If the Hero Engine is so bad.....

[select20]

Why can I play SWTOR on max settings easily with pretty much constant 60fps, never dipping below 40fps, even in groups, but on WoW, just questing I constantly dip into the high 20's when on High settings with a few options turned down?

I'm no tech expert so I dont' understand it all, but it just made me curious. I just started playing WoW again because my wife wanted to play so I'm playing with her. Otherwise I've always had my SWTOR sub. But anyways, I noticed this when we started playing WoW a few nights ago that it just didn't run as well as SWTOR. I'm not on an awesome rig, just a gaming laptop since I travel a lot. Spec's are:

Win 8.1 64bit
i7-4700hq
8 gigs ram
Geforce 765m GTX

[RoninaThorstone]

Some rigs just "click" with swtor. Mine is like that too.

Others? Not so much.

[select20]

Some rigs just "click" with swtor. Mine is like that too.

Others? Not so much.

Even my wife's older laptop with a 550m in it runs SWTOR better. With SWTOR, it can run high settings with some things turned down at a constant 40fps and look pretty good . To get 40fps on WoW she's running medium settings with a few things turned down and it looks horrible. Again, I dont' know, I was just curious what all the hate was towards the Hero engine since I had never had problems with it.

[RohanV]

They have done a lot of work with the game too. Two years ago at launch, performance was much worse.

[Derah]

Meh, player density could have something to do.

In SWTOR you'll never find more than 30+ players in any given zone, compared to the many more (depending on server) that you can find in wow. At least I think this is why since I play on one of the most populated and one of the least populated realms in the game.

On Area 52 the game runs at a slideshow pace if I don't tone a few options down (namely the shadows and water) while in Duskwood I can put everything at its highest zenith and it never goes below 60 fps.

SWTOR runs at almost max on my rig (There are only 2 options that are not maxed, shadows, and bloom) but on the fleet and the starter planets which are the only decently populated areas, it gets so laggy I often have to tone down quite a few options to even be able to move.

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They have done a lot of work with the game too. Two years ago at launch, performance was much worse.

This too is extremely important. I remember how this game ran in the first month of launch. Wasn't pretty.

[Chickat]

My laptop http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834313581 gets 40-60 fps on mostly medium settings in swtor. I turn shadows off, and 1 or two other things to low with rest on medium, and textures i believe on high. Idk how good that is, but im satisfied.

[prwraith]

They have done a lot of work with the game too. Two years ago at launch, performance was much worse.

By that logic after all the years wow has had to optimize it should be running smooth as hell.

[select20]

Meh, player density could have something to do.

In SWTOR you'll never find more than 30+ players in any given zone, compared to the many more (depending on server) that you can find in wow. At least I think this is why since I play on one of the most populated and one of the least populated realms in the game.

On Area 52 the game runs at a slideshow pace if I don't tone a few options down (namely the shadows and water) while in Duskwood I can put everything at its highest zenith and it never goes below 60 fps.

SWTOR runs at almost max on my rig (There are only 2 options that are not maxed, shadows, and bloom) but on the fleet and the starter planets which are the only decently populated areas, it gets so laggy I often have to tone down quite a few options to even be able to move.

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This too is extremely important. I remember how this game ran in the first month of launch. Wasn't pretty.

Well, I still play SWTOR and it's rare for me to never see less than 50 players in a zone, sometimes it's in the 100's. Must be your server. yeah, launch wasn't perfect, it wasn't until about 1.2 for me that everything was smooth and nice. In WoW the only place you will find more than 20 players is in the first 3 or 4 starting zones or the main citys. Everywhere else is a ghost town.

But I digress, this isn't a wow vs. SWTOR thing, just comparing the engines and why people complain about the SWTOR's. Even if you go into Ogrimar right now and talk about the Hero engine, everyone trashes it.

[Krekko]

Some rigs just "click" with swtor. Mine is like that too.

Others? Not so much.

My laptop really just could not run SWTOR, while it ran other games like TERA, GW2 and such flawlessly. Granted I was running Bootcamp, but still.

My friend built a computer to help him Max SWTOR, and it ended up running the game like utter shit. I felt terrible. He had waited so long for the game too.

[mkultra55]

FPS is only one aspect of how to judge a games graphics engine. You need to look at animations, models and textures as well. IMO the Hero Engine falls short compared to most other MMO's. I find the models to be dull and the environments to be boring and repetitive. I prefer WOW, Rift, TERA, FF XIV and even TSW for one reason of another. I could care less that TOR runs at 60 FPS if the rest of the package is sub par.

Of course this is my personal opinion but that's how these things go.

[dokilar]

i would imagine that a lot of people out there are playing on lower end rigs.

that being said my rig is nearing 3 years old and is by no means a super computer and i never have, and still dont, have an issue running swtor at max settings

[select20]

i would imagine that a lot of people out there are playing on lower end rigs.

that being said my rig is nearing 3 years old and is by no means a super computer and i never have, and still dont, have an issue running swtor at max settings

Yeah, who knows, I think this will be a mystery for the ages when it comes to gaming. I'm a faithful Nvidia/Intel guy, my two guildies on SWTOR are AMD to the core, even their CPU's and all of us never have problems.

