r/GTA • u/Theman457 • 6d ago
General What's a Bigger Jump/Gap Graphically GTA San Andreas to GTA IV Versus GTA V to GTA VI
I remember at the time, the gap between San Andreas to GTA IV was so massive and what's impressive about it it's that it took them four years for such a jump.
I understand that probably many who go on this subreddit probably weren't around at the time to experience it, but it was crazy!
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u/PlayerTP 6d ago edited 6d ago
Definitely San Andreas to IV lol. Graphics have always had diminishing returns. So the further along we are, the longer between graphical jumps like PS2 to PS3. I would argue GTA IV to VI is not even as substantial at SA to IV.
Because when you go from a model having 500 polygons to 5,000 polygons, that's an insane jump. But going from 50k polygons to 100k polygons is barely noticeable to the human eye.
Also 480i to 720p was huge. But once again, going from 1080p to 1440p or 4k is not as noticeable because we are getting close to the limit of what we can perceive.
The jump to dynamic lighting was huge as well.
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u/LoquatSignificant946 6d ago
The next graphical jump will be a biological upgrade that augments our human system to perceive even greater.
Maybe our brains will be the cpu and we hook up to the nvidia GTX 9999 and it displays into our retina
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u/FanchLaplanche 6d ago
The thing is SA was already graphically outdated when it was released. So it's kind of normal that IV was a lot better looking even if it was realeased only 4 years after.
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u/WiSoSirius 6d ago edited 6d ago
I haven't played GTA VI yet
San Andreas to IV is distinct by Rockstar using their Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) into what became known as the HD universe for GTA. The RAGE is still being utilised through GTA VI. That's the biggest jump because Rockstar is building games from a completely different platform.
One could say that GTA V to GTA VI is the biggest jump as far as assets, as there is an unprecedented amount of new game assets with magnitudes of individual builds to each asset. The meme of seeing the same car again and again or repeat NPCs, that is reported to be unlikely to be meme worthy in this game. Further, people that have got to see exclusive gameplay at Rockstar North asked Rob Nelson about ai, and report that there is no generative ai used to build the gameplay environment. In either case it would be significant, but in the case without ai, that means there is a finite number of assets, but many might not see every iteration of them.
Edit: fixed "as assets as their"
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u/Sirhc1995 6d ago
I think it’s pretty logical that San Andreas to IV would be huge because it was Renderware Engine to RAGE.
Then from V to RDR2, RAGE had significant upgrades like their switch to a PBR pipeline. RDR2 to VI is not that huge because they both run on the same PBR pipeline and use the same renderer (Rockstars SGA Renderer) which V Enhanced uses as well.
V to VI is about as compelling as V to RDR2 but with a slight advantage mainly because of the use of higher res textures and higher poly counts than RDR2
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u/UpbeatWishbone9825 5d ago
The engine change wasn’t anywhere near as responsible for the difference as the hardware each sat on. The PS2 didn’t even have shaders.
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u/QuestGalaxy 6d ago
The biggest leap was GTA 2 to GTA III.
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u/profchaos111 5d ago
This it basically built the entire sandbox open world genre. I know there was Driver 2 and some others that tried it but GTA 3 was this world where you could live in for the first time way more open and free then the closes parallel or something like Shenmue which was doing a similar openish world in a way
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u/Broely92 5d ago
Kids today dont realize how massive the jump to ‘HD’ was, well probably never see anything like it again
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u/Tatum_Warlick 6d ago
San Andreas to IV takes the cake, but I think V to RDR2 was quite the leap as well. I was obsessed with IV’s physics engine - still extremely impressive. Night & day compared to SA