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Which console has shown the most technical progress in its life? Which the least?

Terrible terrible picture.
And that original picture our friend posted is directly in engine so it represents gameplay just fine.
It isnt prerendered or an out of engine cutscene.
But for arguments sake ill get some gameplay(with HUD) pictures.

No it does not represent gameplay. If in engine cutscenes are taken into account then the last pic of UC3 still looks better than Halo 4 -

The last picture of nathan drake was from uncharted 3 cutscene which was in engine. The actual character model does not look that good during gameplay.

uncharted3drakesface.jpg


or this -
The-Last-of-Us-1.jpg
 
Xbox 360 amazes me every single year

Just when i though would melt when i played Gears 2, they came up with Gears 3 that looked leaps ahead

And now they took it to the next level with Witcher 2, Gears Judgement and Halo 4

The difference to first wave of games, besides Kameo, is immense and lately has gone to the "how does it do it with 6yo hardware" unbelievable region
 
The most technological process is, as far as I know, the NES. Compare SMB with SMB3 (with added chips on the cartridges). That was a serious technical improvement, and not an improvement of the game engine code, like with the PS3. The least improvement is probably 3DS/Vita, as they're not out for long yet.
 
When you compare HALO 3 to Reach and now to HALO 4 and Also the Gears of War series you'll find out that Xbox 360 is showing the most improvement over time. PS3 was at its peak after 2-3 years of its launch with Killzone 2. It is the least.
 
No it does not represent gameplay. If in engine cutscenes are taken into account then the last pic of UC3 still looks better than Halo 4 -
Fine point taken.
The difference is with halo 4 master chiefs model only ever really appears in cutscenes, so obvious model switching will happen in game(cuz why have a high poly Master chief when the player never sees him)
If you remove Master Chief from the image thats exactly what the gameplay looks like.

Im not knocking model switching, i just dont think if fundamentally the cutscenes are in engine rendered in real time we should discount them from the technical progress race.
For instance if everything else other than the Nathan model are the same gameplay set pieces i dont see a reason not to include them?
Use Uncharted real time cutscenes, its still proof of what the PS3 can do.
With God of War 3 its slightly different cuz some of the cutscenes are prerendered

P.S I dont think anyone was saying Halo 4 looked better than Uncharted 3.

P.P.S Wouldnt be NeoGIF without Gifs:
ibtsPVuKIcSK4D.gif
 
Xbox 360 amazes me every single year

Just when i though would melt when i played Gears 2, they came up with Gears 3 that looked leaps ahead

And now they took it to the next level with Witcher 2, Gears Judgement and Halo 4

The difference to first wave of games, besides Kameo, is immense and lately has gone to the "how does it do it with 6yo hardware" unbelievable region

Yep , both the 360 & PS3 are at the point where you see some games and wonder how the devs did this with such old hardware...so all this talk about how long this gen have been shouldn't be all that negative IMO, we've seen and we shall see some really impressive games running at those systems.

Also not enough mention of RDR on the 360 - amazing level of detail, 720p framebuffer with 2xMSAA, beautiful lighting, Euphoria, great texture quality, decent texture filtering, day/night cycle, very good looking characters and 90% of the time a really smooth framerate...such an amazing looking game that even two years after it's maybe the most impressive thing I've seen on the 360.
 
Nope

Mario 64 vs. Banjo Tooie vs. Conker's bad fur day




Turok 1 vs. Turok 2 vs. Perfect Dark



Zelda OoT vs. Shadowman 64 vs. Indiana Jones 64



Shadow of the Empire vs. Starfox 64 vs. Rogue Squadron




Yeah, I would say the N64 is the console with the most technical progress


Yeah... all of those look roughly equally awful.
 
The winners will be poorly designed, bottleneck ridden systems that became popular and thus devs had no choice but to knuckle down and work with them on the assembly level to max them out via whatever tricks and workarounds they could.

So, PS1 and Ps2.
 
Hard to say, all the 16-but consoles changed dramatically. Also the NES made some huge jumps as well. The N64 and Neogeo probably tie. The least is definitely the hyperscan.
 
Yep , both the 360 & PS3 are at the point where you see some games and wonder how the devs did this with such old hardware...so all this talk about how long this gen have been shouldn't be all that negative IMO, we've seen and we shall see some really impressive games running at those systems.

