Quick guide to graphics, ordered by importance: 1. Readability. I want to see what stuff is and especially distinguish stuff. 2. Impression. It should direct how I should feel or relate to characters and objects. 3. Congruence. Unless by intention, no asset should stand out as if not fitting in with the others. 4. Aesthetic and style. It's art, use it as art. 5. Fidelity. You know.
I can only imagine every dev that’s gone through hundreds of hours making their game as realistic as possible. Then you got battlebit over here rockin Roblox’s graphic style. By biggest fuss was not being able to play the games I’ve bought cause of fps or disc space. It’s a nasty trend when people with top of the line computers can’t even run the game smoothly. I hope battlebit serves as a good example. Simplicity over complexity.
I think devs should put high and ultra graphics files as free dlc instead of bloating the install for everyone running it on normal (since running anything on ultra these days requires quite an expensive gpu)
Yes YES YES! It should really be the standard. I believe that WarThunder does this but it is hidden behind some complicated settings, you can have your file size by not downloading the ultra quality vehicle models, even then you can't just download the super-low poly models and the smallest it gets is about 30GB (which is still too large for a lot of older laptops).
i overwhelmingly agree with this video and as the saying goes, i want shorter games with "worse" graphics made by people who are paid more to work less. i love games prioritizing artstyle over fidelity and i'm sick of massive download sizes and abysmal loading times. that being said, i recently played through insomniac's spider-man, and while the file size is not ideal (clocking in at about 66gb), i was stunned by how it literally takes only seconds since launching the game to swinging through the open world. i acknowledge here that this is definitely an outlier, but it's interesting how a aaa game like this can achieve these loading times. that doesn't undermine anything i said in the beginning but it's interesting to see that it can be done
Its on the right track, and the number of similar complaints have been steadily rising, but the constant rising Disk Space requirements and graphical/CPU requirements for AAA games are mainly caused by a couple factors. The constant desire to raise graphical fidelity/gameplay scale to the newest, biggest number and cram as many features as possible into a new game for marketing purposes, but also the lower prioritization of space and runtime optimization because saying "This can run on *two* toasters and be stored in a sentient plant" is a less impressive selling point than being able to proclaim "4K graphics so realistic you'll die in real life when you die in the game!". Both issues are unfortunately due to execs wanting to make number line go up and systemic to the AAA industry so unless there's enough financial push back, its unlikely to change.
I'm currently trying to make a game and the art style I went with is basically "what if PS2 could have 1080p and 0.512K textures". It's no nostalgia, I was not even born before the 2000s were over. I do it simply because it's 1. Easier to make (biggest reason by far) 2. Brain "adds" Fidelity to the scene because details are implied but not elaborated, so it looks even better. 3. Light to render so even androids can run it. So simpler but well executed visuals win on all aspects over mass produced realistic visuals.
It's so funny you mentioned human revolution and man kind divided because they were the very two games that made me look into this topic. Playing MD i could see it graphics were technically steps above HR but i found i just didn't like looking at it. My thought was there was just too much on the screen at once. Too much visual clutter and my brain was having to work extra to cut out the visual noise in ever scene.
Battlefield 1 is still the best looking "Realistic" game by far and its a game from 2016, without any of the massive slowdown features like Ray Tracing or other stuff. That's cause every single space in every single map is made by hand to look as good and as amazing as possible, and it ends up with every room, every field and every gun looking completely realistic and having immersive and high quality shadows and lighting. And it runs beautifully on even a low end PC from that time, and scales beautifully with higher resolutions if you can throw them at it. We don't need ray tracing, we don't need DLSS. The only thing needed was for developers to keep putting the same amount of work and care into games as they have until now. But once technology started popping up like the ones I mentioned, devs instead of taking the opportunity to make their craft better, decided to completely abandon any effort and polish and just turn on a few functions in Unreal Engine. No one compresses files anymore, no one does hand work for enviroments anymore, no one does actual texture art work anymore. You know, there was once an actual job in the game development studio where people spent hours and hours making incredibly good textures that would look amazing no matter the actual rendering resolution of the game. Nowadays, the moment you play a game at anything lower than 4k, every texture looks like minecraft (not do diss on minecraft). There is no technical reasons for the big and absurd storage requirements in games today, along with the performance issues we see every release. The only reason and the hard truth is that like with any other industry, game developers will find any excuse to be lazy and make their work easier, regardless of how it impacts the player.
