Are graphics in racing games getting better?

[gangzoom]

In preparation for Project Motor Racing I thought I go through some my old racing games. So AC, Project Cars 2, Forza Motorsport (latest one), Le Mans Ultimate, F1 2024, all at Spa to see how much difference there is between the games visually.

I couldn't get Spa to load on AC so just used the first track, the difference in release dates between the games span over 10 years, all were at 4K resolution, and the studios that developed them I believe span from tiny all the way through to EA.

When I've looked at the screen shots side by side, I was surprised how little difference there seems to between the games. In fact I would say Project Cars 2 looks far better than LMU despite the two titlea been separate by a decade.

So what's going to with graphics in games?? Thinking about the other games I enjoy, Hitman, Ghost Recon - the graphics engines in those games really haven't improved in a decade........Have we reached the a plateau for graphics improvements? Or is something amazing about to happend with Ai etc in the next few years to bring real photo realism to games??

• Project Motor Racing is looking like at best a minimum improvement on Project Cars 2 on the graphics end.

[Dave.]

There are a couple of plugins to improve the graphics on Assetto Corsa, a few tweaks can having looking way better than it does out of the box.

LMU is (afaik) just a rehash of RF2, so no real improvements even if the game is “newer”.

I think the main improvements for any game over the past few years is frame rate, we used to be happy with 30fps, everybody want 120 or more now.

[MikeM6]

It has often struck me how little racing games have visually developed. There is just something obviously game like about them.

Not sure if it's the colours, lighting, textures or a combination, but it instantly looks like a game as opposed to other genres that get pretty close to looking real. I assumed that it was just too difficult to make it more realistic.