Update on the High Resolution issue (BW response)

[FlawlessSoul]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1479615

Above is the third thread posted on the SW:TOR forums, since the other two reached a hundred pages and had to be recreated. Finally, an answer is given by a CSR:

Hey everyone, thanks for bearing with us as we investigated the concerns raised here.

After investigation, it seems that the confusion here is a combination of a UI issue that's been resolved and a feature that's working as intended, but the reason why it's 'working as intended' needs explanation.

First, the UI issue. The preferences menu as it is seen on the Public Test Server for version 1.1 of the game is correct - there are only supposed to be two texture choices, 'Low' and 'High'. This replaces the original three-choice preference of Low/Medium/High because in reality, there was never supposed to be a 'Medium' choice - that was a bug.

Here's where we need to explain. As many of you have noted, your character in the game world is rendered using lower resolution textures than inside of cinematic conversation scenes. This was a deliberate decision by the development team. To understand why this was done, I have to briefly talk about MMOs and their engines.

In comparison to single player games and other genres of multiplayer online games, MMOs have much higher variability in the number of characters that can be potentially rendered on-screen at the same time. In MMOs, even though most of the time you'll see a relatively small number of characters on screen, there are certain situations in which many more characters will be seen. Some examples of these situations include popular gathering places in-game (in our case, the two fleets), Operations with large teams, and Warzones. In those scenarios the client (and your PC) has to work hard to show off a lot of characters on-screen.

During development and testing of The Old Republic, our priorities were to ensure the game looked great and performed well. In testing, we discovered that using our 'maximum resolution' textures on in-game characters during normal gameplay could cause severe performance issues, even on powerful PCs. There were a variety of possible options to help improve performance, but one that was explored and ultimately implemented used what is known as a 'texture atlas'.

To understand that I've got to get technical for a minute. When a character in the game is 'seen' by another character - ie, gets close to your field of view - the client has to 'draw' that character for you to see. As the character is 'drawn' for you there are a number of what are known as 'draw calls' where the client pulls information from the repository it has on your hard disk, including textures, and then renders the character. Every draw call that is made is a demand on your PC, so keeping that number of draw calls low per character is important. With our 'maximum resolution' textures a large number of draw calls are made per character, but that wasn't practical for normal gameplay, especially when a large number of characters were in one place; the number of draw calls made on your client would multiply very quickly. The solution was to 'texture atlas' - essentially to put a number of smaller textures together into one larger texture. This reduces the number of draw calls dramatically and allows the client to render characters quicker, which improves performance dramatically.

When it comes to cinematic scenes, however, characters are rendered using the higher number of draw calls and maximum resolution textures. This is because in those scenes, we have control over exactly how many characters are rendered and can ensure that the game performs well. The transition between 'atlas textured' characters (out of cinematics) and 'maximum resolution' textures (in cinematics) is mostly hidden by the transition between those two states (when the screen goes black), but obviously it's clear if you pay close attention.

In summary; yes, we had a small UI bug that unfortunately caused confusion over how the game is intended to work. The textures you're seeing in the course of normal gameplay are optimized for that mode of play. The textures you're seeing during cinematics are also optimized for that mode of play. They are higher resolution, but that's because we're able to control cinematic scenes to ensure good performance in a way we can't during normal gameplay.

We understand the passion and desire for people to see the same textures you see in our cinematic scenes in the main game. Because of the performance issues that would cause for the client, that's not an immediate and easy fix; we need to ensure we're making choices that the majority of our players will be able to benefit from. Having 'atlassed textures' helps performance overall, and that's a very important goal for us.

With that said, we've heard your feedback here loud and clear. The development team is exploring options to improve the fidelity of the game, particularly for those of you with high-spec PCs. It will be a significant piece of development work and it won't be an overnight change, but we're listening and we're committed to reacting to your feedback.

As far as I'm concerned, this isn't anywhere near good enough. They're saying the UI showing three options was a bug, despite it working in beta fully. They're saying it caused performance issues, despite it working in beta just fine (in fact, better performance than now). It's a shame, but until they start being more transparent about issues the players have with the game, I won't be subbing.

Technically minded people may want to take a look through the previous thread (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=151787) since there are a number of posts regarding how the engine is handling textures later on.

