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Topic: Graphically, what % of performance is 3DS currently at?

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DoctorWho

A friend of mine and I were chatting today after having both played the Resident Evil demo. We're both pretty stunned with the graphics for the 3DS at the moment following Mario Land 3DS and Mario Kart 7, but RE has just taken it to a new level. We then got talking about how much better the graphics, if at all, could be in years to come since we are only in year 2 at the moment.

I have a feeling the 3DS is really only using about 30-50% of its capabilities at the moment. In 3 or 4 years, it wouldn't surprise me if we have quality that isn't too far off XBOX 360 (considering that Resident Evil looks good in only its second year).

What do we think?

DoctorWho

Bankai

I think that people should start caring less about polygons, and more about art direction.

The quality of canvas has improved over the years, too, but I don't see anyone going to an art gallery, seeing one of Monet's work, and going "you know, that canvas is so damn ugly. Painting fail"

DoctorWho

I'm definitely more about gaming substance such as gameplay, story and control mechanics ahead of spectacle. In fact, the 3D aspect of the 3DS is my least favourite feature. But at the same time it is fascinating to see just how much power the 3DS packs.

DoctorWho

Bankai

You misunderstand me.

Art direction is utterly critical to a game. If you have poor art direction, you have a terrible game in 99.99% of cases (the only exception to that rule is Final Fantasy VII).

These people that think that a multimedia game can be considered apart from its visual element are misunderstanding the very thing that makes games great.

LordTendoboy

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

You misunderstand me.

Art direction is utterly critical to a game. If you have poor art direction, you have a terrible game in 99.99% of cases (the only exception to that rule is Final Fantasy VII).

These people that think that a multimedia game can be considered apart from its visual element are misunderstanding the very thing that makes games great.

Gameplay makes up the other half of a good game. Without captivating gameplay and a decent art-style, the whole game falls apart. Graphics and gameplay should compliment each other.

Edited on by LordTendoboy

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Lin1876

It's an interesting question, and my guess would be that Revelations is pushing the 75%-80% mark. I know that sounds quite high, but Capcom have a good track record of getting a lot out of consoles technically (Resi 4, for example, was one of the most technically advanced GameCube games). But you're right - we're only a year in, so there is plenty to come I'm sure.

With all due respect, I think @PolkaDotChocobo is missing the point of the question. I think the vast majority of gamers would agree that art direction is so important, more so than technical competence, but this is a topic about technical matters only.

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tagz

I think for RE case, 3DS already using 70% of its power. Judge from the hardware spec, maybe impossible to surpass the graphic quality of current console. RE looks good because the lighting and texture manipulation, plus with that quality i believe if there is more object on one screen, fps will go down.

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DoctorWho

Actually, even in its heyday, Goldeneye was a pretty ugly game. Seriously, I remember going to a friend's house and only feeling jealous for the game because it was a 007 First Person Shooter. Other than that, I was really happy with Quake 2, Half-Life and Unreal which I played obsessively back then. But I love Goldeneye for it's gameplay. In fact, i prefer Goldeneye 64 over the recent remakes. While they look nice, Activision just took a by the numbers approach to it artistically in the way it just clones the run of the mill formula for the FPS genre. No laser watch, virtually no gadgets and no dynamic character moments such as escorting a soldier at gunpoint to a computer room where you need to keep the reticle trained on his back.

Much the same can be said for the GTA franchise. I loved GTA up until the release of GTA3. Since 3D, it's been more about technology and movie homages than it has been about creating a truly gritty atmosphere. The last good GTA game was DS' China Town Wars. The top-down view GTA gave the game a suitably "underground" sort of feel. Here I was as a player stealing cars, walking the streets with a gun and doing missions, but I wasn't seeing everything. That's what made it so gritty, because it left the gory and unpleasant details to the imagination. Since GTA3, it's lost its grit because everything is just thrown in your face, the "crime" aspect of it loses its meaning.

I remember when I got the first GTA game. I KNEW my parents would object to be playing it, but I knew I could get away with it because of the seemingly innocuous top down presentation that just presented as a stock standard car game to the untrained eye. But the graphics were just a cover for the truly seedy game I was playing which is what added to the "illegal" and "underground" feel of the game, it transcended the gameplay itself because I myself was engaging in an act that my parents wouldn't approve of. GTA 3 just literally gave the game away because gone was the seemingly innocuous look of the game which was analogous to the experience of the gameplay itself.

DoctorWho

Bankai

With all due respect, I think @PolkaDotChocobo is missing the point of the question. I think the vast majority of gamers would agree that art direction is so important, more so than technical competence, but this is a topic about technical matters only.

