The Next Gen manifesto......

[CARTIER90]

Every generation of console hardware of the past 15 - 20 years has changed gaming, not progressively but in sudden 'jumps', this is due to exponential leaps in power.....take a look at the NES/Mastersytems era to the Megadrive, way more colours on screen, more sprites (how old does that sound :) ) and higher resolution.

SNES/Megadrive to the PS1, 3D gaming arrived, again a massive step up in power and probably the most pivotal change we will ever see. PS1/N64 to the PS2/CUBE/BOX, processing power leap again and a very obvious improvement in what is capable.....look at GT1/2 to GT3/GT4. More characters on screen etc etc.

Now look at what we have seen of the 'next gen' so far, 360 games released on ALL platforms..effectively higher res versions of PS2 era games.
Look at Saints Row, when playing GTA on the PS2 did you not expect that the next gen of consoles would be able to FILL the streets with crowds ? , there should be hundreds of cars on screen like a real city no ?

I dont want to sound like MILR, but sometimes he has a point, what has been shown so far of next gen gaming hasnt floated my boat, PS3 era games should not be able to be ported to the outgoing gen due to some key features just like it has been for the past 15 years.

I think what SHOULD have define the 360/ps3 era is volume ....ie PS2 games often looked great but due to hardware constraints, worlds seemed unpopulated. Granted you can point at GT vision and point out there are now 20 cars on screen, or the WW2 game (f*** knows what its called) showing scores of soldiers going over the top of a bunker - this is great and hopefully will be a key feature across the board instead of a few games.

Increased AI, that old chesnut :), I understand the great difficulties of making improvements in this area but it is difficult to feel the imersion that devs are trying to provide when this area is still sorely lacking. I imagine GT5 will be much the same as GT4 in terms of racing AI, though this may not be a problem assuming an online presence - either way you get my point right ?

I remember reading an article about the emotion engine of the PS2, laughable in retrospect - stating that PS2 characters would have their ' entire biology synthesised ' ie if they sweat too much they would lose their grip on handrails and would need to eat etc..yes CJ ate in SA, but it was hardly a fully dynamic feature. Yes some people may find these features annoying, but in SOME games this could be a real key part of the gameplay - ie the SIMS.

I'll admit we havent seen what 2nd gen PS3 games will be capable of, i do have a feeling however that the gameplay experience will be VERY close to the PS2 era - eye candy aside we are looking at the same games with icing on top - a few like MGS4 and GTA4 will push the envelope as in the past but we can forget the generational leaps - expect bunny hops now.......

[Smokey]

i think the problem with having enormous cities of people is that they are really trying to go HD. i mean if they cut down resolution id say we could have a "LIVE" city. you up one part "resolution" (which people expect) and you have trouble upping other parts. but i think they will learn over time to push both to their limits :)

[sif]

Well the thing is Cartier, the new machines are not optimised at all, look at Tekken Tag at the PS2 launch: it was a fancy high-res version of Tekken 3 for PS1, but look at what Tekken became with Tekken 5, with fully optimised hardware. Another example: Oni to God of War. Five years of development time can yield almost as much improvement as a jump in hardware. I agree with your aims for next-gen, but it is unrealistic for developers to totally break the mould and expect commercial success with only one next-gen machine on the market.

Look at Motorstorm (a launch title) and think about the difference that four or five years could make. I expect great things, possibly to even match some the better E305 CGI's. Remember pre-PS2 everyone was saying that the old man face, the FF8 demo, Namco girl and Bouncer demo's were impossible, with cries of Sony lies (sound familiar?) yet all were matched and in some cases surpassed IMO. It's just a matter of being patient and not getting all worked up because you expected too much and less was delivered.

[CARTIER90]

yeah your both right - this was as much a post out of frustration at not getting the PS3 till MARCH ! than the real capabilities of the PS3 - ill be patient and hope that some more exclusives are released/announced///

Slightly worrying is how both Saints Row and TDU - both games i expected the earth from have not been the premium AAA releases i thought they'd be.
Still there's always MGS/GTA/GT to look forward to......:)

[dnpmakkah]

Everyone is right...lets sing shall we? Anyways...I can see your point Carier90. Going from 2D to 3D is something that will be hard to top so that alone can sometimes lead us to get dissapointed.

However as Sif stated over time games should improve and then maybe you will see a graeter difference. Maybe these 1st gen games just look like the same game only with eye-candy but I think as the generations progress we will see a larger margin of improvement.

