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

[Spanksh]

Well I'm glad we finally got an official answer to these long discussed issues, but the answer is hugely disappointing to say the least. Devs need to understand that it is no issue having "low" graphics from the start. The issue arises once you take things away. After decades of game development people still haven't understood this. Always ramping everything beyond max to create nice images, which sell better, and only afterwards realize that it *might* actually have an impact on performance.
I don't see why they can't at least go back to 1.2 level of graphics. It was perfectly fluid back then. No stutter or huge performance drop - unlike now ironically.

 

[Vasea Azure]

I don't see why they can't at least go back to 1.2 level of graphics. It was perfectly fluid back then. No stutter or huge performance drop - unlike now ironically.

Yea, FD please give us a option to turn old graphics on.

 

[DidierDrbois]

Yea, FD please give us a option to turn old graphics on.

I'm actually all for this seeing how pre-1.3 I had a game that ran like a three-legged dog but looked OK. Now I have a game that looks like it came from a PS2, while still running like a three-legged dog!

 

[Spanksh]

Yea, FD please give us a option to turn old graphics on.

Yeah. I also don't understand the whole "we will discuss it" deal. Apparently they didn't really need to discuss anything before downgrading. Well, they better should have, since then they MIGHT have actually remembered how the PC community feels about graphic downgrades for the most part. Believe me, most of the things that come to mind when I just hear that phrase are words that wouldn't be said on public television.

...Like Ubisoft.

 

[Arindor]

Thanks for the comparison pics OP!

Hope this helps:

http://www.vg247.com/2015/07/02/elite-dangerous-dev-comments-on-graphics-downgrade-complaints/

 

[Taimaru]

It is obvious that Frontier made changes due to the number of posts about stuttering near stations and in asteroid fields (yes there were lots) and I did suffer from them before. The changes have nothing to do with the Xbone/Microsoft and to suggest that it is just feeds into the ridiculous conspiracy machine.

I think it's great that Frontier are thinking of adding an enhanced ultra setting for those that didn't suffer from the stutter. Also I am sure that the graphics will get better again over time as they find new ways to improve performance via coding tricks and hardware gets better.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Might have just cracked the "asteroid ring" render problem!


Please see my new support subforum thread...

Graphics "Shadow Quality" settings are broken (no effect changing between Off/Low/Medium/High/Ultra)

Please add your own testing results to that support thread, so FD have as much feedback as possible. Because I don't think it's just my system that's doing this.


This could explain the problematic graphics in RES. Possibly some other weirdies, too.

 

[Sim Maker]

OK, I am no programmer, so I don't know the problems involved in adressing the presented graphical shortcoming illustrated in this post. But to be honest, what is the most important part in a spacesim like Elite Dangerous related to graphics? In my opinion it should be all about impressive vistas, planets, stellar objects. We see a lot of impressive graphics engines that are capable of rendering pretty much fotorealistic sceneries. So what is the problem to render one bitmap galaxy in the background, a few hundred stars and some gorgeous planets, rings, asteroid fields with nice volumetric fog effects!? Is the engine up to the task that uses Frontier? I am dissappointed about the answer from the devs, apparently.

I have been doing game graphics for a long time......one thing you didn't mention in your list of objects, was the biggest hit in the game.....the ships themselves.........the ships, and stations are BY FAR the most polygon and texture heavy objects in the game.......the stars planets and rings are "easy" to do and are done automatically with code (it is not like an artist planted 11ty Billion roc ks around all these planets......
.
But the ships are hand made models........and at a guess, I would say they are in the 50-250k polygon range........who knows, maybe they got greedy and used more.......still...think about it......
.
You have a hand crafted asset that took MONTHS to build.......and then you have these ring systems.......and as an example lets say your computer can show 1 Million polygons on the screen at 1 time........well, if it is just you out in the black, it would theoretically leave you with 750k polygons for planets and rocks.........now what happens if a wing of ships jumps in to join you and they are all in the 50-250k range too.....well, something has to go..........the easiest and quickest thing to do, is alter the LOD levels, galactically, for the draw distance of the rocks............you can do that in a few lines of code and tick "frame rate drops" off the bug sheet........that is a lot easier than opening up all the models, and messing with the polygons and textures of the hand crafted assets....
.
Sad to say, but also true to say, it is often easiest and "best" to fix a bug this way..........Bug Report- When I get close to this particular tree, the FPS drops........so, you as the bug fixer are under pressure, what do you do? Go back and look at all your trees? to find out why this ONE is creating problems........ or, just delete that one tree and move on......as say, bug fixing is done with a sledge hammer and the delete key most of the time.......

 

[Tiamat]

I suspect the textures downgrade is not actually the textures themselves but LOD optimisation. I have noticed for a while now that during combat ships will "pop" into a lower texture LOD at a fairly short distance from you which didn't happen in beta/gamma/1.0. If the cockpit is being rendered at a lower LOD than it used to it would explain why both the textures and poly count is reduced.

