The best graphics engine on current consoles?

[Squeak]

Which developer has the most advanced 3d graphics engine on the current consoles, and what games have used it?

From what I've seen, I would have to say it's Nintendo, with the TWW engine (impressively, according to Miyamoto, essentially a heavily tweaked and beefed up version of the Mario 64 engine).

Here is some of the effects and features I've noticed.

* Lots of very smoothly animated dynamic geometry.
* Lightmaps on all objects (cellshading).
* Volumelights from many sources at once (torches, faries etc.).
* Good use of Environment Map Bump Mapping (treasure chest, metallic. objects, heat destortion etc.).
* Z-shadows, smoothed around the edges with some sort of non-bilinear interpolation.
* Extreme (at least for this gen) amounts of alphablended, highres textured, rotated particles and quads.

All that at a rock solid 60 fp/s!

Am I mistaken? Are there other engines on nowgen consoles that are more capable?

 

[London Geezer]

For XBOX, the DOA3 engine is still a hell of a good-looking engine...

GC, i'd say if it werent for the framerate, RL3 would take the crown...

PS2? Jak2 or R&C2... SH3-4 and the ZOE2 engines are very impressive too, especially the latter...

 

[Bohdy]

Well actually, WW runs at 30fps. Also, I don't think I ever saw any environment bump-mapping in it.

My vote goes to the Rebel Strike engine:

* Incredible per-pixel lighting on every object
* Realtime light-scattering
* Bump-mapping on every surface in some scenes
* Ridiculous amounts of geometry
* Convincing shadowing and Self-shadowing on every object
* A lot of objects!
* Very nice water.
* Realtime Inverse Kinetics on the characters

But the really impressive thing is that most of the above are not just seen in isolation, but often all at the same time (and sometimes at full speed )! I don't think that I have ever seen anything as impressive from a technical perspective on any console.

Honorable mentions go to the PGR2 engine, the Ninja Gaiden/Doa3 engine, PDO's engine and also Brute force looks quite nice.

 

[Farid]

* Good use of Environment Map Bump Mapping (treasure chest, metallic. objects, heat destortion etc.).

Isn't the heat effect being done by a framebuffer distorsion?

And yes , the ZeldaWW's engine was kind of impressive.

For others examples of games engines that are impressives i think of the Konami's engines (I heard that konami use always the same engine but modificate it for each games(with some exceptions))

The Dark Cloud 2 engine is also very impressive IMHO, Racing evoluzione (ampex in the US) have a nice engine too.

There's also the famous dark alliance engine from snowblind and it's 1280x back buffer, its lights effects, its physics, its water.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

On Xbox I must say the Dead or Alive: Xtreme Volleyball and Panzer Dragoon Orta game engines. Don't know how they are called though. There is a good chance that Halo 2's new engine will surpass both.

On PlayStation 2 I was greatly impressed by ZOE2/Silent Hill 3/Jak II, but I think GT4, Metal Gear Solid 3 and Jak III are going to max out PlayStation 2 with their engines.

On GameCube, I would say Metroid Prime, as 'in-door' game engine, and Zelda: TWW as 'all-round' game engine.

 

[Squeak]

For XBOX, the DOA3 engine is still a hell of a good-looking engine...

I was never very impressed with that game. Naturally, because it is a generic beathemup, and therefore has very restricted environments, it can affort to focus a lot of resources on the current frame, without a lot of overdraw, lodding and MIP management.
But if we take that into account, there is a lot of shimmering, and some of the larger textures are not exactly high resolution.
Polycount, while quite high on characters (like DAO2 on PS2 and DC), lacks in backgrounds.
Really not a huge leap above DOA2 or SC on DC (IMO).

 

[Deepak]

No game has impressed me more (graphically or otherwise) than MGS2:SoL. Even after 2.5 yrs no other game has come even near it in terms of scale and execution. KCEJ is one hell of a team. I salute them.

 

[London Geezer]

No game has impressed me more (graphically or otherwise) than MGS2:SoL. Even after 2.5 yrs no other game has come even near it in terms of scale and execution. KCEJ is one hell of a team. I salute them.

Personally i think that even on PS2, MGS2 has been surpassed. We're talking about techically here. ZOE2 is using a "vastly modified" version of the same engine, and it looks 200 times better (although running at half the framerate).
Also, technically i think Jak2 (hell, even the first one) was more "advanced" than MGS2.
The X factor in MGS2 was the cinematic presentation and attention to detail, which are both "content", not purely engine-related.
Still, very pretty game. Never touched it once i finished it, but very pretty nonetheless.

 

[VNZ]

There have been incremental advancements, but I'd say it was MGS2 at E3 2000 that took game graphics to its current paradigm. I can't say I've been as impressed since then either, MGS2's visuals are just so perfectly balanced. The sum of stellar art direction, detail, physics, underlying concepts.. It's a work of genius.