Sony seems to really want to gain sucess not only in graphics but also better A.I., physics, story, sound and overall immersion. Long story short - give it time it can still be fun.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

As nice as games are looking this early in the game, they're first generation games, and by the time we reach the apex of ps3's lifecycle, and the twilight of it, we'll really have something special. But being disappointed in first generation titles is just really short-sided.

[masteratt]

Motorstorm- Real time interaction with the surface, AI constantly calculating surroundings- Both more than "icing on the cake" and weren't possible on the PS2.

Heavenly Sword- Physics on every object on the scene..errm...Yeah they didn't show much on that. But those amazing animations with that great graphical power is in no way possible on the PS2.

Lair- The aim is to have over 100 dragons flying over a greatly populated (as some screens showed) battlefield while you fight both battles (killing dragons and killing infantry to change the outocme of the battle). Again, this concept would not have been possible on the PS2.

[makeitlookreal]

When I first joined these forums and became interested in the PS3 I had foolishly high expectations. I expected absolute "true" photorealism. In addition, I thought the power of these consoles would blow us away and be so mind boggling they would change the gaming world. For example, the TRI-CORE 360 and CELL of the PS3 simply seemed so astonishing that I believed they would allow almost anything to be accomplished on these systems.

Now, two or so years later I have learned a *little* more about consoles, their components, and how they work. Also, when faced with all the clips and screenshots of the 360's actual games and those of the upcoming PS3 I have actually had reality slap me in the face. Basically, I have learned that these systems are not going to work miracles for us when it comes to gaming.

As an example, lets look at the PS3. It's a nice piece of hardware and as a closed system could do more than the same PC with the same hardware. But still it's nothing all that special, except for maybe the CELL processor in some applications.

The PS3 has a stripped down common PC part for the GPU also known as the RSX. Yes, it has a FLEXIO bus attached but at the same time the bandwidth hungry N47 has had half of it's bus to it's VRAM removed. Also, it has 8 ROPS removed. It's not massively over-clocked and even though the extra data coming from the FLEXIO will be very nice it's not going to change the fact that we have a pretty ordinary GPU.

Now lets look at Blu-ray. What do we have here? What we have is a format with lots of extra space but right now for the launch of the PS3 few other benefits. The data density is higher so the seek times could be lower. Also, it reads at the same speed all across the disc which is a plus. However, at 2X it's still probably *slightly* slower than it's competitor's DVD drive. Now, it's not much of an issue and the massive storage certainly makes up for the small difference in read speed. But once again we are not talking about any kind of revolution in getting data into the console.

Now, what about GDDR3 and XDR RAM? GDDR3 is pretty much common by now and is nothing special (at least in graphic cards). XDR is still probably a little more unique and has certain advantages, but is nothing astoundingly amazing. Basically, the memory of the PS3 is not revolutionary in any sense whatsoever.

Now we come down to the CELL processor. The version in the PS3 will utilize one PPE and 7 SPEs with one of the SPEs reserved for the OS. These SPEs when working together are indeed very powerful. Actually, looking at just flops it's possible that the CELL is twice as powerful as the 360's CPU and developers are constantly bragging on them. If there is one part of the PS3 that could be considered truly on the path to revolutionary it would be it's CELL processor. However, it to has limits. It has proven to do animation, physics, and all sorts of math heavy processes very well. But the hype that it is going to work closely with the RSX on graphical related tasks is not totally true. It can do some types of work, but is not suited well towards many tasks. Also, utilizing the RSX for some tasks even with the bandwidth of the FlexIO will create a lot of latency and other issues that could defeat the purpose of using the CELL for such things.

Basically, the PS3 is a strong console with a good GPU, good memory, and a good media format (Blu-ray) that has lots of storage. It's CPU could even be called GREAT in my opinion. And if you want to combine them all together you are going to have a console that will make great games with strong graphics, but don't expect miracles. Because the PS3 for the most part uses normal components that most common PC's can utilize. The only exceptions are the CELL processor and to a lesser extent the FlexIO bus.

I'm expecting games that look fantastic compared to last generation, but will not reach true 100% movie or TV photo-realism. I'm expecting many will be close enough that they will look darn good, but they won't get there this generation. Basically, anywhere you flip it the RSX is just a single common PC part and it doesn't have the potential to push out the kind of photo-realistic graphics I used to expect from the PS3. It's going to make some great looking graphics, but we will be able to tell that they are NOT parts of a movie or television program.

Now, obviously graphics is an important issue to me, but I will move on. Combined with good solid graphics I expect to see the power of the CELL utilized to create much better AI, physics, animation and sound. These factors will help enhance the realism of games to many people (although not quite as much myself because graphics still is the most important issue to me). With all these realistic effects added to solid graphics I expect many, many very fun games to be played. The AI will be tougher, the motion of characters will be more natural, impacts and crashes will abide by the laws of physics, and combined the gaming world will become much more real to those that are not particularly focused on graphics.

