Is a game's graphical quality important to you?

[Tatty_Two]

I voted yes but up to a point, I agree that gameplay is more important, as for re-mastered games, yes I think we are seeing more but in some cases they seem to be precursors to new releases (likely to rejuvenate interest), examples are Witcher 3 Next Gen and Mass Effect Legendary edition, probably a few others that I am less interested in too.

 

[pavle]

Other, as in: Graphics are important, however they should be as they were when the game came out, with original high/est settings chosen. No remakes and lipstick on the pig.

 

[Flogger23m]

It does for me. Of course I can go back and play some old games occasionally. But those tend to be games I have played many times over the years. Playing at 12 year or so old game for the first time the poor graphics do make it harder to get into. But sometimes I still enjoy them.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

I see it as a bit of both, I do like high IQ high quality game's.

But remaking old ones is semi pointless to me ,I won't play through it again just because the shadows are different.

But IQ doesn't make every game either, I can enjoy a game for the games sake.

 

[maxfly]

Yes, its a VIDEO game!
hahaha
If it doesn't do everything a good game requires...at every level, it isn't worth playing.
I want it all. There's no reason why we should settle for half assed graphics in any but the lowest budget games.
Demand more. Eventually you get more.

 

[Vario]

Yes, its a VIDEO game!
hahaha
If it doesn't do everything a good game requires...at every level, it isn't worth playing.
I want it all. There's no reason why we should settle for half assed graphics in any but the lowest budget games.
Demand more. Eventually you get more.

Seen enough games where the graphics deliver but the game play doesn't.

 

[sam_86314]

I find that a consistent and interesting art style is much more important in most cases.

I especially like when an art style is used to mask technical limitations; such is the case with a game like Breath of the Wild.

Stylized visuals tend to age better than realistic ones. To me, a perfect example of this is the original Paper Mario for N64. I feel this game's heavy stylization helps its visuals hold up much better than other N64 games.

But of course, visuals are only one aspect that can affect the quality of a game. A game can look "realer than reality", but if its story and gameplay are shit, the visuals aren't going to save it. Similarly, a game with "bad" visuals can be more than made up for by other qualities like gameplay or story.

 

[Shihab]

Aesthetic quality is important. Depending on the game, graphical quality can be a major part of it. In those cases, yes, graphical quality is important.
Gets more complicated once you factor in how generic a term "graphics" is. Some aspects (e.g. render resolution) are always important, others (e.g. RT reflections) are rarely important.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

I'm in a very, very small percentage of gamers. I'm playing games that I missed playing from the 1990's through the mid 2000s for now.

It's not about graphics with me and it never has been. It's about fun.

Absolutely QFT.

Graphical fidelity is like the cherry on top of a multi-level cake built with layers of jam in between layers sponge cake. If all those layers taste disgusting and leaves a really rancid after taste in the mouth. The cherry on top will do very little to change the opinion of the cake after consumption.

I dont mind if some games are a little cartoony. but if youre going to take a game that tried to have really realistic graphics like ARMA for example and turned it into borderlands or Saints Row. I'd be mad about it too. And i played a lot of TF2, Borderlands 2, Saints Row 2 and quite a few rather cartoony games back in the day.

At least Call Of Duty has looked exactly the same for the last 15years so Activision obviously know what they are doing in that department.

 

[evernessince]

Graphics presentation is more important than graphics quality. Having higher resolution graphics or some RTX effects won't help a game that looks bland or uninspired.

Doesn't matter how great a game's graphics are when AI is still laughably bad. Good audio design is often overlooked but is extremely important. Many games have taken a step back in regards to interactivity to boot. Who didn't like picking up a crab in Crysis and beating people to death with it. All the buildings and objects were interactive in that game. Skip forward to today and both the crysis and battlefield franchise's newer games feel much less real than the older titles. Slightly prettier graphics won't change that.

 

[maxfly]

Seen enough games where the graphics deliver but the game play doesn't.

Haven't we all. Point being, If devs can't deliver a game that is entertaining and fun to play on all levels, my time is far to valuable to waste on it. I simply move on to the next game on the list and that list is looong. I'm not one to suffer in silence so I spread the word to my friends, so they don't step in it. They do the same and we all filter through the trash for each other. Saving time.
At some point the lazy devs and companies will start listening... We want it all, not console scraps. Until then my standards remain the same. Lazy companies get no play. Simple.

