*The reason I got into computing was to create games. I still dabble, most recently using Godot.

It’s difficult to imagine a world without the vibrant, sprawling digital landscapes of today’s video games, but there was a time when on-screen action was represented by a handful of flickering pixels. The journey from those simple, blocky beginnings to the near-photorealistic and incredibly dynamic worlds we now take for granted is a fascinating story of technological leaps and boundless creativity. Understanding this evolution isn’t just a history lesson; it’s key to appreciating where games are now and where they might take us next.

The earliest video games, like ‘Tennis for Two’ (1958) or SpaceWar (1962) played on an oscilloscope, or Atari’s ‘Pong’ (1972), were rudimentary in their visual presentation. These games used simple shapes and monochrome displays, relying heavily on the player’s imagination. The late 1970s and early 1980s ushered in the 8-bit era, where characters and environments were constructed from visible pixels. Games like ‘Space Invaders’ (1978) and ‘Pac-Man’ (1980) became cultural phenomena, their iconic, though simple, graphics forever etched in gaming history. Colour palettes were limited, and animation was basic, but these games laid the critical groundwork for everything that followed. The subsequent 16-bit era, popularised by consoles like the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo in the early 1990s, brought significant improvements. Sprites became more detailed, colours more plentiful, and animations smoother, allowing for more complex and visually engaging worlds, as seen in ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ (1991) and ‘Super Mario World’ (1990). Parallax scrolling, a technique where background layers move at different speeds, created an illusion of depth previously unseen.

The mid-to-late 1990s marked a monumental shift with the advent of 3D graphics. Initially, this involved wireframe models or flat-shaded polygons, as seen in early pioneers like ‘Elite’ (1984) and ‘Virtua Fighter’ (1993). However, games like ‘DOOM’ (1993) and ‘Quake’ (1996) by id Software truly began to showcase the potential of immersive 3D environments, introducing texture mapping which wrapped 2D images onto 3D models, adding a new layer of realism. This era also saw the birth of seminal game engines, which are software frameworks providing developers with the tools to build games. Tim Sweeney, founder of Epic Games, began developing the Unreal Engine in 1995, which first appeared with the game ‘Unreal’ in 1998, setting a benchmark for 3D rendering. id Software’s engines, like the one powering Quake, were also hugely influential. The introduction of dedicated 3D graphics cards, such as the 3dfx Voodoo, and later NVIDIA’s GeForce and ATI’s Radeon lines, was a crucial hardware development. These cards took the heavy lifting of rendering complex 3D scenes away from the main computer processor, leading to a rapid increase in visual fidelity. Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) like DirectX from Microsoft and the open-standard OpenGL provided standardised ways for software to communicate with this new hardware, further accelerating development.

As hardware became more powerful, so did the ambition of game developers. The early 2000s saw the rise of High-Definition (HD) graphics, with consoles like the Xbox 360 (2005) and PlayStation 3 (2006) popularising resolutions like 720p and 1080p. Game engines became increasingly sophisticated. Unreal Engine 3, launched with ‘Gears of War’ in 2006, introduced fully programmable shader functionality, allowing for per-pixel lighting and shadow rendering, a massive leap in visual detail. Shaders, small programs that run on the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), gave developers unprecedented control over how light, textures, and surfaces appeared. CryEngine, first showcased with ‘Far Cry’ (2004) and famously with ‘Crysis’ (2007), became synonymous with pushing the boundaries of photorealism, excelling in rendering vast, detailed outdoor environments and realistic water and lighting effects. Unity, first released in 2005, gained popularity, particularly among independent developers, due to its accessibility and cross-platform capabilities. Unity 5, released in 2015, significantly upgraded its graphical capabilities with features like physically based rendering (PBR) and real-time global illumination.

