Will this be the shortest console generation?

[Executor32]

Plus again the money reason for not wanting computer obsolete almost as soon as you open it. For people who have to work for a living, pay bills, buy stuff to shovel down your throat, and tacos, spending up to a grand a year on a new computer is not something most people can or want to do.

And it would hurt PC gaming if only rich ass motherfuckers or children whining until their rich ass mommies and daddies buy them a new puter can play the latest whiz bang graphical failure. One of the benefits of PC gaming is the price. Sure you might have to drop more on a PC to game on then you would a Xboner or Playwithyourselfstation Quadruple but the computer is longer lasting and can be upgraded without buying a whole new system.

You're contradicting yourself here. Since, as you mention in the latter paragraph, your computer can be upgraded without buying a whole new system, why then would you need to spend a grand a year on a new computer? I spent about $1300 on this computer when I built it four years ago, and that was only because I went a bit overkill with it, but it's served me incredibly well. I finally upgraded my video card this year, the only non-storage or peripheral upgrade I've had to make, and it cost me a whopping $350. This should still get me another 3-4 years out of it, barring some massive paradigm shift in processing. That averages out to about $200 a year for this beast, a pittance for the performance and enjoyment I've gotten (and will get) out of it, and hardly the huge drain on my wallet you seem to think it would be.

Oh, and as someone who has to work for a living, who isn't rich by any means, and can't whine to his non-rich-ass mommy and nonexistent daddy to buy him a new 'puter', you need to upgrade your shit box and quit dragging the rest of us down.

[Jub]

Not likely to happen anytime soon, I'm afraid. For one thing technology advanced so quickly in those days mostly because of the intense competition between Intel and AMD. Nowadays AMD offer hardly any competition on the CPU front, so Intel have no reason to push the envelope like they were doing back then. And for another thing, thermal limitations are going to restrict any huge leaps in performance, unless the next generation goes back to having separate CPUs and graphics chips (which, by all indications, would be about second only to Nintendo becoming the only console manufacturer in town as the last thing that developers want).

I know the reasons it won't happen, but I want to see us barrel into those thermal issues and be forced to confront them now rather than years down the line as we're trickle feed very incremental increases because Intel sees no reason to really try. I'd also hate to see GPU's take over for anything aside from budget laptops, even consoles can and should be built with multiple processors and dedicated V-RAM. For desktops I'd much rather be able to upgrade as many bits in small stages as possible between buying totally new systems and a GPU does nothing to help that.

-----

No I'm saying devs should use what they got to their fullest before upgrading to the latest nose hair rendering mega-card of DOOM. Devs shouldn't use stupidily high requirements in place of properly coding their games to run on something that isn't a superduperpoopercomputer.

Switching from dual cores to quadzillamega cores with limited upgrades in the gaming experience and graphics just seems foolish. Take a game like Saints Row 3 compared to 4. There isn't much of a difference between the games in graphics or anything but the 4th game requires a quad core. Or take its earlier iteration Saints Row 2 which came out around the same time as GTA 4 and both had high requirements for their terrible PC ports. GTA 4 was badly coded but on computers that could run it actually looked good. SR2 looked like assified ass with a healthy side helping of ass with terrible draw distances and physics. Some of the requirements were higher for the minimum for SR over GTA Quadruple.

Some devs already do this with very well optimized games, other devs suck and shovel out lazy ports. None of this is new.

Plus again the money reason for not wanting computer obsolete almost as soon as you open it. For people who have to work for a living, pay bills, buy stuff to shovel down your throat, and tacos, spending up to a grand a year on a new computer is not something most people can or want to do.

Too bad for them then, they can stick with older stuff and I'm sure some devs will continue to support them. I want the future now and am willing to set aside money from my modest income for my hobby. Between tax refunds, cash saved by not owning a car, and living in cheaper housing than I could be I get to spend more on what appeals to me.

