How and why did we become so obsessed with graphics?

[Assimilator]

We've always been obsessed with attempting to recreate our world perfectly in the virtual sphere. The problem is that achieving photorealistic graphics are the 95/5 rule, in other words we've got 95% of the way there and that was relatively quick and easy, it's the last 5% that's gonna be the killer. And because that last 5% is taking so long, and we have become used to far faster progress, we get impatient. Similarly, we get impatient because we don't see massive improvements in visual fidelity anymore (Crysis was arguably the last great leap forward in graphics, and that was well over a decade ago now).

As for the tribalism around GPU manufacturers and technologies, that's all it is: tribalism. There will always be people who are so shallow that they can only differentiate themselves via irrational allegiance to a group or groups, you just gotta learn to treat such husks with the scorn they deserve.

 

[Dr. Dro]

We've always been obsessed with attempting to recreate our world perfectly in the virtual sphere. The problem is that achieving photorealistic graphics are the 95/5 rule, in other words we've got 95% of the way there and that was relatively quick and easy, it's the last 5% that's gonna be the killer. And because that last 5% is taking so long, and we have become used to far faster progress, we get impatient. Similarly, we get impatient because we don't see massive improvements in visual fidelity anymore (Crysis was arguably the last great leap forward in graphics, and that was well over a decade ago now).

As for the tribalism around GPU manufacturers and technologies, that's all it is: tribalism. There will always be people who are so shallow that they can only differentiate themselves via irrational allegiance to a group or groups, you just gotta learn to treat such husks with the scorn they deserve.

Closer to two at this point. The original Crysis is over 15 years old!

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Closer to two at this point. The original Crysis is over 15 years old!

While it does look terrible in comparison to today's games the gap from it to anything else that came out in 2007 was pretty massive. I don't think any developer will be that ambitious it took a legit 2 generations to get a single gpu that could legit run that game at 1080p60 no developer is going to target a theoretical 7090/9900XTX now and make it run like crap on all existing hardware.

I mean even on modern CPUs it is hard to hit 60fps in it lol because the engine uses like 2 cores.

I don't think we will get a developer that does that ever again way too risky to create a game nobody can run well for 1-2 generations.

I had an 8800 can't remember what variant but man it was like 20-30fps at 1080p lol had to run the game at 720p medium to get decent performance.

AA was like RT back then halved your performance lmao

 

[Dr. Dro]

While it does look terrible in comparison to today's games the gap from it to anything else that came out in 2007 was pretty massive. I don't think any developer will be that ambitious it took a legit 2 generations to get a single gpu that could legit run that game at 1080p60 no developer is going to target a theoretical 7090/9900XTX now and make it run like crap on all existing hardware.

I mean even on modern CPUs it is hard to hit 60fps in it lol because the engine uses like 2 cores.

I don't think we will get a developer that does that ever again way too risky to create a game nobody can run well for 1-2 generations.

I had an 8800 can't remember what variant but man it was like 20-30fps at 1080p lol had to run the game at 720p medium to get decent performance.

AA was like RT back then halved your performance lmao

It was generally MSAA which fell into disuse because it's extremely resource intensive and generally incompatible with deferred rendering engines. That's where cheap TAA took over.

I still prefer MSAA when possible, clearer image IMO.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

It was generally MSAA which fell into disuse because it's extremely resource intensive and generally incompatible with deferred rendering engines. That's where cheap TAA took over.

I still prefer MSAA when possible, clearer image IMO.

I think Crysis 2/3 switched to SMAA which wasn't good

My issue with MSAA is it did some things well others terribly although I guess the same can be said of TAA we really need another AA generational improvement that is hardware agnostic.

 

[Dr. Dro]

I think Crysis 2/3 switched to SMAA which wasn't good

My issue with MSAA is it did some things well others terribly although I guess the same can be said of TAA we really need another AA generational improvement that is hardware agnostic.

Yeah it had SMAA but at least Crysis 3 also had temporal SMAA (2TX), which was the highest quality TAA solution in those games.

I find it difficult for a hardware agnostic solution, but FSR 3.0 is the closest we've got. With DLSS we can do DLAA which is applying the DLSS pass from and onto a full resolution source, good image, it's just not agnostic I suppose.