The "Gameplay or Graphics" topics I see on every single game forum beg to differ.

Indeed, even this: "Actually, even in its heyday, Goldeneye was a pretty ugly game." Begs to differ. Goldeneye had good aesthetics.

A discussion on the technical element of the graphics is pointless, since having the greatest technical graphics in history is utterly pointless if the aesthetics are bad. Polygons, colour palettes, all these things are there for the sole purpose of enabling art.

Once again to draw a comparison to the art world, who looks at a painting and goes "wow that painting is pushing a complex colour wheel?" No one. No one talks about colour wheels. They're just a technique that enables art.

So really, it's a pointless discussion to ask how many polygons the 3DS has left to push. We've already seen games that are downright artistic in construction, and therefore we've already seen the best the 3DS can offer.

Corbs

I think later on in a game system's lifespan we generally see developers becoming more comfortable with the hardware and finding tricks and shortcuts to squeeze a bit more processing power out of them in unique ways. We've already seen some great stuff on 3DS, but I think we'll see some flashier stuff before it's over. That being said, I don't expect anyone to re-invent the wheel like Rare did with Donkey Kong Country back on the Super NES.

Plain old gamer :)

Oregano

The Chocobo is correct in a sense but I'd go about explaining it differently. If you look at the DS it's not very powerful at all and actually has a hard limit on how many polygons can be on screen at a time(something like 2K) and I think even very early games such as Mario 64 DS maxed out the polygon limit. However that didn't stop games from getting better and better looking as developers worked harder and harder on getting the most out of the system.

A good example are the Final Fantasy remakes and 4 Heroes of the Light. FFIII looks great but there's some obvious limitations(four characters in battle, three enemies tops), then through smart texturing and better modelling FFIV looks even better and manages to get five characters in battle and several enemies. 4 Heroes goes a different way and has a more abstract style which better fits the DS IMO and looks a lot better for it, it really is a beautiful game. I'm glad Bravely Default follows a similar ethos/style.

Screens(with a bonus Bravely Default one):
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled
Untitled

Edited on by Oregano

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Mandoble

Remember that RE game types have a visual horizon of just few meters, so everything in sight may be more detailed even with a pretty poor graphic processor. @DoctorWho, the practical power of a XB360 is more than 10 times that of the 3DS.

Mandoble

LordTendoboy

DoctorWho wrote:

Actually, even in its heyday, Goldeneye was a pretty ugly game. Seriously, I remember going to a friend's house and only feeling jealous for the game because it was a 007 First Person Shooter. Other than that, I was really happy with Quake 2, Half-Life and Unreal which I played obsessively back then. But I love Goldeneye for it's gameplay. In fact, i prefer Goldeneye 64 over the recent remakes. While they look nice, Activision just took a by the numbers approach to it artistically in the way it just clones the run of the mill formula for the FPS genre. No laser watch, virtually no gadgets and no dynamic character moments such as escorting a soldier at gunpoint to a computer room where you need to keep the reticle trained on his back.

Much the same can be said for the GTA franchise. I loved GTA up until the release of GTA3. Since 3D, it's been more about technology and movie homages than it has been about creating a truly gritty atmosphere. The last good GTA game was DS' China Town Wars. The top-down view GTA gave the game a suitably "underground" sort of feel. Here I was as a player stealing cars, walking the streets with a gun and doing missions, but I wasn't seeing everything. That's what made it so gritty, because it left the gory and unpleasant details to the imagination. Since GTA3, it's lost its grit because everything is just thrown in your face, the "crime" aspect of it loses its meaning.

I remember when I got the first GTA game. I KNEW my parents would object to be playing it, but I knew I could get away with it because of the seemingly innocuous top down presentation that just presented as a stock standard car game to the untrained eye. But the graphics were just a cover for the truly seedy game I was playing which is what added to the "illegal" and "underground" feel of the game, it transcended the gameplay itself because I myself was engaging in an act that my parents wouldn't approve of. GTA 3 just literally gave the game away because gone was the seemingly innocuous look of the game which was analogous to the experience of the gameplay itself.

If you think 3D GTA throws everything in your face, then you'd hate the Saints Row series.

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LordTendoboy

PolkaDotChocobo wrote:

With all due respect, I think @PolkaDotChocobo is missing the point of the question. I think the vast majority of gamers would agree that art direction is so important, more so than technical competence, but this is a topic about technical matters only.

The "Gameplay or Graphics" topics I see on every single game forum beg to differ.

