Which gen had the most impressive jump in graphics for you?

[AtomicShroom]

Nothing will ever top Mario 64. We all had seen glimpses of 3D before, whether it be in enhanced 16-bit games like Starfox or stuff like Virtua Fighter in the arcades. But still nothing, absolutely nothing could have prepared you for seeing and controlling something like Super Mario 64 on your home TV. Almost all 3D games before it felt slow, stiff, clunky, unresponsive, floaty, limited. Mario 64 set the bar so high that for that entire generation, very few games even came close.

 

[Hawk269]

Nothing will beat the Dc/Xbox leap.

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This so much. The jump from PS1/N64/Saturn to Dreamcast was incredible and the biggest jump.

 

[rapid32.5]

PS1 to XBOX jump was massive. To end up with Halo and 60fps Ninja Gaiden, HDD streaming music and levels with hidden loading times, Online capabilities, some games in 720p.

 

[Revolsin]

PS1 era was pretty terrible graphically, looking at a bunch of blocks stacked in each other isn't super impressive.
PS2/GC got me though. All of a sudden characters actually looked like normal human beings. Now that's crazy.

Look at any RE on PS1 and compare to RE4. The gap is gigantic

 

[Cranster]

Gen 5 to Gen 6.

From this...

to this in a year...

 

[Pharaun]

Gen 5 to 6 was huge, going from low poly 3d models to fully realized characters and environments was mind blowing.

The jump from 2d to 3d felt like a step backwards from a purely graphics perspective. Going from some nicely detailed sprites to blocky poorly defined models was off-putting to me. Obviously it enabled many different game play styles, but it took a whole generation for the graphics to catch up.

 

[BocoDragon]

Early 3D was awesome, but in some sense as an avid Star Fox player I found it perfectly in line with early 90s expectations of the future. I was impressed but I wasn't shocked.

But seeing Dreamcast and PS2 in action were significantly beyond what I expected at the time. I know it's hard to wrap our minds around now, but videogames stopped looking like "videogames" as I understood the term at the time. The subjects were no longer cartoon blocks and shapes abstracted from reality.. they were realistic worlds, however low res and jaggy we find them today.

 

[FreddeGredde]

snes ---> ps1 is way bigger. I am surprised by the votes to ps2 gen.

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Exactly this! To me, the MSG1-MSG2 pics are very similar, just a bit more detail in the latter.
Going 2D to 3D is a complete revolution and can't be understood if you didn't experience it, I guess.

Also, I think people are ignoring the good-looking N64 games, like Conker. Dreamcast/PS2/GameCube/Xbox wasn't that crazy of a leap from it. A bit sharper, a bit more detailed.
About the same as every new generation really. Except the 2D to 3D one...

 

[Troublematic]

As a PC gamer my jumps were a bit different, going from 386/486 era straight to 2000 era 3D games with Voodoo 3, essentially straight from NES to PS2 level graphics. Of course I did experience the early jump to 3D and that was probably the biggest paradigm shift in graphics so I voted for that jump even if I never had a PS1 or N64.

Same goes for PS2 era, I missed that as I wasn't a console gamer and my PC was by then starting to get a bit long in the tooth. The next jump was essentially the jump to HD with PS360, but to me it kinda represented the end of a golden age as a lot of PC exclusive devs went to console, and multiplatform titles sucked on PC if they even existed. Graphically it was still a major leap though, going from old 4:3 to widescreen, but to me the most memorable moment in transition to HD era was probably getting my first 23" 1080p monitor, which was an awesome jump over a 17" 4:3 1280x1024 (iirc) monitor. Playing Crysis on that was probably the last truly big jump in graphics. Anything after that has been just iterative improvement really. I did move to 3x1080p Eyefinity at some point, which was also an awesome improvement in immersion, but but ended up being a bit of a technical hassle so I eventually moved on to a single 40" 4K panel. I tried 120 Hz as well, but tbh I'm fine with 60 FPS as I prefer controllers these days and don't play anything competitive so high refresh is just an extra really.