And it would hurt PC gaming if only rich ass motherfuckers or children whining until their rich ass mommies and daddies buy them a new puter can play the latest whiz bang graphical failure. One of the benefits of PC gaming is the price. Sure you might have to drop more on a PC to game on then you would a Xboner or Playwithyourselfstation Quadruple but the computer is longer lasting and can be upgraded without buying a whole new system.

Yes, because my $36k a year salary is so fucking rich and the current desktop that I bought with a large tax return when I made even less yearly are purchases only those in the upper middle class can afford. Stop being such a woe is me bitch.

[Joun_Lord]

Short CPU cycles to get the latest and greatest in nose hair rendering (as some are advocating though not in those exact words, thems my words, no stealing) means that you have to atleast buy a whole new motherboard, pretty much a new computer, to stay current. Processors types these days are stretched out, the last generation LGA 775 processors lasted awhile and the higher end dual/quad cores of that line are still fine for many people just doing internet junk.

I remember reading that currently computers last an average of about 4 and a half years by cybermanning it and YOU WILL BE UPGRADED it before needing to buy a whole new machine.

And I have bought a new shitbox. But thats what I enjoyed was my last shitbox lasting nearly a decade by tossing in new bits and pieces before finally having to go to a complete new computer.

[Joun_Lord]

No I'm saying devs should use what they got to their fullest before upgrading to the latest nose hair rendering mega-card of DOOM. Devs shouldn't use stupidily high requirements in place of properly coding their games to run on something that isn't a superduperpoopercomputer.

Switching from dual cores to quadzillamega cores with limited upgrades in the gaming experience and graphics just seems foolish. Take a game like Saints Row 3 compared to 4. There isn't much of a difference between the games in graphics or anything but the 4th game requires a quad core. Or take its earlier iteration Saints Row 2 which came out around the same time as GTA 4 and both had high requirements for their terrible PC ports. GTA 4 was badly coded but on computers that could run it actually looked good. SR2 looked like assified ass with a healthy side helping of ass with terrible draw distances and physics. Some of the requirements were higher for the minimum for SR over GTA Quadruple.

Some devs already do this with very well optimized games, other devs suck and shovel out lazy ports. None of this is new.

And I'd like to not give lazy ass devs even more reasons to make shitty unoptimized piles of poo.

Plus again the money reason for not wanting computer obsolete almost as soon as you open it. For people who have to work for a living, pay bills, buy stuff to shovel down your throat, and tacos, spending up to a grand a year on a new computer is not something most people can or want to do.

Too bad for them then, they can stick with older stuff and I'm sure some devs will continue to support them. I want the future now and am willing to set aside money from my modest income for my hobby. Between tax refunds, cash saved by not owning a car, and living in cheaper housing than I could be I get to spend more on what appeals to me.[/quote]

Thats reminds me of the Xbox dude saying the Xbox Circle was for people who want to not be saddled with terribad DRM and being chained to the internet like an abused child to a radiator.

Some devs will continue to support no or low graphics gaming but with the increasing popularity of mobile gaming (for whatever reason) most are moving to that rather then supporting PC gaming. PC gaming atleast for the devs is about reaching the widest audience and making lots and lots and lots of money from that audience by nickel and diming them with shitty horse armor DLC and gas for fake cars. Trying to appeal only to high end PC gamers seems a way to shoot PC gaming in the foot even more then it already has.

And it would hurt PC gaming if only rich ass motherfuckers or children whining until their rich ass mommies and daddies buy them a new puter can play the latest whiz bang graphical failure. One of the benefits of PC gaming is the price. Sure you might have to drop more on a PC to game on then you would a Xboner or Playwithyourselfstation Quadruple but the computer is longer lasting and can be upgraded without buying a whole new system.

Yes, because my $36k a year salary is so fucking rich and the current desktop that I bought with a large tax return when I made even less yearly are purchases only those in the upper middle class can afford. Stop being such a woe is me bitch.[/quote]

You have disposable income the result of making sacrifices. Most people aren't willing to ride the bus or live in some shithole neighborhood just to play Farcrysis 15 on ultra graphics. Though technically I do the same damn thing so I got no reason to bad mouth you with my bad mouth by way of my bad fingers for choosing to take a lifing standard hit to buy shit.