Indeed, even this: "Actually, even in its heyday, Goldeneye was a pretty ugly game." Begs to differ. Goldeneye had good aesthetics.

A discussion on the technical element of the graphics is pointless, since having the greatest technical graphics in history is utterly pointless if the aesthetics are bad. Polygons, colour palettes, all these things are there for the sole purpose of enabling art.

Once again to draw a comparison to the art world, who looks at a painting and goes "wow that painting is pushing a complex colour wheel?" No one. No one talks about colour wheels. They're just a technique that enables art.

So really, it's a pointless discussion to ask how many polygons the 3DS has left to push. We've already seen games that are downright artistic in construction, and therefore we've already seen the best the 3DS can offer.

You really think GoldenEye 64 looks good? Wow. Most N64 games suffer from blurry low-resolution textures, and ugly character models with creepy "faces" plastered on them. The only N64 games that I still think look good to this day are Super Mario 64 and the Zelda games. Those games went with a cartoony art style that suited the system's limitations. The N64 wasn't good at rendering human character models, and games like Perfect Dark and GoldenEye 64 show this.

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retired_account

The original GoldenEye definitely has a charm to it, especially in motion.

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komicturtle

What impress me the most about Goldeneye 007 is that the team actually went on set and based many structures from the set of the movie and brought it over to the game in some points. I personally liked the level design and aesthetics of Goldeneye and, although dated now, for it's time it was a really good looking game. Of course, Perfect Dark looked better. Yet, the same core concept used from that game was simply brought from Goldeneye (and the only reason it looks "better" is because of the nifty expansion pack).

Anyways, back to the question: No one really knows at what %age of power game developers are using from the 3DS. It shouldn't really matter. The reason RE: R looks so good is because Capcom is using MT Framework Mobile which is used for their X360, PS3 and PC games (the standard MT Framework). Surprises me that Capcom weren't able to bring that engine to Wii but to the 3DS. Curious to know if the Wii can at least use MT Framework Mobile. But I guess one of the reasons is "shaders", something that the 3DS has and apparently, the Wii doesn't.

Regardless, I stand by my thought of Windwaker looking good 10 years from now and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 looking blah. It's all in the art.

And I'm not saying CoD lacks art. CoD focuses more on realism than not. There are Gamecube games that don't even hold up today because of that too. Not terrible games, mind you. I'm only talking about how they hold up visually.

komicturtle

SkywardLink98

Personally, I think we need to stop thinking about pixel amount and more about the art behind it. Skyward Sword might not have to high a pixel count but it still looks pretty cool. Graphics (Pixel count basically) seem to be a big deal, when they really aren't. Eventually we'll have 1,000,080p (or beyond the human eye can process) and people will still be saying "This game is better it uses 100% of the console's graphic capability whereas that one only uses (20-90)%. When will we get to the point that pixel count doesn't matter?

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FOREST_RANGER

I think the more appropriate question is "How much are developers willing to optimize their code for the 3DS?" They may as well be using most of or all of the available resources, but with more efficient coding practices and discovering of new rendering algorithms specifically for the pica200 (the 3DS GPU), they can create or update their game engines capable of processing more complex assets (3d models, landscape, textures) with less time per frame rendered.

Edited on by FOREST_RANGER

Formely known as bobbiKat

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retired_account

As much as I love pixels, there's way more to graphics than pixel count.

More power makes stuff like this and this and this and so on possible. Why should great artistic styles have jagged edges and blurry textures?

Edited on by retired_account

retired_account

LordTendoboy

KoMiCtUrTlE wrote:

Regardless, I stand by my thought of Windwaker looking good 10 years from now and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 looking blah. It's all in the art.

And I'm not saying CoD lacks art. CoD focuses more on realism than not. There are Gamecube games that don't even hold up today because of that too. Not terrible games, mind you. I'm only talking about how they hold up visually.

Agreed. Many of those old GameCube games still impress me to this day:

  • Super Mario Sunshine
  • Metroid Prime
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
  • Resident Evil 4
  • Zelda: The Wind Waker
  • Star Fox Adventures
  • Zelda: Twilight Princess

And I'm sure many Wii games will still be impressive years from now:

  • Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2
  • Zelda: Skyward Sword
  • Donkey Kong Country Returns
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption / Prime Trilogy
  • Kirby's Epic Yarn

All of those games have unique art styles and don't strive to be "realistic". It's the whole "uncanny valley" thing that makes realism in games seem so fake. It's all about the art design.

Edited on by LordTendoboy

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