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[IbizaPocholo]

4K gaming: "It's useless," says former Playdead founder

News, reviews and opinions on the biggest video games.

www.vg247.com

Dino Patti, co-founder of Limbo and Inside developer Playdead, who warned an audience at Reboot Develop in Canada last week that development studios that follow hardware trends will only stumble into failure.

“I think it’s useless,” he said. “It’s something that’s being pushed by tech vendors to push the next console.

“I want to select a path by myself and not be drawn in by money from tech vendors. There’s a lot of people that see something shiny and follow that. You can definitely see all the herd walking one way and falling,” he said.

Patti, who has recently founded Coherence and Jumpship after leaving Playdead, sees 4K as just another gimmick in a long line of technology being pushed on the development community.

“[Manufacturers] don’t respect the natural evolution of games and you force technology. Microsoft with Kinect, they paid studios to make a lot of shitty games,” he said.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Ya know...I'm inclined to agree. It's just too many pixels, performance is too low. Even when I look at 4K and think it looks good...it doesn't look good enough to make me want to go out and splash out on a 4K monitor so that I can play at 30FPS.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

How is image clarity by any means worthless? It's a substantive part of what can draw you into a game, it's not the only one but it's a big part of it. The more jarring the aspects of the render the more your brain picks up on them and will pull you from the experience.

It's not like it has changed anything for the negative, it's simply taken what we've already got at 720p - 1080p and simply walked it up by a 2-4x multiplier and in some cases the hardware pushing these renders can actually provide some graphical advantages..

For as much as developers like to talk and for as smart as they are they really preach some dumb shit sometimes.

Am I better off because of my Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro and my KS8000 than with the base systems and my 1080p Samsung? 100%, no question whatsoever.

 

[Coflash]

How is image clarity by any means worthless?

Because it comes at the expense of more important things, and it's not as if 1080/1440p are blurry messes that we are unable to decipher

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Because it comes at the expense of more important things, and it's not as if 1080/1440p are blurry messes that we are unable to decipher

It hasn't really come at the expense of anything, and in all reality more has been added to a lot of games than anything lost.

1080p doesn't look like shit but it's quite low resolution now especially when you start meandering into the 45+ inch displays and compare them to a 4K counterpart. Pixel density is a problem even from 45" on up.

I mean the limitations of >1080p aren't just apparent via the display technology but they've also become quite apparent from a rendering standpoint as well.

 

[Kenpachii]

Reason why PC gamers sit at 1080p and for better quality 1440p but that's it. Everybody knows 4k is worthless as of now there is no hardware that can boot it until u cripple the game to the end fo the earth to do so.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

It hasn't really come at the expense of anything, and in all reality more has been added to a lot of games than anything lost.

Of course it has. The higher the resolution...the lower the framerate. As a general rule temporal resolution is more important to gameplay than physical resolution.

 

[The Cockatrice]

How is image clarity by any means worthless? It's a substantive part of what can draw you into a game, it's not the only one but it's a big part of it. The more jarring the aspects of the render the more your brain picks up on them and will pull you from the experience.

It's not like it has changed anything for the negative, it's simply taken what we've already got at 720p - 1080p and simply walked it up by a 2-4x multiplier and in some cases the hardware pushing these renders can actually provide some graphical advantages..

For as much as developers like to talk and for as smart as they are they really preach some dumb shit sometimes.

Am I better off because of my Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro and my KS8000 than with the base systems and my 1080p Samsung? 100%, no question whatsoever.

 

[rofif]

As a 4k 27" ips monitor owner - it looks super sharp coming from 27" 1080p monitor.

 

[GymWolf]

Show to this man the difference between rdr2 on ps4 and on pc and let's see if after that he can say the same thing with a serious face...

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Reason why PC gamers sit at 1080p and for better quality 1440p but that's it. Everybody knows 4k is worthless as of now there is no hardware that can boot it until u cripple the game to the end fo the earth to do so..

What is crippled here exactly?

Not a god damn thing.

Of course it has. The higher the resolution...the lower the framerate. As a general rule temporal resolution is more important to gameplay than physical resolution.

