TechPowerUp Screenshot Thread (MASSIVE 56K WARNING)

[InVasMani]

Hard to show just how fun this game is in a screenshot still, but it's a great game accompanied by a excellent soundtrack. The game still makes me feel like a novice by subtly challenging me to try things that can end very badly. I can tell the developers put a lot of care into my avatars physical and mental well being with their thoughtfulness on ways to send my character to the ER.

 

[robot zombie]

So, I guess I'm just now realizing that ReShade shader authors have taken-up compiling RT-like(?) GI shaders utilizing screenspace path-tracing. They're putting 'raytracing' in ReShade. I need to learn a whole lot more about this! Sounds crazy. How'd I manage to miss this happening?

Spoiler: more on this stuff and how I'm using it

I've started with RadiantGI. McFly also has RTGI, which I guess he was keyed-into the stuff to make happen by Nvidia. The two authors actually seem to talk like friends, and from what I read Marty McFly helped with RadiantGI as well. Listen, don't ask me how it works. I just know that it is bouncing rays to simulate global illumination. The biggest difference between this and something like RTX other than how exactly it handles rays (still cast from camera and bounced out from sources) is we are only working with depth-based information in ReShade, which limits its capability range - it won't factor in anything not in there... not on screen. This is probably why it's able to perform pretty damned well, though... and also why path-tracing is possible. It involves even more interactions than ray-tracing on its way back. But again, there's way less to kick off the interactions with this.

Cool idea though! You don't need a nvidia card to at least have a lil of the nicer GI.

RadiantGI is pretty subtle and the interface is kinda confusing. I'm not sure I understand the parameters yet. But it's definitely very interesting and adds some very nice depth. I also added BloomingHDR by the same author, BlueSkyDefender. It's just a nice HDR shader with bloom that can be set to be adaptive if you want, along with some basic eye adaptation for the whole thing. I skip the bloom and the adaptation, but I mess with the tonemapping settings included to compensate for the brightness added by the GI. It's mostly there to keep the GI from further washing out the image when there's already a lot of fog. That contrast rearrangement actually brings out more of the GI in how it cuts into it a little. Obviously even fake HDR will also add to the illusion of depth a bit. This isn't exactly a grand departure from what I had before. It's basically all about where the light, color and shadow are in the image, and how they relate to one another contextually - that's what these two plugins change. The process is a little bit more complicated than local contrast, any kind of tonemapping, or AO, or anything else that works selectively on images.

Right at that fog line - where it thickens, is a faint blue band. That's an artifact of the GI. It gets oversaturated in weird ways, and I haven't found the best way to balance it. It generally has some color problems with my settings. But I think it's picking up grading that comes before ReShade, back in my ENB. There's this weird depth setting that to me just moves this banding around. Well... it's actually a deeply-colored haloing. From the right angles you will see this transparent neon haloing around objects.

This is one of those things that needs video. You can definitely see the impact of the GI in a screenshot if you know what to look for, but this is subtler than RTX GI, so the only way to *really* see it is to actually see fully-in game. It becomes more apparent when you are moving and looking around at different things. Landscapes also aren't always the best place to see it. 'Specially not foggy ones. Fog has a way of washing-out indirect lighting... which the GI shader is trying to add.

Need to play with it a ton more, but it's got me curious about RTGI, which is generally supposed to be stronger in effect. Right now you gotta pay 5 bucks to the Patreon to get it, I'm assuming while it's still in beta. I just don't know if I want it that badly.

I'm so into this right now, though. There were all of these moments where I would look and kinda go "Whoa! Hey! You can't do that!" because I was caught off guard by something about the image. It's a feeling, this weird sense of plausibility that I can never place. But in my head it has always been "The RTGI effect." Something about the behavior isn't picked up consciously... like you can't always find it directly in your vision. But somewhere up in your mind the image is processed differently and it just doesn't register the same way. Every RTX game I've played with GI has had that same effect on me. It's not like uncanniness. More like the opposite of a sense of uncanniness. A sense of "rightness" that transcends other aspects of the image which aren't close to perfect or correct... or some sense of an "essential" quality about it.


Okay, here's a clearer example of what it's actually doing to the image, even if this is a terrible screenshot where the fog obscures a lot. We have a decent comparison for part of the effect that it has. First in the spoiler is with - second without. Note, there is no added bloom for the PTGI shot. That's the GI hitting on fog, which unfortunately is unavoidable through ReShade because of where it sits in the chain of processing. I could probably grade it out. May do just that.

