what some industry guy said about nextgen consoles last year

[Megadrive1988]

I remember what some guy said about the next generation of consoles would be able to do, in general. he said that next gen consoles would be able to do bump mapping on every surface or polygon, at 60 frames per second, with unlimited draw distance, or that you would be able to see everything around you in the distance with no pop-up. something to that effect. this was in the early part or middle part of last year. well over a year ago. I'm pretty certain I saw this on TechTV. I'm also pretty certain this guy worked for, or was the head of, a 3rd party. he wasnt from Sony, MS or Nintendo. anyway, this guy was basicly correct, wasn't he. obviously he did not or could not or didn't know enough then, to get into the specific details of each next gen console or even more general info on them. just a very very very rough expectation overall.

would we be satisfied if next gen consoles outputted somewhat similar looking graphics but with bump mapping on everything, 60 frames per second framerate (all the time, in every game) and unlimited draw distance? I would take that over 20-25fps visuals where the developer is trying to make a game TOO detailed, and TOO much like a movie or CG.
there is no point in having movie quality or CG quality graphics if they can't be smooth, IMO.

that's one of the reasons why older architecture like MODEL 3 were so great. very little pop-up, basicly an unlimited draw distance (unlike MODEL 2) and basicly consistant 60 frames per second, 99% of the time if not all the time, in every situation.

my fear is, developers will go NUTS with Xenon, Revolution and PS3 with graphic detail and FX to the point where they bring framerates down to an "acceptable" 20-25 frames per second.


ok sorry, before i go off topic too long, i will leave it at that. did any of you by chance see the same television clip that i'm speaking of? and regardless if you saw it or not, do you agree with what that guy on television said about nextgen console games and would that be enough to satisfy you?

 

[mech]

Hey?

It's going to be just like the last two generations if you ask me - moderately more 60fps titles than the last gen, but as per usual devs going the 25/30fps route to jam more effects/polys into the scene. Making broad sweeping generalisations like "next gen consoles would be able to do bump mapping on every surface or polygon, at 60 frames per second, with unlimited draw distance" is just silly, it all comes down to how the devs decide to balance their resources.

 

[Akumajou]

What that guy on TechTV said is basically the same things that were being said about the PS2 and XBox and I even believe the SEGA Dreamcast sans the bump mapping but more about the 60fps and no popup with huge worlds.

Basically with consoles like the previous poster said it all comes down to deveopers and if they are experienced and any good at making good videogames.

I can safely say that you can expect the first generation games of PS3 and XBox2 to look obviously much more impressive than the last generation XBox games like Halo 2's realtime story scenes.

But things will start to heat up and get really amazing come third generation games likely around 2008 at that point the game developers (specially first party) should be very familiar with the console they are working on and they will be able to make amazing looking games.

The problems is just what game exactly will they be making as currently very few games are invative and the ones that are get heavily criticized probably from biased fanboys that infiltrate the press and tear down and make little flaws huge while igfnoring major flaws from the console they fan over.

 

[GwymWeepa]

I kinda agree with the guy, I mean games in general have far larger draw distances, less pop up, more consistant frame-rates and higher resolutions than they did last generation, I expect a further improvement next-gen.

 

[akira888]

They will be able to apply normal mapping to all surfaces? Talk about your safe predictions. If any of the next gen consoles can't run a 5 instruction fragment shader on all surfaces, they're in big trouble.

 

[jvd]

They will be able to apply normal mapping to all surfaces? Talk about your safe predictions. If any of the next gen consoles can't run a 5 instruction fragment shader on all surfaces, they're in big trouble.

It be great if the nvidia gpu in the ps3 has support for 3Dc that would be a huge laugh in my book

 

[akira888]

Someone told me around 2 weeks ago that there's some beta support in one of the NV drivers for 3dc, apparently accomplished by having the driver pad the texture to 8bpp and then using some pre-existing NV format. Therefore, hardware support should be coming shortly, maybe in time for the PS3 GPU.

 

[London Geezer]

Well i guess they can't really use DXTC (or whatever equivalent DX uses for compressing normal maps), so if they license 3Dc everyone will be happy.
Won't be a huge feature, like it isn't today, but hey, NVIDIA likes to have lots of features in their list.