The next paradigm shift on the level of going from 2D to 3D is definitely VR, but there's still problems with it as it needs to be wireless and effortless, but the tech isn't quite there yet and mobile hw can't really push enough pixels. I do think though that the combination of Oculus Quest like fully mobile sets as well as next gen console VR will truly bring it to mainstream, with PCVR offering the upsell option. I'm not quite sold on Quest being quite enough for a standalone set yet, but I can see how the likes of Nintendo could do a fully mobile VR platform in the future.

 

[Alligatorjandro]

PS1 to PS2

 

[Fitts]

I started with Atari 2600. Moved to NES, then SNES, PlayStation, and then finally was at the point in my life to own all consoles from that point onward. (although, my best friends growing up owned a Genesis and then an N64 so I clocked countless hours on those consoles as well)

Purely in terms of gameplay, the jump from 2D to 3D opened up massive possibilities and was the biggest leap. However, I can't say the visuals really blew me away as a kid. Don't get me wrong, I was impressed, but they still felt very much like a compromise most of the time. The games themselves absolutely wowed me but the visuals didn't.

When I went to Electronics Boutique and played Dreamcast just before it launched though... holy shit. I wanted to trash it on some console warrior bullshit because I knew I wanted to save my money for the next PlayStation, but that experience made it incredibly difficult to stick to that plan. That was the moment of "can games really look better than this?" And then we got that MGS2 demo with ZOE. That was the last time I've been truly impressed by a game's visuals.

The 5th generation is what I consider to be the cutoff for retro gaming and I still consider the 6th onward modern gaming. I can play 6th generation games and they still hold up. Playing any of them on emulator reinforces to me that progression from that point has been incremental as a mere resolution bump makes them look gorgeous. Even without emulation enhancement, many titles still hold up visually. (and surpass current game design conventions, but that's a subject for another thread)

To me, the 6th gen stands in many ways as gaming perfected. Graphically, I definitely feel it's where we hit the beginning of the plateau point. The SNES was where I started getting consoles at launch and I wanted to be blown away by it. I got the PlayStation at launch and I wanted to be blown away by it. I loved those consoles/gens, but I wasn't blown away by the visuals. New and cool sure, but I remember that feeling of reigning in my expectations. The second I got hit with what the transition from 5th to 6th gen meant though... it was exactly the feeling I'd wanted.

 

[CaptainK]

2D to 3D was a big jump in terms of gameplay/experience, but in terms of graphics I'd say shitty 3D to good 3D was the biggest jump. I think it was mainly shocking how quick and sudden the jump was, since we got some great-looking games right at the start of the PS2/Xbox/GC era, like Final Fantasy X, Silent Hill 2, Star Fox Adventures, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, Splinter Cell, and Dead or Alive 3. The jump from SD to HD felt like a more gradual change, in comparison.

Pictured below are Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64) and Star Fox Adventures (GCN), which were released 18 months apart, and from the same developer.

 

[TheSubsequentStrajack]

If considering all aspects of the technology coming together and not just graphical power, the industry can basically be separated into pre and post 360.

We are living in a gaming space defined by the standards set by the 360

 

[Christo750]

I remember seeing Fox's fur and the stitching on Mario's jeans in those Melee screenshots in Game Informer, and man alive. I was overwhelmed at the improved detail. The lead up to GameCube was very special for me so I think it's that one that's most impressive.

 

[bmdubya]

Seeing PlayStation 2 games for the first time was mind blowing. One of the first games I saw was GTA III and just couldn't believe it. And then I played MGS 2 and it changed everything.

 

[Jubenhimer]

5th to 6th generation. 6th gen was the point where video games really started to look and play how they were always envisioned to be. 3D worlds were now large with tons of things going on, and tons of stuff to do. Characters now looked like the actual characters complete with real body movements and lip sync. 3D gameplay was finally more fully realized and was easier and smoother than it had ever been in the preceding generation. Even today, a ton of 6th gen games still look good even years after they were released, which is a big reason why publishers continue to keep re-releasing and remastering games from this period even today.

