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Graphical Fidelity I Expect This Gen

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13 years old game btw.
That was a tech demo. Wasnt in the game.
 
Went back to AC shadows to wash off the awful taste of yotei, and even in the least attractive autumn season, the game looks great.

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i love the way sunlight bounces off her clothes and hair. love the volumetric fog and wind effects. its beautiful even at its worst.
I really need to check this one out. This looks 2 generations ahead of yotei.

How does the combat compare to sekiro or yotei?
 
I really need to check this one out. This looks 2 generations ahead of yotei.

How does the combat compare to sekiro or yotei?
Well its no sekiro lol but its better than yotei. slightly worse than ragnorak, but on par with other open world melee games.

they have a lot of different weapons and playstyles. the girl uses kurisagama, nunchucks, bows and katanas, while Yasuke uses hammers, guns and greatswords. every single weapon has its own skill tree and its own special attacks that are on cooldowns like the runic attacks in gow games. And then on top of that they have all these perks that basically let you refill your special abilities and allow you to assasinate even the biggest samurais in one hit. but you have to build up to it by finding all these different perks and runes which i guess is annoying for some but i thought it made the game world rewarding to explore. especially since it tells you where you can find these items.

the animations, hit detection, and feedback are all top notch. huge upgrade over ac valhalla and a good mix between ac origins and ac black flag. there is lots to like here. but it sucks that yasuke cant stealth, or climb using grapple which essentially forces you to play every single one of the 50 or so castles with Naoe. Going in as yasuke can be fun but since each castle is basically the size of a small city, you might end up fighting 100 enemies before you are done. whereas, with naoe, you can skip most enemies and just kill the 3 samurai in each castle to unlock the main chest. i used yasuke to clear small outposts and main story missions while naoe did all the castles.

Some combat gifs below:

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just dont rush through the story. i tried to do that and it was so bad i had pretty much fallen out of love with the game. just focus on enjoying the game world and do story missions every now and then.
 
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Funny that we had games like red faction guerrilla or mercenaries 2 with total destruction and no rtx, and modern games use heavy rtx that dont leave performance free for total destruction or devs just dont care about achieving total destruction...

I think destruction and a dynamic world is also more a core design of a game when it get designed more than being chained by the presence of rtx.
It's not tied to RTX per se. But it's certainly chained by the need for games to look good. If they still wanted to look like Minecraft, then the sky is the limit.

As baked GI got more and more accurate, destruction became a major challenge. Imagine if I baked the GI for a pot on a shelf and then I shoot the pot alone during gameplay. The indirect shadows and color bleed of the pot will remain on the shelf with baked GI, even though the pot doesn't exist anymore. Swapping lightmaps is costly, so this is never done in practice.

None of this mattered during the good ol times as GI never had to be that accurate. For everything destructible, they would simply not bake any GI for them. If you remember older games, even PS4 games, any object that you could pick up or shoot/destroy would be lit slightly differently. They would glow. And even though noticeable, it wasn't that jarring as the overall game didn't look that much better anyway. Now, it would look like complete shit because they have pushed baking to the very limits, while you can't bake anything that moves or breaks.

You could see this in UC4 as well. Notice how much worse the lighting on all the sausage, chickens and other destructible objects look, compared to the static environment. They glow inexplicably. There is no GI, no AO, no shadows etc. You might get a little bit of SSAO, but that's it. If someone showed you shots of these assets and claimed this is still the benchmark for graphics, we would all laugh.

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But if they show us a static scene:

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That's still arguably as good if not better than many current gen games. You see how wide the gap is? Both are gameplay shots from the same game (aside from some youtube compression).

Now imagine a next gen looking game with chicken and sausages still looking like that in UC4. You can crank up the asset quality, but that would make them float around even more if the lighting stays fixed. That's what you will get if you still bake lighting and don't have a per-pixel GI solution. That's exactly the issue with Wolverine. You have better quality assets, but still no accurate GI.


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Everything destructible just floats with no proper grounding, shadowing or color bleed. All the areas under the tables and thatched roofs show no difference in bounce lighting at all, resulting in no variation.

It doesn't have to be RTGI, but it has to be more accurate than traditional probes, which are normally placed 1 to 2 meters apart. And RTGI is the right solution for that specific problem.

Would it suddenly make devs more creative with how they implement destruction? Probably not. Tech never replaces creativity. But it certainly removes barriers and allows them to think beyond current limitations.

For example, I don't think e-day would have even attempted the scale of destruction they are looking at without Lumen GI. Game already looks pretty dated and low quality imho, to the extent that I can't even spot GI during daytime, but it would look atrocious if a building collapsed and the scene lighting didn't change at all. Now they can rely on Lumen to just work as advertised without inventing shortcuts and hacks
 
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Lol leave it to SlimySnake SlimySnake to convert me to 30fps but you're onto something the 30FPS RT mode looks better from a fidelity standpoint it reminds me of how weird movies look when going from 24 fps to 60fps. Like motion blur is a key aesthetic of the game.

