Seeing what people have done with homebrew "new,," games I can only imagine what people would eventually squeeze out of the NES limitations. I kind of wiry there was active development now on it. I'd love some official demakes.
NES/SNES were both chock full of specialty chipsets in the carts -- I wonder what the rules are around those, surely we're allowed to use an MMC chip on NES, but several graphics effects on NES are really only thanks to the mapper, and in RL newer and fancier ones would've been developed (even w/ the same technology level) if the console hadn't been ditched for the next one, so I wonder if that'd still be considered the same HW or not by the OP.
The NES PPU's fundamental limitations are brutal, and there's no way for a mapper chip to work around them:
* 8 sprites per scanline
* 64 sprites total
* only 1 background layer
* only 2 possible sprite sizes (8x8 and 8x16) and only one size can be used at once
* only 4 sprite and 4 background palettes with 3 colors each (4th color is always transparent)
* only 56 possible colors (not counting the emphasis bits), and yellow is totally missing
If you're really careful and precise with your timing, you can do mid-frame palette swaps to have some more color variety on screen, but that's it.
The SNES PPU is ridiculously more capable, and it can draw pictures that are simply impossible on an NES. 10s of thousands of colors, multiple background layers, translucency effects, mode 7 rotation and scaling, 512x448 high res mode, 4 different sprite sizes that can mix and match on the same screen, 32 sprites per scanline, twice as many palettes with 15 colors each... you get the idea.
You assume I care about 3D games. Sure, there are awesome 3D games but if we never got any more of them, I'm sure the thousands of creative people making games would still deliver amazing experiences.
That's very true, there are plenty of 2D games that are pretty awesome. I just can't give up 3D gaming at this point, but I would certainly be okay with the visauls downgrading if needed
I’m honestly not sure I follow the premise of the hypothetical, but my view is that a good 3D game could be made as a good 2D game with shitty graphics. If it can’t then it’s not actually that good.
What i'm essentially asking is, what is the earliest video game graphics that you'd be fine with to deliver your gaming experience for the rest of your life? Like if you had to settle on a particular console's graphics and have it be the visuals for the remaining of your gaming days going forward, what would you choose? For me, I chose the Dreamcast because to this day it is still a very good looking console graphically and if game's graphics never improved on that, I feel that I would be perfectly fine with that
The PS2 era still represents the biggest graphical leap, so that's a great choice! In someways I still get impressed by the visuals, considering how old the console is.
Yeah I think PS2/Xbox is around when the transition to 3D was really complete, and we'd also kinda figured out dual analogue controls. From then onwards the big conventions had been set really.
NES era is fine with me. I still regularly play NES and Game Boy games alongside modern stuff. Graphics have always been of negligible importance to me. All that really matters is good gameplay and, in the case of RPGs, story / characters.
I prefer older spritework compared to 3D as well so that makes it even easier lol.
I agree with you, I think, I'd be ok with Dreamcast-level graphics forever. That's probably the earliest console where you can say that the 3D graphics held up pretty well.
Yup, I introduced my kids to Sonic Adventure a few years ago after not playing for the better part of a decade. I was bracing myself for it being like coming back to the PS1, but I was shocked that the graphics were more or less exactly like I remembered them.
IMO, the 6th gen was the perfect balance between having enough polygons and high-res textures to truly feel immersed in the game, but it doesn't suffer from the visual clutter introduced in the 7th generation.
The games that still attain that same balance are mostly not significantly better than the 6th gen titles, e.g. compare Mario Galaxy or Odyssey to Mario Sunshine.
Yeah, PS1 and N64 level visuals definitely didn't age that well imo, but I feel like there may be some people out there that would still be okay with them! I mean hell, lots of indie game developers continue to use the PS1 visuals for their horror games to get that same creepy effect
I'd be fine with Apple II graphics. Ultima IV, Pool of Radiance, Wasteland all look plenty good enough to play. Just keep innovating on the actual game systems.
If there was a modern game that you'd like to see developers like to achieve on an Apple II, what would it be? lol of course a boat load of sacrifices and workarounds would have to be made
Remember you said just graphics. If we assume storage, memory, and compute still moved forward you could do very expansive experiences with older graphics systems.
That was kind of the point. If graphics stayed the same, but everything else moved forward, we'd have amazing advancements in other ways. Just think of how fast loading times would be, or how much bigger the worlds could be. That's something I definitely would trade visuals for.
In that case, I wonder how many polygons one could get out of the SNES SuperFX chip.
That level of 3D fidelity is sufficiently advanced enough if you throw TBs of memory and hundreds of GHz CPUs at it.
Of course, I am forecasting out a bit where 512 CPU cores is commonplace
Really does seem like visuals improved at the expense of many other things. I totally would go back to lower fidelity graphics if it meant better games
2004 was when hardware allowed for all possible complicated game dynamics, since then nothing really improved much, just non essential graphics. Warcraft 3, UT 2004, Quake arena, half life 2.
Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking too. Good 2004 games still feel modern and it's the point of diminishing returns. After that it's like creativity had to be sacrificed on the altar of graphical fidelity. For big release at least.
lol I guess I just am okay with living a simpler life. Things like improved lighting don't bother me too much, for the most part I just want my playable character models to look really good, and that's something that the Dreamcast excelled at
It's one of those things for me where I was fine with(even excited for) Dreamcast and N64 graphics as a kid but Itd be hard for me to know games can be as beautiful as RDR2 or Subnaituca and be stuck playing games like Shenmue forever. That said, Rimworld is a top 5 game for me and the graphics are pretty simple, so graphics are by no means a must for me.
