A Look at the Possible Future of 3D Graphics: How More Real Than Real Can You Get?

[neeyik]

With CPUs and GPUs continuing to get more powerful with each new generation, the push for ever more realistic graphics in blockbuster games shows no signs of slowing down. Today's best-looking titles already look stunning, so how much better can they possibly get? Join us as we take a look at what awaits us in the future of 3D graphics.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2527-future-3d-graphics/

 

[R00sT3R]

Great article! Really enjoyed reading it.

The 'Barber Shop' render, taking nearly 10mins on a 2080 to render, is a sobering reminder though of just how far away we are from movie quality CGI in real time at high resolutions for games on PC GPUs. Even if we're only talking about 30fps, never mind 60 or 120.

With all the up-scaling trickery now being developed, We're still going to need RT performance hundreds / thousands of times faster than the current best.

I can't see that happening without serious amounts of extra hardware on the GPUs themselves, Dedicated multiple RT rendering cores like modern CPUs, seems like the only realistic way to do it.

..and that's just to render the current state of the art in movie CGI, which itself is getting ever more complex & realistic each year.

 

[passwordistaco]

How More Real Than Real Can You Get?

The answer is none. None more real.

 

[Uncle Al]

In consideration of video and photo's I think the sky is the limit; no such thing as too much but for games I don't see an advantage, especially fast moving stuff .....

 

[error1984]

Apart from textures and polygon count games are primitive as they were 20 years ago. The physics are so outdated that I have stopped enjoy gaming long time ago. Fps shooters are the worst...games like Soldier of Fortune or Red Faction were revolutionary at the time. What do we have today? You throw an grenade in any game and there is no single damage to the concrete etc.
Graphics are fine in todays games....the physics need to catch up to be more realistic!

 

[Skully]

Are we just talking about inanimate objects here? Because they still have a long, long way to go on rendering humans. There are a few games where the faces look impressive - but only compared to lesser games, not real people.

 

[Steveb8189]

"Doom (1993) vs Doom (2016) -- 0.42 GB vs. 68 GB install sizes"

420MB in 1993!?

 

[Skully]

"Doom (1993) vs Doom (2016) -- 0.42 GB vs. 68 GB install sizes"

420MB in 1993!?

No, the original DOOM was about 12MB.

 

[kinetix]

Oh man. when we will have again games with AI at the level (and updated) of F.E.A.R., STALKER or Alien Isolation?

 

[neeyik]

@Steveb8189 and @Skully - the 0.42GB actually refers to the Steam release of Doom (1993), which includes 4 episodes and an enhanced version of the first release, with upgraded visuals. Just checked and the original full (not shareware) version required 40MB of free disk space, so I'm missing a zero! I'll amend that now.

 

[kinetix]

@Steveb8189 and @Skully - the 0.42GB actually refers to the Steam release of Doom (1993), which includes 4 episodes and an enhanced version of the first release, with upgraded visuals. Just checked and the original full (not shareware) version required 40MB of free disk space, so I'm missing a zero! I'll amend that now.

hmm I don't think so
I have Doom 1 here (on a DVD among my hundreds of backups, I think I have the full idSoftware production in backup, jajaja) and I think it was about 12 MB. I have one of the two original shareware floppies, and the shareware is the first episode of three. so let's say it was about 8.6 MB compressed (6 disk) that expanded to 12 MB (the .wads are binaries files with somehow high entropy, they won't compress as much into a zip, or the format that the installer uses)

 

[neeyik]

@kinetix - yes, you're right. Specifically, it's 11,159,840 bytes (Doom black book); one final ninja edit!

 

[alexnode]

Great article! Really enjoyed reading it.

The 'Barber Shop' render, taking nearly 10mins on a 2080 to render, is a sobering reminder though of just how far away we are from movie quality CGI in real time at high resolutions for games on PC GPUs. Even if we're only talking about 30fps, never mind 60 or 120.

With all the up-scaling trickery now being developed, We're still going to need RT performance hundreds / thousands of times faster than the current best.

I can't see that happening without serious amounts of extra hardware on the GPUs themselves, Dedicated multiple RT rendering cores like modern CPUs, seems like the only realistic way to do it.

..and that's just to render the current state of the art in movie CGI, which itself is getting ever more complex & realistic each year.

Yes we are quite far away ...but it is getting there in 10 years time we might have some degree of real time photorealism, but after that we have simulations , physics, liquids ...explosions. CGI is going to drastically evolve for many decades.

 

[loki1944]

Raytracing looks fake; like vaseline is smeared on everything. Emperor's New Clothes situation.

 

[Arbie]

Crysis was not "infamous" for ANYTHING. The people who reflexively derided it - and who continue to do so - are infamous. That apparently includes you.