Have the offline combat scenarios been updated since beta? What if you compare that with the main game?

EDIT: Just noticed one of them is the combat demo /facepalm

 

[Nero640]

We are certainly not inclined to downgrade the appearance of anything in the game."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The game has become so ugly with no depth at all.;Colours and reflections have been dimmed to an extent where everything is dull and bleak where it used to be deep and shiny? are you taking us for? You downgraded the game big time and you want us to believe it isnt so? Stop the bull already!

 

[B33 ENN]

I expect the graphics and quality to get better, not worse, as we go forward. If a PC specific setting isn't introduced to return the graphics to their previous best, I won't be returning to this game next year, and I'll be very disappointed to have spent so much money in the Frontier Store on skins to support them.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I expect the graphics and quality to get better, not worse, as we go forward. If a PC specific setting isn't introduced to return the graphics to their previous best, I won't be returning to this game next year, and I'll be very disappointed to have spent so much money in the Frontier Store on skins to support them.

It seems some of the graphical problems at least may be down the graphics settings not correctly applying when they are changed. As you can see there is no difference between low and ultra:

There are a few more images at the top of the first post in this thread that further highlight this. If it is indeed something that has broken, then it is very likely Frontier will get it fixed.

I'd be interested to hear if the same thing happens in your game, if you are willing to go test it.

 

[whatamess]

Hey! I've been deciding between purchasing ED and Star Citizen for the past few months, and I just wanted to say I went ahead about bought Star Citizen last night, solely based on what degeneracy I've seen from ED's 'development'. Thanks for pushing me to a decision! Sorry you guys have to deal with this .

 

[Deleted member 38366]

--- Deleted ---

 

[Arjin]

I did use Granite's tweak to the planet texture and made mine 4k instead of 2k and wow what a difference! But for the rest of the game switching between modes when facing a station for me between low and Ultra was negligible the most noticeable difference was the shadowing. Aliasing in this game in less than desirable and no matter what I do I can't lessen the jaggies.

4k planet even at a distance. With general high settings.

 

[Vasea Azure]

Hey! I've been deciding between purchasing ED and Star Citizen for the past few months, and I just wanted to say I went ahead about bought Star Citizen last night, solely based on what degeneracy I've seen from ED's 'development'. Thanks for pushing me to a decision! Sorry you guys have to deal with this .

Really? Just wait till CR will jump onto xbox and ps4 and the downgrade hit your game too.

 

[whatamess]

I think we both know that won't happen

 

[B33 ENN]

I'd be interested to hear if the same thing happens in your game, if you are willing to go test it.

I haven't booted up the game for a couple of weeks or more, but I discovered this issue as soon as 1.3 went live last month, and I reported it first as a question to other players:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=152961

Then followed up with a bug report after a couple of others confirmed it:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=153513

Specific to your point, I tried 'fixing' the issue locally using many ideas including complete re-install, but among them I can confirm that trying all settings low to high was the first thing I did. Same result as you showed in those images, i.e. no change improvement quality. I can't boot up the game right now as I uninstalled it in a ragequit after it further deteriorated into a stutter-and-hitch-fest.

Because not many people chimed into my original threads, I thought it was a problem limited to only some of us, and since a dev confirmed they were looking into it, I figured it'd be solved quite quickly. I'm surprised come back to find this situation has gotten worse after someone by chance mentioned it on the Steam forums.

 

[Jaeger]

devs don't post in the forums because it's a cesspit of negativity, don't engender the type of atmosphere that they'd feel comfortable participating in.

It's the game that does the engendering, and lack of communication that allows an atmosphere of negativity to fester. Respect that.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

I haven't booted up the game for a couple of weeks or more, but I discovered this issue as soon as 1.3 went live last month, and I reported it first as a question to other players:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=152961

Then followed up with a bug report after a couple of others confirmed it:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=153513

Specific to your point, I tried 'fixing' the issue locally using many ideas including complete re-install, but among them I can confirm that trying all settings low to high was the first thing I did. Same result as you showed in those images, i.e. no change improvement quality. I can't boot up the game right now as I uninstalled it in a ragequit after it further deteriorated into a stutter-and-hitch-fest.

Because not many people chimed into my original threads, I thought it was a problem limited to only some of us, and since a dev confirmed they were looking into it, I figured it'd be solved quite quickly. I'm surprised come back to find this situation has gotten worse after someone by chance mentioned it on the Steam forums.

It's pretty clear there is a problem. The reply from Frontier didn't mention about the lack of difference between low and ultra settings. If they are aware of it, and if it is going to get fixed, I wouldn't be surprised if we have to wait until the next major patch. I'm not sure if the poor LOD on the distant asteroids is related to this graphic settings issue.

There's a lot of people noticing the poor graphics, but there are also a lot of people that don't seem too concerned about it, even though they can see the graphics are no longer as good. I really don't know what to make of it all...I just want it looking good again.