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[tsumake]

Is it worth playing older 3D games in high resolution? I often feel that these games were never designed artistically to be rendered beyond a certain resolution. Sure, they look cleaner but the textures don’t magically improve, for example. Some games look great at higher resolutions, some are just meh.

I know this is a complex question, but that’s Gaf is all about. What’s your take?

 

[Birdo]

Nah. I find that the contrast between the 2D parts (Like text overlays) is too much to look good. So I just keep the 3D at native resolution.

Here is Gran Turismo, for example. The OSD is still low res, but the 3D is high. It just looks odd to me.

 

[HaveButOneLife]

The textures don't magically improve, the textures WILL look better, however, and any improvement is feasible.

But you're right, those games were made for old TV's, I'd prefer playing them on that but you will see some noticeable difference when you play them at a higher quality.

 

[ManaByte]

Is it worth playing older 3D games in high resolution? I often feel that these games were never designed artistically to be rendered beyond a certain resolution. Sure, they look cleaner but the textures don’t magically improve, for example. Some games look great at higher resolutions, some are just meh.

I know this is a complex question, but that’s Gaf is all about. What’s your take?

Ninja Gaiden Black on the Xbox One X in 4K is amazing.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Really depends on the game. I thought Half Life would always look good even at higher res despite the textures.

 

[Vawn]

Bad graphics in high resolution is still bad graphics. That's why is meaningless to brag a game is running at 4K or a machine is capable of 8K graphics.

Running Banjo-Kazooie or Jumping Flash at 4K/60 says absolutely nothing about the power of the hardware running it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Bad graphics in high resolution is still bad graphics. That's why is meaningless to brag a game is running at 4K or a machine is capable of 8K graphics.

Running Banjo-Kazooie or Jumping Flash at 4K/60 says absolutely nothing about the power of the hardware running it.

no one is saying anything about hardware mate

 

[TintoConCasera]

I think it depends on the game. Some games, for example Doom (1993), still look good mainly because the art style. I played it recently at 1080p and it felt perfect (of course without any texture filtering).

Other games haven't aged so well, and putting those at higher resolutions only make them even uglier.

 

[Roberts]

yeah, it depends on the game. Aforementioned Ninja Gaiden Black and Panzer Dragoon Orta look amazing when upscaled on Xbox One X. Most OG xbox games don't look so hot. Xbox 360 games fare a bit better (just look at the armor details in Witcher 2, for example). All in all, I think resolution helps and makes most older games visually more appealing.

 

[Moochi]

PC games released after 2008 generally look and run really great in high resolution. Metal Gear: Ground Zeros came out in 2014 and looks next gen on my 980ti @ 4k/60. Ditto for the Phantom Pain.

 

[JordanN]

Is it worth playing older 3D games in high resolution? I often feel that these games were never designed artistically to be rendered beyond a certain resolution.

Funny you say that.

Read the developer diaries of Crash Bandicoot and Naughty Dog where well aware that the PS1 actually had multiple high resolution modes (although it came at a cost of rendering).

Even on N64, the Expansion Pak was advertised as being able to help games run at native 480p instead of 240p.

You're thinking of 2D sprites when a game or artstyle is designed around a resolution. Since an NES game in 4K will still look blocky and dithered.

But with 3D games, that was never true. They scale at any resolution as long as the hardware is powerful enough.

Edit: Oh yeah, and the Bleemcast emulator for Dreamcast also showed that resolution was never what these games were designed for.

 

[Diddy X]

Not really unless the game had aliasing problems.

 

[Mokus]

It depends how high you want to go with the resolution. Often the low resolution is hiding certain unpleasant visual artifacts - low resolution background graphics, low resolution HUD, much closer pop ins, limited distance draw... A slight resolution increase from the original, most of the time is beneficial. But a massive jump often looks bad.

 

[DonMigs85]

640x480 or maybe 1024x768 at most can help a lot of N64 and PS1 titles, but not beyond that

 

[Apocryphon]

Ninja Gaiden Black on the Xbox One X in 4K is amazing.

