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[Rapstah]

Smackdown! vs. Raw 2011 looked a ton better than WWF Smackdown! Just bring it. That's nine years apart. I seriously can't find any screenshots of SvR 2011 on PS2 because they weren't really marketting that version for obvious reasons, but here's how Steve Austin looked in 2001:

Any shot of anyone in both games in front of the 2D audience in 2001 compared to the 3D audience in 2010 is going to pretty much win this if it counts.

 

[elcuervo75]

Tomb Raider Legend to Tomb Raider 2013 was huge.
Halo 3 to 4.
Oblivion to Skyrim wasn't huge but made some really nice improvements.

 

[maneil99]

Did I double post

 

[maneil99]

GRAW 2 - Future soldier on PC is only a 5 year gap and looks almost 2 generations apart.

 

[RodentBR]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Streets of Rage to Streets of Rage 2.

 

[CloudyTuba]

Its funny how I came into this thread thinking Halo CE to Halo 2! And the OP using Halo 3 and 4 as an example.

Anyway here is the example:
...

I was thinking the same thing. Halo 1 > Halo 2 was big on Xbox.

And Halo 3 to Halo 4 is another big jump on 360.

 

[CozMick]

New Super Mario Bros U

.....

Super Mario 3D World

 

[eXistor]

New Super Mario Bros U

.....

Super Mario 3D World

Both beautiful in their own way and not really comparable?

 

[benzy]

MGS4 vs ps3 GZ

 

[gelf]

I'm surprised no one mentioned Streets of Rage to Streets of Rage 2.

Good One.

From

to

 

[JB1981]

Resistance 3 would have looked amazing if it wasn't incredibly blurry with bad texture filtering and sub HD. Game had some nice post processing effects but it was so muddy.

 

[HTupolev]

BTW, do u know whether Halo 4 uses a deferred or a forward renderer? The resolution indicates forward (wouldnt fit in eDRAM otherwise), but those many light sources indicate a deferred approach.

I have no idea. Considering the low quality of the lights, I almost wouldn't be surprised if environmental lighting is entirely forward and dynamic lights are handled in a deferred pass. That would imply that the dynamic lights have very little information to work with in calculating their response, but that might explain why they don't look very good?

 

[ExplosiveShuriken]

Shadow Hearts to Shadow Hearts 2 Covenant.

 

[jmdajr]

call of duty 2 ---> ghosts

I was about to post this. Yup. Pretty big leap no doubt!

 

[nOoblet16]

BTW, do u know whether Halo 4 uses a deferred or a forward renderer? The resolution indicates forward (wouldnt fit in eDRAM otherwise), but those many light sources indicate a deferred approach.

Will be interesting to see how Halo 5 will approach this issue. Xbox One should be powerful enough to render many dynamic lights with specularity.

You can use deferred rendering on Xbox 360 regardless of eDRAM size, all you have to do is use tiling. A lot of games used tiling on Xbox 360. Also Halo 4 probably uses deferred lighting like Uncharted 3 and Crysis.

 

[vagabondarts]

My vote goes to Ridge Racer 1 -> R4 on PSX.

Amazing transition

 

[Zexen]

Would probably say DBZ Budokai to Tenkaichi 3, pretty huge gap i think.

 

[Cachuli]

just kidding

Spoiler

or not ¬_¬

 

[K.N.W.]

Tombi 1 to 2

IMHO the look of the first game is a lot better compared to the insipid polygons of the sequel, but going from a semi 3d with 2d sprites (and some completely bidimensional levels) to full 3d models and environments is an enormous jump!!

 

[Fluffhead14]

Has anyone said Hitman: Blood Money --> Absolution?


shit is night and day.

 

[rob305]

Went from this:

to this:

 

[sn00zer]

Tombi 1 to 2

IMHO the look of the first game is a lot better compared to the insipid polygons of the sequel, but going from a semi 3d with 2d sprites (and some completely bidimensional levels) to full 3d models and environments is an enormous jump!!

Can i still be mad the english release for Tomba 2 isnt on US PSN?

 

[Fluffhead14]

vs.

 

[CTLance]

Hmmm, how about the jump from Red Steel 1 to Red Steel 2 on the Wii? The artwork improved considerably as well, so the advencements in visuals and (Wiimote+) controls were quite striking.

No pics, because google images hates me and only gives me junk with huge watermarks and compression artefacts, and that's the very last thing Wii screenshots need. :-/

 

[SkylineRKR]

 

[K.N.W.]

Can i still be mad the english release for Tomba 2 isnt on US PSN?

