Graphics Improvements

alexzk

A
Allan Moore said:
I'm not suggesting changing the engine to UE5, as I said above, I don't think it's possible to reach the graphical level of that engine even given the immense scope of Elite. However, I think it makes sense to improve the game.
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It is already "improved" barely does 20 fps on RTX card when I see 5 different flowers in front of me.
Maybe later, when RTX 9090 will be avail.
Once again, all power is consumed to generate flowers and rocks. There is no additional power to make pictures nicer. We decrease quality to see better / faster "flowers".
 

Kira Goto

Kira Goto
StuBaDub said:
Frontier have already fixed the graphics, pray they do not fix them any further.
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I caught that reference.

But the ED graphics aren't really terrible or in much of an upgrade need, right now, I'd say. I mean...

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(No picture of a Titan because while I have one, it is not uploaded anywhere to conveniently embed from. And file size limits on this forum...)

The only time I really experience any sort of frame drops is around heavy particle(?) effects like fires, or those mining beams in Odyssey settlements if present in large numbers, while I run it at either 4K60 or 1440p120 depending on whether I have the PC hooked up to the monitor or big screen TV, on a 3080Ti. And some Odyssey settlement layouts just because it's not the most well-optimized, though at least better than it used to be when they put it out, as I hear.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Allan Moore said:
Let it be clear that at no point do I suggest changing engines. I would even be against the move to UE5 if it were proposed.
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No worries, it isn't the first time UE5 has been mentioned WRT ED/O, and it probably won't be the last.
ED/O is a 10 years old game, you mentioned that yourself, it had a graphics update 3 years ago, in an expansion that didn't pay for itself, the chances of FD doing much more than the limited development the game currently receives is close to zero, given how fickle gamers are, as well as their own restructuring.

But, it is the nature of some gamers to want more, so not unusual to read yet another suggestion regarding graphics.
 

CMDR Vulkarius

CMDR Vulkarius
Think I'd go with not changing engine, that kinda includes not overhauling either. :D
Even if you do it for this year's shiny, everyone will just want it again for next year's shiny.
There's a reason it decimates release dates when indev projects change engine, nothing works properly for ages after doing it. 😖

Shadows do need attention though, they pop in/out in a lot of places like icy rings and megaships, spire sites worst of all.
Not sure why but rotational correction also changes all shadows cast within starports.
I'd remove all attempts at antialiasing, fix projectiles invisible without bloom, then work on shadows.

Secondary goal - soften nightvision because it glares on all the extra edges and model detail added with Odyssey.
This is kinda connected to shadows, everything used to be brighter and didn't need nightvision as often.
Would be good if it just didn't highlight anything if already bright, would also stop it overriding docking pad holos.
Also shouldn't highlight anything inside ship unless pilot visor is deployed - this actually works perfectly on foot but doesn't map properly when in a ship.
 

Cosmo

Cosmo
CMDR Vulkarius said:
Shadows do need attention though, they pop in/out in a lot of places like icy rings and megaships, spire sites worst of all.
Not sure why but rotational correction also changes all shadows cast within starports.
I'd remove all attempts at antialiasing, fix projectiles invisible without bloom, then work on shadows.
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By upgrading ED to DirectX 12, we could have ray tracing (which improves lighting, shadows, immersion), better anti-aliasing, DLSS for more frames per second, and other current-gen graphics tech.
 
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IstvaanDCIV

IstvaanDCIV
alexzk said:
It is already "improved" barely does 20 fps on RTX card when I see 5 different flowers in front of me.
Maybe later, when RTX 9090 will be avail.
Once again, all power is consumed to generate flowers and rocks. There is no additional power to make pictures nicer. We decrease quality to see better / faster "flowers".
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Rat Catcher said:
Perhaps it is time to upgrade from that N100 CPU? (or is it a RTX2060?)
For me, on an all AMD system, I have no noticable slowdown in EDO... When EDO first released my 2080 Super wasn't happy, but the game optimisation has improved massively since those days.
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My RTX 2060 Super runs Odyssey graphics better than 20fps. I suspect that the reasons behind the poor performance might be a bit more complicated than whatever GPU alex is using.
 