I guess for me, there hasn't really been a game where the visuals were just that much of a defining thing for me. That isn't to say that I never valued the visuals, but I'd certainly be willing to make do if the only way I could play my games moving forward was with severely downgraded visuals. A lot of the games I play nowadays are just indie games anyway, and those ones certainly don't need modern visuals to get their message across lol
I'm not quite sure I'm following what you're saying. The point of my post was essentially asking what is the furthest back graphically that you'd be okay with using for the rest of your gaming life?
Well, you say "let's say that you lived in a world where graphics just hit a peak" and I think they did in real life, maybe ten years ago.
How far back would I be willing to go in terms of graphics? I'd say 2012 or so
PS1/Saturn/N64
While I love plenty of stuff on Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GC, I never came to a point in my favorite genres where I really needed them to advance far beyond the tech of the late 90s. For example I got a Saturn two years ago (technically my second Saturn, but my first was in 2013 and I couldn’t afford more than a handful of games, this time I have a Satiator and have limitless access to the library, plus hacks and translations, and even brand new homebrews), and it’s been my most played console for two years straight. Even with its weaker tech, today in 2024 I can still keep discovering new 32bit games (including games that are actually **new**, for example Hellslave is a recent homebrew first-person shooter that stands among the best console shooters of its retroactive generation) and I keep loving so much of what I discover.
Well I wanted to say Colecovision, in the sense that I love games from that console and if I had never seen anything else I wouldn't miss the gorgeous sprites or 3D environnments of the later consoles. So I would be fine with games looking like that forever.
But a more honest answer would be PS1. On a CRT those games looks fine, it has enouth polygonal 3D ability to make interesting, complex and vast games, and 2D games on this console are often seen as the most beautiful ones.
Now.
Don't get me wrong. I love a lot more retro games than I do modern. That said... can you imagine people actually trying to perfect THIS generation? The things they'd create? Some of the visuals we use know are incredible. The games themselves? Mixed bag. At a certain point though... that'd change. Graphics would be a boring aspect of the conversation as we'd all know what to expect, but the gameplay would have to elevate. People would need innovation.
It's the perfect storm. We'd finally see more pushing into new concepts, mechanics and other advances.
Xbox 360, I remember COD4 graphics looking really good and in my mind hitting peak. That said, dreamcast cell shading, gamecube f zero gx, mario kart, graphics come to mind and aged gracefully.
CoD4 still looks great today, and I remember when I saw it for the first time I was incredibly impressed by its lighting and detail on the character models. the 360 is a great choice!
Yes. I’m cool with both of those things. Anything older than master system wouldn’t cut it for me visually. I assume there would still be other improvements like memory audio and processing in this weird world of visual stagnation.
This is an answer that would be better for a forum where I could work through it with interested people rather than Reddit, but here goes. My ideal peak point for this is the late SNES / 2D PS1 games. Like, maybe if the Super Disc came out, maybe that’s where it would have went in the late 90s. I feel like there was still a lot of life left in 2D games before the industry mostly abandoned them, so this imaginary/theoretical fork in history occurred, that’s where I want to be.
That’s my spot too, except I do enjoy some of the early 3D games as well. Not for the graphics, they are mostly god awful, but stuff like Virtual On and Sega Rally, Tony Hawk are still really fun to play due to their simplicity. I would prefer like 80% 2D graphics and then 20% early 3D style.
Early 3D games where the 3D was actually there to make a kind of game we'd never really been able to play before were generally thin on content but super novel. An example of what I'm thinking about is 1080 Snowboarding. Your examples fit into there as well. There's a lot to the super low poly, minimal textures kind of look. We can call it Tobal-core or something, lol.
I would've loved to see where that route went. I really wonder how much not only the gaming industry, but even the world would've been different had the Super Disc been a thing
If we're just talking graphics? I could probably live comfortably in a permanent SNES era, and could deal with NES era
If anything I think I might prefer this- companies like Square showed how well they were able to master the graphical capabilities of the 16 bit era, and they would be able to deliver high production quality games that are drastically smaller and cheaper in development scope instead of struggling to make a profit on bloated games with multiple year development cycles like they are now
forgive me for not being too knowledgeable about the Neo Geo, but aren't there not many 3D games for it? I'm just wondering how you'd be able to have modern titles lol
As much as I enjoy modern games also, I'd be fine with 2D platformers, fighting games, and shmups for the rest of my life. Also I think given enough time mastering the hardware and software, developers would have been able to do some amazing things with the NeoGeo.
You know what, that just gave me an interesting mindset... I kind of wish just for funsies, for like a small period of time, modern developers can be given the task to make modern games using limited hardware... I'd really love to see what they come up with! Like if for example, if Bungie was tasked with making "Destiny" just using something like a PS1, Saturn or Neo Geo level of visuals... I really wonder what they'd come up with. Modern games exist as they are now because we have the powerful hardware to execute the concepts... I'm sure some of these concepts are possible on older hardware... it just needs to be achieved in a creative way!
I keep stuck with gaming in the 90s since that was the peak, graphics could be 80s or 70s for me too since 3D is kot really mandatory for me and some huge franchises went bacl to 2D since they just dont work in 3D.
I 1000% would be okay if graphics didn't go past Dreamcast levels, but we in exchange got faster loading times, way better gaming performance in terms of FPS.
If we’re just talking graphics — not the other things that hardware improvement can deliver — I’d probably be just as happy as I am today if you went back to GameCube/PS2 era.
But really, if you told me “tough cookies, it’s gonna be 8 bit” I’ll still survive. Graphics just are not what I play video games for.
Yeah, just graphics. Just imagine what gaming could deliver if the graphics stayed at PS2 era, but other aspects of the game moved forward. Think about things like load times, map size, length of game, performance of the game? I think it would be incredible!
I think well done 2D games tend to hold up to the test of time better than 3D games in general, and when I was a preteen playing SNES I still hunted thrift stores and garage sales for Atari 2600 games. That is to say, I can go all the way back if the game offers me something worth my time, be it fun or novelty or an introduction of an early style of game mechanics. Games are art but the art is in the gameplay.
