Why games still aren't photo-realistic?

Question for technies here. I always thought at one point we'll get to photo-realistic graphics in games (realistic character models, global illumination, etc..).

With all the advancements in hardware today, do you think we'll get there by end of this gen (say 2018?) or we're still way off from achieving photo-realism?

I mean, what's holding devs from doing this? What's the next milestone in graphics tech (e.g. GI, Ray Tracing, etc..) companies need to focus on in order for this to happen?

Current gen consoles can barely achieve 1080p 60fps

And why not photorealism at 720p or 900p?

Either way, I like different art styles. I don't think I'll be too impressed with photorealistic games when they finally come.

The closest is the vanishing of ethan carter when it comes to photo realistic texture

Because image quality and performance are a priority, gladly.

I'm happy with current graphics at native 1080p, though. Games like Metro Redux, Infamous Second Son, Dragon Age Iquisition, etc look good enough for me.

true, however, the characters on that game are blocky and very unrealistic

But for example... imagine a photorealistic FIFA at 720p, wouldn't it look better than the current FIFA at 1080p? The same way I consider an HD ready football match on TV better looking than a full HD FIFA match on the ps4. Photorealism adds a layer of quality for certain things which I don't think can easily be subtracted by a lower resolution.

On the other end of the spectrum would be Mario Kart... Keep photorealism the **** away from MK please :P

Not for me. I would prefer a good looking game with a clean image , over a fuc*ing incredibly looking game full of jaggies any day.

I know i'm in a minority, but i favour resolution over most graphical aspects.

Even Time Pilot '84 graphics looks good enough for me too. But why do you think photo-realism will take away something from those older era games? Cartoonish & photo-realistic games could co-exist.

Also @ianhh6 has a good point, can current hardware achieve photo-realism at say 480p?

because it is a waste of time and resources to make such graphics, a. from the developer point of view making such high res textures, and b. from the resource hog such textures and effects would be. There is such a thing as diminishing returns on graphics.

Video games are similar to cartoons: not live action. Very few games (Flight Sims/Racing) will operate well with photo-realism.

More to the point: it's fucking boring.

Simple. Our standards of photorealism have increased. When Crysis came out in 2007, we all thought it was photorealistic. The Order and Ryse now look better than Crysis did. But we somehow don't think it's photorealistic. It's a threshold problem

Didn't they make a game that was almost perfectly photorealistic by taking pictures of objects for their textures? I can't remember the name or how exactly it was made, but I think I saw it on a Reality Check. And wasn't the Silent Hill P.T. pretty close to photorealism?

i think it was ethan carter, and while the game looked great there wasn't much else going on in screen, same for PT, and neither of them really look photo realistic, the resolution of the textures would have to be huge. Still, i don't think is worth it to waste so much resources making a game completely photo realistic, there are ways of making games look great without sacrificing much performance or resources.

if only it were that easy but there's AI, lighting, physics, etc. and all of these take an even bigger toll than resolution and frames. Resolution and frames are always the first things to sacrifice because most people can't even tell a difference but they don't really take that much resources contrary to what many might seem to believe. Even MSAA x4 is more demanding to a GPU than 1080p and the trade is more than worth it.

We dont have hardware that can do them or devs that want to try and make those type of graphics.

UE4 has been pretty impressive with some of their apartment demos. The Paris one just came out recently. That's a start, without any character models, of course. Photorealism will be more in demand if VR goes mainstream, too. People will want to walk, or fly, around realistic looking places in the world.

This is true.

Here an exercise: Watch some gameplay vids of Saturn or PS1 games on youtube for about 10 minutes, and then play any current generation tittle. Current gen games look flawless in comparison ;)

@Gue1: @Motokid6: @Krelian-co: Ethan Carter, yeah, that's the one. Guess you're all right, it's too much to expect from current gen hardware, and it's much more demanding than framerate and resolution, but I'm sure it'll be possible next gen. Physics engines have come a long way and they seem pretty close to perfect already (to me anyways, which is to say, the untrained eye :P ).

Though like I said, art over realism. I still think Journey is the most beautiful game I've ever played.

We can't even get to 80's CGI.

Because even with the most powerful GPUs on the PC, our real-time rendering tech is still no where near powerful enough given our current methods of rendering graphics.

It's getting better. Stuff like DX12 and whatnot will help PC games better utilize the GPUs, but we're still many years off.

You also want to avoid the uncanny valley. Unless you can do perfect graphics and animations, something will always look a bit off about graphics and be a huge immersion breaker. It's far easier for our minds to know that we are still looking at CGI instead of tricking into thinking its looking at real life.

There is also the whole development time element. The amount of detail needed for a modern level is unbelievable. Going even more photorealistic would add even more work required for even the most basic environment.

