Difference is we can all tell there’s a difference in graphics and can laugh about it. In 40 years who knows. Graphics already look so good now there’s only so much further they can go
I think “full-dive” VR (think the matrix or ready player one) in 40 years might be possible with the right breakthroughs in neuroscience. I hope I live to see the day, that tech will change the way we live big time…
We already achieved photorealistic rendering a decade ago, and we can do it in real time now. Graphics aren’t going to get much better any more. This is why 1) a wider variety of art styles has become popular, and 2) people clamor about VR being the “next step”.
No, we literally have photorealistic rendering. It might not look real at all times but the math is true to the real world physics. That’s literally what physically based rendering is.
The limitations in real time rendering are hardware limitations now, not software. But for regular applications, PBR literally simulates individual photons. It doesn’t have a ways to go. It is already true to life and physically accurate.
But of course, even the best tools in the world can be misused by a bad artist.
Man, it was really cool growing up with the evolution of graphics. Went from N64 to PS1, Xbox, and all the way through today. Every step of the way was awesome
I completely agree. I think the 360 era was the last time it felt like there was a huge jump in graphics. Everything since then seems to just be a slow drip of improvements.
I’m not saying thing aren’t amazing these days, but ps4 vs ps5 isn’t as different as ps1 to ps2 was.
I played ever since the Atari days. The biggest jumps were Atari to super Nintendo, SNES to ps1, ps1 to 1080p, 1080 p to 4k, all very noticeable and next-gen graphics jumps from one to the next
Strange how perception works. The last time I was really amazed by graphics was with Unreal. I could admire the castle in the intro for hours.
The Doom 3 alpha was astonishing as well. But by the time it was released it felt like just another gradual advancement among all the other games.
Maybe it’s a console vs PC thing where console players would get and incredible leap with each generation whereas PC players saw all the steps to reach the next generation.
Looking back, there were definite jumps between generations, but at the time it definitely felt gradual after xbox->360/PS2->PS3. The jump to Xbox/PS2 was incredible at the time
For reference, my first console was an nes. But I think the PS2 era was the last great era of games.
Once we had online connectivity, everything kind of got worse. Broken games to be patched later, micro transactions, the loss of local multiplayer.
I almost only play indie games these days or I emulate titles from the ps2 and earlier. It’s a shame that the magic gaming had before the internet has been lost.
I think the next ten or so years will be about graphics and the scale of maps… I imagine a pirate game where we can sail around the the whole damn world…
Pretty sure that the N64 with proper floating point calc had a more advanced GPU but with the TV at the times the PS1 took advantage of the small resolution. Added higher storage for textures it did look better than the N64. If you compare them now, the N64 doesn’t have that “jittery jumpy” feel of PS1 3D graphics, especially visible on emulators
Must be great to be a young gamer these days. They’ll never have to deal with the medium back when it had to make up for its lack of technical sophistication by hiring writers.
The Japan-only prequel to Earthbound was basically carried by its marketing. It wasn’t a great game by any stretch of the imagination.
Big (empty) world with innovative (terrible) graphics, a challenging (unbalanced) combat system, an interesting (impossible to follow) story and packed full of content (grinding) that will keep you playing for hours (because you keep game-overing)
My version is seeing the first cutscene in Resident Evil 2 and somehow convincing myself it looked indistinguishable from live action. I also remember being very impressed with Aladdin on the Sega Genesis (I had only ever seen NES games until that point)
Aladdin (and also Lion King) on Genesis / SNES had some ultra-smooth animation compared to anything we’d seen before!
I was really blown away by Goldeneye on the N64, too. The fact that they got blood on them in the spot you shot them and would grab the wounded spot as they collapsed was immensely impressive at the time.
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