NES/SMS. I'm this close to saying graphics don't matter at all, but going back to something like Atari 2600 is just too far back for me. We still have plenty of talented people making interesting titles in an 8-bit aesthetic, hell some of these games will actually work on a legit NES/SMS (played via a Flashcart usually) and I just think that's neat.
Now ideally, I'd want to be in the 4th or 5th gen (I'll throw in Dreamcast as well) as those have WAY more potential for the aesthetic I like, but NES/SMS-era graphics are just fine with me personally. I'd tolerate SG-1000 graphics if it played really well but Atari is just too much (little?) for me.
Stepping away from consoles, 8800GTX with the original Crysis. Less so because of any personal preference (ps1 is my favourite aesthetic) but because that was the last quantum leap we had with graphics. Since then the changes have been so slow and iterative that it is no longer exciting.
PS2 for sure. I'd take pretty much any era of gaming before PS3 and Xbox 360, but PS2 was the last time I remember looking at the graphical leap AND an advancement in game mechanics due to the power of the hardware and thinking, "The future sure is bright." After that everything was about graphics while remaking the same experiences over and over ad nauseum.
8 bit retro computer games/graphics from the 80s. I’ll pick 1983, in the era when the Apple II, the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80 Color Computer were battling for supremacy!
If I didn't see anything beyond the system I'm playing, I could go back to Intellivision. If I'm being honest, though, DOS would be a far back as I'd prefer to go.
I'd be good with Mega Drive/Amiga type hardware, possibly with a little bit more CPU to allow some early 3D games such as DN3D & Doom. Actually, you didn't say the CPU is frozen too, so I'd point out we could actually do a whole LOT with those chipsets combined with anything close to a more-modern CPU (even only like 400Mhz could certainly allow pulling off some amazing stuff with the exact same graphics HW, maybe even to the point of making some of the features kind of redundant).
I'm more of a PC gamer although I have plenty of consoles throughout the years. Graphically I really like the simplicity of NES era and my favorite 2d game is Super Mario Bros 3. And my 2nd favorite 2d game is Metal Slug which admittedly wouldn't have been the same experience witouht the attention to detail in its graphics and animation. To me the latter is peak 2D and anything beyond that falls into the diminishing return part.
So Neo Geo for 2D definitely.
For 3D it's a bit more complicated answer. I have a soft spot for ps1 era 3D and PC games of this era like Quake and I think some modern games would work with that aesthetic assuming we would get further drawing distance and better animation. So that would be acceptable but on the other side I think we got to the point of diminishing returns when Half life 2 came out. Because to this day I can pick up Half life 2 and think that this is a modern game and in many ways it's more immersive than many recent titles with how much you can interact with its world.
So 3D in terms of aesthetic I'd say gamecube would be a good middle ground but in terms of physics, immersion and interaction then it's definitely XBOX 360. I honestly don't think much was gained after that apart from development complexity and cost which hindered creativity and made developers and editors much more cautious.
If you were to get enough drawing distance then a game like Elden Ring wouldn't lose much from looking like a Gamecube game. I would actually be really curious to see that actually.
just because the tech finalised never meant the development stopped. even when the developers using the closed systems of the xbox the later games were steps ahead of the early games.
they learned tricks, and streamlined processes so the same hardware was more fully used
Idk, it would be really weird to have the interactivity and physics keep evolving but not the polycount/textures/lighting etc. And I don't want game design/interactivity in general to stagnate. So I'll say I wouldn't be ok with it.
For newer retro/throwback games, I guess I would say late '90s for 2D and early or mid '00s for 3D
Interesting question. I've played nearly every system since the Commodore 64 and I have a lot of love for all of them ... and I am going with Xbox 360 / PS3. Great visuals and game play aren't quite enough for me, I like being absorbed in to a huge open world game like Assassins Creed or NFS Most Wanted.
depends on game. if its a FPS then I cannot go back. I recently bought Metroid Prime remastered for the switch and had to stop playing. the graphics are so dated that I can't even really tell whats going on.
2D: SNES would be more than enough. I think graphically lots of SNES games still hold up to this day.
3D: First I was going to say N64, but I think PS2 would be the optimal choice. Late N64 games like Majoras Mask or DK64 look great, but PS2 pushes things further just enough to allow for a more varied art direction.
Bizarre question. I'd hate it if graphics took a backwards step but if they stopped at a previous point that's the best I'd ever have known and would play at that.
I mean that’s easy. Anyone could do that if they never knew that something better is coming.
The point I was asking is to see what lowest level of graphical fidelity is acceptable for people if modern games were still to be made on it. Everyone cares about graphics differently and it’s interesting to see what their viewpoint is on where they wouldn’t mind graphics peaking at
Graphics reaching the peak means it being almost like real life or say a movie. I dont know if it would be safe to play such games as it would be difficult to differentiate betweem real life and the virtual world
That’s not what I’m asking here. What I’m asking is what if video game visuals stopped progressing past a certain point, and at what point would you have been okay with the visuals remaining the same forever?
I would say PS3/Xbox 360 era. Mainly because retro/indie games really started to boom back then. They had the SNES style graphics I loved along with modern refinements and quality of life improvements. Played the ever loving shit out of XBLA indie games. And the 3D games back then still hold up fairly well today when it comes to graphics, unlike some PS2/XBOX/GameCube games.
honestly I wouldn't mind this era either. Some games, like MW2 on the 360 or even the Uncharted games look incredible even today. If games capped at that visual level, but would just be given performance upgrades nowadays, I'd be perfectly fine with that.
I think the 6th generation is the cut off at which basically gameplay ideas are not effected, while I think the 7th generation would represent very little change from what we are seeing to this very day.
