D3xter

That's sarcasm, right? Right? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMcVZQI6ybw

a) VR does offer the best 3D around, it seems painfully obvious that you haven't tried any of the Oculus Rift prototypes yet. It's true stereoscopic vision with the scene being rendered twice from the perspective of your left and right eye and is probably one of the most "natural" ways to do 3D. He is wrong though, it's not "4K twice", it's 4K split in two. The first DevKit has a 1280x800 screen rendering 640x800 for each eye (minus the black space around your Field of View that your eyes won't be able to perceive through the lenses): http://i0.wp.com/www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/crashland-oculus-rift-demo.jpg The second DevKit will have a 1920x1080 OLED panel and thus render 960x1080 for each eye and they've already announced that the consumer version coming out will have a higher resolution. Likely 2560x1440 which Samsung announced to be working on. Samsung, LG and Japan Display are going to release 1440p mobile phone screens throughout 2014: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/smartphone-pixel-screen-tech-guide/ For the Rift that would be 1280x1440 for each eye. It is a little more complicated than that though, since rendering the same scene with all the vertices twice from to distinct point of view (even at a lower resolution for each) will still put quite a strain on GPUs and it's not as simple as having a 1440p screen split in two. There's ways to lower the rendering requirements, for instance by using the depth buffer to "fake 3D", but the results will be ****tier than rendering out twice: http://www.vorpx.com/more-headtracking-z-buffer-vs-geometry-3d/ b) The 1080p DK2 has already been unveiled at the last GDC and is to ship in July, the final product with (likely a 1440p screen) is most likely to show Q4 2014 or Q1 2015. Of course, these were the plans before ****ing Facebook bought the company for $2 billion... http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/facebook-oculus-vr-2-billion/ VR is going to come really fast, I think he is a little optimistic with 2 years, since the consumer version of the Rift is just about to hit a year from now, but in 4-5 years it'll be largely established. Don't forget Sony is also doing VR: http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/18/playstation-virtual-reality/ and there will be many more big players after that buyout. The wonderful thing about it is that it just takes experiencing it to make one a believer and the naysayers won't have much to stand on once it hits mass market. It doesn't make any sense to talk about VR in the case of Project: Eternity though, since whoever does so probably doesn't understand what "Pre-Rendered" means. You could render something like Diablo III or Torchlight II for VR and make the player look from above like they've demonstrated for instance for "Couch Knights": but a Pre-Rendered background is a still image that wouldn't change at all when someone changes perspective/looks around to the left or right or leans back or forward etc. It's impossible to do something like that in VR if you don't do it as a gimmick like the devs of "City Quest": And the next generation of graphics cards will be able to render 4K just fine, the current one already manages for the largest amount of games but the very resource hungry ones: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-ti-review c) His claim wasn't exactly a lie it was just imprecise, unfortunately not much has changed in the past few years requiring a upgrade to CPU, Mainboard or RAM. To a large part probably due to the popularity of gaming consoles. Can only hope that Intel reverses course posthaste like they've said: http://techreport.com/review/26189/intel-to-renew-commitment-to-desktop-pcs-with-a-slew-of-new-cpus The China-made 4K monitors I was talking about have finally arrived by the way, they're all sporting the same TN panel though with different features and backlights. The ones announced and some purchaseable so far: Samsung UD590 $699 @60Hz: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2137477/samsung-lowballs-the-4k-competition-with-700-display.html Lenovo Thinkvision Pro2840m $799 @60Hz: http://www.cnet.com/products/lenovo-thinkvision-pro2840m-4k-display/ Dell P2815Q $699 @30Hz: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2014/01/07/dell-wasnt-joking-about-that-28-inch-sub-1000-4k-monitor-its-only-699/ Asus PB287Q $799 @60Hz: http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/06/asus-28-inch-4k-display/ Philips 288P6 $1199: http://www.digitalavmagazine.com/en/2014/01/10/Philips-288p6-monitor-at-ces-2014-ultraclear-panel-28-4-k/ The sad thing about all of this is that since Project: Eternity is still about a year away at best, it'll only take another 1-2 years after release till the rendering resolution will be considered "old" and "insufficient".

