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

[Kenosos]

I assume you will be removing the High res screenshots from the site that market the game as something that its not. And asking the reviewers to do the same.

 

This needs to be addressed and frankly I would like an apology for your false advertisement.

 

Your lacklustre response that is an obvious PR response to calm the rioting masses has made me seriously reconsider my plans for SWTOR in the long term. The way you think you can pull the wool over peoples eyes makes think what else will this happen with? Is this what I can expect from you guys in the future? EA/Bioware trying to pull fast ones.

 

SWTOR has great potential but the Publishers and Developers attitude make me think it doesn't have that good of a future and I probably won't be resubscribing once my time runs out.

[Mistacz]

This sux BiG time i quit this game . GZ BioWare !!

[Vlacke]

Maybe it's just me, but ever since I forced Mipmap on my graphics card to high quality, my textures look just as crisp as any of those textures that are shown as the "hi-res" versions in the OP. /shrug

 

It is not just you, setting the minmap to high quality makes a lot of improvement.

[Nimiuel]

Excited about this game since 2008, very disappointed by this response.

 

I have a freakin Alienware desktop with Nvidia GTX 480's running in SLI, and an i7 Quad Core processor with 8gb memory. Your telling me I can't handle high rez textures...

 

No, they are telling you you MIGHT not be able to handle it......

[Caonimah]

Rift has better graphics, and more things happening on the screen, how does a game with SWTORs budget not be able to excell in this?

 

They picked an engine that prioritizes ease of content creation over making one themselves that is tailored to their needs. Then they really weren't that good at hammering the engine do what they wanted to. Example, Aion uses the crytek engine. An engine originally made for shooters. The people working on the game really knew how to get the most out of it though, so you had 300+ people on screen flying around without much stuttering. The textures still looked dull, but never outright muddy like they do in this game.

 

Now you have this game, were the sight of 100 people in the central part of IF makes even the most hardcore computer grind to its knees, even when forcing textures to half their size. On an engine designed for MMOs no less.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Caonimah

[PjPablo]

Shouldn't they have told people this prior to launch that 'Medium' is going to actually be the highest?

[ToonPhil]

The media needs to know about this issue, my brother has Brian Crecente from Kotaku on his Xbox Live friends list but he never talks to him, maybe ill go on his account and try to send him this story lol. It would be kind of weird though, didn't he retire or something.

[StephenReid]

It would be really nice if you could allow a "high" or "ultra" option for players with high end PCs, so we could still see those textures in the overworld, but since youre doing the megatexturing / texture atlasing, its not a quick switch. Hmm.

 

I might almost prefer using the higher resolution textures and just setting the number of displayed character models to be much lower. I guess you guys are playing with it and know best. Some way of swapping LOD (Level of detail) between the medium and high resolution for the closest characters and keeping the rest a medium would be best, but it depends upon how hard it is to simultaneously texture atlas the far away characters and swap close characters to higher levels of detail. I'm pretty sure it can be done, but it'll take a ton of work, I understand.

 

That you're working on better graphics options is great, sounds like you did hear us.

Some excellent suggestions here - and all things that the development team are actively looking at. There's no guarantee they'll all happen, but they're options on the table, as I understand it.

 

To reiterate, we're looking at ways to improve the visual quality of the game in non-cinematic gameplay as best we can. We understand people's concerns and desires and we'll continue to address them wherever possible.

[GamewizX]

While the game may look 'great' to you, there are many other people who are highly disappointed with the lack of graphical fidelity in this game.

 

Good for you. Did I say you weren't entitled to your opinion? There are many other people who also think the game looks great. I was merely giving my perspective in this thread.

[mitrikzoltan]

Think about what you said! Do you think we are 12???

 

"High resolution textures are more demanding, so we disabled them to improve performance."

 

LOL, and again, LOL. It's like learning that drinking more beer makes you pee more.

 

False advertising Bioware.

 

That is exactly what the ingame setting are for; Low, medium and high. Is it too demanding for your computer? Turn them down.

I just have to LOL on this. I thought you guys had some actual developers there.

 

Man, what did we expect from a company, that is UNABLE to enable search options on its forum for months?

 

Again, LOL.

 

Unfortunately I made the right choice when I decided to stop playing when the free month ends.

 

I get the feeling that you don't have developers at all. You buy an engine with neat little admin tools, script a little, draw a little, add voice overs, publish. Sad joke for a company.

 

Now that I know that High res textures are more demanding, I don't mind all the false advertising at all. Thank you for this lesson.

[Angellus]

No, they are telling you you MIGHT not be able to handle it......

 

MIGHT would imply that i would have the option to figure it out. By outright removing the option from the end user they are telling us we cannot handle it.

[AnotherJaggens]

No. Just no, simple as that.

Outside of cinematics armor looks like piece of junk. This was intended? Really?

Let everyone choose what they want. Maybe mine rig can't handle high res - alright, i'll be okay with med outside of cinematics. Damn, I was kind of patient until that statement about high res "not intended", but you just keep pushing people further and further away from your game.

[GamewizX]

It is not just you, setting the minmap to high quality makes a lot of improvement.

 

I'm glad it works for you as well. I've compared those high quality shots to shots I've taken in game. I cannot tell a noticeable difference, especially while in the middle of playing the game.