And I shall never stop being woeful. Pity me and know my woe for not having the latest and great hardware! No greater tragedy has ever befallen mankind then I not having the latest tech! This entire epoch shall be marked as the age of my woe over computer woes. Mournful ballads shall be sung and paintings painted to attempt by future artists to capture even a fraction of my glorious and terrible pain. THE PAIN!!!!!!!

[Jub]

And I'd like to not give lazy ass devs even more reasons to make shitty unoptimized piles of poo.

Then don't buy them. That's the only way they won't be made, the hardware or lack there of has nothing to do with it.

Some devs will continue to support no or low graphics gaming but with the increasing popularity of mobile gaming (for whatever reason) most are moving to that rather then supporting PC gaming. PC gaming atleast for the devs is about reaching the widest audience and making lots and lots and lots of money from that audience by nickel and diming them with shitty horse armor DLC and gas for fake cars. Trying to appeal only to high end PC gamers seems a way to shoot PC gaming in the foot even more then it already has.

So games like Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Shovel Knight, Gravity Ghost, Sunless Sea, and Darkest Dungeon, to name a few don't exist on PC now? It seems like loads of devs are jumping on the low requirements band wagon and creating amazing games. I'd just also like to see better hardware allow for the other end of things to continue to advance as well.

You have disposable income the result of making sacrifices. Most people aren't willing to ride the bus or live in some shithole neighborhood just to play Farcrysis 15 on ultra graphics.

Sucks to be them. Plus, I'm in and older building in a great neighborhood so I'm getting the best of both worlds with low rent and great location. I guess for this one case I'm rather happy to say fuck everybody else, I've got mine.

[InsaneTD]

Hell, computers that can run the latest games aren't that expensive anyway. I just got a new pc and it runs every game I have and most of the new triple As I don't want. It cost me AU$300. And that included everything but speakers since I already had good ones.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

I'm still rocking a Q9550 Quad-Core from 2008. I did upgrade the GPU several years ago from a GeForce 9600 GT to 460 GTX, but even that's ancient now and I have yet to encounter a game I can't run at decent settings (which for me means Medium, not Ultra as some would have it) on my monitor's native 1680 x 1050 res. I've resigned myself to the idea that I'll need to upgrade within the next year or two, especially if VR takes off and is everything it's cracked up to be, but I'm holding out for DDR4 so I'm not upgrading to a motherboard dead-end.

That said, I still object to the meme that graphics and gameplay is some kind of either / or. First of all, it's not even the same team members working on each aspect of the game, and second, a large-budget title that's good will typically have great graphics AND great gameplay, and a shitty one will fail at both. The only games that update the graphics and bring nothing new to the gameplay table are yearly titles like sports games, AssCreed, and CoD, but that has everything to do with the power of brand recognition and not some zero-sum graphics-gameplay curve. Good indie games do tend to fall on the side of fun gameplay with primitive graphics, but even there a bad one will typically suck at both, and a good one will at least present its low-tech visuals with a lot of style.

[Purple]

That said, I still object to the meme that graphics and gameplay is some kind of either / or. First of all, it's not even the same team members working on each aspect of the game, and second, a large-budget title that's good will typically have great graphics AND great gameplay, and a shitty one will fail at both.

It's not just about the development budget but the hardware budget. I explained this already. Graphics and gameplay are in constant competition for resources on the computer the game is being played on. Fancy high fidelity graphics eat up a lot of resources which in turn lead to issues such as objects popping out, a bad frame rate or just not being able to simulate the world well because you have to spend too much on the graphics. It's not all about the money.

but even there a bad one will typically suck at both, and a good one will at least present its low-tech visuals with a lot of style.

And that is what we are saying. You do not need super high fidelity high texture megagraphics in order to make for a good visual experience. And the focus on them diverts both development and gameplay resources on things that would be better spent elsewhere.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

That said, I still object to the meme that graphics and gameplay is some kind of either / or. First of all, it's not even the same team members working on each aspect of the game, and second, a large-budget title that's good will typically have great graphics AND great gameplay, and a shitty one will fail at both.

