How long until truly realistic graphics in games

[DT4K]

How long do you think it will be until the games we play look as realistic as a movie or tv show?

 

[slugg]

graphics are getting better exponentially. I say in 2 years we will see realistic, like the Matrix 2 type realistic, graphics in our games. When i mean realistic, i mean NOT REAL, but close.

I dont think we will ever see REAL graphics. Nature is too complicated to replicate it into a stupid little game. Basically, i think it would be impossible for a graphics artist to truly recreate our world. Its the imperfections in the real world that make it perfect - not the perfections in cyberspace. The problem with CG graphics is that its TOO good. Everything is TOO sharp, or TOO colorful, ect.

 

[Vonkhan]

to get a idea, think Doom and then ... Doom3

 

[BoomAM]

I personally think that 4 years is a good target.
Look at the tech demo for the GF FX, the dawn demo and the time machine demos are very realistic, but the cards lack the power to render a whole game like that, so i think that in 4 years time gfx cards will be at a point where we will see games with the same if not better graphical quality of todays latest cards tech demos.

 

[JackBurton]

I dont think we will ever see REAL graphics. Nature is too complicated to replicate it into a stupid little game.Basically, i think it would be impossible for a graphics artist to truly recreate our world. Its the imperfections in the real world that make it perfect - not the perfections in cyberspace. The problem with CG graphics is that its TOO good. Everything is TOO sharp, or TOO colorful, ect.

I'm going to quote you on that in 10 years. All it is is math. And all you need is a way to calculate faster. Easier said than done but it can and will be done. You can quote me on that. The only real question is when.

 

[stall6g]

We should start to see some apps in 4 to 5 years that are realistic. The real question will be when will they hit the mainstream. This might seem a little strange but actually I think realistic texture engines are more apt to come from companies trying to sell clothes than I do from games because that is still a major untapped market.

 

[Thor86]

I would say less than 2 years. Have you seen the tech demo of Half-Life 2? OMFG!!!

Link
Warning this download is over 500megs!

 

[dguy6789]

the first step would be to get a moniter/video card that can go to a resolution so high that the human eye cant see the individual pixels. right now video cards can do 2048X1536 and thats pretty freakin huge, but if you look exremely closly you can see the jaggies, i am guessing myabe in resolutions above 6000xXXXX it will be hard to see jaggies. Then you would need trillions of polygons in even the most simple of models in the game, such as in a first person shooter, a guy's finger nail would be 3 trillion or so polygons. Think, that is jsut a finger nail, a tiny part of a model, which is a tiny part of the entire enviornment. We will need video cards with 500+ terabyte/second memory bandwith. But it will be fun.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: Thor86
I would say less than 2 years. Have you seen the tech demo of Half-Life 2? OMFG!!!

Link
Warning this download is over 500megs!

Half-Life 2 and Doom3 both look good, but despite what alot of people say, are still very far from realistic.
IMO, the only impressive parts of HL2s GFX quality is the water rendering. The npc models we see in the trailer are far from ultra realistic. The new "eye system" is impressive though. According to a magazine preview, the eyes are rendered seperately with a pixel shader for the eyes surface.
Same with doom3, it looks good, but it doesnt look that good. Have you seen some of the textures in it reasonably close up? They suck. Doom3 relies heavily on the various bump mapping techniques for its details.

 

[BoomAM]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
the first step would be to get a moniter/video card that can go to a resolution so high that the human eye cant see the individual pixels. right now video cards can do 2048X1536 and thats pretty freakin huge, but if you look exremely closly you can see the jaggies, i am guessing myabe in resolutions above 6000xXXXX it will be hard to see jaggies. Then you would need trillions of polygons in even the most simple of models in the game, such as in a first person shooter, a guy's finger nail would be 3 trillion or so polygons. Think, that is jsut a finger nail, a tiny part of a model, which is a tiny part of the entire enviornment. We will need video cards with 500+ terabyte/second memory bandwith. But it will be fun.

Thats a good point, but i dont think that we`ll be needed res`s as high as you said. Have you seen any game running with 6xFSAA? Its near enough flawless as far a jagged edges go. But the matrox parhelias 16xFragAA is phenominal. I cant see any jaggys whatsoever.
Plus there will always be jagged edges, even if you run at 1600x1200 w/ 64xFSAA, there will still be some if you look very very closely, its to do with the way that a gfx card renders stuff, and a monitor displays it.

 

[dguy6789]

ya, forgot about AA, that will help.

 

[BD2003]

I give it about 5 years. 2 years is too soon. In 2 years we will be able to run games that currently run at 15fps at about 60fps.

I can make some tech demos on my 9500 choke and go way slower than 15fps, so its some time off.

But its coming. Trillions of polygons arent necessary. What we need is better bump mapping and better lighting. Triangle rate will get there soon.

But I give it about 15 years before the games actually come out, cause theyll probably still be programming for TNT2s in 10 years.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
the first step would be to get a moniter/video card that can go to a resolution so high that the human eye cant see the individual pixels. right now video cards can do 2048X1536 and thats pretty freakin huge, but if you look exremely closly you can see the jaggies, i am guessing myabe in resolutions above 6000xXXXX it will be hard to see jaggies. Then you would need trillions of polygons in even the most simple of models in the game, such as in a first person shooter, a guy's finger nail would be 3 trillion or so polygons. Think, that is jsut a finger nail, a tiny part of a model, which is a tiny part of the entire enviornment. We will need video cards with 500+ terabyte/second memory bandwith. But it will be fun.

I guess it depends on what you consider "real" looking.
But it doesn't have to be 3 trillion polygons for a finger nail.

What I consider real looking would be essentially what you already have when you watch a DVD on your computer. If you look close enough, you can see the pixels, but when you watch a DVD, or even a video tape, it looks real. It is real enough that it would be hard to tell the difference between watching a DVD on a 19" monitor, and looking through a 19" window at the same scene in real life.

Some of the scenes in the latest CG movies actually look very close to real. It is getting to the point where sometimes you see an image on tv and you can't tell if it is a photograph or if it is CG.

I think we will see CG movies that look almost real in a couple of years. Of course some of these scenes take hours to render. So rendering scenes with this much detail in real time in a 3D game is another story completely.

Basically my question is how long do you think it will be before our games are as realistic as movies.
I said 5-7 years for "realistic" games. But thinking about the amount of time it takes to render complex CG scenes now, it may take even longer than that. In fact, it may require a substantial leap in computer technology, beyond the traditional silicon/copper process used to make CPU's today. Something like quantum computing that can provide an exponential leap in the processing speed of computers.

 

[rbV5]

You won't need a gazillion polygons, its all in the shaders. Games have huge budgets, graphic artist and programmers are working on titles that are a couple years out now (using yesterdays tech). Realistically, you'll see it when mainstream computers have the power to run it and the studios can make money on it.

 

[boyRacer]

Grantsdale will be a huge step... even if it will be a slideshow...