So, the graphics update?

[Deana]

Are we now where things are expected to be . or is work carrying on regarding any issues?

I am still no longer to play in the "updated" areas, even with the settings as low as it can get, advanced options to bring everything to a minimum etc. I can just about run around, but the world looks like some abstract , brightly coloured blurry cartoon landscape. Its just not worth trying to play.

I totally understand I do not have a new graphics card, or dedicated gaming rig. but both my PC and laptop were just fine before with medium graphics settings, and I personally though the graphics for the game for fine as they were.. ( guess I will be in the minority with that ;) ) Taking a look at other MMORPGs out there, I can run those fine (EQ , WoW, Eve are ones I still frequent again now I am unable to play PP)

Can there be an option to turn on the "old" style graphics? Currently I have had to stop my testing / playing

I would like to get back on line with PG :(

Deana

[Silvonis]

As development continues we plan on updating other areas of the game and there will be optimization(s) along the way. There won't be an option to utilize the old graphics. It is unfortunate that you are unable to play but being a modern game there are certain system specifications required to play. The optimizations down the line might help, so you could keep an eye on that.

[ShieldBreaker]

Work is always carrying on, this is just Alpha phase after all.

When working with graphic setting I would make sure you have an alt character in a non-graphical demanding place (not Serbule) and your main in Serbule. Working from your main character, change one graphic option at a time and test to see the effect after each change. If you crash, use your alt to undo the last setting changed back.

First I would make all the overrides unchecked and work with only the Basic quality setting, as a starting point. Make sure Auto-Level adjust is off. and Start with Fastest, and see how the game plays. If it plays fine then start upping the quality level. If you reach a quality level you like, but occasionally it proves too much for your graphics card then maybe you might want to try playing around with the graphic overrides. If you are at fastest quality and it not working for you then start using overrides to change settings.

There are 36 Override graphic setting to work with, and they would require a lot of graphics research or programming training to understand what they all do properly. Also they are overrides, so we don't know what settings are in effect and what values, at the different levels in Graphic Quality on the menu one level up. So I'm going to attempt to work through some of the settings, and hopefully if I get something wrong, someone will correct me.

Shadow Distance = wouldn't override would let the overall quality decide, goes from 0-500,
I think fast and fastest quality, will have shadows turned off.
0 should give you the fastest FPS with the least amount of shadows

Texture Memory Restriction goes from 0-6
0 is no restriction, you probably need a beast of a graphic card for that one
1 is default I think
the higher the number the number the worst the textures will be, but the faster the FPS should be
very old graphic cards would maybe need to use higher numbers.

LOD Bias - Level of Detail Bias goes from 0-3
0.5 default probably
0 for good graphic cards
3 for bad graphic cards
this ones a bit confusing, has to do with the distance mip-maps are used or polycount models. I think I got the 0 best, 3 worst right.

Vsync Wouldn't override, if I did would go with 0 to disable, only use 1 if you have a good graphic card and you are getting lots of screen tearing artifacts.

Target Framerate Wouldn't override. Lower target should be less stressful on video card but would be more difficult/painful to play.

The next 13 overrides all have to do with terrain and terrain features.

If you are having issues, with framerate and such, then reducing or turning off the grass is a good option.
Reducing trees would be my next step.

Low-Res Ground, enable for really weak graphic cards

Water Quality- if having any kind of graphic issues you might want to reduce water quality

Bloom- If you are going to override it I would disable it. A graphical frill for graphic junkies :)

Clouds- are also something that can be downgraded to improve performance over prettiness.


Deana I would check that you Texture Memory Restriction isn't too high, if you got it 6, probably not needed that high and reducing it would take away a great deal of the cartooness. Hope this helps some, To get performance reducing clouds, water, grass and trees in that order would be my suggestion. You may only need to find 1 item that will change the demand on your graphic card. Unless you find you don't need to get into using overrides at all.

[Crissa]

It sounds to me like something is weird in the graphics settings than the update, per se.

I play 'fastest' and don't get anything described as cartoonish. The words are sometimes blurry, but that doesn't seem to matter by setting, just restarting the graphics.

[cr00cy]

Ok stupid question but are you drunk? I mean your character. At some point i forgot i was trainign my alcochol resistance and started to wonder why everything is so blurry.

Other than that, i dont know what would cause your game looks blurry. Is it everything, or only stuff that is futher away? If you have auto-adjust active it might be that agem lowers quality of graphic in serbule, making stuff that are futher away look blurry. I myself experience few graphic problems since last update.
As for Overrides few that helped me when i had problems before:
- grass draw distance/density - i lowered both to 0, effectivly diabling grass. It noticably improved my fps.
- Shadows - i turned them off too. It wont affect graphic quality that much, and give slight improvment to performance.
- Texture memory restriction - this could greatly improve fps, but also will drop you graphic quality. While 1 or 2 are not so bad, every step after that is very noticable.

[Moki Mofiki]

I did notice on an old machine that I setup for friend to try out the game that during new zone load the trees, grass and buildings would be blurry (like an image only half loaded) but this was a 10 year old machine that should not be supported in the first place.