 

[Vayra86]

I don't believe it is an obsession any more than the natural progression of things. Games, like movies, have long since been a medium of escapism and advanced storytelling, even more so than books, and rich audiovisual effects are about as much as we can immerse ourselves in a fictitious world. It's all about living a fantasy, and honestly, censorship and old industry "boundaries" regarding video games are about to butt heads with the increasing levels of photorealism and eventually, I believe, even sensorial realism if this makes any sense to you as technology advances. Not all video games must be hyper-realistic to be enjoyed, but many of them equally benefit from having this quality. In my opinion, it's all about balance.

Due to this, I hold a firm belief that entertainment software rating boards, who have standards set in the early 1990s, and because fun is expressly disallowed in today's society due to the political climate, that the ESRB and its worldwide counterparts such as PEGI, USK and CERO have become woefully obsolete, and that the blanket ban on ESRB AO titles (basically anything that has a moderate amount of objectionable content) is extremely damaging to video game development and artistic freedom. The industry must understand that people who have experienced video games in the 1980s and 1990s in their youths are now firmly adults, and that we still enjoy gaming today.

This, of course, is from the point of view of someone who holds an immense fervor towards artistic freedom and considers video games as the evolution of the motion picture, a very high form of art, instead of a digital toy. In fact, I have had rather... unpleasant conversations with individuals who consider video games to be toys, and that may or may not have gotten me banned from the Steam forums like, 3 or 4 times already. I'm unwavering on this (very strong) opinion of mine.

Great games ARE art in every way... from the ingenuity of them to the presentation. Derivative works however are certainly not art. They often manage to improve or refine a function but theyre never the package deal the original had.

This is probably why we come back to remasters now too. Preservation of art. Software has that nagging ability to go out of date unlike a canvas.

 

[AnotherReader]

While it does look terrible in comparison to today's games the gap from it to anything else that came out in 2007 was pretty massive. I don't think any developer will be that ambitious it took a legit 2 generations to get a single gpu that could legit run that game at 1080p60 no developer is going to target a theoretical 7090/9900XTX now and make it run like crap on all existing hardware.

I mean even on modern CPUs it is hard to hit 60fps in it lol because the engine uses like 2 cores.

I don't think we will get a developer that does that ever again way too risky to create a game nobody can run well for 1-2 generations.

I had an 8800 can't remember what variant but man it was like 20-30fps at 1080p lol had to run the game at 720p medium to get decent performance.

AA was like RT back then halved your performance lmao

The last time I played Crysis was in 2017 and it looked good even when compared to the games of that time. I have been playing PC games since 1986 and I don't think there has ever been a bigger jump in visual quality than the original Crysis.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Yeah it had SMAA but at least Crysis 3 also had temporal SMAA (2TX), which was the highest quality TAA solution in those games.

I find it difficult for a hardware agnostic solution, but FSR 3.0 is the closest we've got. With DLSS we can do DLAA which is applying the DLSS pass from and onto a full resolution source, good image, it's just not agnostic I suppose.

I remember the Crysis 3 implementation looking pretty grainy in spots compared to Modern TAA. DLAA is a good start but like I said it really needs to be hardware agnostic to really take off and replace TAA. I feel like in general we have been stuck with TAA forever and honestly it does some things very poorly.

Goin back to the OP question again It think in general there is a large amount of people that just want stuff to improve everything from Reflections, Shadows, AO, GI, Texture quality, Lighting in general. LOD load in is a huge pet peeve of mine and really breaks the immersion when stuff is loading in close to the camera most games still do it terribly likely to cater to weak hardware.

I think the biggest thing that sorta has been lost is artistic direction though it's rare that we get a game that looks unique in a good way most stuff just looks sorta the same now. As others where saying indie games sorta fill that niche but we use to get big AAA games that did it. Ratchet and Clank is the closest we get now to something that is very technically solid but doesn't necessarily look like every other game.

The last time I played Crysis was in 2017 and it looked good even when compared to the games of that time. I have been playing PC games since 1986 and I don't think there has ever been a bigger jump in visual quality than the original Crysis.

