120fps at 4k can still look fake

[babcat]

New GPUs such as the GTX 980 provide a large amount of power for 1080P gaming at ordinary frame rates of 30 or 60 fps. They can even produce acceptable frame rates, especially in SLI or Crossfire modes, for 4k gaming or VR. However, despite their power, many developers continue to push for stylized games with stylized characters that are cheaper and easier to produce. Right now, there exists the potential to make near photorealistic skin and faces with Activision level skin shaders, but this is not being done. Instead, due to various factors, games have intentionally unrealistic looking characters.

I propose that having GPUs capable of running games at extremely high resolutions and frame rates is worthless if you are looking for near photorealistic skin shaders and characters at ordinary resolutions and framerates. For example, with a GTX 980 a game could be down sampled from 4k which could reduce aliasing and improve image quality. But if a character was not designed to use the highest quality shaders, it will not do anything to move them nearer to looking like they are from a movie.

I think the recent fad of using ultra powerful GPUs to improve image quality, frame rate, and resolution is destracting everyone from the fact there is not a single game out there that attempts to use the power of a high end GPU to make near photorealistic characters. For example, if an AMD 7950 can run a game like Crysis at an acceptable frame rate and have a semi-realistic environment, the game should have an option to use the power of a GTX 980 to improve the skin shaders.

If I were to buy a GPU today, I would buy a cheap low to mid range part because it would be all that was needed to run current games at 1080P at 30fps. I would not care about any better performance than that until I see games using it to make photorealistic characters.

Again, the technology to make photorealistic characters exists today. I am not talking about their animation, but how their skin looks. I think such skin could be used with a low to mid end graphics card at 1080p and 30fps. However, if I saw a game that required a 980 for realistic characters, I would want to buy it.

The truth is that high end graphics cards are a waste right now if you want photorealistic games. If you are wanting stylized games at 4k or using VR they are needed.

Personally, I'd be happier with a totally realistic looking game at 720P and 30fps than a stylized game at 120fps and in VR.

I am willing to trade 75% of the performance of a GTX 980 for realistic skin any day.

 

[Entropy]

I am willing to trade 75% of the performance of a GTX 980 for realistic skin any day.

There is an entire industry devoted to people like you. Make sure you buy products that haven't been unnecessarily tested on animals.

 

[CaptainGinger]

Right now, there exists the potential to make near photorealistic skin and faces with Activision level skin shaders, but this is not being done.

I'm with you! I say we all boycott the latest games until the industry as a whole has Activision 9000 level skin shaders or even higher!

 

[Grall]

Computer games, like with any other human art form, will always have a certain amount of non-realistic expression. Getting hung up on non-realistic skin seems counterproductive, when instead you could be enjoying the game!

 

[Novum]

This is not only a matter of GPU power, but also production budget.

 

[Pixel]

4k gaming console title are just a silly premise = if its discussed as the next gen console generation whenever that launches in 2018-2020. Not talking about PC, talking about a $400-500 pricepoint console games.

PCs are different, but having a large portion of console AAA titles at render 4k are a terrible terrible idea, I can't believe there are some long term members here suggesting there should be console games run at 4k for next console generation.

Occasionally there may be a few instances where 4k is fine for future consoles, such as uprezzed previous gen games, and/or 2d games like 2017's Trine4 which have lower rendering requirements due to the 2d viewpoint.

 

[itsmydamnation]

Computer games, like with any other human art form, will always have a certain amount of non-realistic expression. Getting hung up on non-realistic skin seems counterproductive, when instead you could be enjoying the game!

exactly , i want hyper real, if i wanted real i would just go out side

 

[Osamar]

I am willing to trade 75% of the performance of a GTX 980 for realistic skin any day.

And I am happy to have 85% of a GTX980 in a game like "Child of Light".

 

[Wynix]

Games are slowly moving there, the difference is developers who aim for realism aren't fixated on just one aspect(in your example, the character).
They have trees, cars, guns etc that need to match the characters level of realism.

You also need to take into account that making realistic games for people with GTX 980's is financially unviable.

 

[msia2k75]

Man I have to say, i couldnt care less about 4K gaming. I hope that if a next-gen console generation emerges, they stick to 1080p gaming and put all the additional processing power to gfx and physics instead of massive resolution increase.

 

[Wynix]

Man I have to say, i couldnt care less about 4K gaming. I hope that if a next-gen console generation emerges, they stick to 1080p gaming and put all the additional processing power to gfx and physics instead of massive resolution increase.

I don't see that happening with Sony leading the pack.

I would be fine with a compromise, something like WQXGA+ (3200x1800) upscaled to UHD (3840X2160), as that would almost triple the res instead of quadrupling it.
Allowing more performance allocated to devs but at the same time also giving a huge bump in image clarity to those of us who want it.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Who here has actually seen 4k gaming in the flesh? I haven't but I hear its pretty amazing. Might be best to see it before dismissing it.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

4k is overrated. It's just another higher numbers = better fad. Obviously is better and you can definitely see the difference in a store sitting less than 2 meters away from a 70+ inch tv but flip back to the real world where most people have a tv between 32 and 50 inch sitting 3 ~ meters away from it and the extra sharpness, if you can actually see any of it on a 50 inch or smaller tv sitting a couple of meters away from it, is suddenly going to be so small that it is not worth the giant increase in horsepower you need.