How has resolution negatively impacted consoles? It hasn't, the performance profiles of the 4K machines are still better than the base systems and they're pushing resolutions multitudes higher.

Yeah well help me find that $1,000+ Sony FW900 and then we'll talk.

 

[FranXico]

As a 4k 27" ips monitor owner - it looks super sharp coming from 27" 1080p monitor.

If your screen is the same size as before, of course the improvements are massive - the pixel density is quadruple then.

 

[AV]

Little weird to hear a guy who's games are mostly good because of their visuals shitting on the possibility of clearer visuals. I know it's not resolution but LIMBO/INSIDE look fantastic on OLED panels. Is OLED "useless" too?

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

How has resolution negatively impacted consoles?

The same way the obsession with graphical fidelity above all else has. A huge portion of the console library is locked at a 30FPS slideshow. That's true of both the base and enhanced consoles.

 

[Ocelot79]

4K is not useless, you just need a panel that's big enough to properly "make use" of the additional pixels. For people who have small(er) monitors , 4K is indeed useless.
Also, current hardware isn't good enough to properly run games at 4K.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

I'm sure it's a nice luxury but for me it's worth it to take a hit in resolution if that means a higher framerate.

I don't plan on upgrading from 1080p anytime soon until hardware catches up and 60fps is more guaranteed for 4K.

Now that's just my personal opinion, some people might feel the opposite and that's fine, I'm not gonna argue as one way being the better than the other, but that's just what I prefer.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

The same way the obsession with graphical fidelity above all else has. A huge portion of the console library is locked at a 30FPS slideshow. That's true of both the base and enhanced consoles.

Most are locked at 1080p on the base systems.

Luckily next gen systems will have orders of magnitude more powerful CPUs

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Now that I have a 55" OLED, 1080p is pretty much dead to me. It looks just horrendous to me.

1440p holds up reasonably well, though.

 

[Vawn]

Unfortunately developers will continue to prioritize resolution because screenshots will always sell games better than smooth gameplay.

 

[Hostile_18]

It depends on your tv size tbh.

That been said upscaled 4k is fine with me. For all the Native 4k games nothing looks better than some well done upscaled games. Its art direction that makes more of a difference.

Lastly HDR adds alot, more so than extra resolution.

I would be in favour of a set resolution and 60fps (i.e a set of standards) for next gen. Otherwise we'll never get the 60fps dream due to they way marketing values graphics alone.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

The same way the obsession with graphical fidelity above all else has. A huge portion of the console library is locked at a 30FPS slideshow. That's true of both the base and enhanced consoles.

Which is in mostly no way related to the GPU which actually pushes the pixels and is more stringent on CPU resources.

Also don't call 30 FPS a slideshow and expect me to take you seriously in a conversation, you're losing respect quickly.

 

[Farawayfromhell]

It's useless for who don't have it... or if you have 15" TV.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

Which is in mostly no way related to the GPU which actually pushes the pixels and is more stringent on CPU resources.

Well now, that depends on the game, doesn't it. Regardless developers shouldn't be prioritizing anything over getting 60FPS as a baseline. It's not 1998 anymore. 30FPS is simply unacceptable in this day and age.

Also don't call 30 FPS a slideshow and expect me to take you seriously in a conversation, you're losing respect quickly.

Awww, I'm sowwy, did I hurt your feefees by pointing out that 30FPS is fucking awful, that I can almost count the frames as they go by, that it's genuinely uncomfortable and headache inducing to play at such a crap framerate.
To be perfectly frank I don't really care whether or not someone on the internet I've never met, and am never going to meet, respects me or not. 30FPS is a slideshow.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Well now, that depends on the game, doesn't it. Regardless developers shouldn't be prioritizing anything over getting 60FPS as a baseline. It's not 1998 anymore. 30FPS is simply unacceptable in this day and age.

Awww, I'm sowwy, did I hurt your feefees by pointing out that 30FPS is fucking awful, that I can almost count the frames as they go by, that it's genuinely uncomfortable and headache inducing to play at such a crap framerate.
To be perfectly frank I don't really care whether or not someone on the internet I've never met, and am never going to meet, respects me or not. 30FPS is a slideshow.

