High Metal Content Worlds: 2014 vs 2017 comparison!!!!

[Mengy]

Allright, in this promotional video by Frontier from 2014, at timestamp 1:02 you can see a ship coming in to land on a high metal content world, an HMC:

https://youtu.be/8yd-m9AR7mY?t=1m2s

Here is the picture from the video of how the planet looks:

Now remember, this is from 2014, three years ago, but just look at that surface variety!!! There are a myriad of colors all across it's surface, raised plateaus, craters, this planet looks super interesting! It looks like something you'd see in our very own solar system, orbiting Saturn or Jupiter.


NOW, have a look at a so very typical HMC world from today, 2017, taken by me last week as I was flying down to land on it:

That is how the majority of HMC's look since 2.2: totally monotone, beige or a slightly off shade of beige, next to no color variation at all. 97% of them all look like this now!!!


WHAT HAPPENED???!!!!!?? WHY????!!!??? :S [sad]




Can we please get an answer from Frontier on whether or not this is intentional, or is it a bug that will be addressed in some future update? Just some official word on the matter?

 

[NascentChemist]

Pretty sure they've answered this. The change was made to show HMC's real-world coloring and to better reflect the main star's color.

 

[Sasquatch_Punter]

I'm with you, OP.

As an amateur astronomer and space nut I've always been let down by the planets in ED (except icy moons). The lighting change had nothing to do with the apparent planet downgrade; people like Obsidian Ant have completely missed the heart of the issue, which is that ED doesn't really do rocky/metallic planets all that well in the first place.

"Beigification" is kind of a dumb thing to be up in arms against when you take a look at the actual surface features instead of just the colour. I know Frontier can do better, too.

 

[Devari]

WHAT HAPPENED???!!!!!?? WHY????!!!??? :S [sad]

What happened was that FD's planetary textures were originally very good, basically photorealistic, but we only had those when Horizons first launched. The issue was that these textures were slowing most player's machines down to a crawl during planetary landings to the point where you would see terrible texture pop-in even at relatively short distances. It wasn't just an issue of GPU power either because although the absolute top-end setups were managing well (i.e., 980 SLIs and such) the textures themselves were extremely resource intensive for some reason and there was apparently no easy way to fix them. As a result they simply downgraded them dramatically so that performance on mid-range machines wouldn't be so utterly terrible.

Owners of high-end rigs did complain around the time the textures were downgraded, but FD clearly decided that it was better to achieve adequate performance with low-res textures then to keep the high-res photorealistic ones in the game. The issue is that they never went back to try to optimize the original textures, they just left them in a very sub-par state instead and that is why we have shapeless, blurry planets that look like they were produced for a 1990's game instead of a game produced in 2017. Unfortnately with FD's excessive monetization of the game (i.e., selling one line of RBG code for $1.75) they are unlikely to invest the time needed to bring the planetary textures back up to par (or perhaps they will, but turn around and try to charge us $1.75 per planet or something).

 

[NascentChemist]

What happened was that FD's planetary textures were originally very good, basically photorealistic, but we only had those when Horizons first launched. The issue was that these textures were slowing most player's machines down to a crawl during planetary landings to the point where you would see terrible texture pop-in even at relatively short distances. It wasn't just an issue of GPU power either because although the absolute top-end setups were managing well (i.e., 980 SLIs and such) the textures themselves were extremely resource intensive for some reason and there was apparently no easy way to fix them. As a result they simply downgraded them dramatically so that performance on mid-range machines wouldn't be so utterly terrible.

Owners of high-end rigs did complain around the time the textures were downgraded, but FD clearly decided that it was better to achieve adequate performance with low-res textures then to keep the high-res photorealistic ones in the game. The issue is that they never went back to try to optimize the original textures, they just left them in a very sub-par state instead and that is why we have shapeless, blurry planets that look like they were produced for a 1990's game instead of a game produced in 2017. Unfortnately with FD's excessive monetization of the game (i.e., selling one line of RBG code for $1.75) they are unlikely to invest the time needed to bring the planetary textures back up to par (or perhaps they will, but turn around and try to charge us $1.75 per planet or something).

I'm a beige naysayer, but I've got to push back on this. I'm running a very terrible AMD MB/CPU, with a 970 GPU. I can tell when my setup is straining; the flames/heat are clear with Fallout4. ED doesn't strain my rig in a similar way.

Of course, FDev could have optimized their engine to avoid this. But I'd need actual evidence.

 

[VR Nupol]

If we have no other interesting planets to land on (athmosphere & has giants) please don't try to (make things more realistic) in case of changing the variety of color. These planets are the only thing we can land on currently so please don't make them boring. Change them to beige if we have the other options but not now!

