Anyone else tired of "next gen" graphics?

E

Eagle156

2[H]4U
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Jan 21, 2006
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All games nowdays have extreme bloom, hdr, and other special effects to cover up crappy textures and the bad graphics underneath. Ever since the whole 360/PS3 generation started graphics have been getting worse and worse imo, and I'm talking of course about the PC. I miss the sharp textures and long draw distances that were standard for pc and made it easy to aim and play. The graphics of today's games hurt my eyes. Take BF2 and BF Bad Company 2 for example.
battlefield-2.jpg

BF2 isn't the best looking game in the world but the graphics are sharp and simple which makes it easy on the eyes.

57958_orig.jpg

BC2 may look prettier but there is so much blur and it's so fucking bright that it's tiring to play the game. It's like the game is trying to simulate a myopic character without his glasses. I don't know about you but when I go outside everything is nice, sharp, and in focus, not blurry like in Bad Company 2.
 
Is that BC2 shot altered? Even the minimap is blurred which makes no sense. Game definitely doesn't look blurry to me.

Some games do add blur on purpose (GTA IV) to hide some obvious jagged edges etc.
 
There's a way to get rid of that. You have to do disable bloom and something else. haven't had a problem with it since though.
 
I know what you mean... I can hardly play on some of the BC2 maps because my characters seem to be affected by extreme snowblindness in all of the desert or snow maps.

That said, as much as I like the battlefield series, I probably would not be playing BC2 without the vehicles or the destructable buildings and such. On maps like Attacama desert it's so fucking bright that I can't even see what's happening when in some of the vehicles.

I have it installed, and I play it, but I really wish they'd just make a new Battlefield 1942 and keep it true to the original in the ways that matter (sharp graphics, large maps, an abundance of vehicles, 64 players, naval warfare, etc).
 
Yeah, i call it shinyness. everything seems shiny these days in games. I know the sun washes stuff out at certain hours of the day but even then your eyes adjust and its not so bad.
 
too much of that glare effect, that's been SO overdone since it was first used in the old PS1 days.

For some goddamn reason every single developer who makes those kind of games seems to think they need to add glare cause "it's the cool thing to do".
 
lol funny how most threads popping up in the gamging forum are things I'm thinking about.

I was playing AVP (2010) the other day and though, this game is really f*cking dark, and compared it to the sharpness of BF2, and the Unreal engine games and figured, what a difference!! On a large TV, for short game world distances it's fine, but when you want to play on a monitor it looks like someone rubbed sh(t on the screen.
 
Personally I just moved the brightness slider to the middle in BC2... it was defaulted to 3/4 of the way over for some reason. That's pretty much it...
 
Yeah, playing BC2 on the 360 its hard to get used to the all the brightness, glare, etc. I should fiddle with the graphic settings.
 
ChucklesC6 said:
played god of war3? I never realized skin was so glossy!
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No kidding! I'm on board with everyone here. I remember when I used to play Delta Force 2. That game was the shit. Wide open huge MP maps, everything depended on your skill. There were no stupid effects. Now everything is like a damn movie.
 
Just turn off bloom. That was one of the first things I did. It's in the ini file, not in the in-game menu.
 
Agreed. Look at Bioshock 2 as well. I think Quake 3 had better textures than that!
 
weirdsauce said:
No kidding! I'm on board with everyone here. I remember when I used to play Delta Force 2. That game was the shit. Wide open huge MP maps, everything depended on your skill. There were no stupid effects. Now everything is like a damn movie.
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I personally don't like it. Games are becoming more and more photorealistic, which is a step forward for technology, but a step backward for me. I don't want to play a game that looks like a movie. I want to be able to tell that I'm playing a game, and most importantly, I just want that game to be good, regardless of what it looks like. All flash and no substance = it's cool to look at for half an hour, but what's the point after that?

@OP: I love BF2, and its graphics, and I agree with that you said. It may not be the best, but it's easy on the eyes and suits the game very well.
 
