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Three years later, why is Crysis still the best looking PC game?
- Thread starter Conflict NZ
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LordPhoque
Banned
Rage will do better. Believe.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
If you're pouring that much money into a game you are going to want to sell it on as many platforms as possible. It's not that the PC market stalled (I don't believe it has at all, especially lately), its just that there is a larger market that is hard to ignore.Conflict NZ said:
It is unfortunate that even a developer like Gas Powered Games waters down their stuff for a console audience, when the console audience doesn't really even want it.
edit: Although, Demigod was a great PC game, and looked fantastic, but was ruined by Stardock's networking solution.
In a normal generation, Crysis would have been topped twice over by now and the PC gamers would be playing stuff that would be making the console gamers drool for the next generation of consoles to come around. Instead, we're here 3 years later and still everything coming out on PC not only runs on consoles, but was built from the ground up to work within the limitations of consoles.
As more and more of the top PC developers hopped over to consoles, there became less and less of a likelihood that anyone was going to compete with Crytek. In that sense, Crysis is the last of its kind and will probably remain the only PC game that is above what console games are capable of. 3 years ago no less!
All this really means is getting to the point of true photorealism is going to take much longer than it would have had things never changed. The console generation will be longer, production in faster GPUs will be slower. Any other generation and it would've been completely inexcusable if console games still looked comparable to PC games at this stage in the cycle.
So whether you want to blame it on Wii philosophy, or the massive loss of talent in the PC realm of developers that were capable of competing with Crytek on the technical side, things are going to remain pretty stifled.
As more and more of the top PC developers hopped over to consoles, there became less and less of a likelihood that anyone was going to compete with Crytek. In that sense, Crysis is the last of its kind and will probably remain the only PC game that is above what console games are capable of. 3 years ago no less!
All this really means is getting to the point of true photorealism is going to take much longer than it would have had things never changed. The console generation will be longer, production in faster GPUs will be slower. Any other generation and it would've been completely inexcusable if console games still looked comparable to PC games at this stage in the cycle.
So whether you want to blame it on Wii philosophy, or the massive loss of talent in the PC realm of developers that were capable of competing with Crytek on the technical side, things are going to remain pretty stifled.
All about the market. If you make the game *only* accessible to high-end PCs then you are only targeting a very small audience - the small number of people that are willing to spend the money on dual 5870s or something. No one wants to get a game, only to find that they can only play it at minimum settings where everything looks like ass.
Scalability is far more important than high graphics quality these days. Most of today's games look "good enough" to people, so there's less incentive to spend time and money to make things look even better, especially if it risks making your game inaccessible to part of your target audience.
That's one reason why games like L4D and TF2 are successful. Besides their gameplay, the games are clearly designed to run on a very wide range of systems. The developers decided to prioritize accessibility over graphical demands, and ended up with games that run well on just about anything while still looking pretty good.
C2 is taking a similar approach, since it sounds like they're trying to make their engine scalable for consoles but also be able to use the extra power that high-end PCs can offer.
Scalability is far more important than high graphics quality these days. Most of today's games look "good enough" to people, so there's less incentive to spend time and money to make things look even better, especially if it risks making your game inaccessible to part of your target audience.
That's one reason why games like L4D and TF2 are successful. Besides their gameplay, the games are clearly designed to run on a very wide range of systems. The developers decided to prioritize accessibility over graphical demands, and ended up with games that run well on just about anything while still looking pretty good.
C2 is taking a similar approach, since it sounds like they're trying to make their engine scalable for consoles but also be able to use the extra power that high-end PCs can offer.
brain_stew said:
GHG said:
If it's so vanilla, then what IS better looking these days, then? I don't keep up enough with high end PC graphics, but simply saying that it's not the best looking without providing any alternatives doesn't really move the conversation forward.
trk_rkd said:
It hasn't really slowed down for GPUs; Moore's Law is still doing fine for data parallel applications.
I think the problem is that what you can do graphically is potentially limited by 3 factors:
- Hardware speed
- Cost/complexity of programming graphics engines
- Cost of producing high-fidelity art assets (models, textures, etc).
With Moore's Law it was inevitable that eventually the bottleneck would become one of the latter two factors. This is why I think that the future is in more easily programmable GPU architectures that sacrifice some raw speed (like the ill-fated Larrabee).
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Supreme Commander did it like, an entire year before.Dan Yo said:
DieH@rd said:
That's not Vanilla Crysis.
MrPing1000
Member
Remember this?
That was the turning point in games no longer being PC based then ported to consoles. It also put a huge dent into the high end graphics department as more and more franchises were scaled back to suit consoles with pc being an afterthought.
