146 replies to this topic

[EvilCow]

Russ, good to know you are looking into graphic improvements again. Frankly it is shocking to see how the game regressed visually since the beta.

BTW, I liked the very first trajectory for LRMs, when I saw MWO the first time (remember that early video in Forest Colony with the Centurion shooting its LRM10?) I thought: finally LRMs done right. I don't really understand why change such a cool implementation.

zagibu, on 03 October 2014 - 12:55 PM, said:

The bolded part can't have much to do with regular hit detection, because the server doesn't draw anything, hence draw calls are no problem server-side. I'm not exactly sure how HSR works, so maybe if it does (some) hit detection on the client, it might still be relevant.

I think hit detection is done entirely on server side, I wish they went for a mixed approach, for example: location hit detection on the client side and validation done using HSR on the server side, the netcode would feel much more reliable for higher pings.

[Tristan Winter]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

Some really good thoughts in here - its likely true that some of the optimizations removed stuff that should still be present on High or Very high settings.
People are looking into that now.

This reply exceeded my expectations.

[JohnnyWayne]

Well while we are at it:

There are still all these lines of "detail" that blent over the terrain while you move up to something. Best example is Caustic valley. Just move in a straight line and watch the bottom textures. Even close up textures are rerendered into more detailed ones. Why? Because the engine does not take your size into account. You actually see way further than in a regular FPS. That actually needs a fix too.

It's not really fit for a picture. Best place for that is crimson straight:

And a few steps later this:



Well one could say the direwolf is so slow, grass grows in the time it reaches there.... In the end its about how far you can see with a certain detail grade. A lot of games have the option to adjust this value. MWO certainly needs a second pass on this and that option in addition.

There are also other immersive things missing like sound effects (you are in a sealed cockpit but your mech has a ton of sensors and sound is among them... Like wind blowing, water you can dive in without being a locust (crimson straight - a haven without enough water deep to ever see that ship setting sails ... more or less.... again.

Proper clientsided damage textures damage textures and so on... There is so much that could be done - as optional for high end PCs of course. It all sums up to the immersion. I have the feeling you used to look way more into these things, like the rather rare battle soundeffects on river city or plant growth on the bottom (seen in former screenshots). All the little details that immerse the player... The game has become rather sterile.

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.
[...]
The new damage texture for the mechs was much more about time to develop. Basically the old method added entire days and days to the modeling process for results that in most cases were fairly poor and nowhere near worth the time and effort.
[...]

That connection should not have any influence on FPS or graphics. These should be rendered clientsided and not on the servers (it is in fact rendered client sided, we have no thin client mwo here^^). So if there is not as much detail as in other games it's more because the load on the client is too high. As far as I am aware each mechpart counts as one individual part so technically a "character" that needs to be rendered. Also a reason why there are so many draw calls in MWO that make MWO CPU heavy... Read that in Karl Berg's Q&A thread.

Regarding that texture... Damaged parts used to glow more and especaily longer than they do now. I kind of miss that. At least when shot at with energy weapons.

Edited by JohnnyWayne, 03 October 2014 - 02:33 PM.

[Sadist Cain]

Cant like this enough, I the new stick on generic bullet holes are horrible! It's just plain daft that everything looks like a barrage of ac2 has hit the mech.

and the IK <3 my god I miss these things

[Milocinia]

At the end of the day it's not as easy as enabling a, b, c and x, y and z for high end systems then disabling a, b and c for low end systems.

The closed beta of the game ran very acceptably on my old 8800GTS laptop but subsequent updates ran it down to an unplayable mess.

PGI rightfully had to go back to basics and trim down the engine to make it more playable for a wider audience which is why you might not see such high fidelity now. It was a new game engine to them and for developers as a whole and at the end of the day you still want to cater for as wide an audience as possible.

Having said that, now that PGI have clearly started to get to grips with the engine, perhaps they can separate those low and high settings further.

Personally though I'm not disappointed how the game currently looks.

[poohead]

JohnnyWayne, on 03 October 2014 - 02:15 PM, said:

Well while we are at it:

There are still all these lines of "detail" that blent over the terrain while you move up to something. Best example is Caustic valley. Just move in a straight line and watch the bottom textures. Even close up textures are rerendered into more detailed ones.

One thing that shows this really badly seems to be ambient occlusion or wall textures on HPG. from the starting locations, the outside wall looks a fairly drab grey, but as you approach it you see a clear line delineating a change from flat grey to shaded light and dark grey with more 3d shadowed detail.

It reminds me a bit of the texture filtering on ancient games like quake 2, where a small circle around the player would be sharp, and everything further out blurry...

Edited by poohead, 03 October 2014 - 02:49 PM.

[TexAce]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

Some really good thoughts in here - its likely true that some of the optimizations removed stuff that should still be present on High or Very high settings.

People are looking into that now.

But Vassago lets not show screen shots of CryEngine with a solo player in view, its similar to those screen shots that were floating around with one mech standing amongst trees. That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.

I have not doubt there is plenty of room for both optimization/performance increases and making things a lot prettier. We will let you know what we find in our investigation.

The new damage texture for the mechs was much more about time to develop. Basically the old method added entire days and days to the modeling process for results that in most cases were fairly poor and nowhere near worth the time and effort.

I think we need to put more time into model swapping destroyed components like we do with the arms. The code supports that for the legs, torsos etc. Just need the models.

really gotta go with the OP here. Game looked much better in CB, and somehow it even ran as good as now (playing in high/very high with 60+ fps), so I would really like those visual bits back in the high and very high settings.

