Question about textures in games, state of graphics today etc

kinoblemeister · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:05

Hi guys,

Something I've been wondering about for a while. Im ad libbing here so please forgive.

I've got a decent rig and am able to push 3440x1440 60fps plus, (would have liked 4k 100hz but yeah, lets not go there/monitors in general) and am a little puzzled by textures and graphics in general.

What I mean by this is that pretty any game at a high resolution, 3440+ textures still seem somewhat lacking. For example BF1 and TW3 are to me one of the few games that actually seem to push some boundaries graphically, but if you look at some of the scenery/rocks and even characters close up they can look pretty atrocious. Doom is a good example too, textures close up are nawt great.

Its a disparity between the resolution and the texture if that makes sense? I don't know how to phrase it.

So while we may be able to game at 4k, it seems like games havn't caught up yet. Is this because designers have not been coding for 4k because its only just recently become viable so the textures have not caught up per se? Is it a memory thing? A console porting issue? Or is it something else?

Hopefully some of you get what I'm trying to say!

Baboonanza · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:31

It's a combination of reasons:
- Not many people game at 4k so the benefit of shipping super-high res textures is small
- Doing so increases download and install size
- There are performance and memory implications of larger textures. More options = more testing and costs.
- The console target means that textures are primarily being designed to look ok at lower resolutions. Although undoubtedly the higher-res versions could be generated that's more testing/cost for the PC version.

Orcvader · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:33

Well, if it makes you feel better, Minecraft is probably going to be one of the first to have a 4K HDR texture pack: https://minecraft.net/en-us/article/whats-super-duper-graphics-pack

Rroff · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:39

We kind of got to a point about the time of 1080p resolution hitting the mainstream where developers stopped striving for higher texture resolution as well and some are waiting for better streaming/tiled resource systems before pushing out the boat more texture resolution wise as well.

As above the console target hasn't helped either. What I do find a little annoying though is that often textures are created to very high resolutions internally but are rarely released even as an optional extra download - sometimes when the game is released there simply isn't a GPU that can handle the dimensions and VRAM footprint but often you do subsequently get cards like the Titans released which do have the capabilities.

Annoyingly can't remember the game but one was released a couple of years ago or so where every texture internally was created to full detail at alteast 2048x2048 pixels with many 4K or 8K and they even showed that off in a developer video but then the shipped game was all 256x256 and the odd 512x512 - think it was something based on the snowdrop or frostbite engine was something like that.

kinoblemeister · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:43

Baboonanza said:
It's a combination of reasons:
- Not many people game at 4k so the benefit of shipping super-high res textures is small
- Doing so increases download and install size
- There are performance and memory implications of larger textures. More options = more testing and costs.
- The console target means that textures are primarily being designed to look ok at lower resolutions. Although undoubtedly the higher-res versions could be generated that's more testing/cost for the PC version.

Thanks for this- makes sense.

So does this mean we are not actually at 4k in a meaningful sense, because while we technically have the 4k resolution, we don't have the hi resolution textures to match? Again that disparity. So true 4k wont actually be here until hi res textures are the standard...

kinoblemeister · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:44

Orcvader said:
Well, if it makes you feel better, Minecraft is probably going to be one of the first to have a 4K HDR texture pack: https://minecraft.net/en-us/article/whats-super-duper-graphics-pack

Ha, that's cool. Though i don't play minecraft much anymore!

kinoblemeister · 17 Oct 2017 at 14:59

Rroff said:
We kind of got to a point about the time of 1080p resolution hitting the mainstream where developers stopped striving for higher texture resolution as well and some are waiting for better streaming/tiled resource systems before pushing out the boat more texture resolution wise as well.

As above the console target hasn't helped either. What I do find a little annoying though is that often textures are created to very high resolutions internally but are rarely released even as an optional extra download - sometimes when the game is released there simply isn't a GPU that can handle the dimensions and VRAM footprint but often you do subsequently get cards like the Titans released which do have the capabilities.

Annoyingly can't remember the game but one was released a couple of years ago or so where every texture internally was created to full detail at alteast 2048x2048 pixels with many 4K or 8K and they even showed that off in a developer video but then the shipped game was all 256x256 and the odd 512x512 - think it was something based on the snowdrop or frostbite engine was something like that.

That's really interesting, thanks for replying. Is it particularly difficult to make these resolutions as a download? Im thinking not. Some do it already obviously (like the recent hi res SOW download which to my eye makes very little difference). Not sure if that was even 'hi res' as you speak of.

I mean, theoretically if we did have these textures, could the current top tier cards run them at 60fps+ @4k resolution? I know the 1080/Ti struggles now so probably not.

Because to me that is what I would consider 'true' 4k. I wish more devs would push the above, but probably wont as you guys have alluded to why. Would remind me of the 'Crysis' days where an upgrade actually made a huge difference to a game. Or whether you could even play it

ltron · 17 Oct 2017 at 15:07

I think it's because games are designed for consoles first and foremost which run at 1080p and hence their assets are the same. It's pretty sad as higher resolution textures seem to have very little performance impact, they just use more VRAM.

kinoblemeister · 17 Oct 2017 at 15:14

ltron said:
I think it's because games are designed for consoles first and foremost which run at 1080p and hence their assets are the same. It's pretty sad as higher resolution textures seem to have very little performance impact, they just use more VRAM.

Yeah I figured it was a vram thing, just my 1080 was near to being maxed out on Ultra textures (which was the high res pack) on Shadow of War. And like I said, close up, I couldn't really tell the difference apart from fps.

It kinda feels like we as a PC community should be pushing for this more-maybe people are.

DELETED_195422 · 17 Oct 2017 at 17:14

Everything is parity now. It's the reason i don't spend £500+ on a GPU. Honestly, what's the point if devs aren't taking advantage of it. The gap between consoles and PC will mostly disappear when next gen systems arrive too, as they'll support HDMI 2.1 out of the box, and support features like Game Mode VRR (Variable Refresh Rate). Therefore, every game on PS/Xbox could be 60+ fps, if you have the appropriate TV.

Wtih all the BS going on in the AAA market (micro-transactions, DLC, season passes, content locked behind pre-orders, etc), the lack of innovation, Nvidia's ever growing monopoly in the GPU market, etc. I ask myself sometimes why i even bother with gaming anymore.