This has been mentioned before, but some years ago so worth repeating.
Lighting (+shadowing) is what makes a scene look
real or not. Materials and polygons (or alternative geometries) are needed to represent an authentic object.
As such, a low poly model with poor textures in a perfect lighting engine will look like a very real cardboard model. A high poly model with rubbish lighting and texturing will look like a smooth computer creation. For example, an attempt to render a candlelit watermelon.
With perfect GI and a perfect texture on a low poly model, the watermelon will look like an origami construct maybe of watermelon-printed paper.
With perfect geometry of a bazillion triangles and a perfect material in a poor engine, the watermelon will look like very detailed yet obviously not real computer graphics.
With perfect GI and perfect geometry with low res textures, the watermelon will look like a real watermelon-shaped object that's clearly not a real watermelon.
Now it turns out the preference between believable lighting and detail defining 'good graphics' is subjective. Some people will take cardboard people in a real world thanks to perfect GI over beautifully modelled and shaded people in unconvincing lighting, while others prefer the opposite. Hence, as ever, the whole use of the term 'good' isn't particularly constructive for discussion.
It's better to say that to move from obvious CG to photorealism, you need a realistic lighting engine. A realistic lighting engine on its own can't create 'good' graphics (a Cornell Box with a glass sphere isn't going to win many people's 'best ever graphics' award), and it's quite possible to have 'good' graphics without stellar lighting through complex geometry, especially in artistic renderers where the beauty lies in the intricacy of the materials and/or textures and/or sprites and/or particle effects, etc.
Oh, and we can add animation into the mix too, and have fabulously rendered photorealistic objects, particularly people and animals, that look rubbish because they move poorly.
But mostly, throwing up a video showing what you consider fabulous graphics as proof simply ain't gonna work. I can look at Minecraft RTX and think, "that's gorgeous," while someone else won't see what the fuss is about. Trying to convince that person lighting makes the game by showing them a world of boring blocks will always fail and there's no argument that'll convince. Let's not get stuck in "what is the best ever flavour of icecream?" type arguments on B3D.