I will say main character lighting almost always looks good during gameplay. I would rank Akse in game character model above any other sony current gen title.

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Lol leave it to SlimySnake SlimySnake to convert me to 30fps but you're onto something the 30FPS RT mode looks better from a fidelity standpoint it reminds me of how weird movies look when going from 24 fps to 60fps. Like motion blur is a key aesthetic of the game.

I will say main character lighting almost always looks good during gameplay. I would rank Akse in game character model above any other sony current gen title.

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There is definitely something cinematic about that framerate. Sadly once the combat starts, that framerate just doesn't work.

But I'm just going to stick with it for now. Its finally making me not detest the visuals even in that god awful forest area so i will just suck it up.
 
Finished Hellblade 2 during the weekend.

Really pretty faces. Feels like what I expect to become common next gen but I again sincerely doubt it.
Environments were so-so. Some really good set pieces but easily falls apart when you roam around.

Was a chore to finish, felt like I forced myself to the end because I thougth eh, short enough. It's a worse "game" than the first Hellblade and quite disappointing story wise.

Keeper for a linear adventure game was much better.

Now off to Ratchet and Clank rift apart for first time. PC max settings. Looks amazing so far. I wish Insomniac was not just a Marvel output machine and worked more on games like this.
 
Ok fellas, after spending a couple hours with Yotei playing in the RT 30fps mode for the first time i have come to the conclusion that...........

THIS IS THE BEST LOOKING SONY FIRST PARTY GAME. BETTER THAN SM2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be blitzing this thread with my captures. You can thank Slimy for my newfound love of this game's visuals. It obvious now that this game was intended for 30fps.

JUST LOOK ART THIS IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING MOVIE!!



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Ok fellas, after spending a couple hours with Yotei playing in the RT 30fps mode for the first time i have come to the conclusion that...........

THIS IS THE BEST LOOKING SONY FIRST PARTY GAME. BETTER THAN SM2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be blitzing this thread with my captures. You can thank Slimy for my newfound love of this game's visuals. It obvious now that this game was intended for 30fps.

JUST LOOK ART THIS IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING MOVIE!!



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pretty sure they add some extra fog and volumetric effects in the distance in the 30 fps version. or maybe its the lack of pssr.
 
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Ok fellas, after spending a couple hours with Yotei playing in the RT 30fps mode for the first time i have come to the conclusion that...........

THIS IS THE BEST LOOKING SONY FIRST PARTY GAME. BETTER THAN SM2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will be blitzing this thread with my captures. You can thank Slimy for my newfound love of this game's visuals. It obvious now that this game was intended for 30fps.

JUST LOOK ART THIS IT LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING MOVIE!!



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You should try out Kurosawa, looks fucking sick. And audio is changed too. Really feels like a proper Old School Samurai flick. I played about half of the game in that mode.
 
That was a tech demo. Wasnt in the game.
Frog was definitely in the game too, you could see it in the level where you're supposed to blow up the dam in the "river" section. I know because the first thing I did when I played the game back in 2013 is look for the frogs and see if they were bullshitting. I was thinking yesterday of installing it so I might do and screenshot it lol.
 
Frog was definitely in the game too, you could see it in the level where you're supposed to blow up the dam in the "river" section. I know because the first thing I did when I played the game back in 2013 is look for the frogs and see if they were bullshitting. I was thinking yesterday of installing it so I might do and screenshot it lol.
Yeah but its nowhere near the fidelity.
 
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Besides the random tree/ground texture here and there, I never noticed much tessellation anywhere in the game
If it's dynamic tessellation, we will have to get a zoomed in shot in-game as it will only max out the closer the camera gets. Is there a free cam mod for this game? Need to get within inches of its face.

Happy frog hunting!
 
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I have to empty an entire van worth of heavy goods in a place that is 70 mt of stairs from where we can park...it's in days like this when you think some bad assets in yotei are not that bad afterall :messenger_pensive:
 
Well papitos

I think today we can confidently say goodbye to id Tech 8, the Doom Engine, after half of the studio being fired by that witch ASHA. I really liked this engine, especially the performance and fluidity

What a shitty day to be a fan of videogames
 
Well papitos

I think today we can confidently say goodbye to id Tech 8, the Doom Engine, after half of the studio being fired by that witch ASHA. I really liked this engine, especially the performance and fluidity

What a shitty day to be a fan of videogames
Yeah, I died a little inside when I read about that. Damn... I've loved id since the original Wolf3D (and Commanded Keen) and simply adored their engines all these years modding and mapping Doom. A sad day indeed.
 
