I remember reading an article when Halo 4 came out saying that the lighting was like nothing done before in a halo game and was advanced for the time.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Games graphically so good they could have been on the next generation
- Thread starter boi
- Start date
I remember reading an article when Halo 4 came out saying that the lighting was like nothing done before in a halo game and was advanced for the time.
I'm looking forward to Judgement getting X patched, I thought that looked even better
Well that article you read was wrong. Halo 4 while it looked good, cut in several major areas. Halo 3's amazing lighting model and water effects were gone, as well as the Skyboxes and Texture Quality/Detail Textures from Reach and H3.
OG 360 Images I took on launch day. Now with HDR and 4K Support on XBOX the game looks even better. (With the MCC updates we will get 60FPS 4K HDR).
It did! But the game was largely dismissed and thus the same was true for the graphics.
Good call, Chaos Theory was incredible, But no way are those screenshots the PS2 version, the PS2/gamecube version is a very ambitious backport , however the difference from the PC/Xbox version of the game was pronounced.
The Last of Us (PS3)
Beyond Two Souls (PS3)
Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
Forza Horizon (Xbox 360)
Grand Theft Auto 5 (360/PS3)
Beyond Two Souls (PS3)
Halo 4 (Xbox 360)
Forza Horizon (Xbox 360)
Grand Theft Auto 5 (360/PS3)
This is a case where the lower resolution actually helps out. The ground texture actually looks like a pile of leaves, and not some weird carpet. That being said, Mario Galaxy does look incredible at higher resolutions.That screenshot not only it's emulated, it's also using a HD texture pack
This is how the Gold Leaf Galaxy actually looks
Which one was that?
Because I can assure you the actual quality and precision of the lighting is quite a bit inferior to Halo Reach and especially Halo 3. Halo 3 used a dual framebuffer set up to hit a really high precision level that was never really seen in any game last gen again.
Halo 4 also cut back on lots of dynamic light sources like the bullets from the needler and plasma pistols were no longer lightsources.
The other things Halo 4 cut back on compared to previous entry:
1) High quality water shaders and physics
2) Motion Blur
3) Particle effects
Halo 4 has a lot of tech improvements, and it builds the game around those improvements and the art style helps to bring out those improvements even further. But at the same time, in a lot of other way, it is technically inferior to the previous entry.
You should play the Xbox version. The ps2 version seems the 3DS port in comparison. Tons of loading, open areas completely compromised and reduced in linear corridors. And normal/bump mapping obviously cut off. I don't blame the ancient ps2 of course. With such ram it wasn't possible otherwise.Splinter Cell Chaos Theory was looking pretty damn sharp even on PS2.
Those are PC screenshots which was on par if not better than Xbox version.
But yes PS2 version looked good, but didn't even come close to the Xbox version. I think Chaos Theory was also one of the first games to use HDR lighting back in the day.
OP
OP
These comparison shots blow my mind. I didnt know they had to cut so much to get it running on a PS2.Good call, Chaos Theory was incredible, But no way are those screenshots the PS2 version, the PS2/gamecube version is a very ambitious backport , however the difference from the PC/Xbox version of the game was pronounced.
I atucally played both PS2 and PC versions of the game, I mostly remember the lightning and models being far superior on PC but other than that couldn't tell much difference, well, thats probably because of my TV back in the day. Great looking game nonetheless.
And yeah, those pics are Xbox / PC, I just google searched it up.
Heh, i see a lot of people posting some very obvious examples, but i bet you never knew of this...
Seed. A (sadly never finished) shooter made by Humansoft between 1998-2000 that was going to be one of the first shooters that would incorporate proper platforming ala Mario 64.
What is damn interesting is that this game had an engine (Called the Seed Engine, obviously), which was the very first title to incorporate those fancy Doom 3 stencil shadows and dynamic lighting..... in 1999. 5 years before stencil shadows (Not unlike those shadows that Quake 3 incorporated in the same year!) actually became a thing. And it did not require shader based hardware to do it, either - This could run as a software renderer, or you could use OpenGL. I have the demo of this and the notes detail it could run like this with Voodoo 1 t/m 3, Riva TNT, TNT2, Matrox G400.
