S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl

[DJOGamer PT]

Right before The Witcher 3 released, I purchased the best card on the planet at the time, an EVGA 980 FTW, for 550-600 USD.

That's well within the range I specified
And by that time NVIDIA had already announced the TITAN X to release next year at 1200$ MSRP
Also had you waited 3 more months you could've bought the 980ti (the most powerful rgpu released in 2015) for 100$ to 200% more

How much for the very best 4080?

Right now, and here where I live, the 4080 Super Ventus can be bought for 1100€
It should be around 100€ less (or well the equivalent in USD) in the US (at least that's to me what always seems the case regarding gpu and cpu prices between here and the US)
Which again falls within that "400$ more expensive" estimate
Sure it's quite considerable, but it's even not double the value, let alone triple or quadruple...

No, there is no plateau

Maybe I should've explained myself some other way...

We might have a harder time telling the difference, but the computer does not

Why, with all this supposedly astounding technological horsepower, is Chaos Theory still superior in lighting and sound workmanship than almost anything made now?

If you're asking in regards to artistic/aesthetic merit, well that's one thing
But if you're asking in regards to actual technical prowess and detail, then the answer is a resounding NO - alot of games surpass Chaos Theory in lightning and sound quality

 

[Odoryuk]

Maybe I should've explained myself some other way...

3D mesh detail was solved years ago already, that's why graphics is going into lighting right now for progress. And there's no plateau, there's so many interesting stuff in lighting department that yet have to be picked up by devs, or waits to be affordable enough for average consumer (various realtime global illumination solutions and such, for example)

 

[Iucounu]

Metro Exodus was a solid game. While still very linear, it at least gave you a taste of an open design.

So did Mass Effect 2, and unlike Metro Exodus it was actually atmospheric.

 

[cvv]

Too many people don't understand that they are being played as chumps.

Or they do but don't care.

What's baffling is AMD is playing along. You'd think if you only have a sliver of the market you'd wage a full-scale price war on your opponent. As it stands Radeons ARE cheaper than Nvidias but not by much.

In other words you'd be a complete retard buying an Nvidia today but if you buy an AMD you'll only be about 20% less retarded.

 

[Iucounu]

I remember buying an 8800GTX about 20 years ago, I think it was the top card available at the time. It was about half the price of what a 4070 costs now. Since then they started making stupidly expensive shit. I remember the Titan and whatever else. 1 grand cards and more. Too many people don't understand that they are being played as chumps. It is horse armor for graphics cards. If people had zero tolerance for that shit then graphics cards would be cheap now. The fact that some idiot cashcows bought it means the entire industry is fucked forever. And the bitcoin farming shit was the final nail.

I'll never buy an Nvidia product again and if I ever upgrade my gfx card to a Radeon something, I will buy second hand because fuck them too.

I'd assume they rather sold larger quantities at lower prices (economy of scale). But since today's games are no longer worth upgrading for, maybe vendors have no other choice than to increase prices for the diminishing number of gamers that want to play Baldur's Gate3 in 8k resolution? If I were Nvidia I'd fight wokeism and DEI by every means, since it's literally destroying their market.

 

[Melcar]

I remember buying an 8800GTX about 20 years ago, I think it was the top card available at the time. It was about half the price of what a 4070 costs now. Since then they started making stupidly expensive shit. I remember the Titan and whatever else. 1 grand cards and more. Too many people don't understand that they are being played as chumps. It is horse armor for graphics cards. If people had zero tolerance for that shit then graphics cards would be cheap now. The fact that some idiot cashcows bought it means the entire industry is fucked forever. And the bitcoin farming shit was the final nail.

I'll never buy an Nvidia product again and if I ever upgrade my gfx card to a Radeon something, I will buy second hand because fuck them too.

I'd assume they rather sold larger quantities at lower prices (economy of scale). But since today's games are no longer worth upgrading for, maybe vendors have no other choice than to increase prices for the diminishing number of gamers that want to play Baldur's Gate3 in 8k resolution? If I were Nvidia I'd fight wokeism and DEI by every means, since it's literally destroying their market.

Games are no longer their market. They are an AI company now. AMD wants to follow suit.

The system requirements look decent for current year slop, but the graphical fidelity in videos being shown... it just doesn't add up. Then again, system requirements are always ballooned up to sell hardware.

