Game Textures

[Particle]

Am I the only person who is noticing how low-quality the textures in games are?  For example, take a look at this image I took from Doom 3:

http://www.pcrpg.org/pics/misc/d3marine.jpg

This was rendered at 1600x1200 with 4xAA on Ultra Quality.

As nice as the scene is, look at the guy's armor.  Look at the blocks.  They look terriblely low resolution.  Now, some games seem to try to mask it by adding random "noise" to make textures look like they have sharper details like Serious Sam's totally bump mapped environment, but the effect is rather transparent.  There isn't any useful boost in detail--just a performance drop and textures with little dots all over them.

Even the next generation consoles aren't immune to this overall lack of texture quality:

http://www.in5ane.com/screenshots/display/4687-zelda_2
http://www.ic-games.co.uk/images/screen ... hots/1.jpg

I don't know what the problem is.  Are we that cheap that we consumers aren't willing to pay for the extra texture memory?  I don't think so.  I'd pay extra for 768MB or 1GB of video memory if it would help.  And that's where we should be.  An average card today should really be packing about 4x what they are.  There are many games out there that have been effected by limited texture memory.  You can feel it when you see the game.  Others actually use more than the common 256MB of texture memory (like Doom 3)...but still come up looking subpar.

Granted, I think we're beyond this:
http://www.pcrpg.org/pics/misc/grunt.jpg

So how far are we then?



Not nearly as far as we should be.

[Kyrie]

I think that alot of people wouldn't want to pay the extra money for the better parts to play better games. Better grapics would also mean higher game prices. How much are people willing to shell out for a new game?

From a business stand-point, I think they find the most money in putting out graphics just noticeably better than the games around them. Then that generation of games simply tries to match it, or come close, to save on money.
Maybe what they need is to give a larger spread of grapics options in games. Really let people cut way down on graphics so they can play it on slow machines, or let people really crank it up to play on their super machine. My computer was a pretty nice gamerig 4 years ago. I can barely keep up in BF2 now with grapics on ultralow and rez on 800x600. I just don't have the money (or space) to build a new computer right now. I'd like to this summer, though.

[Particle]

My gripe is mainly with the video hardware's memory.  The developers already develop really high resolution textures and models, but they are both cut down for the game's final media.  I just want the textures to look as sharp as a material it is supposed to picture.  So, texture person models with a 2048 pixel texture instead of a 512 pixel texture for instance.  That's what I'm getting at.  Game development costs wouldn't be any different.  It'd just be a higher resolution product.

[Darwin]

I too would pay extra to have the ability to play a game with high resolution, uncompressed textures.

As I would think it, it would actually help game development to only consider high-resolution textures, because then they would not have to incorporate compression techniques.

Now, I dont know that much about GDDR3, but can anyone tell me if it would be possible to create a card using expandable memory slots using GDDR3?  Or would not having the chips soldered directly to the pcb create bandwidth/latency issues?

[Particle]

Well, naturally a soldered connection is going to be vastly more reliable.  It also increases contact area--both good things for high speed connections.

[Lidge Farkley]

Indeed Particle.

As well.. my major beef is with physics engines and their inability to keep shapes from "going in to each other" on collision.

In other words:  I think collision detection should be up to par by now, at least, if not graphics and environment.

[Particle]

That's another thing.  Back in 1998, if you closely followed somebody in Half-Life DM, it would jaggie you around on your screen.  Six years later in 2004 when you follow somebody in Half-Life 2, the same thing happens.  It's annoying.

[Lidge Farkley]

Prime example!

I have also noticed that a lot of game textures are not really more detailed.. they have just had more repetitive detail added.
The quake screenshots you posted are a prime example of this.

I think... the next big game should drop ALL weather effects except for lighting.  Focus on Physics, Textures and Lighting (I guess that;s a kind of physics.)

[KoRo]

This conversation has really gotten me to look closer at my games. Example: Last night I was playing Battlefront II, great game I must say, but after paying close attention to it, I couldn't help but notice the hand that holds the gun just sort of...melts into it. And the textures on the glove are about as detailed as Tro'Brifs textures. Also, seeing ads on TV for both Battlefront II and Star Wars: Empire At War, I could definately see a lack of quality in the look of the game (now that could also be just an effect of showing game clips on a television, but still...)

Any speculations as to why?