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When a game is considered / marketed as 4K game and HDR game ? (i.e. game that supports 4K/HDR)

Discussion in 'General Graphics' started by YHX2000, Jul 14, 2021.

  1. YHX2000

    YHX2000

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2015
    Posts:
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    Hi John is making a game with Unity Engine !
    - John wants to market his game as 4K game (telling the truth, not just marketing fluff)
    - John wants to market his game as HDR game (telling the truth, not just marketing fluff)

    So when we can say John have 4K game ?
    a) The game should have all of its textures + cut scenes at 4K resolution ?
    b) The game has MOST of it's textures and cut scenes in 4K ?
    c) The game looks good once rendered at 4K resolution (although its textures are up to 2k) ?
    d) ?????

    Regarding HDR part ?
    a) All materials are HDR materials ?
    b) Most of the materials are HDR materials ?
    c) Some materials are HDR materials ?
    d) There is magic button in Unity that makes John's Game HDR ?
    e) There is specific flow which John is not aware of ?
    f) ???????

    Thanks everyone for answers I think this post will be helpful for all of us !
     
  2. bgolus

    bgolus

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    Dec 7, 2012
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    A “4k game” has nothing to do with texture resolution. A game being a “4k game” just means the game is playable on mortal accessible hardware at or near 3840x2160 consistently above 30fps. Everything else is irrelevant. Most “4k” games even on the latest consoles render only the UI at 4k and then render the game at a dynamic resolution somewhere between 1800p and 1440p. A few games have special modes that prefer keeping the resolution at 4k locked, but usually at the expense of lowering the overall visual quality to maintain 30fps.


    An “HDR game” means the game outputs an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image to a monitor or TV that can accept and display an HDR signal. Unity can use HDR rendering and HDR textures, and has been able to for several years now. In fact I might even go out on a limb and say the majority of Unity projects released in the last several years use HDR rendering. But that doesn’t mean they’re an “HDR game”. Unity still does not support HDR output, which is all that matters for an “HDR game”. The exception is the HDRP (High Definition Render Pipeline, which refers to the rendering quality, not the hd resolution or hdr rendering or output, all of which are optional), which they did add early support for HDR output to.
     
  3. YHX2000

    YHX2000

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    Thank you !
     
  4. kdgalla

    kdgalla

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    Maybe you meant an HD game? HD is the same as what bgolus said about 4K, except instead of 3840x2160, it's more like 1280x720 or 1920x1080, depending on who you ask . People sometimes call these 720p or 1080p.
     
  5. bgolus

    bgolus

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    An "HD game" is a term that has been rendered almost meaningless.

    Two decades ago it might mean the game could output a progressive signal like 480p, which is 640x480, or possible a lot of other possible resolutions. The consoles of that era, the Dreamcast, GameCube, Xbox, and PS2, had limited support for resolutions above their default 480i, though a very small number of games could support 720p or even 1080i. This was when "HDTV" first started being a thing being marketed to consumers, which at the time were 720p (1280x720 or similar resolutions), so games that could support something above the default 480i resolution of those consoles might get marketed as being "HD" even if they didn't actually support the full 720p, and may have even just been 480i stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio.

    For the PS3 and Xbox 360, nearly 100% of games were marketed as "HD" as those consoles supported proper 720p output. Though it should be noted many of them could not actually run at that resolution! The "modern" complaint of AAA games "not running the resolution they say they do" isn't some new thing that console games started doing. Games have been reducing their display resolution since the days of the original NES. Players have only just recently started noticing this and complaining about it (in part because some companies have explicitly marketed a game as running a specific resolution that it could not actually run at).

    It was also about this time that "HD remakes" started to become a thing, with old games being "upgraded" to run on newer consoles and at higher resolutions. This came in the form just running the exact same game but at the newer and widescreen resolution, or partial conversion of assets like textures, or completely remaking the game from scratch. The first may have been the God of War Collection, which brought the original two PS2 games to the PS3 "Remastered in high-definition at a resolution of 720p" (as per the bullet point on the back of the box). Again, the use of the term "HD" changes depending on the game and the platform / year. Later "HD" remakes might claim 1080p for a newer console than the original game was released for. Or in some cases it ran at a lower resolution than the original game and just featured some updated art, as was the case for that same God of War Collection when it was released for PS Vita!

    Today "HD" is usually referring to 1080p (1920x1080), and all current (Switch, Xbox Series S|X, PS5) and previous gen (WiiU, Xbox One, PS4) consoles are capable of displaying at this resolution. It's just expected any game that's released for those platforms can run "in HD" so it's very uncommon for a new games to label itself an "HD game". Though, again, the games might not actually render at that resolution. One of the most recent "HD" games would be something like Wind Waker HD, which is explicitly referring to the fact it is a remake of the original GameCube Wind Waker game that now runs at 1080p and has some minor updates to the art.
     
    YHX2000 likes this.
  6. YHX2000

    YHX2000

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    Hi, actually I meant HDR games i.e. colors brightness...not HD resolution..Thanks
     
  7. YHX2000

    YHX2000

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    Thank you all for replying!