High-quality Texture Setting Showing Low-quality Textures (Answer Found but Issue Ongoing)

[rquinnG]

  I logged in and adjusted my texture quality to high. When it finished loading in the textures, it looked exactly the same as the Low-quality option it was previously on. I had someone tell me it could be my laptop, but I had multiple technology-oriented friends and family review my system's statistics. They all informed me that I meet the requirements and should be able to run high textures without issues especially since all other settings are on High or Very High. A few other players have also told me that they are experiencing the same issue with high-quality textures after today's update. When I reach out to EA customer support wanting to know if I truly do meet the system requirements, I receive similar responses telling me they will look into it and thank me for reaching out. I never find out why, though. I genuinely have no clue as to what is happening. I will copy and paste what I sent to customer support in an email. I just want to understand what is happening.

Type of machine: HP Laptop 17t-by400
Graphics card: Intel(R) Iris(R) Xe Graphics
  - Driver version: 30.0.101.1191
Version of Windows/OS: Windows 11 Home (64-bit)
Processor: Intel i7 2.80Hz
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Storage: 238 GB with 125 free

Edited June 13, 2023 by rquinnG
Clarification

[SteveTheCynic]

1.  Is the Iris using its own dedicated memory?

2. The reflections you see in the game when you look at shiny surfaces are not reflections of the "live" in-game state, but just a false general texture that is there just to give flavour to the shiny surfaces.

[rquinnG]

@SteveTheCynic, it does. It has 1 gigabyte of RAM.
Well, of course! I am referring to the overall textures/graphics. They are much less refined after today's update and the High-quality Texture setting looks exactly the same as the low setting. Everything is, for a lack of a better word, blobby. I clicked Apply after adjusting the textures to high and none of the textures changed.

Edited April 25, 2023 by rquinnG
Typo

[rquinnG]

Do you have any further thoughts on this, @SteveTheCynic? I will honestly take any advice or information I can to grasp what is happening.

[Andronicos]

Same thing is happening to me, Since the update textures are much lower than they used to be under the LOW option but not only that, they are stuck there. Meaning changing the options to High (or Low) won't make any difference. 

In the patch notes it was mentioned they changed how the textures are loaded, I suppose whatever this fix was just isn't working as now the textures are stuck on a placeholder extra low res.

Just in case this is helpful; this issue (and the flickering textures issue) used to be fixed by running the game in compatibility mode for Windows 7 or XP. Now that compatibility mode is broken, we are seeing these issues make a resurgence it seems.

[rquinnG]

  Thank you, @Andronicos. That is definitely what I am experiencing. I just found this in the "Flickering Bug Glitch is Back" from ThanderSnB. Which explains everything for my friends and me.

16 hours ago, ThanderSnB said:

I tested this on my old computer with Intel integrated graphics (Intel HD 530), and it seems their fix was simply to lock the Texture Quality to Low at all times. In other words, it ignores the Texture Quality setting. It looks like they couldn't really fix the problem and just forced Very Low textures if the computer uses integrated graphics. Maybe it is just a quick fix or maybe it is just how it will be for those with this type of setup. Hopefully, the DEVs will post here to provide clarity if locked textures is intended going forward. Some players will probably want to upgrade if BioWare has no plans for an actual fix.

[TheHellmanator]

This is happening to me as well. I'm running (what I think is) a similar system to @rquinnG, Dell 9300, Intel Iris Plus dedicated graphics, Intel i7-1065G7 processor, only 8 GB RAM. I've previously been able to run high textures with custom settings but suddenly I'm locked to low settings. I would also like to know whether this is temporary or not.

[Artheriu]

Same exact issue, can run the game on high otherwise, have an integrated gpu. Before this patch i had flickering issues on busy cities if i was running textures on high (mostly dromund kaas).

[OwenBrooks]

If you run a dxdiag per https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Guide-Posting-a-DxDiag/m-p/4832663/highlight/true#M70799 

for the video card will be a "dedicated" memory = "insert size" what size does this say for these with texture flickure issue ? 

example Dedicated Memory: 128 MB 

Not the display memory or shared memory figure has to be the dedicated memory figure that is what the minimum requirement spec is based on 

[OwenBrooks]

once you know the dedicated memory  

Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time 

Copy the following in to the text box and press ok 

%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings

Open the client_settings.ini file in notepad and ensure the following are displayed within 

example mine for nvidia card is shown as 

InfoGraphicsVendor = NVIDIA_GPU
InfoGraphicsVideoMemoryMB = 8011
MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256

Lower the MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256 below your reported dedicated video ram in the dxdiag 
so for example MinspecVramCutoffMB = 128

Just note 256 is not the minspecvram minspec that is 1024 , 256 is when they force low textures at present

Edited April 27, 2023 by OwenBrooks

[Andertyne]

Jackie has posted here about the flickering texture issue. They plan further fixes for 7.3.

