I love rF2 and I'm in love with it, but I'm coming form 2 years of GT5 and I after I saw this new screen shoots from GT5: I'm wondering, How can a 6 years old hardware achieve these outstanding level of graphic?! Can I make this question to ISI? do you have the capacity to achieve some thing like that? Can we hope that within 2-3 years we may see something even close to those levels? I Know that rF2 is all about physics/ffb, realism... but I would love to have some thing close to the screenshoots posted above! Please don't bring AC or IR in this discussion!
These aren't realtime renderings, but renderings in photo mode (takes some seconds to calculate). Nevertheless these graphics look great and very detailed. Polyphony Digital with ~110 employees do have some resources for modeling cars.
Never lose hope brother! Although one could argue if ISI was ever capable of doing such graphics how much of a sim there would be left for us to toy arround with.
I'm quite confident that this kind of graphics are realtime renderings this year, dont have to wait for 2-3. Certain things that GT5 has been showing are quite advanced for ps3. As it has been stated by few game developers already that last years game releases came as close to taking all out of the ps3 as it is possible. Obviously cant take that as face value, but its getting there. Photo mode in GT5 does give a little glorified picture of what does the realtime render version looks like while you watch replay or drive yourself, but at the same time it is a cool toy and makes good PR shots on the side. What comes to rF2 and graphical improvements, as soon as ISI slaps all that they have developed and accomplished concerning the gfx engine into the same package we can see what rF2 will really look like. Also modders are the ones who usually end up showing what the engine can really do, but polishing is not gonna be finished anytime soon, as GSC shows quite nicely. Taking into consideration that GT5 is using dx9 (as are all ps3 titles) and doesnt have any dx11 effects/features at its disposal, its quite safe to say that rF2 is going to end up looking atleast as such, and Im sure that within couple years will overtake by a good margin.
I played GT5 with my son for the first time in a long time and just can't help being blown away by the graphics after having been playing PC sims exclusively for some time. What's funny is I will never forget first playing Grid 2 and thinking "wow, I wonder how much better graphics can get!" IIRC, soon after that, I discovered RBR and I left console gaming behing for good and excused RBR graphics due to amazing physics and ffb and also because it was somewhat dated by the time I discovered it. My son also plays Dirt 3 and great graphics there too I think, but GT5 is simply unbelievable. I don't see rf2 getting anywhere close to GT5 but hey I hope I'm wrong.
Realistic? You guys are fooled by marketing and PR, that does not look real at all. The interior shot especially is very unrealistic. This is realistic, and yet never seen in games which call themselves simulators. Imperfect paintjob, dents, worn tires, rust, dirt...
Programmers for a video game console (such as PS3 and GT5), only have to care to program for one specific hardware specially designed for that, while ISI programmers have to program for very diverse hardware, designed for multipurpose uses. Also two things, the most important ones; one is budget. Sony's budget for creating a game as GT5 is enormous and that can get a lot more people working on the graphics design. And second, ISI's main efforts are in creating a simulator taking more care in car physics that in car graphics. My opinion, super graphic detailed cars are only usefull when you want to watch replays, when I'm driving is what I care less for.
I also add.... take a look at this picture's quality, it's game captured (not specially rendered for posing) and it's not GT5's. full size: http://rfactor.net/web/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/c6rlrp.png
Just a little bit of clarification here.... Neither GT5 or any other PS3 game uses DirectX 9. Instead, it uses some weird custom extension libraries to OpenGL ES 1 and Nvidia CG, so it's hard to really compare it directly with any particular version of DirectX since well... Unless you do work on the PS3, you don't have access to that stuff. Regardless, as has been pointed out elsewhere, it's less about the version of the graphics library and more about the usage and the resources. The faster the system, the easier it is to make something look good. Hence, things tend to look much better these days then they did before. I think most people would agree that GT5 is one of the best looking racing games out there, and sure, it's a lot of fun to play. That said, I am very hopeful for rF2's graphical future, especially with the robust HDR system.
But Will rF2 use dx11? Dos it use it now? Im not sure. Will rF2 use Parallax shader? It wood be nice with a list of what they will use in terms on graphic. I think the graphic is impotent to win the "Sim war" Did they take some of the graphic away from the last build?
rF2 is running on dx9. It has been said by Tim that maybe someday they will do the dx11 version, but its not a priority atm. I do agree that the sim is easier to sell to the audience if there is things out performing the competition, graphics being one of them, but when talking about a sim, I think the realism and the experience in its entirety is more important. Obviously realistic appearance is part of the realism part, but is it nessesary to have photorealistic graphics in making of a good sim, No. Would it be a huge bonus, great to have, hopefully the most beautiful game ever created, Ofcourse. Eye candy is the first thing that people do take in and it raises further interest most effectively when it comes to gaming in general, but good graphics alone cant make a good game. rF2 is in so many aspects already there, and keeps heading twards becoming the #1 sim to date.
Golanv>> I do agree with you that most important in a sim is the realism, But I can see that eye candy is very important for a lot of people. Sim/Eye Candy is 60/40% Important for me, and that has to do with the league im in were wi broadcast the races and then it is important they it look good. And so much can happens in the game, like realistic crashes, rain (well wi got that) Pit Animation and so on. I guess wi have to wait and see, how it all turns out. If I had any coding skills I wood like to help the team. I can how ever make 3D and Animation when needed.
What's unrealistic about clean, brand new car? For me, graphics is realistic if it correctly shows what it means to show. If game has only brand new cars with no dirt on them, but does a good job rendering these brand new cars, then I'd call graphics realistic.
In terms of details, that kind of quality was possible even earlier than that, but not for realtime rendering I mean that, it isn't and it never was a problem for an artist to build such a detailed car, it just cost much more time. (and performance) In terms of lighting and shaders...maybe K Szczch would tell us something more about that . When I look at these screenshots I see a lot of similarities to his rf1 shaders.
Indeed, I have g25 shifter that becomes my handbrake/button box. This damn game has made me spend over 800 euros on sim stuff already.
DX11 is not even that important. Game could look in DX9 a lot better than it is looking now. But it all comes to engine capabilities. I think there would be major overhaul needed for RF2 to look like GT5, Forza, pCARS etc...