6th gen was when Video Games really started to become something special.

 

[Nessus]

There will never be a jump as big as going from games that looked like Mario World and Sonic The Hedgehog to Mario 64.

 

[Leo-Tyrant]

Twice in my life:

1- Seeing Mario 64 in 1996
2- Seeing Gears of War in 2006

Nothing else has come close to those 2 moments. It was revolutionary. All preconceived boundaries were broken.

 

[Fularu]

None of those "generation" lines, it was seeing Virtua Racing at the arcades and Virtua Fighter.

 

[Tyaren]

Must've probably been Playstation/N64 to PS2/Gamecube/Xbox.

 

[Coinspinner]

I'm surprised Gen 5 to 6 is winning. It was a huge shift, sure, but to me nothing can be as impressive as the shift from 2D to 3D. I'd played games like Doom. But that 3D felt fake, with flat monsters and perspectives that warped if you tried to look up or down. But when I saw Mario 64 it was smooth and real 3D like I'd never seen happening in real time. You could walk around objects, but also jump on top of them, crawl under them ,etc. This 3D was interactive in a new way. It was graphics that meant something.

The PS1 impressed in it's own way. It had FMV that didn''t look like ass, like I'd seen on the Sega CD. CGI was coming along to the point that human characters could really resemble humans. CD storage space allowed beautiful prerendered backgrounds (see the FF7 beds thread) and FMV that could be integrated with the polygons to become a moving backdrop.

Of course, after several years of PS1 and N64 graphics I was itching for something better. Craved it. The first Dreamcast screenshots came out and impressed me. It seemed like as large and improvement as going from NES to SNES. The PS2 screenshots came out and... looked like a murky mess. But then Gamecube and Xbox came out and blew those two away with their texture quality. In that gen 3D characters no longer looked like papercraft approximations of themselves. They could have (polygonal) mouths and facial expressions, individual fingers, and a wider range of animations. Mo-cap became a common thing. But it wasn't the same. Impressive as the graphics were they didn't create new genres ore redefine what was possible in a game. The big upgrades FF10 had over it's PS1 predecessors were in audio and speed. MGS still mostly told its story via codec.

PS360 didn't impress me much. I'd already played some PS2 games on PC at high resolution, and early 360 games resembled that. It was a gen of "bigger and better" but the improved graphics didn't change much. The big change there was online and the built-in stores for downloadable games. I bought an XBox 360 for Live Arcade, and that was about 3/4 of the games I played on it. The gen after that was the same thing, but even less impressive, with only the increasing quality of handhelds really impressing me.

 

[c0Zm1c]

6 to 7 for me. I didn't play any third generation consoles and I ditched console gaming for the PC during the fifth generation. So the only console generations I've played in succession are 6, 7 and now 8. Firing up Project Gotham Racing 3 and Kameo for the first time in late 2005 was quite a sight to behold. :O

 

[Dark1x]

Nothing touches Metal Gear Solid 2 for me along with the summer and fall of 2001 on PS2. Just insane.

I'm surprised Gen 5 to 6 is winning. It was a huge shift, sure, but to me nothing can be as impressive as the shift from 2D to 3D. I'd played games like Doom. But that 3D felt fake, with flat monsters and perspectives that warped if you tried to look up or down. But when I saw Mario 64 it was smooth and real 3D like I'd never seen happening in real time. You could walk around objects, but also jump on top of them, crawl under them ,etc. This 3D was interactive in a new way. It was graphics that meant something.

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Well, we're talking consoles right? Arcades ruined first-gen 3D for me. Before I even saw a PS1 I'd played Daytona USA. Spent that whole generation waiting for that quality and then VF3 shows up. It was nuts.