Dell to introduce sub-$1000 4K monitors (28"): http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/02/dell-ultrasharp-4k-monitors/ http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/12/05/dell-introduces-1000-4k-monitor-a-step-towards-affordable-ultra-res-screens/ They also have a 24" 4K monitor for $1400 out now, but they expect the 28" to be considerably cheaper since it will be using a TN panel produced (as expected) in China. A lot of high-end notebooks between 13"-15" are also launching with a resolution of 3200x1800 (they call WQHD+ and might just be poised to become the new 1366x768 Laptop resolution in UHD times): HP ZBook 15": http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/hp-zbook-mobile-workstations/ HP Envy TouchSmart 14" Ultrabook: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/23/hp-refreshes-laptops-for-back-to-school/ Dell Precision M3800 15": http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/25/dell-officially-unveils-precision-m3800-workstation-at-siggraph/ Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus 13": http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/07/samsung-ativ-book-9-1400-august-9/ Fujitsu UH90 15": http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/fujitsu-intros-lifebook-uh90-ultrabook/ Fujitsu U904 14": http://www.fujitsu.com/fts/products/computing/pc/notebooks-tablets/superior/lifebook-u904/index.html Lenovo Thinkpad Slim 9 13": http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/news/hardware/notebooks/27994-lenovo-ultrathin-thinkpad-slim-9-leaked.html Lenovo YOGA 2 Pro 13": http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/05/lenovo-yoga-2-pro-hands-on/ Most of the panels are produced by SHARP: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Sharp-Displays-IGZO-LCD-Technology-Production,22623.html SHARP will also begin delivering 15.6" 4K panels in early 2014, which will likely find their place in new Apple Macbook Pro products: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/4k-uhd-sharp-igzo-apple,24459.html Samsung is also even looking at producing 4K phones till 2015: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Samsung-details-plans-for-4K-phones-own-64-bit-processor-for-2014-15_id49101

They had clarified their position in at least half a dozen of interviews that people posted right after you made your thread already. And you do know that there are various differences between the DA:O PC and console version, even despite specifically being developed as a Multiplatform title after EA acquired BioWare? - For instance, there was no zooming out Option on the consoles to get an overview of the Battlefield: - On PC Friendly Fire is on at anything above Easy, on console it is disabled on anything but Hard and there set at only 50% - During boss battles on the console version there are less enemies and they are easier to defeat - In the PC version you can control the entire party or choose 2-3 characters on their own using hotkeys or the mouse for selection instead of having to switch through the entire team and being able to control only one at once. - The PC version has a different and more intuitive User Interface similar to most modern MMOs with a Skill bar and a Toolbar at the top of the screen etc. instead of Radial Menus. Also you can use Shortcuts on the Keyboard - The console version also has a few puzzle sequences, which have been dumbed down or cut out completely. Please do go ahead and make a great Controller Mod for Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale or similar and show how you'd make it possible. When people actually see this succeed in an acceptable manner in at least a single game that doesn't involve JRPG-typical paused combat at every turn they might actually change their opinions on it not working. A tactical party-based RPG also isn't a single char ARPG.

It's not that we don't think it could work; Yes, you did an absolutely amazing job integrating Dungeon Siege 3 to be played with a Controller. And that wasn't even a tactically inspired party RPG and main platform were consoles.