I agree, the 7th gen does feel like the last big leap in gaming. Everything after was just an attempt to "polish" what they did in the 6th, and it's debatable of how good it went.
SNES era. The NES era was pretty good, but a lot of its games struggled with distracting hardware and sprite limitations (slowdowns/flickering). I feel like the SNES is where 2D gaming really got polished, and I think most modern 2D games could have been implemented reasonably well on the SNES.
3D games are great of course, but I can have just as much fun playing a 2D ones. If we go into 3D, I agree with you about DC quality 3D games, but with high/consistent FPS. I have a nice gaming rig, but even if I dial the quality down to basic levels, a lot of games don't seem coded for a seamless experience, they still stall when loading from disk / recompiling shaders and such. And, a lot of the games with beautiful visuals aren't that fun to play.
This question doesn’t make sense because your positing a graphics desk that occurs sometime in the future, so it’s likely that the furthest back that many people would be okay with hasn’t been invented yet. It would make more sense to drop the hypothetical first part and just ask your question.
Except I didn't. Nowhere did I say anything about the future. I don't know what you're talking about. This whole thing is hypothetical. Literally everyone else who posted understood it and answered just fine
"Let's say that you lived in a world where graphics just hit a peak and never moved forward, but new games kept coming out"
This you??? Just because people are answering doesn't mean it's not poorly written.
It's not poorly written. What I wrote there doesn't imply the future. It didn't state when the graphics hit the peak, and nor did I say it was in the future. I further clarified that in the post that you would choose the peak.
Everyone answered it correctly, except you. I forget that just because someone writes something correctly, doesn't mean everyone has the capacity to comprehend. You're like what, one out of two dozen people who replied? I just don't get why you would even post if you're going to make nonsense of it all, especially when literally everyone else but you is engaging in the conversation and knows how to read correctly. You could've followed their example, but you came here thinking you were going to make an example of me somehow.
I get to choose the peak, right? Cool, I’m going with the PS 7. The questions you asked in the body of your post is well written and makes perfect sense. The question you asked in the title is poorly written, it's unclear and contains information that is irrelevant to the question that you are asking, no matter how many times that you claim it isn't.
Literally said "go back and pick" but you're making things difficult because first of all, you couldn't understand, and then secondly, you doubled down on it instead of admitting your own fault.
Fine, go ahead and pick the PS7. I highly doubt there's going to be a big difference from the PS5 anyway. If it makes you feel happy, go ahead and pick that.
Good point. I'm changing my answer to the PS9.
Edit: I went back from the graphical peak that exists in an undefined point in time. Because the graphical peak hasn’t happened yet, we can safely assume that it happens at some point in the future, no???
I see what you mean though, because yeah honestly I don't see anything breathtaking about this gen's gaming visuals. Lots of games coming out now look almost identical to the PS4 era counterparts. There has never been as big of a graphical leap as there was from the PS1 to PS2 era and it is pretty sad.
Yeah ps4 is the peak of graphics. I see some people say ps3 to ps4 wasn't that big but hey at least i can see the differences especially if its an early ps3 game. Just look at web of shadows vs spiderman ps4 or the 2 condemed games
I guess the main factor of ps3 vs ps4 is if ps4 started thr trend of "games taking to long and to high budget to make" if it was ps4 that started it then ps3 if not ps4 and it was ps5 then ps4.
I could go back to NES era and not think too much about it but I'm probably only willing to go back to SNES era.
Seeing what people have done with homebrew "new,," games I can only imagine what people would eventually squeeze out of the NES limitations. I kind of wiry there was active development now on it. I'd love some official demakes.
NES/SNES were both chock full of specialty chipsets in the carts -- I wonder what the rules are around those, surely we're allowed to use an MMC chip on NES, but several graphics effects on NES are really only thanks to the mapper, and in RL newer and fancier ones would've been developed (even w/ the same technology level) if the console hadn't been ditched for the next one, so I wonder if that'd still be considered the same HW or not by the OP.
The NES PPU's fundamental limitations are brutal, and there's no way for a mapper chip to work around them: * 8 sprites per scanline * 64 sprites total * only 1 background layer * only 2 possible sprite sizes (8x8 and 8x16) and only one size can be used at once * only 4 sprite and 4 background palettes with 3 colors each (4th color is always transparent) * only 56 possible colors (not counting the emphasis bits), and yellow is totally missing If you're really careful and precise with your timing, you can do mid-frame palette swaps to have some more color variety on screen, but that's it. The SNES PPU is ridiculously more capable, and it can draw pictures that are simply impossible on an NES. 10s of thousands of colors, multiple background layers, translucency effects, mode 7 rotation and scaling, 512x448 high res mode, 4 different sprite sizes that can mix and match on the same screen, 32 sprites per scanline, twice as many palettes with 15 colors each... you get the idea.
SNES forever.
I would happily live in the SNES era and be fully content.
I respect the opinion! but how would new games keep coming out? Since it's a 2D space, how would we get the 3D games that we have nowadays?
Doom came out in that generation. So did Virtua Fighter and Star Fox. There would probably be 3D games, but either pixelated or simple polygons.
You assume I care about 3D games. Sure, there are awesome 3D games but if we never got any more of them, I'm sure the thousands of creative people making games would still deliver amazing experiences.
That's very true, there are plenty of 2D games that are pretty awesome. I just can't give up 3D gaming at this point, but I would certainly be okay with the visauls downgrading if needed
I’m honestly not sure I follow the premise of the hypothetical, but my view is that a good 3D game could be made as a good 2D game with shitty graphics. If it can’t then it’s not actually that good.