Games like MGS2, though, represented a paradigm shift in 3D real-time rendering at high frame-rates. There simply wasn't anything else like it at the time. Not on PC or in arcades. It felt truly revolutionary from a visual standpoint.

 

[dead souls]

PS1 to PS2. I don't even see how anyone could vote for any other choice.

 

[tzare]

Snes/Genesis to psone/Saturn/n64 era.

2D to 3D

 

[JamboGT]

PS1 - PS2, so Gen 5 to Gen 6?

Playing Virtua Racing and things (in the arcades I mean) had already let me try 3D, the sheer improvement in one gen was mindblowing, compare GT1 and 2 to 3 and 4, or the PS1 F1 games to their PS2 equivalents. Was amazing.

(Though I have to say the jump from a Spectrum 48k to a Master System seemed huge to me too....)

 

[Karlinel]

Going from virtua racing (or sonic 3) to sega rally and panzer dragoon zwei had my balls drop off and roll away, so I'll go with that.

 

[Irminsul]

While Mario 64 was definitely a great experience, the only time I actually said "wow" out loud when seeing a game was a Dreamcast demo kiosk showing Ecco the Dolphin. I got one just shortly after. So it's "Shitty 3D to good 3D" for me. Most 6th generation games also hold up very well to this day, which can't be said of the prior generation. Make no mistake, I love replaying, e.g., Banjo-Kazooie, but overall the 5th generation games didn't age nearly as gracefully as the 4th generation ones did.

 

[RevengeTaken]

This is the biggest jump i've ever seen

Spoiler

 

[RetroCCN]

The jump from 8 to 16-bit. I was not at all impressed with the initial jump from 2D to 3D. In fact, I found most early 3D games very off-putting to look at.

 

[MoogleWizard]

In terms of graphics in general, N64/PSX to GC/PS2, but nothing had the wow factor Mario 64 had.

 

[Maccix]

Have to say its 8bit to 16bit. Going from First Zelda to A Link to the past has been mindblowing. Games like chrono trigger,Secret of Mana or FF VI(3 Here) was the first time where i actually played a story driven game. Mario World was a huge jump too.

1995 i build my first PC (Pentium 133,16 MB RAM) and started playing Doom and later on quake,Duke, Dark Forces etc and no console ever was able to blow me away again even if i had every major one up until now. God of War and the first Gears games came close though

 

[bionic77]

I have been lucky enough to experience all of them.

The most impressive for me was 2D to 3D. As others have said, it was just a big deal seeing Mario 64 for the first time. And not just Mario. It was a big deal for me seeing the Playstation and Sega arcade games at the time as well. While a lot of those games seem primitive now (it was the beginning and they were just figuring things out), it was just an insanely exciting time for gaming. It felt like something big or new was coming out every 6 months.

Also impressive, but not as impressive as going to 3D, was that initial jump to Dreamcast/PS2 where 3D games became playable and started to look really good. It has been small iterations since then (IMO) so the graphical advances are becoming less and less mind-blowing (though still noticeable).

The other one was going to 8bit for the first time. Going from single screen arcade games and Atari graphics to Super Mario was really mindblowing in 1985.

 

[Adamska]

Playing Killzone Shadow Fall left quite an impression on me. The lightning and materials just make the game that much more realistic, far beyond most of the stuff that was out at the time even on PC.

 

[Deleted member 22585]

For me, it was SD to HD. To finally see those small details in the characters and their clothes was incredible.
Gen 5 to 6 was also a huge jump.

 

[butman]

 

[SweetVermouth]

I don't think Gen 6 to 7 was impressive at all because I've been playing PC games at like 1280x1024 resolution by then. Was a toss between Gen 5 to 6 and 4 to 5. I do think 8bit to 16bit is underrated though!

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That's not a good example given that the OOT screenshot uses an HD texture pack and runs at a way higher resolution than 320x240

 

[Freeman]

Gen 4 to 5.

Children this days do not understand how important that transition was.

