The sad truth is PC's are the root of the issue, not consoles. There are many users running extremely poor spec PC's out there.
What happened to the graphics / textures?
- Thread starter her3sy
- Start date
The sad truth is PC's are the root of the issue, not consoles. There are many users running extremely poor spec PC's out there.
It's not a shader problem and it wasn't on purpose. Frontier implemented a new surface material system in 2.2 designed to improve the look of planets, the problem is they mistakenly used the color of Earth dirt for most of the materials and thus we got the beigefication of 2.2. Now the terrain normalization of 2.2 which accompanied it, that was an intentional change by Frontier designed to eliminate mesh errors and improve performance at planet surfaces. Unfortunately the two issues combined resulted in most planets looking terribly similar to each other and very uninteresting. That was over a year ago.
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The xbox and play station can both handle better than you are seeing now.
And then there is the one x and the ps pro.
No this is just bad programming.
I wouldn't argue with that at all, hence use of "might". I've seen many threads where x player made a graphics change on his PC, and now it runs at the amazing speed of 20 FPS on lowest graphics settings.
As I am sure you are aware, the reason console optimisation is notable though is because all consoles theoretically run the same or similar specs, so Devs can create that optimised profile and implement it with minimal tweakability afterwards.
PCs get rid of that optimisation in favour of customisable settings, which should mean that theoretically anything but the pit of computers can run the game - whereas if a console cannot efficiently run a game none of them will be able to, and that's when games have the potential to be hit with a true quality downgrade.
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Yes, this seems to be an accurate assessment. Frontier must target the majority of the platform, it just makes financial sense. That doesn't preclude having the option to scale it though, which would be a great addition IMO.
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That's why PC games have quality settings instead of being downgraded across the board.
Partially true, sadly it is not as simple as just unlocking a UI slider to allow it to be dragged up to 11.
One of the very popular questions around the time of 2.0 beta, was that of caves and overhangs.
I recall the team expressing that it was possible but would require a lot of compute power so was excluded from the build.
You cannot simply turn something like that on/off with a setting as it would produce a vastly different experience for different end users.
Imagine a high spec player flying in a large cavern but a low spec player seeing them fly though a wall.
verminstar
Banned
My xbone runs the game better than my old pc...thats why I use the xbone only nowadays with the pc is in bits in a box...box is probably worth more than whats in it tbh but it has sentimental value which is why its kept at all. The game runs and looks as good as a medium spec pc, albeit with slightly slower fps, so I just dont get the whole consoles are to blame logic. It just doesnt make sense and thats not me defending the console because I use one exclusively nowadays...if I thought fer a second consoles were to blame, Id say so...but I dont and never have.
In agreement with yer last...this isnt the fault of any platform, its a casualty of optimization fer the pcs that run below average hardware which means its lower end pc dragging everything down and not the consoles which already run the game better. Consoles are just a convenient scapegoat fer master race types who barely even understand the argument in the first place.
Unfortunately, this results in a circular off topic argument almost every single time...if I didnt know any better, Id call that trolling. But of course its not that, its just ignorance with a loud voice that adds nothing to actually sorting the issue.
Speaking of which...by all means continue only without the platform bias. Its not needed, not relevant and not welcome and merely serves to muddy the waters.
As with many games , the xbox and ps4 happend , and so the master race adepts and gets ugly 
Raise the bar of what is required, you.can't.run.this.game.on.a potato.
They responded several times.
Pretty basic strawman since that's an engine deficiency and not something we have to deal with, nor is it an example of a downgrade but rather a dropped feature. Texture quality, on the other hand, we do have to deal with and is as simple as a UI slider that goes to 11.
I'm sorry, but anyone stating it's low-end PC's that are at fault are really struggling to justify the graphical downgrade.
The simple fact, is this has been happening for the better part of a decade. Look at other games in the past. Watchdogs, a prime example of designing a game's graphics to work on a high end pc, for PR shots, then downgrading the crap out of it to make sure it works on consoles, and only allow the PC version minimal upgrade options to ensure parity - which supposedly ensures sales are not affected by disgruntled console owners - of whom there are more of.
Assassin's Creed games - all suffered from the same thing. And for the exact same reason. Even The Witcher 3, which as a franchise started out as a PC only game, ended up being 'downgraded' graphically to work on consoles by the 3rd game.
It happens, and it happens exactly for the reasons given. Of COURSE you need top hardware to run games as good as they can look, but why on earth they can't KEEP these assets ingame, and THEN downgrade them to work on other machines is beyond me - except for the marketing thing, as mentioned. I mean, pretty much all games are DESIGNED on PC in the first place, then once the art assets are complete, the coding for the effects are done and the prototype is up and running... then they begin the 'optimisation' of the game art, effects and general coding, to ensure it runs at a steady rate. And until the PS4/XboxOne, that usually meant 30fps with a LOT of fidelity loss. Of course, the high end PC could run the original code and assets just fine, but because a lot of people don't have the required hardware to run it, then the PC assets are just swapped out with the new 'improved' console ones.
It's a reason why PC porting is so poor. They code FOR the graphics engine of choice, then downgrade to the console, and then port THAT version back over to the PC.
(I am of course simplifying the process here, but that's pretty much the end results).
