As one person is saying in the thread… hehe… Even if it is their optimization method, it should be tweakable via config file (but isn't). It's incredibly annoying when you notice it all across characters' faces in cut scenes. Basically, it makes you just not pay attention; ie., not give a damn about the graphics and focus elsewhere. So, I hardly think such a facet of a game would earn it the title of "Best Graphics."

But I don't really care about graphics. Now, if I can only convince myself to contue playing Betrayal at Krondor… oh glorious polygons for mountains!

I don't know what is going on, but when I played it on my PC it was almost unnoticeable. In the dialogues especially, I don't remember ever being disrupted by shadows.

Several people are saying it, as far as I can see.

But it's a well known technology - though I'm not too familiar with the actual term. I've seen it in several games.

It's even more evident if you look at how shadows interact with the ground textures. As they get these "lined" edges around them. Personally, I think it's MUCH better than other compromises I've seen.

Rendering realistically transparent and detailed shadows is supposedly VERY expensive.

If you think it looks bad, then obviously you'll notice it a lot. I really have no issue with it myself.

I care :)

But not to the exclusion of gameplay/story :)

That particular glitch is hardware related though, not part of the game. I don't see why someone would factor that into their judgment of the game's visuals.

They use a sort of blurring on semi-low-quality shadows, I think. But that's a DirectX9 thing, I suspect, since it's been the same in every game on world shadows.

Anyway, it is a technological achievement, alright. And all load times on my SSD install are below a second, too. :D

Best graphix EVAR??? YES.
(And you outta see it in 3D!)
Can I run them on my PC??? NO.

Yes, there is no faster way to kill a thread than to ask people to be positve. Even got ridiculed for it. Oh well lesson learned.

First off it's just my opinion but i'm assuming by your title your mocking it.

When I judge graphics I don't care about the technology used. Dx 11 or 9, ssao, bloom, hdr or whatever. I simple crank the settings to max and start playing.

I'm playing at max settings with uber sampling and large textures. Only 2 games i've ever played have really made me say wow tw2 and crysis. The feeling I got when walking out of the tent with the sun beating down and over looking the camp is the same one I got when coming out of the water dripping wet and approaching the beach in crysis which was wow. No the game doesn't push my system and it's not bleeding edge tech but in game graphics will always run a couple yrs. behind whats capable so people can play it. A lesson devs learned with the release of crysis no doubt.

I dislike cartoony or anime graphics so I appreciate the realistic graphics of tw2. The attention to detail and lighting affects are top notch. To me it just looks and feels right. I haven't played every game ever made but of the ones I have tw2 best them all.

You mention in another post that you want a game to push your system but then are very supportive of consoles. The very reason you won't see any games that push your system.If you stay current and overclock your system you will never see any game stress your system. I'm running a 4ghz cpu they don't even make them retail, others are running 4.5 or even 5ghz, then throw in dual, tri or even quad sli. Devs just can't make games to stress these types of systems or even half as powerful systems and still expect them to port to console, Which is the main goal these days unfortunately.

So after all that the witcher 2 is not the best graphics that can be produced but is the best graphics i've seen.

Am i the only one who hates "bloom"?

Seriously, that's the first thing I turn off in a game.

Oh, not at all. I just didn't want to ruin your intention for the thread. I don't always pay attention to that sort of thing, but since you asked nicely. ;) But if you'll read my post, there is no mocking tone in it. It's simply that I like the graphics, but do not get this "best grafix EVAR!!!" feeling from it. (I spell it like this, because of the zealot, mindless, not thinking straight nature of someone who is totally bowled over by teh awesomes!)

Well, that may be it. I like all those technical thingies, or better said, I used to, but I haven't been bother much buy it in recent years. Last nice tech to come out is maybe texellation, which is DX11 and has yet to take off. But I used to love my specular lighting, per-pixel shading, shadow stencilling, and all those neat little tricks Carmack used to do in his old magick. I remember upgrading our 486 with some co-processor awesomeness (I think) and reliving Doom ][ all over again. :)

I kinda of miss all that. There have been a couple more of those moments over the years, a few of which I mentioned. I guess your "blown-awayness" struck a nerve of nostalgia, or something.