It's not just about the development budget but the hardware budget. I explained this already. Graphics and gameplay are in constant competition for resources on the computer the game is being played on. Fancy high fidelity graphics eat up a lot of resources which in turn lead to issues such as objects popping out, a bad frame rate or just not being able to simulate the world well because you have to spend too much on the graphics. It's not all about the money.

I read your assertion to that effect earlier in the thread, I just don't agree with it. A game like Skyrim or GTA V both pushes the graphical envelope and has huge and intricately detailed world to explore. Being AAA titles, the graphical and world design teams were both given large budgets and lots of manpower. Recent CoD games that have been poorly received have both failed to offer meaningful new gameplay innovations or to look any better than previous games despite higher hardware requirements. I see very little evidence of gameplay suffering due to cutting edge graphics, but rather well and poorly made games that shine or flop both visually and in fun factor among every budget category.

but even there a bad one will typically suck at both, and a good one will at least present its low-tech visuals with a lot of style.

And that is what we are saying. You do not need super high fidelity high texture megagraphics in order to make for a good visual experience. And the focus on them diverts both development and gameplay resources on things that would be better spent elsewhere.

No, you don't need megagraphics for every title, but there's always a place for smaller budget titles and bigger ones that push the envelope. Without games that push the envelope we'd still be playing variations of Pong. Besides, increases in graphical prowess open up new types of gameplay and altogether new experiences. Fallout 3 without the beautifully rendered landscape and long draw distances would have been a much less satisfying game, and the only way to create a massive world in the old days was procedural generation, so Daggerfall had thousands of samey towns, dungeons, and NPC's. Skyrim isn't just a prettier Daggerfall, it's an altogether different and better type of experience, and we have increased hardware power and budget to thank for it.

[Purple]

I read your assertion to that effect earlier in the thread, I just don't agree with it.

If that were so you would quit talking about development budgets. No amount of money is going to make high resolution textures take up less memory and complex pixel shaders use less processing power.

A game like Skyrim or GTA V both pushes the graphical envelope and has huge and intricately detailed world to explore. Being AAA titles, the graphical and world design teams were both given large budgets and lots of manpower. Recent CoD games that have been poorly received have both failed to offer meaningful new gameplay innovations or to look any better than previous games despite higher hardware requirements. I see very little evidence of gameplay suffering due to cutting edge graphics, but rather well and poorly made games that shine or flop both visually and in fun factor among every budget category.

Have you ever needed to adjust your graphics settings in order to make the game run smoother? Or in order to stop objects popping in visibly? Or had to adjust the number of corpses, ragdolls, NPC's etc. in the game in order to make it run smooth? That's what I am talking about. And that is directly tied into how these objects are rendered. The more complex the rendering the more laborious task per object.

A good example of this is Mount and Blade Warband. If you have the game try out a few mods that use higher or lower resolution texture. Just that thing alone forces you to readjust all your settings.

No, you don't need megagraphics for every title, but there's always a place for smaller budget titles and bigger ones that push the envelope. Without games that push the envelope we'd still be playing variations of Pong.

You seem to have this strange obsession with "pushing some sort of envelope" as opposed to just making a good game. There is absolutely no need to push anything. If the story is good, the gameplay engaging and the controls work that's all you need to have fun.

Besides, increases in graphical prowess open up new types of gameplay and altogether new experiences. Fallout 3 without the beautifully rendered landscape and long draw distances would have been a much less satisfying game, and the only way to create a massive world in the old days was procedural generation, so Daggerfall had thousands of samey towns, dungeons, and NPC's. Skyrim isn't just a prettier Daggerfall, it's an altogether different and better type of experience, and we have increased hardware power and budget to thank for it.

Now imagine if Fallout 3 on a machine where you can pick either good looking or long draw distance, not both. Would it still have been such a good game? Or would the plot, game mechanics, challenge etc. pulled it through anyway?