Frontier are no different. The excuses given for the various downgrades JUST before the XBox version came out were just that. It was abundantly clear that the fidelity and detail of a lot of assets were reduced, to ensure that the game looked good on both console AND PC. The planet beigification was clearly a result of Horizons, there was no way those original planets could be rendered in such exquisite detail when actually ON the surface, but as we've seen on many other PC demos, PC's are quite capable of rendering such complex scenes - consoles, however, are not.
The usual crowd are going to 'virtually' downvote me, and that's fine. Frontier, if they decide to comment (which I would imagine they won't in this case) will deny everything - they're not exactly going to come out and say 'yes, to ensure the game runs on all platforms equally, we had to optimise the graphical fidelity of the game'. - that's a PR disaster.
But please, folks, don't insult intelligences here by suggesting downgrading doesn't happen. It does.
The simple fact, is this has been happening for the better part of a decade. Look at other games in the past. Watchdogs, a prime example of designing a game's graphics to work on a high end pc, for PR shots, then downgrading the crap out of it to make sure it works on consoles, and only allow the PC version minimal upgrade options to ensure parity - which supposedly ensures sales are not affected by disgruntled console owners - of whom there are more of.
Assassin's Creed games - all suffered from the same thing. And for the exact same reason. Even The Witcher 3, which as a franchise started out as a PC only game, ended up being 'downgraded' graphically to work on consoles by the 3rd game.
It happens, and it happens exactly for the reasons given. Of COURSE you need top hardware to run games as good as they can look, but why on earth they can't KEEP these assets ingame, and THEN downgrade them to work on other machines is beyond me - except for the marketing thing, as mentioned. I mean, pretty much all games are DESIGNED on PC in the first place, then once the art assets are complete, the coding for the effects are done and the prototype is up and running... then they begin the 'optimisation' of the game art, effects and general coding, to ensure it runs at a steady rate. And until the PS4/XboxOne, that usually meant 30fps with a LOT of fidelity loss. Of course, the high end PC could run the original code and assets just fine, but because a lot of people don't have the required hardware to run it, then the PC assets are just swapped out with the new 'improved' console ones.
It's a reason why PC porting is so poor. They code FOR the graphics engine of choice, then downgrade to the console, and then port THAT version back over to the PC.
(I am of course simplifying the process here, but that's pretty much the end results).
Frontier are no different. The excuses given for the various downgrades JUST before the XBox version came out were just that. It was abundantly clear that the fidelity and detail of a lot of assets were reduced, to ensure that the game looked good on both console AND PC. The planet beigification was clearly a result of Horizons, there was no way those original planets could be rendered in such exquisite detail when actually ON the surface, but as we've seen on many other PC demos, PC's are quite capable of rendering such complex scenes - consoles, however, are not.
The usual crowd are going to 'virtually' downvote me, and that's fine. Frontier, if they decide to comment (which I would imagine they won't in this case) will deny everything - they're not exactly going to come out and say 'yes, to ensure the game runs on all platforms equally, we had to optimise the graphical fidelity of the game'. - that's a PR disaster.
But please, folks, don't insult intelligences here by suggesting downgrading doesn't happen. It does.
verminstar
Banned
That must be why theres several megathreads then calling out fer some discussion and not just being fobbed off with the no ETA no guarantee theme...excuses basically fer not discussing it. Threads you yerself have commented on if Im not mistaken ^
And I would argue that solar bodies looking like the south end of a north bound mule and the beigfication of the planets, just to name a few, trump the cosmetic improvements we've gotten in return. Especially given the fact that you're always looking at stars no matter where or what you're doing, and planetary landings were about the only worthwhile (IMO at least) thing we got for our investment in Horizons. Also, speaking to the comment that it's all about balance; I had a potato for a computer 2 years ago when I started playing this game, and when Horizon's released it handled the graphics just fine, so I really have to wonder what kind of godawful PC's Fdev is dumbing things down for if that really is the case. I actually really doubt that. Honestly, there really is no valid excuse for going backwards in the graphics. I mean, have you seen what PA's look like post 2.4? Ye gods.
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I can guarantee you a large portion of users are running on low end laptops and PC's.
I remember that David B did talk about doing something for the high end PC's users, I see reflection in the game now, I didn't see that at the beginning. However we still need to get the asteroids back to their prime appearance and the surfaces of the planets need to get back to the best they can actually be.
I've been playing for the last two years so I've seen a few graphical iterations. A few things got nicer looking, but more things got worse looking. In efforts to optimize certain parts of the game Fdev definitely "de-fanged" the graphics a bit.
For now my fix has been to run an aggressive pipeline in ReShade. It won't fix a smoothed-over terrain mesh, or the 'beigification' problem... but it does re-inject a LOT of beauty back in to the game. EDFX is also a great utility for those who don't want to custom build a pipeline using Mediator in ReShade.
A few shots from my rig from build 2.3
For now my fix has been to run an aggressive pipeline in ReShade. It won't fix a smoothed-over terrain mesh, or the 'beigification' problem... but it does re-inject a LOT of beauty back in to the game. EDFX is also a great utility for those who don't want to custom build a pipeline using Mediator in ReShade.
A few shots from my rig from build 2.3
Has anyone mentioned consoles yet? <I'll get my coat>