The Future of PS3, Xbox 360 Graphics?

Readers with meaty PCs and graphics cards that support DirectX 11 will want to have a look at Stone Giant, a 400MB tech demo that runs off a brand new visual engine called BitSquid Tech. BitSquid Tech supports a highly parallel design model, support for all new DirectX GPUs, incredible depth of field effects and dynamic level of detail.

The actual tech is beyond my comprehension, but I get the impression it means that polygon counts aren’t nearly as crucial anymore to keeping everything running smooth.

The Stone Giant tech demo was produced by Fatshark, the guys behind Lead and Gold, which is out tomorrow on PSN. “At Fatshark, we have been creating the art content seen in Stone Giant”, said Martin Wahlund, CEO. “It has been amazing to work with a bleeding edge engine, without the usual geometric limitations seen in current games”.

Why are we telling you about this?  Well, nestled at the bottom of the press release is a note that says “PS3 and Xbox 360 support will be available in the fall of 2010.”  Yep, it looks like the current-gen consoles will get at least some of the features of BitSquid Tech, which will enable developers to produce games that carry this level of fidelity:

You’ll have to excuse the compressed, lower resolution screengrabs from the tech demo, but bandwidth limitations prevent us from carrying the full versions.  If you don’t have a PC capable of running Stone Giant, you can download an AVI of the thing in motion from the FatShark website here.  Interesting stuff, especially if all this does emerge for the PS3 and 360.