Why are PS2 Graphics Cr@p? - A Serious Debate

OK Its been a good debate so far.

Lets try and leave the PS2 vs DC graphics for now though. Its a whole different topic really.

So far it seems you are all happy with the PS2\'s graphics and you think that it will improve some more. Fair enough.

Anyone else want to reply with some different responses?

Anyway im off for sleep now. Chances are when I next check the forums there will be too many posts to reply to each one - if anyone else shows interest in the debate - but ill try and at least reply to some of them.

RichGUK, pretend you just entered 4th grade.  During your first day of school, you get a 10-question Basic Math test.  Easy.  Three days later you get a 50-question test on calculus.  You fail.  What\'s your excuse?

My only gripe with the PS2 as of late would be its textures. The aliasing issues have gotten better, they aren\'t completely gone, but compared to first-gen games, they are doing a good job. The textures is the only aspect of the PS2 that is bothering me @ the moment. Many games have decent textures, and a few upcoming ones look to have good textures, but that\'s the thing.

Why should the textures be decent, or good? I think they should be great. I mean, 2 years later, and perhaps we\'ll get DC-caliber textures? I hope the texture-streaming ability wasn\'t complete BS, and the PS2 still has the potential of pumping out great textures with minimal sacrifices to other areas.

One aspect of the PS2 that has kept me happy - framerate.

Many of you have b!tched that the PS2 has plenty of games that are choppy, or don\'t run @ 60. It\'s true, but look @ the developer. 95% of all the big games, made by the best developers, are running @ a beautiful 60fps. Something which I think should be a standard in this age of gaming.

/ dm /

To be honest and un-fanboyistic (word?) as I can be I\'ll try and say this.

MGS2 will be the only revolutionary game graphics-wise coming to the PS2 for a while.  I know what you are saying RichGUK, and for waiting 14 hours overnight for a PS2 on launch, I expected to see the quality of games such as
this (7mb)
and this (33mb)

If you are looking for a jaw-dropping game, look at the Gamecube and Xbox.

This is what I think.  I may be an ediot but the only game that had me going "Wow!" was SSX, and that does have some slowdown.

Would Streaming the Textures make them high res and look better, cuz i\'m confused!!!!!

Answer me ok?

streaming of textures would just mean they are constantly moving textures off the DVD ROM into memory and over to the Graphics Synthesizers VRam when needed

In theory this would allow for much greater  texture usage and quality because the PS2\'s Vram is only 4mb and would get filled up easily. Streaming would allow for a constant swapping of textures and woulf then allow the PS2 to use quite a bit more textures

Unfotunately it is either way tougher then originally thought or just not possible to the degree we are all hoping.

DO expect PS2 games to get better and better with every generation as these techniques and the over all understnading of the machine comes to light

Will the PS2 ever reach texture quality of the NGC and Xbox I serioulsy doubt.

Ya know, I got Shenmue too.. and while it does look spectacular.. I wouldn\'t go so far as to say it looks better than anything on the PS2 and here\'s why...

First off, texture lossage. I notice alot of times that parts of a characters face or body will disspear when there is a lot of action going on. A prime example is at the end of the preview movie as the camera pans up the cliff to Sha Hua\'s face. She looks like a victim of a shotgun blast to the face until the camera gets real close. Also, the polygon models are fairly low. This is masked by the excellent texturing 90% of the time.. but durring closeups it really shows.

Secondly, Pop up. I\'m not just talking about buildings or scenery.. obsticals will pop up in your path without a moment\'s notice. While dead stopping for no reason as the console loads up the textures for the character is an annoyance, it\'d tolerable up until you get a part-time job. I\'ve always made quota, but when yer rushing around to get those last 2 boxes moved before 5pm it gets frustrating to dead stop as you run into noumerous "invisible" forklifts.

Third, Framerate. I\'ve seen this game littereally drop to 5fps before. Usually it hangs in there at a stead 30fps with occasional dips to around 25 - 20 durring processor intense moments. WHile not bad by anymeans, for the graphics whores out there that\'s a definate negetive.

I\'d also like to point out for those people who never played the game before, that all the Sega fanatics who used those ultra detailed "real-time" faces as proof of Shenmues superiority are misleading you. The actual faces in the game don\'t look anywhere near as good as that famous "Chai with the nasty earwax problem" pic. Those were taken from the Shenmue Passport disk. They are polygon busts of characters who explain game features. Since they\'re only visible from the chest up, much much more processessing power can be used to make them look great. The interactivity with them tho, is limited to paning the camera, zoom, and changing the light source.


Now I don\'t mean to dog Shenmue in any way. It\'s a great game, and a graphical beast. It just dosen\'t "blow away anything on the PS2" like you claim. Well, at least not without getting blown away itself in other areas by current PS2 games. If anything, what Shenmue represents is the struggle to get top notch quality graphics outta underpowered hardware. If every game on the PS2 were crafted with as much skill, determination, and inventiveness as Shenmue for the DC was.. we wouldn\'t be having this conversation.

