I don't really know much about this sorta stuff, but it just keeps getting better. I remember when HL:2 first came out, i was amazed at how real the faces looked, and i didn't think they could ever improve on something like that. But technology never ceases to amaze me.

TheNecroswanson:
As far as graphics go, we're always making advancements in math. I'm sure you know plenty on fractal imaging. That alone is proof that we have a long way to go before we hit a wall.

That right there.

Plus, every time I think we are getting close to the limit, I just look up close at any texture.
Heck, the fact that we even have textures is room for improvement. Every single little detail on the screen being a 3D model? Yeah, we have a ways to go.

meatloaf231:

TheNecroswanson:
As far as graphics go, we're always making advancements in math. I'm sure you know plenty on fractal imaging. That alone is proof that we have a long way to go before we hit a wall.

That right there.

Plus, every time I think we are getting close to the limit, I just look up close at any texture.
Heck, the fact that we even have textures is room for improvement. Every single little detail on the screen being a 3D model? Yeah, we have a ways to go.

I think you've just described (very basically) voxels, pretty much 3D pixels, which to me seems like the next step forward. Some games have already used them for terrain 'cause they look more natural or something.

A lot of games have used them so far (As far back as some of the CnC games) but they're still pretty basic. Once the processing power of computers goes up, I can see absolutely minute voxels being used to create very lifelike objects, and would also happily allow for destructable terrain which is something more games need.

I couldn't believe it when Nintendo said the Wii wouldn't be very powerful because we were already approaching photo-realistic graphics. I'm not saying I want things to look like real life, because that would be boring, but games aren't even close to looking as good as they can be.

I'm not to fussy about graphics. After the age of eleven I stopped going "WOWZORS l00k at all teh pretty pixelsz!!11!". I get the fact that it helps tell a story, but I don't have much of a problem following games like Neverwinter Nights, or even the old Final Fantasys. Also, I'm definitely not an expert, but it seems to me that the processing power that goes into photo realism could also be used to make environments bigger. I think the "oo shiny!" mentality will necessitate the creation of better graphics. There also might be some sort of move away from 2D games into CNN mortal combat: hologram edition, as suggested by Jon Stewert.

There's a difference between games with good graphic technology and games that look good. I mean, compare these:

Sure, 3d, higher resolution, more effects, blah blah blah, but the charm of the graphics is completely gone. I mean, Doom 3 has better graphics than the original Half-Life, but at least Half-Life doesn't make me feel like my guns are all made out of plastic. Graphic design is very important, and it has been largely forgotten by the industry in their rush to make everything photorealistic. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that Team Fortress 2 looks leagues better than STALKER.

Eggo:

CIA:
I'm not to fussy about graphics. After the age of eleven I stopped going "WOWZORS l00k at all teh pretty pixelsz!!11!". I get the fact that it helps tell a story but I don't have much of a problem following games like Neverwinter Nights or even the old Final Fantasys. Also, I'm definitely not an expert, but it seems to me that the processing power that goes into graphics could also be used to make environments bigger with almost no loading times. I think the "oo shiny!" mentality will necessitate the creation of better graphics. There also might be some sort of move away from 2D games into CNN mortal combat: hologram edition, as suggested by Jon Stewert.

Load times is related to how fast your hard drive is and how much memory your computer has.

By the way, large, stunning, and immersive playing environments falls under the domain of graphics :]

Okay then I will go back and edit. You do have to admit that mortal combat style hologram fighting would be cool though.

EDIT: Not that that pertains to the subject at hand or anything.

Eggo:
TF2 is also a massively different game with very small levels. If the industry has largely forgotten about graphic design, plenty of people here have largely forgotten about hardware constraints on game design.

Well obviously that's true but it's pretty tangential to my point, which was that stylized design has pretty much been completely lost on the current generation of games, and that there absolutely is a place for graphics that aren't simply near-photorealistic with a more limited colour pallette. I don't just mean cartoon graphics, either - I'd love to play an impressionist or chiaroscuro game. I really enjoyed the 'twisted' visual style of American McGee's Alice. The current games that are just as photorealistic as possible except with a lot more brown and gray are boring, especially in games that really only have a very tenuous connection to reality in other areas.

CIA said a few things that got me to thinking. First, and foremost, to everybody who's been patiently waiting for the future, yes, we have holograms, now. Your flying car is in the mail (reminder: it will be in suitcase form when it arrives). But in all seriousness, I like the idea of graphics getting better to an extent. I think Nintendo was out of their minds when they decided instead of improving their console, they were essentially going to gimmick up the gamecube. They turned out to be dead wrong about graphics not getting any better when games like Oblivion and Virtua Fighter 5 came out on the ps3. But in the long run, how important are graphics anyway? For a lot of companies **cough-Bethesda-cough** good graphics might just be a handy backdoor to go out when they realize they can stimp out on gameplay and fun and rely on their graphics to garner good reviews.

