Horizons Graphics issues in planets

c0m4ndo45

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GG7 said:
How do you explain the fact that I am having the same issues with an overclocked 980ti? I've got 6GB of VRAM and my base clock is running at over 1300mhz. ;)

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I forgot to add that my system drive is a 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 NVMe SSD. Anyone familiar with this SSD drive knows that it has the fastest read and write speeds of any consumer hard drive on the market today. Several magnitudes faster than SATA. These texture problems have NOTHING to do with load times on our hardware. I have Horizons installed on this SSD and because of its amazing speed, I can load the galaxy map instantly on my machine, (literally no delay at all) and system maps load in under 2 seconds. Usually under 1 second depending on the size of the system.

Whatever is going on here, it is totally related to some kind of bug/bottleneck in the game code that needs to get fixed ASAP! I HATE seeing my game look like crap when I have a very expensive high end gaming rig I built specifically for playing Elite Dangerous!
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Could you add your data to my bug report in https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/264324-Graphical-issues-after-landing-in-planets ? perhaps this will make them look into it further. They just asked my dxdiag.
 

hab5000

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Cmdr Ultra said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but the standard 580 only has 1.5gb of VRAM right?

Or do you have the 580 3gb version?

You can't just run games on good intentions and past victories. 1.5gb isn't good enough anymore.
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This issue has nothing to do with the graphics card. It's a software problem. And it needs fixed.
 

c0m4ndo45

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Here's the vid for anyone wondering. Make sure you select 720p to see the details.
While not optimal, there's no major fps drops as you can see, perfectly playable. Everything on ultra. I wiggle the camera around just so you can see how everything looks.

https://youtu.be/gvht_nr0lPI

Till near the end of the video, I fly around down to the planet, land on the surface then in the base. Skip to 7:55 (here https://youtu.be/gvht_nr0lPI?t=7m55s) if you want to see the bug - even though the video is not so high res (looked alot better before youtube compressed it) at 7:55 you can still see garbled textures. For instance, "Hangar" in the back behind my ship is totally pixelated, so are the textures/model/etc in my ship close up.

If you check any other part of the video you'll see there's no visual glitches, I even managed to take a nice screenshot at around 6:00. However, till I restart the game, most if not all my textures will be low-res after that planet landing.
 
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GG7

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c0m4ndo45 said:
Here's the vid for anyone wondering. Make sure you select 720p to see the details.
While not optimal, there's no major fps drops as you can see, perfectly playable. Everything on ultra. I wiggle the camera around just so you can see how everything looks.

https://youtu.be/gvht_nr0lPI

Till near the end of the video, I fly around down to the planet, land on the surface then in the base. Skip to 7:55 (here https://youtu.be/gvht_nr0lPI?t=7m55s) if you want to see the bug - even though the video is not so high res (looked alot better before youtube compressed it) at 7:55 you can still see garbled textures. For instance, "Hangar" in the back behind my ship is totally pixelated, so are the textures/model/etc in my ship close up.

If you check any other part of the video you'll see there's no visual glitches, I even managed to take a nice screenshot at around 6:00. However, till I restart the game, most if not all my textures will be low-res after that planet landing.
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KUDOS and Reps for taking the time to make a video! Have you sent this to FD yet? Maybe add the link to your bug report?

As far as dropping to a lower resolution... Did you do this simply to make the bug easier to produce?

I already consider 1080p to be a LOW resolution compared to what my system is capable of. I don't doubt the fps is better at an even lower resolution, but when you have a PC as high performance as mine, the thought if having to run it at 720p to get the game to run smoothly is insane!

All of our combined input makes it pretty obvious that 2.1.02 has some serious optimization issues going on somewhere. Exactly what is behind such a radical drop in performance and planet image quality from 2.0 to 2.1 is something only Frontier can accurately answer unfortunately. :(

I just hope that they fix this in the next point update. It kills me that I spent a considerable amount of $$ to build this PC for the specific purpose of playing ED at a locked 60fps with ULTRA quality graphics maxed across the board and I currently CAN'T!

