The Domain Query series is finally back, with a new instalment, thanks to LRFotS Randale6. He had an unusual and rather interesting question for me, related to gaming, which I answered at some length here. The question goes as follows:
Departing from our usual fare I have one question: have we reached “good enough graphics” for gaming? What I mean by this question is have we reached the point in gaming where making your game the most graphically advanced (and ram chugging) wunderwaffen is even necessary to attract gamers?
For what I would consider the “base” where I started to see this occur in my mind I am bringing up a mass effect 3 (2012 release date) gameplay video. I never played any halo games but from research halo 4 was release in the same year as mass effect 3, so it should make a good comparison to mass effect 3 (I don’t believe you have played any mass effect games from what I can recollect).
Here is the gameplay video our boy mentioned:
It is a rather good question. In my personal view, graphics have plateaued – they haven’t peaked yet, but they aren’t really improving at the speed and levels that would tempt people to buy those games en masse. I think gaming will move back toward the things that make people actually fork out cash, by going back to the basics, because the obsession with having the most whiz-bang wowser graphics has resulted in serious deterioration of core gameplay mechanics, story, and character.
Of course, my views on gaming are positively archaic by modern standards, so I invite anyone who thinks differently, to comment below. Have at it, lads.
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4 Comments
If your looking for something new (console wise)…might you consider the steam deck? I haven’t gotten one yet but it is on my to do list once my current gaming laptop dies (if I had known about steam deck before I got my laptop I would have not gotten the laptop). It’s basically pc gaming on a better Nintendo switch (with the option to dock it to a tv/monitor for big screen fun). The steam deck is currently running what is called the steam OS (arch linux derived) and so far steam has been improving the deck’s ability to exploit it’s graphical hardware as well as it’s proton capability layer (having reformatted my previous laptop to be a linux gaming machine I can say confidently that proton has improved over the time I was using said laptop).
I suspect that as it continues to gain steam (pun fully intended) valve will eventually get the steam deck to the graphical performance of an xbox one S, valve itself stated that optimization was part of the switch to an arch linux derived OS, they want to be able to optimize it to the most granular level possible. This article from pc magazine (https://www.pcmag.com/news/steam-deck-vs-laptop-tested-how-does-graphics-performance-compare) gives a comparison against gaming laptops (the two benchmark games are Red Dead redemption 2 and Borderlands 3). The FPS figures are borderline decent on low settings for both games, at balanced settings the former is almost there, borderlands 3 witnesses a drastic drop (and I am curious why, I would have expected that out of red, not a borderlands game).
Interesting… I haven’t ever heard of the Steam Deck, but that might be worth a try. In my case, I would prefer to build a Linux-only gaming laptop, eventually. My current Lenovo ThinkPad T14 is awesome, but its graphics card is not a full-blown GeForce RTX. It is still more than sufficient to run HALO MCC, and that is plenty good enough for now. But I have to boot into a WinDOZE partition to do it, which I absolutely hate, because of the sheer amount of bloatware – not to mention the way Win10 updates randomly while I am playing.
I tried running H:MCC on my previous ThinkPad T470p, using the Proton compatibility layer, but it never worked properly – the screen resolution was never anywhere near good enough. That said, if I could get it to work here, I would happily close down my Win10 partition – and perhaps get rid of my TV and Xbox One as well.
frankly, i’m not sure that improved rendering really serves all that much purpose for gaming. not even if you had real time full motion 3d photo realism.
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one thing i’ve observed is that more blatantly “natural” looking rendering actually makes it more difficult to recognize what you’re looking at when you’re constrained to a 2d and 30 some inch monitor. the more cartoonish rendering of older engines and the higher contrasts and more limited palettes actually helps with the gameplay. and i was noticing that more than a decade ago.
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i’m not going to say that there’s no place at all for full immersion real time environments, obviously the flight sim people love the more naturalistic stuff. and RDR seems to get all kinds of accolades. but how many game genres actually need that?
I think gaming has change since the 2010s. A few reasons
1.Smart phones have a lot to do with this.
2.Demographics, most of what was sold back before the 2010s was focus on the Western market or the Japanese market. The Chinese market and other markets means you have to change the story to suit the market you are reaching.
3. The internet is more widely available and better connection. Games can be updated, new Dlc added and better online multiplayer.
4. With the focus on online multiplying instead of local.
5.A lot more completion and especially free to play.
6. Fewer triple A companies buying up growing lager.
7.SJW invading the video game space.
By the Way Didactic can you do a podcast on the effects of smart phones? I would really enjoy your take. Especially on the societal level.
Also can you mention how smart phone have now given government a new way of control. I think of Covid with governments of the west forcing shops and customers the push to have to scan location and later show Vax passport to buy a coffee and eat out or the even Chinese social credit system.