i feel like a good one to mention is battlefield 3. despite going for realistic graphics, the game still looks absolutely stunning when compared to todays games. and it only takes up like 15 or 20 GBs
Yeah. It's funny that immersion in minecraft comes from gameplay or the peace / calm / exploration / player agency. "What should I build? Ok, that's done. Oh no, a thunderstorm, I better go inside. My cow was struck by lightning!" Meanwhile the texture packs or warfare mods are missing the point. People can do what they want but ... . We have enough FPS shooters.
Mankind Divided actualy probably has my favourite artstyle of all time. You should really play it to actualy form your own opinion instead of watching people who use low gamma. Sure the artstyle is a bit more realistic but it's still stylized and the enviroments are gorgeous. I love Prague and it's mix of cyberpunk/old arhitecture.
its so funny that everything you say is completely opposite to my experience with games. Well... only the taste part. I do enjoy styalized games. But i also really enjoy muddy grey concrete&metal overdetailed grainy stuff> And they only thing that made me stop complain about these games and praise them is getting a better PC to run them. I just cant, i want games to look real good. I want realistic graphics. I will never put that before optimisation and smooth gameplay, but i do want them to push limits because you cant argue with the pretty picture. Its just pretty. Me like pretty. What i think is the problem is art direction should be a thing for everything. You cant just slap a realistic shader/texture sandwich onto things and hope it works out in the end. The tech is slowly moving towards that direction, but its not there and dont think there ever will be a true beutify button without alteast some kind of caveat. If you dont have a reference that tells you how that room should look, a non-artist guy who just operates the level-design program to place assets around will not give you a masterpiece on his own. Realistic games need art direction too. Uncharted and latest modern warfare atleast has art direction, latest deus ex is a very rushed and mismanaged game that has none.
long I've been against HD RAY TRACING HIGH FIDELITY games (cause I have a PC from 2015 I didn't upgrade until this year) in part because I couldn't run them, but like when I finally got around to playing games recently that boast about their high graphics and attention to detail I couldn't play it because I got physically sick from just not being able to focus on anything because there was so much clutter and detailing and visual information at once that my brain was constantly trying to process everything on screen, so much that I was pulled out of the game entirely, and overall the graphics were just bland besides actually sickening... meanwhile the most impressed I've been with video game graphics are games like CARD SHARK, SIGNALIS, OBRA DINN, SIFU, Resident Evil Remake (2002), and other similar ones from recent memory that just ooooze style, or in the case of Resident Evil Remake, creative work arounds for graphical limitations.
ah i recognize the footage of us playin twwh3 together magic lizard shield bottom text where is my cut of $0.02 ad revenue for featuring my 3 seconds of epic harkon plays i will sue
I in theory like more realistic graphics, but I really want a game to use it properly, why go through so much effort making a realistic environment, and have your character designers make realistic camo patterned enemies, and then just use the UI to tell me where they are? Make use of the graphics, make me use my eyes! And please make the enemy not omniscient to be fair about it. Let soldiers who can't find hard cover, hide behind foliage for visual cover, you had the design team go through so much work make me appreciate the work they did by tyeing mechanics to it.
