Why are WoW's graphics so sub-par?

[blackblade]

Fair setting ... can't even maintain 30 fps on a 2 year old laptop.

Water doesn't' even have specular highlights - seriously what kind of water is this, anyone who has lived knows water is shiny.

Then we have things like GTA V ... a bloody miracle on aging console systems on their last legs.

Both multi-billion dollar companies. What gives?

Edit: Is it too much to ask for water that looks like this without clogging down my GPU?

The water effects in teh immersius fight are pretty goddamn sweet.

If you saw how WoW water looked pre cataclysm, you'd probably cry.

[CaptainArlong]

You're asking why a nearly 9 year old game, using a 12-13 year old engine, has sub-par graphics? With any Blizzard game, you have to take the game's age and add 3-4 years to it due to how long it takes them to start and complete a game.

And seriously, why do you look or care what water in a video game looks like?... I'll never understand why some of you stare at water in a video game and complain about how it doesn't look real.

[Kryos]

What is wrong with the water in WoW?

Looks good to me.

[SodiumChloride]

You know, I really don't get it.

Every time someone comes to these forums or WoW official forums asking for changes to the game, hoping to improve it, there will be a swarm of people telling him/her everything is fine or that it's his/her fault things aren't ...

I don't get it. What do you gain from the game not improving?

What is wrong with the water in WoW?

Looks good to me.

That isn't water, that is plastic wrap ...

It's also "slow" for but the most high-end computers. Why do you prefer this when you can get better looking results using simple techniques in a clever way - it's the GameCube for heaven sakes - like in Mario Sunshine?

[Valeron]

the only game I can remember that upgraded their graphic engine was Age of Conan (and it didn't make that big of a difference except with performance, which improved quite a bit)

WoW's engine is at its limits right now, a nice improvement would be to upgrade their character models but otherwise I don't know how much more they can do with their current engine

Blizzard never had next gen graphics with their games so you have to expect this. For a better looking game by Blizzard, you are going to have to wait for their next mmorpg (if it's not vaporware)

[Elestia]

Get a better computer op. Just do yourself and everyone else a favor.

[Mawnix]

You know, I really don't get it.

Every time someone comes to these forums or WoW official forums asking for changes to the game, hoping to improve it, there will be a swarm of people telling him/her everything is fine or that it's his/her fault things aren't ...

I don't get it. What do you gain from the game not improving?

Buddy, I'm about to sound REALLY rude, but you're the one who doesn't seem to get it.

It's the Engine.

I'm gonna say it 5 more times in this post:

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the freaking Engine.

Get it now?

You can make editions to an existing Engine, but you can't just REPLACE it while the entire structure of a game is running on it.

You have to build an ENTIRE NEW GAME to implement a new Engine. How is that hard to understand?

Also, swarms of people are defending Blizzard right now because the entirety of your reasoning is:

A. Not listening to a single point anyone's made

B. Asking for the impossible

Thank you.

Have a good day.

[SodiumChloride]

the only game I can remember that upgraded their graphic engine was Age of Conan (and it didn't make that big of a difference except with performance, which improved quite a bit)

WoW's engine is at its limits right now, a nice improvement would be to upgrade their character models but otherwise I don't know how much more they can do with their current engine

Blizzard never had next gen graphics with their games so you have to expect this. For a better looking game by Blizzard, you are going to have to wait for their next mmorpg (if it's not vaporware)

...

A want a more efficient engine i.e. one that runs better.

Buddy, I'm about to sound REALLY rude, but you're the one who doesn't seem to get it.

It's the Engine.

I'm gonna say it 5 more times in this post:

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the Engine.

It's the freaking Engine.

Get it now?

You can make editions to an existing Engine, but you can't just REPLACE it while the entire structure of a game is running on it.

You have to build an ENTIRE NEW GAME to implement a new Engine. How is that hard to understand?

Also, swarms of people are defending Blizzard right now because the entirety of your reasoning is:

A. Not listening to a single point anyone's made

B. Asking for the impossible

Thank you.

Have a good day.

LOL. Talk about pot calling kettle black.

I have repeated many many many times, I KNOW! That's why I'm asking for an engine overhaul! And no, you don't need to replace the whole game engine, just the rendering component! Software is written in pieces and it's pieces can be separated and replaced! Do you know anything about software development? No? Then keep your "information" where it came from, your ass.