Wait a minute... The pal store has the US version, the US one has the japanese so.... Are japanese people playing the PAL version??????

 

[dark_prinny]

while I agree with a number of games listed... I am going to go...
Disgaea 3, to Disgaea D2 (just because no one else will and I like bringing up the disgaea series)


Of course a lot of that is just because D3 was using sub HD sprites when it could have used HD sprites, and the later Disgaea games all used HD sprites...

the difference was huge for me though.

I like you.

 

[Corpsepyre]

Uncharted most definitely. Made the first one look as if it was from the previous gen.

 

[Meatyhooks]

Though to argue with uncharted.

 

[FairFight]

Splinter Cell to Chaos Theory.

Good one.

 

[InfiniteUnrest]

Call of Duty 3 to Modern Warfare was pretty significant and probably the biggest I remember from one game in a series to the very next, same platform & same generation.

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

I like that most of the shots in this thread are from upports from a previous gen to the lastest thing in that gen. that goes completely against the spirit of the whole thing. Meh.

 

[levious]

Virtua fighter 1 to Virtua Fighter 2.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Yeah but the comparison is silly either way. CoD2 was cross-gen as well, so no duh it's gonna look like shit.

Call of Duty 2 was 360 and PC only. Those were bad screenshots but I was in a rush. Still think that's the biggest leap.

 

[Ahasverus]

Oblivion ----> Skyrim

 

[McBryBry]

Damn you. I was looking for some good comparison pics. Haha.

Haha yeah, it took me a minute too. But once you find two good ones, the difference is insane.

 

[Sid]

Uncharted takes the cake

 

[HTupolev]

You can use deferred rendering on Xbox 360 regardless of eDRAM size, all you have to do is use tiling. A lot of games used tiling on Xbox 360. Also Halo 4 probably uses deferred lighting like Uncharted 3 and Crysis.

The thing is... if it's 96 bits per pixel (which is pretty typical for PS360 Gbuffers), using tiling to reach 720p would be a questionable decision. Tiling isn't free, you're already able to hit 1152x720 (or theoretically even 1200x720) without tiling, and "720p" hardly has much of a nativeness bonus these days, so you'd be making a pretty significant sacrifice to permit the use of just 10% higher spatial sampling.

As you note, Crytek did try their hand at deferred rendering on 360... and their choice was exactly the same as Bungie's, 1152x720. Most games that use framebuffer tiling on 360 try to get a decently large boost out of it.

 

[speculawyer]

Tomb Raider. Hands down.

 

[GungHo]

Just Cause 1

Just Cause 2

I realize the amount of procedural trickery that went into providing the canopy and landforms for Just Cause 2, but I'm still astounded at how detailed everything appears to be when I actually boot it up and start flying around.

 

[Zabant]

F-Zero X

F-Zero GX

Need I say more?

 

[Doogdogg]

F-Zero X

F-Zero GX

Need I say more?

Different generation

 

[Raist]

IWell all the obvious ones have been beaten to death, so I'm gonna say Infamous 1 vs 2.
Lots of improvements overall.

F-Zero X

F-Zero GX

Need I say more?

N64 vs NGC isn't quite exactly the same gen. Might as well compare Jak and Daxter to Uncharted 3.

 

[ASTROID2]

F-Zero X

F-Zero GX

Need I say more?

Title says single generation.

 

[Jason Colin]

Single gen?

I like how nobody remembers rayman to rayman 2 and the confusion that followed.

That along with gex to gex 2 are both factually the correct answers and no other series has gone through a similar transformation.

 

[Zabant]

Different generation

Ahh, err, whoops....

I read single generation as in "The biggest difference between one generation and another"

A singer generational shift. My bad, I'll skulk away now.

 

[BigTnaples]

Went from this:

to this:

HAHAHA.

Well done.

 

[TAJ]

The Skylanders jump is huge; but a lot of this is because the first two games were developed for the Wii and ported to the PS3/X360, while SWAP Force was developed with the X360 as the lead platform.

Plus he posted a horribly mangled shot of the original and a downsampled (admittedly not well) PS4 shot. Terrible comparison.

 

[Aeana]

Most other examples in this thread were games whose first entries were considered to be quite good looking at the time already. I'll do you guys one better, and pick a series that went from downright laughably ugly to something quite impressive looking.

Leaps don't get much bigger to me than this. Far from the best looking game on the system, but jump of quality between Dragon Quest 5 and 6 is astonishing.

I was coming here to post this. The same type of comparison applies to FF4 -> FF6.

 

[whitehawk]

Went from this:

to this:

oh you're good