 

[Hofnaerrchen]

Going with "other". I think there still is much room for optimization.

 

[ShiBDiB]

More a stickler on graphical style than graphical quality. Like I can't get into JRPG's because of the overall styling of those games.

 

[aShqrk]

For me bc I keep using iGPU (yes I’m dumb) I will most likely use lowest settings

 

[R-T-B]

So Super Mario Bros 3 would be a better game if it had photorealistic graphics?

God no. Those poor goombas...

Relevant photo:

 

[wolf]

Games are meant to be played for fun (that's why they are games).

We'll they're a specific subset of games called video games, you can play a near limitless amount of 'games' that are not video games where graphics aren't even a factor whatsoever (board games, sports and so on) , so it's easy to see why the visuals, one way or another (realism, stylised, etc), are worthy of consideration at an individual level.

As this interesting thread shows, there's quite the spread of how much they matter to people, but they all need to display something or they wouldn't be a video game at all.

 

[QuietBob]

"Incredible/photorealistic" graphics has never been the most important part of a game for me. I've never bought a title only because it was hyped to have "next-gen" graphics. I may be tempted to try one based solely on its visual appeal, but it's got to do with the general style or art direction, not the graphics being "awesome". Likewise, I may be put off a game and never play it, if I don't find the esthetics agreeable.

I feel it's important for a game's visual presentation to be consistent and unique, rather than "pretty". While I play every modern game in maximum detail, I can have just as much fun with a 1990s DOS title in glorious 320x200, or enjoy even earlier 1980s titles from the 8-bit era.

We ought to remember that each game is a product of its time, limited by the contemporary technology, development tools and prevalent trends. We should appreciate them for what they are and judge them in their historical context. Comparing an old game created by a small team to a modern AAA title in terms of graphics and design choices is very narrow minded. And mocking older titles for being an "unplayable eyesore" is extremely childish.

 

[Chrispy_]

"It depends"

IMO, seeking photorealism is what developers and AMD/Nvidia are pushing for, but it's diminishing returns that has to pass through uncanny valley first.

My Steam Replay 2022 has 29 games in it. 19 of those games are pushing graphics engines as hard as they could for the year they were made and the other 10 are clearly stylized graphics that focus on a polished experience where graphics are good enough and the rest of the effort was put into gameplay:

Deep Rock Galactic
Factorio
Hades
Gloomhaven
Into the Breach
FTL
Risk of Rain 2
Gris
Far: Lone Sails
The Outer Wilds

The only game to date that has actually achieved photorealism was Lego: Builder's Journey RTX. Those were two very impressive hours to look at, and I'm not sure the game itself was good enough to hold my attention, were it not for the novelty of realism. I'm fairly certain that as more games achieve this realism, that novelty will wear off.

 

[dgianstefani]

Newer cards bring with them hardware support for easier creation of high quality graphics, as do newer game engines such as UE 5.x.

Obviously whether a game is fun or not is more important than graphics, but graphics are clearly important to most people. The barrier to good graphics has been budget and developer time/skill, but with technologies such as RT, RTX Remix, open resource libraries when using certain engines etc. much of the difficulty factor has been removed to implement good graphics. Therefore we're heading more and more towards having good graphics being the default, and developers having to intentionally choose gimped or low quality graphics for artistic or design reasons, or to support ancient or weak hardware like what is used in the Nintendo Switch. This is great in my opinion as it allows for smaller game studios and even individuals to create fantastically detailed game and virtual worlds on limited budgets.

It's a shame that people don't really appreciate the effect implementing global illumination, AI and RT technology into hardware and games makes. "oh a top tier baked lighting solution is barely distinguishable from low end RT, so what's the point" the point is that the top tier baked lighting solution is only likely to come from a AAA game studio who spent 1000s of developer hours achieving that.

Photorealism or high quality styled graphics as the default is what we're heading towards, and that's a good thing. Shifting away from being limited by hardware/software/developer hours in graphics to being limited by creative design and inspiration is obviously beneficial for everyone involved in games, the people who play them and the people who create them.