It does and it doesn't, consoles need to make a lot of concessions or tricks to hit 60 FPS and the CPU's in these consoles were simply not designed with that in mind.

Didn't hurt my feelings but I think the general argument surrounding 30 FPS being in any way untolerable is one of the biggest horse shit perpetuated falsehoods of the last 15 years.

The hyperbole is off the charts, I don't have patience for people who peddle that nonsense anymore.

Uncomfortable and headaches?

 

[GymWolf]

Now that I have a 55" OLED, 1080p is pretty much dead to me. It looks just horrendous to me.

1440p holds up reasonably well, though.

Same.

Some games are still good even on full-hd, but others like borderlands 3 looks absolutely horrible on a big 4k screen.

Also people is fixated with 4k...1800p is basically the same thing with less hit on performance.

On pc you can create custom resolution to find the sweet spot.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Same.

Some games are still good even on full-hd, but others like borderlands 3 looks absolutely horrible on a big 4k screen.

Also people is fixated woth 4k...1800p is basically the same thing with less hot on performance.

On pc you can create custom resolution to find the sweet spot.

There's a certain resolution threshold you can hit where it being native or not is basically imperceptible. I'd say north of 3072x1728 is that resolution, when you start to go below that you can pick up that it's not quite native but at it or beyond it you'd be hard pressed to ever tell.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

It does and it doesn't, consoles need to make a lot of concessions or tricks to hit 60 FPS and the CPU's in these consoles were simply not designed with that in mind.

Didn't hurt my feelings but I think the general argument surrounding 30 FPS being in any way untolerable is one of the biggest horse shit perpetuated falsehoods of the last 15 years.

The hyperbole is off the charts, I don't patience for people who peddle that nonsense anymore.

Sony and Microsoft cheaped out on you...big time. Not to mention that at that time AMD was really on the back foot.

You might think it's a falsehood...but it really isn't. Just you wait. Once you experience high-refresh your eyes will be opened to how mediocre 60FPS really is...then we'll see how tolerable you think 30FPS is. Also...not hyperbole. I literally cannot stand 30FPS. If I haven't played at such a low framerate for a while it makes me feel mildly nauseous. In time that does fade but even after that I'm more likely to get eye fatigue and a headache while playing and it never actually feels smooth. Not to mention the noticable input lag. Even 40FPS is a big improvement. Ideally I want 80+.

 

[iNvid02]

What a dumb statement, as long as you meet a few simple prequisities such as screen size and viewing distance the improvement in quality over 1080p is staggering. Fucking moronic comparing it to Kinect

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Sony and Microsoft cheaped out on you...big time. Not to mention that at that time AMD was really on the back foot.

You might think it's a falsehood...but it really isn't. Just you wait. Once you experience high-refresh your eyes will be opened to how mediocre 60FPS really is...then we'll see how tolerable you think 30FPS is. Also...not hyperbole. I literally cannot stand 30FPS. If I haven't played at such a low framerate for a while it makes me feel mildly nauseous. In time that does fade but even after that I'm more likely to get eye fatigue and a headache while playing and it never actually feels smooth. Even 40FPS is a big improvement. Ideally I want 80+.

I've been gaming at 100hz+ for the past 20 years.... I'm talking to you right now via a 144hz display, I know the benefits and they're large and tangible but on the other spectrum all I see are lies and dramatics.

It doesn't matter how much you try to hard press and convince I'll never bite, I find it to be nothing more than exaggeration and hyperbole.

 

[Von Hugh]

This was probably said about 720P as well. And FullHD. And 2K. And 8K in the future.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

I find it to be nothing more than exaggeration and hyperbole.

Then you're lucky and you have no fucking clue how lucky you are. As we speak I'm nursing a mild headache...take a guess how I got it...

 

[Shifty]

The sooner display panel resolution outstrips console hardware's ability to keep up, the better. It's the only way this particular technology dynamic is going to end.

