Not another graphical change! (AKA What have you done to my Nebula?)

[Robbie Rocketpants]

Thanks for the suggestion Chobber. Before I made this thread, I ensured everything was set back to the default. In fact today's patch had overwrote the Config file with a default copy anyway.

Well worth thinking about though!

Ah good stuff - from your previous post showing the low detail load first and then the high detail in the map, but the high detail not showing in the background rendering it just made me think that there was something different in the settings for the two views. It definitely looks like all the assets are there but not showing on the background so seems like a good bug find to me!

I checked for myself in the map, centering on that same system, and I see exactly what you see with the nebula looking at first like your OP screenshot and then the high detail popping in. Would be good if there were others near there to maybe pop in and confirm the same behaviour. I'm about 2 hours away from there but fancy the trip I think, not tonight though!

Good YT channel and thread by the way, subbed and repped respectively.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Ah good stuff - from your previous post showing the low detail load first and then the high detail in the map, but the high detail not showing in the background rendering it just made me think that there was something different in the settings for the two views. It definitely looks like all the assets are there but not showing on the background so seems like a good bug find to me!

I checked for myself in the map, centering on that same system, and I see exactly what you see with the nebula looking at first like your OP screenshot and then the high detail popping in. Would be good if there were others near there to maybe pop in and confirm the same behaviour. I'm about 2 hours away from there but fancy the trip I think, not tonight though!

Good YT channel and thread by the way, subbed and repped respectively.

Thanks, I really appreciate it!

And it's nice to know I'm not the only one with the pop-in on the map.

 

[Privata]

@Granite
After reading about it and trying out some tweaks it looks like its a bug (Hope it is)
I remeber you saying you would report it as a bug , did you do so?

 

[Aussiedroid]

Hi guy's are these taken from the same system? Are your graphics options unchanged? For every nebula in the game we have two versions a high and a low and we pick the high depending on your graphics options and which nebula is closest. I can promise nobody has touched the assets themselves as we haven't been working in that area for awhile so either your settings have changed, your in a slightly different system or we've a bug in deciding which nebula(s) should be high detail

Just to add to the convo, I have all my settings on maximum and never seen a nebula that looks like the first picture shared here. That really looks much better.

Is there any way we can manually change the detail levels via config files as I am concerned the levels set in-game settings might not be working. Would be good to check.

Thank you.

 

[RedWizzard]

Pretty sure this issue with the nebula is a bug of some sort. This may also explain some of the other graphical problems (which look like downgrades, but are probably not) are occurring. There seems to be a common theme through all of the recent graphical issues where things are not drawing in / rendering correctly.

When Galaxy map loads up the Horsehead Nebula loads in layers / stages. The in-game Horsehead Nebula matches one of the incomplete stages of nebula within the galaxy map.

I think you're right. Even in the galaxy map it seems it sometimes doesn't switch to the high res version, depending on the angle. That's got to be a bug. Look at these screenshots, first one has switched to the high res version, second one stayed on low res no matter how long I waited. The change in angle is only slight.

 

[SMcA]

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/LUwqm5l.jpg

The striations in the lower image looks like something built up from a CT scan.


They are very obvious in this screenshot I took a couple of days ago at the Traikaae Nebula

Spoiler

 

[Daffan]

Those screenshots are quite telling.

Have FD commented on the reasons behind these changes yet, and why things are no longer as detailed as they once where?

I will start the chaos

XBOX!

No but really, no idea.

 

[Dominator]

I will start the chaos

XBOX!

No but really, no idea.

It is really bad timing for all these graphic degradations to show up after David Braben assuring that the XBOX version looks the same as the PC version...

 

[Ian Phillips]

It is really bad timing for all these graphic degradations to show up after David Braben assuring that the XBOX version looks the same as the PC version...