SLiGuy said:
I personally don't like it. Games are becoming more and more photorealistic, which is a step forward for technology, but a step backward for me. I don't want to play a game that looks like a movie. I want to be able to tell that I'm playing a game, and most importantly, I just want that game to be good, regardless of what it looks like. All flash and no substance = it's cool to look at for half an hour, but what's the point after that?
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I agree completely. But at the same time it makes you wonder what would we as a gaming community be complaining about if graphics were the same now as they were then? So many people are complaining now about gaming hardware being so far ahead of games, etc.

I'm going to mess with the contrast and brightness and turn of bloom and see how I like BC2.
 
the reason why its all shiny and blur these days is because its the only way to cover up bad graphics on console...

console graphics are horrible....its like playing a 2003 PC games or worse TBH..
 
Stick to the jungle based maps and the bloom isn't as bad as the screenshots make it look, but all in all I agree with you. Bloom and HDR lighting is way over the top now. I think they use the bloom, dust, fog, etc. to strategically reduce draw distance in bc2 to allow it to run smoothly with all of the cpu side physics being done.
 
I agree I don't like all the blur either. I hate to say it but Crysis has the best lighting system I've seen in a game. Everything looked really crisp and nothing was washed out, it was bright but not washed out or "soft" looking. At mid day the light looked more natural as well, like a white light rather than a having everything have a yellow tinge to it, like a lot of the HDR effects suffer from.
 
It'll probably stop once it looks fully realistic, and there's no point to improving graphics anymore unless we are trying to implement the future!
 
SLiGuy said:
@OP: I love BF2, and its graphics, and I agree with that you said. It may not be the best, but it's easy on the eyes and suits the game very well.
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Have you played MW2? Graphics are sharp, but damn there is a lot of shit floating around in the air.. pieces of paper, ashes, candy bar wrappers, etc... the damn thing is exhausting to play, makes me twitch and jump constantly.


And regarding that BC2 screenshot the OP used, I think it was taken at the most worst possible time.. taking a hit or concussion from a tank shot while just bringing up a weapon, hence the blury spots and the blury weapon.

BFBC2Game%202010-04-03%2008-57-29-55.jpg

BFBC2Game%202010-04-03%2009-10-39-14.jpg
 
Met-AL said:
And regarding that BC2 screenshot the OP used, I think it was taken at the most worst possible time.. taking a hit or concussion from a tank shot while just bringing up a weapon, hence the blury spots and the blury weapon.
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I'm pretty sure the screenshot he used was some generic shot from google images. It's either console or some early version since the HUD doesn't look anything like that in the PC version right now. The HUD itself is blurry, so it just seems like a bad picture overall.

BC2 looks fine to me... except for turning the brightness down a little like I said earlier. There are much bigger offenders out there in terms of overly bright "HDR" bloom effects (X-blades comes to mind). As always, you can just turn bloom type effects off... unless of course you're playing a console, then it's your own fault.
 
BC2 looks great.

Now, the UT3 engine can die in a fire. I swear the creators set out to make a graphics engine that makes everyone look like they are covered in baby oil getting hit by a spotlight. Arkham Asylum is a perfect recent example of this. How could batman sneak up on anyone if he keeps armor-alling his armor?
 
i think your examples are a little skewed. i do agree that HDR and bloom make games look bad. they are designed to make games seem more real but they make it look i am watching it on TV.

HDR stands for high dynamic range. in photography this means more detail in shadows and no blown out highlight. in games for some reason it means the opposite. cameras can not detect light in the same dynamic range as the human eye so when you watch things on TV shadows are darker and lights are blown out. why on earth did think making a game look like i was watching it on TV was more real. same goes for lens flair. why the hell is there lens flair in games? it is side effect of a camera.

basically i think these people in charge of this stuff are stupid.
 
Met-AL said:
Have you played MW2? Graphics are sharp, but damn there is a lot of shit floating around in the air.. pieces of paper, ashes, candy bar wrappers, etc... the damn thing is exhausting to play, makes me twitch and jump constantly.
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Yeah, I've played it for maybe around 5-6 hours total. Not a lot, but enough for me to be able to pass judgment on the graphics, and I definitely do agree with you that there is A LOT on the screen at any given time. I normally don't get nauseous while playing FPS games, but MW2 is one that I can't play for more than an hour or two in one sitting.

Don't even get me started on how annoying the chickens are...
 