Also not enough mention of RDR on the 360 - amazing level of detail, 720p framebuffer with 2xMSAA, beautiful lighting, Euphoria, great texture quality, decent texture filtering, day/night cycle, very good looking characters and 90% of the time a really smooth framerate...such an amazing looking game that even two years after it's maybe the most impressive thing I've seen on the 360.

Indeed, RDR was amazing too, the vistas were breathaking and i would add GOW Ascension for PS3 that shows a nice improvement over the already spectacular GOW3

I was watching the Kraken battle a few days back and could not beieve the spectacle :)

I cant even imagine what these decelopers could do with a 690GTX if they work specifically for its hardware, i guess FF Agnes demo is a sample of what can be done
 
They all to do an incredible degree.
360 is akin to PS2 - as it was ofc first and many people were just getting used to what was under the hood (and the new tricks needed in the HD age)
 
No it does not represent gameplay. If in engine cutscenes are taken into account then the last pic of UC3 still looks better than Halo 4 -

The last picture of nathan drake was from uncharted 3 cutscene which was in engine. The actual character model does not look that good during gameplay.

uncharted3drakesface.jpg


[/IMG]

Uncharted 1 pictures is from an older build. Drake doesn't have that red shirt. That's probably from the first showing.

Uncharted 2 picture is actually character art from Uncharted 1. Drake in UC2 looks totally different, for example UC2 Drake has smaller eyes.

Uncharted 3 picture is from a cutscene.

 
Saturn


VF1

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/03/32X_Virtua_Fighter.png/220px-32X_Virtua_Fighter.png/IMG]

[IMG]http://www.fightersgeneration.com/np6/gm2/vf1-ex1.jpg[/IMG


to VF2

[IMG]http://animepicks.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/GS-9079_19Sega-Saturn-Screenshot-19-Virtua-Fighter-2-JPN.jpg[/IMG

to shenmue

[IMG]http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2001/dc/shenmue2/shenmue2_0914_screen057.jpg/IMG][/QUOTE]

One of those is not a Saturn game....
 
some great candidates for most, but least going to wii....needs more screenshot comparisons.
there's no way it progressed less than jaguar, cd-i, virtual boy, lynx, etc. cmon.

ps i love Shion's post. and yeah, people saying Dreamcast likely didn't have one, or dropped it early. shame.
 
I'd go with the first PlayStation here, even if Super NES showed impressing advancements in his life. I mean, look at games such as Donkey Kong Country...

Problem is: Super Nes could be "doped" by adding chips in the cartridges and also Sega Saturn and NIntendo 64 could be "upgraded" in some way, so I'd stick with not-upgradeable systems and for this PSOne wins.

Also the first Xbox has shown impressive advancements in its relatively short life time. Doom III and Riddick were simply astounding.
 
I know it's not a console, but it's worth pointing out the C64 also got polygon 3D games late into its life. Fighter Bomber being one I owned myself. And that was without any extra helper hardware unlike the SNES.
 
Dreamcast isn't a slouch, the jump from Sonic Adventure 1 to Sonic Adventure 2 is pretty big, especially considering the sequel runs at double the framerate.
 
Nope

Mario 64 vs. Banjo Tooie vs. Conker's bad fur day

Turok 1 vs. Turok 2 vs. Perfect Dark

Zelda OoT vs. Shadowman 64 vs. Indiana Jones 64

Shadow of the Empire vs. Starfox 64 vs. Rogue Squadron

Yeah, I would say the N64 is the console with the most technical progress
Over PS2 or PS3? No way.

The main issue you see there with N64 is that the framerate degraded as the visuals improved. I mean, Turok ran at a fairly smooth 30 fps with dips, Turok 2 ran much closer to 20 fps with even more dips, while Perfect Dark spent most of its time in the teens (with single digit framerates making an appearance from time to time).

Same deal with Mario vs Banjo vs Conker. The framerates went from steady to choppy over the course of the generation. Developers simply pushed the system beyond its capabilities.

I don't think N64 belongs on either list, really.

So does Ridge Racers on PSP. But there was a bunch of PS2 launch-titles that DID look like PS1 (Evergrace anyone?) - and those weren't design choices like PuzzleBobble on PSP.
Don't be knockin' Evergrace. It's not looker, but it's well beyond what you could have found on PS1. I mean, the fact that it ran at 60 fps alone made a big difference.
 
Im gonna go with the Xbox 360.....my buddy has a 360 hes keeping in storage (only now do i realize how cool an idea it actually is) and i was shocked not just to see the blades dashboard......but to see the blades dashboard with no Marketplace sent me way way back.