 

[Albuquerque]

I'm happy that 4K rez TV's are hitting the market and driving prices down, so that I can buy an enormous and high quality 1080P TV for even less money than I could last year. Keep buying it, suckers!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

VR can eat all the resolution thrown at it and VR is not a question of if but a question of when. 4K is very nice for desktop gaming as well and TVs are already affordable. Pretty nice Sony 55" 4K TV goes for 1500€ and lot's of other models are even cheaper than that. The Seiki's aren't that bad either and are dirt cheap.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

VR can eat all the resolution thrown at it and VR is not a question of if but a question of when. 4K is very nice for desktop gaming as well and TVs are already affordable. Pretty nice Sony 55" 4K TV goes for 1500€ and lot's of other models are even cheaper than that. The Seiki's aren't that bad either and are dirt cheap.

VR has always been a question of IF. It has been like that for the past 20+ years. Occulus rift has a chance to improve on past failures, but it will still remain very much a small niche product.

Perhaps I'm just jaded from when I had high hopes for the technology back in the late 90's early 00's when things like direct retina projection were being talked about (and I actually got to try it at the research department at the University of Washington).

But as long as there is an HMD involved, it will always be a very small niche product. I'm sure enthusiasts will pick up on it, but enthusiasts gamers are that small niche.

Regards,
SB

 

[eastmen]

Who here has actually seen 4k gaming in the flesh? I haven't but I hear its pretty amazing. Might be best to see it before dismissing it.

I got to play star citizen on the new 4k vizio sets(the 70 inch). It looks amazing and the vizio gives me hopes we will see 30 inch 4k monitors for under $500 in the next 2 or 3 years since the 50 inch is supposed to debut at $1k usd

 

[DuckThor Evil]

VR has always been a question of IF. It has been like that for the past 20+ years. Occulus rift has a chance to improve on past failures, but it will still remain very much a small niche product.

Perhaps I'm just jaded from when I had high hopes for the technology back in the late 90's early 00's when things like direct retina projection were being talked about (and I actually got to try it at the research department at the University of Washington).

But as long as there is an HMD involved, it will always be a very small niche product. I'm sure enthusiasts will pick up on it, but enthusiasts gamers are that small niche.

Regards,
SB

The form factor and tech should improve quite rapidly. The first consumer version of Rift will already be good and a huge step up from the first dev kit. I stand by my opinion that it has always been a question of when instead of if. The market for this will grow to be very big and I don't see the HMD as a problem, but it will need to improve. VR has a great potential to offer many kinds of experiences that go past gaming as well, porn comes to mind , some type of improved Google street view experience. If people get hooked to MMOs today, imagine what a proper VR-experience will do. Once it's good enough it can't be stopped.

 

[Entropy]

To the original poster - there are a few reasons why you aren't taken seriously.
One is that you argue in denial of technological trends.
Screens, TVs as well as computer monitors, are growing ever larger (thus, the field of view taken up by the screen is ever increasing, the extreme being VR). Furthermore, the resolution of the screens are increasing even faster than the screen size (in order to reduce pixelization in spite of the increased FOV). Third, frame rates, that were once determined by mechanical cranking limitations (film) or AC frequencies (TV) are again being shifted upwards after the lapse that LCD technology introduced. Everything records at 60Hz or higher, monitors supporting 120Hz or higher is increasingly common, the EVF in my camera refreshes at 120Hz with an option for 240 if I accept the compromises that limitations in sensor readout speed bring.
THESE TRENDS ARE DRIVEN BECAUSE THEY BRING TANGIBLE AND THUS SELLABLE BENEFITS. Denying those benefits because you don't appreciate them yourself is foolish.

The other is that you join a long line of special interest folks. And over the years we have had special interests pushing more realistic forests (remember "Speedtree"?), realistic water (several times), realistic movement (ever more sophisticated skeletal system, animation blends, motion capture...), realistic hair (TressEffects), cloth animation.....the list goes on and on. And it is a good thing that there are people pushing these minutiae, but that doesn't change the fact that taken on their own they are small, small parts of the greater whole.

The last reason is that you assume that your obsession with facial closeups are universally shared. I really don't give a damn about subsurface scattered, globally illuminated pores. I'm never that up close with the faces of my friends even, and couldn't care less about it in a computer game. Environments is what I appreciate. And you know, realistic grass, so I can get a good lawn-mowing experience in a VR-life sim in the future. Super-realistically rendered skin imperfections in low-res and stuttery frame rates are unlikely to rock the world. Sorry about that. You're likely to get them eventually anyway, because the show must go on, but you will get them along with everything else over the next couple of decades.

The people on these message boards are too experienced, and too jaded, to share in your enthusiasm of facial rendering over all other areas of potential graphical improvement.

 

[babcat]

There is an entire industry devoted to people like you. Make sure you buy products that haven't been unnecessarily tested on animals.

No, there is an industry pushing high resolutions and frames rates because it is less difficult to acieve than near photorealistic characters. If a developer made a game at 720p and 30fps that appeared similar to a movie, I think it would be a hit. For example, Quantic Dream did a good job with very primitive hardware at pushing photorealism. A 980 gtx is probably 40 times as powerful. I don't think all that power is needed to make a game with the environments of a modded crysis one (the following Crysis games did not look as good to me) and realistic characters.

However, the GPU industry tries to justify high end GPUs when all of the excess power is only being used to produce high resolutions, 120fps, uneeded levels of AA, etc. Are there any PC games now that will only hit 30fps and 1080p with a 980gtx? I don't think so. Until such games exist, there is no reason for more advanced GPUs except for VR.

What is pathetic is that if I bought a gtx 980 today, installed crysis 3, and set all settings on max (except useless AA) most of the power would be going to waste.

For ordinary gaming, a gtx 980 does little to enhance photorealism over a gpu one third as powerful.