[AniThyng]

I'm not sure if the situation has changed lately, but in my entirely subjective opinion, one problem is that sometimes game graphics settings do not scale nicely when adjusted down. (e.g. a 2009 game at full settings running on a 2009 card will look better than the 2011 game at settings turned down to work on the 2009 card). I can't name any names off the top of my head, and again, it's possibly it's entirely subjective and caused by the effect of "ugh, medium settings" vs "ultra" even if "ultra" was from 2 generations ago.

[Purple]

I'm not sure if the situation has changed lately, but in my entirely subjective opinion, one problem is that sometimes game graphics settings do not scale nicely when adjusted down. (e.g. a 2009 game at full settings running on a 2009 card will look better than the 2011 game at settings turned down to work on the 2009 card). I can't name any names off the top of my head, and again, it's possibly it's entirely subjective and caused by the effect of "ugh, medium settings" vs "ultra" even if "ultra" was from 2 generations ago.

It's not just you. To put it in as simple a way possible graphics quality does not scale down well. A game that needs 100 units of hardware requirements to run at 100% is far more likely to need 80 units than 50 when running at 50%. That's because ultimately the things you can scale down such as shaders, texture quality etc. are still overshadowed by the rendering code which needs to be the same for all qualities. And this code still has to run for every object on the screen no matter what. This is why you can often get much more millage out of decreasing the number of objects rendered either by cutting them physically (like limiting number of corpses retailed or number of units per battle) or by cutting the render distance.

[Jub]

If that were so you would quit talking about development budgets. No amount of money is going to make high resolution textures take up less memory and complex pixel shaders use less processing power.

More money can allow you to do better at optimizing them and knowing where you can lower a texture's resolution without anybody being able to tell the difference. More money spent hardware side will mean that you don't need to care if bigger textures take up more memory, because you'll be able to run it all the same.

Have you ever needed to adjust your graphics settings in order to make the game run smoother? Or in order to stop objects popping in visibly? Or had to adjust the number of corpses, ragdolls, NPC's etc. in the game in order to make it run smooth? That's what I am talking about. And that is directly tied into how these objects are rendered. The more complex the rendering the more laborious task per object.

A good example of this is Mount and Blade Warband. If you have the game try out a few mods that use higher or lower resolution texture. Just that thing alone forces you to readjust all your settings.

Sounds like you need a better rig or the modders need to open up the games underlying code to allow it to use up more of your PC's power. It's not the devs fault if you can't run something on a PC that's near the bottom end of the required specifications and mods are often not optimized for at all and thus will always hit performance harder than something made by the games core design team.

You seem to have this strange obsession with "pushing some sort of envelope" as opposed to just making a good game. There is absolutely no need to push anything. If the story is good, the gameplay engaging and the controls work that's all you need to have fun.

I want a game that plays well and looks good and I can afford a machine that does both. If you can't just turn down some settings and enjoy a slightly worse looking game while saving a few bucks.

Now imagine if Fallout 3 on a machine where you can pick either good looking or long draw distance, not both. Would it still have been such a good game? Or would the plot, game mechanics, challenge etc. pulled it through anyway?

I don't need to make that choice, I can just buy a nicer machine. If you can't it sucks to be you.

It's not just you. To put it in as simple a way possible graphics quality does not scale down well. A game that needs 100 units of hardware requirements to run at 100% is far more likely to need 80 units than 50 when running at 50%. That's because ultimately the things you can scale down such as shaders, texture quality etc. are still overshadowed by the rendering code which needs to be the same for all qualities. And this code still has to run for every object on the screen no matter what. This is why you can often get much more millage out of decreasing the number of objects rendered either by cutting them physically (like limiting number of corpses retailed or number of units per battle) or by cutting the render distance.

Both are cases for better hardware, not cutting features from a game. If your computer can't keep up, get a new one or upgrade your bottleneck.

[Purple]

More money can allow you to do better at optimizing them and knowing where you can lower a texture's resolution without anybody being able to tell the difference.

Only to an extent. You still can't get away from the minimum required by the engine which has to be designed to work good for the highest settings.

