Perfect realism, in a decade or so

From Shack News:

Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney now estimates that videogame graphics will reach the point of realism in as little as 10-15 years.

When asked for an estimate on movie-like photorealism by Gamasutra, Sweeney replied: "Probably 10-15 years for that stuff, which isn't far at all. Which is scary--we'll be able to saturate our visual systems with realistic graphics at that point."

"We're only about a factor of a thousand off from achieving all that in real-time without sacrifices," he said. "So we'll certainly see that happen in our lifetimes; it's just a result of Moore's Law."

While graphical fidelity might be perfected, Sweeney noted that mastering actual human realism will be a more daunting task.

"There's another problem in graphics that's not as easily solvable," he added. "It's anything that requires simulating human intelligence or behavior: animation, character movement, interaction with characters, and conversations with characters."

Sweeney explained that simulating human behavior is not "a matter of computational power," saying that "we just don't have the algorithms; we don't know how the brain works or how to simulate it."

"And if you could simulate it all, how could you train it to be realistic like a human? Those problems are probably decades away from being solved. Those are things that may not occur in our lifetimes."