FAO FRONTIER: List of Graphical Changes / Issues for since Patch 1.3

[Decompiled]

I had a feeling the game didn't look as good as I remembered it.

But after seeing some of the comparisons posted in this thread, I am shocked and quite angry to be honest.
The sidewinder cockpit comparison in particular was a real kick in the teeth.
Why Frontier? Why would you force everybody’s visual experience down to that level when it ran perfectly fine most users systems before?
This makes no god damned sense whatsoever and really annoys me.

We I first starting follow the Elite development I was so excited.
‘Finally!’ I thought, a pure bred PC space sim that is really showing what higher end PC’s can do now.
Now look at it…

I used to use Elite as my go to game to show friends what PC’s can do, but now after all these changes, it’s just lost a lot of its wow factor. (except is certain well timed screenshots and location)

Why not give us the option to have the game looks like it used to?
Give me one good reason. And it better be a bloody good one because this really annoys me.

And I swear if another person even mentions the word ‘optimisation’ I’m going to punch a baby.

 

[Elgered]

Once again I suggest "longer" sliders.
It is ok, to reduce default quality for compatibility. But since the the TITAN giveaway we know what harfware it needs to run Elite. Now we have the hardware and at maximum settings it would run on a GTX 650. It IS cool (yes really cool - about 10°C) that I could underclock my CPU (4790k) and GPU (GTX970) by ~50% with 1.3, but I didn't ask for it.

What I am looking forward to are sliders going FAR beyond ULTRA (but there are no setting in the inis). I would love to see bigger textures (8192+ for planets, 4096+ for ships and stations), better AA and AF, additional sliders for fog (density, occupancy, etc...), lightning (max. dynamic light sources, reflection count,...) and shadows (quality, light sources taken into account, etc.), multiple (for different object types - stations, belts, planets,...) extended LOD -distance sliders, and lots more.

I'd love to have demanding graphics again.

 

[dreamer1986]

The devs ignore us in the forums. Only Sarah is the one that truly cares about AI and replies in the forums, the rest don't seem to care about suggestions, opinions, complaints. Expecting a dev reply is pointless, like I've seen in many legitimate complaints threads. No dev cares enough to read them, except Sarah.

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

I have my habits in a lovely little systemthat has many qualities. Among them, a dense belt around a high metal planet very close to the local sun. The light spread over the dust layer was over the top, and fantastic to look at. Also, there was no stutter at all, it ran smooth as can be.



That was before 1.3.

Back from my two month trip in the deeps, and now I get this:


What the image fails to communicate, appart from the obvious "eww" factor, is that layers of 2D (i guess) roids are popping by blocks at a rather short distance, and 3D roids are distinctly inflating when you get close to them. Oh, and stutter is now constant. The sad part is, this was probably hidden by the dust before, and it was perfectly fine. I'm not sure there's much more difference than that. But visually, it's quite a great deal.

The game used to be a wonder to stare at. Now it's barely meh.

 

[Aleksej]

I really appreciate the performance plus since the 1.3 Patch,
but i really thought about that too: Where did the more FPS came from? Because i noticed the LOD changes too, especially in the RES Rings.
(And yes already missed the lighting and the density we had in Beta before.)
So obviously it is just a "tweaked the detail down" solution, instead of optimizing the engines code to run faster in many parts.
But there has to be a ultra option with ultra graphics in the graphics menu instead of just trim ultra down to high or even medium.

The Engine itself is outdated with its 32bit maximum of 2 GB of VRAM ussage.
You noticed it when turning the graphics over 3x Super Sampling, then some textures were just loaded as very low versions of them, because of that cap.
And since 1.3 i just can't get over 2x. That seems the Frontier way of fixing this kind of things.

I still like the game and also the graphics. Many things had been improved since beta but others got worse.
But i slowly feel my enthusiasm for this game slowly declining. Powerplay also is more of a MEH solution as it costs me more credits and time then its rewards me with itself.
So i wonder what Frontier will announce at the GamesCom. Because this will be determine the future of the game i think and could be the last chance to rescue it for the many already bored away players.
Because punishing players for not spending their entire free time with a game isn't necessary the best way to keep them interested over a long period of time. (Reputation and Merit decay ftw!)

Sorry, but what?

32-bit applications can use up to 4GB of RAM, not VRAM. However, VRAM usage is in no way limited by the type of the application.

Setting in-game resolution to 5120x2880, super sampling 2.0x, SMAA and all at max, right now I have 6GB of VRAM usage. If your statement is true, how is this possible?

As for the level of details or textures with high DSR factors or super sampling - it is a different issue.

