This Gen is The smallest visual Leap so far!

There are a number of factors to consider here. First Returnal is made by a smaller studio with less resources and R&C follows a very distinct art style. So I don’t think either are great candidates to judge generational leaps in some ways. When it comes to R&C specifically, we should be looking at environment, animation, warp loading, RT, objects on screen, etc for that next gen impression, not so much the character models themselves (even though there are noticeable improvements there too). With all that considered, I think R&C is the best new gen showpiece title by quite a margin.

The other thing to consider is the amount of new gen exclusives we’re seeing or really, not seeing. We didn’t see huge leaps in cross gen games in the past and the industry is leaning heavily in cross gen support now.

The lack of new gen exclusives from MS is also another factor. When we see more real gameplay from what MS and Sony will have to offer exclusively for new consoles, we’ll see the expected leaps more regularly.

The last factor is just time and cost. These new systems have a lot of new features and are plenty powerful but it’s going to take time and money to properly develop the technology to utilize the hardware. Even the best looking games we see this year will be overshadowed by next year and beyond. I think we’ll see larger leaps this gen than we typically see.

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Dude… Its says in the title “so far” and if you read the OT that I aknoledge that release dates dont line up, however if u just go by games within the first year the points still apply.

If people are going to post in a thread at least spend 5mins reading the OT and the title, otherwise its just ignorant.

really depends on resolution target and frames per second. that still the leap in hardware is smaller than 360/ps3 to XBO/PS4.

we will get visual leap but it will decent not big one in next few years.

what we will see in next few years devs

some devs will focus on effect and particles and other devs will focus characters models and animations.

also visuals are not just heldback by hardware, the software side needs major improvements.

Covid does play a role in all of this. Games been delayed left and right.

I agree rachet is one of the best next gen show pieces so far. You dont think Returnal is a good candidate to judge next gen graphics on because its made by about 70 core team members over about 3 years? that does not make much sense, afterall it is a rougelite, so its not the largest of games, so i dont see any reason why a team like housemarque could not make a visual showcase for a new system in 3yrs. No doubt rift apart has improvements in all the areas you mentioned however what im saying is, the improvement is smaller then the visual generational improvements of prior gens. I made this thread because I see some people in the pro + social media give a lot of praise for the generational visual improvement that a rift apart + returnal have and when you break it down the leap is pretty small from a historical stand point. This gen the larger improvements will not be how good things look in a game.

I think there will be better looking games.

I expect we will reach the UE5 demo, or metroEE rt gi with quixel megascans environments.

What I dont expect is open world games for seriesX to make RDR2 appear how RDR2 makes RDR1 look so primitive.

for me what i want from this gen is Physics improvements, the industry went backwards on this in favour for visual leap on Last gen consoles/era

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Because developers realized gamers care more about the coat of paint instead of the depth.

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It makes perfect sense when 70 is pretty small and the game being rougelite doesn’t mean the game lacks a huge number of quality assets needed for a current gen game. Add in them adopting to UE4, an engine that didn’t get official PS5 support until 4.25 which released in May of last year.

Regarding R&C, I believe the jump from PS4 to PS5 R&C is larger than the jump we saw going from the PS3 to the PS4. This is especially true when you consider the PS4 game was a remake of the PS2 original. So on top of the scope being smaller, you don’t see the physics we see now, the animation is a generation apart, the loading and streaming, the lighting is a night and day difference (no pun intended) and so on. The game’s graphics are getting so much attention because it really is such a huge leap. World density, size, animation, physics, etc are all so far beyond what we saw last gen that it shouldn’t be surprising that the game is receiving so much attention.

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Small teams have done great graphics, such as hellblade for example. And the latest version of UE4 is not required for amazing graphics. Of course making a game for a new platform has its own unique problems, but from what we know the PS5 has been one of the smoother transitions for devs. Devs in the past have much more problematic dev environments when going to a new gen but still managed to have an impressive generational visual leap.

Ragarding rachet I disagree because, despite rachets improvements it still using used baked Gi, rasturised PBR. The reason the jump from ps3 to ps4 is bigger then the leap from ps4 to ps5 (so far) is because of the wide spread use of PBR, it was a big change of the lighting model used. Rift apart does not have such a drastic change. It still uses the same rasturised PBR lighting used in the PS4 generation. To put this into perspective it would be like if killzone shadowfall used the same lighting model as killzone 3.

Dont take my word for it Alex + john here explain in detail what rift Apart is doing and what is not doing.

Heres some interesting quotes that do show the extent of the visual leap rachet offers.