More money spent hardware side will mean that you don't need to care if bigger textures take up more memory, because you'll be able to run it all the same.

And that's the thing. There are people in the world who actually have lives and can't afford to buy new hardware every year just to keep playing games.

Sounds like you need a better rig or the modders need to open up the games underlying code to allow it to use up more of your PC's power. It's not the devs fault if you can't run something on a PC that's near the bottom end of the required specifications and mods are often not optimized for at all and thus will always hit performance harder than something made by the games core design team.

It's not about my hardware. I happen to have quite a decent system.
It is their fault because the game code it self is badly designed. Well not badly but subperfect. That is why I mentioned it. I am a computer programmer. Do you think I would make the mistake of giving a wrong example in such a case?
Take the world map for example. The map is designed so that every object, city, tree, mountain etc. is part of one huge mesh. And the entire mesh is rendered all the time. So making the map larger makes the effort taken to render it skyrocket. That is why mods such as AD 1200 jitter on any machine imaginable.
The same story is with some of their graphics. There are a few mods out there (at least one I play regularly) that actually run smoother than the regular game because the guy (and yes, it's one guy) took the time to optimize the textures and meshes he is using. It's a case of things being designed to be "good enough".

The reason why I mentioned M&B is ironically because of one it's great features. A feature that makes it a great example of gameplay vs graphics. You have full control over both graphics quality AND game quality (number of ragdolls, number of bodies on screen etc.) and you can quite literally adjust either the gameplay or graphics interchangeably and achieve the same effects on the frame rate. So it's a good example to pick up if you want to see what I am talking about in the rest of my post in action.

I want a game that plays well and looks good and I can afford a machine that does both. If you can't just turn down some settings and enjoy a slightly worse looking game while saving a few bucks.

You seem to be ignorant of what I am talking about. Developers have to design their games to run good on the hardware they expect the average user will have. Not the best and definitively not the worst, but the average. So what happens when they start "pushing the envelope" and end up with a game that looks good, runs good but can't be physically run on any machine imaginable? Well the only choice is to start cutting features. And because graphics are a massive selling point for games these days those features will be from gameplay. So what you will end up is a game that looks great and runs good but has objects popping in, a bad render distance, jitters etc.

Those are things AAA titles are being lambasted about today when running on good machines. Not problems of people with bad hardware.

I don't need to make that choice, I can just buy a nicer machine. If you can't it sucks to be you.

And again this pathological focus on my hardware as opposed to what I am talking about.

Both are cases for better hardware, not cutting features from a game. If your computer can't keep up, get a new one or upgrade your bottleneck.

And what happens if the push to make the game "more" ends up not pruning on anything but the highest end gaming hardware?


Overall you are coming off as a snob who just buys a new PC every 3 weeks and wants to make use of 100% of it without regard to the rest of the world who can't afford such luxuries. Sadly for you and luckily for the rest of us the majority of the gaming community is advocating for people like me and not people like you.

[salm]

It's not just you. To put it in as simple a way possible graphics quality does not scale down well. A game that needs 100 units of hardware requirements to run at 100% is far more likely to need 80 units than 50 when running at 50%. That's because ultimately the things you can scale down such as shaders, texture quality etc. are still overshadowed by the rendering code which needs to be the same for all qualities. And this code still has to run for every object on the screen no matter what. This is why you can often get much more millage out of decreasing the number of objects rendered either by cutting them physically (like limiting number of corpses retailed or number of units per battle) or by cutting the render distance.

This has also a lot to do for which quality the games look were designed. You can make a nice looking game for a computer from 1997. The graphics artists just have to know they are designing for very low specs. Games like HL2 still look good because they were designed specifically for the computers of the time.
If the graphics artists design for a computer that can push more shaders, polys and textures and then scale it back to a 1997 computer it will look like crap because the graphics style relies on lots of polygons, shaders and textures whereas the 1997 graphics style didn´t rely on that but found more minimalistic ways to make the game look nice.

[Vendetta]

HL2 still looks good (sometimes) because it has a well designed and consistent artistic presentation, not for any technical reasons.

