New lighting

[Morbad]

i think morbad found a way to deactivate the filters
the downside is, you will also get back bright night sides of planets

Several of us have independently discovered that altering the line "<PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>1</PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>" to "0" under the HDRNode_Reference" section, inside the main GraphicsConfiguration.xml, in the game's install directory (applying the change to the override file does not work), will knock out the global color filter. However, this also has numerous other effects. One is, as you mention, the re-lightening of the dark sides of planets. Another is a general shift of the illumination color gradients toward blue, irrespective of what it's supposed to be.

I posted some comparisons here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ettings-Beyond-Ultra/page5?highlight=graphics

Overall, the config files don't seem to provide enough granularity of options to separate the changes into a mix where everyone can get a satisfactory experience. At this point, I've settled on simply reducing the bloom intensity by turning down the "GlareScale" and "FilterRadius" as I find the global color filter, as annoying as can be, more acceptable than losing all the lighting balances.

 

[Morbad]

Not sure it really matters, but just on this point, it's not a tint - the default graphics configuration file shows that FD is running ACES which is tone mapping (i.e. mapping colours through the curve) Still a bit borked for me though for the reasons in my above post.

They had a tone mapping curve before, essentially no one uses linear gamma, which has been altered slightly a few times in the game's history. The adoption of ACES is probably just to make it more modular/standardized.

The curve in the GraphicsConfiguration.xml is identical to the reference one described here: https://knarkowicz.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/aces-filmic-tone-mapping-curve/

You can now turn off the tone mapping entirely, which mostly just brightens the crap out of stuff that isn't supposed to be bright and costs a lot of detail in areas that are already well lit.

 

[Maro-Val]

Several of us have independently discovered that altering the line "<PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>1</PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>" to "0" under the HDRNode_Reference" section, inside the main GraphicsConfiguration.xml, in the game's install directory (applying the change to the override file does not work), will knock out the global color filter. However, this also has numerous other effects. One is, as you mention, the re-lightening of the dark sides of planets. Another is a general shift of the illumination color gradients toward blue, irrespective of what it's supposed to be.

I posted some comparisons here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ettings-Beyond-Ultra/page5?highlight=graphics

Overall, the config files don't seem to provide enough granularity of options to separate the changes into a mix where everyone can get a satisfactory experience. At this point, I've settled on simply reducing the bloom intensity by turning down the "GlareScale" and "FilterRadius" as I find the global color filter, as annoying as can be, more acceptable than losing all the lighting balances.

Thank you very much for this info.

 

[A D]

They had a tone mapping curve before, essentially no one uses linear gamma, which has been altered slightly a few times in the game's history. The adoption of ACES is probably just to make it more modular/standardized.

The curve in the GraphicsConfiguration.xml is identical to the reference one described here: https://knarkowicz.wordpress.com/2016/01/06/aces-filmic-tone-mapping-curve/

You can now turn off the tone mapping entirely, which mostly just brightens the crap out of stuff that isn't supposed to be bright and costs a lot of detail in areas that are already well lit.

Yep, did a post on this topic - https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/468293-Tone-Mapping-Let-s-Make-Space-Dark-Again-Mk-3

basically, came to the conclusion that:

1. Turning off the prototype lighting balancing was worse.
2. Changing the tone map settings in the config file is no longer an effective solution (this includes both the Hable and ACES settings, although I only did a cursory test on the latter).
3. May help a little to alter the glare compensation and manual exposure settings, but even this has a cost.

Regarding "granularity" (your first post above), some in game controls might be the way to go. The "Talos Principle" is an excellent example. In the game options it has a slider for each of brightness, contrast, gamma and saturation.

 

[RymdLazer]

It's true many stations are too bright, mainly those that were too bright to begin with.
It's my experience that reality is also too garish and unreal too from time to time so...

 

[thistle]

1) Starports are Hideous
2) Inside cockpit looks ridicules with all the goofy lights
3) Once beautiful Gas Giants now no color and in shadow
4) All the fake background colors are laughable
5) Distance stars fuzzy little cotton balls

This is the worst change Frontier has done to Elite Dangerous, They have totally made a beautiful Game laughable.
Every review I have read before the update had nothing but praise on how beautiful Elite Dangerous is or now WAS

Different strokes for different folks. For me

1) Starports look good, I do prefer the deeper greens and golds in the previous versions which are being (probably unintentionally) too affected by the light changes
2) Cockpits look better. Lighting used to catch edges, now it lights *surfaces*
3) Gas giants look fine, but some areas are seemingly too dark for whatever reason.
4) Background looks better, more contrast and brighter stars
5) looks better to me

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Several of us have independently discovered that altering the line "<PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>1</PrototypeLightingBalancesEnabled>" to "0" under the HDRNode_Reference" section, inside the main GraphicsConfiguration.xml, in the game's install directory (applying the change to the override file does not work), will knock out the global color filter. However, this also has numerous other effects. One is, as you mention, the re-lightening of the dark sides of planets. Another is a general shift of the illumination color gradients toward blue, irrespective of what it's supposed to be.

