PS3 Mania In Next OPM

[London Geezer]

Already this gen vs. "next gen" there seems to be a lesser jump in discernible quality as there was from PSOne to PS2, tha's pretty much an accepted fact now.
How would things be different when jumping from PS3 to PS4, if anything it'll be even moreso.

Well i must say, i'm not disagreeing, but some PS2 games on my HDTV kinda look as bad as PS1 games used to look on my old TV - the pixels are there and bloody huge! The gap will be big enough, though it's hard to quantify of course.

There's little difference in graphics quality between Toy Story and Toy Story 3 that is visible to the common viewer.

In their defence, they have to keep the look of the first movie for obvious reasons, so they can't really change much. Toy Story 8 will have to look like Toy Story 1 to a certain extent, or it will drive fans of the series away.

 

[London Geezer]

That's exactly what I meant! Yeah, I knew what the "law" was an observation of, but it was an observation of how much cheapness to manufacture, size, AND performance are improving. Basically my point was that the "bang for your buck" will start to go down.

*pouts in corner*

Well, the "bang for buck" has been going to hell on pretty much everything for a few years now. I think that's more due to our countries economies than anything else though. I can safely say, here in the UK we're being getting our blood sucked more and more as years go by...

 

[nintenho]

In their defence, they have to keep the look of the first movie for obvious reasons, so they can't really change much. Toy Story 8 will have to look like Toy Story 1 to a certain extent, or it will drive fans of the series away.

Is it just me or did Shrek 2 look like it had light bloom while Shrek 1 didn't?

 

[rabidrabbit]

Well i must say, i'm not disagreeing, but some PS2 games on my HDTV kinda look as bad as PS1 games used to look on my old TV - the pixels are there and bloody huge! The gap will be big enough, though it's hard to quantify of course.

In PSOne games, you had for example characters that were mere approximations of human anatomy.

This gen you already have characters that have features and can indeed be made to be distinguisable by the same features you distinguish real people.

Next gen, it's more or less just surface polish.
More polygons of course and more detail too, but that detail is no longer as much put for making characters and objects represent their real life counterparts, as it is to put more of them on screen at the same time, and allow for smoother lighting and reflections.

In their defence, they have to keep the look of the first movie for obvious reasons, so they can't really change much. Toy Story 8 will have to look like Toy Story 1 to a certain extent, or it will drive fans of the series away.

Same goes for games, Tekken for example must look like Tekken to a certain extent in PS3. Even if PS3 Tekken featured characters that looked virtually like real humans, the characters would need to retain their distinguishable features. You can improve lighting, environment detail, characters with subsurface scattering and clothing that behaves according to laws of physics, but the characters in Tekken Tag already defined the features of the characters (and handrawn art before that).

 

[London Geezer]

In PSOne games, you had for example characters that were mere approximations of human anatomy.

They're still gross approximations. I still see triangula fingers. If next gen gives me fully rounded fingers and nails that look like fingers and nails, i'll be happy... u know, can't have spikey fingers...

Next gen, it's more or less just surface polish.
More polygons of course and more detail too, but that detail is no longer as much put for making characters and objects represent their real life counterparts, as it is to put more of
them on screen at the same time, and allow for smoother lighting and reflections.

We don't know that yet, really...

 

[nintenho]

Same goes for games, Tekken for example must look like Tekken to a certain extent in PS3. Even if PS3 Tekken featured characters that looked virtually like real humans, the characters would need to retain their distinguishable features. You can improve lighting, environment detail, characters with subsurface scattering and clothing that behaves according to laws of physics, but the characters in Tekken Tag already defined the features of the characters (and handrawn art before that).

I think he meant that the color palette can't change too much due to overuse of a shader.

 

[rabidrabbit]

They're still gross approximations. I still see triangula fingers. If next gen gives me fully rounded fingers and nails that look like fingers and nails, i'll be happy... u know, can't have spikey fingers...
...

Well, I meant this gen they did have fingers, noses, eyeballs, lips, teeth, ears, sixpacks, cleavages, buttcracks.... those features that last gen vere just painted boxes and where you wouldn't have been able to tell a weenie from a finger were it not for their respective places in the boxy approximations of human bodies that were last gen human(oid) characters.

They even had fingernails too, like PS2 Virtua Fighter had I think.
Of course they could be even smoother, but just making them with that much more polygons won't make that much difference

 

[London Geezer]

Well, I meant this gen they did have fingers, noses, eyeballs, lips, teeth, ears, sixpacks, cleavages, buttcracks.... those features that last gen vere just painted boxes and where you wouldn't have been able to tell a weenie from a finger were it not for their respective places in the boxy approximations of human bodies that were last gen human(oid) characters.

They even had fingernails too, like PS2 Virtua Fighter had I think.
Of course they could be even smoother, but just making them with that much more polygons won't make that much difference

'course it will. There's still a looong way to go, especially with human characters. The issue is that with time, we'll get closer and closer to the real thing, and the difference between generations will be negligeable, to the point that a next generation will have no real differences in graphics than the older one. Unless they start using holograms or whatever different technique they want. On a TV, apart from resolution, eventually we'll reach photorealism and the only differences will be the way things move on screen and how they interact with each other.
I think PS3 will be a huge jump from PS2, i think the jump difference is something subjective, some people will think it's a bigger jump than some other people think...

