Elite Graphics

[techen]

Will they ever be improved on or is beta what we expect to see in the full game? Am just curious as I built my computer for Star citizen and although Elite is a very nice looking game I bet it could be far better!

Specs:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~4.5ghz
Memory: 16384MB RAM DDR3 1866Mhz
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SC

I mean, One thing I already love is the sound in the game, combined with my sound card it's wonderful!

Anyway, Just curious to ask if theres any plans for improvements!~

 

[Gortron]

Will they ever be improved on or is beta what we expect to see in the full game? Am just curious as I built my computer for Star citizen and although Elite is a very nice looking game I bet it could be far better!

Specs:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~4.5ghz
Memory: 16384MB RAM DDR3 1866Mhz
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SC

I mean, One thing I already love is the sound in the game, combined with my sound card it's wonderful!

Anyway, Just curious to ask if theres any plans for improvements!~

I'm hoping they do an EVE on that... Make it look good and then ramp up the graphics as time goes on. I have spent lots of money just building an adequate PC for Elite, with SC in mind as an upgrade path. There are a lot of people that have come from Console gaming to PC just for this game and don't really want a power demo of what a PC game can do over a console (which is one of SC aims, nothing wrong with that though).

I can't imagine they won't ramp things up later if it is successful but bonkers hardware demanding definition would probably be crossing a line for many right now.

 

[The Killer Edible Poet]

I'm sure this will get better looking, but I seem to remember reading something back on the kickstarted days that FD didn't want ridiculous specs to run the game. I expect Elite will look good on a reasonably specced machine without spending silly money.

 

[Captain Zoe E Summers]

How about gameplay over 'shiny shiny' eh?

All those Star Citizen wannabe's... notice the game is still so buggy they haven't released it two days ago like they said. They've got 3 or 4 studios working on it full time, over 42 MILLION dollars US, and you still can't do anything but walk around a crummy hanger?!

Elite Dangerous has FAR less money, but it's already playable, atmospheric and yes, a bit boring and easy, but it's already more of a game than anything Chris Roberts has recently put out.

I'm not dissing SC - I'm a backer of that too and own two ships, but really... it's not about shiny shiny - it's about immersion, gameplay, depth and longevity.

So far Elite is light years ahead.

So how about just relaxing and learn the game and report some bugs eh?

 

[Stachel]

Some of the textures are pretty bad for sure. The FOV doesn't look right on widescreen to me either (16:9). Unfortunately when I tried setting it manually above 60 I got a lot of jaggies and more ctds. Beta is beta.

I hope we get high res textures at some point too. Superficially at least it has a lot of grow room. When I think what vanilla Skyrim looked like in 2011 and how blurry and chunky it all seemed that's how ED looks now. What an amazing difference the FXAA Post Process Injectors made to that!

Examples:

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Same crappy textures, some filters applied, sharpened and boom! Looks way way better.

Comparing Gamebyro to Cobra is obviously not clever but you get the point that post processing is literally the difference between Xbox 360 and GTX 780.

Not even sure if FXAA is even working right now in the current build to be fair .. I can't see any difference anyway.

 

[techen]

How about gameplay over 'shiny shiny' eh?

All those Star Citizen wannabe's... notice the game is still so buggy they haven't released it two days ago like they said. They've got 3 or 4 studios working on it full time, over 42 MILLION dollars US, and you still can't do anything but walk around a crummy hanger?!

Elite Dangerous has FAR less money, but it's already playable, atmospheric and yes, a bit boring and easy, but it's already more of a game than anything Chris Roberts has recently put out.

I'm not dissing SC - I'm a backer of that too and own two ships, but really... it's not about shiny shiny - it's about immersion, gameplay, depth and longevity.

So far Elite is light years ahead.

So how about just relaxing and learn the game and report some bugs eh?

I would never deem Elite being "Light years" ahead because it has to release at somepoint right? Have faith, Besides. I was curious if there was any posts or news in terms of upgrades for the graphics. It does show in some parts it was designed for low end computers but hey! If thats what they wanna keep then by all means, I will not complain whatsoever, quite enjoying myself.

 

[SAB380]

I think graphics will keep creeping upwards.

There seemed to be a noticeable jump (to me at least) from 3.4 to 4.0 ....maybe I imagined it...

 

[techen]

I think graphics will keep creeping upwards.

There seemed to be a noticeable jump (to me at least) from 3.4 to 4.0 ....maybe I imagined it...

