The future of game graphics: technology and trends

We don’t know about you, but we remember the first PlayStation days when we thought that game graphics were as good as they possibly could be. Seriously! How could anything ever beat the ultra-realistic graphics of Final Fantasy VII? Well, as it turns out, quite a lot has changed. Those game graphics that we once thought were ultra-realistic look incredibly blocky today. Game graphics are still changing at a rapid pace, and there are some tech trends that we want to discuss with you here!

AI

AI seems to be at the forefront of pretty much every major advancement in the tech world at the moment, and game graphics are no exception to this rule. However, most people believe that it will be a while before AI starts to have a major influence on how game graphics work.

A few companies are currently playing around with AI tech and game graphics, with a number of different goals. Some companies are looking at how AI can be used to spruce up current game graphics – for example, a user creates a graphic and the graphic is run through an AI algorithm for improvements. Other companies are looking at how AI can be used to create video game graphics from scratch.

Moreover, AI may be used to make video games much more immersive. It can be used to generate visuals that would be far too costly for real employees to create (epic cityscapes, for example), and it can even be used to lower system resources, in theory. There is certainly the potential to lower the required system resources if AI processing is nailed.

There are many places where AI technology can be used for the future of game graphics. We have barely scratched the surface here. Developers are constantly looking for innovative approaches to improve gameplay in things like modern multi-reeled video pokies in online casinos. There is no doubt that online casinos and other industries could see huge advancements in just a short period of time.

High-fidelity graphics

We may beat the point where game developers don’t want to make their games even more ‘realistic’ in the way they look. Games graphic tech is pretty decent, and there is always the fear that if you make them too realistic, you alienate some of your players. This is why old-school games are still popular and why many people enjoy playing games that have, by modern standards, very basic graphics, such as The Fall of the Last Tower. Many people want to feel like they are playing a video game – they don’t want to feel like they are controlling a ‘real’ person. However, this doesn’t mean that game graphics cannot be improved.

High-fidelity graphics cover a wide range of different areas. However, it is mostly focused on making game graphics look better. This means better resolution, more advanced textures, better lighting, and more.

We may also see a major push toward getting quality graphics to work even on lower-powered devices. If you have been playing at online casinos for a while, you’ll probably have noticed that as mobile tech has improved, games have started to look far better and more realistic. This is something that we expect to continue in the online casino world and beyond.

Ray tracing

Ray tracing has been around for a while now, it has only just started to hit its stride. While we won’t go into too much depth here (it is a big area), the basic concept is that ray tracing involves using better lights to create much more realistic imagery. It is very heavy on system resources (hence, we are still in the early stages of ray tracing), but when done right, ray tracing can make even the most basic computer graphics look amazing.

Bigger draw distances

Increased system resources will really help on the game graphics front. We probably won’t be making individual models much more realistic (though we will improve their fidelity), but game graphics will focus on improving game worlds. Bigger draw distances (seeing more on the screen, from a greater distance in-game) will help to create a much more immersive world.

DLSS

DLSS is currently only available on NVIDIA graphics cards. The tech is complex but it essentially involves using AI to run a game at a lower resolution, and then upscaling it. This means that games could have better graphics than the card would natively allow.

Games that incorporate DLSS appear to run at higher resolutions with better frame rates.

We don’t know in which direction game graphics will be heading in the future. However, there are quite a few different elements of tech doing the rounds right now and we can’t wait to see what will happen.

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