Xbox 360 then

- At launch couldnt even display 1080p
- It was a barebones console that could play music.
- No HDMI

Xbox 360 now

- 1080p
- Stream media from more services than i can mention
- Live streaming of Cable TV
- Xbla games have become true rivals to retail
- Full games available for download directly from XBL
- Installing games to the hard drive improving performance
- Smart Glass soon
- Control the device using nothing but your voice
- Control the device using nothing but gestures
- Party System made XBL that much more fun, we dont even have to play the same game
- Cloud Storage fuck yeah!
- Allow multiple downloads extension download to Xbox from Xbox.com
- HDMI out the box baby
- I know im missing a whole bunch of other shit Microsoft has added to the Xbox 360.
Wasnt party chat available from day 1? But interesting to see this point of view. Anyone have a similar list for PS3 and Wii too?
 
PS3 then
Hardware
• Backwards compatibility with both PS1 and PS2 games
• Memory card slots
• Model without WiFi
Software
• Other OS running Linux
Game library
• PS1 Classics
• PlayStation 3
• PlayStation Network

PS3 now
Hardware
• PlayStation Eye
• Rumble in DualShock 3
• Waggle with PlayStation Move
Software
• 3D support
• Automatic updates
• Cloud storage
• Custom soundtracks support for some games
• Functional clock
• PlayStation Plus
• Printer support
• Screenshot support for some games
• Text chat
• Trophies
Game library
• Import game section
• NeoGeo
• PlayStation 3
• PlayStation Minis
• PlayStation Network
• PS1 Classics
• PS2 Classics
• TurboGrafx-16

Feel free to add to the list, I'm sure I'm forgetting things.
 
Saturn or SNES. Or PS2, even if fell short of the GC/Xbox.

Least, probably the Wii. Games looked just as good around launch.
 
I'd say the NES overall, and in the past 20 years I'd say the PS3.

NES - The first year or two of games on there were really simple and look closer to Atari than what we ended up getting with games like SMB3 and Castlevania III.

PS3 - A combination of improved graphics and a much improved OS/online infrastructure. The former was partly a result of a lot of PS2 high res port jobs, but even comparing Uncharted to Uncharted 3 is pretty staggering.

Honorable mention: PS2, Xbox
 
Somehow I forgot Neo Geo.

That. I may be forgetting something even better, but Neo Geo easily trumps the choices I had in my previous post. Incredible machine.
 
Over it's short life span the Dreamcast did well. Sonic Adventure at 30fps to Sonic Adventure 2 at 60fps with much bigger, more detailed environments. Shenmue 2 also took a hefty scale increase.

On Uncharted, a benefit of Blu-Ray is that you've space for lots of hight quality FMV. A lot of Uncharted's cinematics are pre-rendered. In engine, but with full resolution models and everything turned up.
 
When you compare HALO 3 to Reach and now to HALO 4 and Also the Gears of War series you'll find out that Xbox 360 is showing the most improvement over time. PS3 was at its peak after 2-3 years of its launch with Killzone 2. It is the least.

That spin.

Bottom line if you compare a launch game, let's say Resistance, to the last of us demo it shows the biggest improvement.
 
Ah, that's the game I knew came out on the Wii Virtual Console, but I couldn't find and buy it. Turns out it came out in Europe only. :( I know nothing about the C64 but would gladly buy it.

It's actually quite bad, from a gameplay point of view (imo).

The biggest technical marvel on the C64 ever, but plays like your typical 80ies jump and run pre SMB.
 
The SNES had the most technical improvements graphically throughout its life cycle

you started with super mario world then Donkey Kong Country and finished with Star Fox
It went from sprites to polygons

The console with the least technical improvements graphically I'd say is the Wii
 
The SNES had the most technical improvements graphically throughout its life cycle

you started with super mario world then Donkey Kong Country and finished with Star Fox
It went from sprites to polygons

The console with the least technical improvements graphically I'd say is the Wii

Well, if we include technical modifications built in the cartridge, I personally find the Virtua Racing on Mega Drive more impressive than any SNES polygon-based title that I've seen. Which is surprising, because SNES was considerably more powerful than the Mega Drive.
 
Most recent examples for me, would probably be PS3 for most (following in the PS2's foot steps) as I still feel we haven't yet seen the full capabilities of the system, despite other platforms having reached their graphical ceiling already.

Least I'd say, the DS. The hardware actually limited technical progress, and 3D on it always looked shit.
 
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