[Caonimah]

I'm glad it works for you as well. I've compared those high quality shots to shots I've taken in game. I cannot tell a noticeable difference, especially while in the middle of playing the game.

 

Post a pic of your character in game, then do the holocron thing. Then notice what you are missing.

 

A lot of people came in on the old threads white knighting the game only to go "Whoa the difference is pretty big...:("

[Jontar]

The media needs to know about this issue, my brother has Brian Crecente from Kotaku on his Xbox Live friends list but he never talks to him, maybe ill go on his account and try to send him this story lol. It would be kind of weird though, didn't he retire or something.

 

yeah because the general population of gamers care that some angst teens are upset about texture quality.

 

there are what maybe a 150 posts here, most are fake rage quitting. if you are upset about texture quality in a game that has been out a month then you really do have some entitlement issues. grow up or move on but stop complaining about every single non-important factor.

[Norbix]

Good for you. Did I say you weren't entitled to your opinion? There are many other people who also think the game looks great. I was merely giving my perspective in this thread.

 

Opinions aside, the game is sub-par from a technical standpoint which is obvious to most people that are posting here. That's what it boils down to.. fact, not opinion.

[Dezzi]

yeah because the general population of gamers care that some angst teens are upset about texture quality.

 

there are what maybe a 150 posts here, most are fake rage quitting. if you are upset about texture quality in a game that has been out a month then you really do have some entitlement issues. grow up or move on but stop complaining about every single non-important factor.

 

Chill.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Dezzi

[Tigurius]

This is a joke right? It is april 1st right?

[Nimiuel]

MIGHT would imply that i would have the option to figure it out. By outright removing the option from the end user they are telling us we cannot handle it.

 

I am simply pointing out how silly this sounds. They're basically not allowing us to have the high/ultra settings, because they're afraid we'll complain about it.

Edited January 11, 2012 by Nimiuel

[Vlacke]

If the screen shots come from a cinematic ( which most of them do) it is not a falsity. This is the exact solution I thought they would take with this.

 

If you want to see a perfectly good example of WHY this is a problem. Please see AOC sieges at launch on "ultra" even quad sli'd quad core machines were chugging trying to render scenery, buildings, shadows, and 96 characters at once.

 

This.

[XavinNydek]

Very disappointing. I understand why all characters can't have high res textures, but can't we at least get them enabled for our character, our companion, and group members? How my character looks is a huge element of my enjoyment of the game, and unfortunately now my armor is always muddy and smeared looking.

[Skylerr]

see below

 

 

1.) Why was the release client vastly smaller in size vs beta client?

 

Compression techniques and removal of old/unused resources... pretty common in MMO

 

2.) Why did performance issues start with retail vs good performance in beta?

 

Unsubstantiated

 

3.) Why are there performance issues on "medium" if you removed high rez because of performance issues?

 

They said... it was a UI bug that wasn't setting options correctly

 

4.) You made the decision to remove an option due to "possible" perfoemance issues, yet are not addressing that we are still having performance issues on other settings, so why remove an option altogether if there are those that will benfit with minor performance hits?

 

Probabably a dozen somewhat reasonable explanations that we will never get... maybe it was causing actual client crashes (were frequent for everyone I knew in beta... not so much in later betas/retail)

 

5.) In a sense, you have committed a blatant act of false advertising as you released a client for full retail price + subscription when it was not ready and already advertised it as being such with high res video and textures in place.

 

Yeah... got them there.

 

6.) Why when forcing antialising to 32x CSAA am I receiving a significant performance INCREASE?

 

Not sure but this has been an issue in many game titles... often has more to do with the graphics card/driver than with the game itself

 

7.) What exactly is the other swtor.exe process doing? If it was a debugger during beta, why is it still there using resources on my computer?

 

It was never a debugger as far as I know... thought it had to do with the UI.

 

8.) You claim the performance drops are localised, yet reports in beta claim that the game had run smoothe before release, what exactly changed in the client from beta to release? What was added or removed last minute that you deemed important that may have cause issues with possible shadow rendering to poor performance output?

 

Unsubstantiated.

[GamewizX]

Post a pic of your character in game, then do the holocron thing. Then notice what you are missing.

 

A lot of people came in on the old threads white knighting the game only to go "Whoa the difference is pretty big...:("

 

As stated, I've already done this. The difference is negligible to me.

[PureLuckNoSkills]

Some excellent suggestions here - and all things that the development team are actively looking at. There's no guarantee they'll all happen, but they're options on the table, as I understand it.

 

To reiterate, we're looking at ways to improve the visual quality of the game in non-cinematic gameplay as best we can. We understand people's concerns and desires and we'll continue to address them wherever possible.

 

Btw we got another response from StephenReid in case you missed it fellas

[PjPablo]

yeah because the general population of gamers care that some angst teens are upset about texture quality.

 

there are what maybe a 150 posts here, most are fake rage quitting. if you are upset about texture quality in a game that has been out a month then you really do have some entitlement issues. grow up or move on but stop complaining about every single non-important factor.

 

Is the issue that actual tech side of it or the feeling that BW should have communicated this sooner to players? (Maybe in Beta?) Some may feel mislead and that might be more of an issue to them rather than the texture quality.