Video games: even more realistic graphics thanks to real images

Today's innovation could transform our relationship with video games.

We found a way to make the graphics ultra-realistic.

It's simple: we could soon play with real images.

The same images as in the cinema.

As if they had been shot in real life.

We all realized it: the quality of graphics has jumped colossal since the big pixels of the 1980s. But even on the latest generation of consoles, we still cannot speak of photo-realism.

It is magnificent, but we are still far from cinema images.

Intel researchers have found a trick to convert synthetic images into real images, and finally make video games ultra-realistic.

An old video game dream coming true.

Will you need a powerful computer or console?

Not exactly.

And that changes everything.

Their technique works like the filters you use to transform your photos into Van Gogh style, pointillism, Gauguin, etc.

Except, that the filter will apply the style of real filmed images.

For that to work, obviously, it will be necessary to have filmed images close to those of the game. This is what they did with GTA, a game where you spend a lot of time in the car in a city.

So they relied on real images, filmed behind the wheel of a car.

Is that something we could use today?

Yes. This could take the form of a box that is plugged in between the screen and the console. The images would then become photo-realistic as if by magic. This would also make it possible to end the arms race, with ever more powerful processors.