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Lol I thought they looked very good on my TV. As others have stated, Yotei is one of those games where it's highs are best experienced first-hand and in motion.
Second one looks good but first one not so much i found :messenger_grinning_sweat:
You are right about Yotei and movement, and there another thing it does perfectly imo it is scale. Ass creed often look like you are playing with miniatures in a miniature world whereas yotei, as much as it pains me to say, has a sense of scale that bring you into its world. To temper that it was already the case with tsushima and tsuhsima had variety when yotei has mostly empty spaces with nothing to do.
 
This. Ive seen plenty of RTGI games that have ps3 era lighting. Yes, its more accurate in terms of light bounce, and darkening of shadowed areas, but it cant magically fix something that doesnt have a high quality base. Yotei is the perfect example of this. Dying Light as well. Just an ugly brownish ps3 era color palette. you even see this in some UE5 games with lumen. Some games just look better than others. hell compare Avowed to Outer Worlds 2 and its like a generational difference in lighting.

the fact that HFW still has the best lighting out of all the other sony games is proof that a better base, baked or otherwise, is needed first and foremost. You can then start adding multibounce RTGI, better PBR materials, ray tracing, and volumetric effects, but the base has to be better.

Put the following games next to HFW and they all still dont measure up 4 years later.
- GOW Ragnorak
- TLOU1
- Spiderman 2
- Death Stranding 2
- GHost of Yotei
- Saros
- Wolverine


Jason confirmed the entire studio was working on it. Horizon 3 is on the backburner with maybe a small team of writers working on it like Cory's game which had just 5 writers for 4 years until they shipped ragnorak.
I just can't agree with the HFW lighting, it's one of the most inconsistent games when it comes to lighting I've ever seen. 99% of interiors look ps3 level (except for the cauldrons).
Saros has far better lighting, way more consistent across interiors especially, a very strong game visually overall actually, I'd put it very high up for sony games this gen.
 
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Nah this is a certified current gen looking game. There are def some effects missing in performance modes. Now I have to play the campaign over again.

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It's flippin' gorgeous. The Pro really puts in the work here as well with RT and PSSR in RT Performance mode.

I wonder if Slimy is using the uncapped VRR setting, because that does lead to a little more moire and instability due to the lower res. I've been using the RT Performance mode with VRR on Smoothed so it sticks closer to 60-70 FPS and it looks exactly like this, but basically pin sharp 4K at 60+ FPS. It's one of the smoothest games I've played.
 
Well papitos

I think today we can confidently say goodbye to id Tech 8, the Doom Engine, after half of the studio being fired by that witch ASHA. I really liked this engine, especially the performance and fluidity

What a shitty day to be a fan of videogames
This is PHILS fault, not Asha, she inherited a DISASTER of a console and was forced to clean up his mess
Crimson desert truly is the only game you can't say devs took too long to hear people's complaints and work to solve the problems.
You really live up to your tag everytime.
They took 5 months to add a no HUD no option.

The other shit they were fixing is just because they shipped the game before it was finished. It clearly needed another 6-8 months in the oven.

They weren't "fixing" anything after launch, they were literally still developing the game. lmao
 
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This is PHILS fault, not Asha, she inherited a DISASTER of a console and was forced to clean up his mess

They took 5 months to add a no HUD no option.

The other shit they were fixing is just because they shipped the game before it was finished. It clearly needed another 6-8 months in the oven.

They weren't "fixing" anything after launch, they were literally still developing the game. lmao
Judge Judy Eye Roll GIF

Yeah sure how dare they not listen to you as soon as you start throwing your tantrum ?
It took cdpr 2 years to finish developing Cyberpunk.
Pearl Abyss took 5 months to completely turn around a game with blatant flaws, and solve all its problems and more.
The fact they did not agree with you about what was priority is not really important when you see the end result.
You really sound like a crybaby finding ways to complain about what everyone see as a great feat from the devs, and a tremendous example of how to listen to players feedback and give them everything they want and more.
 
This is PHILS fault, not Asha, she inherited a DISASTER of a console and was forced to clean up his mess
She was hired to fix Phil's mess and her genius idea was to basically sell 5 studios and then lay off 3,200 devs on top of that. anyone can do that. and most bean counters do exactly that.

you gotta have some understanding of which studios are talented. gutting id software like that is retarded. she just went through every single studio and cut them by half.

in her tweet, she was like there are 14 layers of management at xbox. then she goes we are going to add a new executive who will oversee everything? huh? maybe get rid of 13 of the 14 layers of managers before getting rid of developers.

also, Phil for all his faults was trying to build something. You have to invest in studios, in IPs, in talent to make video games. he just fucked up by trying to win console wars buying up zenimax and activision, but he understood that you need devs to make games. Asha and most execs like her do not understand that games dont make themselves. gutting every single studio by half is going to hurt these studios. its shortsighted. its dumb. it shows a basic lack of understanding for the business shes supposed to be managing.