Invisible War and Thief 3 were absolutely crippled by the tiny ram of the xbox and true this gen it is improved but consoles have damaged the scope of where PC games can go both graphically and in complexity. PC tech has far surpassed the consoles at this point and yet we are seeing very very few instances of it being evident. Pc games will never be at the level they are capable when the gleem of console profits is in the eyes of the money men.
Isn't it also interesting how almost every game these days is segmented with loading screens or carefully disguised loading tunnels. Gone are the 90s pc heyday of massive levels with 1 load and huge scope
That was the turning point in games no longer being PC based then ported to consoles. It also put a huge dent into the high end graphics department as more and more franchises were scaled back to suit consoles with pc being an afterthought.
Invisible War and Thief 3 were absolutely crippled by the tiny ram of the xbox and true this gen it is improved but consoles have damaged the scope of where PC games can go both graphically and in complexity. PC tech has far surpassed the consoles at this point and yet we are seeing very very few instances of it being evident. Pc games will never be at the level they are capable when the gleem of console profits is in the eyes of the money men.
Isn't it also interesting how almost every game these days is segmented with loading screens or carefully disguised loading tunnels. Gone are the 90s pc heyday of massive levels with 1 load and huge scope
Joseph Merrick
Member
ok gifs :O
manueldelalas
Time Traveler
It's not the best looking game. After seeing animated gifs of Uncharted 2 and Killzone 2 every developer gave up trying to top graphics because they could not maximize PCs without the power of the CELL.
GHG
Member
Monroeski said:
ARMA II. Its by far the best looking PC game out there but it doesn't get much press plus you need a super rig to max it out at higher resolutions. But its stunning.
And its already been said. Metro 2033. BF:BC2 looks incredible in places as well, its just not consistent with it. The latest Stalker games look incredible in places as well but they are REALLY inconsistent visually.
GTA IV had the potential to be the best looking PC game. Rockstars game engine was capable of so much more but they dropped the bomb with no AA support and poor optimization. Look at the PC screenshot thread, it could have so easily been the new Crysis.
If you look at what the mod community has done with a lot of PC games in the last 3 years you can see that these game engines were built for much higher levels of graphical fidelity than they initially let on.
If 4A games are ever allowed to release the SDK for Metro 2033 then my lord...
manueldelalas said:
Not sure if serious...
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
:lol :lol nice.manueldelalas said:
GHG
Member
MrPing1000 said:Remember this?
That was the turning point in games no longer being PC based then ported to consoles. It also put a huge dent into the high end graphics department as more and more franchises were scaled back to suit consoles with pc being an afterthought.
Invisible War and Thief 3 were absolutely crippled by the tiny ram of the xbox and true this gen it is improved but consoles have damaged the scope of where PC games can go both graphically and in complexity. PC tech has far surpassed the consoles at this point and yet we are seeing very very few instances of it being evident. Pc games will never be at the level they are capable when the gleem of console profits is in the eyes of the money men.
Isn't it also interesting how almost every game these days is segmented with loading screens or carefully disguised loading tunnels. Gone are the 90s pc heyday of massive levels with 1 load and huge scope
Basically, its all the Xbox's fault. And I'm not even kidding.
The original xbox opened up the console space to a lot of western developers who would have never considered using consoles previously. Then they realised how much more money there was to be made making console games and their focus shifted.
It is two fold however. Because of the Xbox it has meant the PC has also seen a lot more console game ports. You win some, you lose some I guess.
KittyKittyBangBang
Member
STOP TALKING ABOUT CRYSIS 2!!!!!!
Everytime someone brings it up it makes me tentpole and that is VERY embarassing at work!
Everytime someone brings it up it makes me tentpole and that is VERY embarassing at work!
ZombieSupaStar
Member
manueldelalas said:
although I was a bit bummed when I read that uncharted 2 fakes some of its cut scenes by using engine assets prerendered, so you think it looks like really good real time graphics, but it isn't, its prerendered video using real time stuff turned up a notch.
game still looks good tho, I need to get back to it and demon souls I must have played only a half hour of each one last fall and never went back :lol
dragon age / mass effect 2 does this also, altho its really obvious because I go from like a low res medium setting video back to my 1080 res high settings ingame, its jarring in the opposite way:lol
Am i the only one to see that Crysis was just a bad game ? i mean it was "ok" and nice graphic wise, but it nowhere (storyline, gameplay wise) can compare with other AAA shooters that are released on the PC over the years (AAA meaning halflife etc), and the devs blaming it on piracy right, Vavle begs to differ :lol
Consoles.
Yup. It all started going downhill when MS released the Xbox.