 

[Ug Lee]

I'm going to have to side with Rebel Strike also. Noteable mentions for MGS2, DOA3 and Renderware.

 

[London Geezer]

Oh yes definately, at E3 2000, MGS2 was the game that showed what the "next generation" at the time was capable of for the first time... But that was 2000.
Today there are more advanced PS2 engines out there. It's only natural.

What was the name of that horrible-playing but gorgeous-looking Xbox racer, the one that seemed to have been programmed using copy&paste lines of codes from Nvidia papers? Whatever its name, that was one hell of a goodlooking game.

 

[nAo]

What was the name of that horrible-playing but gorgeous-looking Xbox racer, the one that seemed to have been programmed using copy&paste lines of codes from Nvidia papers? Whatever its name, that was one hell of a goodlooking game.

Wreckless/Double S.T.E.A.L

My vote goes for J&DII engine, it's just the fastest engine on the PS2 and does well a lot of things (like mipmapping, clipping,etc..) that are hard to do on the PS2.

ciao,
Marco

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Ninja Gaiden
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Dead or Alive Volleyball
Metroid Prime

 

[Farid]

The X factor in MGS2 was the cinematic presentation and attention to detail, which are both "content", not purely engine-related.

Its engine was really impressive at that time (even today btw) with stuff such as High rez shadow maps, depth of field, motion blur, per pixel lighting (in the way to meeting room on the tanker), distortion underwater effects, insane particles engine, altered reflections (not sure about the term in english), a perfect rag doll effect (the best i've seen so far for "dead bodies"), High polycount, little loading times, physics...
The MGS2 engine had it all (for a PS2), sure as you said it has been surpassed by other AAA games, but not in all rooms (on ps2).


Penny Arcade's reaction after the MGS2 E32K trailer

 

[whipper snapper]

Cambridge Studios' (Primal & Ghosthunter) is pretty nippy, that gets my vote for the best PS2 engine of games released thus far.

 

[Strategist]

Most impressive graphics engines... hmmm tricky one.

Xbox I would say Project gotham 2 due to the sheer complexity of the city and car meshes used... I haven't seen such a realistic looking racer before.

GC I would say Metroid prime although it looks some what bland at times.

PS2... hmmm, not so sure, it's been a long time since i touch it.

 

[Lazy8s]

The best crafted engine from the standpoint of balancing in smooth LODed models and environments, advanced texturing, detailed lighting, and special effects would have to be Panzer Dragoon Orta (and variant application, Jet Set Radio Future). The game manages to scale massive landscapes where textures remain solid and suffer from little alaising at all distances, close to a hundred on-screen characters at times with convincing reptilian skinning and animation, models detailed with multiple layers like specular highlighting and various custom per-pixel features, self-shadowing, heavy particle effects and cinematic motion blurs/distortions/cross-disolves/pixel-retention, progressive scan and widescreen, and 5.1 audio encoding. The game runs at 60 fps and doesn't suffer slowdown or screen tearing problems.

The last paradigm was reached back when Shenmue was first shown in mid-1998 combining the volume of geometry, texturing, filtering, shadowing and lighting effects typical of modern games, but I think we're moving beyond that now with per-pixel detail layers that illustrate object properties like bumpiness, pock marks, light sheens, scratches, etc.

 

[Megadrive1988]

Panzer Dragoon Orta is incredibly beautiful.

Metroid Prime is up there as is Rebel Strike

GT3 is still impressive

I'm sure Ace Combat 5 will show what PS2 can really do.

not impressed with Wind Waker except for some of the bosses.

60fps or at least mostly 60fps (ahem RS) is a requirement for me

 

[Squeak]

Well actually, WW runs at 30fps.

I'm almost certain it's 60fps. Try turning the camera around at full speed and observe the gap between frames, then do the same in Halo or SMS and see the difference.
Even though ZWW has a fast moving camera, it's still much smoother looking.

* Good use of Environment Map Bump Mapping (treasure chest, metallic. objects, heat destortion etc.).

Isn't the heat effect being done by a framebuffer distorsion?

Also, I don't think I ever saw any environment bump-mapping in it

If the hardware is capable of EMBM, then using that must be faster for effects like heat distortion and other kinds of refraction, than using high-density alphablended geometry.
Other examples of EMBM that I can remember of the top of my head, is various shiny objects, such as Nightmare locks and also the rippling spheres around some enemies in the Wind Temple (I'm replaying it right now ).

About PDO, it is very goodlooking indeed, but I suspect a great deal of its looks is down to good art direction (like Final Fantasy games).
Again, it is a on rails shooter with the restriction in movement that implies, and while varied a lot of the textures are quite blurry.

 

[Murakami]

Xbox: PGR2
PS2: ZOE2