Posted already in other threads, but I'm still getting delays. Slightly better perhaps but sometimes I'm still waiting at least half a second after the cast before some abilities actually execute. Tracer Missile for example (though mainly on the first). Still very much an issue.

The delays are most definitely still there, unless you there's supposed to be a half second delay before some of my BH hunter abilities fire. This happens very often when firing my first Tracer Missile in combat.

There is a slight improvement but I still get the half second pause before firing my first Tracer Missile on my BH sometimes. I also get this same slight pause when running and opening my character sheet or bags. There's definitely still some serious issues there. Although the Fleet is slightly smoother, when travelling around on my speeder especially around the centre ring, the game very often hitches and stutters even when the FPS doesn't drop.

I find it amazing to think that BioWare think this is acceptable quality in a game we are expected not only to purchase, but to subscribe to also. Graphically, we have barren lifeless worlds, poor armour textures and astonishingly bad dynamic shadows. Surely the artists working on this game are not happy with these issues, or is the engine that bad that they need these limitations just to make it playable? This is not the quality I was expecting from BioWare in 2011/12. This along with DAII has certainly dented my confidence in the company.

The OP does make some good valid points in my opinion. The dead world feel is particularly starting to bother me and with my BH now being L48 and questing in Corellia, it's probably the killing blow for me personally. It's just so lifeless and dull no amount of story or voice acting can bring that place to life. It's not like it's the only lifeless world too because many other zones feel like this and are just not fun for me personally. It's not just the lifeless feel though, it's also the design of the worlds. Opinions are obviously subjective and I realize others may like these zones and enjoy the questing but few could argue against them feeling lifeless. I never expected to feel like this after one months play and am quite gutted to be honest as I've been following this game since it was first announced and was expecting it to be more exciting and vibrant. No doubt it will get better and improve quite a bit over time, I just don't think it's going to improve enough for me to remain interested.

I think the OP is messing with us. That looks woeful lol! If you're going to link a 2012 MMO that does actually look great I suggest you look into Guild Wars 2.

HAHAHAHAHA! Quality!

With vsync enabled I usually get around 60 FPS when questing. In the Imperial Fleet however, it goes as low as 10 FPS and lags, stutters and hitches when it's busy. Even if other players are not in my sight it will still stutter. As for Warzones, usually get around 30 FPS in Huttball and around 10-30 FPS in Alderaan. Nearly L50 and was tempted to try Ilum but based on the videos I've seen where the game grinds to a halt, what's the point? In my opinion woeful optimization. My specs are: Intel Core i5 760 @ 3.8GHz 8GB DDR 1600MHz ATi Radeon HD5870 Expecting to see performance improvements from the developers shortly.

Got to say I hate the change. I was in a Warzone yesterday spamming abilities wondering why they were not activating. Very difficult to tell how long you've got left.

Really looking forward to your video Xcore. I just hope the developers watch it too. Might be better without background music but with the in-game sound effects, but can't say I mind either way. Appreciate the work you've done so far on this and I think it's important to stress that people are only highlighting issues because we want this game to be a success and live up to its potential. It's worrying though to think that the first fix was supposed to be included in patch 1.1 and I've seen no difference what-so-ever! The sluggish responsiveness and delay are still there. One issue I have noticed on my Bounty Hunter is that when I fire my first Tracer Missile (fire three in a row to get 5 stacks of heat signature on target) my character pauses after the first animation for about 1 second before actually firing the missile. The Subsequent ones fire more or less as they should. Very annoying indeed, particularly in Warzones where the delay is even longer than a second.

Nar Shadda is the worst area (or level) I've ever visited in a video game (followed by Coruscant!). Hate it with a passion!

Sorry but are you actually suggesting the FPS is do to with the users' software because if so that's ignorant and a load of rubbish! I have the same card as you (5870) and I get a very steady 60FPS in most places except for the fleet which turns into a slideshow and Warzones where it drops 25 FPS and under. As for Alderaan WZ it is an absolute joke! If it's not the game how come every other game I have runs flawlessly (such as BF3, WoW, BC2, Crysis 2 Warhead etc) except for this? The SIMPLE FACT is the game is poorly optimized. People with way more powerful systems are experiencing the same problems and everyone in my guild has these issues too. Also, those that say they do not have problems rarely mention what sort of FPS they get in Alderaan WZ or the Fleet. Also, some consider 25 FPS to be pretty good which I don't by the way. Therefore, if you don't often visit the Fleet or play WZ then it's likely many would say the performance is decent. As I see it, the engine has terrible trouble coping with many other players in the same area. That's partly why the game is instanced, that's why the Warzone's are only 8v8, that's why the biggest Operation groups are only for 16 players and that's why we have such poor low resolution armour textures.