For those who like to talk about how games don't need good graphics - take a look at a comparison video between Minecraft and Minecraft RTX. It's like going high refresh rate - games feel dead and non-immersive once you get used to newer tech and higher fidelity.

 

[AsRock]

Resolution was only a thing when i started using PC's which was early 90's, i was more than happy with the TV and playing flight sims and such on units like the ZX Spectrum with 3-4 triangles representing a mountain haha.

Then late on it pissed me off that Blizzard took 20+ years ( Diablo 2 ) to add higher resolutions than 800x640.

1080P i am pretty dam happy if the games looks at least some what good, currently playing though the Assassin's Creed again but now able to run them at 4k which actually makes them visually bearable but totally playable with my old ass 390X. Although Assassin's Creed has many flaws these days to me still been fun and think UBI have some thing there they could remake if they could be assed to do it right.

In the end it has to have a good story as well, or at the very least a reason worth playing for which is why me and my wife keep going back to 7 days to die as they keep changing it and there are some crazy good mods out there for it.

.

Up to a point, but all of the games I keep playing are not being played for graphical presentation, but the game itself. If graphics help immersion, theyre fine. If they break it, by trying too much especially, I find myself trimming down graphics options. In DX9 days the first and biggest offender was Bloom. Fcking annoying, oversaturated blobs of light over assets.

In DX11, I kill vignetting, motion blur, and in some cases chromatic abberation. Stuff I want maxed is texturing, geometry/lod, draw distance, and lighting/shadows. Im apparently not the biggest fan of post processing nonsense. Make me real, detailed assets and design things nicely, rather.

Because of this I can also run lots of stuff at high IQ on older GPUs. The basics are never that heavy to run. The extra bs is where your FPS plummets and overall a lot of it can be missed. With DX12 I find it harder to trim down like this. Effects are more refined, help the scenes in their atmosphere a lot, esp due to volumetric effects and reflections.

But all of this is really just a bonus, on top of a solid game. If the game is not good, graphics will never save it.

Yes i turn a lot of that crap off too although i do like my draw distance .

 

[Vayra86]

Newer cards bring with them hardware support for easier creation of high quality graphics, as do newer game engines such as UE 5.x.

Obviously whether a game is fun or not is more important than graphics, but graphics are clearly important to most people. The barrier to good graphics has been budget and developer time/skill, but with technologies such as RT, RTX Remix, open resource libraries when using certain engines etc. much of the difficulty factor has been removed to implement good graphics. Therefore we're heading more and more towards having good graphics being the default, and developers having to intentionally choose gimped or low quality graphics for artistic or design reasons, or to support ancient or weak hardware like what is used in the Nintendo Switch. This is great in my opinion as it allows for smaller game studios and even individuals to create fantastically detailed game and virtual worlds on limited budgets.

It's a shame that people don't really appreciate the effect implementing global illumination, AI and RT technology into hardware and games makes. "oh a top tier baked lighting solution is barely distinguishable from low end RT, so what's the point" the point is that the top tier baked lighting solution is only likely to come from a AAA game studio who spent 1000s of developer hours achieving that.

Photorealism or high quality styled graphics as the default is what we're heading towards, and that's a good thing. Shifting away from being limited by hardware/software/developer hours in graphics to being limited by creative design and inspiration is obviously beneficial for everyone involved in games, the people who play them and the people who create them.

For those who like to talk about how games don't need good graphics - take a look at a comparison video between Minecraft and Minecraft RTX. It's like going high refresh rate - games feel dead and non-immersive once you get used to newer tech and higher fidelity.

So, where are all those indie studios giving us beautiful GI in games? Minecraft isn't exactly a little guy

Convince me. Because Minecraft really just has shitty lighting in the base game, obviously an RT pass is going to have an impact there. They could have also just implemented a few dynamic light sources and shadowing.

And at the same time, a game like Valheim, managed to do that just fine without RT. It has atmosphere up to the moon. And if you ever designed a few levels in Unreal Tourney, you also knew how to work with lighting to get the mood going. This isn't rocket science just because you might not realize it. I remember quite a few in-game editors where all of this was under your fingertips. On a potato PC.

being limited by creative design and inspiration is obviously beneficial for everyone involved in games

Oh is it? I find games with limitations a hundred times more memorable than a screen plastered full of post effects. Limitations breed creativity, and creativity breeds originality. Automated 'design' is a construct for fast-food products. Less is quite often more, and requiring talent to design a game, is a pro, not a con.