 

[Devari]

I'm a beige naysayer, but I've got to push back on this. I'm running a very terrible AMD MB/CPU, with a 970 GPU. I can tell when my setup is straining; the flames/heat are clear with Fallout4. ED doesn't strain my rig in a similar way.

Of course, FDev could have optimized their engine to avoid this. But I'd need actual evidence.

No one's rig is straining now because they downgraded the textures. My GPU is a 670MX and when Horizons first launched I was getting terrible texture pop-in where large rectangular areas on the planet's surface were only being rendered at VERY short distances. It wasn't that my GPU was struggling to process them in terms of my GPU temps being quite normal but the textures were somehow so resource intensive that my GPU just couldn't process them efficiently and many other players with mid-range rigs were having the same problems. Players have asked for an option to get the original textures back, as the new 1070 GPUs and upward could probably easily handle them, but FD has apparently chosen to go with the very poor low-res textures instead and apparently don't have any plans to update them. It's quite disappointing as the original textures would probably look great on the new 1070/1080 series GPUs but my guess is that FD doesn't want to lose players with low-mid end rigs.

 

[Khelder]

I'm not sure what the texture quality has to do with colouring. Am I missing something simple?

 

[Ziljan]

Excellent. This OP shows perfectly what I mean about the problem not being with beige planet realism vs green planet consolation prizes. The real issue is the variation of color within the monochrome of "beige" from flat brown to very dark and very textured. The first image could also be classified as a "beige" with lots of darkness variation, yet it still looks quite mytserious and inviting.

 

[Devari]

I'm not sure what the texture quality has to do with colouring. Am I missing something simple?

They're separate issues, but part of the problem with the beige planets is that they aren't a photorealistic beige color, they're a low-res beige color. What you're comparing is NOT just an issue with the colors, it's also that the original textures we had when Horizons launched also had better detail combined with more color variation. Your eyes aren't just "missing" the loss of the color variation, it's the textures themselves that are also disappointing you as well.

The issue that I was describing about texture pop-in was most noticeable when Horizons first launched with the high-res textures, but it's still noticeable to some degree even now with the dramatically downgraded textures. I took a screenshot of the effect as I happened to see the texture pop-in issue today as I was landing on a planet:

I'll start by pointing out that my card is a 670MX which is only a mid-range GPU. However, my graphics settings for Elite are set to mid quality and my monitor is displaying a low resolution of only 1600x900 which is really not stressing my GPU at all. I'm getting a consistent 55-60 fps and my GPU temps are low 60's so my GPU is not struggling at those settings. It is also worth noting that despite being several years old the 670MX has a very respectable 3GB of DDR5 memory which is more than enough to handle the mid quality settings at 1600x900 resolution, so it's definitely not an issue with my GPU's memory. What I want to point out here is that there is a VERY abrupt transition where there is a low-res texture pop-in about a third of the way from the bottom of the screen. This was dramatically worse when Horizons first launched and when I was landing it would go abruptly from what was basically a blank, featureless area to suddenly show planetary terrain. It's much less noticeable now but is still happening and despite using very modest graphics settings and a low resolution the textures are still not being processed efficiently. Like I said, this is NOT an issue with my GPU which is running at low temps, has more than enough memory and is running on low-resolution settings.

The only real "fix" for this issue seems to be running an absolute top-end setup, i.e., 1070 or 1080 (or 980 SLIs) which can simply brute-force high-res textures through with no pop-in. That's why players who had top-end rigs when Horizons launched were very happy with the planetary texture quality and everyone running low and mid-end rigs found the game basically unplayable. I don't plan on upgrading to a 1080 until sometime next year so for now I'm using very modest settings but even so I don't consider the texture quality or graphics performance acceptable at present.

 

[hunvagy]

That looks like the terrain work slider set too much to cpu for me. Haven't seen pop-in like that in ages even on my 280X.

Link to the original Terrain Work explanation: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...larification?p=3182271&viewfull=1#post3182271

 

[Devari]

That looks like the terrain work slider set too much to cpu for me. Haven't seen pop-in like that in ages even on my 280X.

Link to the original Terrain Work explanation: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...larification?p=3182271&viewfull=1#post3182271

Thanks, that should help a lot. I didn't realize the default for the terrain work slider was set to extreme left, i.e., pushing as much as possible to the CPU. I've now set it to the centre and will see if that helps. That does make a lot more sense with performance issues I was getting as I couldn't figure out why my GPU was running low temps but giving such terrible pop-in. I'm really not sure why they would default the terrain work slider to max CPU workload instead of max GPU workload, or at very least default it to a centre positoin. I suspect that many players were probably getting sub-par performance in large part due to those CPU-biased defaults.

 

[hunvagy]

Thanks, that should help a lot. I didn't realize the default for the terrain work slider was set to extreme left, i.e., pushing as much as possible to the CPU. I've now set it to the centre and will see if that helps. That does make a lot more sense with performance issues I was getting as I couldn't figure out why my GPU was running low temps but giving such terrible pop-in. I'm really not sure why they would default the terrain work slider to max CPU workload instead of max GPU workload, or at very least default it to a centre positoin. I suspect that many players were probably getting sub-par performance in large part due to those CPU-biased defaults.

Yeah it was completely weird the first time they introduced it, and how it worked. But be warned, now you will see how relentless the system can be. Textures too high + shadows and lighting really kills performance on the lower tier GPUs. You should probably find a system with a large settlement and experiment with settings there, as it will give you the biggest load. All those city light and Skimmer dust clouds usually give the GPU quite a lot of work.

 

[Khelder]

They're separate issues, but part of the problem with the beige planets is that they aren't a photorealistic beige color, they're a low-res beige color. What you're comparing is NOT just an issue with the colors, it's also that the original textures we had when Horizons launched also had better detail combined with more color variation. Your eyes aren't just "missing" the loss of the color variation, it's the textures themselves that are also disappointing you as well.

The issue that I was describing about texture pop-in was most noticeable when Horizons first launched with the high-res textures, but it's still noticeable to some degree even now with the dramatically downgraded textures. I took a screenshot of the effect as I happened to see the texture pop-in issue today as I was landing on a planet:

http://i.imgur.com/pIsRosZ.png

I'll start by pointing out that my card is a 670MX which is only a mid-range GPU. However, my graphics settings for Elite are set to mid quality and my monitor is displaying a low resolution of only 1600x900 which is really not stressing my GPU at all. I'm getting a consistent 55-60 fps and my GPU temps are low 60's so my GPU is not struggling at those settings. It is also worth noting that despite being several years old the 670MX has a very respectable 3GB of DDR5 memory which is more than enough to handle the mid quality settings at 1600x900 resolution, so it's definitely not an issue with my GPU's memory. What I want to point out here is that there is a VERY abrupt transition where there is a low-res texture pop-in about a third of the way from the bottom of the screen. This was dramatically worse when Horizons first launched and when I was landing it would go abruptly from what was basically a blank, featureless area to suddenly show planetary terrain. It's much less noticeable now but is still happening and despite using very modest graphics settings and a low resolution the textures are still not being processed efficiently. Like I said, this is NOT an issue with my GPU which is running at low temps, has more than enough memory and is running on low-resolution settings.

The only real "fix" for this issue seems to be running an absolute top-end setup, i.e., 1070 or 1080 (or 980 SLIs) which can simply brute-force high-res textures through with no pop-in. That's why players who had top-end rigs when Horizons launched were very happy with the planetary texture quality and everyone running low and mid-end rigs found the game basically unplayable. I don't plan on upgrading to a 1080 until sometime next year so for now I'm using very modest settings but even so I don't consider the texture quality or graphics performance acceptable at present.

I'm running a 970 with everything pretty much set to 11. I did notice an increase in FPS on the surface with the update, but I actually think I noticed the pop-in effect more after the upgrade than before.

I'll have to do some more comparisons. But just couldn't think of why having lower resolution tiles would affect the colour variations. They wouldn't be as crisp, obvious. But they should still be there.

 

[hunvagy]

I'm running a 970 with everything pretty much set to 11. I did notice an increase in FPS on the surface with the update, but I actually think I noticed the pop-in effect more after the upgrade than before.

I'll have to do some more comparisons. But just couldn't think of why having lower resolution tiles would affect the colour variations. They wouldn't be as crisp, obvious. But they should still be there.

Yeah, the color changes are probably the result of some other changes they made. But I do know that the textures were reworked after the first Horizons beta. It was really overkill. Not sure if the high metal content surfaces fell victim to that or not. Would have to fly around and check a few worlds to see if there really is no difference, but I guess the explorers among us can verify that.

 

[Sasquatch_Punter]

What happened was that FD's planetary textures were originally very good, basically photorealistic, but we only had those when Horizons first launched. The issue was that these textures were slowing most player's machines down to a crawl during planetary landings to the point where you would see terrible texture pop-in even at relatively short distances. It wasn't just an issue of GPU power either because although the absolute top-end setups were managing well (i.e., 980 SLIs and such) the textures themselves were extremely resource intensive for some reason and there was apparently no easy way to fix them. As a result they simply downgraded them dramatically so that performance on mid-range machines wouldn't be so utterly terrible.

Owners of high-end rigs did complain around the time the textures were downgraded, but FD clearly decided that it was better to achieve adequate performance with low-res textures then to keep the high-res photorealistic ones in the game. The issue is that they never went back to try to optimize the original textures, they just left them in a very sub-par state instead and that is why we have shapeless, blurry planets that look like they were produced for a 1990's game instead of a game produced in 2017. Unfortnately with FD's excessive monetization of the game (i.e., selling one line of RBG code for $1.75) they are unlikely to invest the time needed to bring the planetary textures back up to par (or perhaps they will, but turn around and try to charge us $1.75 per planet or something).

As I remember it the main problem was the high density geometry in combination with the ambient occlusion on planets was too taxing on people's systems, so they decided to bring those down and they actually bumped up the texture detail to compensate.

Aside from that, texture resolution has absolutely nothing to do with the topographical and biome generation that determines how textures are mapped to the surface. They could bump the texture resolution by 100% and it wouldn't make a spot of difference to the look of these planets.

 

[Devari]

Yeah it was completely weird the first time they introduced it, and how it worked. But be warned, now you will see how relentless the system can be. Textures too high + shadows and lighting really kills performance on the lower tier GPUs. You should probably find a system with a large settlement and experiment with settings there, as it will give you the biggest load. All those city light and Skimmer dust clouds usually give the GPU quite a lot of work.

I had originally been running my graphics settings on high quality but a few months ago I downgraded them to medium quality because my fps around planetary bases was dropping from 55-60 fps to the 40-45 range. Normally that wouldn't bother me too much except that I was doing base runs in the SRV and it was really annoying me due to the precision needed when quickly navigating the bases for data point scans. I've put the defaults to mid quality and that helped but I haven't been as happy with the graphics quality since. After your post about the terrain work slider I've now adjusted the slider to centre it and left the other graphics settings to mid quality defaults so it will be interesting to see if that fixes the pop-in issue I've been experiencing.

If the terrain work slider fixes the pop-in completely and doesn't increase my GPU temps noticeably then I might even try going back up to high quality. I usually run my card stock but the 670MX has very good OC potential and when I tested the OC stability I found that I could push another 20-25% increase in fps in most games simply by overclocking with MSI afterburner. That takes my 670MX from the stock 600/1400 default GPU/memory clocks up to 735/2400 with the max +135/+1000 boost. That's just at stock voltage (which MSI afterburner locks out by default) and the card is perfectly stable at those settings. I see no artifacts and usually have no more than 2-5 degrees temp increases so my GPU card and cooling fan can both handle the OC and stay completely stable if needed. My ASIC quality is 76.3% according to GPU-Z which is decent but I think the stability is more due to the fac that the 670MX is generally a well-designed GPU and when I originally purchased the system I had read that the 670MX was apparently considered to have good OC potential. Really I'm just trying to get the best possible stable performance I can out of my 670MX until ASUS starts putting 1080s in their ROG series, which I hope happens sometime this year. I don't want to settle for a 1070 (which is all I've seen them put in the ROG series so far) so I've been staying with my 670MX until I can get my hands on a ROG gaming laptop with a 1080.

 

[xondk]

?

1: stellar engine was reworked.
2: it is just a texture in early versions, where now it at least has basic geometry now even those you can't land on.
3: this is Aulis 1 today.

 

[Devari]

As I remember it the main problem was the high density geometry in combination with the ambient occlusion on planets was too taxing on people's systems, so they decided to bring those down and they actually bumped up the texture detail to compensate.

Aside from that, texture resolution has absolutely nothing to do with the topographical and biome generation that determines how textures are mapped to the surface. They could bump the texture resolution by 100% and it wouldn't make a spot of difference to the look of these planets.

I'm not sure exactly what they did to the textures after Horizons launched but from the screenshots I saw players posting on the forums around that time they went from basically photorealistic on high-end rigs to markedly sub-par after the change, even with maxed-out ultra settings. It was a major point of complaint on the forums when they downgraded the textures as everyone who was running 980 SLIs at the time (the 1070 and 1080s weren't out then) had gotten good performance with the original textures and were not happy with the downgraded ones that they replaced them with.

The issue here seems to be that FD went from one extreme to the other, i.e., photorealistic but extremely resource intensive textures to sub-par textures and the before and after difference for some planets is absolutely massive. I don't know how the recent color changes factor into that but it certainly doesn't help combining the poor quality textures with less color variation, i.e., I think the issue is that we're seeing two separate "downgrades" compared to the original textures (i.e., both decreased texture quality and color variation) and that makes the changes look that much worse in comparison.

 

[tagos]

I pop in and out of the game. Just started another run and got to say - the beige planets are a very big and disappointing let down.

I very much doubt we know enough to say all these types of planets will look like lumps of spherical dog doo. But even if they do then this is a case of too much realism being a very bad thing.

It detracts from enjoyment and looks bad in videos people might watch when thinking of buying.