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 play games since the 8-bit era.
The last time I was amazed by graphics was when playing GTA V on my PS3 around 10 years ago.
It felt like a next gen game on a last gen console (because it was).
Everything since then has only seen gradual change it seems.
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.
Man, Unreal was one of the leaps for sure! Loved that game.
Yeah, consoles tended to be bigger steps, but the steps get extremely small. PS4 to PS5 did not feel like a real graphical step at all to me
I remember the jump from Wolfenstein to Doom then Doom to Quake yeah good times.
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
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 went from PS3 to late-stage PS4 (think TLOU2). You can’t convince me that wasn’t a pretty big jump between one generation.
Went from N64 to PS1
Other way round, non?
PS1 definitely had the better graphics
No way. Janky textures that moved around more than the character onscreen is not better.
A lot of PS1 games had really neat pre-rendered sets, but it didn’t really come close to N64 in terms of clarity.
I grew up with both of them. My best friend had the PS1 and I had the N64.
The PS1 had more great games though.
Yes way. My ps1 looked much better than my buddies n64
I’m telling you, watch a comparison video on YouTube.
Maybe the only n64 game you ever seen was Superman 64 haha.
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
- EDIT: here is a good video about the PS1 hardware
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…
Oh and the waves look really frothy and cool
I started playing video games on a Coleco/ADAM computer. You’re damned right the PS1 had mind-boggling graphics.
I remember playing Twisted Metal on the PS1 and thinking that those graphics would just never be beat. They were so realistic!
I remember being a square with an arrow sticking out of it trying to kill dragons.
Hell, I remember being lost in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I have found my people!
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.
Have you seen the live-action tv show?
There’s a live-action TV show?!
That show was way better than it had any business being.
At that time simply seeing skeletons made out of polygons was mind-boggling enough.
My mind has been boggled. Doot doot.
Yeah, wait until you are 40 and kids are making this same statement about video games from today.
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”.
Lighting still has a ways to go. We got very good at faking lighting to look super realistic, but there’s always improvements to be made.
To me, the best part about raytracing is that it doesn’t rely on what’s being rendered, you can see realistic reflections of what’s behind you
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.
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…
“Ray tracing is truly mind boggling”
I, for one, am absolutely boggled right now
I distinctly remember doing a double take at the intense graphics of the SNES demonstrating Super Mario World at a display in a grocery store.
It’s hard to imagine things like that not existing yet.
Mind boggling doesn’t necessarily mean good. May be they meant like effects so shit it boggles the mind
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)
Yeah well, they can’t all be Mother 3.