Art style grants far more longevity than technical implementation.

[salm]

HL2 still looks good (sometimes) because it has a well designed and consistent artistic presentation, not for any technical reasons.

Art style grants far more longevity than technical implementation.

Consistency is a different issue. It is important but not everything that makes an art style good or bad.
An art style needs to be designed with the technical limitations and possibilities in mind or else it will fail.

Technical restrictions have (sometimes heavy) influence on the art style. Some art styles only work with a low poly count and minimal textures. Throwing more GPU power at them wouldn´t enhance them.
Others require lots of detail and GPU power is essential.

A good graphics designer creates his style with the technical limitations and possibilites in mind and therefore technical reasons have a lot to do with HL2s style.

[Vendetta]

I think you're misunderstanding.

The point is that how history views a game's graphical appeal in retrospect is determined more by artistic choices than by technical implementation. A game which was a technical powerhouse in its day like, say, the original Unreal doesn't look good any more, but a game which is technically more primitive like Ocarina of Time has held up better because of its artistic design.

Half Life 2 made some good artistic choices which mean that it can still be appealing despite how horribly dated its technical implementation is.

[salm]

I think you're misunderstanding.

The point is that how history views a game's graphical appeal in retrospect is determined more by artistic choices than by technical implementation. A game which was a technical powerhouse in its day like, say, the original Unreal doesn't look good any more, but a game which is technically more primitive like Ocarina of Time has held up better because of its artistic design.

Half Life 2 made some good artistic choices which mean that it can still be appealing despite how horribly dated its technical implementation is.

I agree on that. I am just saying that technical implementation has to be part of the artistic choices. Purple and Jub were arguing about downscalablility of graphics and Purple argued that technical issues make scaling down graphics more difficult than one might think.
I just added that graphics don´t necessarily scale down (or up) very well for artistic reasons either, no matter if there are technical problems or not.
Downscaling problems are probably easy to see. If you downscale the graphics they will often lack detail and look bland. On the other hand there are older, technically worse games which look great because their graphics style were designed with (for example) a low poly count in mind.
Now, the other way around is similar but perhaps not allways obvious. If you take a graphics style designed for a low poly count and simply add polygons it might look like shit because the other aspects of your design (for example choice of color range, presence of outlines etc.) might not harmonize with more polygons.

This is nothing unique to computer games. If the selling point of your design is it being beautiful with only minimalistic possiblities and you add a bunch of detail it´s kind of counter productive. If you clutter up a Bauhaus building with persian rugs or baroque squiggles you can easily destroy it´s appeal. If you remove the ornaments form an ancient mosque on the other hand you are also likely to ruin it´s appeal.

[AniThyng]

I think you're misunderstanding.

The point is that how history views a game's graphical appeal in retrospect is determined more by artistic choices than by technical implementation. A game which was a technical powerhouse in its day like, say, the original Unreal doesn't look good any more, but a game which is technically more primitive like Ocarina of Time has held up better because of its artistic design.

Half Life 2 made some good artistic choices which mean that it can still be appealing despite how horribly dated its technical implementation is.

I agree on that. I am just saying that technical implementation has to be part of the artistic choices. Purple and Jub were arguing about downscalablility of graphics and Purple argued that technical issues make scaling down graphics more difficult than one might think.
I just added that graphics don´t necessarily scale down (or up) very well for artistic reasons either, no matter if there are technical problems or not.
Downscaling problems are probably easy to see. If you downscale the graphics they will often lack detail and look bland. On the other hand there are older, technically worse games which look great because their graphics style were designed with (for example) a low poly count in mind.
Now, the other way around is similar but perhaps not allways obvious. If you take a graphics style designed for a low poly count and simply add polygons it might look like shit because the other aspects of your design (for example choice of color range, presence of outlines etc.) might not harmonize with more polygons.