Alongside the evolution of visual fidelity, the simulation of physics within game worlds has also undergone a dramatic transformation. In early games, physics was often non-existent or heavily scripted. Characters might have a pre-set jump arc, and objects would react in predetermined ways, if at all. The late 1990s saw early attempts at more dynamic physics. A notable, if flawed, pioneer was ‘Jurassic Park: Trespasser’ (1998), which was one of the first games to attempt a comprehensive physics engine, including ragdoll physics for character bodies. Ragdoll physics treats character models as a collection of rigid bodies connected by joints, allowing them to react more realistically to forces and collisions, leading to unscripted and often amusing death animations. While ‘Trespasser’ was a commercial disappointment, its ambition in physics simulation was influential. The widespread adoption of more sophisticated physics really took off with the advent of dedicated physics engines like Havok (used in games like ‘Half-Life 2’) and NVIDIA’s PhysX (integrated into Unreal Engine 3). These engines allowed for complex calculations of how objects should move, collide, and react to forces like gravity and explosions. This led to more interactive and believable environments, with destructible scenery, objects that could be realistically manipulated, and characters that moved and fell in a more natural, unscripted manner. The impact on gameplay was significant, allowing for new types of puzzles, more emergent combat scenarios, and a greater sense of immersion as the world reacted more believably to player actions.

Today, video game graphics and physics continue to push new frontiers. Real-time ray tracing, a technique that simulates the physical behaviour of light, is becoming increasingly common, offering incredibly realistic reflections, shadows, and global illumination. NVIDIA’s RTX series of GPUs brought hardware acceleration for ray tracing to consumers, making it feasible for real-time applications in games. Technologies like Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) use AI to upscale lower-resolution images to higher resolutions with minimal performance loss, helping to offset the computational cost of ray tracing. Artificial intelligence is also playing an increasingly significant role in graphics and physics through procedural content generation (PCG), where AI algorithms can create vast and varied game worlds, textures, and even animations, reducing development time and potentially offering unique experiences each playthrough. We’re seeing AI assist in creating more realistic character animations and behaviours. Voxel graphics, which use 3D pixels (volume pixels) instead of polygons, are being explored as an alternative way to render highly detailed and deformable environments, as seen in titles like ‘Minecraft’ and emerging technologies like Atomontage’s Virtual Matter. Game engines like Unreal Engine 5, with features like Nanite for incredibly detailed geometry and Lumen for dynamic global illumination, continue to blur the lines between real-time graphics and offline cinematic rendering. Tim Sweeney has even hinted that Unreal Engine 6 will focus on creating a “metaverse” by merging high-end game engine capabilities with user-friendly creation tools.

The evolution of graphics and physics has profoundly impacted how we experience games. The drive for realism has created incredibly immersive worlds, but it also raises questions about the “uncanny valley”—that unsettling feeling when a digital human looks almost, but not quite, real. As Tim Sweeney once mentioned, “Humans are by far the hardest part of computer graphics because millions of years of evolution have given us dedicated brain systems to detect patterns and faces and infer emotions and intent”. Furthermore, while photorealism is impressive, many successful and beloved games opt for stylised art directions, proving that cutting-edge realism isn’t the only path to visual excellence or player engagement. The increased complexity also brings challenges, with development costs and team sizes growing significantly. The future may lie in a balance, where advanced tools driven by AI help manage this complexity, allowing both large studios and independent developers to create compelling experiences. The computational demands also continue to rise, pushing hardware to its limits. Cloud gaming, where games are streamed from powerful servers, could offer a way to deliver high-fidelity experiences to a wider range of devices, though it introduces its own set of challenges like latency.

From the simple bounce of a digital ball in ‘Pong’ to the breathtaking, dynamically lit and physically simulated worlds of modern blockbusters, the evolution of video game graphics and physics engines has been nothing short of revolutionary. This relentless pursuit of visual and interactive fidelity has transformed video games from simple pastimes into deeply immersive and complex art forms. Each leap, from 2D sprites to 3D polygons, from pre-canned animations to dynamic ragdolls, and from basic lighting to real-time ray tracing, has not only enhanced the spectacle but has also fundamentally changed how games are designed and played. As we look towards a future of AI-enhanced visuals, metaverse ambitions, and perhaps even technologies beyond our current imagination, one must wonder: will there be a point where virtual worlds become indistinguishable from reality, and what will that mean for the nature of play and experience itself?

References and Further Reading:

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8. Jurassic Park Trespasser – National Videogame Museum. National Videogame Museum.
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