Read the thread < facepalm >

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

One thing to say, is with the background; we generate it as you enter the system your in, changing the graphics setting for the background won't update the background until the next time you jump to a new system. So if your running on "low" and change to "ultra" your background won't change until you enter a new system. The background settings determine the resolution for the background and some details on number of samples etc that we use when rendering the background to try and make things look as good as we can on low spec machines. (just to be clear the nebulas are part of the background)

this is really good to know and may explain sometimes why I am squinting to try and spot differences after changing settings... so i guess what i need to do is change settings, log out, log back in and THEN compare?

thanks

 

[Mungrul]

Sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but could this be due to the changes to texture caching?
Prior to 1.3, my game loaded straight in after the Elite logo zoom.
Since 1.3, I get a spinning wheel every time I start the game saying that textures are being cached.
Before looking at this thread, I assumed everyone was getting this texture caching now. But as most people don't seem to have mentioned it in connection to reports of decreased visual quality, maybe I'm the minority, not the majority?

 

[Matt Dickinson]

this is really good to know and may explain sometimes why I am squinting to try and spot differences after changing settings... so i guess what i need to do is change settings, log out, log back in and THEN compare?

thanks

Or jump to a new system

For anyone noticing a "pop" in the map that's because what your seeing is no longer the most significant nebula. We make sure there's a whole bunch of low res ones and a few hires ones, as the camera moves around it reprioritises them. We use different metrics in the map vs the background for working out which ones need to be more detailed. The background is easier to sort out we generally pick the biggest ones to be the most detailed, in the map it's more complex as the biggest isn't always the closest etc etc.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

@Granite
After reading about it and trying out some tweaks it looks like its a bug (Hope it is)
I remeber you saying you would report it as a bug , did you do so?

Hopefully it is a bug as I would really like to see it restored to the way it was previously.

Here is the bug report I made: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=164630

- - - Updated - - -

I think you're right. Even in the galaxy map it seems it sometimes doesn't switch to the high res version, depending on the angle. That's got to be a bug. Look at these screenshots, first one has switched to the high res version, second one stayed on low res no matter how long I waited. The change in angle is only slight.

View attachment 49291View attachment 49290

Seems odd. I haven't yet checked to see if it happens with other nebula in the game.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Or jump to a new system

For anyone noticing a "pop" in the map that's because what your seeing is no longer the most significant nebula. We make sure there's a whole bunch of low res ones and a few hires ones, as the camera moves around it reprioritises them. We use different metrics in the map vs the background for working out which ones need to be more detailed. The background is easier to sort out we generally pick the biggest ones to be the most detailed, in the map it's more complex as the biggest isn't always the closest etc etc.

It seems the game isn't using the high res asset for the Horsehead Nebula within the game world, even though the high-res asset clearly exists. I posted this earlier on which highlights it:

Spoiler

By the way, is there any way to adjust the graphics config file to draw in more high-res nebula when inside the game world? Would be great if so...

 

[xyphic]

I challenge you to show me where I say they dumbed down the graphics on purpose for xbox? If you read you see That I think something happened with the recent optimizations, which more than likely happened due to xbox, and we have since had these problems.

Apologies, you didn't say that. Lots of people have been though, and I'm trying to challenge what I see as a misconception.

Another reason I don't think these changes have come because of the Xbox port is because we've been told that we'll get the benefits of Xbox optimisation *later* when that work is merged back to the trunk of the PC build. That implies those optimisations have been done outside of the development stream for the current PC version and so any bugs that have been introduced on PC are unrelated to the Xbox port.

 

[Matt Dickinson]

It seems the game isn't using the high res asset for the Horsehead Nebula within the game world, even though the high-res asset clearly exists. I posted this earlier on which highlights it:

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/LUwqm5l.jpg

By the way, is there any way to adjust the graphics config file to draw in more high-res nebula when inside the game world? Would be great if so...

It's quite possible Barnards loop is the bigger nebula in your location so it's picking that! There's currently no option for setting Nebula numbers, might be something we could add later maybe... it has a few knock on's to other things which is why we kept it out of there!

