Which Generation Of Console Or PC Games You Think Contain The Best Graphics

[oldgamerz]

7th Generation consoles any ANY major PC game released between 2005 AD and today in 2024 AD. However the 8th and 9th generation consoles and even the affordable virtual Reality sets have more or less than 5th generation consoles could do. Now the earliest PC games were as equal or better than all console video games of that time back in the 1980's,

 But in the mid 1990's till about year 2000 AD. all PC games sucked because A PC would cost about sometimes up to $500USD more money in America at least for a lower powered gaming system if you were to buy a PC instead of a console from  years 1996 AD till about the year 2000 AD.

Upgrades were a rip off back in those 4 years of PC parts and PC's just were the worst gaming party of that timeframe not today, in my own opinion a full bred or built modern PC is the best gaming device you could own from about the year 2009 AD till today.

[randomstranger]

For me best does not mean the most technically advanced. The most technically advanced games generally aged poorly while games with more stylized visuals hold up years or even decades later. Prince of Persia (2008) or Okami could release today and it could still be beautiful.

So I think it's about the mid-to-late 2000s/7th gen consoles where tech got advanced enough that certain types graphics became truly timeless.

[marvelvscapcom2]

Best is of course current gen in terms of realism. However I feel most revolutionary and underrated is PS3 And Xbox 360 Generation. Bioshock looks beautiful even all these years later. Mario Galaxy is gorgeous. Halo reach was stunning and Forza Horizon was wild. I think GTA 5 when it released was so polished and visually incredible that rockstar has rehashed the same game for over a decade lol. It took everything PS2 did right. Cleaned up the visuals. Remastered most of PS2s best games and introduced true native 1080p HD.

Idk my gens by name. But PS3, 360 and Wii were the first for me that blurred the line between video game.and real life. Everything after is just small improvements.

[snyderec3]

4th Gen for purely nostalgic reasons. These were the consoles that dominated the market when I was in my early to mid teens and I was playing the games that would become life-long favourites.

[alligo]

I think it's the 7th generation.
Today there are some games that have the possibility of having better graphics but there is no longer as much of a gap as at the time.
I even find that we regress on certain things..

[ferraroso]

I have to agree with marvelvscapcom2 on this one. I think the biggest leap forward we had when comparing with the previous generation so far was during the Xbox 360 and PS3 era.

A special shout out goes for the Dreamcast too. Those graphics were just unbelievable back in 1998/1999 AD.

(Thanks oldgamerz for specifying we're talking about games consoles released after Christ here)

[telekill]

For me, peak graphics were PS4. Obviously, this isn't correct but seeing the Uncharted 4 teaser for the first time... my jaw dropped. In fact, the graphics for the teaser were such an insane leap, that the only other time I remember an impact like that before was when Resident Evil Remake was announced for Gamecube.

I've seen some incredible looking games but I don't think I'll ever experience that jaw dropping moment again.

[wuddy6]

Modern consoles and high-end PCs boast the most realistic graphics, like ray-tracing for lighting and high-resolution textures. But graphics aren't everything. Games with less technical power can be beautiful too, thanks to their unique art style. Classic games can even hold charm with their pixel art

[BinaryMessiah]

When we had processing limitations. PS3/Xbox 360 generation and earlier required developers to be clever and use coding tricks to make their games push these systems to the limits. I feel these games hold up the best today. We have so much processing power available today I feel developers have no desire to push things to their limits.

[sly345]

But in the mid 1990's till about year 2000 AD. all PC games sucked because A PC would cost about sometimes up to $500USD more money in America at least for a lower powered gaming system if you were to buy a PC instead of a console from  years 1996 AD till about the year 2000 AD.

I find that a very silly argument. Just because you were poor and couldn't afford a PC, doesn't mean that all the games suck or were technically bad.
Objectively, the PC has been the best gaming platform since at least 1992 (before that i'd argue the Amiga, it had the best 2D Graphics of any system, just look at games like Defender of the Crown, Superfrog, Lionheart or Shadow of the Beast, to name a few) especially on the technical side when SVGA came out, followed by 3DFX's Vcoodoo, which was insane. Just compare Rise of the Robots (crap game, but easily the finest graphics in 1994) with the console counterparts. Compare Tomb Raider 1 on consoles with the 3DFX version. And so on.

And the games were great as well. Tons of highly imaginative, boundary pushing, creative games and genres that simply never properly existed on consoles as well.

The PC doesn't really have "Generations", since it's a ongoing system, but i would say graphically the 90's were the best, with the nicest 2D Graphics that can be found, thanks also to actual comic and cartoon artists working on games (like Steve Purcell for Lucas Arts or Dave Gibbons' work on Beneath a Steel Sky or other noticable titles like Toonstruck and Broken Sword) and the 3D Era was the best looking as well, thanks to way higher resolutions and more hardware power. When you look at the PS1's 3D graphics for example, they are absolutely disgusting, insanely pixelated, all the texture warping thanks to the missing mip-mapping and thus, even the most creative texture design is kinda lost.
And back then the games were graphically diverse and interesting, unlike today were you get the feel that there are only 2 graphic sets available: Grey, boring, grab "realistic" worlds and NES style 2D Graphics.
Quake 1 was mind-blowing in 1996. Fully 3D, high resolutions, high textures and a very unique art style with its mix of Gothic, Industrial and Medieval elements

[tripredacus]

"PC" certainly had generations but it is not as easily defined as with consoles. I'd say they would map out like so:
1 - x86/DOS
2 - x86/L1 cache/Windows 3
3 - Pentium/3D/Win9x
4 - Pentium/post 3D/XP
5 - Bloom/Vista
6 - x64/MP/8.1

[dhaabi]

And back then the games were graphically diverse and interesting, unlike today were you get the feel that there are only 2 graphic sets available: Grey, boring, grab "realistic" worlds and NES style 2D Graphics.

Going by your account collection, the latest games you own are from the mid-2000s–early-2010s. This era of gaming is widely recognized as being bland with many AAA games relying on muted brown and gray colors. To a degree, that may still be the case with some AAA games, but smaller studios are more than willing to utilize color in attractive ways. Below are a collection of game screenshots, the earliest of which is from 2016.