Let the resolution goal be so stupid and out of reach that developers stop caring about it. Because the pixel count dickswinging is an unproductive joke.

My beefy-ass PC can barely run shit at 4K, and somehow the consoles' fake checkerboard-reconstructed 4K at minimum settings is meant to be a positive? Nah fam. Nah.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

Easy to say that when his style of game can work well with lower resolution.

4K is a performance hog right now but that won’t last forever, and the resolution clarity is the sweet spot for home TV scenarios.

 

[VertigoOA]

We should all keep in mind the types of games his studio makes...

It will be worthless to him.... as indie games are to me.

Improved image clarity and hdr ... these things increase immersion and give artists even more tools to create with. So what a load of bullshit

 

[PocoJoe]

How is image clarity by any means worthless? It's a substantive part of what can draw you into a game, it's not the only one but it's a big part of it. The more jarring the aspects of the render the more your brain picks up on them and will pull you from the experience.

It's not like it has changed anything for the negative, it's simply taken what we've already got at 720p - 1080p and simply walked it up by a 2-4x multiplier and in some cases the hardware pushing these renders can actually provide some graphical advantages..

For as much as developers like to talk and for as smart as they are they really preach some dumb shit sometimes.

Am I better off because of my Xbox One X, PlayStation 4 Pro and my KS8000 than with the base systems and my 1080p Samsung? 100%, no question whatsoever.

Even on the era of CRT tvs and VHS resolution were good enough, if we imagine that VHS movie is a game with CRT resolution = because it is real life it looks epic on detail/lightning/shadows and so on vs. 4k game with low details.

My point is that even 720p game with 100% real life quality of graphics and traytracing would look better than 4k with non-real life like graphics.

1080p is good enough, with current and next gen tech.

4K could look better in theory, but it is just stupid to believe that details and other things can be same with 1080p vs 4k.

So, using 4k we lose something while gaining more pixels, is it worth it? I dont thinks so.

It the situation would be "super computer console with unlimited power" then 4k would be better as using it nothing else is lost.

If next gen offers 4x the resolution, then we already lose much of how games could look if they are made for 1080p, because jump on raw performance isnt much more than that.


And then when thinking about average consumer whom is kind of stupid and doesnt know anything, they may have 4k tv but sit too far (more than 1-2m) away so unless you have hawkeye vision, 1080p would be about the same.

 

[VertigoOA]

Bullshit.

Trying playing a pvp shooter at lower resolutions.... you lose image clarity and it becomes more difficult to hit a target from further distances.... you can’t see them, they blur into the background.

That’s most obvious in PUBG when playing the sniping game.

nonsense

 

[carsar]

good luck to play at 1080p+taa)))

 

[zcaa0g]

That's what one would say when they make games like Limbo and Inside which had and have crappy graphics. They weren't "art styles", they were bad graphics. Enjoyed the games though for the most part.

 

[Psykodad]

Of course it has. The higher the resolution...the lower the framerate. As a general rule temporal resolution is more important to gameplay than physical resolution.

As long as games don't drop below 30fps, framerate is fine.

Glad I'm not a pc gamer hung up on framerate.

 

[888]

Which is in mostly no way related to the GPU which actually pushes the pixels and is more stringent on CPU resources.

Also don't call 30 FPS a slideshow and expect me to take you seriously in a conversation, you're losing respect quickly.

Compared to 144fps. It is a slideshow with an obvious change in input response.

30 is not a good feeling for many games.

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

As long as games don't drop below 30fps, framerate is fine.

Glad I'm not a pc gamer hung up on framerate.

You call it a hang up, I call it having standards (and wishing to avoid nausea, headaches, and general discomfort).

 

[Fuz]

As long as games don't drop below 30fps, framerate is fine.

60.

 

[ResilientBanana]

The sooner display panel resolution outstrips console hardware's ability to keep up, the better. It's the only way this particular technology dynamic is going to end.

Let the resolution goal be so stupid and out of reach that developers stop caring about it. Because the pixel count dickswinging is an unproductive joke.