BC2 looks friggin beautiful on console and on pc.. no clue what people are bitching about.. the only blur effect they use in BC2 is when you zoom in on a red dot scope or iron side so that your eye focuses on the view from the scope/iron sight and not around it like you normally would in real life.. other then that the only other blur effect used is when an explosion, grenade, tank round, AT mine, etc, etc.. go off around you.. now on the other hand they need a shit ton more AA in the game.. especially on the console version.. trying to look at the tree's or some one near them is painful.. the brightness is easily fixable by changing the in game brightness.. though ive also seen a trend change.. back in the day most games had the default brightness way to friggin low, now they are starting to set it higher by default..

-Sn1PeR- said:
Stick to the jungle based maps and the bloom isn't as bad as the screenshots make it look, but all in all I agree with you. Bloom and HDR lighting is way over the top now. I think they use the bloom, dust, fog, etc. to strategically reduce draw distance in bc2 to allow it to run smoothly with all of the cpu side physics being done.
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the dust and fog is strategically placed so snipers cant sit there and snipe across the whole friggin map.. if it wasnt for the dust and fog i could easily do that a few of the maps.. also the dust and fog would cause it to run worse then better because your having to render every piece of dust particle.. go play MW2 and set off a gernade in single player and check your gpu usage.. watch when the sand particles go flying how much the gpu usage goes up.. pretty much the best example since the particles are rendered by your cpu in BC2..
 
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I partially agree but it’s not fair to post a screenshot when the soldier is zooming because that blur effect on the weapon is intentional (lens-accurate depth-of-field effects based on real-world parameters of focal length and focus distance) also all that smoke made it look more blurry. turn that HBAO thing on, I remember it helped a little bit in the shiny desert areas.
 
I know exactly what you mean. This is the deferred shading engine effect in use. Most of these "next gen" games are like the Unreal 3 engine, etc, and they are all hazy, blurry, have way too much exposure, bloom, HDR, and no sharpness. Everything is either way too dark or way too overlit. Nothing has sharpness really.

That's one reason why Modern Warfare is still a decent game, it's a heavily modified Quake engine and still has that sharpness and balance of lightning and colors to it.

Dirt 2 looks like crap, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 looks like crap, tons of console games look like crap.
Look @ Crysis 2 screenshot thread. It looks like crap. Too much yellow lightning, bluriness, etc. which looks like overcompensation for low polys and low textures.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1510193

Bad Company 2 uses deferred shading as well I believe, but it's not as bad as the OP's screenshot. I do find the desert levels are far too overexposed and the lightning is too bright.
 
Shinyness is cool to an extent, in fact this thread just made me re-install BF2 :)

I got CoD MW2 with my video card and I really do like it, and that does have the glossy feel. The one key thing to remember is that gameplay will always beat graphics. Why do you think CS 1.6 stayed alive as long as it has?
 
shansoft said:
the reason why its all shiny and blur these days is because its the only way to cover up bad graphics on console...

console graphics are horrible....its like playing a 2003 PC games or worse TBH..
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find me a 2003 PC game that surpasses GOW3 or Uncharted 2 in terms of gfx.
Find one besides crysis in the last 3 years that does even. Resolution aside.
 
I'm not taking shots at any specific game but Bloom & HDR are overused. When I go outside, very few things reflect light anywhere near as much as shit in games does. Plus it's not like I see a complete white blur anywhere that's outside then it magically appears as I walk into the sun. Plus some games use some technology that makes everything from wood to metal look like plastic. It drives me nuts.
 
4saken said:
find me a 2003 PC game that surpasses GOW3 or Uncharted 2 in terms of gfx.
Find one besides crysis in the last 3 years that does even. Resolution aside.
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Get rid of all the bloom and play it on a monitor and see what happens.
 
4saken said:
find me a 2003 PC game that surpasses GOW3 or Uncharted 2 in terms of gfx.
Find one besides crysis in the last 3 years that does even. Resolution aside.
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At that point it's just art style. Uncharted looked very fruity to me... as if everything was overly saturated with color. GOW3 looks OK, but it's obvious that it suffers from the same drawbacks of consoles such as low res textures and lack of proper AA / AF.