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FPS is only one aspect of how to judge a games graphics engine. You need to look at animations, models and textures as well. IMO the Hero Engine falls short compared to most other MMO's. I find the models to be dull and the environments to be boring and repetitive. I prefer WOW, Rift, TERA, FF XIV and even TSW for one reason of another. I could care less that TOR runs at 60 FPS if the rest of the package is sub par.

Of course this is my personal opinion but that's how these things go.

Yeah, I agree, preference is always personsal. I like SWTOR's and WoW's animations for different reasons. Not really one over the other. Rift animations? Really? lol. I don't poke fun or mean to disrespect in anyway, but it did make me chuckle. I liked almost eveyrthing about Rift, but what I couldn't ever get past was the animations. It bugged me to no end. TSW, I didn't liek those animations either, I coudln't get past it. Now Tera and GW2, I agree, the animations are way better in those games.

[Deleted]

There's more into the problems with Hero Engine than just graphical stuff, responsiveness is a good example.

[Mosotti]

I think the OP has some drivers problem. I have a less powerful machine but I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever eeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeeer got below 60 "while questing". Not even close. Never ever ever... And I'm ALL MAXED... On the other hand I'm on Windows 7 64bit, so who knows...

Just checked, flying around the farm, all ultra, never under 60, but mostly above 75. Went Orgrimmar, there's a little slow, around 60. Playing on 1920x1200...

[Edge-]

As far as client optimization, it's dramatically improved since launch, but performance is still pretty inconsistent. You still get people on high-end rigs unable to run the game on high settings at a steady framerate, and people on lower end rigs able to run everything on max without any problems.

A sample size of one or two is not a significant sample by any means.

[select20]

I think the OP has some drivers problem. I have a less powerful machine but I've never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever eeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeeeeeeeeer got below 60 "while questing". Not even close. Never ever ever... And I'm ALL MAXED... On the other hand I'm on Windows 7 64bit, so who knows...

Just checked, flying around the farm, all ultra, never under 60, but mostly above 75. Went Orgrimmar, there's a little slow, around 60. Playing on 1920x1200...

See I tried updating my drivers and going back but I couldn't get anything. Again, dont' take this as a wow vs swtor, that isn't the point. I'm playing both atm and if I had to choose which I like better overall, it would definitely be wow. SWTOR has no where near the memories I have in wow, I can't say enough good about the game honestly, except for Pandaria which I havent liked.

Back on topic, I do wish I could figure out why my fps drops too.

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As far as client optimization, it's dramatically improved since launch, but performance is still pretty inconsistent. You still get people on high-end rigs unable to run the game on high settings at a steady framerate, and people on lower end rigs able to run everything on max without any problems.

A sample size of one or two is not a significant sample by any means.

Yeah, I see what you are saying and part of the reason for the thread. What is it that makes a game run inconsistently like this? It's not an intel or amd or nvidia problem because I've seen both of these games run perfect on all kinds of systems.

[Edge-]

Yeah, I see what you are saying and part of the reason for the thread. What is it that makes a game run inconsistently like this? It's not an intel or amd or nvidia problem because I've seen both of these games run perfect on all kinds of systems.

Same thing as any PC game, optimization. It's impossible to optimize a game for every conceivable hardware configuration, so there are always configurations that make it through the crack. Or there are driver issues with specific drivers for specific cards. Or a host of other issues that can cause performance issues.

It's not any specific single issue, it's simply this version of the Hero Engine (remember, this is an early beta version that was finished in-house at BioWare) being pretty finicky with how it performs across various setups. Honestly, I'd place most of the blame on BioWare's engineers. The engine was a trainwreck at launch in terms of performance, had a ton of other issues, and still has tons of random limitations (no sitting in chairs outside of your ship because it would break the game, or no chat bubbles because it would cause insane amounts of server/client lag, etc.). What I'm assuming are the new engineers are doing a pretty good job of patching up all the holes in the engine, they've got to do that in addition to building and expanding upon it (Galactic Starfighter, for example, was likely a huge technical hurdle for the engineers), so their time is split.

[Flame6]

The first year that the game launch was absolutely terrible for performance. I just played it last night and it's nearly double my old FPS. They've managed to get the engine working finally

[mkultra55]

Yeah, I agree, preference is always personsal. I like SWTOR's and WoW's animations for different reasons. Not really one over the other. Rift animations? Really? lol. I don't poke fun or mean to disrespect in anyway, but it did make me chuckle. I liked almost eveyrthing about Rift, but what I couldn't ever get past was the animations. It bugged me to no end. TSW, I didn't liek those animations either, I coudln't get past it. Now Tera and GW2, I agree, the animations are way better in those games.

I wasn't specifically talking animation for each of those games. I agree that Rift has some suspect animations for many classes. What I enjoy about Rift is the art direction and the models/textures for the environments and for many of the mobs compared to TOR which I find to be pretty bland and plastic looking.

As an example Nar Shadaa was one of the most disappointing locations for any game I've played. So much potential and in the end it was just a bunch of corridors.

[Hostagecat]

Again i do not get the hate the hero engine gets. I know the version bioware used was not the full, release candidate. So the issues TOR had were because they were using a beta version of the engine. I also know that if the engine was absolutely atrocious no other games would be released with it. We know that's not a fact because Zenimax is using the engine for Elder Scrolls Online.

I really think this engine hate is being driven by gamer snobs, who have particular axes they want to grind.