This is why I've always been a huge fan of Unreal Technology. You could definitely call me a fanboy since I played the original Unreal (the game on which UT was based) avidly for years... but for good reason. Just like most males my age, I've played tons of first person shooters... but I've always felt Unreal was way ahead of its time, not just with graphics but with gameplay as well. Although the gameplay of the Unreal series has steadily declined since the original but these days it's still hard to find a game on its level in the sense of how many different ways can be approached to be good at the game.

But back to the graphics, rendering these graphics in realtime with a high framerate is definitely possible... but not presently feasible. The only problem I've noticed with the Unreal series and its graphics is as I just said: it's ahead of its time. Sure, there's hardware out there that can handle it no problem... but the average consumer can't afford it. I have a feeling that even when the next generation of consoles is released, they'll still struggle to handle the Unreal Engine at its full potential. But I guess someone has to raise the bar.

I remember when UT3 came out... I was so stoked. My gaming PC was probably only a year behind the top (affordable) components at the time... and I wasn't about to go spend $500+ on a new video card, ram, and all that. I figured I'd be able to run it decently enough... but boy was I wrong. I got 30 fps tops (and that was when nothing was going on!) and if you've played an FPS like Unreal competitively, you'd know that the only way you stand a chance at dodging rockets and sniping people midair and all that awesome stuff possible with the Unreal series... you need upwards of 60 fps, consistently. So I only played the new game for a couple of weeks before giving up. It's probably for the best too because I needed to concentrate on my studies haha... but the moral of the story is the entire game basically died within a few months because only a small handful of people could run it.