 

[Joey Rakas]

The Question "How More Real Than Real Can You Get?"
A lot. A lot more real. We're going to need a complete revolution of the computer(or at least the GPU) before this happens or some new brilliant masterminds . With the current power draw and heat from top-tier cards, heaven forbid we talk about the Nvidia's upcoming 4000 series........We're simply nowhere near "realism". Not even remotely close to what we humans experience every time we simply open our eyes. There is nothing "real" about 3D Graphics.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

To me more than making it look more realistic they should focus on the real world physics as one example. Imagine it starting to rain and seeing puddle's dynamically form or a dry creek bed start to fill up with water and flow.

More work on the AI of enemies and wouldn't it be nice if the character you play could speak like we had way back in Duke Nukem's time. Maybe rather than just adding hard-coded speech, thew AI could work out what to say based on context and augment the speech and improve it's dialogue as you progressed.

At the end of the day though eye-candy doesn't mean a great game. Too many companies think the eye-candy is most important. You have the eye-candy to increase the immersion but the game has to be compelling.

I'd rather see far fewer releases and bigger more open ended games released that are far more polished and I don't care if that means several years between games.

 

[Alfatawi Mendel]

No, the original DOOM was about 12MB.

The Original Doom came on 4 x 1.44mb floppy disks. I still have mine.

 

[Alfatawi Mendel]

Gameplay is everything. Stunning visuals are the candy floss.

 

[godrilla]

Anyone have any games they are excited for in the pipeline?
As a Vermitide 2 player naturally Darktide comes to mind with all the new bells and whistles.

 

[Steveb8189]

hmm I don't think so
I have Doom 1 here (on a DVD among my hundreds of backups, I think I have the full idSoftware production in backup, jajaja) and I think it was about 12 MB. I have one of the two original shareware floppies, and the shareware is the first episode of three. so let's say it was about 8.6 MB compressed (6 disk) that expanded to 12 MB (the .wads are binaries files with somehow high entropy, they won't compress as much into a zip, or the format that the installer uses)

ooooh, a .wad file. That's a flash from the past

 

[money]

I have never cared about graffix, if they stayed in the ~2010 level for the rest of my life I'd be completely fine with that.

 

[ZedRM]

By the standards of today, games for those early machines, such as the first PlayStation, were primitive in the extreme

Let's be honest, the Playstation 1 3D engine was primitive even when it was new. The "polygon jitter" was a sign of very lacking & rushed engineering and was not seen on other, better engineered, 3D processors.. Playstation may have been popular, but that doesn't mean it was good.

 

[Kn0xx]

With massive graphic power for eye-candy bells and whistles trailers that we have now... in the end people play CS:GO in lowest settings, plays Minecraft ( cubic graphics ) and watch more Twitch/Youtube/Netflix than actually playing games. the question is: Does is need to be Real ? ... Anwser is: No!
Aside of the graphics quality and power GPU's... the games are more buggy than ever, cheaters everywhere that ruins any Eye-candy game ( Call of Duty MW2 for example ) or half-made games with expansions. Unreal Engine/Unity and alikes... just made games look prettier...not better working.

 

[godrilla]

With massive graphic power for eye-candy bells and whistles trailers that we have now... in the end people play CS:GO in lowest settings, plays Minecraft ( cubic graphics ) and watch more Twitch/Youtube/Netflix than actually playing games. the question is: Does is need to be Real ? ... Anwser is: No!
Aside of the graphics quality and power GPU's... the games are more buggy than ever, cheaters everywhere that ruins any Eye-candy game ( Call of Duty MW2 for example ) or half-made games with expansions. Unreal Engine/Unity and alikes... just made games look prettier...not better working.

I knew a programmer that use to tell me that the more complex something is the higher chance of it breaking. We can see this play out with Cyberpunk. It is taking almost 2 to 3 years of software patching and hardware upgrades to make it enjoyable.
The graphics will inevitably get better by default with time and become more efficient to run.
As far as cheating in games, this was around a decade ago and unfortunately will always be there.
Notice as rasterization becomes more efficient and easier to run Nvidia is pushing for RT and doubling down on it every generation. This is to make a new demand for it's hardware. It will take a few more generations or at least a decade to run rt games with trailer like graphics.
For some the ultra realism is an escape from reality to an alternative reality to trigger a euphoric response. Games with better gameplay than visuals trigger a similar response in terms of rewards when winning or solving complex problems and puzzles. Imo when the two come together with great gameplay and great visuals we have perfect harmony. That perfect harmony can be addicting to some/many who chase this feeling whether it be with superior gaming or visuals. In conclusion the visual quality of games will eventually plateau into ultra realism and as many agree shouldn't be a priority focal point and gameplay like you said is more important because by default graphics will eventually get better and better.