Visible Colour Banding in Atmospheres?

[londonx]

Are people seeing noticeable colour banding in the atmosphere gradients? I noticed it in the game straight away after the v2 update which also unhelpfully coincided with a new Nvidia driver (466.63) update, (especially at sunset/dusk when moving the head look around with the breathing condensation inside the helmet). A bit of background, I had to reset/re-callibrate my monitor as the new v2 update was too contrasty with over-saturated colours. Can't tell if its just something or it was exaggerated initially and now I am noticing it or something weird is happening on my setup. I reinstalled the previous Nvidia driver, re-calibrated my monitor, deleted the ED graphics files etc but still noticeable banding. I read that banding particularly at the darker end of the scale is a weak spot with Nvidia in that their drivers do not implement dithering, however the Elite Dangerous engine has in-built dithering, wondering if its something to do with the latest patch even?

These were taken with a phone so its over-compensated for the darkness but gives an idea of the lack of dithering in the gradients especially around the breathing "condensation" area in the 1st pic

 

[Vardaugas]

Colour banding has always been present in Elite. That's nothing new.

 

[thistle]

It's a lot less than it was pre Beyond actually. (around stars etc)

 

[Maolagin]

Colour banding has always been present in Elite. That's nothing new.

If that screenshot is representative of what's on OP's screen, that's a lot worse than anything I've seen in game so far, including in Odyssey. My money would be on a bad driver interaction.

 

[CptXabaras]

i'm running latest Nvidia drivers as OP (on a GTX-1080TI) and haven't seen anything like that.

 

[CptXabaras]

Are people seeing noticeable colour banding in the atmosphere gradients? I noticed it in the game straight away after the v2 update which also unhelpfully coincided with a new Nvidia driver (466.63) update, (especially at sunset/dusk when moving the head look around with the breathing condensation inside the helmet). A bit of background, I had to reset/re-callibrate my monitor as the new v2 update was too contrasty with over-saturated colours. Can't tell if its just something or it was exaggerated initially and now I am noticing it or something weird is happening on my setup. I reinstalled the previous Nvidia driver, re-calibrated my monitor, deleted the ED graphics files etc but still noticeable banding. I read that banding particularly at the darker end of the scale is a weak spot with Nvidia in that their drivers do not implement dithering, however the Elite Dangerous engine has in-built dithering, wondering if its something to do with the latest patch even?

These were taken with a phone so its over-compensated for the darkness but gives an idea of the lack of dithering in the gradients especially around the breathing "condensation" area in the 1st pic
View attachment 237255

View attachment 237256

Try to post an actual screenshot.

F10 in game (F12 if you are running through steam)
The F10 in game will produce a .bmp picture
The F12 via steam will produce a .jpg picture

 

[DøømHåmstër]

i'm running latest Nvidia drivers as OP (on a GTX-1080TI) and haven't seen anything like that.

Same here on a GTX 1070. Nothing close to what OP is seeing.

 

[fus roh potato]

The galaxy backdrop, surface textures, and even menu gradients have always had obvious banding since the game's release. The sky gradient is the first occurrence where I've ever seen effective dithering anywhere in the entire game's history. That is, until they increased the limits on the gamma slider. It's not apparent at 25%+, but crank it to max and the banding is worse than it's ever been, now including the skies.

They are stretching color rendering way beyond doofus limits here. It has been explained a few times elsewhere. Their color definitions are very poorly chosen, then mutilated with back and forth processing.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

Whether or not banding is noticeable depends a lot on the monitor/screen, in my experience.

For example, I have dual IPS LG 1080p monitors and see zero banding.

My Asus ROG laptop, however? Banding. Lots and lots of banding, which leads me to the conclusion that it's the quality of the LED screen rather than the game itself, the OP's screenshots look an awful lot like the banding/bad dithering artefacts I notice on my laptop.

 

[londonx]

Whether or not banding is noticeable depends a lot on the monitor/screen, in my experience.

For example, I have dual IPS LG 1080p monitors and see zero banding.

My Asus ROG laptop, however? Banding. Lots and lots of banding, which leads me to the conclusion that it's the quality of the LED screen rather than the game itself, the OP's screenshots look an awful lot like the banding/bad dithering artefacts I notice on my laptop.