[Deana]

Thanks for all the advice, but yes it basically comes down to an older PC, although running windows 10 with 16gb Ram, its still only a dual core 3.2 GHz processor , and more importantly an NVIDIA 8600 graphics card .. there is the problem :) .. The card is old by today's standards .. the blurry cartoon effects are from me dropping everything down as far as possible etc, as even on the default fastest general settings , without using the advanced overrides the frame rates are totally unplayable.

So yes I understand and accept the issue, though being as I could play fine before the update I still think its a shame.. PG may be loosing out on a lot of possible subscribers who have lower end hardware.. I can still play WOW, EVE and EQ fine, so unsure why the graphics on PG are so "intensive" ? I will check in regularly and keep an eye on changes, though I cannot afford to replace my GPU for a single game when the others are OK to play.

[ANT3RA]

Ill take a stab in the dark here, as I do not know enough about game engines and graphics card, and how they interact.

What you might find is that the games you mentioned being fine on your system, WoW, EQ and EVE were all released well over a decade ago.

WoW was release in 2004
EVE was released in 2003
EQ was released in 1999

WoW uses a proprietary in house game engine designed to function with the hardware of the day (2004), as does EVE and EQ. Project: Gorgon, even though it uses a gaming engine first released in 2005, has had many iterations and updates since. I can only assume that the developers of PG use the latest version of Unity and come across many nuances and anomalies along the way.

The current version of Unity is nothing like the game engines of old. The current version of Unity would be developed to accommodate the architecture of modern graphics cards. Sure, Unit has many old school limitations and has an old school look and feel. However, you would still need a fairly modern graphics card to enjoy (subjective) the game and the game engine as it currently stands. To be honest, i would like to think that the cheapest graphics card on the market today outperforms the graphics cards of the early 2000's.

I am not sure if that makes any sense. If I am completely wrong, someone educate me please...

[mrwarp]

Unfortunately, the hard truth is that card you have just won't cut it for anything even semi-modern. As far as cost goes...there are options to get a card that is within spec for as low as $35. Granted it's nothing spectacular, but it is something that will work, still has supported drivers and most importantly...cheap. :)


http://www.pricewatch.com/price/video_cards/geforce_gt_710

[Crissa]

WoW has had several engine upgrades over the years. In 2007 I could run it and Second Life without any drag on my Intel Core Duo. I wouldn't even be able to run the game today on the same machine. (Which I still have. I tried to run Project Gorgon on it a couple weeks ago when they ran the poll.)

Release date is no indication of hardware load of a particular game.

Anyhow, my money is on the graphics settings for the game (have you tried resetting all the files?) or the graphics card has wonky support of some function the game is using.

[Trapsin]

Are there any optimal settings guide or anything? I don't really like the way the game looks right now, it feels worse off than before the update (I haven't played in 3 months or so). I played around with the advanced settings but I can't get it to feel right, the sky in particular is very bright with no details. I wish I could go back to the default on all of them at once and then make changes one at a time.

I have a solid machine, 16GB RAM, i5-4670k 3.5GHz, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, any suggestions?

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/KfDwb06.png

[drivendawn]

Are there any optimal settings guide or anything? I don't really like the way the game looks right now, it feels worse off than before the update (I haven't played in 3 months or so). I played around with the advanced settings but I can't get it to feel right, the sky in particular is very bright with no details. I wish I could go back to the default on all of them at once and then make changes one at a time.

I have a solid machine, 16GB RAM, i5-4670k 3.5GHz, GeForce GTX 1060 6GB, any suggestions?

Screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/KfDwb06.png

Turning off bloom toward the bottom in advanced settings will help you a lot.

[Trapsin]

Thanks, that did help. One other big issue I have is when I move stuff looks blurry, I'm mostly just noticing this in Serb.

Example, in both these screenshots I'm basically in the same spot, but in the first one I'm moving and it looks blurry, and in the second one I'm standing still and it's more crisp.

https://i.imgur.com/abG1NWi.png
https://i.imgur.com/0IUPf9E.png

[drivendawn]

Thanks, that did help. One other big issue I have is when I move stuff looks blurry, I'm mostly just noticing this in Serb.

Example, in both these screenshots I'm basically in the same spot, but in the first one I'm moving and it looks blurry, and in the second one I'm standing still and it's more crisp.

https://i.imgur.com/abG1NWi.png
https://i.imgur.com/0IUPf9E.png

If you have messed with some of the other advanced setting try to reset them and see if it helps.

[Trapsin]

This is with all the overrides unselected, as well as something I noticed upon logging in for the first time after the graphics update, and before I had messed with any settings.

Edit: Figured it out, it was Anti-Aliasing. Turned it off and no more blur with motion.

[drivendawn]

This is with all the overrides unselected, as well as something I noticed upon logging in for the first time after the graphics update, and before I had messed with any settings.

Edit: Figured it out, it was Anti-Aliasing. Turned it off and no more blur with motion.

Good to know. Glad it worked out for you. :)