There is barely any footage of this on YT, but i found a link that shows some proper gameplay. If it does not start at the time ive set, its at the 9.15 mark.
Screens and info: http://web.archive.org/web/19981205141356/http://www.seedgame.com/
This game did things in 1998-2000 on a technical level you wouldn't see till shader based hardware became a thing. This game not only did it in software, but also on rather humble 3D hardware of the time. Truly, a technical masterpiece.
(I should note, that they are actually calling the developer since he left his phone number in the screen. You don't expect that a phonenumber from 1999 actually still works, but they actually will get in contact with him..)
Two more obvious ones:
Shattered Horizon, and Outcast. The latter, similar to Seed, incorporated a lot of effects you would not see for years later through its Paradise Engine. It runs a software renderer that does voxels on the landscape, but polygons for the characters, and features:
Another mention should go to Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon for PlayStation 2. The open world, forest rendering was insane to boot. Melbourne House did some black magic on the PS2 (I think this is only possible due to the massive bandwidth that the PS2 possessed)
Seed. A (sadly never finished) shooter made by Humansoft between 1998-2000 that was going to be one of the first shooters that would incorporate proper platforming ala Mario 64.
What is damn interesting is that this game had an engine (Called the Seed Engine, obviously), which was the very first title to incorporate those fancy Doom 3 stencil shadows and dynamic lighting..... in 1999. 5 years before stencil shadows (Not unlike those shadows that Quake 3 incorporated in the same year!) actually became a thing. And it did not require shader based hardware to do it, either - This could run as a software renderer, or you could use OpenGL. I have the demo of this and the notes detail it could run like this with Voodoo 1 t/m 3, Riva TNT, TNT2, Matrox G400.
There is barely any footage of this on YT, but i found a link that shows some proper gameplay. If it does not start at the time ive set, its at the 9.15 mark.
Screens and info: http://web.archive.org/web/19981205141356/http://www.seedgame.com/
This game did things in 1998-2000 on a technical level you wouldn't see till shader based hardware became a thing. This game not only did it in software, but also on rather humble 3D hardware of the time. Truly, a technical masterpiece.
(I should note, that they are actually calling the developer since he left his phone number in the screen. You don't expect that a phonenumber from 1999 actually still works, but they actually will get in contact with him..)
Two more obvious ones:
Shattered Horizon, and Outcast. The latter, similar to Seed, incorporated a lot of effects you would not see for years later through its Paradise Engine. It runs a software renderer that does voxels on the landscape, but polygons for the characters, and features:
- Depth of field
- Bloom
- Lensflares
- Soft shadows
- Water ripples
Another mention should go to Transformers Armada: Prelude to Energon for PlayStation 2. The open world, forest rendering was insane to boot. Melbourne House did some black magic on the PS2 (I think this is only possible due to the massive bandwidth that the PS2 possessed)
Last edited:
Can't say I agree with this one. Star Fox 64 came out within the first year of the 64 and blows Starfox 2 our of the waterHow about Starfox 2 for the SNES?
It wasn't released back in that era, but it was made then.
This game still looks better than most games what almost 10 years later !Crysis
How was this not mentioned yet?
kotaku.com/5957330/halo-4-reviewers-all-glad-that-the-fights-not-finished-yet
kotaku said:
that's not the article I remember it from, I actually remember it from an interview in EDGE magazine.
Given TellTale and Life is Strange, Beyond could launch five years from now and still be fine.
Halo 4 cuts back on the number of dynamic lights and on water effects, but its lighting and materials are miles ahead of Halo 3. And no, Halo 3's dual buffers are not advanced, they are an older, less efficient solution for HDR, which sure was perfected during last gen.
It probably ran a different engine also, the PS2 flat out wasn't capable of some of the stuff that was going on in the game. Normal Mapping and Parralax mapping are the things that are immediately obvious, but most of the geometry in the game is entirely different too and the lighting systems are clearly less sophisticated.
The PS3 HD remasters were based on the Xbox/PC version of the game
I actually think Splinter Cell Blacklist is also a super impressive last gen game and was one of those great end of gen examples.