Said at 2.30

From watching this trailer we don’t see kind of any added features over what we saw in Spiderman miles morales

@4.45

John - and another thing that really kind of just stands out throughout this environment it is a cartoony game but each of the objects in the world there’s just a ton of geometry in them, like this cityscape when it’s looking out there’s all these little tiny objects and if you actually look closely at ground everything is still filled in the lods aren’t agressive in anyway"

Rift aparts main visual improvement is its ray traced reflections, increased polycount which enable more objects on screen and geometric detail. However in prior gens we have seen improvements in more areas, increased polycount, new lighting models, new effects and techniques. I do think this gen will one day have improvements in all these areas but due to dimininishing returns the improvement wont be as drastic.

@Tesla

Serious question for you - on a scale of 1-10 with 10 obviously being the best, what would you rate the visuals in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart based on the recent 16 minute State of Play gameplay trailer?

Depends on the standards. The way one rates visuals, changes with each generation. For example when RDR1 came out it was like a 9.5/10 for visuals for me, but now i would rate it like a 3/10. But that would be a dumb way to look at it because im judging a 10yr old game with a modern standard.

But to me rift apart looks like a ps4 game @ 1440p with double the polygon budget and Rt reflections. So i dont know how to rate it, if somone told me these graphics were done on a xbox one x I would not be shocked.

Okay, fair enough. I rate games at the time of their release because years/decades later, the vast majority of games will look outdated and obsolete.

Obviously, I believe that Rift Apart looks amazing and an improvement over Ratchet 2016 but in fairness, I did play it just over a year ago so it’s fresh in my mind and I can see it. The main thing is that the worlds look so much more populated and lively than the 2016 game.

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I was hoping for vastly better smoke, fluid,fire and particle effects.

Similar to the ones in this trailer

I think we will see some crazy things being done reguarding the 4 elements, i was crazy impressed by the water in sea of thieves.

I expect quit a few games to make this happen, especially GTA6.

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Isn’t the Suicide Squad trailer CGI though? It’s not gameplay. Who knows how that’s going to look especially since it’s two years away.

I think a lot of the areas in Ratchet looks great in regards to the effects but at the same time, we haven’t seen the entire game and I do believe that when I play it on the LG CX OLED, it’s going to look even better. Watching it at 1080P/60FPS on my laptop via YouTube doesn’t do the game justice. But yet, it looks amazing to me so I can only imagine what it looks like when im actually playing it.

I hope you’re right.

It looks amazing by current gen standards. It looks like it would not be possible on last gen. But my point is its not impressive as a generation leap. If the TLOU remastered was the first ps4 game we saw but with added geometry it would be very impressive by ps3 gen standards, but not as a generational leap.

Whats even crazier to me is that metroEE looks better (or at least as good) then rachet and that is at its core a last gen game. This new gen is different. Dimininishing returns are changing things im mean in what gen could you take at last gen game add a new lighting model, double the framerate and have it look as good as current gen games?

Last gen has gotten to the point where some things dont need a huge amount of improvement. For example you know those bits in uncharted 4 where your at nathans house? Well to me his sofa or chair or bed look like the things they are trying to depict, its classic dimininishing returns, your not going to see an improvement when you get to a certain polygon level.

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This is nothing new because normal maps make polycount for individual items not a good metric of quality. However you cant do much to table or sofa which already look quite real. Its like if 100 is reality getting from 90 to 100 is as hard or possibly harder then getting from 0 to 90.

I never said small teams can’t do great graphics. Hellblade looks great and so does Returnal. I also never said you need the latest version of UE4 for great graphics, but you’re creating more work for yourself if you try to use an engine not officially supported on the platform you’re developing for. There is a good chance that more than half of the development of Returnal was done on hardware that was different than the PS5, so all things considered, they did a great job.

Also you have absolutely no idea how the development experience was for Returnal versus other launch games on past generations.

Sorry but you have this wrong on multiple levels. First, these quotes from DF don’t really support your claims, especially the second quote. We don’t need more than what we see in Spider Man to have an impressive leap in graphics, especially this early in the generation. When they describe the game as “unbelievable” near the end of the video, that certainly doesn’t support your claims here.

if your criteria for an impressive next gen game is not using baked GI and rasterized PBR (?) then get ready to be disappointed by many, many games this gen. Also from what I can tell, there is no such thing as ray traced PBR. PBR is the way a surface reacts to lighting including roughness values/microsurface, albedo/diffuse map, energy conservation, fresnel, etc. It’s also wrong to assume the quality of their PBR materials is the same as found on the PS4. You can just see the quality of their shading and how much they have improved. Unless I’m mistaken, you seem to think PBR is a lighting model. In reality a PBR pipeline includes lighting, shading, and properly authored assets.

Since the PS2/Xbox/GC generation, every previous generation has used techniques used in the one before. We had games using PBR on the Xbox 360 and PS3. We had games using normal maps and stencil shadows on the Xbox. Every new generation has taken these advancements started on previous generation and improved the quality of these effects by a large margin. That is exactly what we’re seeing today with exclusives like Ratchet and Clank.