Nar Shaddaa, Coruscant and Taris are absolutely terrible in my opinion and when I have quests to go back to Nar Shaddaa it makes we won't to stop playing. Hoth is okay but it is a little bland but so far Tatooine (apart from the exhaustion zones) and Belsavis are the best planets I've visited. Just started Voss and many people say it's one of the best too. The problem I have in general though is that I think the planet design is not particularly good for a number of reasons. Firstly, even in places like Alderaan I feel like I'm being continually funnelled down paths and many of the places feel quite enclosed. Often it seems like I have to take a particular route just to get to the next quest hub or questing area. In other MMOs you can often take multiple routes because you have more space to manoeuvre to other areas. Secondly, once you visit new planets you expect the zones within to be quite varied but they all have the same look - really doesn't make me feel like I'm exploring a new planet, rather a new level. Thirdly, where is the music? Often the only sound I can hear is from my speeder. Finally, the progression from one planet to the next is very linear. There's absolutely no way I could level more than 2 characters as it stands now, and even that would be a tall ask for me. All these elements combined can sometimes make the levelling process incredibly dull and will harm the long term validity of the game in my opinion.

I agree completely with this. I cannot explain how frustrating I find this - it drives me crazy! I noticed this in one of the developer videos when demoing Tatooine and assumed it would be fixed for launch. It's so worrying to think that issues like these plagued the beta for so long yet the problems still persists. Quite intrigued to see if the combat will be rectified after tomorrow's patch. If I was a betting man I'd say probably not!

If it's nothing to do with engine, and that could well be the case, are we assume then that it has been poorly coded by the developers? Some games perform better than expected when you consider how good they look, such as BF3. This doesn't look great (and damn right awful in terms of shadows and armor textures) and the performance is average at best. For me it is absolutely the engine that it to blame. Having said that, there's no doubt improvements will be made over the coming months. The problem is it needs to improve substantially to be competitive long term in my opinion, because I'd be very surprised if Guild Wars 2 suffers from some of the problems this game has. For example, the well known ability delay, graphical issues as above plus grass textures popping up all over the place (particularly bad on Belsavis), huge performance drop on the Fleet and Warzones. Also, I was running Fraps earlier and the game has a tendency to hitch or stutter very slightly even when the frames are high (above 50FPS). At least it does for me yet games like BF3 on high settings are super smooth. I want this game to be epic, as I'm sure other members do who have posted negative comments, but I just don't feel it's anywhere near that as a complete package currently.

Skip to 9:22 where the tutor demonstrates the different shadow settings.

There's videos on Youtube of people using the HeroEngine (will try to find to link) which shows the different shadow settings developers can set. When set to the lower levels they look EXACTLY the same as the ones we get in SWTOR. It has nothing to do with AMD or nVidia graphic cards, it is enforced through the engine. Hence, it is yet another graphical limitation BioWare have placed on the game because of performance, and lets not forget the performance is lacking even with these abysmal shadows. Surely nobody can argue against the engine being anything other than sub-par! We have terrible shadows, which impact performance more so than other games Ultra shadow settings, coupled with low resolution armor textures. People have issues with the graphics but how much better would this game look with decent shadows and high resolution armor textures? Other more graphically demanding MMOs seem to achieve this so either BioWare's developers are less talented (highly doubtful) or the engine they are using is rubbish. I think it's obvious which seems more likely. I'm amazed that BioWare thought it was satisfactory to release the game like this. I sent loads of tickets during the beta highlighting issues such as these but never got a response. I like the game and it does have potential but it's things like this which is why I've cancelled my subscription.

The problem is aesthetically WoW is a better looking game over all and it's 7 years older! It has better armor textures (and they're not great by any means), far superior shadows, better weather effects, day and night cycle and much better water effects, not to mention how much more fluid the animations are. Yes SWTOR will improve but this game seems to have cut so many corners with less features (and I'm not talking about content here) than most MMO releases. How come Aion could manage a smooth game play experience too with better armor textures on release? I get awful performance in Warzone's as it is on a fairly decent rig (Core i5 760, HD5870, 8GB RAM) even on low so I'm not sure how much more stressful high textures would place on my PC. Undoubtedly this game will improve ten fold over the coming months but there's just too many issues I have to continue playing after my prepaid time expires. Subscription cancelled last night.

Very interesting read and if true seems like an awful design decision from the company. I have cancelled my subscription in light of the problems I have been having with textures, performance and character responsiveness, but still have 60 days left from a pre paid card so hopefully they can rectify these issues soon with updates and significant patches. Only then will I decide whether or not to continue playing the game.

I realize that some people did have problems with BF3 on release but to be honest, even the BF3 BETA ran better than this game currently in the fleet and in WZs. Also, the general consensus was (read some BF3 reviews for further proof) the game performed rather well on release. There were issues of course which we have to accept, but nowhere near as bad as this! I'm totally willing to give the developers time to fix the issues but I'm not going to say his comments didn't anger when they absolutely did!

