How much longer until graphics stop getting noticeably better

[shaboinkin]

Each year with new graphics cards or next gen console, has noticeably more powerful and able to generate better graphics then its predecessor. When do you see a slowdown of this occurring? There's got to be a point where one can only make a gpu chip so powerful, and have ultra realistic graphics. I think when this time comes, people would stop caring about graphics in games are start caring about what they are actually playing

 

[Gamer137]

Hopefully this is the last cycle in which the graphics play a big part. I'm sick of game/console makers who think the only thing gamers want is graphics.

 

[shatnershaman]

My optimistic side: Xbox 1080/ PS5

My pessimistic side: Oil prices will kill consoles/PC before we get there

 

[Stammer]

Once they make virtual reality, having amazing immersion where it doesn't just feel like you're in the game, but you really are. If that happened, they could increase the graphics to be so unbelievably good that under a microscope you could actually see a person's skin cells multiplying. It will happen one day. The best graphics are real life itself, so only when they achieve absolute realism will they stop getting any better.

We're actually mostly there already. You can already see every possible detail in any on-screen item unless you are absolutely right up close to them.

 

[Rob Sharona]

We always tell ourselves there will be a slowdown and that graphics won't get better, but they do and they always will. It will get to the point where graphics will actually be photorealistic, and then someone will nail virtual reality and then even that will be trumped.

 

[shaboinkin]

to be honest, if i was to play some war game in virtual reality, i would shit my pants and not play games for the rest of my life

 

[Rob Sharona]

If the sound was right, a virtual reality Silent Hill would make me scream like a girl.

 

[shatnershaman]

I know virtual Halo! Then you can tell Cortana to stop questioning your Chiefy ways yourself.

 

[Rob Sharona]

do you mention halo in every post you make?

 

[shatnershaman]

do you mention halo in every post you make?

No. (Like this one!)

 

[Rob Sharona]

touche

 

[klarax]

i'm going for the next gen system. That should be enough power for anyone to work with. Where then; It will all come down to how long a game is worked on and the size of the team working on it for detail within the game.

 

[CanadianWolverine]

IMHO, as far as abstract gaming goes, we already passed by graphics as the most important thing when Half-Life 2 was released. Ever since I have played that and its following episodes, well, to be honest, I haven't really felt any "wow" moments from any games released afterwards based on their graphical details but rather based on their game play or animations.

I especially knew it when I was reading a article in PC Gamer that I basicly paraphrase as being about how cool DX10 was, and honestly, I didn't see any significant difference between the DX9 pictures and the DX10 pictures of the exact same thing. Crysis was given all this "wow" talk about its graphics and when I saw it, even running at full detail, all I could think was "Eh." Sure it was cool looking, but nothing I was going to go ape shit over.

But, if you happen to be talking about gaming and thinking that damn word realistic (which so many people mix up with believable, as in suspension of disbelief), then virtual reality aka The Matrix, is a freaking long way off and honestly, I could care less if we ever do get it, I don't think its going to be all its cracked up to be in Sci-Fi or whatever.

 

[shatnershaman]

Dexter just frikin awesome.

 

[BigCat91]

Believe it or not Graphics have not even reached it's full potential.The little things are making big diffrences now. Look at the future games like killzone 2 to me that is a peak of gaming potential of graphics. You can see the gun as if it were a part of your world not the killzone. The guys with masks look at how well their capes flow when they run and the lighting affects wow...just pure astonishing of what this game can bring. Now something more average like CoD4 most of the things like leaves and grass and hay all of them were almost as thin as air. yeah they look gorgeous from one side but go to the side and the thing disapears it's so flat. Gaming still has more ways to go but it's at the point that it's not an eye sore anymore.

 

[Flunk]

Honestly, I really don't care if games look any better now. But seriously, we have a long way they can still go. Graphics are very easy to parallelize so we'll be seeing more processing units being pressed into graphics hardware for quite a while to come and more complex graphics being rendered with it. I doubt graphics will stop getting better before we all die of old age.

 

[shatnershaman]

I'm a graphic whore. Fuck Gameplay.

 

[Shadow Tyrant]

You can't get any better than photorealism. [...Well, at least I don't think you can. Who knows, maybe in 20 years, we'll be playing video games in 4D.] Eventually, they'll just have people act stuff out in front of the green screen, instead of just using those body suits.

Graphics are never going to stop getting better until technology stops getting better, which will probably only happen if/when humanity is wiped out.

 

[shatnershaman]

Graphics are never going to stop getting better until technology stops getting better, which will probably only happen if/when humanity is wiped out.

So in other words graphics will end in a few years-few decades (oil prices)