Simply selling off studios like ninja theory, compulsion games, double fine, and undead labs shouldve been enough. but no, she had to go in and gut the entire business. this will hurt xbox games for decades.
 
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She was hired to fix Phil's mess and her genius idea was to basically sell 5 studios and then lay off 3,200 devs on top of that. anyone can do that. and most bean counters do exactly that.

you gotta have some understanding of which studios are talented. gutting id software like that is retarded. she just went through every single studio and cut them by half.

in her tweet, she was like there are 14 layers of management at xbox. then she goes we are going to add a new executive who will oversee everything? huh? maybe get rid of 13 of the 14 layers of managers before getting rid of developers.

also, Phil for all his faults was trying to build something. You have to invest in studios, in IPs, in talent to make video games. he just fucked up by trying to win console wars buying up zenimax and activision, but he understood that you need devs to make games. Asha and most execs like her do not understand that games dont make themselves. gutting every single studio by half is going to hurt these studios. its shortsighted. its dumb. it shows a basic lack of understanding for the business shes supposed to be managing.

Simply selling off studios like ninja theory, compulsion games, double fine, and undead labs shouldve been enough. but no, she had to go in and gut the entire business. this will hurt xbox games for decades.
If what she said is actually true and they're cutting middle management down from up to 14 layers to just a few that usually makes perfect sense. Stupid amounts of middle-management like that is how you get micromanagers which help nobody, usually it's the opposite.
My personal experience is that there was a time where I was having 4 meetings per week to say the exact same thing to 4 different management teams within the same company, I easily lost 4 hours, sometimes even more per week just to repeat myself with no benefit for my work whatsoever, it was absolutely ridiculous and when I pointed that out some of them didn't even know I was reporting to other people :messenger_tears_of_joy:
These were all redudant people who almost certainly earned more than me or any other dev in the company...

Evaluate people based on the work they deliver, period. And that should've been more than enough to improve workflows and deliver better work and faster.

But gutting entire tech teams is utter retardation which brings her whole reasoning for this shake-up into question.
Xbox is probably finished.
 
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Correct. Baking is done per scene (which is a compilation of all static assets) at a resolution that the dev may desire. Just like they create textures, baking would generate lightmaps for the entire scene that are loaded and overlayed on the assets (using lightmap UVs which also need to be generated and stored per asset) during runtime. For modern games, this is nowhere near the resolution of the assets themselves. So even if the asset has 4K textures, the lightmaps are typically much lower resolution. And because of the lower resolution, there will be lighting inaccuracies even in static scenes. The moment anything even moves a pixel, if there isn't a separate bake for the new state, you end up with light leakage.

I believe GTA 6 is using a combination of RTGI, a new patented technique using "bounce maps" and probe based lighting. They are tuning this to each specific scene. I'm finding several scenes where there is no RTGI at all for dynamic objects, NPCs or even Jason/Lucia in the previous trailers and others that have it. Will comment more on that after seeing how trailer 3 does it all, as this stuff can evolve with development.

AC Unity is a great example. Another would be those rooms that you walk around in UC4 or TLOU or all of Order 1886. Extremely high baking resolution that makes it look almost path traced. But extremely large file sizes, and as a result, impossible to use in larger spaces or changing light conditions. They would generally not even allow much interactivity as flipping the object over would show that lightmaps don't exist in other angles. Baked lighting always forces devs to keep the environmental assets non-interactive. The more interactivity, the less baking. And the less baking, the shittier the assets look. It's why in the previous gen, there is a wide gap between cutscenes and gameplay. When you can't predict the way bounce lighting is supposed to hit an object due to change in viewing angle or lighting, without RTGI, you have to come up with some crude approximation. You can get away with fake lighting in cutscenes, but they would look out of place and impact performance in gameplay. For games like GoW, they just don't do any approximation at all as there is no dynamic bounce lighting. If there is no direct light, it will simply not be lit.
Thanks so much for the informative post!
 
by the way I just noticed this GTAVI story snippet on the Rockstar website, thought you might find it interesting, [sounds like a red herring to prevent spoilers]:

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Jason and Lucia have always known the deck is stacked against them.
But when an easy score goes wrong, they find themselves on the darkest side of the sunniest place in America,

in the middle of a criminal conspiracy stretching across the state of Leonida — forced to rely on each other more than ever if they want to make it out alive.

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