Also:






> This thread was posted as a continuation of a thread on MMO-C that was closed due to offtopicness and suchlike; a response had finally been received from BioWare regarding the issue, regardless of content, and it was reposted here to inform and promote discussion (since there are also people here with tech backgrounds). Please don't go arguing about whether you think people are silly for wanting the full-resolution textures, we've heard it before.
> If you think your textures are high res, but want to see the real difference, visit your characters ship. Set your character near the holocom, and rotate the camera to face them, so you can see the face and chest closely. Then interact with the holocom. Your character will momentarily enter the Cutscene mode, usually forcing high-res textures. MipMap filtering can increase the sharpness of your in-game textures, and can be forced through driver control panels (use Google to search "force mipmaps" for Nvidia/AMD), but this does not, unfortunately, increase the resolution of them.

[Dakia]

I don't see this to be big enough of an issue to warrant unsubscribing, but to each their own.

[JustintimeSS]

The 3 settings in beta did not work. Medium and High were exactly the same and I have pictures to prove it. WoW didn't have high quality armor models until... wotlk I think. I'll be patient and wait for it to be implemented in swtor as well. In game, not cut scene, I play with the camera pulled back anyways so everything looks just fine. Cut scenes look good 95% of the time.

I think the game looks great but then again I'm not super nitpicky about stuff like this. It seems all you needed was an excuse not to sub. Wish granted, don't sub.

[Deleted]

I think the game looks great but then again I'm not super nitpicky about stuff like this. It seems all you needed was an excuse not to sub. Wish granted, don't sub.

THIS

saying that, i do think they made a mistake by not communicating this earlier, also they should have included their Hi rez mode as ..well the High setting and let people try it for themselves.

They have 2 settings in now, why not have the 3 they originally had? if it made things run sluggish leave it up to the user to decide.

[vizzle]

Pretty much. If it bothers you so much that you would actually unsub, then you didn't like the game in the first place. Have fun.

[FlawlessSoul]

Pretty much. If it bothers you so much that you would actually unsub, then you didn't like the game in the first place. Have fun.

I'm loving the game and really enjoy playing alongside some of my RL friends, but I'm not handing money over to people that I know are actively deceiving their customers. I'm not unsubscribing at all, since I'm currently playing during my inclusive 30 days. I just won't be subscribing at the end of it.

The game ran far better during beta with higher resolution character textures. That was what I was expecting on launch (despite the quality dropping to how it is now shortly before). It's the quality they've shown in all their media advertising the game. My main issue isn't that the textures are bad. I'd continue to play if they had been forthright about the issues. It's the way they're handling the situation and the lack of transparency.

In direct answer to your post - I did like the game in the first place, during beta when it looked and ran far better.

[Loyrl]

I would have liked to at least try the "High" setting, but then there would be even more threads on the "My computer can play #### on ULTRA settings, but can't play this on high!?!" At least they have clarified the issue, abit late but whatever.

[fearcazic]

They had to turn off high res on release because there are more people on Release than Beta. When I was in beta at the 1st newbie Sith zone standing by the NPCs I would get 10FPS to 80FPS. It was very spiky. I think instead of fixing or optimizing they just turn OFF all high resolution textures in-game.

Through out the game (at the lowest setting) my FPS would be 5 to 90 FPS but mostly in the 15 - 20. Very unstable and my Laptop (not the best and not the worst) can 3 box WoW at 59-60fps.

[Doylez]

TLDR version:
Their engine can't handle it and we're forever stuck with what wouldn't even pass as "medium quality textures" in any other game.

[Littleshashi]

TLDR version:
Their engine can't handle it and we're forever stuck with what wouldn't even pass as "medium quality textures" in any other game.

Having played earlier in the Beta and getting used to my Trooper, when I re-made him at launch, I actually re-made him quite a few times because I just felt like he didn't look like I remembered. I thought I was just being crazy, but this definitely explains why I was having such a hard time. The textures just look like mud.

So, I have to agree. Their game engine does not seem to be nearly as sophisticated as WoW's. I guess it really shows how many internal advances Blizzard has made in WoW's 7 years, and how competitive mmo publishing must really be. I think we perhaps expect too much from these companies? Either that, or we are all getting shafted.

I have been defending SWTOR for months, but I'm starting to consider letting my sub expire and seeing how things look in 3 months.