This is a good example.

Some much older games still look old and in many areas technical flaws are more pronounced, but PS2/Xbox/GameCube games often benefit hugely.

PSone and N64 games still look pretty rough though, even if they are much cleaner.

 

[01011001]

YES

especially when they have a pixelart-esque art style like Mega Man Legends 1/2.
the game looks like a modern game that has an oldschool style on purpose

the image ontop is running on Retroarch using the Beetle PSX HW core, running at 1440p vertical resolution and Texture perspective correction.
you can force widescreen as well, which works reasonably well with Legends 2, but you will have some pop-in/pop-out on the edge of the screen with some elements.

this core does not have Z-Buffer correction so you will still have the occasional clipping through of triangles. but that's not too much of an issue.

 

[Esppiral]

This is a good example.

Some much older games still look old and in many areas technical flaws are more pronounced, but PS2/Xbox/GameCube games often benefit hugely.

PSone and N64 games still look pretty rough though, even if they are much cleaner.

You forgot the Dreamcast on that list....
I disagree with you op, old games can look astonishing at higher resolutions, some examples.
Dreamcast

Le mans 24h Dreamcast.

Metropolis Street Racer Dreamcast

Ferrari 355 Dreamcast.

Dead Or Alive 2 Dreamcast.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleybal Original Xbox.

BTW Dreamcast textures hold surprisingly well for a 21 year old hardware.

 

[JordanN]

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleybal Original Xbox.

Fun fact: The original Xbox did support HD or 720p mode.

Some games did take advantage of this. Like Crash Nitro Kart or Soul Calibur 2.

Playstation 2 also supported 1080i. Noticible if you play Gran Turismo 4.



So game developers always knew or did design their games to run at higher res than what was considered the standard back then.

And on PC games, this was always the case.

 

[Holammer]

Just played some Ridge Racer 2 (PSP) via PPSSPP. That game looks fresh at 1440p with all sorts of settings turned on.
In general PS2 era games work well with increased resolution. Previous gen? Just slap scanline shaders over it and play them as god intended for most of it.

 

[hyperbertha]

Games from those times look trash at hd. The 3d models don't have the polygons or texture detail to look good at close scrutiny. Best played using a crt tv or atleast a crt filter on modern screens.

 

[01011001]

Games from those times look trash at hd. The 3d models don't have the polygons or texture detail to look good at close scrutiny. Best played using a crt tv or atleast a crt filter on modern screens.

like I said in my post above

YES
especially when they have a pixelart-esque art style like Mega Man Legends 1/2.
the game looks like a modern game that has an oldschool style on purpose

so that's not true for every game. many PS1 games will look bad in HD, but there are many, especially japanese ones, that have texture work that is designed like 2D sprites instead of trying to look realistic or anything.
and those games look great in HD since their great pixelart texture work doesn't age, instead I think it would be much more appreciated nowadays since pixelart games became a style now that many like.

 

[kuncol02]

Only cases where higher resolution is not helping are games with prerendered backgrounds (Final Fantasy, Resident Evil) and N64 games (they looks awful no mater what you will do).

 

[intbal]

 

[JimboJones]

Only cases where higher resolution is not helping are games with prerendered backgrounds (Final Fantasy, Resident Evil) and N64 games (they looks awful no mater what you will do).

Although some of those games with prerendered art are getting AI upscaled mods which can look pretty decent.

 

[rofif]

Better than remake

 

[tsumake]

I agree, it depends on the game. For me, texture resolution can have more of visual impact when increasing the resolution. For example, with most id Tech 3 games, there are diminishing returns when you start increasing the resolution.

Shaders, bump mapping and various lighting techniques benefit with higher resolutions.

 

[HE1NZ]

Worth for old PC games and remasters, but not for emulating console games. Almost always UI elements are low res and game's ugly parts are completely exposed.