There's really two different types of graphics... 'realistic' and non-realistic art styles. In terms of realistic graphics, I'd say Metro 2033 with very high settings on PC looks fantastic. Does it look anything like GOW3 or Uncharted 2? - of course not.

Whether or not a game looks good is almost as subjective as whether or not people like the same painting... it really depends on your preferences.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
At that point it's just art style. Uncharted looked very fruity to me... as if everything was overly saturated with color. GOW3 looks OK, but it's obvious that it suffers from the same drawbacks of consoles such as low res textures and lack of proper AA / AF.

There's really two different types of graphics... 'realistic' and non-realistic art styles. In terms of realistic graphics, I'd say Metro 2033 with very high settings on PC looks fantastic. Does it look anything like GOW3 or Uncharted 2? - of course not.

Whether or not a game looks good is almost as subjective as whether or not people like the same painting... it really depends on your preferences.
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Don't forget the Stalker Series, pretty realistic graphics and lighting effects imo.
 
Spare-Flair said:
I know exactly what you mean. This is the deferred shading engine effect in use. Most of these "next gen" games are like the Unreal 3 engine, etc, and they are all hazy, blurry, have way too much exposure, bloom, HDR, and no sharpness. Everything is either way too dark or way too overlit. Nothing has sharpness really.

That's one reason why Modern Warfare is still a decent game, it's a heavily modified Quake engine and still has that sharpness and balance of lightning and colors to it.

Dirt 2 looks like crap, Rainbow Six Vegas 2 looks like crap, tons of console games look like crap.
Look @ Crysis 2 screenshot thread. It looks like crap. Too much yellow lightning, bluriness, etc. which looks like overcompensation for low polys and low textures.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1510193

Bad Company 2 uses deferred shading as well I believe, but it's not as bad as the OP's screenshot. I do find the desert levels are far too overexposed and the lightning is too bright.
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Wow, I've always felt that something was up with newer game's graphics, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Is this deferred rendering technique necessary for more complex shaders/lighting, or is it just easier on the systems? In other words, could they bring back the sharpness/clarity of the older game engines (Quake, Source, whatever the old Battlefields used etc.) while keeping the more advanced effects? Personally, I think some of the effects do make things appear more realistic (i.e. all of the dust/haze in the desert/snow BC2 maps) but might also be detrimental to the gameplay experience depending on the type of game. Fore example, playing Dirt 2 single player, I found the graphics to be amazing and incredibly immersive; however, I found some of the same effects used in BC2 to be annoying since I cared less about immersion and more about being able to clearly see my environment.

On another note, while I don't like the haziness of some newer games (i.e. BC2 at times), I think that proper motion blur can be really effective. One reason I think I found Crysis's campaign so cinematic was the depth of field and motion blur that made everything from the enemies to your allies look more lifelike (especially in terms of movement).
 
That bloom in BFBC2 is part of the artstyle, the entire SP campaign is like that in many areas both swampy and desert. However, since you can completely turn it off this thread is moot.

edit. No I am not tired of 'next gen' graphics, I crave the newest artstyles, innovation, tessellation, texture work and creative ideas. What a terrible world if would be if game designers were not progressive.
 
Spare-Flair said:
I know exactly what you mean. This is the deferred shading engine effect in use. Most of these "next gen" games are like the Unreal 3 [/url]

Bad Company 2 uses deferred shading as well I believe, but it's not as bad as the OP's screenshot. I do find the desert levels are far too overexposed and the lightning is too bright.
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no, deferred rendering looks no different at all.
it CAN make it look different (ie lots and lots of dynamic lights for cheap!) but there is no side effect that makes it look different by default.


the bloom in BC2 is just that, stupidly overdone bloom. nothing more.
the color scheme in the game is pretty boring and on some maps you'd actually be hard pressed to spot someone just because it's THAT BRIGHT.

http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/94578894-4.jpg bloom off
http://screenshot.xfire.com/s/94729369-4.jpg bloom on

DUMB either way, it's just bad art direction.


i think Crysis actually did a really good job. it had a ton of the usual suspects but managed to never overdo anything, instead it looked fucking good instead of washed out shit or blurry / greasy whatever.
 
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