Max Payne – two decades later – Graphics Critique

Summary

It has been two decades since the video game Max Payne was release on July 23, 2001. The game itself was some incredible homage to The Matrix and Detective Film Noire but in this article we are only going to examine the graphics. The rendering present in the game was phenomenal for its time and as such received multiple graphics awards. To understand the what the developers achieve and could have been achieved we have to first understand the PC computing landscape 20 years ago**.2001 Max Payne was released targeting directx 8.0 with specs of 450 Mhz cpu (singular) and 16 Mb graphics card. Two put this in perspective that is roughly three orders of magnitude less GPU memory than a modern RTX 2080. The DirectX 8.0 graphics API at least has pixel and vertex shaders but the spec had extreme limitations on caps like number of instructions. The 450 Mhz cpu is more than two orders of magnitude slower than a modern PC cpu today.So with this perspective in mind we can probably conclude** that the rendering will be limited to:Forward only rendering (no render-to-texture) Very low resolution textures Hundreds of polys on screenSo with these severe limitations how was such realism and fidelity possible? The answer is an amazing technical synergy of rendering smoke and mirrors. Most of these techniques could be summarized as tricking the human visual perception into thinking complex rendering computations are being done live in realtime when they are actually have been precalculated. The next sections will examine in detail each technique and how they contribute to the total graphical experience.Particle EffectsThe particle effects of this game are its best graphical feature. For a game that involves slowmo matrix style fighting with bullets and other mildly destructive weaponry this investment and care certainly pays off. Similar games of this time do not even come close to the effect fidelity found in this title**.A bullet hitting a wall in slowmo. Bullet with vapor trail impa...