[Official High Resolution Textures Post] Can we get a clarification on this?

[FlawlessSoul]

In comparison, SWTOR has had remarkably few launch bugs. Server stability was actually pretty strong. Lag was the exception, not the norm. I don't recall servers dropping out of the sky. The biggest complaint was excessive queue times on some servers (reaching several hours). Warzones lag for some people, having shadows enabled caused slowdown for others, but other than that.. very little that stopped people from playing. And only two quest hiccups that prevented the progression of class quests.

 

Server-side, the launch went very well (apart from the account/sub issues). The random performance crap is crippling many peoples gameplay, however. It's making many more people question subscribing.

 

The biggest problem? The lack of concern and, more importantly, communication from the developers. On top of that? Their Senior Creative Director James Ohlen is basically saying anyone with performance issues and a decent spec computer is lying.

[Amikae]

Wow... Just wow...

[Caonimah]

Thanks for the response, even though Im getting really bad feelings that the response tomorrow will be mostly technical jargon as to why the client cant produce sharp textures in game without melting:(

[Saregon]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

Just trying to put the right spin on the bad news, I understand exactly what you're saying.

[Sykomyke]

I can take a stab as to why, from a design and testing perspective, (ultra) high res textures might exist but not be put in:

 

Compatibility testing and narrowing down issues.

 

There's a sizable number of people reporting slowdown right now for one reason or another. Maybe it's only in Warzones, maybe it's only with shadows on, maybe it's only with certain cards or hardware configurations.. but to fix any one specific problem for these people, you've got to rule out all the other causes so you can find what is actually the problem.

 

If we had textures twice the size of what's currently in, live, I would bet you cash-money that there would be more people complaining of graphical bugs, slowdowns, crashes, or just an inability to play the game. It'd be terrible. Only some of those would be the cause of the increased texture resolution, but for anything else, an immediate response would be "have you tried lowering your graphical settings", even if the issue winds up having nothing to do with that.

 

From a debugging perspective, the fewer potential causes you have in the mix, the easier it is to figure out what's wrong. High and ultra-high resolutions are just more potential causes. You might think you're smart enough to know when the cause of your particular problem is textures your PC might not be able to handle, but remember that there are two million other people playing, and some of them are probably idiots or liars. Pulling everything back to bare bones graphics, fixing what issues remain, and putting in the improved graphical capability only once you've ironed out the existing kinks means you can iron out the new ones even faster.

 

There are already people complaining that they can't run the game in its current Medium texture mode without slowdown, despite having computers that should chew Crysis 2 up and spit it out. They're all over the forums. They can't wait for a driver update and are demanding BioWare fix that now; can you imagine if there were even more of them?

 

 

The focus of the game should be on stability and performance for the largest number of people first, not graphical quality. Thankfully, that seems to be the tack BioWare is taking. I'd rather deal with some muddy textures for a month or two and lose the weirdos who are so off-put by any period of graphics that do not mirror the stuff they see outside their windows, than I would with playing this in Ultra High and losing a great many more to performance issues or other game-breaking bugs.

 

Well said! I know that certain areas of Hoth (Namely Snowblind's area) lag me incredibly bad.

[Oddzball]

Wrong. conventional AA doesnt blur textures, only the edges surrounding the polygons. removing the jigsaw effect , or as some people call them "jaggy's" . has nothing to do with the actual textures themselves.

 

Sorry let me edit my post.

 

Technically we agree. I just had foot in mouth problems.

[Aisar]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

You need to check with them to make sure what you are saying sounds good to the people you are talking about? Umm...

 

Getting the facts straight is very important. Having them write the response and give it to you is not.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Aisar

[FlawlessSoul]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

Just trying to put the right spin on the bad news, I understand exactly what you're saying.

 

It looks like thats exactly it. Posting by committee.

[MaximusRex]

Server-side, the launch went very well (apart from the account/sub issues). The random performance crap is crippling many peoples gameplay, however. It's making many more people question subscribing.