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![Is Helldivers Finally Good Now? | Cassius' Compendium™ [cc]](/img/tr.png)
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Quick guide to graphics, ordered by importance:
1. Readability. I want to see what stuff is and especially distinguish stuff.
2. Impression. It should direct how I should feel or relate to characters and objects.
3. Congruence. Unless by intention, no asset should stand out as if not fitting in with the others.
4. Aesthetic and style. It's art, use it as art.
5. Fidelity. You know.
I can only imagine every dev that’s gone through hundreds of hours making their game as realistic as possible. Then you got battlebit over here rockin Roblox’s graphic style. By biggest fuss was not being able to play the games I’ve bought cause of fps or disc space. It’s a nasty trend when people with top of the line computers can’t even run the game smoothly. I hope battlebit serves as a good example. Simplicity over complexity.
I think devs should put high and ultra graphics files as free dlc instead of bloating the install for everyone running it on normal (since running anything on ultra these days requires quite an expensive gpu)
Yes YES YES! It should really be the standard. I believe that WarThunder does this but it is hidden behind some complicated settings, you can have your file size by not downloading the ultra quality vehicle models, even then you can't just download the super-low poly models and the smallest it gets is about 30GB (which is still too large for a lot of older laptops).
i overwhelmingly agree with this video and as the saying goes, i want shorter games with "worse" graphics made by people who are paid more to work less. i love games prioritizing artstyle over fidelity and i'm sick of massive download sizes and abysmal loading times. that being said, i recently played through insomniac's spider-man, and while the file size is not ideal (clocking in at about 66gb), i was stunned by how it literally takes only seconds since launching the game to swinging through the open world. i acknowledge here that this is definitely an outlier, but it's interesting how a aaa game like this can achieve these loading times. that doesn't undermine anything i said in the beginning but it's interesting to see that it can be done
That intro, I felt that way to much.;(
Its on the right track, and the number of similar complaints have been steadily rising, but the constant rising Disk Space requirements and graphical/CPU requirements for AAA games are mainly caused by a couple factors. The constant desire to raise graphical fidelity/gameplay scale to the newest, biggest number and cram as many features as possible into a new game for marketing purposes, but also the lower prioritization of space and runtime optimization because saying "This can run on *two* toasters and be stored in a sentient plant" is a less impressive selling point than being able to proclaim "4K graphics so realistic you'll die in real life when you die in the game!".
Both issues are unfortunately due to execs wanting to make number line go up and systemic to the AAA industry so unless there's enough financial push back, its unlikely to change.
I'm currently trying to make a game and the art style I went with is basically "what if PS2 could have 1080p and 0.512K textures". It's no nostalgia, I was not even born before the 2000s were over. I do it simply because it's
1. Easier to make (biggest reason by far)
2. Brain "adds" Fidelity to the scene because details are implied but not elaborated, so it looks even better.
3. Light to render so even androids can run it.
So simpler but well executed visuals win on all aspects over mass produced realistic visuals.
watched this right after hopping of battlebit, definitely better than any triple a shooter ive played in the past few years
It's so funny you mentioned human revolution and man kind divided because they were the very two games that made me look into this topic. Playing MD i could see it graphics were technically steps above HR but i found i just didn't like looking at it. My thought was there was just too much on the screen at once. Too much visual clutter and my brain was having to work extra to cut out the visual noise in ever scene.
I’ve been saying this for years now, glad to see I’m not the only one thinking this way!
Battlefield 1 is still the best looking "Realistic" game by far and its a game from 2016, without any of the massive slowdown features like Ray Tracing or other stuff. That's cause every single space in every single map is made by hand to look as good and as amazing as possible, and it ends up with every room, every field and every gun looking completely realistic and having immersive and high quality shadows and lighting. And it runs beautifully on even a low end PC from that time, and scales beautifully with higher resolutions if you can throw them at it.
We don't need ray tracing, we don't need DLSS. The only thing needed was for developers to keep putting the same amount of work and care into games as they have until now. But once technology started popping up like the ones I mentioned, devs instead of taking the opportunity to make their craft better, decided to completely abandon any effort and polish and just turn on a few functions in Unreal Engine. No one compresses files anymore, no one does hand work for enviroments anymore, no one does actual texture art work anymore. You know, there was once an actual job in the game development studio where people spent hours and hours making incredibly good textures that would look amazing no matter the actual rendering resolution of the game. Nowadays, the moment you play a game at anything lower than 4k, every texture looks like minecraft (not do diss on minecraft).