[Artheriu]

5 hours ago, OwenBrooks said:

once you know the dedicated memory  

Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time 

Copy the following in to the text box and press ok 

%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings

Open the client_settings.ini file in notepad and ensure the following are displayed within 

example mine for nvidia card is shown as 

InfoGraphicsVendor = NVIDIA_GPU
InfoGraphicsVideoMemoryMB = 8011
MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256

Lower the MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256 below your reported dedicated video ram in the dxdiag 
so for example MinspecVramCutoffMB = 128

Just note 256 is not the minspecvram minspec that is 1024 , 256 is when they force low textures at present

This worked! Flickering came back but whatever, textures forced to very low was ruining every cutscene for me (Anyone with a dark mask looked like a lovecraftian blob of texture). Thank you.

[PainMcTrain]

5 hours ago, OwenBrooks said:

once you know the dedicated memory  

Press the [Windows] Key + [R] at the same time 

Copy the following in to the text box and press ok 

%localappdata%\swtor\swtor\settings

Open the client_settings.ini file in notepad and ensure the following are displayed within 

example mine for nvidia card is shown as 

InfoGraphicsVendor = NVIDIA_GPU
InfoGraphicsVideoMemoryMB = 8011
MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256

Lower the MinspecVramCutoffMB = 256 below your reported dedicated video ram in the dxdiag 
so for example MinspecVramCutoffMB = 128

Just note 256 is not the minspecvram minspec that is 1024 , 256 is when they force low textures at present

Awesome! this fix seems to work for now at least

[rquinnG]

Whatever was done to solve the flickering issue in the 7.3 update has set my graphics to a permanent Very Low Texture Quality setting, once more. I am not certain if this will be the new look from here on out, since none of the changes still seem to be working for anyone with integrated graphics, but I will continue to play. Maybe one day a solution for everyone will be found. I thought this should be brought up as soon as possible.

[OwenBrooks]

6 hours ago, rquinnG said:

Whatever was done to solve the flickering issue in the 7.3 update has set my graphics to a permanent Very Low Texture Quality setting, once more. I am not certain if this will be the new look from here on out, since none of the changes still seem to be working for anyone with integrated graphics, but I will continue to play. Maybe one day a solution for everyone will be found. I thought this should be brought up as soon as possible.

I posted this previously https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929020-high-quality-texture-setting-showing-low-quality-textures-answer-found-but-issue-ongoing/?do=findComment&comment=9754571 If you want to try higher gfx settings again

However see if you can increase the amount of assigned Vram in the bios that is the only option apart from a new video card.
intel video cards - https://www.intel.com.au/content/www/au/en/support/articles/000041253/graphics.html

[rquinnG]

I will have my father look into having it done since he is the computer expert, just to play it safe. If it does not work, I will have to simply put up with it. I have an ordinary laptop and am unable to add or remove parts because of that.

[rquinnG]

He did not want to try it the last update, but I got him to walk through it with me this time. Sure enough, it did revert it back to the regular Low-quality setting rather than the Very Low-quality. Thank you so much, @OwenBrooks. Maybe, one day, some of us will be able to play on the High-quality textures, again.

[OwenBrooks]

11 minutes ago, rquinnG said:

He did not want to try it the last update, but I got him to walk through it with me this time. Sure enough, it did revert it back to the regular Low-quality setting rather than the Very Low-quality. Thank you so much, @OwenBrooks. Maybe, one day, some of us will be able to play on the High-quality textures, again.

Glad it helped 
If not done so yet , see if you can increase the vram in the bios it will make a difference, depending on system ram you may be able to set 512mb 

[MasterNick-Dural]

What would the solution to this be, if any, if you're running SWTOR from Windows Parallels? I used to always be able to run the game at high graphics, but with the loss of compatibility mode I now am stuck on low unfortunately. That being said, it's at least playable now, since the flickering issue has been resolved.

[OwenBrooks]

6 hours ago, MasterNick-Dural said:

What would the solution to this be, if any, if you're running SWTOR from Windows Parallels? I used to always be able to run the game at high graphics, but with the loss of compatibility mode I now am stuck on low unfortunately. That being said, it's at least playable now, since the flickering issue has been resolved.

increasing the dedicated vram on the video card is the solution, flickering textures is also a sign of insufficient vram.