BTW: There\'s jaggies everywhere. Don\'t let anyone fool you, almost every DC game I have is chocked full of Jaggies. It\'s expecially apperant now that I have a VGA adaptor. Any argument about DC vs PS2 that mentions jaggies is a worthless topic. With Xbox I\'d understand since it has FSAA built in.. but not the DC.

RichGUK, ok.  If we are only talking about graphics, then someone needs to mention The Bouncer.  The graphics were very detailed and very smooth (almost a little too smooth?)  I haven\'t played it for like 6 months, but back then, the graphics were very impressive.

Ddaryl, based on nothing but instinct alone, I think the PS2 will have equally good textures before its life is over.  Of course this is just my oppinion, but I think the PS2 will turn out to be a lot more powerful than anyone had anticipated.  Just wait and see.

I can\'t help but feeling a bit disappointed graphics wise as well. PS2 is good, but it isn\'t the be all, end all console of all time. When the hype was building up \'everyone\' expected something like that IMO - but they didn\'t quite get it. What they got is a nice console with decent DVD playback. But it\'s far from perfect.

Looking back and avoiding the hype there are only a handful of the released games I really want on PS2. In the (near) future there are bound to be more good games that I want and that will impress me, but for now PlayStation 2 is bordering on disappointment - at least if you got one at launch expecting a super DC/PSX killer.

So all in all I pretty much agree with RichUK.

Possibile explanations:

1-PS2\'s graphics look like crap because their developers are CRAP. They should of figured the system out by now.

2-The PS2 just isn\'t that great of a system overall. What were you expecting? Something to match the quality of Xbox and NGC games?

3-The PS2 is just extremely hard to develop for. We won\'t be seeing the best until the end of the system\'s life.

4-all of the above

One of those is most likely the true answer.

I\'m not really disatisfied with PS2 graphics, just with it\'s lackluckster games. I could care less about graphics. The PS2 games released this far have not caught my interest at all.

This is what Reflection said about the texture thing (Stuntman):

The textures being used on the object models are all hi-res - we could zoom in and out from a distant vantage point to the back of the tuk-tuk (the trike used on the Bangkok roof level) and still be able to read the wording on the temporary advertising poster that\'s pasted to its rear. This is made possible because of PS2\'s exhaustive DMA memory, which gives coders the chance to scoot lots of data about at an incredibly fast rate. :rolleyes:

Imo the PS2 wasn\'t really graphically impressive up to GT3, but expect some nice stuff in the near future though : Silent Hill 2 anyone ?

Knotter8

GT3 was the first really impressive game.. Graphics wise

[Living-In-Clip]

I\'m with Rich on this one . I was not impressed with any of the launch games. The only released game that impressed me graphics wise was Gran Turismo 3 and I still think the backgrounds in it look terrible.

However, games like MGS2, DMC and Maximo (which is gorgeous) all look to break the trend of bland looking PS2 games....

182Ways

Well maybe, but a year is hardly 3 days later. Same reply as before I suppose. Yeah hard to program for is a factor for some poor looking games. It shouldn\'t however be an excuse - not after a year.

Datamage

Yeah it worries me too. I see my 3dfx voodoo 1 on my PC running the likes of Kingpin and Half-Life which in terms of texture quality is about as equal as what PS2 is doing, if not better in some games - worrying thing is these PC cards and games are years old. I hope that this so called streaming technology isn\'t just a word like the "emotion" engine of the PS2, which hasn\'t really shown much in the likes of amazing things.

I can\'t help but think that the 4 meg of Vram is the achellies heel (sp?) of the PS2.

THX

Yeah it seems so true unfortunatly - the first person to agree.

DDaryl

Yeah that seems about right. I recorn Sony should of sacked the guy who decided to think of streaming technology and just stick with a nice chunk of VRam. Afterall streaming technology so far hasn\'t done much. The textures are fairly low quality. The first pics from Gamecube and XBox are a lot better where texture quality is concerned.

SonyFan

So true. Shenmue can be ripped to pieces. I too noticed how fork lift trucks would just appear like magic. The face details though are amazing if you ask me. When people speak and their expressions change and stuff - well its been done before but - it seems so real.

IronFist

Good call I forgot about The Bouncer. Very blurred game - apparently a feature not a thing to make it run smooth - but it looked great.

Samwise

Hay another person who agrees. Yeah I know what you mean. A fairly good console, average DVD player. Nothing great in terms of console gaming so far.

Jumpman

Developers are crap. Hmmm maybe. Theres a load of developers though this time so I suppose you could expect more crap ones than good ones, compared to other consoles. Also the fact that the machine is hard to develop for sort of makes the developers look crap.

As a whole though I agree.

Knotter / Fastson

Yeah GT3 does look good. Should be the norm though right ? Not the amazing GT3 as such but more the great looking GT3 along with the great looking other games.

L-I-C

Hay cool another person who agrees.


Oh well seems im not the only one thinking along these lines.

So theres people who think that the PS2 games look fine and they will get better and theres people like me who feel the PS2 hasn\'t done that much great stuff where graphics are concerned.

ya know, the graphics have gone so far that i have begun not to really care about what the graphyics are like. to me tis all bout great games. and so far there is only one for ps2 for me, GT3.

i bet GTA3 will be unbelieveably fun too but the games have been lacking in the innovation department.