Yeah if you run the game at 4k it looks solid and I would tend to agree games in 2007 in general looked pretty meh. I do think some people forget even I do that Bioshock came out that same year and while not nearly as accomplished on a technical level the good art direction makes that game also hold up today. There was Stuff in Halo 3 that was also impressive especially considering it was a console game some of the scope of the environments was pretty impressive in 2007 again not on the level of crysis but still impressive considering the hardware it ran on another game was RE4 on GameCube a couple years earlier it also impressed me back then. That really was when 3D graphics really started to come into it's own honestly.

I actually like all 3 of those games better than Crysis as a game but people remember it because of how hard it pushed hardware and it's somewhat sandboxed design.

I guess it says a lot that they all got remasters other than Halo 3 although I would welcome a Halo 3 anniversary edition.

 

[wNotyarD]

@oxrufiioxo I can't say much on 2007, but 2009 was the year my life as a gamer changed: it was when I got my first own gaming PC with a meekly HD4350 and a dual-core Athlon II.
However, I hold dearly with me the first game I did experience with it: Mirror's Edge. It's art direction still holds up today as genuinely beautiful. Technically it doesn't hold as well even switching the PhysX dll.
Other 2009 game I still play today, and this one holds its own with no issue is the first Borderlands. It's cel-shaded style makes it timeless, and the GotY remaster is just a nice addition for those with modern hardware.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

@oxrufiioxo I can't say much on 2007, but 2009 was the year my life as a gamer changed: it was when I got my first own gaming PC with a meekly HD4350 and a dual-core Athlon II.
However, I hold dearly with me the first game I did experience with it: Mirror's Edge. It's art direction still holds up today as genuinely beautiful. Technically it doesn't hold as well even switching the PhysX dll.
Other 2009 game I still play today, and this one holds its own with no issue is the first Borderlands. It's cel-shaded style makes it timeless, and the GotY remaster is just a nice addition for those with modern hardware.

2009 also got Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 which where both very impressive looking games. Mirrors edge definitely had really good art direction and was a really neat looking game. Resident Evil 5 also did some cool things visually the character models where pretty top notch even if the game was not nearly as good as 4.

My favorite thing about this thread is it is helping me remember all the great looking games I played in the mid to late 2000 maybe I am just getting old and jaded but I wish modern AAA games where that diverse visually.

 

[Devon68]

Why are we so obsessed with graphics that we pay huge amounts of money for pretty, but soulless games and remakes of the same game that we already own?
Why do we jump at each other's throats when someone appears to have different preferences when it comes to graphical features? Why is it so hard to peacefully coexist?
Also: when did it all start and how?

The first and second, They dont know better. It started with people actually started saying they have super x ray eyes and can see individual pixel's. HINT: They are probably sitting way to close to the screen.
I miss games where the story was the main focus. I get much more immersed into a storyline rather than to annoy myself if the game runs on ultra @ 165+. Especially if it's something fast paced you are looking for the enemy not at objects.
They should make games like they used to, but provide the option for people to get the high texture pack as an add-on if they want.

 

[Ruru]

i remember FF7 was marketed on immersion, the tv ad campaign said is your tv big enough for midgar or something
and ff7 was the first to shift to 3d from ff6

FF7 still kicks ass as much as when I played it first time in 1999

 

[TechHalp]

We've always been obsessed with attempting to recreate our world perfectly in the virtual sphere. The problem is that achieving photorealistic graphics are the 95/5 rule, in other words we've got 95% of the way there and that was relatively quick and easy, it's the last 5% that's gonna be the killer. And because that last 5% is taking so long, and we have become used to far faster progress, we get impatient. Similarly, we get impatient because we don't see massive improvements in visual fidelity anymore (Crysis was arguably the last great leap forward in graphics, and that was well over a decade ago now).

As for the tribalism around GPU manufacturers and technologies, that's all it is: tribalism. There will always be people who are so shallow that they can only differentiate themselves via irrational allegiance to a group or groups, you just gotta learn to treat such husks with the scorn they deserve.

Shout out to quantum break as well, I know most people have forgotten about it but they took motion capture acting to a whole new level with it.

