No one buys games for graphics.

[Belfaborac]

That's pretty much my take too. A friend of mine is extolling the virtues of Dwarf Fortress, but I can't for the life of me....

 

[Ruru]

Actually I did. I wanted to see how much better Crysis Remastered looks than the original.

 

[MarsM4N]

No one buys games for graphics. But nice graphics sell games.

I do agree, to have fun with a game game mechanics, game design & content is way more important. Just look at Nintendo games.

 

[Belfaborac]

Thing is: game mechanics that some love, are also game mechanics that others hate.

 

[KLMR]

I think nobody likes to play a game full of polygons, effects and "raytracing" if the game sucks or its full of flaws or incosistent quality.
But you cannot sell gameplay to a suit, they should know how to play. You can sell polygons, effects and raytracing.
Those cards in AGILE are lots of hour-man labour and non-gamer executive love them, because of the trailers.
That also explains why indie games, or small studio games, have better games, because developers play their games. (look at the diablo IV developers playing diablo as an example of not to).

I also think many console players buy games by the promise of graphics. They even think stuff look better on console! And oh 60fps is the future thanks to "next-gen". People actually buy games by graphics, probably more on console than PC. And pay microtransactions.

I love good graphics, good graphic design and coherent artwork on a game. I love well designed "non engine-standard" menus as well.

About raytracing.
The lie about raytracing is that nvidia somehow made people believe that raytraced shadows, raytrached reflections, raytraced shit counts as raytracing, because technicall it is. But that is why raytracing has been a "meh" effect almost noticeable.
And that is why quake 2, or minecraft raytracing look so amazing. Or even the RTGI shader.

 

[caroline!]

I don't mind good graphics when the game is optimised, or 'bad' graphics when the story is nice, but coming up with nonsense bullshit like RTX just to sell more cards and prevent people with older gen hardware from playing the new games is a massive dick move.

Multiplayer games are... nefarious, to say the least. Repetitive grinding, single map or two at most, gacha/P2W mechanics, trolls and highly toxic 'communities'... you can ignore them as I do, you won't be missing on anything great.

There's few new games that are worth it, western AAAs are the new hollywood movies, full of politics and agenda disguised as 'new' elements, overall bad quality when it comes to gameplay, you can tell most of the effort goes into making a game politically correct rather than dev work or stability... look at Starfield. I keep replaying older games or sourcing mods that add new elements.... oh yeah, mods are also 'curated' now, with big commercial modding sites taking over the older communities and hoarding mods, deciding which mods can be published and which are 'controversial' or 'offensive'... so one more thing I gotta do is dive into underground alternative modding sites.

Anyway... I'm playing The Evil Within nowadays, it was free on Epic a few days ago but I already had it so I took the DVD out and installed it, another reason to keep an ODD in my computer... also trying to beat the old Tomb Raider games, never finished any of them. Terrible graphics if you look at them from that angle, but they're good games.

 

[gffermari]

About raytracing.
The lie about raytracing is that nvidia somehow made people believe that raytraced shadows, raytrached reflections, raytraced shit counts as raytracing, because technicall it is. But that is why raytracing has been a "meh" effect almost noticeable.
And that is why quake 2, or minecraft raytracing pathtracing look so amazing. Or even the RTGI shader.

The hybrid RT is still RT. It's better than dead raster with cube maps/SSR etc.
The other is PT. And yes, of course it looks way better than any RT implementation so far.
But we can't have path traced games yet. AMD gpus can't even run hybrid RT games decently.

 

[Vayra86]

You just have to ask the specific questions:

Do I buy games specifically for graphics? No.
Are games with basic graphics necessarily boring? No.
Is it true that advanced graphics make a game more enjoyable? It depends.
Is it true that a few games require advanced graphics to be fully enjoyable? Yes!
Do you enjoy games with advanced graphics? Hell yes!
Do you like games that depend on such advanced graphics to fully flesh themselves out? YES.
Is it true that the average gamer considers graphical fidelity a generational marker? And the answer to that is absolutely.

The reason this generation feels "underwhelming" is that system requirements are about to shoot up to insane heights due to the use of ray and path tracing, very high resolution textures and general assets (which are increasingly unique with more and more variety), advanced positional audio, etc. - all the while simultaneously, in real life we're in an economic rut with people unwilling to spend money to throw hardware at the problem; all the while game developers got really good at mastering the traditional raster-based techniques make games look more than reasonably realistic, they look pretty much amazing as it is. This presents an ugly development reality, because a LOT of time and resources are spent to make games look this good with traditional technology.

Add all of that to the fact that desktop panels have not really advanced in resolution in the past 10 years whatsoever and the bulk majority of displays is still 1080p/Full HD standard with a few 1440p's at the higher end, and there's just no point in software developed with UHD/4K and beyond in mind, leading to this illusion that things haven't really advanced despite the increase in requirements.