 

[rabidrabbit]

I think it'll be at least as discernible as the jump from PS to PS2.
It's just it jumps at different directions and there are more jumpers.

 

[nintenho]

I think it'll be at least as discernible as the jump from PS to PS2.
It's just it jumps at different directions and there are more jumpers.

You also have to consider that more detail equals greater workload and that fact could very well make the PS3 get held back.

 

[London Geezer]

I think the big issue so far is that the last 3 generations have seen a jump in resolution too. When the resolution of different generations of playstation will be the same (the day we will finally have no more HD standards and everything will be HD enough for everyone to be happy with that and not reach a new HD resolution), thing will start to settle and we'll be getting a general standard. These days a PS2 game like Katamari Damaci (great game!) on my HDTV looks as bad as MGS for PS1 used to look on my old CRT TV. When we reach the upper limit in 2D display technology, new generations will run at the same res as the old generation, and developers will be able to focus on other things to make the games look better than before.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Next-gen (PS3, XB360) should see the bigger improvements in animation and non-static effects, differentiating between that and last gen. And maybe interactivity of scenery. Next-gen should be about gameplay more than eyecandy. The generation after that should hopefully go a step into procedural worlds and 'organic' gameplay, and maybe also some higher quality realtime GI type shading.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Already this gen vs. "next gen" there seems to be a lesser jump in discernible quality as there was from PSOne to PS2, tha's pretty much an accepted fact now.

I think it's way too early to make that statement, when only one console has been out for a few months. I remember that the first games I had on my PS2 weren't that massive leap over previous generation either, it took games like MGS2 and GT3 to truly see the full potential, I'm almost certain that after few years I won't be disapointed by the leap we'll have this time, just wait and see

 

[mckmas8808]

Next gen, it's more or less just surface polish.
More polygons of course and more detail too, but that detail is no longer as much put for making characters and objects represent their real life counterparts, as it is to put more of them on screen at the same time, and allow for smoother lighting and reflections.

I take it you haven't seen the new Brothers In Arms Xbox 360 screenshots or the short MOH: Airborne video clip. Your right about the differences between the PSone era and PS2 era, but this next-generation the differences with characters will be full facial and bodily emotions. Other things will be seen as differences too, but I don't think we should make the X360/PS3 generation seem like GRAW is the greatest graphical game ever.

Again please search for those two Xbox 360 BIA screensshots they are wonderful.

 

[Phil]

I can think of one of the reasons why the jump PS1 -> PS2 might have seemed larger: At the end of PS1, the graphics started to look quite outdated - at least now, I can still play Devil May Cry 3 (my latest purchase) and still be wowed by its graphics - and that's 5 years into its life and the first of 3 next generation systems out....

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The obvious reason PS1>PS2 was so great IMO was a massive increase in res, colour resolution (no dithering), texture filtering (no pixelated textures) and proper perspective correction of textures, and very low-res meshes. Apply those things to a PS1 game and the difference between that and PS2 might not look so bad. Next gen graphics is mostly about fidelity, such as higher res textures with less duplication (patchy grass patterns), and better lighting engines. And higher res, or AA, depending on TV.

Colour resolution is stuck at 24 bit. Texture filtering and perspective correction problems aren't around needing to be fixed. Poly counts are enough at the moment to render objects that look like what they are supposed to be, rather than collections of boxes assembled in the same form. The things that made PS1 look so shonky have gone, and there's nothing obviously wrong with current gen in the same way. We'll get better quality, but not any ellimination of painfully obvious artefacts.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's true that MS is trying to shorten the cycle from Sony's 6 years to 5 years instead. Sony is the one who has invested heavily in hardware technology. MS is trying to force them to take a loss on this investement. If it will take 6 years for Sony to recoup their investment + some profit on PS3 tech, MS wants the generation to be over in 5 years. It's just good business.

With that being said, as a consumer I don't mind a new console every 5 years with software support for 6 years. I think it's a good cycle length. I'm going to be about one X360 game a month for 6 years. That's a minimum investment of $3600. The hardware cost of $400 for a new console isn't really significant. It's only 10% of the cost. I'd rather have hardware every 5 years than every 6 years.

 

[valioso]

It's true that MS is trying to shorten the cycle from Sony's 6 years to 5 years instead.

I don't think thats necessarily correct, if they do it again then we can speculate with it, but I think they just shorten it, because the xbox was a test run and a black hole of losing $$, and this way they force Sony out of the shell.. I doubt they will shorten it again. Now they are on their schedule, so they can carry it a 5 or 6 yr cycle.. and it will be Sony that has to catch up by shortening theirs to 4 or 5.

 

[mckmas8808]

. If it will take 6 years for Sony to recoup their investment + some profit on PS3 tech, MS wants the generation to be over in 5 years. It's just good business.

What the hell is this talk? How in the world do you figure this to be true? I can see why you have a red box, because man I (and plenty of other people on this board) could name a few easy ways how Sony will recoup on their PS3 investment.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

I take it you haven't seen the new Brothers In Arms Xbox 360 screenshots or the short MOH: Airborne video clip.

Oh come on, once you see them without video compression and distortion of scanning/printing, they'll not gonna be much different or better than any other nextgen game we've seen so far, from MGS4 and GOW to Rainbow 6 and Heavenly Sword...