Why don't they make games like that!?

Cafe Society
#1

Has anyone used mad onion’s 3dmark2001?

There is one demo in that of a meadow with grass and a river and a fisherman. Those graphics compared to the average computer game are like the mona-lisa compared to a picture of a triangle.

I’d LOVE a game if they made the graphics like that. I wouldn’t even want to progress, I’d just want to roam around in the scenery!

But NOOOOOOoooooooo! they want to make money (that’s all they fucking want. the world is crap) so they create games that work well on low/medium spec pcs. which means they’ll sell far more copies. and make more fucking money!

There used to be games that were really great,epic, profoundly enjoyable. Now the games are almost designed to appeal to our surface , shallow , basic, feelings as quickly as possible. appealing to shallow feelings ultimately leaves us unfulfilled. Games used to appeal to our deeper feelings, our imaginations, our evolved brain. they did justice to the magnificent marvelous qualities that we all have deep down (and seldom used) in our skulls.

Games Like Flashback. I loved that game. the graphics were nothing special but there was something about it that made it a very special game. The future in which the game was set really inspired the imagination!

Or maybe I just played it back in a time when I loved life, and could enjoy a game more.

Has the world changed or have I changed? Have I got so used to it that I can’t enjoy it like I used to? I don’t think so because every now and then I get an inkling of a thought or sense (a bit of music, or something I see) that gives me a tiny window into bits of life that still can be enjoyed, that can be euphoric (and legal). Why can’t I access those things fully? Are they reserved for when I get older (I am 22).

I digress.

#2

Well, I’m not much of a computer expert, but actually I think it has more to do do with the fact that a computer game is putting a lot of processing power into performing operations you DON’T see, whereas the program you mention is putting everything into visuals.

#3

Space Vampire hit the nail on the head with that one.

You say that right after asking why games aren’t made with just looks in mind. Was that intentionally humorous, because it was hilarious to me?

And if you want a game that looks great, get Dungeon Siege.

#4

I am a computer expert (I must be because I don’t normaly have the nerve to utter such bold statements) and I know that the extra work that the processor has to do for most games is insignificant compared to the amount of work the graphics card needs to do.

The demo in 3dmark takes advantage of high-end PCs. High end PCs usually include graphics cards that have HwT&L. This means the graphics card does all the mathematics involved in placing things in their correct places in the scene and lighting them. This leaves the PC virtually free to do other stuff.

Now except in a really complicated game, the pc will have done all its work before the graphics card has done its. So the framerate difference between a simple game and a complicated game is likely to be non-existent.

It is even less likely the more complicated the graphics get. In the 3dmark2001 demo the PC will be twiddling it’s thumbs while the graphics card transforms, lights, and rasterizes the magnificent scene. If the PC had lots of work to do it would be able to do it while it waits for the graphics card to do a frame.

Long story short - I know a good PC (with a HwT&L graphics card) is capable of doing games with as good graphics as that demo. even if the game is complicated.

#5

It was sort of a joke because I was just idly rambling for the sake of it.

But the graphics in the demo are not “flashy, appeal to simpletons” graphics. they actually inspired deeper feelings. It was the imagination that went into them that made them better than anything I’ve seen in any game. Not the technical qualities.
The thing I am against is using flashy but unimaginative graphics. the graphics in that demo were imaginative (they just happened to be flashy too).

And as for Space Vampire hitting the nail on the head. His statement that PCs have a lot more work to do with games is correct. but the extra work is unlikely to affect the framerate. That demo could still run at that framerate even if the PC was as busy as a bee, as long as the computer had the HwT&L graphics card (see my other reply). I know what I am talking about. I would not say games should have graphics like that if I did not know they could.

3dmark has some other demos which are amazing too. there’s a sea scene. a harbour scene. and a matrix style scene (which is not as good as the others but the slowdown bullet effects in it are cool)

#6

in case anyone wondered…

HwT&L stands for Hardware Transform and Lighting.

Nvidia cards have it. Mine is a geforce 3.

a HwT&L card does…

Transforming objects into the scene (scaling, rotating them to their correct position, and moving them to their place in the ‘world’)

lighting the objects.

rasterizing (converting all the 3d data into a 2d image)

a traditional 3d card does…

rasterizing. that’s it. (it does some ‘effects’ but those are part of the rasterization)

any questions?

#7

I tell everyone T&L stands for tits & legs. :slight_smile:

Hey, I just remembered something. There’s someone on this board that works for one of the game companies in Austin. Maybe he/she will pop in and give you the lowdown.

#8
      • I do not work for any game company. All I have is my experience: one game I bought a couple years back (-I can’t recall which it was) had an “advanced graphics” setting. If you had (what was) a fast/fastest PC at that time, and also had what was one of the most expensive gaming videocards available at that time, you could put the graphics setting on some super-duper level that was supposed to be better than all the others. Problem was, at the time, not many people had such fast PC’s and such expensive videocards, and by the time average-priced PC’s sped up, that particular videocard was no longer made, and the drivers in the game didn’t work on subsequent videocards- even from the same manufacturer. -So what happened was the game company put in a lot of added expense and trouble, for a graphics setting that probably not too many people who bought the game ever got to use. And there it is.
        ~
        … -And as a matter of fact, from my reading of the trade press, game publishers tend to obsess heavily with the game’s appearance (believe it or not), often to the detriment of other qualities. - DougC
#9

Game manufacturers want the game to be able to run with two-year old technology, so it will sell plenty of copies. Yes, you can make it so the game reduces detail considerably for lower-end systems and almost all games do this, but there’s a practical limit to how different you can make the low settings from the high settings and still have it be the same game. You also have to consider that games are in development for a long time, usually at least a year, and hardware technology will change a lot during that time.

This is part of the reason why console games often have better graphics than their PC counterparts, at least when the current crop of consoles is relatively new. You could make games as pretty as the better X-Box titles for the PC right now, they could actually be a lot better as monitors support much higher resolutions, but you aren’t likely to see them anytime soon because the publisher is going to demand that the game is playable on a 500 Mhz PIII with 128 MB of RAM and a 16 MB 3D card. To make a game like Halo playable on said system would take a lot more than reducing texture and geometric detail - they would probably also have to reduce the number of enemies visible on the screen, drastically reduce the distance you could see, remove fogging effects - all stuff that would change the actual gameplay, not just it’s appearance.