 

[cretin]

Reflections back then weren't "real" (for a lack of a better word, don't @ me on this), they were mostly "achieved" through clever tricks

Not meaning to come off as a prick, but I lol'd reading this, as if everything in video gaming isn't a series of tricks. Thats what its supposed to be, an illusion, and effective illusion making is the art form. What does it matter that reflections aren't "real" if the solution used is effective at the illusion and is more performant than trying to generate "real" reflections? Why would reflections be the exception, and not all the other clever tricks we use to make good looking games that run well?

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

It's p. convenient of you to ignore the fact that all the Metro games are more advanced graphically because that's what they focus(ed) on: their graphics. They aren't open-world games like the STALKER games are and thus more time, effort, and hardware can be dedicated to the visuals in them.

STALKER 2 looks great. Calm down.

I thought you only played RPGs? Am I detecting a FRAUD?

 

[BrainMuncher]

Why are people bitching so much about raising system requirements in games? Are you all GenZ/millenial/whatever the fuck? You have your first computers? When was the last time you bought your PC and if it was low-end or more than 3 years ago why should new games work on it in 666 FPS 16k? You think you just buy computer once and play on it for eternity? This is kind of complains I can understand on Reddit or retardEra because average mental age of their users should be 15, but on a 'dex? Is it a 'dex Z now? And out of all fucking people in here it's Kang Crispy that provides a voice of reason? What the fuck, did I wake up in another dimension this morning?

Graphics cards tripled, sometimes quadrupled, in price from 10 years ago with (generally) no visible increase whatsoever in what you get for your money. In fact, the quality of games has fallen off badly, including graphically.
Someone who isn’t retarded sees this and understands correctly that they are being taken for a ride, the same way you often are with so many other goods now.

Fidelity has increased a fair bit but optimization and aesthetics dropped off a cliff

Like a tree now versus a tree then, the tree is much higher quality, but I don't necessarily stare at trees when I'm playing video games

Also power consumption on new Nvidia cards is getting out of control lol

Fidelity has increased too much in some ways, to the point that it is wasteful. Like these leaves in Serious Sam 4, insane detail that you will only see if you zoom in on them point blank with a scope:

Spoiler

 

[Ol' Willy]

Right now, and here where I live, the 4080 Super Ventus can be bought for 1100€

I remember how in the late 2000s you could buy a decent mid-tier PC for like 300-500 bucks. Not the top stuff, but capable of running the majority of games available at decent framerates

 

[Hace El Oso]

That's well within the range I specified
And by that time NVIDIA had already announced the TITAN X to release next year at 1200$ MSRP… Right now, and here where I live, the 4080 Super Ventus can be bought for 1100€
It should be around 100€ less (or well the equivalent in USD) in the US (at least that's to me what always seems the case regarding gpu and cpu prices between here and the US)
Which again falls within that "400$ more expensive" estimate
Sure it's quite considerable, but it's even not double the value, let alone triple or quadruple...

A top-end ROG Strix 4080 Super OC Super Duper Pooper Scooper costs 1300 USD, more than double the 550-600 USD I spent on my 980. A 4090, the closest analogue to the Titan X, costs 2300-3000 USD. Talk about hobbies costing money, I could almost buy a world-class sea kayak to use for the rest of my life for that.

If you're asking in regards to artistic/aesthetic merit, well that's one thing
But if you're asking in regards to actual technical prowess and detail, then the answer is a resounding NO - alot of games surpass Chaos Theory in lightning and sound quality

There cannot be any separation between artistic/aesthetic merit and artisan workmanship. As many automated programs and engine ‘modules’ can be deployed as you like, they will (and do) produce an inferior result without that workmanship to put them to good use.
The film world traded Jim Henson for CGI, gained nothing and lost everything. Game studios are trading the ‘eyebrow wrangler’ for outsourced automated facial animation programs, the list goes on and on.

 

[Echo Mirage]

I don't think graphics cards will ever reach sane prices ever again, the cat is out of the bag along with games costing over a hundred of whatever flavour of money you use. I will be shocked if I could ever buy an Nvidia card for the same price as even the RTX 2080 series.

 

[Harthwain]

A silver lining is that most AAA games aren't worth buying anyway and most indie games don't have unreasonable system requirements.

 

[anvi]

And old games work on anything.

