Honestly it is difficult to make video games look alot better than they do now. You can see this from X1 and PS4. There isn't a huge jump at all. I remember the Dreamcast's launch day...what a glorious day that was. The jump in graphics was crazy. Soul Calibur and Ready to Rumble Boxing were unreal at the time. Don't think I will ever have that feeling again


ugh, there I go getting all depressed again when i speak of the amazing Dreamcast...i love that console



It does look good, but there isn't a huge jump like you say. I think if you showed 100 people the game, 75 of them would not be "blown away". Also, I don't care how good a game looks if it is just a QTE fest for most of the game.

I have two GTX 780 Classifieds currently hooked to a 42 monitor and was thinking of going to three screens. The six screens setups seem to be a bit much. I like keeping the FPS up as high as it can go also.

I have no interest whatsoever in having that many monitors. the black bars (borders of the monitors) are way too distracting

I've disagreed with diminishing returns on graphics in past generations (PS2/XBox games look pretty bad right away to me compared to something like Gears of War), but think it's happening for this one. Maybe games in another year or two will change my mind.

For real. I have been reading all over the net from gamers and publications "Next gen? look at that lighting, look at that water, it blows 360/PS3 away!!"

Well, when the Dreamcast was released -- "Look at....EVERYTHING...absolutely everything blows PSX and N64 away"

But its like I said before, you have to consider the aging factor. The Dreamcast was 15 years ago. You were much younger then. Younger people are much easier to impress than older people. That's the primary reason you don't see a huge jump now is simply because you're harder to impress now than you were 15 years ago.


Again that is highly dependent on what people you are asking. I bet if you showed it to 100 kids and teenagers they would all be "blown away" just like we were "blown away" when we were kids and teenagers.


Its a lot lot more than just lighting and water. Textures are much better. Character models are much better. More polygons on screen, etc. Its basically everything and it is as significant of a jump as it was from PS1 to PS2 to PS3.

Also consider you haven't actually seen any of these games in-person yet. You have only seen them on scaled down internet videos. It always looks better in-person.

Just keep telling yourself that.

Seriously, its not rocket science to figure out we're less impressed with this gen simply because we're older and harder to impress. It has nothing to do with the games themselves or any diminishing returns BS. Its just us getting older.

I don't think it has anything to do with age either. I can look at Gears of War or Uncharted 2 and compare it to PS2/XBox generation games and still come away impressed right now. I can compare the same with current launch titles or even Battlefield 4 on my PC which is running at higher resolution and detail then the PS4/XB1 and feel like there's less of a difference right away.

A good example for me is sports games. NBA2K14 looks pretty amazing and one of the better showcases for the differences between generations, but the difference is far less of a jump then the generation before that. Especially when you look back at the PS2/PS3/PS4 character models.

You also still have to consider that all we are seeing right now are launch games that suffer from developers being inexperienced with the new hardware.

Gears of War and Uncharted 2 came after the developers gained experience with the hardware.

Wait a few years and see what PS4/X1 games look like once the developers get more experienced and know how to better optimize the hardware.

Which is what I already said a few posts up before you.

Either way, it's hardly a case of being "impressed" at a younger age which I think is kind of silly. I'm looking at the difference in screeshots right NOW and making the judgement, not using nostalgia or memories the way some people remember old games being better then they were.

Truth be told, the new consoles do nothing for me either, but that's really because I have grown out of gaming. There's really only a handful of games from last gen that I played and enjoyed. Despite not caring much for gaming anymore, I can still see an enormous difference in Ryse compared to last gen.

Also another thing that shows diminishing returns is BS is movie CGI. The best movie CGI is miles better than the best video game graphics. Movie CGI keeps improving and so does game graphics, but game graphics will never actually catch up.

Why is it silly? Kids are more easily impressed. They get more easily frightened by horror movies. They care more for Christmas. They care more for birthdays. They care more for getting gifts. They care more for things that are "new and exciting." So on and so on.

Kids are much more impressionable than adults. Its just part of being young and innocent versus old and jaded.

Your example of movie CGI has nothing to do with diminishing returns either. No one would disagree that graphic improvements have and will continue to improve, but it doesn't mean the amount of improvement and detail that people actually notice is equally as significant. The difference in say, Pixar's short Tin Toy to something like Toy Story is far more significant then say, the difference Monsters Inc. to Monsters University. In my opinion, anyway.

I can see a pretty good increase in image quality between PS3 vs PS4 in that picture.

I explained with the rest of the sentence that you cut out. What impressed you as a kid is fairly irrelevant to this conversation because there's visual proof you can reference now instead of relying on nostalgia and memories. I'm looking at screenshots right NOW. Not 15 year old me, but 31 year old me. And 31 year old me can judge the visual difference between generations as is without relying on what I might have thought 6-7 years ago or even 15 years ago.

So can I. But we're not discussing whether it just looks better, but whether the jumps in graphic improvement are less noticeable each generation. What's the bigger leap, PS2 to PS3 or PS3 to PS4? Based on the screen shots so far that I can find, I think the previous generation jump is far greater.

EDIT: Anyway, in the end I think the discussion is subjective. Someone can probably count % increases in pixels, texture sizes, or resolution to try and prove visual fidelity, but in the end it's still just an opinion because there are so many varying factors in what people look for, what they notice, and hell, limitation in people's eyesight.

Well of course it is... previous gen was non-HD to very little HD,- mostly 4:3 to HD (500+p to 1080p) mostly if not all widescreen - of course that is going to be a big jump.

Now we are going from HD (500+p to 1080p) to similar resolution levels, so only the quality of the textures and the amount of them on the screen is going to be the difference...

Which taffer says is BS

Can I go play a PS2, N64, Gamecube, Wii, OG Xbox, Dreamcast and not be distracted/underwhelmed by the graphics compared to the PS3, PS4, PC, 360 and One? no... hell no.

I am a graphics whore in some respects and games I used to play for hours I can't really play anymore (Especially early PS1 and N64 games) because of how bad the graphics are compared to what I am used to.


The PS3 and 360 will remain hooked up indefinitely because the difference of playing the older systems is not a shock to the system and are playable for years to come (if time allows... stupid huge backlog...)

We have a great discussion going on here. Very insightful. Taffer, for me I don't feel my age is a factor in my view of graphical leaps. I am 35, so I was 20 when the DC was released. Fire up an N64 then fire up a dreamcast. Then do the same with PS3 and PS4. There is no contest. The jump to the Dreamcast was much larger.

5990x1200 adds bezel correction to 5760x1200 (three 1920x1200 screens). There are two bezel divisions, each being 115 pixels. It keeps the image from having a disjointed look (very annoying in games).

Is there any way you could remove the bezels that obstructs the view?

I'm going to say 5 years for PS4 and XBone. But, I think we will see a unified Nintendo system (portable and console) by holiday 2016.