[Deleted]

A new engine would take a lot of time. They have to get everything they have in the current engine working on the new one. They have to test the entire game on the new engine too. Some things would probably need to be redone. It would probably affect the game's future content in a big way. People that have crap hardware might need to change their hardware to keep playing a game they've played for years. They would have to work with new compatibility issues.

[Soulwind]

A new engine is basically a whole new game. It isn't the renderer, it isn't a piece of the game, is the whole structure the game is based on. Is there reusable code? Sure, and the databases wouldn't need to change. But most of what makes WoW the game it is would have to be redone to suit a new engine. It has taken them years to make this game, they would need just as many years to create (not adapt) this game on a newer engine.

Let's try a comparison. Do you know what happens to a boat with a broken keel? It gets replaced. Why? Can't it be repaired? Yes, but you would have to remove everything else to repair it, and then adapt and change most the old ship to fit its modified keel. Ending up with a new ship made out of old pieces, and not a very solid one, either.

[Elestia]

If they made a new engine, the OP probably wouldn't be able to play. And I'm fine with that lol.

[Mawnix]

...

A want a more efficient engine i.e. one that runs better.



LOL. Talk about pot calling kettle black.

I have repeated many many many times, I KNOW! That's why I'm asking for an engine overhaul! And no, you don't need to replace the whole game engine, just the rendering component! Software is written in pieces and it's pieces can be separated and replaced! Do you know anything about software development? No? Then keep your "information" where it came from, your ass.

And once more, my friend, I answer you with they can't unless you don't want another expansion for years to come.

I'm fine with the graphics of the game. I actually like them more than more realistic graphics games (and it seems most players who've commented in this thread agree with me).

You want the overhaul? Find, have fun convincing Blizzard to use all of their resources to do that instead of giving us an expansion.

Next.

By the way, aside from the Vanilla Models, the game is actually up to par with current graphic standards for the art style it has.

Once the old models are updated, I'm about 90% sure no one is going to be bitching about graphics anymore.

[bionics]

And once more, my friend, I answer you with they can't unless you don't want another expansion for years to come.

I'm fine with the graphics of the game. I actually like them more than more realistic graphics games (and it seems most players who've commented in this thread agree with me).

You want the overhaul? Find, have fun convincing Blizzard to use all of their resources to do that instead of giving us an expansion.

Next.

By the way, aside from the Vanilla Models, the game is actually up to par with current graphic standards for the art style it has.

Once the old models are updated, I'm about 90% sure no one is going to be bitching about graphics anymore.

Exactly. The game is nearly a decade old, of course everything that hasn't been updated yet is going to look a bit dated.

Just wait until everything starts looking as good as the updated frogs. Haha.

[Deleted]

I'd rather blizz trying to improve the gameplay rather than graphics.

[Phasma]

To be fair, Nintendo has been around longer than Blizzard and their engines will be better until their senior developers are replaced. Nintendo was around during a time when memory management actually mattered down to the last bit. These new developers have no idea what that is.

[Clrg]

Artists. Graphics-technical. Modelers/3D artists. They all have to collaborate with other departments. We're not talking about a 1-man project. There's literally hundred of different texture formats out there, hundreds of different model formats and revisions to formats, and a million and one ways of pulling it all together. If you want new texture or model formats to work, you need the engine coders to work with you to get it working. You've got thousands of things to consider, and with WoW, system compatibility is a big one. You've got 2 platforms (Windows and OS X), legacy compatibility, and you've got to make sure that it all works and fits with the ideal of the game.

A few weeks ago, there was a picture on the front page that showed the 4 different layers needed to make a texture 'work'. You've got your AO layer, your heightmap, your normal map, and your RGB channels layer. Add to that a specular map, perhaps a bumpmap. They don't just create themselves.



Then this IS NOT about graphics, it's about the combat system. I've talked about this a lot in the past, but the inherent design behind an MMORPG is one where there's a lot of data sources and a lot of clients, and everything needs to be kept in sync, which means a lot of data being sent many times per second, and having to be parsed at the client. If your system is choking to death, then it's the fault of your system, either because you're running a fuckton or out of date addons, or because you're trying to play on a 25W toaster.

WoW's graphics engine is completely fine. It is not at fault. What does cause problems is the combat system and the sheer amount of data. People still think FPS is completely affected by what they can see, it's not. In fact, what you can see is often not the culprit of FPS problems - it's the data and the processing of that data by the CPU, and the object handling that cause FPS drops.