Of course, removing limitations in game design is a good thing in general, but its a mistake to think this can replace a talented dev and creative team.
Or that it somehow saves anyone money or effort.

 

[dgianstefani]

So, where are all those indie studios giving us beautiful GI in games? Minecraft isn't exactly a little guy

Convince me. Because Minecraft really just has shitty lighting in the base game, obviously an RT pass is going to have an impact there. They could have also just implemented a few dynamic light sources and shadowing.

And at the same time, a game like Valheim, managed to do that just fine without RT. It has atmosphere up to the moon. And if you ever designed a few levels in Unreal Tourney, you also knew how to work with lighting to get the mood going. This isn't rocket science just because you might not realize it. I remember quite a few in-game editors where all of this was under your fingertips. On a potato PC.

Unreal engine has RT as default now and big and small studios are switching to it from Unity/In house engines etc. UE4 is still more common than UE5, this doesn't mean UE5 isn't going to become the new standard.

Your argument about Minecraft doesn't make much sense, it's almost perfect for RT since it's entirely procedurally/player generated. Baked light sources don't work - hence the shitty lighting. Valheim would also be an excellent candidate for RT if they didn't use the unoptimized mess that is Unity, and you can see the result in the typically poor framerates once you get to building complex structures for a game of it's basic fidelity - atmosphere aside. You seem to be conflating an argument I'm not making "RT is necessary for an atmospheric or successful game" and using that as some kind of logic to determine that RT is bad? It's pretty easy to build an internal combustion car too and relies on time tested knowledge, but electric cars are still what the market is moving to.

Most developers target the lowest common denominator which even now is the PS4/XBO and not PS5/XSX which actually have (weak) RT hardware or PC.

I don't need to convince you - the technology is there and is superior, adoption rates are increasing and will continue to. Even AAA companies like Bethesda for instance make all sorts of crazy engine decisions that don't reflect an appropriate response to reality, looks like Starfield will still be based on an updated x64 version of their Creation engine that's over 10 years old at this point - all to avoid paying for a new engine whether in house or leased. The game looks like crap in the early trailers and I expect they'll pay the price for that shortsightedness in the inevitable jank and loss of immersion. Oh well, at least they can take the Skyrim route of releasing it 17 different times with minor updates.

Indie studios have potential - it's still up to them to use it - the tools exist so they will be used when devs learn how to. You'd be surprised at how many developers will choose to spend hundreds of hours doing things the old way rather than 10 hours learning something new, and 10 hours building things the new way.

Oh is it? I find games with limitations a hundred times more memorable than a screen plastered full of post effects. Limitations breed creativity, and creativity breeds originality. Automated 'design' is a construct for fast-food products. Less is quite often more, and requiring talent to design a game, is a pro, not a con.

Post effects are literally used to cheaply fake the real deal, e.g. Global illumination, physically accurate materials etc. They're imitations designed to cheaply shortcut to an end result. Again you're arguing against a point i'm not making. Limitations do not breed creativity, and concerning yourself with working with what are in essence fake or unnecessarily complicated tools to achieve the image in your minds eye is not a virtue.

Of course, removing limitations in game design is a good thing in general, but its a mistake to think this can replace a talented dev and creative team.
Or that it somehow saves anyone money or effort.

Who suggested it can replace a talented team?

Do construction companies that exclusively use manual labour over things like cranes and power tools make better products as a result? No, they take longer and cost more.

 

[Vayra86]

Who suggested it can replace a talented team?

Do construction companies that exclusively use manual labour over things like cranes and power tools make better products as a result? No, they take longer and cost more.

You did.

"the point is that the top tier baked lighting solution is only likely to come from a AAA game studio who spent 1000s of developer hours achieving that."