These days I've only been really blown away by the detail of clothes in UE5 games, and maybe forza 5 environments with no loading screens.

 

[AusWolf]

1. "All we have is graphics" is certainly a problem for some games, but it's not new. Eg, going back to printed magazines / early 'text & picture but no video based' web reviews of the 90s (think pre-Youtube dial-up Internet / gaming magazine era) where you could see a pretty static screenshot but it was much harder for a reviewer to visually portray great gameplay / writing / voice acting / soundtrack on a static medium. For the same reason we were plagued with "Industry Bullshots" for a while during that era (where 'screenshots' were pre-rendered made-for-E3 demos of fake-content that wasn't even included in the final released product). For other reasons, "GPU manufacturers are pushing this / bad PC ports to force people to upgrade" has long been a conspiracy yet given how the industry has been behaving over the last few years, is also an entirely believable one...

The "graphics at any cost" over-obsession by some is rather sad in context of how "flat" everything else is. Eg, barely 10-15 years separated "PC Speaker Beeps" vs Thief's impressive 3D audio propagation physics or full orchestral soundtracks, or even inventing whole new genres (RTS, FPS, etc). Yet in terms of how "prettiness" affects enjoyment, I was just as excited and drawn into the world of System Shock (1994) than Bioshock (2007) and Prey (2017) and the same will no doubt be true vs 2027 titles. Better graphics by itself doesn't make a game better or worse, but "tickbox development" has definitely made many games more sterile / boring. "The only thing we want to improve is graphics" has gone hand in hand with an over-obsession with remakeitus / over-sequelitus all often share the same underlying "we're only interested in safe IP because our investors don't like risk" by over-centralized mega-publishers. I definitely miss the era when we had more mid-sized publishers like Eidos Interactive pushing better graphics in balance with encouraging the creation of whole new IP (Deus Ex, Thief, System Shock, Hitman, Tomb Raider, etc) rather than a substitute for "New ideas? That's what other people do right?" (Source: Yves Guillemot in front of his bathroom mirror every evening...)

2. The prime motivation for many unnecessary remasters of fairly recent games like Bioshock 1-2 that still play perfectly was a new console generation came out (porting from UE2 was harder than UE3). Same with mobiles, eg, original Baldur's Gate = PC/Mac only. BG:EE = Windows / Linux / iOS / OSX / Android / Switch / PS4 / XB1. They're definitely cashing in on other platforms there. For other publishers, after seeing a few success stories it was more a case of remaking everything for the sake of it bandwagon jumping with the least possible effort purely to use it as an excuse to bump the price of old games up, especially so for many games where there's already a well supported modding community that's already solved the "won't work on modern OS's problem" eg, original Blade Runner & The 7th Guest via ScummVM vs the remake which is 5-10x the price for... exactly the same content with exactly the same graphics & gameplay... So there's also definitely a BS cash grab going on of seeing GOG go from 5 games to 5700 and think "Hmm, old games are back in? You know if we re-released all those, we could charge $15-$20 for everything!"

3. As for online communities fighting over epeen and Correct Graphical Features (tm), I've long laughed at how Depth of Myopia, Macular Degeneration Simulator ("Eye Adaptation / Auto Exposure"), Visual Tinnitus (Film Grain), 1990's Digital Camera with a Defective Lens Simulator (Chromatic Abhorration), Giraffe with a broken neck simulator ("head bob"), etc, are seen as "realistic" in any game when they are so far removed from how eyeballs work in the real world it's comical. Doubly so if their "ultra-realistic" games involve magic, dragons or the latest 'must have' Battle Royale / CoD where after getting shot in the heart 15 times you too can auto-heal by standing underneath a stairwell for 15s before spending 3 days on Reddit complaining about the technical unrealism of a leaf on a tree 100m away... Or those "hardcore survival" games where you need to eat 19 meals per day, chop down half a forest to 'craft' 1x match-stick and will freeze to death in under 10mins on a mild autumn day then argue over the need for a $1500 GPU upgrade to have light reflected off a fish's eyeball in a stream traced properly "because this game needs to be REAL"... (You know exactly which 'communities' I mean ). The only sane thing to do is avoid them completely and simply play what you enjoy.