 

[kuncol02]

Although some of those games with prerendered art are getting AI upscaled mods which can look pretty decent.

Yes, but that's not playing them in higher resolution, but basically remaking it's assets. It's semi automatic process, but still. change game assets.

Worth for old PC games and remasters, but not for emulating console games. Almost always UI elements are low res and game's ugly parts are completely exposed.

As long as UI is rendered without filtering but with nearest neighbor scaling it's fine.

 

[Woggleman]

When I play my PS2 on my 4k TV I just turn the sharpness down to zero. It helps quite a bit.

 

[Alexios]

Depends on the game as you said. Some look great with that sharpness and clarity, others look meh with blatantly missing details and depth or all too apparent flaws the low res look can take the focus off. Generally I think I prefer anything pre-Dreamcast at low res with crt filters. The heavy use of low res 2D elements that high res doesn't improve likely is a factor. I love good pixel art normally and on its own, it just doesn't always blend well with high res 3D. Dreamcast I can go either way, I went high res when first emulating it but nowadays I prefer the low res crt look (I also liked high res with crt filters though). For old PC games (ie System Shock 2 or Rogue Squadron 3D or even the pre-VII Ys games) and even arcade 3D games (ie Sega model 2 stuff) I choose high res usually even if they're mostly inferior to Dreamcast's best technically (even when they do more in some ways - like I doubt Dreamcast could get a System Shock 2 port any better than Half-Life's passable unfinished one - the rendering style and tech are inferior and last gen-like usually, but the chunky polygons are sweet). There are exceptions to all of these. Whatever seems best!

 

[Apocryphon]

You forgot the Dreamcast on that list....
I disagree with you op, old games can look astonishing at higher resolutions, some examples.
Dreamcast

Le mans 24h Dreamcast.

Metropolis Street Racer Dreamcast

Ferrari 355 Dreamcast.

Dead Or Alive 2 Dreamcast.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleybal Original Xbox.

BTW Dreamcast textures hold surprisingly well for a 21 year old hardware.

Dreamcast had some of the cleanest looking games of that generation, it isn't surprising that they hold up so well.

 

[K1Expwy]

5th gen in HD often looks like an abstract mess, thanks to many games using different tricks like sprites, fog, LoD etc to make up for small polygon budgets.
6th gen and up looks fine. It's why 6th gen and can get by with budget remasters, while 5th gen classics are completely rebuilt from the ground up

 

[xpresstuning]

Though exceptions exist (as another user stated with the Megaman example), i think that 5th generation games generally don't scale well on a higher resolution because the assets are designed at a very small resolution in most cases (320x240, for example), thus blowing them up at a currently standard resolution will fundamentally ruin the intended look of the game, creating a bizarre abstraction of what was originally intended. Also, developers worked to take full advantage of what the CRT, specifically, was capable of.

6th generation/Nintendo DS/3DS/Nintendo Wii/etc., etc., generally scare extraordinarily well, so i can definitely say that yes, it's absolutely worth it. Just check some screenshots of video games running on Dolphin and compare them to how they're rendered on the original Wii. The imagine quality is tremendously improved and there is significantly more detail. Here's a quick example i found to illustrate my point by using Nintendo DS Emulation:

 

[Tesseract]

internal rendering bump is usually worth it, plenty of good evidence in various emu threads

youtube any rando 328b+ game at 4k, the results speak for themselves

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The problem with screens like this is that games didn’t look that bad on CRT. It always comes down to that. Even sprite-based games looked terrible in screenshots published on magazines at the time. I remember reviews of PlayStation games - Tekken 2 would look a pixelated mess of blocky polygons and blurry textures in screenshots, then you’d see the game on your TV and it was the best thing ever.

Dreamcast and beyond can look phenomenal upscaled, but that’s mostly thanks to better texture quality. Which is the same reason older games with certain artstyles (see MM Legends above) can look good upscaled.

Now games made to be displayed on LCD, those definitely benefit from upscaling. The above examples from Nintendo DS are incredible.