Because the hardware isn't there yet, end of really. Even a lot of CGI isn't on that level.

Cost, time, technology & the somewhat shakey moral grounds of splattering an actual realistic human's brains all over a wall vs a clearly fictional one.

@Captainqwark10: oh please.

Why would anyone want that?

This. Consoles are holding tech backwards with low powered APU and lowest common denominator garbage.

Once everyone has ascended into my Master Race, games will be photo realistic. Until then, we are all held back by the peasantry that is consoles.

This is true. Remember when Mortal Kombat came out and almost everyone thought it was photorealistic. Over the years plenty of racing games have claimed this. One that comes to mind is Super Bike 2001, the in track graphics looked photorealistic and there were a lot of forum posts comparing real life pics with game pics. Also Richard Burns Rally I remember a lot of forum posts with people comparing youtube videos of real rally with videos of the game. Now that I think about it many racing games over the years have had a pepsi challenge type marketing campaign in which you have to tell which of two pics is the real world one and the game one.

Obviously now you hear the term photorealistic and look at all those games and you give out an ironic smile and shake your head.

It's true. We haven't reached 80's CGI at all. Yeah, we have better TV;s, but look at those movies on current TV's for comparison ad you will see that 80's CGI is still a bit ahead.

because no one wants to play in 10fps?

Already fully possible on PC, and not even SLI or anything, all you need is a 970 or above and photorealism is achievable and more than playable.

But, games will keep advancing, we'll never be satisfied (nor should we).

Photo-realism is the most overrated ism in gaming.

Probably another 10 years.

What is "photo realism"? I would say that Avatar is still the closest example we have and even that looks off at times.

It took one of the most powerful super computers in the world- with a core that has 1,280,000 processors and 3,328,000 gigabytes of memory to render avatar frame by frame. So how long until we have consumer grade products that can push those types of visuals in real time? Another 20-40 years.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-03-02-if-only-all-forests-in-rpgs-looked-like-kingdom-comes

Our eyes will always be able to tell the difference. The more realistic they try to be the more obviously fake they appear to the naked eye. Uncanny Valley.

There were photo realistic graphics in arcades around 1992. The public vomited and they went back to "normal" graphics.

More or less this. Real-time video game graphics today have barely even caught up with FF Spirits Within from 2001. Reaching Avatar is still years away. Then there's the uncanny valley to overcome. Eventually reaching photo-realism is at least a decade or two away.

because nvidia scammed us out of 500mbs

One of these is Gran Turismo 6(PS3).

Or none of them could be GT6.

To make a scene look photo realistic you need accurate lighting and for that you need ray tracing and that is VERY cpu intensive. To make a scene look truly realistic you need lots of 'bounces' of the rays of light in the scene and the amount of computing power it takes to do that is staggering.

We can do it to a degree right now but the image is a slide show instead of fluid motion everyone expects in their games.

To do what is required at even 30fps let alone 60fps will require a quantum leap in computational power far far in excess of even the best most powerful pc's currently.

It can be faked to a degree with pre baked lighting however the human eye is very astute in spotting fakery like this and the illusion is soon blown.

For real truly photo realistic games we could be waiting a while im afraid unless quantum computing suddenly has a major breakthrough but in the real world that is while off yet.

I believe there are not only hardware limits, but also economical limits to this. Making a photo realistic graphics in a game would be so expensive that the game couldn't possibly pay for itself.

Because it's boring and also because the most powerful console is still made up of a cheap ass tablet CPU and a GPU that barely matches a 570 from 2010.

It's debatable whether we'll ever see truly photo-realistic graphics in our lifetime, particularly when it comes to character models. Human facial features and skin is so incredibly complex to recreate because of the way it reacts to things such as light sources, so even in the most sophisticated movies, which have access to way more processing power than consoles and gaming PCs, it's easy to tell CGI from the real deal. Anyway, I'd argue that graphics have come so far that there's little to complain about them, and developers need to start putting more effort into more important things such as A.I, which has stalled badly for far too long.

Take an example such as The Order, which I use because I got to try it on my brothers PS4 recently, and imagine how much better the game would have been if they'd concentrated less on the aesthetics and more on the A.I. It's absolutely terrible for an AAA game and results in an utterly tedious experience. Whack-a-mole enemies, with the occasional charging one, and don't get me started on the Lycans - they're supposed to be this scary and formidable opponent but their A.I behaviour is a complete joke. It wouldn't have even been difficult for the devs to at least code them to climb walls and attack from different angles or something, but they obviously couldn't be bothered.

The standard of A.I in games generally right now is atrocious, with all the focus being on graphics and resolutions and it's slowly making me bore of gaming, with only a few future titles actually exciting me. Enough of the glorified tech demos already.

cause consoles are weak

PC can do this: