EDIT 3: So here's some great news from Michael Brookes: 
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=224025&p=3423079&viewfull=1#post3423079
EDIT 2: I just wanted to add Zac's reply to this topic, into this first post - along with my own current thoughts on the issue. (Thanks again Zac for getting this reply. )
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=221034&p=3404345&viewfull=1#post3404345
My take on this is that Frontier have basically just admitted that they had design flaws/problems with the initial shadow and fog code. This is mirrored by what Ben Parry said quite a few months ago on these forums, that the fog was removed because it was to much of a resource hog. At the time, I assumed that meant Frontier wanted the fog to run on low spec PC's. But now, reading between the lines - my understanding is that the effects themselves are not the problem, but rather the underlying code / implementation is the problem.
This would give a single logical explanation to three issues:
1) Why don't we have graphical options to enable the old shadows / fog?
2) Was the PC version downgraded because of the XBox?
3) Couldn't high end PC's still run the better version of the graphics?
The single answer to this, which actually answers all three questions is; No, because the original code was "broken"!
The review process is looking at ways of bringing those things back with working code.
Just my opinion of course, but in corporate-speak that is what Frontier essentially have just told us (and I can kinda understand why Frontier haven't outright admitted that in direct-speak). I am actually very ok with that...
EDIT: In the interests of fairness and balance this video shows one of the great looking current ring systems as well some of the poorer looking old ring systems. It also shows some of the best old ring systems which no longer exist in the game in any form:
[video=youtube;JgAEQbiFjOM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgAEQbiFjOM&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Notice in this video how the fog is apparent when looking at the star, but as the camera pans you can clearly see the line / area where the fog stops. The fog needs to be positioned between the player and the star, from any other angle the fog doesn't seem to show.
ORIGINAL POST
I want to bring up the issue of asteroids and ring systems again, as they seem to still be getting worse, patch by patch. Mods; I have made a new post - because I don't want this issue to be mixed up and confused with other general graphic issues and just want this to focus on the asteroids. Please don't move or merge.
I have made a video on this subject which I will add to the bottom of this post, the following text is a modified transcript of the video for those that don't want to watch it. If you want to watch the video feel free to not read the post (as they both say exactly the same thing almost word-for-word).
From my first day in Elite: Dangerous - one of the things that impressed me the most has been the asteroids ring systems around gas giants. Introduced in Alpha 4, they were the first true environment that wasn't a station, or pure empty space. But not only that these ring systems looked so stunning, to the point, that in gaming, I hadn't really seen anything quite like them. Whilst I am sure similar environments existed, they almost certainly didn't allow you to free fly ships through them to any distance you wanted, as well as offer some amazing combat opportunities. And all of this with the option of doing so in VR as well!
From their inception asteroid belts were to be important locations, both in terms of their visuals as well as the gameplay they offered.
Although not the focus of what I am actually talking about in this post, here are some asteroid based outposts and stations. Now David Braben has said that he would still like these to appear at some point, but we still don't have anything concrete on this. But they offer up amazing environments, and some potentially great gameplay opportunities
Focusing on the asteroid systems themselves though, here are some early concepts of the various types of asteroids Frontier wanted to include in the game (thanks Kiobi for finding this image and posting in in your thread). Although these images are not that highly detailed, nonetheless you can still see the distinct differences in the makeup of each asteroid type. Again, such variation would offer fantastic environments as well as some good game play oppertunities.
The early implementations of ring systems in Alpha appeared to be carrying the game in this direction, and we did indeed see quite a few improvements over the months after alpha, including the introduction of Ice Asteroids, along with some fantastic fog effects.
But since then, the ring systems have continued to decline in terms of visual variation and quality. I raised a question about this on the forums last year, and did receieve a few replies from Frontier, for the most part Frontier appeared to be saying that 'Yes, the visuals have changed - and this has occured due to optimisation. However not all the quality reductions are intended and may be the results of a bug.', but they didn't commit to ever fixing these bugs. That said, I did appreciate that they took the time to reply - and I am sure many other people also appreciated it.
As of now, many of the ring systems are in a sorry state indeed. There are of course some spectacular exceptions, the Hyadum is an awesome example of how good they can still look. These areas manage to look great dispute the fact that there are obviously issues here such as the reduced fog quality, color mismatched asteroids etc.