I walked around Oblivion for nearly two hours, admiring how pretty everything was, before I realized that there wasn't a god damn thing to do. When I wasn't busy throwing fireballs at things and kicking boxes, I would talk to someone, and every single person wanted me to go on some quest or do something. Next thing you know, I'm three hours deep and I'm wandering around a lake trying to find fish to kill for some dude, and, thank god, there wasn't a single damn fish in that lake, or maybe I would've finished and continued on to the next quest. Instead, I decided to put Virtua Fighter 5 back in and have fun. My brother told me later that he had been playing Oblivion for days and hadn't done much but improve his Stealth ability.

And there I think are two fine examples: Virtua Fighter is gorgeous and fun to play (I played all night with just the one luchador guy), Oblivion is gorgeous instead of being fun to play. There are so many better things to do to improve our gaming experience than to fine tune the pixelation. SDVR '09 has an option to make your own finishing move! I haven't gotten around to the game yet, but even if it the finisher system isn't good enough to the point where I can make Travis Tragic and give him the Tearjerker finisher (crucifix leg-sweep facebuster), THAT'S the road to the future of gaming in my eyes.

But, to agree with the poster, until DOA 12 or Sexy Beach 15 comes out, I'm going to go out on a limb with males all over America and say we have not seen the peak of graphical perfection in gaming. We aren't even close.

Eggo:

Good morning blues:

Eggo:
TF2 is also a massively different game with very small levels. If the industry has largely forgotten about graphic design, plenty of people here have largely forgotten about hardware constraints on game design.

Well obviously that's true but it's pretty tangential to my point, which was that stylized design has pretty much been completely lost on the current generation of games, and that there absolutely is a place for graphics that aren't simply near-photorealistic with a more limited colour pallette. I don't just mean cartoon graphics, either - I'd love to play an impressionist or chiaroscuro game. I really enjoyed the 'twisted' visual style of American McGee's Alice. The current games that are just as photorealistic as possible except with a lot more brown and gray are boring, especially in games that really only have a very tenuous connection to reality in other areas.

All the techniques and hardware which are used to achieve photorealism are also necessary to achieve every kind of graphics style out there, not just photorealism.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I'm saying that improvements in hardware aren't the only way to improve graphics. Obviously the hardware will be capable of more and more detailed and complex graphics as we figure out how to fit more transistors onto a chip, but if every game looks exactly the same, that won't matter at all.

I agree with Eggo on this one. A Cel-Shaded game looks awesome. A game with even better cel-shading would look even more awesome.

That being said, though, no matter how much more graphics improve, it will continue to impress me less and less. Call me naive, but as long as I can tell what I'm looking at, I don't really feel like anything else matters. Except maybe movement detail. I am impressed at how facial expressions and what not have changed over the years, and look forward to even more improvements in that realm.

Eggo:
But like I've said, advances in graphics and processing are not only relegated to "what you're looking at."

Want an urban combat game where the entire city (and all of its buildings) is seamlessly available to you and every building can be destroyed or malformed on the outside and in(given enough firepower)? That's going to be a job for graphics processing units.

Oh, no. I agree with you there. I never said I don't welcome better graphic technology. Hell, I'm always fascinated with the continued improvement of facial expressions and stuff, but I wasn't blown away by, say, DX10 versus DX9 (On games that could be played on both, there's no arguing something like Crysis would've been crap with DX9)

*cough*Ray Tracing*cough*

If photorealistic graphics were invented, every single game with violence in it would be given an 18+ rating, due to excessively violent content, and people who aren't over 18 would have to play games like Furby's Mega Super Happy Adventure Volume II Chapter III Part VI.

Good morning blues:
Maybe I'm crazy, but I think that Team Fortress 2 looks leagues better than STALKER.

You're not crazy, I too feel that way. But, I can only judge as well as my computer can run STALKER and TF2. I've seen TF2 at its best, not extremly different from average. STALKER on the other hand nearly looks like an entirely different game from medium settings to max settings.

Yeah, I think graphics are only set to get better. The only thing I'm worried about is that as graphics get closer and closer to realism, more and more ignorant, misinformed people like Jack Thompson pop up from the ass-end of nowhere and start branding them as 'murder simulators' which is already becoming a bit of a nuisance to gamers, the censoring for the german Left 4 Dead cover is a perfect example of this.

Personally, I'm really excited about what grapics I'll get to see in my lifetime. =)

Don't short sell your eyes. We have a long long way to go before games achieve anything close to photorealism. I predict it will be decades before a completely CG image will be able to fool a discerning human eye. I'll admit to being fooled by a game like Gran Turismo 5 when I catch it out of the corner of my eye, but I think a lot of the time we will ourselves into believing "This is it! Graphics can get no better than this."

