This generation's biggest improvement?

Moonpie2 · 21 Feb 2020 at 11:14

Hi All

No real point to this post, but just something I noticed and wanted to get out of my head.

I remember playing The Last of Us on PS3 and thinking it was incredible.
Loved it to death and platinum'd it.

So I picked up the remaster on PS4 (nice and cheap) to go through in anticipation of Part 2.
And although I had a blast, I couldn't help noticing how 'primitive' the environments looked now.
I remember it looking STUNNING, but now I see it's very simplistic in the geometry and how the post apocalyptic world was shown (rubble and abandoned stuff).

Having played God of War, HZD, Days Gone and more, those worlds just look so alive and natural.
Not man made and full of 'cheats' (like having flowers and grass painted onto a flat texture.

So yeah, I think the biggest improvement from PS3 to PS4 was environment creation.
Got me wondering what the biggest wow is going to be going from PS4 to PS5 and if I'll be looking backwards in 5 years time thinking that PS4 games look poop

Kreeeee · 21 Feb 2020 at 11:20

The biggest differences will be based around having a half decent CPU instead of a woefully underpowered one like the XBO/PS4 launched with.

The number of NPCs, the number of objects, physics, and the scale of worlds (the range from continents to thimbles rather than simply size) will be the biggest differences. Plus a minor point of limited loading times and streaming data bandwidth improvements due to the CPU and SSD combo.

ic1male · 21 Feb 2020 at 11:36

I think potentially the lighting and sound using the ray tracing technology.

Kreeeee · 21 Feb 2020 at 11:39

ic1male said:
I think potentially the lighting and sound using the ray tracing technology.

The next gen consoles will have limited ray tracing technology. We're in the infancy of that technology.

ic1male · 21 Feb 2020 at 11:40

Kreeeee said:
The next gen consoles will have limited ray tracing technology. We're in the infancy of that technology.

Limited perhaps. But there'll be ways to get more out of it in a fixed hardware environment.

TheVoice · 21 Feb 2020 at 12:33

Hopefully a focus on physics and AI will be back on the cards in the next generation, both have completely stagnated over the past several years.

unwashed potato! · 25 Feb 2020 at 15:39

for me i really appreciate good animations. feeling connected to the world through animations, and seeing ai animated in a good way really helps improve the experience. great graphics are really ruined by a floaty character.

unwashed potato! · 25 Feb 2020 at 15:40

Moonpie2 said:
I couldn't help noticing how 'primitive' the environments looked now

having just played RDR2 i was impressed with how great the game was that i considered finally giving RDR1 a go. i looked at a few youtube videos and boy does that game look bad in comparison so decided against it. i wonder if in 10 years i'll look back at RDR2 and think how ugly and plain the world looks with little detail.

mid_gen · 25 Feb 2020 at 15:46

Streaming will make the biggest difference...and by that I mean the speed of loading content from SSD rather than waiting for a clunky ancient spinning metal platter, rather than cloud streaming video.

Although stuff like xCloud will be pretty cool.

Darkpassenger · 26 Feb 2020 at 16:08

It has to be screen resolution and player count in multiplayer for me, the actual games haven't been that groundbreaking

Supercow · 26 Feb 2020 at 22:16

For consoles, servers for MP games instead of P2P multiplayer. For Role playing type games, denser worlds.

mmj_uk · 1 Mar 2020 at 15:25

Games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone have looked stunning this generation, I think they demonstrate it's not what hardware you have but what you do with it.

I hope that the biggest improvement next generation will be 60fps as standard and thus going back to ps4 etc in 5 years time people will be immediately hit by the low frame rates and input lag and they will then appreciate what 60 fps gives.

MOOGLEYS · 1 Mar 2020 at 21:57

Kreeeee said:
The next gen consoles will have limited ray tracing technology. We're in the infancy of that technology.

I think it will be pushed further than what we have seen so far. The series X dedicates a big chunk of GPU to Ray Tracing...

BGGLP · 1 Mar 2020 at 23:33

McBain · 2 Mar 2020 at 11:20

BGGLP said:
HDR

Yep.

BowdonUK · 2 Mar 2020 at 12:49

HDR when its implemented correctly.

Graphics have improved a lot between PS3 and PS4.

Though PS4 as suffered by having too many remasters of PS3 games.

G-MAN2004 · 13 Mar 2020 at 13:57

I'm still blown away by how good God of War looks.

I'd probably say HDR.