I wish I could have worded my OP so well!

For me its a combination of a few things.

The desire to be creative and especially on new IP is now lacking in the gaming industry, instead its preferable to redo old ideas or remakes of old games, when doing this approach all that they have to offer really is better visuals and music.

Pressure from the hardware industry to make a game that makes gamers want to buy new hardware to play it, aka sponsored titles.

Kind of like the movie industry where they do lots of cgi etc. to wow people in, certian people do get lured to games just because they look nice.

Now I am not against nice graphics as such, I just dont think it should be the primary part of making a game. I feel games need to be done on a skeleton first, with maybe just wireframe models and such, and the art side of it should only be done after the gameplay is finished. I would also like to see use of standardised engines abandoned and going back to the old way of making games.

I couldn't agree more!

 

[Outback Bronze]

The last time I played Crysis was in 2017 and it looked good

Yep, I still enjoy losing myself in those graphics. They even did a Crysis Remastered, and it was arguable better. I still remember playing the original on my 8800GTS 640MB Core 2 Duo OC to 3.4GHz on my 55" DLP 1280 x 1024 fully maxed first Windows 7 install to get the DX10 @ a massive avg of 20/25 fps and loving it!

Maybe I was and still am Obsessed. Thread/

 

[AusWolf]

I don't believe it is an obsession any more than the natural progression of things. Games, like movies, have long since been a medium of escapism and advanced storytelling, even more so than books, and rich audiovisual effects are about as much as we can immerse ourselves in a fictitious world. It's all about living a fantasy, and honestly, censorship and old industry "boundaries" regarding video games are about to butt heads with the increasing levels of photorealism and eventually, I believe, even sensorial realism if this makes any sense to you as technology advances. Not all video games must be hyper-realistic to be enjoyed, but many of them equally benefit from having this quality. In my opinion, it's all about balance.

Due to this, I hold a firm belief that entertainment software rating boards, who have standards set in the early 1990s, and because fun is expressly disallowed in today's society due to the political climate, that the ESRB and its worldwide counterparts such as PEGI, USK and CERO have become woefully obsolete, and that the blanket ban on ESRB AO titles (basically anything that has a moderate amount of objectionable content) is extremely damaging to video game development and artistic freedom. The industry must understand that people who have experienced video games in the 1980s and 1990s in their youths are now firmly adults, and that we still enjoy gaming today.

This, of course, is from the point of view of someone who holds an immense fervor towards artistic freedom and considers video games as the evolution of the motion picture, a very high form of art, instead of a digital toy. In fact, I have had rather... unpleasant conversations with individuals who consider video games to be toys, and that may or may not have gotten me banned from the Steam forums like, 3 or 4 times already. I'm unwavering on this (very strong) opinion of mine.

Agreed. Politics and art do not mix in an ideal world. Unfortunately, our present-day world is far from ideal. The general atmosphere has only been more political circa 90 years ago, which is sad. Very sad.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Yep, I still enjoy losing myself in those graphics. They even did a Crysis Remastered, and it was arguable better. I still remember playing the original on my 8800GTS 640MB Core 2 Duo OC to 3.4GHz on my 55" DLP 1280 x 1024 fully maxed first Windows 7 install to get the DX10 @ a massive avg of 20/25 fps and loving it!

Maybe I was and still am Obsessed. Thread/

I didn't get through all that comparison video for Crysis, but some of the remastered images/stills looked awful compared to the original. Some looked a little better. If you were to take all those images, no labels on them and randomly put them in front of someone to guess which is which, I'm guessing most people would fail to pick which is which 50% of the time.

I recently (7 months back) replayed through Crysis and finally played Crysis: Warhead. None of that "remastered" crap and they looked good and played like I remember them. Glad I didn't waste my money on the "remastered" version...it really doesn't look any better based on that comparison video.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

I didn't get through all that comparison video for Crysis, but some of the remastered images/stills looked awful compared to the original. Some looked a little better. If you were to take all those images, no labels on them and randomly put them in front of someone to guess which is which, I'm guessing most people would fail to pick which is which 50% of the time.

