I couldn’t even imagine what seeing PC games for the first time in 2025 feels like, after not seeing them since 2011.
Do you think they were blown away? Or maybe disappointed that we still don’t have photorealistic graphics yet? I wish I could speak with this person so I could pick their brain.
Honestly, the jump from 2011 to 2025 doesn’t seem nearly as steep as say 2000-2011. Sure games look better today but 2011 games still hold up. In 2000, 3d graphics were still new and most titles are considered unplayable now in terms of graphics and controls
And 3D was the “AI” of those times. They had to bring it to EVERYTHING. Micro Machines (a top view toy car racer)? We’ll make it 3D, buy a card. Frogger? Yupp, Frogger 3D. They even tried to force 3D on poor Worms in 2003. I still prefer Worms World Party/Armageddon.
I upgraded from an old laptop to a 4070. I tried HDR and I don’t see a difference at all. I turned off all the lights, closed the blinds and turned the (hdr compatible, I checked) screen to max brightness. I don’t see a difference with HDR turned on or off.
Next I tried path tracing. I could see a difference, but honestly, not much at all. Not nearly enough to warrant reduced FPS and certainly not enough to turn down other graphics settings to keep the FPS.
To me, both are just buzzwords to get people to fork over more money.
Seems to me that you got an early or cheaper HDR display, then. To me the difference is night and day.
FWIW, HDR does its best work if you have a display that can do true blacks. If you don’t have an OLED, mini LED, or full array, you’re going to have a hard time noticing the difference, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. HDR works best in either extremely dark or bright scenes, so having a display with a near infinite contrast ratio is important.
Here’s a hint for any display: Look at some HDR clouds while you toggle HDR on and off. You’ll definitely notice the difference there. Also check the teals. It’s less obvious but SDR displays can’t do a proper teal.
I tried it on a few OLED smartphones too, couldn’t see a difference.
I tried it with some HDR demo videos, so I expected that these would show off the difference especially well, but I couldn’t see the difference at all.
I’ll try it again with clouds and teals, but I don’t have a huge affinity for distinguishing minute colour differences in general (I’m not colour blind or anything, but it’s hard for me to differentiate between very similar colours), so that might play into it.
HDR is more for showing the “depth” of an image, not as much the color gamut (how many colors it can show).
HDR will help more with things like if you’re inside a building and looking out in a daylight scene. Youll be able to see more of both inside and outside the building. Of course it won’t make your monitor better, but assuming you have more than a basic display you should be able to see a difference.
I couldn’t even imagine what seeing PC games for the first time in 2025 feels like, after not seeing them since 2011.
Do you think they were blown away? Or maybe disappointed that we still don’t have photorealistic graphics yet? I wish I could speak with this person so I could pick their brain.
Arkham City, Crysis 2, Skyrim. It really hasn’t changed much. They’ve spent most of their time wanking over higher resolution and nicer reflections.
For comparison there was 14 years between this:
and this:
Honestly, the jump from 2011 to 2025 doesn’t seem nearly as steep as say 2000-2011. Sure games look better today but 2011 games still hold up. In 2000, 3d graphics were still new and most titles are considered unplayable now in terms of graphics and controls
And 3D was the “AI” of those times. They had to bring it to EVERYTHING. Micro Machines (a top view toy car racer)? We’ll make it 3D, buy a card. Frogger? Yupp, Frogger 3D. They even tried to force 3D on poor Worms in 2003. I still prefer Worms World Party/Armageddon.
Frogger 2: Swampy’s Revenge was genuinely great though
Don’t forget all the 3d movies too.
Dude we’re still playing classic wow and runescape, that guy hasn’t missed anything
Fair, but I’m mostly interested in how they feel about modern AAA games, with their path tracing and HDR support and whatnot.
Tbh, I haven’t done time, but that’s still me.
I upgraded from an old laptop to a 4070. I tried HDR and I don’t see a difference at all. I turned off all the lights, closed the blinds and turned the (hdr compatible, I checked) screen to max brightness. I don’t see a difference with HDR turned on or off.
Next I tried path tracing. I could see a difference, but honestly, not much at all. Not nearly enough to warrant reduced FPS and certainly not enough to turn down other graphics settings to keep the FPS.
To me, both are just buzzwords to get people to fork over more money.
Seems to me that you got an early or cheaper HDR display, then. To me the difference is night and day.
FWIW, HDR does its best work if you have a display that can do true blacks. If you don’t have an OLED, mini LED, or full array, you’re going to have a hard time noticing the difference, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. HDR works best in either extremely dark or bright scenes, so having a display with a near infinite contrast ratio is important.
Here’s a hint for any display: Look at some HDR clouds while you toggle HDR on and off. You’ll definitely notice the difference there. Also check the teals. It’s less obvious but SDR displays can’t do a proper teal.
I tried it on a few OLED smartphones too, couldn’t see a difference.
I tried it with some HDR demo videos, so I expected that these would show off the difference especially well, but I couldn’t see the difference at all.
I’ll try it again with clouds and teals, but I don’t have a huge affinity for distinguishing minute colour differences in general (I’m not colour blind or anything, but it’s hard for me to differentiate between very similar colours), so that might play into it.
HDR is more for showing the “depth” of an image, not as much the color gamut (how many colors it can show).
HDR will help more with things like if you’re inside a building and looking out in a daylight scene. Youll be able to see more of both inside and outside the building. Of course it won’t make your monitor better, but assuming you have more than a basic display you should be able to see a difference.