Can't believe I nearly missed this post. Seriously, wow !!!

More:

and more:

speedtree

Rain. Incredible...

The audio track from this Rain clip was from a movie...
Can't recall though. Maybe Moon ?
Anyone?

Yes, moon.
"Clint Mansell - Welcome to Lunar Industries "

IMO, this is climbing out the far side of the uncanny valley. Still can't get over it being in real time.

They're pretty awesome, but keep in mind they are static scenes with nothing else to tax the CPU like character movements, fight mechanics, NPCs, moveable objects, etc.. Add in all the things that make a game, not just a pretty picture/scene, and even a powerful computer is going to have serious problems keeping up at this quality. I expect this to be the best they can do for now when you make it a game and not just a scene.....
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Snowdrop-Next-Gen-Engine-Tom-Clancys-The-Division

Snowdrop Next-Gen Engine | Tom Clancy's The Division has been added as a related post - related requested by newtboy.

2 things of note about these low powered demos. First, there isn't alot of polygons being pushed. The chair (which clearly dropped below 30fps) was the highest poly, the trees seemed to lack realistic lighting as pet the 3rd video. They wernt BAD but they were no crysis. Also I am in no way saying great trees can't be done in unreal 4. Second as mentioned above, very static scenes that are very self contained. Todays games are all about open worlds and dynamic events.

@newtboy, this is actually running on a fairly low-spec pc (around the same as an xbone or ps4).

But yeah, this is similar to the deus ex video I posted a while back,
*related=http://videosift.com/video/Deus-Ex-Human-Revolution-Unreal-4-demo

One small area with great attention paid to lighting and detail with no mechanics or animation.

@jmd, agreed the trees weren't great, but not all games are about open worlds and dynamic events. Look at COD. Very linear, incredibly scripted.

The fundamental problem with AAA games is the cost to create content. I think we're going to ultimately see some blend of procedural and hand created content as the way forward, where the designers build a layout for gameplay and a procedural engine fleshes out the visual details.

Deus Ex Human Revolution: Unreal 4 demo has been added as a related post - related requested by ChaosEngine.

Low-spec PC? Around the same as XBone/PS4? Get real. This stuff was rendered on an i7-3770 / GTX670. The XBone can barely handle Diablo 3 at 1080p.

That Deus Ex environment was excellent !

re: these environments, the diffuse light is PRE-CALCULATED.
Only reflections are done on the fly, and some shadows.
Even then there may be reflection maps used.

The problem of getting higher quality graphics is what held game design back. In order to scale up the visuals, console games had to scale down other items such as world size, view distance, field of view, number of npcs, artificial loading areas, and so on. Saying that "this" is achievable with a low end PC while console games are holding "this" back is ignoring that these demos are doing the very thing console games have been doing. Cutting back the depth of the image for the glossiness of it.

Here's Hitman Blood Money and its crowd dynamics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNC2X9r0oGY

Notice how simplistic the crowd behaves. Rather than simulating individuals, the crowd is simulated in lumps. Also notice that the textures are a lot "flatter" and blander than a few other levels.

This is the simplest example of cutting back depth in order to gloss over the something else. In this case, gloss the crowd, shallow their brains.

your example was just a simple test scene.
'Resolution at a distance' is a none issue now...
You don't NEED hi-res anything when it's far away.
All game engines can now seamlessly transition between low-res background assets to hi-res..
Case in point...

oops, I mis read the original post as an i5 and a lower spec gpu.

You are correct, my apologies.