 

The biggest problem? The lack of concern and, more importantly, communication from the developers. On top of that? Their Senior Creative Director James Ohlen is basically saying anyone with performance issues and a decent spec computer is lying.

 

He didn't say anything close to that. The only liar here is you.

[Kitsunami]

I want high res textures...

 

though, i want high-res ENVIRONMENT textures!

 

The envriomental textures in this game, as with the armor, are godawful.

The biggest problem? The lack of concern and, more importantly, communication from the developers. On top of that? Their Senior Creative Director James Ohlen is basically saying anyone with performance issues and a decent spec computer is lying.

 

I wish people would stop taking his words out of context. Thats a load of rubbish. He even stated that MOST people who were reporting problems, NOT ALL had lower specced computers.

 

Read thoroughly.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Kitsunami

[carnac_fett]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

Well, thanks for the update.

 

Can't say I'm looking forward to reading what will likely be a politely-phrased version of "yeah it's really broken so forget it" tomorrow, though.

Edited January 10, 2012 by carnac_fett

[DirtyDozen]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

*readies the rotten egg*

 

Hey thanks for giving us something in the meantime. I do understand there's complications in regards to making statements on behalf of several departments.

[Oddzball]

Wrong. conventional AA doesnt blur textures, only the edges surrounding the polygons. removing the jigsaw effect , or as some people call them "jaggy's" . has nothing to do with the actual textures themselves.

 

What i meant to say;

 

Anisotropic filteringCan help with textures.(My bad, fixed)

 

But it basically takes samples (of which you can change the multipliter) of pixels and aggregates colour values to smooth them out.

 

High levels of AF can make things look very blurry.

 

So with AF enabled your bad textures will just look like blurry bad textures.

[Vandrago]

Just trying to put the right spin on the bad news, I understand exactly what you're saying.

 

This. How hard is it to say, were putting hi-res back, or were not, or here's why they aren't there.

[skepticck]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

Just trying to put the right spin on the bad news, I understand exactly what you're saying.

 

yea lets give the PR teem some more time to try to spin this in a positive way,

i guess now we all know what's coming.

 

wow this is ... precious

[Aisar]

This. How hard is it to say, were putting hi-res back, or were not, or here's why they aren't there.

 

It's a yes or no question which is why I am kinda angry right now.

[fredspekvet]

We're not.

 

They can say whatever they want, it doesn't make it true.

 

But of course some people will believe it, some people will believe anything.

 

Yeah right.

 

I'm running a Core i5 750 @ 3.33 ghz, 12 gb ram and a 6950 2gb card and with everything maxxed out i'm getting HUGE framedrops and framespikes. and at the strangest moments , too. like when walking under a (ugly, not to mention) waterfall or looking at a bloomed object at close range. or when running through a station, it'll run fine one moment and then drop to 20 fps for NO reason , only to go back up again to 45-60 in 10 seconds..

 

Anyhow. i'm FAR beyond recommended specs and at some points, the performance is absolutely sub-par. I cant even remember running a game that ran this bad. and this is actually on a FRESH windows installation with the very latest drivers, application profiles and what not..

 

And then I havent even mentioned that all my other games run perfectly smooth, including one of today's heaviest games, Battlefield 3 (No framelag @ caspian border with 64 players) and that game looks a lot better (for comparison only) .

 

And that's what their big statement is going to be. Most people dont have the problem, so just update your drivers and stop whining. Be assured that the matter is kept under close watch. wait for another patch. We are looking into it.. same ****, different day.

 

I really LOVE the game, and that's what makes me so angry. that , even IF we are a minority, which I seriously doubt (my friends have similar pc's and none of their copy's is running good , at some points yes, but mostly mediocre) , we still have a right to get a decent explenation and a fix , because we are paying YOU , bioware. not the other way around.