 

[Tucker Dale]

Some more official screenshots from the Newsletter #34, it happened 11 months ago by the way.

Some links are broken there, so here is goes. Look at the textures.

http://i.cubeupload.com/EHnpdd.jpg

http://i.cubeupload.com/8axkLp.jpg

http://i.cubeupload.com/4xUSyQ.jpg

AFAIK those never were in the game builds that get to us, but screenshots themselves look genuine and in-engine.

EDIT: NEWS JUST IN, current screenshot, http://i.imgur.com/PfaJWsI.png , maybe I'm just no accustomed to these shiny, tropical stations.

Is that a black anaconda?

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

the whole post

I can't rep this post enough. It mirrors my thoughts and feelings 100%. I too would like to build a new high-end rig solely to play ED but what with the stutter and now this, what's the point when it looks like I'll be wasting that money?

The devs ignore us in the forums.

Still no response from any developer as yet?

Can I make a suggestion - why not post your feedback here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=160042 - to Zac the new head of Community Management. If you don't want to post there you could send Zac a PM or send an email to community@frontier.co.uk. Alternatively use the power of social media and post something on the FD Twitter/FB pages (they probably won't reply but at least it gets the message out there for all to see).

 

[Zac Antonaci]

Hey guys,

Good thread. Greg Ryder (Frontier’s Head of Rendering) got in touch with me after reading and wanted to offer some clarity on the points raised.

His thoughts are below but I’d like to say that I think this is a really great example of the dev teams listening and truly caring about giving technical responses where possible. So big kudos to Greg and the rendering team as I know they’ll be reading. Sorry for the delay in replying.

I would also just make a gentle reminder that all bugs should be reported through the bug forum and through support channels just so we can make sure we are effectively recording and fixing those bugs.

“Please thank Granite for putting together a thread like this. The team is always striving to make things better, and we’ve found a number of things using the profiling tools on the Mac and Xbox One that have improved the PC build (thus the opposite to the fear they might lower the quality of the PC build). Elite: Dangerous is built to scale on PC (including 16k screenshot ability and hopefully one day 16k game when the monitors & graphics cards exist!). We are certainly not inclined to downgrade the appearance of anything in the game. Exposing more tweakables for an enhanced Ultra is clearly something you guys are passionate about and we’ll see where it can fit in the current roadmap.

On the ships / galaxy map front, I’m not aware of any changes that went in for 1.3.

Dust / Fog: This was optimised due to a pathological case of overdraw (which looked very broken in a number of cases). There’s definitely no downgrade due to our Mac and Xbox One versions, but there have been some changes. Performance and visual consistency should be improved in the general case, however it does seem that some systems are not looking as good as they did. As ever there is no perfect solution. For a fair comparison, the exact same position and lighting conditions are needed (some viewing angles will always looks more awesome!), but we could have entire threads dedicated to discussions on how to light rings (and we’ve had many long discussions internally). I have a number of open issues in our system on the look of the rings, though currently no ETA for when we’ll be addressing them.”

Thanks!

Zac

 

[Zac Antonaci]

Can I make a suggestion - why not post your feedback here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=160042 - to Zac the new head of Community Management. If you don't want to post there you could send Zac a PM

Someone knows how to get hold of me.

 

[xyphic]

The devs ignore us in the forums. Only Sarah is the one that truly cares about AI and replies in the forums, the rest don't seem to care about suggestions, opinions, complaints. Expecting a dev reply is pointless, like I've seen in many legitimate complaints threads. No dev cares enough to read them, except Sarah.

Please remember that developers are people too, and have their own lives. Some choose not to expose themselves via the forums, and that's perfectly fine. Some choose to only post during work-time, and that's also fine; it does mean that their responses are usually short and to-the-point (e.g. Michael Brookes or Mike Evans posts), or long but sparse (e.g. Sandro Sammarco). As employees of Frontier their foremost responsibility is to do the work that they've been assigned in the timescales that they've been given to do it.

Having said that, I highly suspect that the majority of devs don't post in the forums because it's a cesspit of negativity, and posts like yours casting aspersions on their motivations (i.e. that they don't care enough to comment) are simply disrespectful and don't engender the type of atmosphere that they'd feel comfortable participating in. Imagine if someone came to your place of work and spent their day telling you what a terrible job you're doing. It's basically the same thing. That's why we need community representatives to distil the forums and social media and act as the interface to the development team. As you can see from Zac's post, this can work and hopefully we'll start seeing more of it.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

Thanks Zac for communicating this

 

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

Hey Zac, thank you and thanks Greg for the clarifications.