Enter Alan Wake 2, the game that's triggering all this discussion. It gave the boot to the ancient Nvidia Maxwell and Pascal GPUs as well as AMD's underqualified RDNA 1 hardware and is requesting DX12 Ultimate, people seem to be upset by it dropping downlevel hardware but you have to remember, Nvidia's Turing is 6 years old and already offered DX12U support from day one. The upper settings aren't supported on AMD because again, it's making extensive use of raytracing which their hardware and/or drivers is simply balls at. This conflicts with "gamer pride" and "latest generation cards must always run ultra high settings". End of the day, yes, the problem is you, the gamer, and not "optimization". Is asking for a RTX 2060 6 years later really too much? IMHO, no, it is not.

But that's just how I personally see things.

Didn't get around to reading this one. But damn, I agree. Especially on the notion that to play new stuff, you have to upgrade from time to time. Its just a fact of life.

At the same time though, the games actually coming out with the new and heavyweight tech aren't really jaw droppers. So what gives? Is the gamer the problem, or is the technology actually just not ready? And also, where is the actual GAME with the technology? Its not Alan Wake 2. It could do what it does in raster just fine, or am I wrong?

 

[oxrufiioxo]

The hybrid RT is still RT. It's better than dead raster with cube maps/SSR etc.
The other is PT. And yes, of course it looks way better than any RT implementation so far.
But we can't have path traced games yet. AMD gpus can't even run hybrid RT games decently.

It's still going to be a long transition before PT is in every game or even most games probably 2-3 generations especially with AMD so behind at it and 8000 series being a mid range only generation isn't going to help.

We probably need a 4090 level card at $300 before more developers take it serious and the $5-600 cards need to be at least double a 4090. With how much the midrange has stagnated this generation not holding my breath. Probably also need consoles somewhat capable of it at least on Alan Wake/CP2077 level at reasonable performance.....

I am looking forward to HL2 RTX though cuz of the graphics for what it is worth. Will it be a better game than the original, no. Will it be an impressive fun way to revisit a classic, I sure hope so.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

AS Creed Origin from 2017 runs at 0.750mv with the 7900 XT underclocked to 2ghz and power limited to 190w at just above 4K (2560x1440 native + 40% internal res) at 60 FPS with better visuals than most modern games. A massively open game too...

People like to call games "Ubisoft optimized" yet when it comes down to it, they did release games very well optimized...

Unlocking the card to 2x the power limit will literally let the game run at 165hz pegged at 1440P the entire time with it at native res (0% added resolution)

Vid is processing.

So three times the GPU horse power, new games don't show it off.

I still can't get my head around people defending Turn 10 and their absolutely abysmal performance for what is just a racing game LOL.




They did an amazing job on the TH games, I run them on my 1080P 240hz screen no dips, they even feel like they used to, awesome remasters.

Still the only recent game with visuals that are noticeably better require a loan to own the hardware, own a mortgage or be born rich.
Cyberpunk PT + 4090.

So.... What now?

 

[caroline!]

Cyberpunk 2.0 has fixed a ton of performance issues, I know we called it Bugpunk and all but it's not *that* bad now. That or I'm not super bitchy about graphics and don't care the settings are in medium and no clowntracing, using a 5700XT after all. No OC and undervolted a bit, don't need the extra heat for 1 more FPS heh

 

[AsRock]

I'll never play games that look like minecraft.....

Cycle repeats, games got more complex then they seem to of gotten more simple again ( in a sense ).

Some just lost their soul just to look better and forgot what actually made them so much fun.

Cannot say consoles have helped PC games, seems like they got more dumb down some over the years.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

 

[Harthad]

Also, I feel like games already achieved photorealism years ago in some extent, so I don't feel the need to look for better graphics. It's even evolving backwards in some cases.
All I want is fun, more depth, more content, and a vibrant soul.
We can piss on Blizzard all we want and not call it rain, but hey, IMHO Wow classic is the pinnacle of what I just said.
Skyrim without ENB's and mods wasn't that good looking too, although It kept us busy for quite a long time. I didn't even finish it ( stones of barenziah ... )

 

[Kapone33]

I have an example that will add some context. Let's look at Total War. If you try to play TW Rome today the men look wooden but that is not it. It is the Campaign map and tiles that define TW. When Rome 2 launched one of the biggest gripes was the Unit tiles and sure enough Attila had some of the best Unit tiles and Building Pics ever. Now we have Warhammer and the building tiles are nowhere as nice as Attila but the Campaign Map is beautiful to make you forget it. Then let's look at Battles between Warhammer and Pharaoh. The Units in TWWH are so varied and detailed that the Cutscenes add inspiration to play the Character (Orion). I have not played Pharaoh but it looks just like Troy and that Game is not as beautiful in Battle as a Unit of Dragon Princes in TWWH. Of course Kingdoms was absolutely beautiful but not as nice as Shogun 2. That Game has arguably the most beautiful tiles in any TW. I should know I have over 2000 hrs in that Game as I have said before TW is my kryptonite.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

"Oh boy. No Alan Wake 2? Hope people will survive this."