I recently (7 months back) replayed through Crysis and finally played Crysis: Warhead. None of that "remastered" crap and they looked good and played like I remember them. Glad I didn't waste my money on the "remastered" version...it really doesn't look any better based on that comparison video.

I own both and while the remaster generally looks better there is something off about it like it was made with Consoles in mind and then ported up to PC and even though it uses the latest Cryengine it looks nowhere near as good as Crysis 3.

Speaking of which who could forget this lol.

The area in the game where the Aliens are running through the tall grass raptor style is still one of my favorite.

 

[eidairaman1]

Firstly, this is not an AMD vs Nvidia thread.
Secondly, this is not an FSR vs DLSS thread.
Thirdly, this is not an "RT is sooo awesome, woaoah!" thread.

Now that the (to me) obvious is out of the way, let me continue with some observations.

• A lot of (especially AAA) games are being marketed by their graphics these days, like there's not a lot behind it (and a lot of times there really isn't).
• A lot of (even not so old) games are being remade with slightly upgraded graphics, and they seem to be popular for some reason.
• There's way too much fighting in the online community over which graphical feature is important, and what one should or shouldn't use. Some people really seem to make it a crusade for some reason.

The question is simple: why?
Why are we so obsessed with graphics that we pay huge amounts of money for pretty, but soulless games and remakes of the same game that we already own?
Why do we jump at each other's throats when someone appears to have different preferences when it comes to graphical features? Why is it so hard to peacefully coexist?
Also: when did it all start and how?

Game devs suffer from laziness today.

FF7 still kicks ass as much as when I played it first time in 1999

That's how Sonic 1-3&Knuckles, Knuckles Chaotix was, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Unreal/UT99, Half Life, Deus Ex(2000's) are

 

[AMF]

Graphical quality and great game play combined is what lead us here.

 

[kurosagi01]

Kind of agree with this guy opinion.

 

[R-T-B]

Game devs suffer from laziness today.

This sounds like a frankly, lazy thought.

Making a game at all has never been easy in the first place.

 

[Vayra86]

This sounds like a frankly, lazy thought.

Making a game at all has never been easy in the first place.

I think devs are stuck between rock and hard place when it comes to timelines and project planning versus the features asked and the end result. In many studios tied to larger publishers there is a corporate push and its always detrimental to the product, even if it means they get released in time.

Also, limits on artistic freedom. I think many devs dont really get to own their product. Thats deadly for motivation

 

[chrcoluk]

While it does look terrible in comparison to today's games the gap from it to anything else that came out in 2007 was pretty massive. I don't think any developer will be that ambitious it took a legit 2 generations to get a single gpu that could legit run that game at 1080p60 no developer is going to target a theoretical 7090/9900XTX now and make it run like crap on all existing hardware.

I mean even on modern CPUs it is hard to hit 60fps in it lol because the engine uses like 2 cores.

I don't think we will get a developer that does that ever again way too risky to create a game nobody can run well for 1-2 generations.

I had an 8800 can't remember what variant but man it was like 20-30fps at 1080p lol had to run the game at 720p medium to get decent performance.

AA was like RT back then halved your performance lmao

They doing it now, I seem to recall a bunch of recent news stories about recent AAA needing frame generation and the like to run well.

For me the difference is that crysis you could understand why, the game looked way ahead of its time.

The games today dont look anything special compared to whats been released in recent years but for unknown reasons require such powerful hardware, well we do know, the lazy development, the reliance on standardised engines.

Most games I play still only use 2-4 cores ironically, but I dont play many FPS games,

Spice wars which I am playing now, is a very simplistic strategy/rts type game, but needs about 3 seconds to load a mission select screen on a 13700k and SN850X, if you repeatedly go back to it, its the same loading time, so no cache logic, requires 6 gig of ram to get to the title screen, and by the time I have finished a session it can be using over 14 gigs or more. Finally it pushes my GPU as hard as FF7 remake lol. Also the mission select map screen if I dont apply my low power afterburner profile, it consumes nearly 200w on the GPU lol, thats 60fps of a basic map. You can see the impact on the bottom right graphs when I applied my 1500mhz capped profile.