1. Halo - Was supposed to come out on PC. Early advertising said it would be squad based shooter with vehicles (they made it look more open like Battlefield) game becomes Xbox exclusive and is a linear corridor shooter (for large portions of the game).
2. Mechwarrior - Great PC franchise is bought up by MS, turned into an arcady action game. PC is left with nothing, series name is permanently harmed.
3. Great PC titles are given inferior Xbox ports years late (Doom 3, RTCW, Half-Life 2) Console gamers talk about how PC games suck and have bad graphics.
4. Multiple franchises become "consolized"
- Rainbow 6: only controll one party member, no planning screen, more action based gameplay.
-Ghost Recon: second game doesn't even come to PC, later games are more action based
-Deus Ex: nothing to say
-Call of Duty - gets tons of sequels and console versions pumped out and eventually PC is skipped (Call of Duty 3, or given console features COD:MW2)
GHG said:
Yup. It all started going downhill when MS released the Xbox.
1. Halo - Was supposed to come out on PC. Early advertising said it would be squad based shooter with vehicles (they made it look more open like Battlefield) game becomes Xbox exclusive and is a linear corridor shooter (for large portions of the game).
2. Mechwarrior - Great PC franchise is bought up by MS, turned into an arcady action game. PC is left with nothing, series name is permanently harmed.
3. Great PC titles are given inferior Xbox ports years late (Doom 3, RTCW, Half-Life 2) Console gamers talk about how PC games suck and have bad graphics.
4. Multiple franchises become "consolized"
- Rainbow 6: only controll one party member, no planning screen, more action based gameplay.
-Ghost Recon: second game doesn't even come to PC, later games are more action based
-Deus Ex: nothing to say
-Call of Duty - gets tons of sequels and console versions pumped out and eventually PC is skipped (Call of Duty 3, or given console features COD:MW2)
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
If I had the power I would ban you from the internet for this post. It is absolutely heinous.MedIC86 said:
I'm glad that consoles happened and I'm happy that I haven't been into games 1996-2007. Upgradiing every year is ridiculous and console games looked like poo all these years. Consoles are the best thing happened to PC gaming in a long time. We can have a lot of AAA titles and play them maxed out with 60 fps framerate. And we can have them at lower prices. I want this party to continue for 3 years minimum.
Vampire Hunter Vizier
Neo Member
People saying that Cyrsis isn't the king just because the vanilla version isn't impressive is partially correct only. After doing a simple tweak (using CCC etc.) you achieve what is considered the best out there. Check the Crysis thread, you can see some photorealistic screenshots taken by many with 20-30fps.
oh no.
MedIC86 said:
oh no.
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
Not sure it was worth PC-focused gameplay getting tossed and morphed into something compromised and worse.subversus said:
I know what you're talking about but I'd sacrifice it against the need to upgrade every year. And console gaming is not as basic as it was before, pc devs brought some variety to platforms (DICE, Bethtesda, Irrational, Bioware, former IW, many more).BobsRevenge said:
BobsRevenge
I do not avoid women, GAF, but I do deny them my essence.
I love Crysis's art. It is a great, aesthetic, presentation of reality. The lighting is inspired and they did a really good job of selling the moods. I mean, if you pay attention you can see how thoughtful and deliberate it is. It goes further most other games I can think of at selling a mood with realistic lighting, and having it sort of sync with the levels dynamically.Widge said:
The lighting transitions in the assault level and the first level are fantastically done.
The locale itself is gorgeous, and the alien designs are some of the most unique I've seen. The ending on the carrier is absolutely astonishing and awesome. The lighting, the rain, the colors that the alien things spit out, and the explosions. It was visually one of the most exciting and dramatic scenes I've witnessed in a game.
Honestly, I think when people complain about realistic games being artistically bland have this weird conception that the more abstract something is, the more artistic it is. But there have been entire movements in art about making something as true to nature as possible. To render it with an attention to detail and color, to create something dramatic and true. Crysis's graphics are one of the best attempts at something like that in gaming, especially considering how dynamic it is. The story itself isn't artistically significant at all, but the graphics are anything but bland.
Always-honest
Banned
in terms of detailed textures?.. realism?..
cause i've seen better looking games for my personal taste, but i'm talking art/ art direction wise
cause i've seen better looking games for my personal taste, but i'm talking art/ art direction wise
I long for the good old days when a PC older than a year was obsolete for the latest games. Those were exciting times. Just imagine what games we could be getting today if the same attitude still prevailed.subversus said:
Lets be honest. For a lot of gamers graphics are now 'good enough' - at least they are good enough that they don't feel the urge to spend lots of money for better graphics. I am the total opposite but I am well aware I am a minority.
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