If you put a benchmark app on the game and monitor it, the fps dips are blatantly obvious at any resolution you care to run it at. There is definitely some kind of resource bug causing this. A resource stack that is misbehaving, or something similar perhaps? The fps dips I am seeing visually look very similar to what you would see if you had a resource intensive application running in the background. Something like a disc backup app, or a deep diving virus or malware scanner.

I forgot to mention that even my surface map pixelates for a few seconds when I am about to land on a planet. Just as it transitions from the higher altitude display to showing the surface detail and your ship with the circle underneath. It clears and gets sharper after a couple of seconds, but again, in 2.0 this map never did anything like this.

Its times like this I wish FD would provide us with a DEBUG version of the game with a console display so we can watch the game running via the console.

This sucks beyond words!
 
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c0m4ndo45

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GG7 said:
KUDOS and Reps for taking the time to make a video! Have you sent this to FD yet? Maybe add the link to your bug report?

As far as dropping to a lower resolution... Did you do this simply to make the bug easier to produce?

I already consider 1080p to be a LOW resolution compared to what my system is capable of. I don't doubt the fps is better at an even lower resolution, but when you have a PC as high performance as mine, the thought if having to run it at 720p to get the game to run smoothly is insane!

All of our combined input makes it pretty obvious that 2.1.02 has some serious optimization issues going on somewhere. Exactly what is behind such a radical drop in performance and planet image quality from 2.0 to 2.1 is something only Frontier can accurately answer unfortunately. :(

I just hope that they fix this in the next point update. It kills me that I spent a considerable amount of $$ to build this PC for the specific purpose of playing ED at a locked 60fps with ULTRA quality graphics maxed across the board and I currently CAN'T!

If you put a benchmark app on the game and monitor it, the fps dips are blatantly obvious at any resolution you care to run it at. There is definitely some kind of resource bug causing this. A resource stack that is misbehaving, or something similar perhaps? The fps dips I am seeing visually look very similar to what you would see if you had a resource intensive application running in the background. Something like a disc backup app, or a deep diving virus or malware scanner.

I forgot to mention that even my surface map pixelates for a few seconds when I am about to land on a planet. Just as it transitions from the higher altitude display to showing the surface detail and your ship with the circle underneath. It clears and gets sharper after a couple of seconds, but again, in 2.0 this map never did anything like this.

Its times like this I wish FD would provide us with a DEBUG version of the game with a console display so we can watch the game running via the console.

This sucks beyond words!
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I set the recorder to 720p but I was playing at 1080p. The resolution drops are really killing me, and yes I added the vid to the bug report. I even went to other games to see if I had issues, no other game gives similar problems. I hardly ever have fps problems, but I don't mind if the fps drops a bit as long as its not too much.. But I can't stand the low res textures popping in all the time when I am in space in places where I'd never have any texture issues before installing horizons!
 

GG7

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c0m4ndo45 said:
I set the recorder to 720p but I was playing at 1080p. The resolution drops are really killing me, and yes I added the vid to the bug report. I even went to other games to see if I had issues, no other game gives similar problems. I hardly ever have fps problems, but I don't mind if the fps drops a bit as long as its not too much.. But I can't stand the low res textures popping in all the time when I am in space in places where I'd never have any texture issues before installing horizons!
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Cool!

I hear ya! Its obviously the game. I too have no issues like this on any other game. I tend to run all mine with DSR on x4 to my SONY Bravia XBR 55" 1080p HDTV/Monitor. (The W900 which has an impressively low input lag spec - More like an actual monitor than a TV) On GTA5 for example, I run with all graphics settings maxed and even with DSR on x4, I get a solid and locked 60fps everywhere in the game. No dips, stutters, judder. Just silky smooth high detail awesomeness! ;)

The fact that even when I turn DSR off and run Horizons at a native 1080p, I see persistent fps drops/dips at random intervals is a dead giveaway for a resource optimization issue or bug. These hiccups are not tied to any specific location in the game either. I see them even when all the GPU is rendering is the background galaxy star field and nothing else.