Spoiler

The brightness is wayyy too much with the fog, here. I've already fixed this a bit. But start by looking inside of the house.

Most apparently, you'll see that the house's interior capturing the pink emittance from the sky. You'll see that in general. Much more of the light on the ground resembles the light of the sky, rather than being a different color. I also activate the 'emissive' mode which essentially turns all bright objects into additional 'sources' in the whole bounce equation. The second shot shows what the interior looks like with only basic indirect lighting. Same average color and luminosity as the exterior of the house, which makes no real-life sense. You can really see how the light from the sky illuminates it with it on - it now contrasts with the still-mostly-baked-indirect front exterior of the house. The light is even breaking out through the openings and casting a pink glow over the roof. You can see it subtly crawling across the bevels of the doorway exterior.

I think that's pretty cool. It's not quite like the real deal but it's still an impressive thing to pull off. It actually works like the real thing. There are other ways to fake it, but when you are playing, it's not the same feeling as this.

If you look at the tree on the left, you can see that the back of the tree is now lit more by the sun than the front - it's been more realistically sectioned, rather than casting a gradient over it, as the mix of classic old direct and indirect lighting does to that same tree. And where light reaches through openings in the leaves, there is a glow that actually appears to follow the mesh and normalmap directly on the surfaces. It still doesn't have much contrast, but more than before - and of a different quality. I like what it does to my tree silhouettes. They aren't totally flat as often. You still get the look, but with a little chonk poppin thru. I think it has a neat impact in places with tons of trees. They blow in the wind, and you see more dimensionality in the movement with the GI.

On the far right, look at the contrast change between the bush and the gate. The edges of the bush glow with the light behind it, while the front picks up a lot less. There is light in the gap between the bush and the house casting a more apparent silhouette through the fence openings - and yet the fence is also catching a little more light that lets you see it better. Further, the center of the bush where the light behind doesn't reach is still fairly dark - just has ground-bounce. The ground can be set to have some subtle emittance, too. This all doesn't seem like much in the shot, but those dynamics are were the magic 'pop' is in the whole images with this effect. It manifests in different ways, depending on the circumstances.

I can go into debug and pull the 'emittance' map that shows all of the light that gets rendered - that's how I know these things about this image - I was looking when I took the shots. Shoulda grabbed that too. Have to take a comparo with that next time I play with it.

 

[s3thra]

Some more Elden Ring. This area reminds me of Bloodborne.

 

[s3thra]

Elder Scrolls Online. Some pics I took adventuring around Summerset. Such a beautiful area IMO.

 

[JRMBelgium]

Some BF1 screenshots

 

[Cvrk]

Started playing today.
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put all your points into Vigor, up to cap 40. then youl need more damage str or dex(not both) cap 40 then continue with vigor to max cap 60. By now you should be at 120lvl. Any magic etc will scale with weapon damage so don't put any points in INT/FAith/ARC you won't notice the damage. quality build for the win in pvp & pve

 

[Ruru]

Bought a BMW M6 2013 (playing Forza Horizon 5)

 

[Ruru]

Hard to show just how fun this game is in a screenshot still, but it's a great game accompanied by a excellent soundtrack. The game still makes me feel like a novice by subtly challenging me to try things that can end very badly. I can tell the developers put a lot of care into my avatars physical and mental well being with their thoughtfulness on ways to send my character to the ER.

View attachment 246544

View attachment 246545

Is that Descenders?

 

[InVasMani]

It is and it's as good a bike game as Tony Hawk Pro Skater is a skateboard game. The games physics can be a lot of fun mess about with. It's a mixture of high adrenaline and style and finesse bike entertainment.

 

[Ruru]

Forget Cyberpunk when we have Straypunk

 

[s3thra]

put all your points into Vigor, up to cap 40. then youl need more damage str or dex(not both) cap 40 then continue with vigor to max cap 60. By now you should be at 120lvl. Any magic etc will scale with weapon damage so don't put any points in INT/FAith/ARC you won't notice the damage. quality build for the win in pvp & pve

Hey thanks for the recommendation. This actually helped my build quite a lot with a respec.