I find the comments from James Ohlen beyond absolute ignorance since everyone I know in game has performance issues in the fleet and in Warzones in particular. My game usually runs at a solid 60FPS until I go to the those areas. Even setting the graphics to low has minimal effect. I played a round on Alderaan WZ earlier and the game was a total sluggish, poorly performing lag fest, with heavy controls and abysmal FPS with stutter and hitching throughout too (also happens in the fleet)! My specs are: Intel Core i5 760 @3.8GHz 8GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz RAM AMD Radeon HD5870 Gigabyte UD3 mobo 850 watt Corsair PSU 14 MB broadband line If my system is considered 'low end' then many more are in deep trouble. I'm willing to bet way more than 5% experience issues in the above areas. It makes me think this is the reason why WZ numbers only consist of 8v8, FP 4 and Operations either 8 or 16 players. I have tried Catalyst drivers 11.10, 11.11, 12.1 & 12.1a and the performance issues still persist. I've said often in a number of threads that BF3 runs flawlessly (by that I mean constant 60FPS with high settings) on 64 player maps on my PC. I get better performance in that game even when running it in Ultra mode than SWTOR! Ninety-five per cent aren't having performance issues my ****!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! James, where and how are you measuring these metrics? Are you sure they're not from another game?

It's quite shocking that a graphic setup that powerful cannot get higher FPS than that in Warzones. Let's not forget there's only 16 players there. How on Earth can this game be more demanding than BF3 on a 64 map when set to Ultra??? With such bad performance from the top graphic card setup at the moment it's clear this game does not run 'Amazingly' on the best setups as the title seems to suggest. It does seem very difficult to argue against the engine being anything other than sub-par at best.

I think there's no question that SWTOR has had one of the better MMO releases. Perhaps only Rift's was better? However, the performance issues are very real for many people. Generally, I get 60-100 FPS on high settings throughout quest areas and Flashpoints, but as soon as I go to the Fleet or play in Warzones it goes right down to about 14-25 FPS, and hardly any higher if I lower the settings from High to Low. What's even worse is the stutter that happens in the Fleet. Clearly, there are optimization issues here. My rig consists of: Intel Core i5 760 @ 3.8GHz Corsair 8GB DDR3 1600MHz AMD Radeon HD5870 (similar in performance to nVidia GTX 560Ti) 14MB broadband line speed Surely, the above specs are enough to get decent frame rates in the fleet and Warzones? For reference, BF3 causes no problems on High settings on 64 player maps with my FPS generally staying around 60 FPS. Obviously we all have to be patient as undoubtedly the updates and optimizations are coming, but I really don't know why people keep comparing this game to WoW's release seven years ago. They need to compare the game to what WoW is like now and that, unfortunately, is why many other MMOs have failed.

I have a real problem with the armour textures and shadows in this game. If they textures looked like what high is supposed to, like when clicking on the holoterminal, and the shadows were nice and smooth I'd be pretty happy with the over all look of the game. I'm not sure how BioWare thought this would be acceptable. A big part of MMOs is the loot and having really nice and cool looking armour but then you see them on your character they look abysmal. Having them only showing as high during cut scenes is not enough for me personally, especially considering that most of the time you see your character out of the cut scenes. BioWare surely needs to address this and the shadows or at least acknowledge to the community that they are actively looking to amend these elements in the 'near' future.

Actually, changing the ahem 'high' settings to low still provides poor performance in Warzones and the fleet for me at least. I played a couple of matches today with everything set to low and it was still quite dreadful in both areas, although my FPS did increase a little but certainly not as much as expected. Therefore, I don't think the high resolution armor textures would decrease performance that much, or at least shouldn't do because it's very poor as it is now when set to low. Surely a computer consisting of a quad-core Core i5 760 @3.8GHz, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM and an AMD Radeon HD5870 should be enough to get a smooth gameplay experience during the fleet and Warzones? After all, I get superb performance in BF3 64 player maps, The Witcher 2, Skyrim, Warcraft, Rift etc. Others have posted their PC specs that far surpass mine who still have poor performance. It is not a hardware issue! Clearly then, there are either major issues with the coding, optimization, HeroEngine or all of these elements combined, coupled with the annoying issue of poor armor textures and shadows. That's without the character responsiveness issues and complete lack of any UI customization (okay we know the latter is imminent at least). In my opinion, I would rather they tackle all these issues first before even thinking about releasing new content. I think it's important to reiterate that the community are only highlighting these issues because we want SWTOR to be as good as it potentially can be and there's just too many issues currently for the game to come close to that. I hope BioWare don't start to be more in touch with the community when people start to leave the game because quite possibly lots may never return. On the flip side, it is still early days but I just wish BW would keep the community a bit more involved because they have been practically silent even during the beta! That's not exactly a recipe for success in an MMO.