Then you have the god awful lack of surface detail on planets that looked incredible in 2.0, and which also ran at a solid/locked 60fps everywhere in the game. I really wish we could get 2.0 back and just stick with that version! I could care less about Engineers, and even less now that this latest version looks and runs like crap on my rig! :(

All signs point to some kind of rendering engine problem of one kind or another. I just hope that FD is aware of the issue and does something about it. I HATE seeing ANY degree of fps problems in my games, and with my high performance hardware there is absolutely no excuse for it!
 
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miket357

miket357
I started this as a new thread but it seems more appropriate here.
What happened Saturday night, 18 June.
I was playing fine till around 12:30 Then when I logged on Around 20:00 on the 19th It wouldn't work, It was oooohhh sooooo slooooow. The game was almost unplayable in cruse mode it would not be playable in combat.
I normally play in 4k mode But after Saturday night my card could not handle it, I had to downgrade to 1080p. Eventually I got 4K back but at lower (Mid) detail.
Anybody else suffered anything similar ???
 

hab5000

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Anyone know if the latest patch released today has fixed the low quality planet textures? I'm at work, so can't check until tonight.

Looks like they might have according to the patch notes : 'Increased distance for tiling rates on rocky and metal worlds to improve the distance you can see surface details from the materials. Also brightened the surfaces slightly'

Anyone confirm/deny?
 

GG7

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hab5000 said:
Anyone know if the latest patch released today has fixed the low quality planet textures? I'm at work, so can't check until tonight.

Looks like they might have according to the patch notes : 'Increased distance for tiling rates on rocky and metal worlds to improve the distance you can see surface details from the materials. Also brightened the surfaces slightly'

Anyone confirm/deny?
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I'm still evaluating the changes. Flying around one of my local planets I did notice an improvement in surface details when I was at the usual POI altitudes. But as so often the case, I am also noticing the bump in the surface brightness levels. I landed on the sun side of this planet and can see that everything is brighter, but FD failed to properly adjust the CONTRAST and/or GAMMA at the same time, so I am seeing a lot of this detail getting washed out.

Shadows and other things that can provide that more realistic look and surface detail are getting reduced.

Another unrelated thing I just ran into... When docking with a local StarPort using my Docking Computer, the DC was unable to complete the landing. It kept trying to set down the ship to the right of the target and I couldn't get it to change its behavior. Finally had to turn off the DC and manually land the ship. Looks like FD has managed to break yet another feature that was previously working fine. :(

But back to your question... I see some minor improvements, but at least on the one planet I have checked so far, we are still not back at the pre-2.1 level of planetary surface texture detail, quality and realism.
 

hab5000

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GG7 said:
I see some minor improvements, but at least on the one planet I have checked so far, we are still not back at the pre-2.1 level of planetary surface texture detail, quality and realism.
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That's a real shame. Planet surfaces, lighting and shadowing in low medium/altitudes looked fantastic in pre 2.1 :(
 

AdamL

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Definitely not up to 2.0 standards: detail is still loading in far too slowly. I dropped down to a planet yesterday and one section didn't even load in at all! The surrounding area looked "ok" by 2.1 standards but one block was a featureless blob. Still seeing tiling effects as well.

I've had a look at some more planets and I can't say they look any better after today's patch
 
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GG7

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AdamL said:
Definitely not up to 2.0 standards: detail is still loading in far too slowly. I dropped down to a planet yesterday and one section didn't even load in at all! The surrounding area looked "ok" by 2.1 standards but one block was a featureless blob. Still seeing tiling effects as well.

I've had a look at some more planets and I can't say they look any better after today's patch
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Yeah.... That is my report too after having visited a few more planets. Setting aesthetics aside for just a moment, this lack of detail on surfaces also creates a serious technical issue when it comes to safely landing on some of these planets. Especially when you are on the dark side!

As I have mentioned before, and something I do not see improved in this latest point update is the lack of surface detail even at landing approach altitudes, making it extremely difficult to judge your distance from the surface when attempting to land! Some of these planets provide so little surface detail that without looking at your instruments you have no idea how close to hitting the surface you actually are! All I see far too much of the time is a sea of mono color from one side of my screen to the other. A big bland expanse of dark red, or slate gray with no sense of motion, let alone immersion! [blah]

In fact... Yesterday I almost lost my Python when I slammed into the surface, thinking I had much more altitude than I actually did! I could only see the surface detail appear when my ship lights were close enough to illuminate the ground, and by then it was way too late to do anything. I just cringed and awaited the impact!