I am always wary of "great graphics" that look beyond a consoles power because there has to have been a trade off in the game simulation. I would 100x rather have a better game over graphics.
Under the criteria of the game needing to look next-gen with interactive gameplay, I guess Halo 4?
Under the criteria of the game needing to look next-gen with interactive gameplay, I guess Halo 4?
Unless thats just a different TOD, that's not vanilla Crysis. This is how it looks vanilla:Crysis
How was this not mentioned yet?
All Doom 3 pulled off was stencil volumes and normal mapping. Seed already did this years prior. Hell, Deus Ex: Invisible War did that before Doom 3. Even the pre-release shots of New World Order (As Decay) did these, back in 2000/2001.
Tagging Dark1x so he is aware of Seed because i feel he needs to know of this. (See my older post Dark!)
Back then you had Perfect Dark Zero, Quake 4, and Far Cry Instincts: Predator. Did it really look that much better? Just because it had a uniform shadowing system does not mean it significantly outperformed these titles on looks in games. Quake 4 even runs on the same engine. Not talking performance here, Quake 4 only used one PPE core.
You can't be serious. You think that looks like a title that could run on PS3? I need a video for that. With that logic, Burnout Dominator on PS2 (2007) would fit aswell since it also had everything you are mentioning.Flatout: Head On (PSP)
To me, I don't consider it a PSP game, even to this day; it's more like a PS3 game or if it's like Sony make PS3 Portable in the last gen and this game uses the full potential power of the console.. The graphics look incredible on PSP with the full detail of tracks, vehicle models, shadows, reflection, bloom and sun rays...
Besides graphics, this game has impressive technical stuff that happen on fly; a lot of objects/props in track to run over, the flying debris, dirt and effects, destruction of the vehicles with detachable parts, and ragdoll in the gameplay.. ..
People really have rose-tinted glasses. MGS3 on PS2 is a very solid (Heh) title by any means, but better looking than most Xbox 360 launch titles? Yeah, no. Technically speaking not at all. You must be referring to artstyle. And although i can't see it, i will give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.
Hmm, not so strange then that just a year later the game came to PS4/XBO as Metro Redux.
Metro: Last Light (2013) for PS3/360/PC. Could've easily passed for a current-gen title.
Why Singularity, to be precise? Its a UE3 game. What did Raven Soft do to this engine that made it look like it would more belong on PS4/XBO? I would rather put that to Bioshock Infinite if we go UE3 based titles, but that did get a port to those platforms.Singularity (PS3)
Useless trivia: Shrek on Xbox does deferred rendering, as one of the first games to do so. The NV2A was more a cross between Geforce 3 and Geforce 4. Amazing stuff for its time. It still bums me out that they abandoned the platform so quickly after X360 was released - OG Xbox could have been a great entry-level console against the Wii.
I would disagree considering the Xbox 360 had a GPU fastly more modern than anything else on the PC market at the time. Hell, Rise of the Tomb Raider runs on it, and thats a 2015 title. Whilst OG Xbox had great strides (The first 720p console after all), the X360 really knocked it out of the park in terms of feature set.
These two posts are terribly good examples of either insane hyperbole and inane attempt at being ''funny''. This is the exact kind of poor drive-by that is exactly that, poor. Not being here to have a meaningful discussion, but lets say something hyperbolish or try to be funny, except you ain't having the talent for that, so you should refrain from attempting it.
The scenery in The Order 1886 is damn CGI from a few years ago, even regardless of postprocessing. Hell, the game demonstrates probably the best singular use of PBR in a video game.
It released on console though.. what lighting techniques do you refer to?
Am i missing a PS360 joke or? How is sub 720p impressive for an OG Xbox title when its prequel could run at 720p?
I do have to appreciate this post for making me aware of this game, i have something to watch tonight :)
It also (likely) isnt the vanilla version that is shown here. Through experience i have learned with Crysis: Always doubt any shot that is shown as ''vanilla''. Hence why i showed a true vanilla shot. There is a stark difference. Now, it might very well be its just a TOD change, but the game also looks sharper than usual, which suggests a texture upgrade mod.