Allan Moore

A
In addition to the problems mentioned about light and shadow, what I miss is planets with a denser atmosphere. This was promised by Frontier and to this day we don't have it. I remember that when they added the possibility of landing on planets, they said that initially it would only be possible to land on planets without an atmosphere or with a thin atmosphere, but over time they would add planets with a dense atmosphere.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
IstvaanDCIV said:
My RTX 2060 Super runs Odyssey graphics better than 20fps.
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So does my I7 laptop with 1070 GPU...
(granted I run a 7900XTX and 7800X3D these days, but my laptop goes on holidays with me)
IstvaanDCIV said:
I suspect that the reasons behind the poor performance might be a bit more complicated than whatever GPU alex is using.
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Yes, I suspect that something else is amiss with their configuration also.
 

galahad2069

G
CMDR Vulkarius said:
Shadows do need attention though, they pop in/out in a lot of places like icy rings and megaships, spire sites worst of all.
Not sure why but rotational correction also changes all shadows cast within starports.
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These things you mentioned are 2 separate bugs.

1. The infamous flickering shadows bug had already been fixed once, but fdev managed to break that again 2 or 3 updates ago.
This is how it looks like:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoH8ZOg_jdI

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0FWUKrw3I8


2. The Rotational Correction bug had also been fixed once, but only partially. Originally it affected even the strength of your lateral and vertical thrusters (after Ody release it was pretty much mandatory to turn Rotational Correction off if you wanted to keep the normal strength of your thrusters). That's not happening anymore after the fix for all I can tell, but something is still bugged. Not only the orientation of the shadows, but also the orientation of certain objects can change with the status of Flight Assist and Rotational Correction. As you can see in the following video, if you switch between Flight Assist ON/OFF, the orientation of the asteroids change. This is only happening if there is a station near the rocks in the instance, and only as long as Rotational Correction is ON:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6UxVb_c0Dc
 
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Morbad

Morbad
My wishlist for graphical improvements:

  • Shadow fixes, as with current bugs they are about as bad as they've ever been.
  • Non-destructive tonemapping.
  • Geometry LOD and LOD transitions in general.
  • Multiple stellar light sources.
  • Modern anti-aliasing.
  • A reversion of several individually minor graphical regressions, with flames being the prime example.

Only the first is something I consider likely, because it's the one they've messed up most recently and should be the lowest effort fix.

Rat Catcher said:
Perhaps it is time to upgrade from that N100 CPU? (or is it a RTX2060?)
For me, on an all AMD system, I have no noticable slowdown in EDO... When EDO first released my 2080 Super wasn't happy, but the game optimisation has improved massively since those days.
Click to expand...

If I'm not trying to brute force my way though aliasing, EDO is CPU/memory performance limited, even on an overclocked 7800X3D with well-tuned DDR4-6400 CL30.
 

Morbad

Morbad
Rat Catcher said:
Oh, I'm sure it is...
I limit my framerate as I prefer minimal energy wastage, it works for me!
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I'm not wasting energy until I'm holding more than 240 fps low-averages in large settlement surface conflict zones. Maybe in another ten years. Then again, in ten years I'll have a thousand Hz display.
 

Rat Catcher

Rat Catcher
Morbad said:
I'm not wasting energy until I'm holding more than 240 fps low-averages in large settlement surface conflict zones. Maybe in another ten years. Then again, in ten years I'll have a thousand Hz display.
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Maybe in your country energy is cheap?
To each our own, I guess.
 

Wily Rites

Wily Rites
Allan Moore said:
Elite Dangerous is already a 10 year old game and so the graphics are starting to look a little dated. Do you think there is any possibility of Frontier updating the graphics as a whole or even releasing a new version of Elite Dangerous? Even though I don't like Star Citizen, it's undeniable that the game is very pretty while Elite is very good, but the graphics don't keep up. What do you think about this?
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I love the graphics as they are, well all but the shadows; What will you strive for once global photo realism is achieved?
 

galahad2069

G
wilyrites said:
I love the graphics as they are, what will you strive for once global photo realism is achieved?
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Video realism, for example shadows not flickering and rocks not changing orientation with every click of the FA toggle. Not to mention CMDR ships rubberbanding all over the place, or you getting randomly yeeted out of your ship if someone dies in your instance.

But even photo realism is lightyears away, just look at the lack of anti-aliasing and the horrible tonemapping.
 
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