Any ideas on what changed? I heard in another thread there increase how planets look??

 

[spacemonkey]

Will they ever be improved on or is beta what we expect to see in the full game? Am just curious as I built my computer for Star citizen and although Elite is a very nice looking game I bet it could be far better!

Specs:

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~4.5ghz
Memory: 16384MB RAM DDR3 1866Mhz
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti SC

I mean, One thing I already love is the sound in the game, combined with my sound card it's wonderful!

Anyway, Just curious to ask if theres any plans for improvements!~

By the time SC is released the GTX 780 will be gathering dust

 

[techen]

By the time SC is released the GTX 780 will be gathering dust

I hope not! It wasn't a cheap card

 

[SAB380]

Any ideas on what changed? I heard in another thread there increase how planets look??

Planets definitely looked better in 4.0
Suns up close didn't appear before 4.0 but they definitely added a lot to the game.....I'm sure lighting in general got vastly improved.

Floating advertising signs outside the space stations were a big obvious addition.
However, I swear they added stuff internally as well. I don't remember the satellite dishes on buildings rotating around before 4.0.
The landing barriers began to move up and down as well on the end of the pads.

I also feel that the graphics and lighting on some of the internals of stations was sharpened and improved. Specifically when you go down into the hanger

....again, could be all in my mind

 

[Iskariot]

Same crappy textures, some filters applied, sharpened and boom! Looks way way better.

The examples you give only show me hoe personal taste is. I don't think they look much better at all compared to the original. I think they are over sharpenend.

As far as Elite is concerned the graphics look good to me. I expect there will still be a lot of changes and fine tuning be coming.
It is all fine to me. I am not that hung up on graphics when they already are as good as they are. My minimum demands have already been surpassed.

What I really care about is good, deep, immersive game play.

 

[stephen_usher]

"Photo-realistic" vs. "Graphic Novel"

I think some of the comments here are to do with the visual style decision Frontier have made.

The art department seems to have made the decision to make E: D more in the style of a "graphic novel" rather than "photo-realistic". This may be both for artistic reasons and practical ones, as a "graphic novel" type rendering requires far less detail and relies upon artists rather than polygons and shaders for its output, reducing the load on the graphics card and the memory.

Myself I'd have preferred a more photo-realistic approach and I do find the contrast rather muted, just as you get in a graphic novel's printed pages.

In the end, however, it's the game play which matters far more than the looks, but the looks help.

 

[Cotic]

I like E: D's aesthetics in the same way I like GW2's, the styles seem to allow for a more dynamic, immersive world as opposed to photorealistic styles, I find the latter always draws my attention away from gameplay.

The latest newsletter shows some luscious planetary images - http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=ae4c732e15

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

[Severian]

It's almost a given that graphic fidelity will improve over time. Frontier built their own engine years ago, and have continually updated it since.

Having the stable graphics platform they have now allows them to concentrate on network, gameplay and art, rather than chasing shader bugs.

Once the important stuff that holds players in the game is settled, then scaling up the detail makes sense.

 

[Thygrrr]

How about gameplay over 'shiny shiny' eh?

All those Star Citizen wannabe's... notice the game is still so buggy ...

Hey, that was uncalled for. He had a point, some of the graphics still need love.

If you compare the Alpha planets to the Beta planets, they already improved a lot. More of this will happen as the game develops further.

I also think ship models need another iteration, though it's a conscious decision to remake the iconic elite ships in a blocky shape.

That said, the sound is also one of my favourite aspects, as is the UI. Those thing sold me on Day 1 and have been a very pleasant surprise and I think Frontier Developments have massively overdelivered so far (especially seeing how Star Citizen is delayed and currently underperforming a little).

I still think both games should not be compared too much, and definitely we as space game fans should stop bashing the one or the other. Let's embrace both.

It's been frickin' long enough already without any decent, up to date space games available on PC. It's a new dawn for the genre. Our genre.

 

[Lance]

The great thing about PC games and the internet is that they can keep improving it for years to come. I certainly hope they never stop tweaking it.

My personal hope is that most of their dev time is currently going on new features, content and gameplay mechanics. These need to be spot on to make foundations of the gameplay rock solid.

There will alway be areas they can improve on, but I'd rather have planet landings before photo realism.

That said, I would love to see a demo of what the Cobra engine is capable of if they tried to max it out on photo realism. Its been build from the ground up to allow for the huge scales needed in a seamless space sim, but I'm not sure how well it stands up against the CryEngine on photo realism.