I posted some comparisons here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...ettings-Beyond-Ultra/page5?highlight=graphics

Overall, the config files don't seem to provide enough granularity of options to separate the changes into a mix where everyone can get a satisfactory experience. At this point, I've settled on simply reducing the bloom intensity by turning down the "GlareScale" and "FilterRadius" as I find the global color filter, as annoying as can be, more acceptable than losing all the lighting balances.

yeah, i know.
i found the config file for that myself too,
but couldn't test out the impacts due to time restraints.

neither could i yet test out how supersampling setting and Antialiasing affects the new filter.
we have seen that the screenspace effects are affected by supersampling with the pulse waves "tetris" effect.
some of the faster AA filters also happen in screen-space, so someone could suspect it would impact the result.
(TXAA, SMAA and MLAA)

if the new filters use pixel radius for intensity, then supersampling will naturally turn down the bloom at the cost of performance ofc

 

[A D]

yeah, i know.
i found the config file for that myself too,
but couldn't test out the impacts due to time restraints.

neither could i yet test out how supersampling setting and Antialiasing affects the new filter.
we have seen that the screenspace effects are affected by supersampling with the pulse waves "tetris" effect.
some of the faster AA filters also happen in screen-space, so someone could happen it would impact the result.
(TXAA, SMAA and MLAA)

if the new filters use pixel radius for intensity, then supersampling will naturally turn down the bloom at the cost of performance ofc

interesting. Will muck around with AA and SS and see what happens.

P.S. Gave this a quick go. Tried out some extreme SS and AA combos. Not a lot of difference in IMO (bearing in mind my settings were already at ultra with HMD at 1.75, basic FXAA only).

 

[Morbad]

Regarding "granularity" (your first post above), some in game controls might be the way to go. The "Talos Principle" is an excellent example. In the game options it has a slider for each of brightness, contrast, gamma and saturation.

The game definitely needs more options and more accessible options.

It's true many stations are too bright, mainly those that were too bright to begin with.
It's my experience that reality is also too garish and unreal too from time to time so...

The difference is that reality isn't mapped into a three or four figure contrast ratio and things like cockpit/dashboard lights are rarely bright enough to blind the operators of vehicles to the external environment.

neither could i yet test out how supersampling setting and Antialiasing affects the new filter.
we have seen that the screenspace effects are affected by supersampling with the pulse waves "tetris" effect.
some of the faster AA filters also happen in screen-space, so someone could suspect it would impact the result.
(TXAA, SMAA and MLAA)

I haven't noticed much of a difference with supersampling or the various AA methods, though I've done most of my supersampling via DSR, which has it's own downsampling/smoothing filter that may obfuscate effects better than the in-game SS.

if the new filters use pixel radius for intensity, then supersampling will naturally turn down the bloom at the cost of performance ofc

I saw no difference based on resolution, so I don't think the units used are pixels. I suspect they are meters, as with HBAO.

 

[Urbanski101]

The OP pic comparison is fairly alarming in it's contrast.

As with all devs I wish they would just incrementally increase / decrease rather than the "see what happens when we turn it up to 11" thought process. Some ringed planets lose all definition and detail as the reflected light is so bright it looks like a light source rather than reflected light and bleaches out planet/ring detail.

IMO it looks a bit daft...not a fan.

Not been down on a planet to check the effects there yet.

 

[A D]

Not been down on a planet to check the effects there yet.

I have a number of times. Mostly, not a good look IMO. Lack of surface detail (blurriness) is very apparent in low light e.g. ice body canyon.

 

[aDuz]

I have to call you out there, the wide FOV is the very same (and unavoidable) algorithm/result in any game, for which reason it works exactly the same way each time. The only difference would be how much wider a given game allows you to go.
I’m at maximum FOV in ED and it’s no different to any other game.

you still get the banana bending away effect at the lowest fov

 

[Morbad]

you still get the banana bending away effect at the lowest fov

Only if you are sitting too far from the display. I see it in that image because that image is about 15 degrees of my vertical FOV on this laptop, which is well below what you can normally set in game.

There is no way to get a completely distortion free image that represents a greater FoV than the image actually fills in reality. Different projection methods and different perspective 'corrections' simply have different kinds of distortion. The game uses rectilinear projection, which probably makes the most sense of all available options.