To sum it up I expect the PS3 to be successful. I expect it to sell many very fun exciting games. When it comes to physics, animation, AI, and other processes that run on the CELL processor I expect great leaps from anything on current PCs. It's going to have great graphics too, but with the limits of one single N47 PC GPU I'm going to be realistic and say the graphics are going to be very good, but we are not going to see them do any miracles. To clarify that, I mean we will see some games look near photo-realistic at times. But for the most part games will still look like games, but just very good looking ones.

Finally, I don't expect the PS3 to remain competitive with PCs for more than a couple years. When it comes to CPU intensive tasks it will remain more competitive and longer than GPU intensive tasks. But in 2 or 3 years even the CELL processor will likely be out done by high end PC processors. The RSX will be out done in less time than that.

Also, the "closed box" is not going to produce a miracle. It will provide a very nice boost and keep the system competitive for a little while longer, but is not going to save the day.

I just want to say that I'm optimistic about the PS3. But the fact is that it's not a miracle machine and most of it's parts and components are nothing revolutionary. It's going to beat it's current competitors in the console market in my opinion, but especially when it comes to graphics we should not expect true miracles. Great looking games will occur, but not the true next-gen experience many of us wished would happen.

[The Dude]

I hope they use all that horsepower to make some new unique games. I'm talking about the ICO's, Eternal Darkness's, Katamri Demacy's ect. It would be a damn shame if they let all the power go to graphical improvments and not improvments in the gameplay department.

[masteratt]

^You know that's not going to happen (wasting horsepower).

As PS2 got more powerful, we saw better titles such as Ico, SoTC, God Of War...All published by Sony, which is ncie. Once they find power- They use it with good responsibility.
Like Peter Parker (maybe that's the deal with the Spider-Man font =-o)

[OmniCloud]

MILR-i don't see how photorealism=FUN??! Seriously-how much better do u want Fight Night to look:huh: That aside, PS3 AND 360 wil deliver some amazing games-and I don't expect the jump to be any less significant than PS1-PS2. Many of us are acting like PS3 and 360 have reached there limits and these first generation titles are the best that the machine can offer. Why?? No idea.
Originally posted by Sif
Well the thing is Cartier, the new machines are not optimised at all, look at Tekken Tag at the PS2 launch: it was a fancy high-res version of Tekken 3 for PS1, but look at what Tekken became with Tekken 5, with fully optimised hardware. Another example: Oni to God of War. Five years of development time can yield almost as much improvement as a jump in hardware. I agree with your aims for next-gen, but it is unrealistic for developers to totally break the mould and expect commercial success with only one next-gen machine on the market.-Listen to da man!! Patience is lacking and rightfully so...Everyone wants to play the next GTA and Killzone...If u wanna be completely blown away w/PS3 or 360, then I suggest just waiting untill 07 with the big games coming out..

Oh yeah-and let's not forget about Wii--this generation looks to be one of the most diverse EVER! I'm more excited about gaming than I ever was before...

[iceman2654]

MILR, maybe you just want PS9 really badly? Remember that PS2 commercial?

[makeitlookreal]

Did I say these games were not going to be fun? I did not.

Did I say these games would not have great physics and animation? I did not.

I'm simply saying the PS3 is going to be a fantastic console in every way except graphics where it will indeed beat it's competitors but not produce quite what some of us had hoped.

I think the PS3 will produce very good graphics, but not photo-realistic graphics.

By the way, in my opinion more realistic games do mean more fun because that is a BIG way in which I feel myself being in the game.

[iceman2654]

Sorry, I meant that as a joke.

And I agree with what you say about the PS3

[Goki]

Possibly the jump from 2D to 3D can be echoed in this generation from Offline to Online. This feature was only slightly touched in xbox and PS2 in my opinion, and so was 3D with Mega drive and snes (Virtua racer and that Star Fox game with 3d accelaretor on the cartridge)

Think about it a true FF games where everyone looks like a main charachter (not just some low poly standby model) with cool features and anytime when running around and doing you main quest u can talk to these normal people and the NPC seamlessly integrated.

[Smokey]

Possibly the jump from 2D to 3D can be echoed in this generation from Offline to Online
couldnt agree more :)

[jaxmkii]

physics are key...

physics leads to interaction leads to gameplay leads to fun

its how PS2 manged be the best even when it was out classed buy others in grafix

Grafix with good sound without intraction is called a movie

[venomv]

That is how I see it, too. Physics and A.I. will be the stars of this gen I think.

