But I doubt API will affect ROP perfomance and VRAM throughoutput which is the clear advantage of the 7800GTX 512/7900GT.
The API that the PC game is written for will always only benefit the gamer who upgrades his graphic cards, thats the way things work in PC gamer land reguardless of how much game devs improve.
Case in point me, I have an AMD Athlon XP 3200+, 1.5GB ram, Nforce 2 mobo, BFG GeForce 6800GT and thanks to the last WHQL Win XP drivers I can run Crysis at medium quality settings customized at 1024x768 and the game is very much playable with frame rate dips depending how heavy things get, if I go to low Q settings, the game although still impressive becomes really fast but its pretty obvious that my single core 2.3Ghz cpu and Nv40 even at 370Mhz is just not enough.
However I also know that on the other side of the current spectrum, a person with the latest parts, Intel 9770Extreme 3.2Ghz, 2GB ram and latest graphics card will still have frame dips because they can enable higher quality settings, so obviously it makes sense to get 2009 CPU and GPU.
But the PS3 with all of its "limited" non upgradable hardware has to make do with what they have so for some game dev to rely in using general dev tools and not bother to make proper and efficient use of Cell+RSX so any complaints about only having 8Rops seem flawed.
Its pretty obvious that reguardless of all the different consoles that Sony would prefer you to be PS3 only, Microsoft would prefer you to be only on XBox 360 (and PC if you want) and Nintendo would prefer you to make Wii only games but these so called devs who complain about the short coming of a console when all they make are multiplatform games seem silly when there are devs like Infinity Ward and Capcom and maybe Rockstar with GTA4 who strive for crossplatfor parity.
It just goes to show you that things have not changed since last gens, the platform specific titles with the best effort will outshine the multi effort always.
I've seen HQ screenshots at fullsize of the game and I still stand by my observations. Artistically nice, technially not so. Projected shadows, prebaked shadows/lighting, less than stellar polygon amount etc. Such things makes it not a contender for best graphics and the other platforms has lots of games that look far better than Yakuza 3.
I am not talking about gameplay style nor type of game. I am strictly talking about technicall stuff and what the game does technically. You see to be able to say a game is graphically superior to what other platforms do you have to go technical. Art doesn't do it becouse it is up to each one and their taste. BTW did I say I loved Jade Empire for xbox? The only game I replayed 5 times.
It has been by launch games, matched...
But you do mention Jade Empire which only was about art direction as all of the basic graphical technology was established in KOTOR 1.
And I am curious what game matched Yakuza 3?
The animation is pretty much old gen, the lighting is not dynamic (looks flat too), textures arent very detailed (I am not even sure if normal mapping exists in the game), models dont look to be made out of enough polygons, I vent seen physics and the framerate is low.
These are the things that come in mind currently from the demo
Is there something I missed from the visuals?
I believe I noticed some type of normal mapping during a boss fight enviroment, the lighting seems to do its job, though not as flamboyant, the animation... old gen...? in all the footage I have seen, the dramatic poses the characters make seem to be as good as they could be for a current gen game on a one year and 4 month old console and the polygon count seems pretty damn impressive from my perspective as there are alot of things being rendered, lots of NPCs crowd the streets, lots of objects inside houses and outside and the framerate for this type of game where you are not always obligated to do the same things seems to be just right for its effort otherwise if the framerate is low the game would not be playable right?
But I respect your opinion if you are not impressed and I will tell you what impressed me the most and hope you understand, however I will not force you to understand since its something I noticed.
Basically the game, aside from giving you multiple options in things to do and gameplay as well as displaying these things and recreating that sense of a living world that Shenmue and Yakuza attempted, this game goes into displaying some really highly detailed character skin, specially in the face where most of the drama is delivered, resulting in characters that seem to convey cinematic emotion unlike ever before...and that includes last gen
There is a cinematic drama story trailer out there I will try to post a link to show what I mean but keeping in mind that this game is trying to carry all these elements and it does so in AAA quality.
[gt]29957[/gt]
Bear in mind that this trailer in 7 minutes long in Japanese dialogue so if you are not able to tolerate not understanding what they are saying please be patient and watch how all of the graphical effects come together.
[gt]31748[/gt]
This one is 1 minute 30 seconds and shows plenty of graphical effects working together to impressive effect however I prefer that you watch the 7 min long trailer.
Also as for you having played the game demo, I would never judge a game's technical graphics based on a demo, I would judge it based on the final retail game itself specially since the demo was released in January when the game was released in March in Japan.
How this game fits into the whole 8 Rops issue, clearly this game is displaying alot of geometry, and 3d effects so saying that "x looks flat" does not represent the entire game.
Now I personally have watched most of Akira Kurosawa's Samurai and medival setting films and this game comes close to being a fully playable real time film specially considering the the game does not use CGI cinemas and instead is using the graphics engine and this is a fact since Sega has done this before with Shenmue in the ancient Dreamcast.
