can see the difference, to a degree.
now lets again go to a console game, uncharted. i'm going there because i cant think of a pc only game that would fit this well... well... probably witcher... but i cant find a number for that. now lets look at this another way with that. drake was modeled in game for 80000 polies, at least that's what i'm reading. you want to double that, i am doubting i would even notice the difference, when things are very detailed, adding more detail is hard to see.

now you want to put tessellation on it, and tie the model to the version they made for bump mapping (1mill to 1 mill poly count) than yes, i would see that increase.

now i showed you that video, that showed you the base model for the structure, and the close you get the more detail it adds, thats what tessellation will be used for soon, its not now because consoles are holding it back because they cant do that. but the moment they can, you will see it in every game, and not just for small things that most people will never notice, like how it was used in deus ex.

so you know, im done with the conversation, you are either missing what im saying, or stupidly ignoring it outright for some unknown reason.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]1920x1200, and play all my games at 1920x1200, 1920x1080 if i play windowed. and bringing up the consoles, where we have a clear, same game franchise, and they come out and TELL US they doubled the Polly count, that happened on consoles where you have a 500k polly limit about, not even close to what the pc can do and you still have to be specifically told that they doubled. with battle field 3 and the textures, im going to assume thats not from the consoles, but the fact that you have such a big landscape and to avoid loading more textures, they cut back on them.i bring up that serious sam had a good method to deal with textures, its 300mb, and ill assume you still have it on disc or on steam, try installing it and running to a wall to refresh yourself on what i'm talking about because you dont remember.now with doubling the model on a 3d program, yea i can see the difference, to a degree. now lets again go to a console game, uncharted. i'm going there because i cant think of a pc only game that would fit this well... well... probably witcher... but i cant find a number for that. now lets look at this another way with that. drake was modeled in game for 80000 polies, at least that's what i'm reading. you want to double that, i am doubting i would even notice the difference, when things are very detailed, adding more detail is hard to see. now you want to put tessellation on it, and tie the model to the version they made for bump mapping (1mill to 1 mill poly count) than yes, i would see that increase. now i showed you that video, that showed you the base model for the structure, and the close you get the more detail it adds, thats what tessellation will be used for soon, its not now because consoles are holding it back because they cant do that. but the moment they can, you will see it in every game, and not just for small things that most people will never notice, like how it was used in deus ex.so you know, im done with the conversation, you are either missing what im saying, or stupidly ignoring it outright for some unknown reason.[/citation]

Just because a developer states they doubled the triangle count does not mean it's possible, there is a strict limit to what a GPU can do, and no amount of software tricks can improve that. If they have doubled the triangle count somewhere, that means they have removed triangles somewhere else (making scenes/map smaller).

Battlefield 3 just looks really washed out, textures and triangle count are too low for comfort.

Serious Sam 3 doesn't have any problems with textures, maybe your GPU is crap.

Adding more detail is never hard to see, there is a significant portion of screenspace that is still rendered with very low quality polygons, or lack thereof, be that increasing triangle count of objects 10+ feet away, or adding finer detail to objects closer, a combination of both yields a massive increase in IQ.

Deus EX HR barely used tessellation, only for characters. It didn't use it in all the cases that would bring a significant change to IQ.

The problem isn't that I'm ignoring it, the problem is you just don't comprehend anything.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]mmstick[/nom]Just because a developer states they doubled the triangle count does not mean it's possible, there is a strict limit to what a GPU can do, and no amount of software tricks can improve that. If they have doubled the triangle count somewhere, that means they have removed triangles somewhere else (making scenes/map smaller).Battlefield 3 just looks really washed out, textures and triangle count are too low for comfort.Serious Sam 3 doesn't have any problems with textures, maybe your GPU is crap.Adding more detail is never hard to see, there is a significant portion of screenspace that is still rendered with very low quality polygons, or lack thereof, be that increasing triangle count of objects 10+ feet away, or adding finer detail to objects closer, a combination of both yields a massive increase in IQ.Deus EX HR barely used tessellation, only for characters. It didn't use it in all the cases that would bring a significant change to IQ.The problem isn't that I'm ignoring it, the problem is you just don't comprehend anything.[/citation]

i said i was done before, but i want to point out the paint cans in deus ex, that is where you can see the tessellation, because without it they made the paint cans 5 pollies for some unknown reason. but the fact that it was used more for characters than anything else explains the low distance tessellation works in.

what that im done.

 

[mmstick]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i said i was done before, but i want to point out the paint cans in deus ex, that is where you can see the tessellation, because without it they made the paint cans 5 pollies for some unknown reason. but the fact that it was used more for characters than anything else explains the low distance tessellation works in.what that im done.[/citation]
And despite using tessellation on characters, they still look really low poly, the tessellation is used for adding finite detail such as scars and rounding out the blockiness of the character models, but it still manages to still look really blocky. There are many ways one can improve IQ besides just textures and triangles. GPUs today do far more than that, getting into advanced stages of lighting, see the new Crysis 3 Tech demonstration, and physics calculations are extremely important, and I'm not talking about PhysX crap. Characters will soon have all clothes rendered with cloth, the GPU will do all cloth physics, and with the inclusion of realistic forms of lighting, we will see yet another drastic increase in IQ. It doesn't take 50x more hardware to do this.