Re: Weekend beta did not have hi-res textures

[Deleted]

I have read in several conversations that the hi-res textures were not available in the last weekend beta(to cut down on download size), and that the final game will look much better. Some people however expressed doubt whether this is the case.

I have found one of the screenshots that got leaked around summer this year:

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3...lmorra__9_.jpg

I believe the texture on the droid is higher-res than what i saw this weekend.

[Deleted]

I have read in several conversations that the hi-res textures were not available in the last weekend beta(to cut down on download size), and that the final game will look much better. Some people however expressed doubt whether this is the case.

I have found one of the screenshots that got leaked around summer this year:

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/3...lmorra__9_.jpg

I believe the texture on the droid is higher-res than what i saw this weekend.

I have seen that comment a fair bit as well, I hope it is true as I thought some of the environmental textures (e.g ground textures) were very low res. They definitely use higher res character textures in the cut-scenes, which I reckon the above screenshot is from, so it doesn't really confirm anything except that higher res textures do exist. That said the graphical style did grow on me over time, and I was occasionally stopping to take in the view anyway.

[Deleted]

I have seen that comment a fair bit as well, I hope it is true as I thought some of the environmental textures (e.g ground textures) were very low res. They definitely use higher res character textures in the cut-scenes, which I reckon the above screenshot is from.

Yep i do think it is from a cutscene, however cutscenes are rendered using the game engine(they are not some CGI movies) so the textures in cutscenes and in game are the same.

[ChrisMun]

This is actually a pretty big deal because a lot of the impressions from weekend testers is that the game looks like ass. And I agree. Some parts of the world looks great, character models okay. Weapons crap. Etc etc. General testers here should test the texture options in game to see if there are current changes from changing that option in game.

[ZenX]

Then if they were not to be applicable, why did I ended up having to download 20 GBs of data, if they were not even included, how much more disk space will I end-up sparing for this game?

[Alasdair]

it looked slightly ass-ish to me this weekend only because my computer tends to run like ass-ish. I buy this game i may have to move from laptop back to a new build desktop :| wife is gonna be thrilled lol

[ChrisMun]

Then if they were not to be applicable, why did I ended up having to download 20 GBs of data, if they were not even included, how much more disk space will I end-up sparing for this game?

Maybe for stress testing purposes? Who knows. DICE did the same sort of thing with the BF3 beta where the graphics were forced on medium no matter what setting you put in.

[Deleted]

Hmm, SR just tweeted that the latest beta weekend client is close in size to the release client, which kind of derails my assumptions. Maybe those textures are already in, just disabled to cut down on beta people setting the game too high and complaining about framerates?

We'll see in 2 weeks i guess

[xeonix]

Well , DXAA wasnt enabled ( tho you could force it via your card's panel I spose ) , Textures where indeed a mere 3gb of data ( which is lol for a game of this magnitute ) , Special effects where not having Bloom behavior ( only boom was enviromental ) . I think they want to make a 'big impression' on launch hence they offered a cut down version or something. Lets not forget that those of us who test it , have at least 30% performance impact due to the fact that a logger and a debugger is running on the background so they feed on the info to fix glitches.

[Skippy88]

Might explain why people in Taris kept getting stuck last night. That was annoying.

[ptwonline]

Even if hi-res textures aren't in for release, that's definitely the kind of thing that could make it in later..assuming the engine can handle it.

[DaGhostDS]

The full game is more than 30gig so clearly the texture were:
a) Hyper compressed.
b) Highest quality texture werent in.
and
also a lot of the graphical feature were on off for this test.

[Elguappo]

Well I am getting my new rig before release and it is a monster. I will be playing the game on ultra and I really hope I am blown away.

[Kaesebrezen]

The full game is more than 30gig so clearly the texture were:

Those 30 GB are several months old information. If you roll out builds often, i doubt you care about compression.

[ptwonline]

Well I am getting my new rig before release and it is a monster. I will be playing the game on ultra and I really hope I am blown away.

*powers on computer*
*fans required to cool it blow you into the next room*

[Deleted]

I've been a regular tester and able to play the game on max. First off: both before and during the stress test, textures were detailed and crisp on my pc. That's most likely due to the fact I already had the high res assets before the test.

Secondly, the scene from the screenshot is one I witnessed weeks before the stress test. It looked the same during the cutscene as before (since the droids stand there in the open world). In fact, I have personally never seen any cutscenes or moments where the textures were different between regular play and otherwise. The only low res textures I've seen ingame are the cyborg implants really.

So I must say it seems likely they cut high res textures from the stress test client. We can only speculate as to why: maybe it was to limit the stress on servers, on pcs or maybe simply because it would mean 7-9GB less to d/l for the weekend testers (most regular testers had around 27-29GB to d/l total from what I read over time). The lower client size may also be due to compression and/or cutting some bloated modules. Still, considering the size I'd say cut textures would be a more fitting cause.

[Prag]

The screenshot is from a Conversation PoV. If you enable "Depth of Conversation Field" in the top of the Graphics Settings and restart the client, you'll see what I mean.

No idea if the hi-res textures were in. My performance was substantially lower this weekend than it was in the 11/11 weekend. Not sure what settings were forced, on, off etc, but I hope it improves at launch. I don't think it'd be reasonable to be buying myself $500 worth of computer parts 10 days before Christmas.

[Dezerte]

Maybe we could compare our .ini files CopyKat. I had the weekend-test client only downloaded and these are my settings (set to highest in-game)
(x:\users\<your name>\appdata\local\swtor\betatest\settings)

client_settings.ini
D3DFullScreen = true
Height = 1050
NativeHeight = 1050
NativeWidth = 1680
Width = 1680
WindowX = 0
WindowY = 0
DynamicLightsLimit = 2
MeshLODQuality = 1
TextureAnisotropy = 2
FarClipScale = 4.
doShadows = true
PlantDensity = 100
UseMinSpecShaders = false
doBlobShadows = true
EnableBloom = true

Graphics_Mirror.ini
[Settings]
Graphics_Resolution = 1680x1050
Graphics_DynamicLightComplexity = loc:11010references
Graphics_MeshLodQuality = loc:11010references
Graphics_TextureAnisotropy = loc:11010references
Graphics_ClipDistance = 4.0
Graphics_ShadowQuality = 1.0
Graphics_GroundClutterDensity = 100.0
Graphics_SpeedTreeDistance = 1.25
Graphics_WindowedMode = false
Graphics_ShaderComplexity = loc:11010references
Graphics_BlobShadows = true
Graphics_Bloom = true

Looks like there isn't even a setting for textures at all in my .ini files, so maybe it's true that we were stuck with low-res ones.

[Vrumpt]

What doesn't make sense is if high res texture files exist why hide them when SWTOR is consistently getting slammed for its graphics? If they do exist BioWare would want to show them off to quell the bad feedback.

[ChrisMun]

What doesn't make sense is if high res texture files exist why hide them when SWTOR is consistently getting slammed for its graphics? If they do exist BioWare would want to show them off to quell the bad feedback.

When general testers start playing this week, I'm sure we can ask and get confirmation with the texture issue.