BAM!!! Fortunately, I had recently upgraded to the reinforced bulkheads, so although my fully charged A6 shields were totally collapsed, I managed to maintain 8% hull strength and thus didn't explode right then and there! No doubt I would have lost the ship had I been running the stock bulkheads!

This clearly demonstrates that the lack of surface detail goes far beyond planets just looking bad... It can actually cost you a ship!
 
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hab5000

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Well, after a decent session, I've noticed no discernible improvement to planets surfaces/lighting. The lighting appears to have a slightly different cast, but the overall landscape quality is still far away from 2.0.

Just to be clear. I'm not referring to surface textures when landed or in the SRV. These have improved, though with that has brought about a tiling effect that wasn't present in 2.0. The textures in the middle distance are blurry. There's no crispness to the lighting and everything just lacks overall definition and sense of scale. Yeh you get better fps, but no wonder considering the drop in qulaity.

Hey ho. With this and the frankly shocking nerf to the AI (which before this patch, had finally become a decent challenge) it might be time to take a break.
 

GG7

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I wanted to echo what you just mentioned about ON SURFACE texture quality with SRV. I just landed on a planet that had noticeably improved surface texture and detail. A lot of rock outcrops and detail that looked a lot like Mars based on Rover Images.

But as you also said... I am now getting much more fps STEPPING and judder when turning quickly in one spot and even just driving along the surface. Would probably be screen tearing if I didn't have V sync on.

Considering the power of my GPU and the fact that I am currently running the game in native 1080p / 60Hz, this is VERY disappointing. I should not be seeing any noticeable frame rate problems with my hardware at this resolution, even with everything on ULTRA and the Terrain WORK set all the way to the right (1000). You would think that pushing that WORK slider to the max would totally eliminate pop-in, but it doesn't!

I can only blame all this on continuing POOR Optimization by the developers of the final graphics code base.

Based on what I have just seen after doing a bunch of testing with varying degrees of adjustments to settings, I wouldn't be at all surprised if this game in its current state of optimization failed to run at a locked 60fps even with a GTX 1080.

That is a real drag for those of us who have invested a considerable amount of cash to see this game perform flawlessly.
 
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c0m4ndo45

C
Obsidian Ant said:
Graphics are currently broken on some planetary surfaces for some people:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...uality-Planetary-Surface-Texture-and-Geometry

I recorded this during the 2.1 Beta - and things are still the same:

https://youtu.be/HY6YHQRIkAw
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Great video comparison!

I'd just like to highlight that the issue isn't simply planet surface textures. In my original and subsequent posts, I'm reporting issues in hangars (whether planet side, space or vehicle bay) where ship/hangar textures get garbled/low res and never reload. The problem is very bad in planet side hangars.

Maybe all of this has one cause but otherwise there's two distinct issues - 1 surface textures & 2 other textures getting messed up due to planet landing.
 

GG7

G
Obsidian Ant said:
Graphics are currently broken on some planetary surfaces for some people:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...uality-Planetary-Surface-Texture-and-Geometry

I recorded this during the 2.1 Beta - and things are still the same:

https://youtu.be/HY6YHQRIkAw
Click to expand...

BINGO!

Thanks for taking the time to present what we have been struggling to communicate via text! lol!

Your video basically sums it up nicely!

While I have seen some improvements here and there in the latest point update, we are still being denied what I think all of us assumed would be the "permanent" look and feel of planets in ED!

Really sucks that we have no control over WHICH VERSION of the game we are able to play! I'd give up many of the 2.1 improvements for the ability to roll back to 2.0! I was really happy with pretty much all aspects of that version of Horizons. But now, thanks to these lesser quality updates, we can no longer access this far superior ED experience! :(

Only thing I would miss would be the much improved mission system. But everything else is 2.0 was far superior to the low resolution crap we have now. :(

Thanks again Ant!

I hope you send that video to Frontier! It sums up most of our issues nicely!
 
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