 

Another thing.. What do you think this is ? some kind of joke, Bioware? people posting for days and days on end because they hate you? or dont like the game? we love it , that's what makes us post here.. we wouldnt if we thought the game was crap...

Edited January 10, 2012 by fredspekvet

[Tiron_Raptor]

You need to check with them to make sure what you are saying sounds good to the people you are talking about? Umm...

 

Getting the facts straight is very important. Having them write the response and give it to you is not.

 

The way he phrased it actually sounds like the answer is probably along the lines of 'We've turned them off on purpose, and this is why:' with an explanation about some technical problem/issue or another.

 

The man himself doesn't know and/or may not understand all the details of the issue himself, and wants to ask the people who DO know the systems to make sure he doesn't get anything wrong.

 

The open question is if they intend to re-enable them at some point: changing the options on PTR suggests 'probably not', but they could just as easily change it back at some later date.

 

Either way, they clearly don't want people complaining/asking about having an option that doesn't work, and simply removing 'high' would cause a lot of questions even from new people about 'why does it only go up to medium'.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Tiron_Raptor

[bkpiazza]

That is one of the most ridiculous responses I have ever seen. Telling us hes circulating his response around the departments to make sure hes put the right "spin" on things...good god.

[Renea]

On the one had I appreciate the communication on this issue, whether the news is good or bad.

 

On the other hand, I don't have a good feeling about what the news is going to be. The texture issue is taking away from how good the game looks, especially when we get high res textures in cinematics/conversations.

[MoonsLightV]

Just trying to put the right spin on the bad news, I understand exactly what you're saying.

 

I agree with this. From how that post sounded it is inclining that they are going to give us the run around about this whole situation. In my opinion if there was a fix, or if they were even CONFIDENT they could fix this, this would have been resolved and or addressed way sooner.

I am already accepting that their response is going to be more PR spinning. Beginning to get dizzy here.

[Falcanaar]

Yea, I get the feeling this is not going to be a good statement coming tomorrow

[Adamant]

Hey all, I am here to apologize again... the good news is we have a draft of our response (you might be able to guess it's not a sentence or two) but I am circulating it internally to ensure my technical details are correct.

 

To give you an insight into our process here... as the Community team does with most big replies, I tracked down a variety of people on our client and art teams to get the facts on how the game works before putting the post together. As I'm representing those teams publicly, I want to ensure they're happy with what I'm saying on their behalf before I post it. They're busy people, so I'm just waiting on their sign-off right now.

 

I appreciate your patience and assuming we have sign-off this evening, you'll get our response tomorrow. If not, I accept the incoming rotten eggs.

 

Thank you again!

[bkpiazza]

The way he phrased it actually sounds like the answer is probably along the lines of 'We've turned them off on purpose, and this is why:' with an explanation about some technical problem/issue or another.

 

The man himself doesn't know and/or may not understand all the details of the issue himself, and wants to ask the people who DO know the systems to make sure he doesn't get anything wrong.

 

The open question is if they intend to re-enable them at some point: changing the options on PTR suggests 'probably not', but they could just as easily change it back at some later date.

 

 

My prediction:

 

He comes back with some response that explains how the engine works in this certain way where "the high res textures are compressed so they show up only in cutscenes and yada yada a bunch of circular logic hey look over here just checking the specs on the endline for the...rotary...girder...thats why they dont show up.."

[Aisar]

Processor: Intel® Core i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs), ~3.3GHz

Memory: 8192MB RAM DDR3

Card name: ATI Radeon HD 5770 (maximum overclock)

Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 Pro

Ridicious cooling

700 Watt power

 

Insane slowdowns/FPS loss on Fleet even during offpeak hours (I know I am still trying to tweak my settings and find out why)

 

Slowdowns/FPS loss either constant on planets or noticable every 10 to 30 seconds depending on my settings.

 

i dont care anymore about high res textures, how about making the game run the way it should with medium textures and everything else maxed?