But the real kicker is what - in my experience at least - seems to be massive and indeed terrible drops in quality. In the current release of Horizons, there is a tremendous amount of pop-in and exceptionally low draw distance. In this clip you can see the extremely bad pop-in, the low draw distance and the absence of fog:
[video=youtube;x1dh4Nk8iLY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dh4Nk8iLY[/video]
Now, again - I want to state that I understand the need for optimization, and I also understand that some of these issues can be the results of bugs or driver issues. But also, lets be clear here, there is what appears to be a distinct linear path of declination here. A slow reduction of quality in both assets as well as environments, and to me at least that would suggest these are all deliberate changes to the ring systems (perhaps with or without unintended consequences such as the pop-in).
Bottom line though, is how does this affect game play? Well for those of us, that like to explorer and slowly travel the galaxy looking for amazing environments and spectacular sights, these changes are a complete killer. They not only cut the bottom out of the awe and wonder of ring systems, but effectively render them pointless to even visit. In terms of gameplay such as Resource Extraction Sites and Mining? Well if these changes do indeed increase performance - and please note, I have never, ever experienced performance issues in ring systems, even in VR (but that's not to say other people haven't), but yes, if there is a performance increase - then that will be of huge benefit to the people experiencing such problems. But the cost of that is such gameplay is now occurring in dramatically lower quality environments.
Another point is that the repeating 2D assets in the distance didn't used to so obviously repeat themselves as they do now:
Now don't get me wrong - I realise Frontier work very hard on this game...and that they are constantly improving it. History has shown that, at times Frontier reduce the quality of an assets before updating it to much higher standards in a subsequent patch. However these issues with asteroids and ring systems have a long history, and have been going on for perhaps over a year now. At this point I really have to question whether the ring systems will ever actually improve or return to their former glory in any reasonable time frame.
Personally, I would love to hear from Frontier on this issue. Frontier, are you guys committed to improving the visual quality of the asteroids again? Is what we are seeing a part of a optimization process that will eventually see the asteroids brought up to a high standard again? If not, could you perhaps let us know the nature of the situation, even if it is to let us know there are problems with ring systems and they may never achieve their former quality.
Now this isn't a demand, I'm not stamping my feet over the issue. But I know I am not alone in being disappointed over this issue. and I want to make this request in the most respectful way I can.
For those that want to watch the full video, here it is. It contains some good footage on asteroids showing both the great looking ring systems as well as the poor ones.
[video=youtube;V743rC758Rc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V743rC758Rc[/video]
Just remembered one of my favorite screenshots from Beta:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=224025&p=3423079&viewfull=1#post3423079
EDIT 2: I just wanted to add Zac's reply to this topic, into this first post - along with my own current thoughts on the issue. (Thanks again Zac for getting this reply.
)https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=221034&p=3404345&viewfull=1#post3404345
My take on this is that Frontier have basically just admitted that they had design flaws/problems with the initial shadow and fog code. This is mirrored by what Ben Parry said quite a few months ago on these forums, that the fog was removed because it was to much of a resource hog. At the time, I assumed that meant Frontier wanted the fog to run on low spec PC's. But now, reading between the lines - my understanding is that the effects themselves are not the problem, but rather the underlying code / implementation is the problem.
This would give a single logical explanation to three issues:
1) Why don't we have graphical options to enable the old shadows / fog?
2) Was the PC version downgraded because of the XBox?
3) Couldn't high end PC's still run the better version of the graphics?
The single answer to this, which actually answers all three questions is; No, because the original code was "broken"!
The review process is looking at ways of bringing those things back with working code.
Just my opinion of course, but in corporate-speak that is what Frontier essentially have just told us (and I can kinda understand why Frontier haven't outright admitted that in direct-speak). I am actually very ok with that...
EDIT: In the interests of fairness and balance this video shows one of the great looking current ring systems as well some of the poorer looking old ring systems. It also shows some of the best old ring systems which no longer exist in the game in any form:
[video=youtube;JgAEQbiFjOM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgAEQbiFjOM&feature=youtu.be[/video]
Notice in this video how the fog is apparent when looking at the star, but as the camera pans you can clearly see the line / area where the fog stops. The fog needs to be positioned between the player and the star, from any other angle the fog doesn't seem to show.
ORIGINAL POST
I want to bring up the issue of asteroids and ring systems again, as they seem to still be getting worse, patch by patch. Mods; I have made a new post - because I don't want this issue to be mixed up and confused with other general graphic issues and just want this to focus on the asteroids. Please don't move or merge.
I have made a video on this subject which I will add to the bottom of this post, the following text is a modified transcript of the video for those that don't want to watch it. If you want to watch the video feel free to not read the post (as they both say exactly the same thing almost word-for-word).