This is nothing unique to computer games. If the selling point of your design is it being beautiful with only minimalistic possiblities and you add a bunch of detail it´s kind of counter productive. If you clutter up a Bauhaus building with persian rugs or baroque squiggles you can easily destroy it´s appeal. If you remove the ornaments form an ancient mosque on the other hand you are also likely to ruin it´s appeal.

Yeah but the thing is that this is not really about why say, Sprite games still look good - it's about why Medieval total war 2 with everything turned to max looks better than Shogun 2 with detail turned down so that it will run on the same machine that maxes out MTW2.

[salm]

Yeah but the thing is that this is not really about why say, Sprite games still look good - it's about why Medieval total war 2 with everything turned to max looks better than Shogun 2 with detail turned down so that it will run on the same machine that maxes out MTW2.

I ´ve played neither but I gather you are saying that a specific old game (MTW2) scales up better than a specific newer game (Shogun 2) scales down.
Ok. I don´t understand your point.

[Perseid]

I don't think that 4K will have any real bearing on the life of the current console generation, mainly because PC's have been able to render graphics in FHD for years now and the consoles have only just caught up. That and the demand for 4K is only going to be with people after a technology bling factor, there are no 4K signals to be sent to your new 4K TV (at least that I'm aware of) outside of plugging in a computer... hell only about a third of the channels in existence in the western world are HD and even then they aren't 1080p.

If we're killing off the latest console generation based on graphics then we need to kill of BluRay and DVD for exactly the same reason...

I can see the consoles getting a facelift/system upgrade or something in the not too distant future, as they did with the previous generation, and at that time they might address the system limitations that the developers are having (like lack of memory). But will they upgrade to 4k, not likely.

[AniThyng]

Yeah but the thing is that this is not really about why say, Sprite games still look good - it's about why Medieval total war 2 with everything turned to max looks better than Shogun 2 with detail turned down so that it will run on the same machine that maxes out MTW2.

I ´ve played neither but I gather you are saying that a specific old game (MTW2) scales up better than a specific newer game (Shogun 2) scales down.
Ok. I don´t understand your point.

yeah the thing is that many games scale down badly to the point they manage to look worse than the previous generations game on previous generation hardware - which makes being told to play on medium settings unsatisfactory when it's actually possible to look better if it were specifically designed for the previous generation. So not only need a new card to get the best performance, it actually looks worse on the older hardware than the hardware is nominally capable off. We agree more or less I think, just that me and purple are using games that are closer to each other than unreal or hl2

[salm]

yeah the thing is that many games scale down badly to the point they manage to look worse than the previous generations game on previous generation hardware - which makes being told to play on medium settings unsatisfactory when it's actually possible to look better if it were specifically designed for the previous generation. So not only need a new card to get the best performance, it actually looks worse on the older hardware than the hardware is nominally capable off. We agree more or less I think, just that me and purple are using games that are closer to each other than unreal or hl2

Ah, ok. I was agreeing with Purple, just adding that it´s not only dependent on purely technical aspects but other aspects as well.

[TheFeniX]

The point is that how history views a game's graphical appeal in retrospect is determined more by artistic choices than by technical implementation. A game which was a technical powerhouse in its day like, say, the original Unreal doesn't look good any more, but a game which is technically more primitive like Ocarina of Time has held up better because of its artistic design.

Don't the hardware specs push the art design more than vice-versa though? FFVII and Resident Evil have held up fairly well due to prerendered 2D backgrounds and fixed cameras to give the illusion of 3D. The background assets have held up quite well, whereas the 3D models used for the characters have not. This choice was done solely due to technical limitations of the PSX, at least from what I remember reading from an interview (I think) in GamePro.

Doom 3 was a technical powerhouse of the day and it still looks pretty good.

Smart developers just look at what they have to work with and do it well. There was a lot of "high-res" texture stuff created in earlier 3D work that looked great in an image editor, but became a muddy mess when applied to a model. Making sure what you created made it into the game without looking like garbage on the hardware you were running was sort of a rare thing. The N64 was hamstrung by low texture memory, which the LoZ worked around quite well. In fact, they've pushed a lot out of many Nintendo consoles to make LoZ games look pretty damn good where they need to.