Epic aims for Samaritan quality visuals in Flash

Unreal Engine maker Epic Games wants to get Samaritan quality visuals working in Flash.

That's the long term goal, Epic VP Mark Rein said during a GamesIndustry International attended presentation at GDC.

The Samaritan tech demo, below, was revealed by Epic Games at GDC 2011. It was designed to show what developers would be capable of with next-generation graphics technology.

Then, Samaritan took three GTX 580 Nvidia cards and a large power supply to run. At this year's GDC, Epic ran the demo on a single, unreleased Nvidia card and a 200 watt supply. This, Rein said, was a "big step forward".

Rein also showed off Dungeon Defenders running full screen in Flash as well as it does on PlayStation 3. "This isn't your father's FarmVille," he said.

He then showed off the Xbox 360 version of Unreal Tournament 3 running in Flash to hammer home his point.

Graphics technology has, according to Rein, advanced faster than Epic predicted. Unreal Engine 4, which is being shown to partners under NDA at GDC, is "blowing people's socks off". Rein expects a public showing later this year.