Edit:

What you’re basically doing with your Ratchet comparison is what we see below with my Woody comparison and saying there isn’t much progression even though we know there was A LOT of advancements between each Toy Story film. The main point here is that when you look at something that has a more stylized art direction, it’s not as easy to see the jumps as it would be if you were looking at something aiming for photo realism.

BTW I’m not saying anyone is wrong for being disappointed or less impressed this gen comparatively. I just don’t think it’s accurate to say we’re seeing less advancements at this point in the generation, especially when we consider what is being accomplished with RT alone.

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@KageMaru

Also you have absolutely no idea how the development experience was for Returnal versus other launch games on past generations.

And neither do you?

Also if you dont think smaller team with less resources cant do great graphics why even mention housemarque is smaller with less resources?

Sorry but you have this wrong on multiple levels. First, these quotes from DF don’t really support your claims, especially the second quote. We don’t need more than what we see in Spider Man to have an impressive leap in graphics, especially this early in the generation. When they describe the game as “unbelievable” near the end of the video, that certainly doesn’t support your claims here.

In what way does the 2nd quote not support my claims? Ive said multiple times that rachet has better polycount and geometry found in the prior gen.

“We don’t need more than what we see in Spider Man to have an impressive leap in graphics, especially this early in the generation.”

Whats, “impressive” is a matter of opinion, what is not an opinion is the number of visual components that have an improvement and to what extent. John did say that what isomniac are doing with the visuals is unbelievable, thats great, his opinion. What iam talking about is the usage of visual effects which can be identified, its not my opinion.

Also if your criteria for an impressive next gen game is not using baked GI and rasterized PBR (?) then get ready to be disappointed by many, many games this gen. Also from what I can tell, there is no such thing as ray traced PBR. PBR is the way a surface reacts to lighting including roughness values/microsurface, albedo/diffuse map, energy conservation, fresnel, etc. It’s also wrong to assume the quality of their PBR materials is the same as found on the PS4. You can just see the quality of their shading and how much they have improved. Unless I’m mistaken, you seem to think PBR is a lighting model. In reality a PBR pipeline includes lighting, shading, and properly authored assets.

PBR can certainly be of varrying degrees of quality, this video here shows PBR that exceeds anything seen last gen and rift apart.

So you or I cant determine if the quality of rift aparts PBR is better then what the PS4 did. The only thing I can go on is my eyes and that Alex from DF did say that rift apart does not show any added features over Spiderman MM. So i dont know how we would determine if the features used in rift apart are of a higher quality then spidermans. In my opinion the quality of the PBR seems to be the same in rift, but it looks like there may be more light sources.

Since the PS2/Xbox/GC generation, every previous generation has used techniques used in the one before. We had games using PBR on the Xbox 360 and PS3. We had games using normal maps and stencil shadows on the Xbox. Every new generation has taken these advancements started on previous generation and improved the quality of these effects by a large margin. That is exactly what we’re seeing today with exclusives like Ratchet and Clank.

True, however PBR was rarely used in 360/ps3 gen, last gen it was used extensively, materials in games such as metal, wood, fabric, water, plastic, skin etc would actually look like these materials. So despite what rift apart is doing the visual improvement is not as drasic as 360/ps3 to last gen. If multiple other areas improved in a rift apart more drastically this would not be the case, smoke, explosions, particle effects or fluid simulations are not any better then last gen.

And if you think a rift apart has vastly suprior lighting, shadows or effects then last gen please show us! All I can see that is improved is geomentry, ray traced reflections and faster streamed lods and of course its excellent iQ.

BTW I’m not saying anyone is wrong for being disappointed or less impressed this gen comparatively. I just don’t think it’s accurate to say we’re seeing less advancements at this point in the generation, especially when we consider what is being accomplished with RT alone.

Im not saying we are seeing less advancements, hell theres probably more in this new gen things like dlss,VRS, DRS, ray tracing, ssd + faster io, etc etc, but what I am saying is that if took, reflections, smoke, materials, lighting quality, fire, particles, shaders and any other visual component you can think of , from 360/ps3, last gen and the ps5 exclusives we uave seen so far you would see a larger improvement from the 360/ps3 gen to last gen then the improvement of current gen compared to last gen. Do I really have to get individual pictures of explosions, materials, reflections fr each gen to show what im saying is accurate?

I mean just look at the rachet trailer again, look at all the visual components i mentioned and then look at some good examples from last gen. You will see that they did not improve to the same extent as 360 to ps4.

Rachet tools of destruction ps3 Hnet-image

Sunset overdrive x1 2696508-9677475871-25258

R+C ps4

Rift apart PS5 61MxJCG purple_gun_v2n4jpy

Are u really telling me so far the visual leap of x1 to ps5 is as big as ps3 to x1?