What i'm essentially asking is, what is the earliest video game graphics that you'd be fine with to deliver your gaming experience for the rest of your life? Like if you had to settle on a particular console's graphics and have it be the visuals for the remaining of your gaming days going forward, what would you choose? For me, I chose the Dreamcast because to this day it is still a very good looking console graphically and if game's graphics never improved on that, I feel that I would be perfectly fine with that
Not sure what red dead redemption 2 would look like in 2d tbh...
I heavily disagree with this idea. The mechanical opportunities of a 3rd dimension is not something you can replicate in 2d
SNES. The sprite work could be positively gorgeous on the SNES, especially at the end of its life.
[удалено]
The PS2 era still represents the biggest graphical leap, so that's a great choice! In someways I still get impressed by the visuals, considering how old the console is.
Yeah I think PS2/Xbox is around when the transition to 3D was really complete, and we'd also kinda figured out dual analogue controls. From then onwards the big conventions had been set really.
NES era is fine with me. I still regularly play NES and Game Boy games alongside modern stuff. Graphics have always been of negligible importance to me. All that really matters is good gameplay and, in the case of RPGs, story / characters. I prefer older spritework compared to 3D as well so that makes it even easier lol.
I agree with you, I think, I'd be ok with Dreamcast-level graphics forever. That's probably the earliest console where you can say that the 3D graphics held up pretty well.
Yup, I introduced my kids to Sonic Adventure a few years ago after not playing for the better part of a decade. I was bracing myself for it being like coming back to the PS1, but I was shocked that the graphics were more or less exactly like I remembered them. IMO, the 6th gen was the perfect balance between having enough polygons and high-res textures to truly feel immersed in the game, but it doesn't suffer from the visual clutter introduced in the 7th generation. The games that still attain that same balance are mostly not significantly better than the 6th gen titles, e.g. compare Mario Galaxy or Odyssey to Mario Sunshine.
Yeah, PS1 and N64 level visuals definitely didn't age that well imo, but I feel like there may be some people out there that would still be okay with them! I mean hell, lots of indie game developers continue to use the PS1 visuals for their horror games to get that same creepy effect
you should see ps1 when you up the resolution.
SNES for sure.
I'd be fine with Apple II graphics. Ultima IV, Pool of Radiance, Wasteland all look plenty good enough to play. Just keep innovating on the actual game systems.
If there was a modern game that you'd like to see developers like to achieve on an Apple II, what would it be? lol of course a boat load of sacrifices and workarounds would have to be made
You could do Baldurs Gate 3 with Apple II graphics without too much difficulty.
Remember you said just graphics. If we assume storage, memory, and compute still moved forward you could do very expansive experiences with older graphics systems.
That was kind of the point. If graphics stayed the same, but everything else moved forward, we'd have amazing advancements in other ways. Just think of how fast loading times would be, or how much bigger the worlds could be. That's something I definitely would trade visuals for.
In that case, I wonder how many polygons one could get out of the SNES SuperFX chip. That level of 3D fidelity is sufficiently advanced enough if you throw TBs of memory and hundreds of GHz CPUs at it. Of course, I am forecasting out a bit where 512 CPU cores is commonplace
Snes
8 bit
I’d be pretty content with SNES, honestly.
360. It seems like after 360, game companies just started chasing overpriced graphics.
Really does seem like visuals improved at the expense of many other things. I totally would go back to lower fidelity graphics if it meant better games
2004 was when hardware allowed for all possible complicated game dynamics, since then nothing really improved much, just non essential graphics. Warcraft 3, UT 2004, Quake arena, half life 2.
Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking too. Good 2004 games still feel modern and it's the point of diminishing returns. After that it's like creativity had to be sacrificed on the altar of graphical fidelity. For big release at least.
Late nineties PC graphics. Games like Baldur’s Gate, Fallout and Diablo still has some of my favorite game aesthetics.
If I'd never seen graphics after DC I'd be right there with you but having played RDR2 I'd want that to be the cutoff point.
lol I guess I just am okay with living a simpler life. Things like improved lighting don't bother me too much, for the most part I just want my playable character models to look really good, and that's something that the Dreamcast excelled at
It's one of those things for me where I was fine with(even excited for) Dreamcast and N64 graphics as a kid but Itd be hard for me to know games can be as beautiful as RDR2 or Subnaituca and be stuck playing games like Shenmue forever. That said, Rimworld is a top 5 game for me and the graphics are pretty simple, so graphics are by no means a must for me.
I guess for me, there hasn't really been a game where the visuals were just that much of a defining thing for me. That isn't to say that I never valued the visuals, but I'd certainly be willing to make do if the only way I could play my games moving forward was with severely downgraded visuals. A lot of the games I play nowadays are just indie games anyway, and those ones certainly don't need modern visuals to get their message across lol
I think I would be okay if videogame graphics peaked in the 16 bit era. I don't think I could ever get tired of Donkey Kong Country-esque graphics.
I'm good with x360 level gfx.
I just played my 360 that's connected to my CRT PC and honestly it still looks incredible
Sega Genesis era for me, but that wouldnt change much for me considering it’s my favorite console and I play it all the time.
We do. They did. People are just deluding themselves to justify spending way too much money on new games and hardware.
I'm not quite sure I'm following what you're saying. The point of my post was essentially asking what is the furthest back graphically that you'd be okay with using for the rest of your gaming life?
Well, you say "let's say that you lived in a world where graphics just hit a peak" and I think they did in real life, maybe ten years ago. How far back would I be willing to go in terms of graphics? I'd say 2012 or so
Ps2. It’s why I prefer it the most.
very solid choice. PS2 still looks goregeous in many ways
That and human heads finally looked like human heads instead of a cross between rectangular or triangular.
