How much performance for Cgi level graphics?

[bobeskomaill]

I know this is a silly question, because its theoretical but I would like to know some people opinions about this. So lets assume we should have current movie cgi quality graphics in games one day, how much gpu performance lets say in Tflops will be needed to achieve this in a game.

 

[EarthDog]

Pffffff, who knows...

I mean those are made frame by frame and scene by scene, not rendering each frame by itself for fluid motion... so I expect a lot more than we have now, that is for sure.

 

[KainXS]

and what cgi sequence in particular?

 

[Dent1]

I know this is a silly question, because its theoretical but I would like to know some people opinions about this. So lets assume we should have current movie cgi quality graphics in games one day, how much gpu performance lets say in Tflops will be needed to achieve this in a game.

Impossible to answer fully.

Depend on the game. Open world like GTA would require more rendering per scene than a very linear game like Max Payne. In terms of Tflops it's impossible to measure. What about the CPU horse power and memory bandwidth doesn't that play a factor in your equations?!

I don't think it's a matter of "one day". The hardware is already here. It comes down to how much time and money do developers have? Motion pictures have astronomically bigger budget and developers don't have the time to perfect every scene. It could take like a decade to finish creating one game. Movies are pre-rendered, the storyboard for each is prewritten and linear whereas games require interaction so pre-rendering is impossible.

 

[hellrazor]

That depends on what you call "CGI-level graphics". The biggest (and, by far, the most computationally expensive) problem facing the graphics in games is that the lighting models are atrociously bad, and it would probably take a low-quality (as in inaccurate/computationally cheap) hardware-accelerated ray-tracing program (think of a shitty version of Octane) two or three GTX 780 Tis to do game-level media (textures, models, materials, effects) at 1024x768@30, which is bare minimum for gaming. Of course the problem with that is that a large amount of effects are to make up for the bad lighting (*cough* soft shadows *cough*), and that CGI graphics are usually done at resolutions that are far beyond 1080p and with much better media.

 

[Fourstaff]

I think we have more CGI than 70's scifi cheese

We will never beat CGI levels of, say, Avatar, anytime soon though.

 

[lyndonguitar]

If i remember it correctly the CGI for movies rendered those images on average a whopping 10 hours PER FRAME. that's rendering for 300 Hours every single second you want in a movie. and it's only just 30 FPS.

To make it run a video game like we play today on personal computers you need to run it 1/30(0.033) second per frame to make it real time.

correct me if i'm wrong but using math, converting 10 hours into seconds (36000) and dividing it by (0.033 seconds). you would need a PC 1090909.09091 times more powerful then today to be able to process it all in a single computer and on real time. not mentioning it still runs 30 FPS and not including all the other processes the game might do.

Although CGI rendering techniques doesn't work exactly the same as Video Game Engine Rendering techniques, you would get the idea

 

[xenocide]

Since 3D Graphics have been around actual gameplay is in the ballpark of 10-15 years behind pre-rendered scenes. So by about 2030 I'd imagine we'd be able to get "CGI-quality" graphics--just in time for Half-Life 3 I imagine

 

[bobeskomaill]

That depends on what you call "CGI-level graphics". The biggest (and, by far, the most computationally expensive) problem facing the graphics in games is that the lighting models are atrociously bad, and it would probably take a low-quality (as in inaccurate/computationally cheap) hardware-accelerated ray-tracing program (think of a shitty version of Octane) two or three GTX 780 Tis to do game-level media (textures, models, materials, effects) at 1024x768@30, which is bare minimum for gaming. Of course the problem with that is that a large amount of effects are to make up for the bad lighting (*cough* soft shadows *cough*), and that CGI graphics are usually done at resolutions that are far beyond 1080p and with much better media.

So basically the lightning is the most crucial element in achieving cgi level, but by far the most demanding? So the only way to achieve this is with raytracing?

 

[hellrazor]

So basically the lightning is the most crucial element in achieving cgi level, but by far the most demanding? So the only way to achieve this is with raytracing?

It's the only way to get CGI level graphics unless there are some massive breakthroughs in mathematics.

 

[rtwjunkie]

IIRC, haven't most of those CGI movies been created using a room full of very high end PC's, all working together?

 

[newconroer]

Requires real time vector rendering and/or high levels of physics computation to replace the need for always using frame by frame productions.
This is one of the highest cost contributions to modern films.

 

[leeb2013]

its getting close if a GTX680 can do this;

there are other good demos too, like the faceworks demo.

I reckon 4 780ti or R9-290x could do it. Maybe 3 if Mantle works well.

The graphic on a PS4 look pretty good for a 7870 equivalent, if they can get that efficiency on a PC, it should be possible.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

Redundant question? CGI means computer generated image, so all gaming graphics that aren't pre-rendered are CGI.

Pedantic bent aside, it won't ever happen. The short of it is that we currently use different shading on games than on a movie. Think of it this way, in a basic college level physics class bodies aren't assumed to be deformable, and friction is almost never a factor in calculations. In this way, a night's homework might be 30 problems. At the graduate level we have a more precise understanding of how bodies interact, deform, and how energy is lost in the system. The graduate might have a single problem, which the 30 smaller questions approximate. Different means of calculating the same thing yield vastly different computational loads.

If you want graphics to be pretty and smooth, you run a solution that is 90% of the desired goal. That last 10% makes things beautiful (even the detractors of Pocahontas with blue cats, I mean Avatar, can't deny it was pretty), but the cost to accurately calculate it is several orders of magnitude more work. Whenever the average consumer has a server farm for rendering even the simplest things, this will be a possibility. Given what Intel and MS are pushing, I don't think computational horsepower is going to be scraping those lofty realms in the next decade or two.

To make the point even finer, Anti-aliasing and its ilk won't even appear at Pixar. It's a fundamental component of most video games.

 

[red_stapler]

I read the thread title as "CGA" level graphics and thought "not much".

 

[Frick]

its getting close if a GTX680 can do this;

there are other good demos too, like the faceworks demo.

I reckon 4 780ti or R9-290x could do it. Maybe 3 if Mantle works well.

The graphic on a PS4 look pretty good for a 7870 equivalent, if they can get that efficiency on a PC, it should be possible.

That ain't in game, doesn't count.

 

[Dent1]

its getting close if a GTX680 can do this;

there are other good demos too, like the faceworks demo.

I reckon 4 780ti or R9-290x could do it. Maybe 3 if Mantle works well.

The graphic on a PS4 look pretty good for a 7870 equivalent, if they can get that efficiency on a PC, it should be possible.

Although that cut scene might be rendered in real time, the scenes are predetermined.

The hardware would be significantly taxed further to play the actual game throughout with a unpredictable human player.


BTW the OP isn't coming back!

 

[Doc41]

BTW the OP isn't coming back!

Mind blown!?

All i can think of is its only a matter of time?