Obviously the materials are superior. I never made any claims that Halo 4 was a cut back in every area. Infact I specifically said Halo 4 improves on a lot of areas technically but it also cuts back in a good few. But really a lot of improvements in Halo 4 came from smarter asset creation utilising the more modern methods of content creation rather than simply tech upgrades.
I fully disagree that the HDR solution in Halo 4 is in any way superior or even equal to Halo 3's. Not with that amount of bloom clamping and white/black crushes. The dual buffer HDR solution despite being not completely efficient was still more precise than anything I saw in Halo 4.
Can you give me any other example of HDR from last gen which was more precise since you claim it was perfected last gen. The Luv variation we saw in GoW and and ND games were not exactly more precise. Majority of the 360 titles that had HDR did 7e3(FP10) due to its eDRAM setup sitting well with the me or requirement and its support for alpha blending, but it was never as precise. Check out this post from a conversation I remember from Beyond3D and also take a look by post made by Sebbi what he mentioned how the 7e3 format (the most common HDR format on Xbox 360 due to it's eDRAM setup) barely has enough precise even on modern hardware.
Easily. It's not just the tech, its how you use it in junction to things like your art style and PD0 might be graphically doing more but its a ugly game to me.
Last edited:
The recommended specs for this game were a Core 2 Duo and a GeForce 8800, and even at those specs you could not max out the settings in the game. The game really was made for a whole generation of PC hardware that didn't really exist in 2007.
YEP! That incredibly crisp and starkly coloured world will never look dated to me. It's just too godamn beautiful.
Since the x doesn't have exclusive games,that's a bit pointless statement.Ryse could easily pass for an xbox one x game
This and Star Fox Adventures.Conker: Live and Reloaded for xbox, looked much better than most early 360 games and still looks great
No, i think you just missed Wreckless 1 doesn't run at 720p at all, and how many xbox 1 titles could ran at 720p without having a sub par graphics.
Semantics. The X is definitely powerful enough to be "next gen" alas MS have moved away from the concept of generations.
Eh. The areas are significantly compromised on ps2. Like more linear corridors than the others versions more open to different gameplay approach. There were like 2-3 loading screens in a single level in ps2 compared the pc/xbox version.
Last edited:
-1.jpg)
It blows my mind that SH3 was a PS2 game.
Definitely. I remember being super excited to see what Team Silent would be able to accomplish with a PS3. Too bad we never got to see that...
Uh, a lot of NES games were released after SMW. The NES continued for many years after the SNES' release.
Kirby's Adventure is also an amazing post-SNES NES game. Apart from the frequent slowdowns it feels like you're playing a SNES game.
Skip to 1h, 25min and 34 seconds. If that game had come out on the XBOX 360 with high resolution textures like in the HD mod and all the effects of the Gamecube or Wii versions (That only the HD Texture mod is finally restoring to the PC version) it would have been better looking than Gears of War. The rain scene certainly looks better, and so does the art in general. The detail and scope of the environments is insane, there's barely any waiting from loading, the lighting and effects are beautiful...
That still leaves two titles you have not addressed. Stencil volumes aren't that special, and Doom 3's depiction of hell was, imo, better pulled by Painkiller.
Thank Beast Global Illumination for it, baking tech. :)
I could have sworn the original Wreckless was 720p :/
Still, the question remains. How is its sequel running at ''sub'' 720p impressive, like you imply?
Hitman Absolution is always my goto answer for this. It even looks pretty good on 360. Blood money looks like a whole other gen (even if that was a cross gen game).
Some pc pics
i still think Absolution looks better than hitman 2016
Yeah i got my head garbled with the poster just above you in my original reply that was talking about Doom 3, sorry. Regardless, most of the comment still stances however.
Assault on Dark Athena still looks good though.
I take art style into account as well as Far Cry does some impressive visuals but I'm not a huge fan of the art style even if they do lush jungles great.
It does, so slick and awesome, I was so disappointed with new-Hitman as I was personally expecting Absolution art style and polish with old-Hitman gameplay systems.