Maybe my expectations are too high. But I want that feeling of looking around and seeing this amazing reflection on that really cool railing, or staring into the distance feeling like it goes on forever back. Oh forget it…

I can like both, can I? I bought an Xbox 360 when my PC was aging badly and I kind of impressed with what the system could do. I still am, actually, especially when developers that are really good at what they do come out with some of their best work.

You may be right that consoles are keeping us back, but many engines for PC have been able to scale well, out of necessity. The revolution is still far off, then. It won't be coming out of the real-time raytracing corner any time soon, I'm sure.

You're definitely not alone, but I quite like it. And it doesn't look very unrealistic if you ask me, although HDR is infinitely better.

Okay, I'm fairly impressed now that I've played some more. I started doubting that some of the cut-scenes are real-time. Are there any pre-rendered scenes in the game? It's kind of hard to tell in third-person view where it's difficult to get good close-ups and see the detail. But certain scenes certainly looked… amazingly detailed, and a huge difference from any console or PC title I've seen yet.

Unless there's pre-rendered scenes mixed in. ;)

I am running TW2 on a laptop and running it all on no problems with any of the graphices…it blows me away at times how great they are…matter of fact no problems at all with crashes glithes etc…
System Color Alienware M17x Soft-Touch Stealth Black
[225-0827]
Processor Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
[317-6602]
Memory 6GB DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
[317-6117]
A/C Adapter Alienware M17x 240W A/C Adapter
[331-1347]
Display Panel 17.3-inch WideHD+ 1600 x 900 60Hz WLED
[320-1935]
Video Card 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6870M

Yes, there are. It's easier to tell once you start juggling around different armors and Geralt's remains the same in the scene.

I apologize then I misconstrued your intentions by the title.



I think I get what your saying. Like when I fired up my 3dfx voodoo card for the first time. Now that was a jump in technology.

You absolutely can like both. I just believe that consoles are the main reason games have become graphically stagnant. If you look at a game like crysis it's 4 yrs. old or so and still one of the best looking games out there. Pc hardware has continued to advance but it doesn't matter because games are made for consoles then ported over. If reports about no new consoles are coming untill 2014 are true then you should be prepared for 3 more years of very little graphical improvement in games.

While I do believe that tw2 has the best graphics iv'e seen in a game you are right it's not groundbreaking or light years ahead of everything else but I do believe it's better.

I feel that way about motion blur. It does nothing to enhance the game for me whatsoever, and I even find it a bit hard on my eyes for some reason.


I'm trying to understand what you mean exactly. Are you saying you switched armors in the middle of a dialogue scene but it wouldn't show it? I don't think that's the same as being pre-rendered.

I used the Kayran armor for quite a while, and I'm sure it showed up in the cutscenes - that particular armor is very, very easy to notice.

Anyway, the up-close-and-personal graphics of TW2 is exceptional for an RPG, but it has mediocre long range graphics (landscapes etc). Quite natural, as it would require an immense computer to even run it otherwise.

I can second that. It does show your armour in cutscenes.

Yeah, I don't know why it matters so much to me to know whether something is pre-rendered or real-time. It's that same "Wow, that's actually in-game!" rush that I talked about in this thread. That it's become hard to distinguish the two is indicative of how good video game graphics have become.

If those cut-scenes (like in the Prologue when the witcher is interrogated) are real-time, I'm pretty sure that they use higher-polygon models for it. I think that's standard procedure in modern games, switch models when you get close up. I'll give it a good look when I'm playing again; I really want to know now!

(Incidentally, in FFXIII and FF in general, really, it's pretty easy to spot pre-rendered scenes, as there is much more going on in them, objects and effects wise. And still, the detail on them is similar, only slightly behind in real-time. Enough to make you think about it.)

So far, there's nothing pre-rendered in any of the cutscenes - at least not up to Chapter 2.

The only thing "pre-rendered" is the darkblue sky with white text at the very moment the game begins - and the cartoon animations every once in a while.

Everything else is rendered realtime with the engine.

Just search through TW2 folder for .bik files… that will probably solve the mystery… unless they are hidden in TW2.

Of course, there is no guarantee that they would be using BIK.

It's hard to tell real-time and pre-rendered apart when one is third-person and the other cinematic. You can make stuff look so much more realistic when you have a cinematic perspective and less gameplay stuff to worry about. But in that case, if it's all real-time, I'm *very* impressed by the scene that comes after you…