[Kiiyor]

Xarian, on 03 October 2014 - 09:18 AM, said:

They could just make the IK work client-side. It wouldn't affect HSR enough to require the server to do anything.

Except that it means feet and legs would be in different positions, and it would also affect the height of the mech. If the hunchie in the OP was on that slope, it's left leg and by extension the rest of the mech would be far lower - and the server would have to know that. It would also have to know that the right leg was now presenting a smaller profile.

Also, how does that affect the mech walking? I can't remember... but walking along a slope like that as a person gives you a sort of bounding gait, with one leg at full extension and the other taking steps as if you were crouching.

Maybe not all that info needs to go to the server? maybe just the mech center point or whatnot?

[Dagorlad13]

TexAss, on 03 October 2014 - 03:14 PM, said:

really gotta go with the OP here. Game looked much better in CB, and somehow it even ran as good as now (playing in high/very high with 60+ fps), so I would really like those visual bits back in the high and very high settings.

Cryengine is CPU intensive, adding 4 more mechs to the game adds 50% more load to your CPU.

[rusticatedcharm]

I want the ammo explosion noises so bad. Can't figure out why that was taken out.

[aniviron]

rusticatedcharm, on 03 October 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

I want the ammo explosion noises so bad. Can't figure out why that was taken out.

I've linked to the end of that video so many times I just have the URL saved. The cockpit heaving around while that sound plays is terrifying, and makes it very clear when you die to an ammo explosion.

[dJellyfish]

rusticatedcharm, on 03 October 2014 - 03:47 PM, said:

I want the ammo explosion noises so bad. Can't figure out why that was taken out.

aniviron, on 03 October 2014 - 04:08 PM, said:

I've linked to the end of that video so many times I just have the URL saved. The cockpit heaving around while that sound plays is terrifying, and makes it very clear when you die to an ammo explosion.

This. I want this so very much. Please, PGI. Please.

[Novakaine]

Visual quality is fine.
On to the good stuff!

[aniviron]

Novakaine, on 03 October 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

Visual quality is fine.
On to the good stuff!

You'll have to forgive me if I don't take advice on visual quality from someone who writes in Comic Sans.

[JohnnyWayne]

Shots fired. xD

[Bishop Steiner]

Novakaine, on 03 October 2014 - 04:17 PM, said:

Visual quality is fine.
On to the good stuff!

judging by the size print you appear to need, I am not sure your optical acuity is adequate for making that call.

[Rhaegor]

Great thread, great OP. I never had issues running the game during beta. I also have a good computer and the disposable income to buy mechs and update my computer. I imagine I am the type of customer PGI wants.

Edited by Rhaegor, 03 October 2014 - 05:03 PM.

[A banana in the tailpipe]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

Some really good thoughts in here - its likely true that some of the optimizations removed stuff that should still be present on High or Very high settings.

People are looking into that now.

But Vassago lets not show screen shots of CryEngine with a solo player in view, its similar to those screen shots that were floating around with one mech standing amongst trees. That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.

The game drops from 80+fps to 20+fps with just a few mechs on the screen today just like it did during beta. At least back in beta it looked better so we thought it was justified.

Edited by lockwoodx, 03 October 2014 - 05:30 PM.

[Tekadept]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

But Vassago lets not show screen shots of CryEngine with a solo player in view, its similar to those screen shots that were floating around with one mech standing amongst trees. That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.

Ok fair enough so how about we compare to armored warfare then using cryengine3? just as complex as a mech , multiple components hit locations physics, IK etc...

Edited by Tekadept, 03 October 2014 - 08:52 PM.

[Fooooo]

Russ Bullock, on 03 October 2014 - 10:48 AM, said:

Some really good thoughts in here - its likely true that some of the optimizations removed stuff that should still be present on High or Very high settings.

People are looking into that now.

But Vassago lets not show screen shots of CryEngine with a solo player in view, its similar to those screen shots that were floating around with one mech standing amongst trees. That is one thing but then put 24 of them in the same scene all firing lasers, missiles and so on with player connected from Australia to Germany.

I have not doubt there is plenty of room for both optimization/performance increases and making things a lot prettier. We will let you know what we find in our investigation.

The new damage texture for the mechs was much more about time to develop. Basically the old method added entire days and days to the modeling process for results that in most cases were fairly poor and nowhere near worth the time and effort.

I think we need to put more time into model swapping destroyed components like we do with the arms. The code supports that for the legs, torsos etc. Just need the models.

I think the one mech, it was an atlas in the original skin, in the forest was one of mine.

It was never intended to be taken as what MWO should look like (I hope nobody did) as it is just a "pre-set" scene I made with the cryengine sdk, with no call budget to watch out for in a map concept thread i think it was. (im sure people could make one a ton better than I did too.)


Theres no way that area could have been used (or it repeated over a 4km x 4km map) in an actual game like MWO as it uses way to many calls and if you add another 23 mechs + weapons + actually moving....well.......... Its just like you said.

I would never expect mwo to try and do a map exactly like that


Swamp / jungle hopefully will get somewhat close tho.




As to the OP, I agree it seems the quality has changed.

From those river city shots the lighting / sun has been changed there, as someone else already has mentioned.

Same with forest colony, the lighting / sun effects have been adjusted or changed, or maybe the engine update changed a few things they didnt fix up yet.......

Also the fog settings are probably different. (amount, distance, colours etc etc)

All these things can change the look of a scene a ton (from terrible to omg that looks real) from my experience playing around in the SDK. Even without changing textures or assets etc etc.

Edited by Fooooo, 03 October 2014 - 09:03 PM.