My beefy-ass PC can barely run shit at 4K, and somehow the consoles' fake checkerboard-reconstructed 4K at minimum settings is meant to be a positive? Nah fam. Nah.

QFT

There is no way consoles are going to be able to show a leap in next gen fidelity if they’re being held back by 4k. PC hardware will always be far greater in power and has plenty of issues providing reliable performance when displaying in 4k. That will not change until GPU hardware can catch up.

 

[Makoto-Yuki]

when i first built my PC i had this dream of 4K 60hz but i have long gave up on it. an RTX 2080 Ti can't do it consistently and it often requires lowering the settings to maintain a decent stable framerate.

i bought a 4K monitor and sure it was nice but after a few days it wore off on me. games looked a bit sharper but i kept thinking i would be quite happy sticking with 1440p. so i bought a 1440p 144hz monitor. 1440p is the perfect resolution because it's not as dog shit as 1080p but not as demanding as 4K.

i think 4K will be fine for consoles because you're sitting further away and TVs are generally much larger. for someone sitting at a desk with the screen just a couple feet away you can only really start to appreciate 4K if you have 32" or higher monitor. plus 4K on consoles isn't as demanding because they will only target 30fps. going up to 60fps requires an insane amount of power (and money) so i ain't chasing it anymore.

maybe one day I will use 4K but i can't see it being any time soon. until then i'm quite happy with 1440p.

 

[Gavin Stevens]

4k isn't worthless, its just that its overtaken every bodies damn minds. Now you've got next gen machines pushing for the 4k end goal, meaning they wont have anywhere near as good visuals as they should have.

They should just cap it at 1440p and leave it there. That's a huge jump over 1080p and would still provide gorgeous detail.

 

[EGOMON]

CB 4k or whatever fake 4k tech devs use is more than enough really.
I will take CB 4k @ 60 FPS over native 4k @30 FPS anyday. The difference is just in distinguishable to most people

 

[Psykodad]

CB 4k or whatever fake 4k tech devs use is more than enough really.
I will take CB 4k @ 60 FPS over native 4k @30 FPS anyday. The difference is just in distinguishable to most people

How about CB 4K @60fps medium settings vs CB 4K @30fps high settings?

 

[MeatSafeMurderer]

4k isn't worthless, its just that its overtaken every bodies damn minds. Now you've got next gen machines pushing for the 4k end goal, meaning they wont have anywhere near as good visuals as they should have.

They should just cap it at 1440p and leave it there. That's a huge jump over 1080p and would still provide gorgeous detail.

The problem is TV's basically skipped 1440p and went straight for UHD, so you'd end up with people pressing their faces up against the screen to admire the high quality pixels, then complaining that it's not native. Then you have the fact that 4K is just kinda memeworthy at this point anyway. Most console gamers sit in a living room setup, far too far away from the TV to actually appreciate 4K.

 

[Gavin Stevens]

Yeah, bit shit. I have a 4k OLED, and I’m perfectly fine with games pushing 1440p, they look great. 4k native is hard to tell for me, and I have a 65” set as well. It’s just a waste of resources for my liking.

 

[Phunkydiabetic]

4K gaming: "It's useless," says former Playdead founder

News, reviews and opinions on the biggest video games.

www.vg247.com

Dino Patti, co-founder of Limbo and Inside developer Playdead, who warned an audience at Reboot Develop in Canada last week that development studios that follow hardware trends will only stumble into failure.

“I think it’s useless,” he said. “It’s something that’s being pushed by tech vendors to push the next console.

“I want to select a path by myself and not be drawn in by money from tech vendors. There’s a lot of people that see something shiny and follow that. You can definitely see all the herd walking one way and falling,” he said.

Patti, who has recently founded Coherence and Jumpship after leaving Playdead, sees 4K as just another gimmick in a long line of technology being pushed on the development community.

“[Manufacturers] don’t respect the natural evolution of games and you force technology. Microsoft with Kinect, they paid studios to make a lot of shitty games,” he said.

This sounds like it's coming from someone who has a 720p Daewoo for their tv