Here's the
Tech Demo called Elemental HD from the folks over at Epic. When developers aren't limited by 6+ year old hardware found in consoles, this stuff can happen. Note that this tech demo was done in real-time using a GTX 680 at 60fps.
Here's a
decent article on the Unreal 4 engine.
Also, Epic has seen the specs of the next-generation PlayStation and Xbox, and is actively lobbying Sony and Microsoft to make them more powerful. Seeing as they might be around as long as current generation hardware, I can't fault them there.
Given what we've seen in the
CryEngine 3 thread (with
another recent video) along with what the next-gen Unreal engine can do, and even throwing in the Frostbite 2 engine that powers Battlefield 3, we're in for one helluva great few years of wonderful gaming graphics. It'll still be more than a year until the next-generation consoles are released, and the changes they'll see will be dramatic. DirectX 10, 10.1 and 11 have been released, with 11 being especially more impressive than the DX9 that was out when the consoles were introduced. Tesselation is a beast when it comes to showing off graphics; something that graphics cards from ~2009 and later can prove.
Anyway, just some food for thought.