Going to reiterate this again.... We treat the xbox the same way as the mac! They're separate platforms with separate settings we don't change the assets just various settings and other things!

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

It's quite possible Barnards loop is the bigger nebula in your location so it's picking that! There's currently no option for setting Nebula numbers, might be something we could add later maybe... it has a few knock on's to other things which is why we kept it out of there!

Going to reiterate this again.... We treat the xbox the same way as the mac! They're separate platforms with separate settings we don't change the assets just various settings and other things!

This is all good info and thanks so much for posting on here... it is always great to have dev feedback rather than us second guessing each other. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be having keyboard warriors (and I am not holding myself above this "crime") moan about stuff they know little about on stuff you clearly take pride in - and rightfully so even with its visual niggles Elite is still a looker and obviously the sound assets have already been raved about!. I also imagine it must be worse when you may know answers to some of the things we are chatting about but are perhaps not allowed to respond.

As for people seeing slight graphics issues and assuming the worst - I guess you have other so called AAA devs to blame for that. Sadly all companies tend to get tarred with the same brush. It is a shame, but understandable i guess when you get games like watchdogs which get seriously cut back - despite some of the better assets still being in the game folders, and then other games getting locked to 30fps for no real reasons other than utter (and I am not talking about "Background Sim "here).... in fact, basically, blame ubisoft

 

[Obsidian Ant]

It's quite possible Barnards loop is the bigger nebula in your location so it's picking that! There's currently no option for setting Nebula numbers, might be something we could add later maybe... it has a few knock on's to other things which is why we kept it out of there!

Thanks for replying again Matt. Makes sense what you are saying about keeping those settings out, although it would be very nice to see them at some point in the future.

So it would seem something has changed between gamma and now (maybe as you say, it's that Barnard's Loop is getting chosen as the high-res model. In fact the edges of Barnard's Loop do look of a higher quality in the newer screenshots). Here is another example of screenshot comparisons:

The entire Barnard's Loop region is a fantastically beautiful region of space, and you all have done such a great job there - I love the work you have done. It would be really nice though to still be able to see the awesome quality of the Horsehead Nebula. Especially when up as close as in the above screenshot...it is only a few dozen light years away, so it's a shame that - for whatever reason - it is no longer drawing in correctly. Thanks for the feedback so far!

 

[Matt Dickinson]

This is all good info and thanks so much for posting on here... it is always great to have dev feedback rather than us second guessing each other. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be having keyboard warriors (and I am not holding myself above this "crime") moan about stuff they know little about on stuff you clearly take pride in - and rightfully so even with its visual niggles Elite is still a looker and obviously the sound assets have already been raved about!. I also imagine it must be worse when you may know answers to some of the things we are chatting about but are perhaps not allowed to respond.

As for people seeing slight graphics issues and assuming the worst - I guess you have other so called AAA devs to blame for that. Sadly all companies tend to get tarred with the same brush. It is a shame, but understandable i guess when you get games like watchdogs which get seriously cut back - despite some of the better assets still being in the game folders, and then other games getting locked to 30fps for no real reasons other than utter (and I am not talking about "Background Sim "here).... in fact, basically, blame ubisoft

Always got time for a fellow 350Z driver

 

[Matt Dickinson]

Thanks for replying again Matt. Makes sense what you are saying about keeping those settings out, although it would be very nice to see them at some point in the future.

So it would seem something has changed between gamma and now. Here is another example of screenshot comparisons:

http://i.imgur.com/UbCNkJl.jpg


The entire Barnard's Loop region is a fantastically beautiful region of space, and you all have done such a great job there - I love the work you have done. It would be really nice though to still be able to see the awesome quality of the Horsehead Nebula. Especially when up as close as in the above screenshot...it is only a few dozen light years away, so it's a shame that - for whatever reason - it is no longer drawing in correctly.

One way to test it should be to get right in the nebula, if you keep jumping towards it then it should eventually be the biggest thing (one would hope anyways!) This region is the densest nebula-wise so it's going to be the place with the most to balance.