 

[vacsati]

Not me, I love good graphics. I hate pixie graphics. Only "non-graphics" game I like is Factorio.

Lucky you. You can watch 4k gameplay videos, dont even need to buy the game.

 

[Belfaborac]

That makes no sense. Surely watching a 4K gameplay video should only make one want to buy a game even more?

 

[Deleted member 234997]

That makes no sense. Surely watching a 4K gameplay video should only make one want to buy a game even more?

Never been the case in adulthood.
Actually I can remember 1 time where visuals moved me.

Resident Evil remake in a gaming magazine back in like 2002 or so when I was like 13 years old. Oh right not an adult.

This looked unimaginably ahead of anything else out there even XBOX & PC games.

Resident Evil

Close the curtains, crank up the sound and bolt the door - evil is about to take residence inside your Nintendo GameCube.

www.nintendo.co.uk

 

[neatfeatguy]

Actually I did. I wanted to see how much better Crysis Remastered looks than the original.

What did you think, it looks better? I don't have the remastered version, but going by a video comparison I thought the remaster looked mostly the same and in some instances worse and again in some instance better.

I recently (about 8 months back) played through Crysis again - still a fun game and still looks good in my opinion. I then played Crysis: Warhead, never played it before, but found it just as much fun as Crysis.

As for the topic, I don't buy for graphics. I buy game that looks interesting for gameplay and story all while hoping that controls are good, too. Graphics, while they can make things look purdy, are not a reason for why I buy a game. I find the recent path tracing to games to be laughable and downright unnecessary. Some people will clearly swear by it, like they do DLSS because they think the game is now better with it enabled, but that's all just a matter of opinion.

I've been enjoying some Dungeon Siege: Legend of Aranna. Sure, it's not flashy in the graphics department, but the game is still fun to play. I'd much rather play that game over something that even makes top end hardware these days cry. I don't need super duper fancy graphics, in fact I used to play games around medium settings back in my GTX 570 SLI days when playing at 5700x1080 days. I liked putting graphics down to enjoy the ultrawide resolution over playing games maxed out on a single 1080p monitor back then.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Never been the case in adulthood.
Actually I can remember 1 time where visuals moved me.

Resident Evil remake in a gaming magazine back in like 2002 or so when I was like 13 years old. Oh right not an adult.

This looked unimaginably ahead of anything else out there even XBOX & PC games.

Resident Evil

Close the curtains, crank up the sound and bolt the door - evil is about to take residence inside your Nintendo GameCube.

www.nintendo.co.uk

Age makes a huge difference when I was 13 I thought super mario 64 looked amazing


in 2002 when the RE remake came out I thought it was meh due to the pre rendered backgrounds character models were ok.

 

[joemama]

Graphics is considered a bonus to most people I believe.
Bad graphics wouldn't stop people from buying or playing, though it could bring some bad reviews.

 

[Belfaborac]

Never been the case in adulthood.
Actually I can remember 1 time where visuals moved me.

OK, makes no sense to me then. I've salivated (figuratively) over over any number of games, though I can't really swear to the resolution of the videos. Even well after the age of 13, but then you're obviously way more mature than I.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

OK, makes no sense to me then. I've salivated (figuratively) over over any number of games, though I can't really swear to the resolution of the videos. Even well after the age of 13, but then you're obviously way more mature than I.

I am not going to chalk it up to maturity, It's nice to have some pizazz from visuals, I think for me it is much more personal.
It links to attraction, a human element, visually some people are guided by visuals far far more than others.
Although I find some attractive women sexy, I also find generally any woman sexy if she ticks the boxes my mind and heart want, she only needs to do the basics of health and self care.

This also translates into my tastes of video games and heck even movies.

I went nose first into this self discovery after the death of my first woman at age 23 so you could say I faced heavy things that I had to get over faster than some, sure, but maturing? It was innate, it revealed to me what truly matters.
The mind has to process a heavy thing, the loss, and so it calls forth a revelation in self understanding.

It wipes away the mysteriousness, you have been given reality and so you make reality of who you really are, not the romantic version.


It's not that I am better than you, we are just fundamentally unique people.

 

[Belfaborac]

Although I find some attractive women sexy, I also find generally any woman sexy if she ticks the boxes my mind and heart want, she only needs to do the basics of health and self care.

That's nice and all, except that there's most likely little to no correlation between one's penchants for nice graphics and one's taste in women. I can say this with some slight confidence because I love me some fab graphics, but subscribe totally to your view on the fairer sex.

So yes, we're unique. All of us, for better or (mostly, on the 'net) worse. Hence there's no "this is how it is!" with two thick lines beneath, it's all just a dirty muddle.