Take a look at something like Supreme Commander (RTS). Up to around 250*8 units (2000), the game runs fine. As you increase the number of units, the performance drop drastically. When you get to about 400*8 (3200), your FPS will have dropped by half if not more. This isn't because of the visual, it's because you've added another 1200 sources of data that each need to handle queued commands as well as the automatic micromanagment (e.g. pathfinding, engage on sight, etc). When you get to 600*8 (4800), your FPS will be close to single digits. In fact, if you make it to this point, the game will probably be closing in on the 2GB RAM 'cap' -- after that point, the game would outright crash unless you'd set it to be LAA. Either way, the performance drops to crazy low numbers, and it often takes several minutes for units to respond to commands. It's absolutely NOT the number of visual units there, it's the data that's associated with them that's causing the problems. These performance issues occurred even in single-player skirmishes against AI. Against other players, you're only handling your own units, and the visual representation of the other units is just that, visual. The data for those units isn't calculated by your system, it's merely synced over the network between 2-7 other players.

The same applies for WoW, except instead of units dealing set amounts of damage, you've got characters dealing variable amounts of damage and healing to various targets, as well as environmental effects that might cause damage. Realistically, you've got 50 channels of data, or 2x25 arrays (read*25 and write*25). You could simply update each value with 'last damage dealt' (negative for damage dealt, positive for healing done) and 'last damage received' (negative for damage received, positive for healing received), but that doesn't tell you the source of the damage/healing, nor any details about it. What you're actually looking at are lots of events like this;

8/3 23:04:48.812  SPELL_HEAL,0x010000000520AAF6,"Yedia",0x518,0x0,0x01000000051B0B10,"Mistweavez",0x518,0x0,117640,"Spinning Crane Kick",0x8,0x01000000051B0B10,256443,18526,9263,0,345000,963,963,0,nil

That's 1 single in-game combat event, and it basically provides all information about that specific event. There's 22 pieces of data, 23 if you include timestamp data. In this specific combat log sample, there's 15 of those (each for a different player), that shows how much healing was done by that Spinning Crane Kick, and all 15 of those occurred at exactly the same moment in time (i.e. 23:04:48.812 exactly). That's 330 pieces of data excluding the timestamp and all that has to be parsed by the in-game addon API. This combat log is from last month. In a 25-player raid situation, you're looking at 25 sources of data minimum for each event, and AoE healing and AoE damage increases this number even further.

TLDR: Visual IS NOT the cause of FPS problems, data and object processing is.

Do you think a viable solution should be an option to disable the "global" combat log? this will affect certains addons but why you need 25 recounts in raids? your pc will only process the boss and your character data.

[Deleted]

I can't understand how one could ignore, that WoW bein built on a RTS engine is apparently not on par with genre competitors when it comes to the graphics. WoW has terrible lighting and shader, with shadows being actual dark textures drawn on the scene, no normal maps and awful textures (even on brand new armor & content).

WoW's engine complete utter bullshit when it comes to utilizing today's multi core CPU's and highly advanced GPU's, theoretically able to push hundreds of millions of polygons in the blink of an eye. It even creates a new thread for every unit/doodad that is drawn on the scene.

The only improvements since launch that I could recall are some higher res textures, marginally better polycount, godrays, new water shaders & shadows and ambient occlusion. WoW needs better polycount on armor & characters, better lighting.

[vesseblah]

Do you think a viable solution should be an option to disable the "global" combat log? this will affect certains addons but why you need 25 recounts in raids? your pc will only process the boss and your character data.

No and no.

Combat log is used by the game client to figure out what others are doing. Without combat logging you wouldn't know who's casting what even in your own raid group which would be very annoying for healers.

[Monteverdi]

WoW is 10 years old. GTA V is 10 days old. And to be fair, WoW does an amazing job with what they have - Blizzard had some brilliant foresight in making the game so stylized so that the graphical shortfalls would be less apparent.

[vesseblah]

I can't understand how one could ignore, that WoW bein built on a RTS engine

That argument is so incredibly retarded that people should be flogged publicly for using it.

You could just as well say Doom3 is based on Wolfenstein3D engine with the same logic as claiming that WoW runs on WC3 engine. There's 15 years of evolution on both, and very little shared code from the starting point.

is apparently not on par with genre competitors when it comes to the graphics.

Graphics get outdated fast... A game which is photorealistic today looks like turd in five years but good gameplay never goes out of fashion. All genre competitors look nicer with newer graphics but the gameplay is shit. Feel free to guess if gameplay or graphics gives games the longevity?