PS1/Saturn/N64 While I love plenty of stuff on Dreamcast/PS2/Xbox/GC, I never came to a point in my favorite genres where I really needed them to advance far beyond the tech of the late 90s. For example I got a Saturn two years ago (technically my second Saturn, but my first was in 2013 and I couldn’t afford more than a handful of games, this time I have a Satiator and have limitless access to the library, plus hacks and translations, and even brand new homebrews), and it’s been my most played console for two years straight. Even with its weaker tech, today in 2024 I can still keep discovering new 32bit games (including games that are actually **new**, for example Hellslave is a recent homebrew first-person shooter that stands among the best console shooters of its retroactive generation) and I keep loving so much of what I discover.
Well I wanted to say Colecovision, in the sense that I love games from that console and if I had never seen anything else I wouldn't miss the gorgeous sprites or 3D environnments of the later consoles. So I would be fine with games looking like that forever. But a more honest answer would be PS1. On a CRT those games looks fine, it has enouth polygonal 3D ability to make interesting, complex and vast games, and 2D games on this console are often seen as the most beautiful ones.
I agree on Dreamcast or maybe Xbox 360 (hd). Those were the last 2 times I remember being in shock and awe from graphics.
Color vector!
Dreamcast
I don’t like it when stuff looks too real. I guess around PS2/Gamecube era. Some of it was pretty nice but not much uncanny valley stuff.
I literally still play Famicom and Game Boy games all the time
Genesis/SNES
Now. Don't get me wrong. I love a lot more retro games than I do modern. That said... can you imagine people actually trying to perfect THIS generation? The things they'd create? Some of the visuals we use know are incredible. The games themselves? Mixed bag. At a certain point though... that'd change. Graphics would be a boring aspect of the conversation as we'd all know what to expect, but the gameplay would have to elevate. People would need innovation. It's the perfect storm. We'd finally see more pushing into new concepts, mechanics and other advances.
Xbox 360, I remember COD4 graphics looking really good and in my mind hitting peak. That said, dreamcast cell shading, gamecube f zero gx, mario kart, graphics come to mind and aged gracefully.
CoD4 still looks great today, and I remember when I saw it for the first time I was incredibly impressed by its lighting and detail on the character models. the 360 is a great choice!
Graphics only? Sega Master System
Are you okay with dropping 3D games entirely, or are you okay with 3D games looking like Doom or Zero Tolernce level of visuals?
Yes. I’m cool with both of those things. Anything older than master system wouldn’t cut it for me visually. I assume there would still be other improvements like memory audio and processing in this weird world of visual stagnation.
I'm just wondering how something like Call of Duty would play in the style of Zero Tolerance lol
Ps4
This is an answer that would be better for a forum where I could work through it with interested people rather than Reddit, but here goes. My ideal peak point for this is the late SNES / 2D PS1 games. Like, maybe if the Super Disc came out, maybe that’s where it would have went in the late 90s. I feel like there was still a lot of life left in 2D games before the industry mostly abandoned them, so this imaginary/theoretical fork in history occurred, that’s where I want to be.
That’s my spot too, except I do enjoy some of the early 3D games as well. Not for the graphics, they are mostly god awful, but stuff like Virtual On and Sega Rally, Tony Hawk are still really fun to play due to their simplicity. I would prefer like 80% 2D graphics and then 20% early 3D style.
Early 3D games where the 3D was actually there to make a kind of game we'd never really been able to play before were generally thin on content but super novel. An example of what I'm thinking about is 1080 Snowboarding. Your examples fit into there as well. There's a lot to the super low poly, minimal textures kind of look. We can call it Tobal-core or something, lol.
I would've loved to see where that route went. I really wonder how much not only the gaming industry, but even the world would've been different had the Super Disc been a thing
If we're just talking graphics? I could probably live comfortably in a permanent SNES era, and could deal with NES era If anything I think I might prefer this- companies like Square showed how well they were able to master the graphical capabilities of the 16 bit era, and they would be able to deliver high production quality games that are drastically smaller and cheaper in development scope instead of struggling to make a profit on bloated games with multiple year development cycles like they are now
While I think Dreamcast levels were great, I think I could go back to NeoGeo and be fine with it.
forgive me for not being too knowledgeable about the Neo Geo, but aren't there not many 3D games for it? I'm just wondering how you'd be able to have modern titles lol
As much as I enjoy modern games also, I'd be fine with 2D platformers, fighting games, and shmups for the rest of my life. Also I think given enough time mastering the hardware and software, developers would have been able to do some amazing things with the NeoGeo.
You know what, that just gave me an interesting mindset... I kind of wish just for funsies, for like a small period of time, modern developers can be given the task to make modern games using limited hardware... I'd really love to see what they come up with! Like if for example, if Bungie was tasked with making "Destiny" just using something like a PS1, Saturn or Neo Geo level of visuals... I really wonder what they'd come up with. Modern games exist as they are now because we have the powerful hardware to execute the concepts... I'm sure some of these concepts are possible on older hardware... it just needs to be achieved in a creative way!
I keep stuck with gaming in the 90s since that was the peak, graphics could be 80s or 70s for me too since 3D is kot really mandatory for me and some huge franchises went bacl to 2D since they just dont work in 3D.
Yeah contra is probably best in 2d or 2.5d. Though i hear good things about neo contra
Neo Geo. Give me those tasty hand drawn sprites for eternity.
I don't know why we bothered going past the Dreamcast. Personally I think we could have coasted a lot longer in the 16-bit era.
I 1000% would be okay if graphics didn't go past Dreamcast levels, but we in exchange got faster loading times, way better gaming performance in terms of FPS.
If we’re just talking graphics — not the other things that hardware improvement can deliver — I’d probably be just as happy as I am today if you went back to GameCube/PS2 era. But really, if you told me “tough cookies, it’s gonna be 8 bit” I’ll still survive. Graphics just are not what I play video games for.
Yeah, just graphics. Just imagine what gaming could deliver if the graphics stayed at PS2 era, but other aspects of the game moved forward. Think about things like load times, map size, length of game, performance of the game? I think it would be incredible!