There is no technical reasons for the big and absurd storage requirements in games today, along with the performance issues we see every release. The only reason and the hard truth is that like with any other industry, game developers will find any excuse to be lazy and make their work easier, regardless of how it impacts the player.
I love your vids! Thanks for making this one, def agree about the massive disk size. They could compress more for sure but they just don’t.
Style will always age better than details.
i feel like a good one to mention is battlefield 3. despite going for realistic graphics, the game still looks absolutely stunning when compared to todays games. and it only takes up like 15 or 20 GBs
Yeah. It's funny that immersion in minecraft comes from gameplay or the peace / calm / exploration / player agency. "What should I build? Ok, that's done. Oh no, a thunderstorm, I better go inside. My cow was struck by lightning!"
Meanwhile the texture packs or warfare mods are missing the point. People can do what they want but ... . We have enough FPS shooters.
Mankind Divided actualy probably has my favourite artstyle of all time. You should really play it to actualy form your own opinion instead of watching people who use low gamma. Sure the artstyle is a bit more realistic but it's still stylized and the enviroments are gorgeous. I love Prague and it's mix of cyberpunk/old arhitecture.
Man, modern-day gamers and their attention spans
What's the game at 1:28? That looks like a lovely shield shader
Mechabellum
@@beavatatlan Thanks!
its so funny that everything you say is completely opposite to my experience with games. Well... only the taste part.
I do enjoy styalized games. But i also really enjoy muddy grey concrete&metal overdetailed grainy stuff> And they only thing that made me stop complain about these games and praise them is getting a better PC to run them. I just cant, i want games to look real good. I want realistic graphics. I will never put that before optimisation and smooth gameplay, but i do want them to push limits because you cant argue with the pretty picture. Its just pretty. Me like pretty.
What i think is the problem is art direction should be a thing for everything. You cant just slap a realistic shader/texture sandwich onto things and hope it works out in the end. The tech is slowly moving towards that direction, but its not there and dont think there ever will be a true beutify button without alteast some kind of caveat. If you dont have a reference that tells you how that room should look, a non-artist guy who just operates the level-design program to place assets around will not give you a masterpiece on his own. Realistic games need art direction too. Uncharted and latest modern warfare atleast has art direction, latest deus ex is a very rushed and mismanaged game that has none.
good video
long I've been against HD RAY TRACING HIGH FIDELITY games (cause I have a PC from 2015 I didn't upgrade until this year) in part because I couldn't run them, but like when I finally got around to playing games recently that boast about their high graphics and attention to detail I couldn't play it because I got physically sick from just not being able to focus on anything because there was so much clutter and detailing and visual information at once that my brain was constantly trying to process everything on screen, so much that I was pulled out of the game entirely, and overall the graphics were just bland besides actually sickening...
meanwhile the most impressed I've been with video game graphics are games like CARD SHARK, SIGNALIS, OBRA DINN, SIFU, Resident Evil Remake (2002), and other similar ones from recent memory that just ooooze style, or in the case of Resident Evil Remake, creative work arounds for graphical limitations.
I don't really understand the graphic obsession. But also.. disk space. Why
I don't get it either.
ah i recognize the footage of us playin twwh3 together
magic lizard shield bottom text
where is my cut of $0.02 ad revenue for featuring my 3 seconds of epic harkon plays i will sue
skill issue
I in theory like more realistic graphics, but I really want a game to use it properly, why go through so much effort making a realistic environment, and have your character designers make realistic camo patterned enemies, and then just use the UI to tell me where they are? Make use of the graphics, make me use my eyes! And please make the enemy not omniscient to be fair about it. Let soldiers who can't find hard cover, hide behind foliage for visual cover, you had the design team go through so much work make me appreciate the work they did by tyeing mechanics to it.
Commenting for the algorithm
I disagree based on personal taste.
Nice video tho!