Typical answer from a developer trying to appeal to the keyboard & mouse elitists, despite the fact the one of the strengths of the PC is its ability to have multiple playing styles (K&M, Razor Naga, Controller). I wish you understand that while we like playing with a keyboard and mouse, sometimes we like to play our PC games on the couch in front of a TV as well. I know people say it "doesn't work", but I've played many console strategy games and SRPGs from the SNES and up that control like the infinity engine games, and they worked perfectly. Nevertheless, if the developers don't add controller support, I think I will as a mod. Considering I work for an Indie development studio that has extensive knowledge in Unity and C#, it shouldn't be that hard. You can't play a game like this on a Controller, since you have to quickly switch between different party members and give them different orders, but certain types of games that have already come up aren't really "compatible" with it. FPS as is already barely are and use things like lock-on mechanisms to make this better. The biggest problem is the constant, non-accelerated movement speed of analogue sticks and the lack of fine movements: http://gradworks.umi.com/14/67/1467132.html http://www.abload.de/img/mouse-accuracy3xrzn.png I also like to play games from the couch with a X360/XInput Controller and even use it to browse the Web sometimes due to Xpadder Keybindings. I also have other peripherals like a driving wheel, WiiMote, Joystick and fight stick. But in comparison to you I very much recognize that there are specific games which work very well with specific Inputs and not very well with others. Games like "Halo Wars" have for instance also shown how "well" RTS work on consoles. Even if you try to "mod" it, you will fail. There is a reason why developers like BioWare and CDProjekt have transitioned from a strategic top-down view with multiple party-members and various combat options to 3rd person solo Hack&Slash while their franchises have gradually transitioned over to console, it's because it plays better with a Controller... this game isn't supposed to be like that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Y1IAY-TYk Your best bet would be likely waiting for this and seeing how well it might (or might not) work:

HDMI 2.0 has finally officially been revealed in time for IFA 2013: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/04/hdmi-2-0-official-4k-60fps-32-channel-audio/ Many other hardware manufacturers were ready with showings of new 4K TVs and higher resolution PC hardware: http://recombu.com/digital/news/4k--ifa-2013-samsung-sony-lg-panasonic-philips-and-toshiba-show-off_M12097.html http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/new-product/tablets/3466930/panasonic-4k-tablet-specs-release-date/ Cool commercial.

Here we go again, another Chinese company (TLC) is offering a 50" 4K TV for $999: http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/25/tcl-4k-50-inch-999/ Seiki is also launching a 39" 4K TV at $699: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/25/seiki-launches-39-inch-4k-tv-for-699/ and are expecting a 65" model by Fall. According to this: (about 11 minutes in)the panel of the TV can apparently also manage up to 120Hz @ 4K, but the electronics board (and obviously the connection used) can't manage it. I hope they'll also enter the PC/computer monitor market with a few models later this year, but the moment when a lot of new models will sprout is likely at the end of the year when HDMI 2.0 is finally out and can be used for the upcoming 4K TVs and monitors: http://www.audioholics.com/education/display-formats-technology/hdmi-2.0-specification

Like it or not, higher resolution displays are coming and so far they are pretty much on timetable with what they've previously said: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Intel-Higher-Resolution-Displays-Coming,15329.html Though I am rather sure that you are right and these Intel Haswell chipsets aren't meant for gaming at that resolution (who plays big gaming titles on a 13" laptop anyway?). A lot of tech blogs did get that wrong, what Intel was advertising is 4K video playback and encoding e.g. this one got it right: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2037038/intels-haswell-gets-massive-graphics-performance-boost.html At the moment even High end graphics cards like the HD 7970, GTX 680 or GTX TITAN struggle keeping up with some of the most graphics intensive games at 4K (only some Dual-GPU cards like the HD 7990 or GTX 690 seem somewhat up to the task). PC Perspective ran benchmarks for Battlefield 3, Crysis 3, DiRT 3, Far Cry 3, Skyrim and Sleeping Dogs at 4K: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-Rating-High-End-GPUs-Benchmarked-4K-Resolutions I’m personally going to upgrade to the upcoming GTX 770 or 780 Kepler refresh cards soon that are rolling out over the next few weeks: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-770-performance-unveiled-10-faster-radeon-hd-7970-ghz/ But NVIDIAs upcoming Maxwell chip architecture in 2014 will likely start running even these games acceptably at 4K and market that heavily: Ironically graphics-unintensive games like Project: Eternity would be a great showcase for 4K, since being largely Pre-Rendered and all they wouldn't require that much power and would likely even run on the aforementioned Intel chipsets fine and realistically I'm not counting on it coming out before 2015 anyway.