[Deleted]

It still doesnt give an explanation about stupid stuff like for example previewing armor. When I want to preview a piece of armor it always looks absolutely horrible on my character. I have to use a companion to be able to preview what the item actually looks like. Why does the preview show the armor great on my companion, but crap on me? Also, why do some pieces of armor look great when you or your companion wears them and others look like they just lost all of the graphical details?

[JustintimeSS]

In no way at all is this post saying that there are actually high rez textures in SWTOR, I'm just pointing out that there was never a high setting in beta that worked. No one is getting robbed here. They didn't lie and trick anyone. They realized the engine couldn't push ultra textures with 100+ people in one spot yet Wow couldn't either. They'll work it out and if you don't have the patience to wait then you know where the door is. In my opinion, the game looks better NOW than it did in beta. I think it looks good more times than it looks bad. Is there smudged textures here and there? Yeah but there are also amazing textures on armor that cast shadows and reflect light instead of just being a picture over a body part.

From beta -

High



Medium



Low

[konaman]

WoW didn't have high quality armor models until... wotlk I think.

How is that even an argument to begin with considering wow is running on an engine that is 7 years old where as swtor is suppose to be using a brand new engine. The fact of the matter is though that even with WOW's old engine they are capable of making armor appear very well defined while swtor can't do that.

[Dakia]

How is that even an argument to begin with considering wow is running on an engine that is 7 years old where as swtor is suppose to be using a brand new engine. The fact of the matter is though that even with WOW's old engine they are capable of making armor appear very well defined while swtor can't do that.

The engine didn't come out the day the game was released. It is at least three years old, if not more, and probably hasn't undergone the focus on optimization or overhaul that WoW's has since they where busy creating the world. Optimization and performance increase will come in time.

[Deleted]

Wow, people really like to make a storm in a cup of water...

[WarFalcon1]

If you play an MMORPG for the graphics you are doing it wrong.

[JustintimeSS]

How is that even an argument to begin with considering wow is running on an engine that is 7 years old where as swtor is suppose to be using a brand new engine. The fact of the matter is though that even with WOW's old engine they are capable of making armor appear very well defined while swtor can't do that.

I wasn't using this example as a backbone to an argument. People pray on this excuse. They wait in the weeds for someone to mention it and then jump out like "HIIIIIIYAAAAA! WOW IS 7 YEARS OLD"

Guess what, my point is that wow's engine has been optimized and tweaked to reach the point where it can sustain massive amounts of people with HD armor. This came with not only the engine tweaks but mastering lower polycount on armor but keeping it looking HD. Swtor's Hero engine is quite new and will need some time before they can tweak it to handle such things.

If you play an MMORPG for the graphics you are doing it wrong.

And also, this.

[Poodles]

The real issue is all the publicity material (videos, screenshots, reviews) are all based off of content we're not getting.

That's illegal in most places...

This just leaves a very bad taste in my mouth and it's turning into a serious fiasco now.

[Dakia]

If you play an MMORPG for the graphics you are doing it wrong.

While I do agree with this, there are some exceptions. I really thought that Rift's graphics where pushing the edge of what you can do and hope to get a decent player base. The fact of the matter is that people have bad PCs. I'm not saying that Rift was this, but if you cater your game towards graphics enthusiasts, you're going to have a smaller player base than what can support a large scale MMO. You need to account for nearly all levels of PCs.

WoW has been slapped with the "terrible graphics" tag for years upon years, but still succeeded because it was able to be run by a wide range of players. That being said, I really wish that they would enable the high-end textures. However, I can see why they have not done so yet.

The real issue is all the publicity material (videos, screenshots, reviews) are all based off of content we're not getting.

That's illegal in most places...

Graphics aren't content and performance will always vary from Dev machines to end-user hardware. They never said that everyone would run it as such. I understand the frustration, but I don't think that there is anything here that could possibly warrant legal action.

[WarFalcon1]

WoW has been slapped with the "terrible graphics" tag for years upon years, but still succeeded because it was able to be run by a wide range of players. That being said, I really wish that they would enable the high-end textures. However, I can see why they have not done so yet.

I really have no issue with WoWs graphics. In fact I think they work perfectly for the "feel" of the game. Even after coming back to WoW a few times after 6 months of unsubs I would be reminded of how cool and slick the graphics were. They were cartoony but that is the point, thats what WoW is and always has been.

For the same reason I have no issue with SWTORs graphics. They have a nice sci-fi feel to them. Sure, it could be better, but its an MMO. If you expect an MMO to look like a single player game you have unreal standards.