Slashdot Mirror
Is HD Important To The Future of Gaming?
Gamasutra's weekly question to the industry taps the pulse of designers and developers on the importance of HD in gaming. From the article: " Absolutely. After seeing a game like Oblivion in HD, I think most gamers will never look back. That's going to affect the amount of time and money that gets put into top-shelf games. It's certainly going to increase the market for texture designers. -Morgan LaVigne, Classroom, Inc "
because I cant frickin afford one. I got a DS. Thats not in HD. Yet its some of the most fun gaming I've had in years.
:)
But then again, I'm a cynical prick
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
... but that's it. Doesn't make new genres possible or improve gameplay. We just need faster and faster CPUs (for AI) and lower latency network connections more than another billion polygons or four times the screen resolution.
If there isn't more innovation people are going to get bored and stop playing.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Hi-def in games is essential in the near future because plumetting prices have encouraged many people to buy big, HD TV's. They need/want HD games for three reasons: (1) Standard-def looks poor on a digital (non-CRT) HD screen, because it has to be scaled to the HD unit's native resolution (2) On a big (40"+) screen, a game's graphical flaws (low poly count, low-detail textures, etc) are glaringly visible, and (3) In order to justify the $$ that they spent on their new HDTV's, owners want to know that all of their equipment (PVR, DVD, game consoles, etc) are showing HD content.
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
"Is HD Important To The Future of Gaming?"
Real time graphics have come a long way. However, I'm still watching DVDs that are far more visually stunning than I'm seeing on video game systems. In the mean time, to crank out the higher resolution stuff, you need more memory and more processing power. The result? Well, sure, you're rendering at higher resolutions, but you're not gaining much detail. Just some clarity. (Slower frame rates, to boot.)
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to play in HD, but plain ol broadcast still has a ways to go.
"Derp de derp."
... It's just another thing Microsoft takes credit for "innovating". My monitor does 1600x1200, meaning I can run some games in pretty damn "HD", and I've seen the low-res textures and models before anyone complained about 360 ports of Xbox games -- I'm talking about playing Quake3 and Jedi Academy at 1600x1200...
The only thing more "HD" about the 360 is that it's probably about 3x as powerful as my desktop. But that'll change, and I don't have to pay a subscription fee to download demos of indy games. For that matter, how can a game be "indy" if it's published by Microsoft? I'd hardly call them "independent"...
And I don't really want to pay $50 for a 360 game. Know why? Because they will almost certainly be too short/repetitive. UT2004 installed on something like 5 or 10 gigs, and then there were mods -- piles and piles of mods -- and that was nowhere near the level of detail in current "next-gen" or "HD" games, and yet, Microsoft stuck with the DVD format. I don't want to swap discs, and developers know this, so games will probably stay on one disc, meaning either lower detail, shorter games, or much more repitition.
If not, well then, there are good games that are relatively small -- Half-Life 2 is just over a gig -- but in that case, I'll just stick with PC gaming, thank you very much.
I'll wait to buy my 360 until it has a solid Linux port, and I can get a DVI cable to plug it into my monitor. Even then, I might just buy an original xbox -- they're getting cheaper every day.
And for the record, I'm as much of a pixel whore as anyone else, but I don't see enough good "HD" content coming out to pull me away from my very low-definition, high-content MMO. Nexus forever!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
HD has 4:3 aspect ratios too. It's a common misconception that HD necessarily means 16:9. In fact some xbox (1) games support 4:3 HD resolutions. It looks a little silly to play that way (since there's all that blank space unless you stretch/deform the picture) but it's nice to have the extra detail.
As for whether HD is critical to gaming, the answer should be DUH. It's been answered on the PC for years. 320x200 stopped being "enough" over 10 years ago. 640x480 (for practical purposes, this is standard TV res) went out with the VooDoo. If you are used to playing PC games at 1600x1200, you'll upgrade or drop other details before you drop resolution. It's just consoles and their addiction to the living room TV that have been stuck in the stone age.
No it wasn't. Compared to the images of pretty much any LCD game, the sprites in GB screen were unbelievably blocky. What GB did was allow the sprites to move freely, instead of just from one prepainted position to another; but as far as image quality goes, those old LCD displays beat GB hands down - and if we're just talking resolution and sharpness, they propably still beat any pixel-based display in existence.
GB allowed far more complex gameplay than the old LCD handhelds; but that happened at the expense of graphical quality, not because of it.
Personally, I have to wonder where the resources to make higher-resolution models and textures are going to come, and if they mean that game companies will become even less willing to take any risks. We need better content creation tools, where better means easier, and easier means faster to learn and faster to use. The current situation where game development costs keep on rising is simply unsustainable.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I don't think HD is the future on its own. Surely as HD adoption happens in the TV market place, HD will become necessary and common to satisfy those consumers. HD however, is rather meanlingless in the bigger picture. Most people don't have HD tv sets right now and aren't going out to purchase them just to play games. HD is going to become a bigger headache than anything for gaming companies in the immediate future. As companies make games, they are going to have to decide how much time to devote to making the game look good and with what resolution. In the last gen, companies focused on getting standard def to look as awsome as possible. This is evident on Resident Evil 4 on the gamecube. Capcom used the system well to get a beautiful looking game out there. If HD would have been a factor, they would most likely spend the time getting HD to be awsome with little concern for the standard def people. HD will be treated as a requirement to the game.
The situation will be similiar to the X-Box 360 hard drive issue. Gamers will be assumed to own the hard drive and games will be made with that assumption. Nintendo revolution is smart in putting off HD for a generation, this will allow all game companies to make games as pretty as possible for the majority of the consumers, not just those fortunate enough (or crazy enough) to be early HD owners...
in Morrowind, I turned up resolution when I was low level so I could avoid the flying bird monsters (they're a nightmare to kill if you don't have a good ranged attack untill you're pretty high level). I was able to see them clearly from a distance because I played in 1024x768. With tv resolutions they'd be indistinguishable green dots on you before you realized it (they draw a bead on you when they get close).
When I used to play Shadow Warrior on a lan playing in 640x480 gave me a huge edge, I could see players across the whole level and nail them with a rail gun while they ran around.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Because they also sell HD TVs, and, will sell you again all those movies you purchased on DVD, on the new Blu Ray.