Not sure if you are being sarcastic (probably, I hope so), but taking a jpg and upscaling it would totally add detail as opposed to rendering it out at a higher resolution from the finished 3D models they are going to use for the scenes. xD

Now you're being deliberately misleading for the sake of the argument. If it was 4x more data (ignoring compressibility/sameness, black areas or anything like that which would likely decrease that factor) and it would "be pushing 1TB" (on the consumer side of things), then your game at Release as it stands right now would be at least 250GB, likely above that, correct? And that only using hypothetical 1920x1080 renders and not the 2560x1440 ones (which I assumed were already announced as the upper limit?) It could *only* possibly have 4x more data than the finished game as it is meant to come out now at the most, since it is only 4x the resolution. Further, none of the games previously discussed have textures specifically made with 4K displays in mind for that matter (nor do the games tested on 4K displays I mentioned in the other thread like Tomb Raider, Battlefield 3 or Bioshock: Infinite), but especially not RAGE, which was suffering from id's Megatexture tech and was lacking almost all detail at close range: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/559795813595399061/F1958D8B82E7B677F77127D078EBFDE564A0E038/ This doesn't change the fact that all of these games will likely look a lot better and sharper at higher resolutions, aside from washed-out textures. Nobody was asking to create the entire game at 4x the required detail for all assets involved, just if there could be a 4K upper limit render with the correct size proportions to the lower two (1280x720, 2560x1440 last I've heard) that will coincidentally make all the vector-based 3D geometry be sharper for the people with the required displays instead of either blurry zoomed things or 4x the size of a 1920x1080 screen and thus tiny. It's further also highly unlikely that the highest upper limit for all asset detail, including models and textures before compressing them down to an arbitrary highest resolution will somehow exactly have a cutoff of visible detail at exactly 1080p, especially since you don't have to optimize the scenes and 3D geometry for real time rendering and can make them without fastidiously counting polys. I remember all the theorizing about Dark Souls being made for 1024x720 since the consoles couldn't display more, and there couldn't possibly be any improvements on an increased rendering resolution, after all it was "meant" to be played that way. I even remember some developers arguing this at great lengths and effort: http://www.bluh.org/dark-souls-pc-controversy-an-analysis/ Well, it turned out this wasn't exactly true: http://imgc.rauch.co.uk/1110 http://imgc.rauch.co.uk/1111 One would think you would probably want people to see your work at its best, and not compressed down to whatever "industry standard" most people seem to employ at the moment. Even very simplistic games with textures meant for 640x470/800x600 or thereabouts at the time they came out rendered out at higher res look significantly better since they don't have to rely on interpolating non-existent pixels for larger res screens. Take for instance System Shock 2: http://abload.de/img/shock22013-04-2705-12dpf94.png (640x480 @ 1600x1200) http://abload.de/img/shock22013-04-2705-12qef87.png (1280x800 @ 1920x1200) http://abload.de/img/shock22013-04-2705-124wfbf.png (1920x1200) And physical distribution is actually disadvantageous to size limitations, since games have to fit on discs of specific sizes and suffer from overt compression that comes with that, by the involved costs of having multiple discs on Retail releases: http://www.shacknews.com/article/53976/rage-will-look-worse-on I don't know of any imposed size limitations by Steam for games/Patches or any Extra Content/"DLC" that Higher Res Renders could come as (Other games like Sleeping Dogs or Skyrim also come with completely Optional High Res Texture Packs and similar that every customer can decide if they want to install or not: http://store.steampowered.com/app/202181/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/202485/ ). I even remember some games like Witcher 2 having ~11GB Patches till Steam streamlined their Content Delivery System to Update just differing pieces of single files: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2655049

Just keep in mind that in as short as 5 years time this won't sound as ridiculous as it might to you now, even in an uncompressed state and depending on what kind of compression you are using (lossless, lossy and what is the ratio?) might not even right now. Baldur's Gate came on 6 discs at the time and was also kind of lonely in that at the point in time. Many 3D games like Max Payne 3 or RAGE have already arrived at being 25-30GB+ and both consoles will transition to Dual-Layer Blu-Rays and the possibility of multiple of those for a single game exists. Personally I'd even download 100GB of Optional texture data easy and was hoping Carmack would provide as he promised, but he didn't: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/06/id-tech-carmacks-keynote-in-full/ Hell I'd even pay extra for it. At the very least, just make sure that you don't "lose": http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/190432/postmortem_overhaul_games_.php?page=4 that original model/source data, artwork and everything and there might be the possibility for something like this in the future, since if you keep your promises the game might just very much still sell pretty well in 10-13 years time and might very well require that extra "touch" by then: http://www.gog.com/catalogue (order by bestselling)