 

[robot zombie]

Random Cyberpunk screenshots. I'm running everything cranked up at 1080p with quality DLSS and Psyco RT-everything. All of the materials look just great. The atmosphere can be utterly captivating. It's not just about the light distribution and obvious colors. It's the color blending in the shadows - with those also taking on the color qualities of light sources, there is more natural macro-transitioning. It invokes a sense of natural dimension and vividness that I think will be obvious in these screenshots. I guess it also helps that so much of the visual design seen in the world really is striking, as are the many, many interesting assets. It's a game with a lot of visual detail and diversity, hypnotic combinations of intricate composition and color play abound. The almost always make it a point to throw dynamics between different material properties everywhere you look. CDPR exceeded on that front. Talk about an engrossing world. I'm glad I was able to get a better RTX card. I can see now, this is like, THE game to appreciate that in. And the 3060ti at least allows me to experience it at >65fps.

I don't know the significance of this place, but it looks cool. There are so many unique little landmarks like this everywhere. Different aesthetics for the many different regions.

My two favorite side characters. The Peralez's storyline uncovers a lot about what might be in store for Night City. This quest is utter madness.

They have a great view though.

Spoiler: Default female V with the latest semi-random setup - my lvl33 character.

The Archer Quartz "Bandit" has been a favorite vehicle for me in this cyberpunk playthrough. It looks a little something like a cross between an 80s foxbody Ford Mustang, a Lotus Elise, a Toyota Supra, and the DeLorean from Back to the Future... if Dukes of Hazzard was set in Mad Max. It drives maniacally, too... just skids all over the place at certain speeds. But once you get used to its character, it's just a lot of fun to drive around. It's a DLC car you access after a certain point in the Aldecaldo questline. You learn to take advantage of how it slides. The front end can be made to grab fast and kick the back end around. Acceleration then controls the traction loss and rear cut force. You learn to lead your turns and how to combine decelerating and handbraking to initiate drifts and then control how long they run with the gas. Can get it for free if you skip the revenge passage. Or buy it from the fixer for like 44k a few days after the revenge quest. 44k is a steal for what might actually be one of the best cars in the game, accessible in the first third of the game.

Got some serious tude to it. Drives as mean as it looks and sounds. Relentless early acceleration. Built for the Nomad in the big city. I kind of want this car unironically. 'Thing is straight boudy. Specially rendered in the full glory of RT reflections, shadows, and GI.

Spoiler: more

Don't mind the stupid cursor popping up.

 

[InVasMani]

Is that CyberPunk Fierro GTX? I wouldn't want to get rear ended in it.

 

[robot zombie]

Is that CyberPunk Fierro GTX? I wouldn't want to get rear ended in it.

That's provided they can catch its rear end.

 

[SchumannFrequency]

FreeBSD Gaming

 

[Ruru]

Still looks damn awesome, even after 15 years.

 

[Hyderz]

Still looks damn awesome, even after 15 years.


View attachment 268842

one thing that still bugs me until today was they didnt continue with the main character from first crysis....
instead we got prophet... which was okay but felt annoyed abt it

 

[Ruru]

one thing that still bugs me until today was they didnt continue with the main character from first crysis....
instead we got prophet... which was okay but felt annoyed abt it

Agree. I'll play Warhead later.

Shame that Crytek hasn't released anything new lately, I don't count Crysis remasters as new games..

 

[Hyderz]

Agree. I'll play Warhead later.

Shame that Crytek hasn't released anything new lately, I don't count Crysis remasters as new games..

crysis 4 is announced but it be a while till we see a gameplay trailer...
i guess crytek wanna go all out with their own engine using crysis as a showcase
guess its to compete with unreal engine

 

[Ruru]

crysis 4 is announced but it be a while till we see a gameplay trailer...
i guess crytek wanna go all out with their own engine using crysis as a showcase
guess its to compete with unreal engine

CryEngine is a good one. I remember also Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 using it as I played it on X360 back in the day. BTW it's a fine game too

 

[s3thra]

I finished Elden Ring, so I've jumped back into Dark Souls III for now.

 

[Ruru]

4K baby, playing some FF VII Remake.

 

[lexluthermiester]

4K baby, playing some FF VII Remake.

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Crispy! Aireth's hair looks almost real.

 

[Ruru]

Of course there's cats :3

 

[InVasMani]

Thiefa has abducted the cat from the Cloud game over.