-About the ships models/texture/lighting overall, the questions were more about the downgrade over time, not specifically 1.3. From Alpha/Beta to now, that is. We got some insights from Ben (about cockpit lighting for instance) but we were still under the impression that the rendering was toned down overall. Also, I just noticed that internal cockpit shadows (projected by the structure) might not be as sharp as they used to be. This is fresh, so I'll make some checkups.

-Roid belts: indeed the rendering varies with the light angle, but it is undeniable that the result is far less sophisticated than before 1.3. Missing dust is of course certainly responsible for that impression, but many of us rich people (AKA reasonnably big rig owners) never had much issues with performances, and would rather not sacrifice the game beauty (and damn was it beautiful) for the sake of a few more frames per second. Stutter is still there, strong as ever.

But again, thanks for taking the time to ansmer to us!

 

[SpitTheDog]

Please remember that developers are people too, and have their own lives.

I'm tired of hearing this tired old fallacy trotted out every time. They are not real people they are cyborgs sent back from the future to introduce future gaming technology to our backwards society.

Some choose not to expose themselves... <snip>

I'm not sure this is a good thing to say immediately following a phallacy. Apologies for the <snip> at such a painful point too.

 

[CYB34]

I stopped playing because of this.
This is not polishing, this is cutting here and there to make it run ok, ready for delivery yesterday.

Long live Agile and the minimum viable product.
Great statistics generator.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Hey guys,

Good thread. Greg Ryder (Frontier’s Head of Rendering) got in touch with me after reading and wanted to offer some clarity on the points raised.

His thoughts are below but I’d like to say that I think this is a really great example of the dev teams listening and truly caring about giving technical responses where possible. So big kudos to Greg and the rendering team as I know they’ll be reading. Sorry for the delay in replying.

I would also just make a gentle reminder that all bugs should be reported through the bug forum and through support channels just so we can make sure we are effectively recording and fixing those bugs.

“Please thank Granite for putting together a thread like this. The team is always striving to make things better, and we’ve found a number of things using the profiling tools on the Mac and Xbox One that have improved the PC build (thus the opposite to the fear they might lower the quality of the PC build). Elite: Dangerous is built to scale on PC (including 16k screenshot ability and hopefully one day 16k game when the monitors & graphics cards exist!). We are certainly not inclined to downgrade the appearance of anything in the game. Exposing more tweakables for an enhanced Ultra is clearly something you guys are passionate about and we’ll see where it can fit in the current roadmap.

On the ships / galaxy map front, I’m not aware of any changes that went in for 1.3.

Dust / Fog: This was optimised due to a pathological case of overdraw (which looked very broken in a number of cases). There’s definitely no downgrade due to our Mac and Xbox One versions, but there have been some changes. Performance and visual consistency should be improved in the general case, however it does seem that some systems are not looking as good as they did. As ever there is no perfect solution. For a fair comparison, the exact same position and lighting conditions are needed (some viewing angles will always looks more awesome!), but we could have entire threads dedicated to discussions on how to light rings (and we’ve had many long discussions internally). I have a number of open issues in our system on the look of the rings, though currently no ETA for when we’ll be addressing them.”

Thanks!

Zac

My thanks to both Greg and Zac for taking the time to reply!

Zac, could you possibly pass the following video on to Greg (or if you are reading this Greg, please take a look), as it shows a potential bug / glitch in the ring systems. I have also put this in the bug forums, but seeing as you guys are here, it's a good opportunity to highlight it:

[video=youtube;z9zQB1x-kjg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9zQB1x-kjg[/video]

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Someone knows how to get hold of me.

<creepy voice>We know where you live!

Joking.

Seriously though thanks for the response and please pass on my/our thanks to Greg for taking the time.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I stopped playing because of this.

LOL. Nice one. Gave me a good chuckle.

 

[Insomnia]

Removing assets which affects visuals will always be declared as "downgrades" by the mob (just ask CD Project... , despite being optimizations.
However, I was very much fine with the ring systems sucking up performance. And instead of removing the fog and call that an optimization, you could've tried to optimize the fog.
Could you at least have some sort of on/off button for the fog in the graphical options menu, please?

Edit: Oh I forgot... Please thank Greg for his response.

 

[CMDR MAIN SEQUENCE]

Elite: Dangerous is built to scale on PC (including 16k screenshot ability and hopefully one day 16k game when the monitors & graphics cards exist!)

By the time 16k monitors and graphics card are affordable, we'll all be playing '3D' games in VR (which will be as affordable as the monitors).

 

[Mephane]

<creepy voice>We know where you live!

Joking.

Your avatar isn't helping in this case.