Well obviously it's a TV, it's also marketed as a TV and isn't meant as a monitor per se, I was just saying they were testing it with games, since gaming provides some of the largest amount of content out there for higher resolution displays aside from the available test clips, a bunch of YouTube videos and some test broadcasts right now. I'm also using a TV as a computer monitor from time to time to play games on with a Controller (latest being Tomb Raider and Brütal Legend) so I wouldn't presume too much, but not for Keyboard&Mouse games like Project Eternity is obviously going to be. UHD content is at about the stage normal HD content was at in ~2004/2005 with lots of Demos and stuff and TVs being shown off and the first few movies being released. The difference this time around is that the PC monitor market seems to be behind the curve, while the mobile sector is a mile ahead and I believe there'll be a quicker adoption/transition to the new standards over time. And it is only 30Hz for 3840x2160 because it is a first barebones model designed to be as cheap as possible and HDMI 1.4 isn't specified for that kind of bandwidth, not for any sort of inherent hardware limitation by the TV. HDMI 2.0 should allow for 60Hz and will be standard in other models by the end of this year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_2.0 Other solutions in the meantime that some of the more expensive displays are using involve DisplayPort 1.2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2 http://www.techspot.com/news/51519-vesa-updates-displayport-dual-mode-pushes-4k-uhd-over-hdmi.html You'd be surprised. Additional PC monitors like the already mentioned SHARP and several ViewSonic models will be coming out throughout 2013 with the possibility of Dual-Link DVI or DisplayPort 1.2: http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/3/4/the-state-of-4k-and-4k-gaming-early-2013.aspx but they would obviously still cost quite a sum and are only meant for the high-end market. I was just theorizing about the possibility of PC monitors from Chinese manufacturers like Seiki using 4K coming out later this year at competitive pricing of possibly ~$500-600, pushing for even earlier market adoption in the middle and low-class sectors not only for TVs, but PC monitors too. Growing content distribution methods, some already available and more launching later this year and early 2014, especially the PS4 and the first official broadcasts will provide for increased demand. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/7/3848924/sony-launching-4k-video-distribution-service http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/28/4040932/sony-4k-movie-service-will-work-with-ps4-require-100gb-plus-downloads http://www.gizmag.com/red-odemax-4k-distribution-network-redray/25267/ http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/27/us-japan-hdtv-idUSBRE90Q02520130127 They'll likely come along with the increasing Implementations of H.265/HEVC for video: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Efficiency_Video_Coding#Implementations which is supposed to improve Image Quality and about double the compression ratio in comparison with H.264/AVC and replace it within the next few years.

First affordable UHD/4K display at 50" being sold for between $1200-$1500: http://hdguru.com/first-look-at-the-seiki-se50uy04-affordable-ultra-hdtv/ One of the first tests of the display by PC Perspective is done using games like Battlefield 3, Crysis 3, Skyrim and Tomb Raider which can already render at that resolution: http://www.amazon.com/Seiki-Digital-SE50UY04-50-Inch-120Hz/dp/B00BXF7I9M/ http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7674736 If the Chinese are going to also get into the PC monitor market this aggressively with even lower prices, a mass market push for higher resolution might happen even earlier than I thought.

Not to be rude, but people who believe that gaming companies should design their video games based on what-if considerations for 10-12 years in the future give me a great laugh. It would be great if they could manage the considerations around the time of release or shortly after. xD Most 3D games scale up infinitely at that and are only constrained by low-resolution textures and low-poly assets, but for instance System Shock 2 made in 1999 still played fine a year or so ago when I did a playthrough @ 1920x1200 since they render real-time, plays even better with some of the High Resolution Texture Mods and it's gotten a new Patch just like two months ago: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/09/26/hooray-system-shock-2-thief-2-get-usability-patches/. "2D" pre-rendered games are a special consideration, since they will age proportionally to the display technology and Icewind Dale for instance, made a year later is rather painful to play nowadays without Mods due to that reason. If they're ever to be "updated" and made playable afterwards it's only possible from the production side.