This is simply not true. There are metric tons of games that have their lighting done just fine, for the general game to have a fine presentation. Not done by AAA studios. The hours? Sure! The hours are always there. And that's where the real point is at. You're projecting the idea that these new workflows somehow save lots of time and then end up with similar or even better results. But 'better' results aren't defined by having a higher quality lighting pass. They still rely on creative talent - RT or not.

So again, show me the many small studios implementing fancy RT right now. I've not seen a whole lot, myself, but I don't see everything. Until that happens, and we can flick the RT button on/off happily in a large number of games that don't cost 80 bucks, I'm more convinced by the many hundreds of fantastic games produced right now, at a sale price of 20-30 bucks with good graphics.

At the same time I see triple A titles with fancy RT that totally kills performance and is mostly on the chase for maximum shareholder profits with content of questionable nature; forcing high cost of entry and a crapload of MTX in your face for good measure. Until the sequel appears a year later doing the exact same thing and resetting all your invested time and money.

You may not like what you've been looking at for the entire time you were gaming until RT fell down from the skies on your fancy new GPU, but honestly, that's what this is right here. A marketing story for replacing something everyone was very much fine with - hell you have an entire thread full of votes here where a tiny handful wants RT because omg they can't game without anymore.

And comparing to construction companies... you know, that's exactly my point you illustrate right there: I don't want my games to look like interchangeable glass skyscrapers. I don't want them to be efficient samey and built on stock that is interchangeable. While Minecraft is a good example of how RT can transform a game - for the vast majority of other games, that comparison doesn't fly. They can implement lighting proper just fine, and make it very light to run - and being lighter to run means access to a much larger target audience. Which means a game can survive without MTX and a DLC for every extra fart they invent.

 

[dgianstefani]

You did.

"the point is that the top tier baked lighting solution is only likely to come from a AAA game studio who spent 1000s of developer hours achieving that."

This is simply not true. There are metric tons of games that have their lighting done just fine, for the general game to have a fine presentation. Not done by AAA studios. The hours? Sure! The hours are always there. And that's where the real point is at. You're projecting the idea that these new workflows somehow save lots of time and then end up with similar or even better results. But 'better' results aren't defined by having a higher quality lighting pass. They still rely on creative talent - RT or not.

So again, show me the many small studios implementing fancy RT right now. I've not seen a whole lot, myself, but I don't see everything. Until that happens, and we can flick the RT button on/off happily in a large number of games that don't cost 80 bucks, I'm more convinced by the many hundreds of fantastic games produced right now, at a sale price of 20-30 bucks with good graphics.

At the same time I see triple A titles with fancy RT that totally kills performance and is mostly on the chase for maximum shareholder profits with content of questionable nature; forcing high cost of entry and a crapload of MTX in your face for good measure.

You may not like what you've been looking at for the entire time you were gaming until RT fell down from the skies on your fancy new GPU, but honestly, that's what this is right here. A marketing story for replacing something everyone was very much fine with - hell you have an entire thread full of votes here where a tiny handful wants RT because omg they can't game without anymore.

I'm right, you're wrong - there, saved us both some time.

The concept NVIDIA and other companies are pushing currently where there's a "metaverse/omniverse" and devs use different specialist tools concurrently to achieve superior results in less time is based on the principles I'm talking about - AI, RT, Physically accurate materials and rendering, all following simple rules that allow collaboration and ease of use across platforms and software. The games industry is moving closer to the film industry (who have been using RT for decades now, but their product doesn't need to render in real time) in their methods of creation, including things like mocap etc.

This demo was made in something like two weeks IIRC.

 

[Vayra86]

I'm right, you're wrong - there, saved us both some time.

The concept NVIDIA and other companies are pushing currently where there's a "metaverse/omniverse" and devs use different specialist tools concurrently to achieve superior results in less time is based on the principles I'm talking about - AI, RT, Physically accurate materials and rendering, all following simple rules that allow collaboration and ease of use across platforms and software. The games industry is moving closer to the film industry (who have been using RT for decades now, but their product doesn't need to render in real time) in their methods of creation, including things like mocap etc.

This demo was made in something like two weeks IIRC.

Thanks for confirming this is a marketing story indeed, that was quick though, damn.

Metaverse is going well, I hear, too
This is a CEO fantasy world man, don't dive to deep. I'm glad we got to the core of the issue here. This signifies the point I was making.