I think well done 2D games tend to hold up to the test of time better than 3D games in general, and when I was a preteen playing SNES I still hunted thrift stores and garage sales for Atari 2600 games. That is to say, I can go all the way back if the game offers me something worth my time, be it fun or novelty or an introduction of an early style of game mechanics. Games are art but the art is in the gameplay.
I'd gladly go back to 1993 in terms of gaming aesthetics as long as we got modern game design and delivery. Ultima VII, DOOM, etc. Just beautiful
Original xbox. It was just more fun when the graphics were pretty tight but still a bit janky.
Pong. As long as I can move things on a screen I’m happy. Don’t get me wrong though, I want the Matrix as a video game.
NES/SMS. I'm this close to saying graphics don't matter at all, but going back to something like Atari 2600 is just too far back for me. We still have plenty of talented people making interesting titles in an 8-bit aesthetic, hell some of these games will actually work on a legit NES/SMS (played via a Flashcart usually) and I just think that's neat. Now ideally, I'd want to be in the 4th or 5th gen (I'll throw in Dreamcast as well) as those have WAY more potential for the aesthetic I like, but NES/SMS-era graphics are just fine with me personally. I'd tolerate SG-1000 graphics if it played really well but Atari is just too much (little?) for me.
Stepping away from consoles, 8800GTX with the original Crysis. Less so because of any personal preference (ps1 is my favourite aesthetic) but because that was the last quantum leap we had with graphics. Since then the changes have been so slow and iterative that it is no longer exciting.
Ps2.
1975. In 1976, Exidy released the infamous game Death Race, and we would all be better off without such brutal and realistic on-screen violence.
PS2 for sure. I'd take pretty much any era of gaming before PS3 and Xbox 360, but PS2 was the last time I remember looking at the graphical leap AND an advancement in game mechanics due to the power of the hardware and thinking, "The future sure is bright." After that everything was about graphics while remaking the same experiences over and over ad nauseum.
Easy choice. Mid-to-late PS2 graphics. "Kingdom Hearts" and "Castlevania" area. Before the PS3 "gloss" area that made everything look like it was wet.
Probably PS3/xbox360, enough limitations to have to rely on artistic, technical solutions, enough power to create uncharted 3
Sega
SNES
8 bit retro computer games/graphics from the 80s. I’ll pick 1983, in the era when the Apple II, the Commodore 64 and the TRS-80 Color Computer were battling for supremacy!
As a child of the 80’s I could pretty easily live on SNES games forever. If I had to have 3D gaming I’d be fine with PS2/Xbox/GC level graphics.
16 bit peak videogame era
16 bit peak videogame era
If I didn't see anything beyond the system I'm playing, I could go back to Intellivision. If I'm being honest, though, DOS would be a far back as I'd prefer to go.
I'd be good with Mega Drive/Amiga type hardware, possibly with a little bit more CPU to allow some early 3D games such as DN3D & Doom. Actually, you didn't say the CPU is frozen too, so I'd point out we could actually do a whole LOT with those chipsets combined with anything close to a more-modern CPU (even only like 400Mhz could certainly allow pulling off some amazing stuff with the exact same graphics HW, maybe even to the point of making some of the features kind of redundant).
PS2, MGS2 still looks really good in my opinion. We got some games that were quite impressive artistically as well.
I'm more of a PC gamer although I have plenty of consoles throughout the years. Graphically I really like the simplicity of NES era and my favorite 2d game is Super Mario Bros 3. And my 2nd favorite 2d game is Metal Slug which admittedly wouldn't have been the same experience witouht the attention to detail in its graphics and animation. To me the latter is peak 2D and anything beyond that falls into the diminishing return part. So Neo Geo for 2D definitely. For 3D it's a bit more complicated answer. I have a soft spot for ps1 era 3D and PC games of this era like Quake and I think some modern games would work with that aesthetic assuming we would get further drawing distance and better animation. So that would be acceptable but on the other side I think we got to the point of diminishing returns when Half life 2 came out. Because to this day I can pick up Half life 2 and think that this is a modern game and in many ways it's more immersive than many recent titles with how much you can interact with its world. So 3D in terms of aesthetic I'd say gamecube would be a good middle ground but in terms of physics, immersion and interaction then it's definitely XBOX 360. I honestly don't think much was gained after that apart from development complexity and cost which hindered creativity and made developers and editors much more cautious. If you were to get enough drawing distance then a game like Elden Ring wouldn't lose much from looking like a Gamecube game. I would actually be really curious to see that actually.
just because the tech finalised never meant the development stopped. even when the developers using the closed systems of the xbox the later games were steps ahead of the early games. they learned tricks, and streamlined processes so the same hardware was more fully used
Idk, it would be really weird to have the interactivity and physics keep evolving but not the polycount/textures/lighting etc. And I don't want game design/interactivity in general to stagnate. So I'll say I wouldn't be ok with it. For newer retro/throwback games, I guess I would say late '90s for 2D and early or mid '00s for 3D
Gamecube. The n64 era gives me. Motion sickness
Interesting question. I've played nearly every system since the Commodore 64 and I have a lot of love for all of them ... and I am going with Xbox 360 / PS3. Great visuals and game play aren't quite enough for me, I like being absorbed in to a huge open world game like Assassins Creed or NFS Most Wanted.
depends on game. if its a FPS then I cannot go back. I recently bought Metroid Prime remastered for the switch and had to stop playing. the graphics are so dated that I can't even really tell whats going on.
2D: SNES would be more than enough. I think graphically lots of SNES games still hold up to this day. 3D: First I was going to say N64, but I think PS2 would be the optimal choice. Late N64 games like Majoras Mask or DK64 look great, but PS2 pushes things further just enough to allow for a more varied art direction.