[curryking1]

I posted something so similar in the Burnout 5 section! I don't think anyone read it tho lol!

I totally agree that we, so far, have only have recieved high powered graphics, with no increase of technology in any other category... Obviously games like Motorstorm, Burnout 5, and some others are not uncluded in this because they're technology has advanced with their graphics.

Thanks a lot for the scans guys. I will plus rep as soon as my internet allows me!

This is great. I personally feel we are only starting to see the next gen games coming out, Burnout 5 being one.

No game has as complicated physics as going on in Burnout, and as massive a gameworld, and the graphics are not even falling behind, but are actually looking better than a lot of what people are saying are next gen games.

We haven't seen any next gen games come out. What game uses physics to a level that not even our higher end PCs can do, or at least make a Intel Dual Core 9xx chug (other than Crysis which is not out yet)? Basically, well, none! Burnout has much more complicated physics than any game we have seen, and these physics would easily make high end PCs sweat, maybe even chug!

My point is that so far in the next gen of released games, we have only seen things that are easily possibly on PCs.

All we have seen is Half Life 2 level or lower level physics, with sharper textures, some more draw distance, and more complicated level of shaders. Maybe the games look, but they aren't really next gen at all, because they lack advances in so many other areas. A pwrful grx card only gives you pwrful images, but a pwrful processor and code can make the game play like it is next gen.

We have so far been given the short end!

We have not yet had games in our hands that bring physics to the next level (Burnout 5 has this), audio to the next level (Burnout 5 with 1000 voices, other advances in sound features), and successively gameplay to the next level (Burnout having a completely open city), and all the while keeping the graphics at a level that is on par/exceeding other next gen games in the same genre.

We have seen so few real next gen games, and it's great that Burnout 5 is one of those very few.

Just my rant, but I truly feel the next gen games released so far and many that are still being previewed are not next gen at all.

[LaLiLuLeLo]

I'm expecting games that look fantastic compared to last generation, but will not reach true 100% movie or TV photo-realism. I'm expecting many will be close enough that they will look darn good, but they won't get there this generation. Basically, anywhere you flip it the RSX is just a single common PC part and it doesn't have the potential to push out the kind of photo-realistic graphics I used to expect from the PS3. It's going to make some great looking graphics, but we will be able to tell that they are NOT parts of a movie or television program.

If you really expected that then that was just being naive.

[cpiasminc]

When I first joined these forums and became interested in the PS3 I had foolishly high expectations. I expected absolute "true" photorealism. In addition, I thought the power of these consoles would blow us away and be so mind boggling they would change the gaming world.
Problem is the cycle will just repeat all over again. And no, I'm not referring to you in particular, MILR... Everybody will look at PS4 and XboxGodKnowsWhat and think "now, we'll get real photorealism!!", but still scrutinize everything when they see screenshots... I can just hear the cries of "Oh my god! DMC7 looks so last-gen! It's like PS3 graphics but in 4320p!"

And of course, all the gag posts saying "My Altair could render better images."

Then there will be the "huffy" camp who argues that "it's all about gameplay," while at the same time being all too ready to complain about how so many images weren't what they expected. Ultimately, it's safe to say that there's just no such thing as photorealism -- there's just getting closer.

[makeitlookreal]

CPI,

I seriously doubt we will reach true 100% technical photo-realism at lets say 1080P for at least three or more generations of consoles. There are just too many issues in creating a photorealistic world powered in real time for even the PS4's hardware to truly accomplish the task. Things will realy start to look more photo-realistic, but we won't really be "there" yet by any means.

After the PS4 things are tricky to predict because we really don't know which or what technologies will be developed that could have an impact on the system. But you and others have stressed we will need lots of fast memory with lots of bandwidth. Also, we would need lots of processing power. In addition, such a world would need lots of storage space. Lets guess that by the time of the PS6 (three generations after the PS3) 20 years from now they have developed some new technologies to deliver the specs that would be needed.

At that point building a truly interactive and large photo-realistic world in real-time would seem like an expensive and monumental task. By then I would believe they would need A.I programs to help assemble parts of the games because realistically modeling and assembling every disgarded Snicker wrapper, loose straw, or piece of doggy pooh would become very cumbersome.

Basically, my guess is that the cycle will at some point end because we will get the power to create photo-realistic games. But at that point do you think graphics will start to stall because of the tons of work involved or will there be automated A.I. processes or programs that could do a lot of the work for developers? I just can't imagine how labor intensive building a giant truly photorealistic world would be at that point without some sort of assistance.

What do you think about this CPI?