Of course this is only talking about consoles, because arcade /pc are a separate thing.

 

[LuckyLocke]

Gen 4 to 5 is the right answer.
Super Mario World --> Mario 64
A Link to the Past --> Ocarina of Time
Final Fantasy 6 --> Final Fantasy 7
It was a revolution in the gaming world. I assume people choosing other options are simply too young to have experienced it.

 

[martincrimson87]

Sixth gen games aged much better than fifth for sure.
But fifth gen games changed almost every genre in gaming. Proper racing and sports games became a thing. No more need for gamey sounding music. Cutscenes in games. Seeing sub zeros spine rip in 3d. You just had to be there.

 

[RagdollRhino]

The jump from "bad 3D to good 3D" wasn't really that big to me. I remember even being slightly disappointed after trying WE and Crash Bandicoot and other games on PS2 for the first time. overall it wasn't really a very capable machine.

the jump from SD to HD was much bigger and much more impressive! the first time I saw Gears of War on a 32 inch expensive TV from Samsung my mind was blown, it was "almost" as impressive as going from 2D to 3D. I felt very impressed by RE5 and MGS4 too.

the jump from PS2 to PS3 is much bigger and greater than PS1 to PS2.

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Idk, going from MGS1 to MGS2 blew my mind. That was my first ps2 experience.

 

[Irminsul]

Pictured below are Conker's Bad Fur Day (N64) and Star Fox Adventures (GCN), which were released 18 months apart, and from the same developer.

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Yeah, and Conker was by far the best looking N64 game, just look at that (real-time!) shadow cast by the fire. It also meant Conker spent significant amounts of time at sub-30 fps and ran at a resolution of 292*214(!). Yes, sub-240p. Star Fox Adventures ran at 480i at 60fps and looked like that.

 

[Omnicore]

2D to 3D without a doubt.

That being said.. going from GBA to PSP in an era when the PS2 and GameCube had been out a few years also blew my mind.

It was like going from SNES to a weak PS2 in the palm of your hands.

 

[Rooster]

Gen 4->5. May have been bad 3D but playstation demo disc number 1 was mind blowing at the time.

 

[MisterSnrub]

Gen 4>5. I remember being eight and seeing screenshots for Sonic Adventure in magazines and being blown the fuck away. It looked almost real to me, those skyboxes were legit in 1998. It was such an exciting time to be into games. Or to be eight for that matter.

 

[The_Ultima]

When talking explicitely about graphics, then gen 5->6 for me; Final Fantasy X in particular had what I thought were seamless transitions between pre-rendered movies and in-game cutscenes.

Games looked "clean" on GameCube and PS2 when compared to N64 and PS1. Silly term nowadays with all PS2 titles looking washed out lol
But back then, I thought this was truly the pinnacle and going to PS3 or PS4 didn´t impress me as much.

 

[Acquiescence]

Nothing can ever really beat shifting from 2D to 3D. It was mindblowing at the time.

 

[Zutrax]

I just missed the mark on the 2D to 3D jump. For some reason I never batted an eye at N64/PS1 to GCN/PS2.

But boy, I was fucking floored when I originally played Dead Rising in SD then finally got an HDTV and component cables. It genuinely felt like the first time I put on a pair of glasses in my life. Then when Gears of War came around, hoo boy.

So I'd say that generation was the one that really stuck with me in terms of a jump in quality.

 

[Dussck]

Mario 64 was a moment

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Yep. That and the first 'real 3D FPS' Quake.

 

[Fafalada]

I'm surprised Gen 5 to 6 is winning.

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I tried to pick based on defining moments (the jump between SH1 and SH3 for instance). But frankly I also found last gen on the underwhelming side - like PS1 being bad 3d - PS3 was really about bad 'HD'.

That being said I think voting mostly reflects age-demographics of the forum and their initial exposure to consoles. We're most impressionable at initial exposure - so those that started with 00s or even later will inevitably have a very different perception of what constitutes a 'jump'.