The real question is at what point we stop caring how much better the graphics are and start putting processing power towards other pursuits? Also do people think that graphics, while they have a long way to go, are seeing much smaller leaps forward, maybe not in actual technology, but in how they effect us?

As Yahtzee has pointed out about both Oblivion and Fallout 3, all great graphics have gotten us is a bunch of people inhabiting the Uncanny Valley, which makes any break in immersion that much less forgivable and detracts from the game experience in ways it never used to; we used to be able to handwave stuff like strange dialogue or a shift in tone, but when the developer is trying to show us "realistic" people and those people behave in any way mechanical, it's downright jarring.

"You spoony bard!" looks funny in print when pixelated sprites are talking. If an Oblivion- or Crysis-quality Tellah had a voice actor yell that, it'd be disturbing. I think our rush to improve graphics has killed an element of gaming we are likely to never get back.

I remember reading an article somewhere about Crysis 2.
And know that I've scared everyone cause it'll be another huge upgrade for your Pc,

And what the devs are saying for Crysis 2 is that it'll be CG movie quality graphics, so I'm assuming Boewulf graphic intensity. Which will make my rig bleed tears of silicon.

But dont fret just yet, release is supposed to be [insert far away date here]

Eggo:
But like I've said, advances in graphics and processing are not only relegated to "what you're looking at."

Want an urban combat game where the entire city (and all of its buildings) is seamlessly available to you and every building can be destroyed or malformed on the outside and in(given enough firepower)? That's going to be a job for graphics processing units.

have you tryed Warmoger? its a free game designed to show the niftyness of physx, and basicly everything is destructable. Its a pretty cool tech demo, but other that game a horrible game. Check it out if you want to see where gaming will hopefully be heading.

PS. if you have a Nvidia card 8 series and plus you'll be able to run it without a Physx card.

What the hell? You changed your avatar Eggo? Damn, it just doesn't feel the same, talking without your Kitty with sunglasses anymore...

I say never say never. Video games usually have that weird feeling and to me it always looks almost human but there's something that makes me know that it's not human.

Obviously, graphics have come a long way, but we still have a ways to go before we achieve complete "photo-realism" or something. But that's not to say we shant forget those sylized games of nor, plenty room for both graphics.

AND that's not to forget gameplay either. I'm against the idea that graphics are "killing games" and all that bullcrap, it's ZEE CAZUALZ and PIRIATESSE! Or it's just a phase, my money's on that.

Hang on, got some YouTube video 'ere;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKTAJBQSm10

There we go.

Codgo:
Graphics haven't really advanced alot the past year or so, lots of old engines are still being used. They just slap filters and motion blur on everything at the moment are people don't notice how old the tech is.

But with all the consoles running on 2005ish tech there is only so much they can do right now.

established systems don't upgrade on the fly. The consoles have basically hit their ceilings graphics wise. Console gamers won't notice a real change until we change systems in a couple years. PC gamers will see the changes a little earlier, but they too are behind the curve when it comes to graphics, as what CAN be done isn't necessarily being done, and won't be done en masse until the average system specs are higher.

Basically, when it comes to graphics, we're always chasing a dragon.

I personally don't think graphics NEED to get much better, but they will. There are always more and more little creases and folds in the faces of character models that can be more properly defined.

Ultimately there is an upper asymptote for graphics & game physics: perfect realism. We are undeniably curving closer and closer to the asymptote, the question is just how far along we really are, and how far along it we care to go?

We're coming VERY close to the upper bound on 3-D on a 2-D screen. More effort will not produce the same gains it once did, and the nitpicks are certainly getting very very small and almost irrelevant. That upper bound will move a lot higher with the creation of reliable quality and affordable 3D technology, but we're not there yet.

Really, we're past the point on the curve where I care about the little difference between us and perfection, and I think with every iteration of a new gaming console we move past more and more people's thresholds.

Graphics are fine as they are. I said this 5 years ago to myself but damn they just look "purty". Refine the physics engine and little stuff like clothes getting wet or realistic weather. Bullets that are affected by the wind would be cool (sometimes). Realism in games that require them would be nice, but don't forget innovative stuff. Games are supposed to be an escape. It's a weird

"I want everything" thing.

Graphics can always be improved, it's working them into games in an appropriate fashion that is the more complicated issue.

My brother gets 3D World magazine and some of the stuff in that is absolutely mind-blowing, however the majority of images you see in there are stills that have taken three-quarters of the day to render. Obviously this is totally impractical for games, but given enough advances in hardware it'll probably get there one day. Back in the day people used to think the liquid Terminator from T2 was the pinacle of graphical excellence. Now that kind of morphing is stock in any 3D application.