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Bensam123
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Wed May 09, 2012 4:43 pm

I think resolution is an entirely different subject. Lately it's been leaking into the software side of things, when it's traditionally been dependent upon hardware, specifically the monitor. The software side of it has only come to light in terms of bad DPI scaling, which really doesn't matter. You can still display lower resolution icons on higher resolution monitor with little to no actual impact. It can always be fixed, just as games that originally didn't support higher resolution displays could eventually support them (like Diablo 2). While I do agree higher resolutions are awesome, that still remains almost completely in the hands of the panel makers.

The software and hardware dynamic for gaming, and software in general, are driven by one another. Sometimes faster hardware pulls software along with it, sometimes the drive for faster hardware through software pulls that along with it. Resolutions almost completely remain on their own little island and I would really like better ones, but nothing is holding them back but the panel makers themselves.

Consoles as someone else mentioned are what's currently holding graphics back. The trend you noticed was consolization, which took place with the last generation of consoles being released and PC gaming being proclaimed 'dead' and almost all the devs jumped ship.

With the next release of consoles and Steam making its move on the HTPC front, we may see them die on the next iteration. With that I can see two distinct avenues that will be further persued.

One is physics. While this isn't directly related to eye candy in the traditional sense, it has a HUGE impact on gameplay and gameplay dynamics. It is amazing what a little bit of real life can do to change a game and while consolization killed off the first round of physics, including PhysX, which could've turned into something huge, it still has room for a resurrection. It's unfortunate that Ageia came a tiny bit too late to the party or a bit too early.

The second is Raytracing. While raytracing is still in its very early stages, it has a lot of potential once it goes mainstream. Projects like OpenRT are helping aid this, but once again this wont see the light of day till either consoles die (as they don't have the hardware to do raytracing and probably never will) or a one hit wonder comes out that really takes off, like Angry Birds.

It doesn't help that cartoon stylized games are becoming a rage as well. Games like League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and Heroes of Neworth do almost nothing to push the graphical envelope. Even Teamfortress 2 to a certain extent does that. But I would argue that TF2 is stylized in a cartoon fashion, but has a lot of graphical bells and whistles.
 
mikehodges2
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Wed May 09, 2012 5:21 pm

cchsballa0655 wrote:
Just look up unlimited detail graphics...i believe that will be the next big step.


Looks promising. Well, he seems confident at least.
Found a long interview with the guy behind it..not that I have time/interest to watch a graphics tech interview for 40 mins :)
 
cchsballa0655
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Thu May 10, 2012 8:12 am

I believe that's one of the videos I have watched....if so then the most suprising part to me is the laptop they were demoing the technology on did not even have a dedicated gpu built in..they were rendering just from the cpu...and getting like 20 fps...that tells you it will be well coded and that these guys know what they are doing.
In case nobody wants to bother with looking it up unlimited detail the technology uses tiny atoms to make larger objects that have real dimensions instead of using polygons...with smoke and mirror techniques to make it look like objects have real dimensions. The best part is that they have not even started having the technology take advantage of gpu rendering the game world and they already have respectable frame rates on a n i7 laptop from last year. I dont know if that is real impressive or impressive at all but it sure sounds promising to me.
 
SPOOFE
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Fri May 11, 2012 2:55 pm

Consoles as someone else mentioned are what's currently holding graphics back.

... Aaaaaand there it is, the Holy Mantra Of The Faithful.
 
mikehodges2
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Fri May 11, 2012 6:34 pm

cchsballa0655 wrote:
I believe that's one of the videos I have watched....if so then the most suprising part to me is the laptop they were demoing the technology on did not even have a dedicated gpu built in..they were rendering just from the cpu...and getting like 20 fps...that tells you it will be well coded and that these guys know what they are doing.
In case nobody wants to bother with looking it up unlimited detail the technology uses tiny atoms to make larger objects that have real dimensions instead of using polygons...with smoke and mirror techniques to make it look like objects have real dimensions. The best part is that they have not even started having the technology take advantage of gpu rendering the game world and they already have respectable frame rates on a n i7 laptop from last year. I dont know if that is real impressive or impressive at all but it sure sounds promising to me.


The interviewer mentions a media blackout as well, with this interview being one of his last for a while. Promising - I can only assume that someone who doesn't want endless media hype might actually be on to something.


Or it's a double bluff. Hopefully not!
 
codedivine
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Re: What's the next step for graphics?

Mon May 14, 2012 1:51 pm

Oh, not this "unlimited detail" again. Here are some thoughts from Notch: http://notch.tumblr.com/post/8386977075/its-a-scam

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