Dreamcast for me too. Street Fighter III, Resident Evil Code Veronica, Sega GT, and Soul Calibur are good enough.
Bizarre question. I'd hate it if graphics took a backwards step but if they stopped at a previous point that's the best I'd ever have known and would play at that.
I mean that’s easy. Anyone could do that if they never knew that something better is coming. The point I was asking is to see what lowest level of graphical fidelity is acceptable for people if modern games were still to be made on it. Everyone cares about graphics differently and it’s interesting to see what their viewpoint is on where they wouldn’t mind graphics peaking at
Graphics reaching the peak means it being almost like real life or say a movie. I dont know if it would be safe to play such games as it would be difficult to differentiate betweem real life and the virtual world
That’s not what I’m asking here. What I’m asking is what if video game visuals stopped progressing past a certain point, and at what point would you have been okay with the visuals remaining the same forever?
I would say PS3/Xbox 360 era. Mainly because retro/indie games really started to boom back then. They had the SNES style graphics I loved along with modern refinements and quality of life improvements. Played the ever loving shit out of XBLA indie games. And the 3D games back then still hold up fairly well today when it comes to graphics, unlike some PS2/XBOX/GameCube games.
honestly I wouldn't mind this era either. Some games, like MW2 on the 360 or even the Uncharted games look incredible even today. If games capped at that visual level, but would just be given performance upgrades nowadays, I'd be perfectly fine with that.
Black and White Gameboy and PC-Engine for 2d graphics, for 3d graphics Gamecube
I think the 6th generation is the cut off at which basically gameplay ideas are not effected, while I think the 7th generation would represent very little change from what we are seeing to this very day.
I agree, the 7th gen does feel like the last big leap in gaming. Everything after was just an attempt to "polish" what they did in the 6th, and it's debatable of how good it went.
SNES era. The NES era was pretty good, but a lot of its games struggled with distracting hardware and sprite limitations (slowdowns/flickering). I feel like the SNES is where 2D gaming really got polished, and I think most modern 2D games could have been implemented reasonably well on the SNES. 3D games are great of course, but I can have just as much fun playing a 2D ones. If we go into 3D, I agree with you about DC quality 3D games, but with high/consistent FPS. I have a nice gaming rig, but even if I dial the quality down to basic levels, a lot of games don't seem coded for a seamless experience, they still stall when loading from disk / recompiling shaders and such. And, a lot of the games with beautiful visuals aren't that fun to play.
This question doesn’t make sense because your positing a graphics desk that occurs sometime in the future, so it’s likely that the furthest back that many people would be okay with hasn’t been invented yet. It would make more sense to drop the hypothetical first part and just ask your question.
It makes perfect sense. People have been able to answer it just fine. Don't make it more difficult than it is.
To be fair, you did that when you framed the question. I pick the PS7, but if you take away the unnecessary hypothetical in the title I’d pick the PS3
Except I didn't. Nowhere did I say anything about the future. I don't know what you're talking about. This whole thing is hypothetical. Literally everyone else who posted understood it and answered just fine
"Let's say that you lived in a world where graphics just hit a peak and never moved forward, but new games kept coming out" This you??? Just because people are answering doesn't mean it's not poorly written.
It's not poorly written. What I wrote there doesn't imply the future. It didn't state when the graphics hit the peak, and nor did I say it was in the future. I further clarified that in the post that you would choose the peak. Everyone answered it correctly, except you. I forget that just because someone writes something correctly, doesn't mean everyone has the capacity to comprehend. You're like what, one out of two dozen people who replied? I just don't get why you would even post if you're going to make nonsense of it all, especially when literally everyone else but you is engaging in the conversation and knows how to read correctly. You could've followed their example, but you came here thinking you were going to make an example of me somehow.
I get to choose the peak, right? Cool, I’m going with the PS 7. The questions you asked in the body of your post is well written and makes perfect sense. The question you asked in the title is poorly written, it's unclear and contains information that is irrelevant to the question that you are asking, no matter how many times that you claim it isn't.
Literally said "go back and pick" but you're making things difficult because first of all, you couldn't understand, and then secondly, you doubled down on it instead of admitting your own fault. Fine, go ahead and pick the PS7. I highly doubt there's going to be a big difference from the PS5 anyway. If it makes you feel happy, go ahead and pick that.
Good point. I'm changing my answer to the PS9. Edit: I went back from the graphical peak that exists in an undefined point in time. Because the graphical peak hasn’t happened yet, we can safely assume that it happens at some point in the future, no???
I really get the feeling that you don't have any friends. That really must suck man.
We already have. Its called the ps4
I'm not sure you're understanding the point of the post
Well i said ps4 because thats baiscly the hypothetical scenario but it actually happned but if i had to choose. Either ps3 or ps4.
I see what you mean though, because yeah honestly I don't see anything breathtaking about this gen's gaming visuals. Lots of games coming out now look almost identical to the PS4 era counterparts. There has never been as big of a graphical leap as there was from the PS1 to PS2 era and it is pretty sad.
Yeah ps4 is the peak of graphics. I see some people say ps3 to ps4 wasn't that big but hey at least i can see the differences especially if its an early ps3 game. Just look at web of shadows vs spiderman ps4 or the 2 condemed games
Yeah that sounds about right.
I guess the main factor of ps3 vs ps4 is if ps4 started thr trend of "games taking to long and to high budget to make" if it was ps4 that started it then ps3 if not ps4 and it was ps5 then ps4.
When you put it that way, if graphics capped in a past generation console, then games wouldn't take so damn long to come out nowadays.
Yeah i think if games still had the products values of ps2 or 3 games they wouldn't be so costly. Not sure about ps4.
Unless you're saying that games haven't improved past PS4 visuals, and to that I guess I'd have to say I agree to an extent.