Also, I want to say thank you for your post. You made a good point. Personally, my hope for this generation of hardware is not to see true photo-realism because it is NOT going to happen. But to see how far they can push to get at least somewhat closer at least certain games of limited scope like Fight Night or perhaps wrestling games. Basicaly, the difference between my outlook now and that of when I joined these forums is I know JUST HOW FAR AWAY we are from true photo-realism.

[CARTIER90]

I think your being slightly pessimistic MILR - high res digital photographs used as textures , wrapped over a very high poly model would look bloody good ! , why are real photographs not used as textures anyhow ?, is it a memory issue...
GT5 should have the entire track as a REAL road texture - well several hundred pics stiched together.

The ultimate, would be a google earth style world, populated with autogen scenery (a realistic proposition no ? ) - I understand much of google earth is terabytes of data, but with superhighbandwidth (any one know what speeds we can expect) an entire globe could be represented pretty well.

[cpiasminc]

Basically, my guess is that the cycle will at some point end because we will get the power to create photo-realistic games.
I don't believe that will ever happen, myself. Not even with motion picture CG, in fact. You still can't really escape the fact that the visual is the immediate feedback you get before you know anything about sound, gameplay, AI, etc. So the images generated will always be the first thing to fall under scrutiny. The closer we get to photorealism, the more nitpicky people will get.

What I do believe, though, and you mentioned this yourself, is that there will be an upper limit very soon on the value of graphics improvements insofar as moving the "immersion factor" forward. We're already well into the diminishing returns range. PS4 could be 20x as powerful as PS3 in all kinds of throughput, but it won't even yield a 20% visual improvement on the whole (not that you can really objectively quantify that, but you get the idea).

I think your being slightly pessimistic MILR - high res digital photographs used as textures , wrapped over a very high poly model would look bloody good ! , why are real photographs not used as textures anyhow ?, is it a memory issue...
They're not used because it doesn't work as simply as you seem to think, and never will. A color texture image is simply used the diffuse albedo term of a surface, meaning you have to divorce it from lighting conditions and geometry of the world all at once, and unless you have a camera that can warp space-time, this can't happen.

The other problem is that just getting a photograph even under such an overcast sky that the lighting is uniform in appearnce doesn't automatically create normal maps or specular albedo data or parallax mapping info or BRDF info or anything else of use when it comes time to actually render the darn thing. Simply having a photograph gives us an image of how something looks under exactly one set of lighting conditions from exactly one viewpoint in exactly one direction.

BTW, real photographs ARE used as reference material as well as source data from which more useful textures can be derived. Additionally, a lot of reflection maps are photos, because in many cases, reflection mapping only requires that a reflection effect be present, and the image looks realistic enough -- it often doesn't matter what the image actually is. I've seen plenty of games where you're outdoors in the desert and the reflection map is a photo of the Eiffel Tower. Or you're running around in a cave, and the reflection actually has a mug of beer pictured in it.

[iceman2654]

Basically, my guess is that the cycle will at some point end because we will get the power to create photo-realistic games.

I really doubt the cycle of new hardware will end. They will think of something. They always do.

Cartier, I believe the Max Payne games used photo realistic textures.

[Nameless]

In the distant future I think games will take an entirely different approach we are not considering today. Who knows in another 30 years people may think it's hilarious gaming images were rendered on a television screen. Just food for thought...

PS: Great post CPI and good point regarding diminishing returns, we are already seeing this with the PS3, IMO. Peace

[makeitlookreal]

CPI,

I agree and disagree with you when it comes to the point of diminishing returns. In some ways you are completely correct, but I do indeed have a pretty good point to make in my opinion.

Right now we have a lot of games that have some objects and areas that look pretty darn good. However, a LOT of objects are NOT imaged in detail. For example, consider the inside of a store. Do the individual bottles of soda have labels on them? Also, do we see the individual logos of each package of cigarettes or chewing gum? Additionally, to get out of the store example what about the newspaper laying on the ground. I doubt in most games that it's actually rendered is a collection of pages each with an abundance of text and images.

I believe the PS4 will allow us to have even better graphics (but with diminishing returns), however it will also allow us to have the power to put in a LOT more details where current processors would not have the ability.

I think that is part of what we are seeing with the PS3. In Heavenly Sword the models look good and are said to now be MUCH better than anything we have seen so far. However, what's interesting is that there will be tons and tons of enemies on the screen at one time in some levels. I think this is an example of what we will see on a much bigger scale with the PS4.

However, once again this would generate a LOT of extra work and development time depending on how far you wanted to take it. Time will only tell if by the time future consoles arrive if there have been ways made to automate such processes.