From my first day in Elite: Dangerous - one of the things that impressed me the most has been the asteroids ring systems around gas giants. Introduced in Alpha 4, they were the first true environment that wasn't a station, or pure empty space. But not only that these ring systems looked so stunning, to the point, that in gaming, I hadn't really seen anything quite like them. Whilst I am sure similar environments existed, they almost certainly didn't allow you to free fly ships through them to any distance you wanted, as well as offer some amazing combat opportunities. And all of this with the option of doing so in VR as well!
From their inception asteroid belts were to be important locations, both in terms of their visuals as well as the gameplay they offered.
Although not the focus of what I am actually talking about in this post, here are some asteroid based outposts and stations. Now David Braben has said that he would still like these to appear at some point, but we still don't have anything concrete on this. But they offer up amazing environments, and some potentially great gameplay opportunities
Focusing on the asteroid systems themselves though, here are some early concepts of the various types of asteroids Frontier wanted to include in the game (thanks Kiobi for finding this image and posting in in your thread). Although these images are not that highly detailed, nonetheless you can still see the distinct differences in the makeup of each asteroid type. Again, such variation would offer fantastic environments as well as some good game play oppertunities.
The early implementations of ring systems in Alpha appeared to be carrying the game in this direction, and we did indeed see quite a few improvements over the months after alpha, including the introduction of Ice Asteroids, along with some fantastic fog effects.
But since then, the ring systems have continued to decline in terms of visual variation and quality. I raised a question about this on the forums last year, and did receieve a few replies from Frontier, for the most part Frontier appeared to be saying that 'Yes, the visuals have changed - and this has occured due to optimisation. However not all the quality reductions are intended and may be the results of a bug.', but they didn't commit to ever fixing these bugs. That said, I did appreciate that they took the time to reply - and I am sure many other people also appreciated it.
As of now, many of the ring systems are in a sorry state indeed. There are of course some spectacular exceptions, the Hyadum is an awesome example of how good they can still look. These areas manage to look great dispute the fact that there are obviously issues here such as the reduced fog quality, color mismatched asteroids etc.
But the real kicker is what - in my experience at least - seems to be massive and indeed terrible drops in quality. In the current release of Horizons, there is a tremendous amount of pop-in and exceptionally low draw distance. In this clip you can see the extremely bad pop-in, the low draw distance and the absence of fog:
[video=youtube;x1dh4Nk8iLY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dh4Nk8iLY[/video]
Now, again - I want to state that I understand the need for optimization, and I also understand that some of these issues can be the results of bugs or driver issues. But also, lets be clear here, there is what appears to be a distinct linear path of declination here. A slow reduction of quality in both assets as well as environments, and to me at least that would suggest these are all deliberate changes to the ring systems (perhaps with or without unintended consequences such as the pop-in).
Bottom line though, is how does this affect game play? Well for those of us, that like to explorer and slowly travel the galaxy looking for amazing environments and spectacular sights, these changes are a complete killer. They not only cut the bottom out of the awe and wonder of ring systems, but effectively render them pointless to even visit. In terms of gameplay such as Resource Extraction Sites and Mining? Well if these changes do indeed increase performance - and please note, I have never, ever experienced performance issues in ring systems, even in VR (but that's not to say other people haven't), but yes, if there is a performance increase - then that will be of huge benefit to the people experiencing such problems. But the cost of that is such gameplay is now occurring in dramatically lower quality environments.
Another point is that the repeating 2D assets in the distance didn't used to so obviously repeat themselves as they do now:
Now don't get me wrong - I realise Frontier work very hard on this game...and that they are constantly improving it. History has shown that, at times Frontier reduce the quality of an assets before updating it to much higher standards in a subsequent patch. However these issues with asteroids and ring systems have a long history, and have been going on for perhaps over a year now. At this point I really have to question whether the ring systems will ever actually improve or return to their former glory in any reasonable time frame.
Personally, I would love to hear from Frontier on this issue. Frontier, are you guys committed to improving the visual quality of the asteroids again? Is what we are seeing a part of a optimization process that will eventually see the asteroids brought up to a high standard again? If not, could you perhaps let us know the nature of the situation, even if it is to let us know there are problems with ring systems and they may never achieve their former quality.
Now this isn't a demand, I'm not stamping my feet over the issue. But I know I am not alone in being disappointed over this issue. and I want to make this request in the most respectful way I can.
For those that want to watch the full video, here it is. It contains some good footage on asteroids showing both the great looking ring systems as well as the poor ones.
[video=youtube;V743rC758Rc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V743rC758Rc[/video]
Just remembered one of my favorite screenshots from Beta:
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