Yeah my monitor is pretty decent (not gaming-wise more for photography/colour reproduction), Samsung 10bit QLED VA panel, I even tried forcing the 10bit via the Nvidia Control Panel (Windows was reporting it as 8bit but I think that was just Windows not labelling it correctly). Ive made sure any fancy processing stuff is also turned off on the monitor e.g. faster response times etc tthat can degrade quality

In Game the banding is far more noticeable than the screen grabs in the external programme

 

[londonx]

The galaxy backdrop, surface textures, and even menu gradients have always had obvious banding since the game's release. The sky gradient is the first occurrence where I've ever seen effective dithering anywhere in the entire game's history. That is, until they increased the limits on the gamma slider. It's not apparent at 25%+, but crank it to max and the banding is worse than it's ever been, now including the skies.

They are stretching color rendering way beyond doofus limits here. It has been explained a few times elsewhere. Their color definitions are very poorly chosen, then mutilated with back and forth processing.

Yeah the banding is very noticeable in the darker areas but if I screen shot it and view it in an external programme everything is much darker and therefore the banding is less visible ie I have to look at certain angles on the monitor to see it.

So after Update 2 my Gamma settings were way off, I had to reduce it drastically from just above half way to far below it, in game I can clearly see the left symbol but when viewing it outside of the its completely dark

 

[dubsdj]

Strange because I used to get banding around the main star of the system and I thought it was my asus 4k monitor not being good enough. However, since horizons the problem went away and I don't see banding at all anymore.

 

[londonx]

Try to post an actual screenshot.

F10 in game (F12 if you are running through steam)
The F10 in game will produce a .bmp picture
The F12 via steam will produce a .jpg picture

Yeah basically its less visible outside of the game in screenshots, so the game is rendering something differently since update 2, Ive got my gamma right down now see above post but its not enought to get rid of the banding. Its very apparent when I look around with the head look as the banding sort of swims about around me, I guess its trying to simulate some sort looking through glass effect. Looking back at my previous screen shots I do notice banding in the atmosphere just its not as bad as in game especially with the movement, for example the banding nearer the darker colours/blacks are really obvious again. I had this before in Horizons but a simple callibration of the monitor got rid of it. I use the monitor for photography so Im sort of bit sensitive to artifacts and colour tints.

Gamma at halfway:

Interestingly I can actually see the banding quite clearly in those last two shots outside of the game

 

[MCCART]

Are people seeing noticeable colour banding in the atmosphere gradients? I noticed it in the game straight away after the v2 update which also unhelpfully coincided with a new Nvidia driver (466.63) update, (especially at sunset/dusk when moving the head look around with the breathing condensation inside the helmet). A bit of background, I had to reset/re-callibrate my monitor as the new v2 update was too contrasty with over-saturated colours. Can't tell if its just something or it was exaggerated initially and now I am noticing it or something weird is happening on my setup. I reinstalled the previous Nvidia driver, re-calibrated my monitor, deleted the ED graphics files etc but still noticeable banding. I read that banding particularly at the darker end of the scale is a weak spot with Nvidia in that their drivers do not implement dithering, however the Elite Dangerous engine has in-built dithering, wondering if its something to do with the latest patch even?

These were taken with a phone so its over-compensated for the darkness but gives an idea of the lack of dithering in the gradients especially around the breathing "condensation" area in the 1st pic
View attachment 237255

View attachment 237256

Yup, getting that. I was waiting for a place to post about it and here it is. Not only is the dithering there for me but it actively morphs and changes. ...while I'm standing still in an area with unchanging light levels. For those not seeing it; hope that you continue to not see it. Once you do you will not be able to un-see it.

Try to post an actual screenshot.

F10 in game (F12 if you are running through steam)
The F10 in game will produce a .bmp picture
The F12 via steam will produce a .jpg picture

Actually, the best way to do it is outside of Steam or ED. You eliminate any post-processing that may be done by either that way. If I fire ED up later I'll grab a couple. Maybe even a video.

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

I haven't noticed it with atmospheres, but I did notice it close to nebulae. I found that turning up "environment quality" and "volumetric effects" helped. I'm not sure if that would cause me to much of an fps drop at settlements, but out in the black, it seems fine.

 

[londonx]

I suspect something has happened to the gamma in the game, when I reduce the gamma in the game to minimal, ie far left or last third, when I take a screenshot it looks decent, ie need to squint to see banding but in the game its much more obvious no matter the gamma setting

So the banding artifacts here are probably from the JPEG compression after uploading, the screen grab looks pretty decent direct on my monitor outside of the game, but in the game its very apparant

Its like there is really bad black compression happening, no gradients in the dark areas at all. Ugh

 

[MacIntoc]

May it be a consequences of this fix : "A fix for the Gamma slider not updating in-game gamma values has been implemented" and this mess ?