I like that with 600 triangles you can see what it's supposed to look like and your imagination can fill in the gaps. And it runs fast. And with good art style it can look good and be immersive.

etc

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I don't think graphics cards will ever reach sane prices ever again, the cat is out of the bag along with games costing over a hundred of whatever flavour of money you use. I will be shocked if I could ever buy an Nvidia card for the same price as even the RTX 2080 series.

Well if you were intelligent you would just buy a console and never have to worry about it but...

 

[ferratilis]

I'd rather hear stalkers telling jokes, but this is also nice atmosphere.

 

[Ryzer]

Wow slavs smoke cigarettes and drink vodka, never seen before, quick must buy Stolker 2.

 

[Stavrophore]

Wow slavs smoke cigarettes and drink vodka, never seen before, quick must buy Stolker 2.

Its the symbolic yearn for masculine that was long lost and is now denied in wokester western reality. This is why a slav male captivates the western male brain. A male only adventure into unknown, full of dangers, competition and violence, where you do not have support network but must rely on your own wits and others are there to double cross you. A reminder of the old slavic times, when every weekend you traveled with your old lada with a trunk full of western goodies onto the trader stadium which was an adventure that could end being shaken by local mafia, police for counterfeit goods or worse with knife under your rib - something a late reagan/early bush american could had never dreamt off.

 

[randir14]

I'd rather hear stalkers telling jokes, but this is also nice atmosphere.

Is that Aunt Jemima bartending?

 

[ferratilis]

That's Beard, he had a sex change operation.

 

[cvv]

Looking at the screenshots and videos, if I didn't know it's Stalker 2 I'd have sworn it was a new Metro game. Everything from the NPCs to the feel of the game, the anomalies, the environments (rusted cars heaped on top of each other, the interiors in the video a few comments up)... I could swear they're using the same engine and a good chunk of the same assets.

 

[Stavrophore]

They definitely reused some assets[beside maps] from stalker games or metro[?].

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Not meaning to come off as a prick, but I lol'd reading this, as if everything in video gaming isn't a series of tricks.

C'mon man...

(for a lack of a better word, don't @ me on this)

You know what I meant

What does it matter that reflections aren't "real" if the solution used is effective at the illusion and is more performant than trying to generate "real" reflections?

It matters because what Ba'al was arguing (as I understood at least) is that there's no justification for RT being so much much more taxing than the older methods of achieving reflections
It also matters because since RT possess capabilities none of the methods can match, there's applications for which RT will be the better choice

I remember how in the late 2000s you could buy a decent mid-tier PC for like 300-500 bucks.

I also remember how in the late 2000s I could buy a piece of bread for no more than 5 cents
Now I'm hard pressed to find any baker that sells it for less than 20 cents

A top-end ROG Strix 4080 Super OC Super Duper Pooper Scooper costs 1300 USD, more than double the 550-600 USD I spent on my 980.

Ok, but you technically asked me for "the best 4080" not "the most expensive 4080"
And that's still a large way from triple, let alone quadruple

A 4090, the closest analogue to the Titan X, costs 2300-3000 USD.

Maybe where do you live
But here I can get one around 1900€ (600€ more than the Titan X costed)

There cannot be any separation between artistic/aesthetic merit and artisan workmanship.

You can argue that Chaos Theory uses it's lightning and sound system in creative ways that other games still don't rival
But it's another thing entirely to claim the lightning and sound tech of CT is better other games

I like that with 600 triangles you can see what it's supposed to look like and your imagination can fill in the gaps. And it runs fast. And with good art style it can look good and be immersive.

How many polygons a game needs depends entirely on what kind of game the devs are trying to make

600 polygons might have been enough to make Alone in the Dark, but they wouldn't be enough to make a game like this:

 

[Ryzer]

Wow slavs smoke cigarettes and drink vodka, never seen before, quick must buy Stolker 2.

Its the symbolic yearn for masculine that was long lost and is now denied in wokester western reality. This is why a slav male captivates the western male brain. A male only adventure into unknown, full of dangers, competition and violence, where you do not have support network but must rely on your own wits and others are there to double cross you.

It reminds me of the typical life in the countryside. One century ago, it was all like that in the West, and you can see the men were very different from today urbanite soyboys, see WW1 men.

 

[Stavrophore]

People would be surprised how low poly models for modern games would look like without all the mapping textures beside diffuse and without tesselation. Usually anything that is not close to camera, like faces or objects in cutscenes with closeups, is not going to be super poly unless needed, because you can fake detail to be "good enough" without adding geometry.