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season 4 graphics updates causing many problems

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
edited August 2011 in Graphical and Sound Issues
1. now unless my video card is st on thew highest quality my uniforms look distorted

2. movement is choppy and never was before season 4

3. I feel much of the lag is due to some of the graphics update of season 4

The new graphics update that improved for the same memory consumption is non existent.

thank you
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    1. now unless my video card is st on thew highest quality my uniforms look distorted

    2. movement is choppy and never was before season 4

    3. I feel much of the lag is due to some of the graphics update of season 4

    The new graphics update that improved for the same memory consumption is non existent.

    thank you

    Points one and two improved for me with the season 4 release.

    It'd be interesting to know what kind of video card you are using and how much RAM it has. Maybe your video card just meets minimum standards. MIght be time to upgrade.

    Season 4 fixed a lot of the problems those of us with the newer 4xx/5xx series Nvidia cards have been having for a long time.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I can really relate with this. I've got my graphic settings for character up at 100%, and yet most of the time I play now the game will significantly downgrade my textures to the point where they look more akin to a child's waterpainting.

    Shoving it up to 200% makes no difference. I can end up doing a solo mission like, say, 'Wargames' on the Cardassian front, and most of the time I'll spend, my characters will show below-part textures. My graphical experience is essentially inferior after Season 4 than it was in Season 3.

    What I'm missing now is graphical control. I, the end user, should end up having the choice of how good graphics I want vs. game performance. The game auto-adjusting (based on special effect presence, being in crowds, being in the character tailor) should be a toggle I choose to activate. Right now, when game graphics turn south like that, no amount of tweaking video control will restore it to the way I want.

    It's really annoying.

    For the record, my graphic card is a NVidia 8800 GTS and my computer runs on 2 gigs of RAM. Not the greatest thing ever, I know... but the point - to me - is how STO's graphics ironically appeared to be much better on a consistent basis before the patch because of this auto-adjusting thing. If the graphics should be 4 times better for the same amount of memory, I should not be experiencing this.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    My screen is full of colors, it looks like some painter in a bad mood threw all of his paint in the game. Very much lag as well.

    My BO's and myself seem to have some sort of freddy kruger claws instead of arms and hands..

    Anyone asking or telling me it is my videocard can blow up his ship, because it is just this season four release. What a failure this is, I can't even play but my time is still running..
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I'm getting the uniform watercolor like tectures but it also affects certain viewscreens

    http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa380/sabredruid/screenshot_2011-07-17-20-28-42.jpg

    is an example, of the viewscreen issue, this is the shuttle interior, and also shows up in ESD

    http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa380/sabredruid/screenshot_2011-07-17-21-38-27.jpg
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    hmm looks like i fixed it, so disregard, dropping all the settings and re-raising them seem to have worked for me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    sabredruid wrote: »
    hmm looks like i fixed it, so disregard, dropping all the settings and re-raising them seem to have worked for me.

    Mine crashed when I tried that lol.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    For people with the texture issues - how old are your video card drivers?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Armsman wrote: »
    For people with the texture issues - how old are your video card drivers?

    Please blow up your ship...:mad:
    Why can't you just accept that it is that release for 98% of us?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Im sure the poster was just trying to help. A fleet mate of mine who does nothing but build custom rigs and gets heavy sponsorship from all the major companies and specialises in water cooling came back to the game yesterday. Firsth thing he said to me is "what the hell has happened to the framerate - sto is eating more frames than crysis"

    Hes running 3 nvidia 580s in tri sli. Im wondering if its an nvidia issue and ati users arnt seeing the issue. The silence from the devs is frustrating because THERE IS AN ISSUE here at least with nvidia cards and the lack of silence is ignorant. It would be appreciated if a dev coul;d at least say "yes we know theres an issue with nvidia cards right now and were working on it". This build on holodeck ISNT THE TRIBBLE build that had the potential for improved all round engine performance. I hope the devs can sort this issue because surely this must be affecting neverwinter as well. I think its a shaders issue and the shaders have been poorly coded for nvidia but optimised with ATI.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Im sure the poster was just trying to help. A fleet mate of mine who does nothing but build custom rigs and gets heavy sponsorship from all the major companies and specialises in water cooling came back to the game yesterday. Firsth thing he said to me is "what the hell has happened to the framerate - sto is eating more frames than crysis"

    Hes running 3 nvidia 580s in tri sli. Im wondering if its an nvidia issue and ati users arnt seeing the issue. The silence from the devs is frustrating because THERE IS AN ISSUE here at least with nvidia cards and the lack of silence is ignorant. It would be appreciated if a dev coul;d at least say "yes we know theres an issue with nvidia cards right now and were working on it". This build on holodeck ISNT THE TRIBBLE build that had the potential for improved all round engine performance. I hope the devs can sort this issue because surely this must be affecting neverwinter as well. I think its a shaders issue and the shaders have been poorly coded for nvidia but optimised with ATI.

    I'm running a single nVidia GTS 450 and I'm not seeing this problem so I'm not sure it is an nVidia specific problem, or if it is then it seems it's related to specific cards. My frame rate is also higher on ESD than it was before Season 4 was released and the graphics in general are just better looking all round. Only issue I'm still having is stuttering with shadows enabled but I got used to turning them off a long time ago.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Militis wrote: »
    I'm running a single nVidia GTS 450 and I'm not seeing this problem so I'm not sure it is an nVidia specific problem, or if it is then it seems it's related to specific cards. My frame rate is also higher on ESD than it was before Season 4 was released and the graphics in general are just better looking all round. Only issue I'm still having is stuttering with shadows enabled but I got used to turning them off a long time ago.

    What would help is if you could post driver details, rig details. Typical example if you to to kronos first city and stand by the battle aren and turn /showfps 1 on and give some examples of what frames your seeing. It may be you havnt noticed the problem but I would be suprised if your not affected unless it is certain cards. With the amount of people reporting engine performance issues i still believe there is an underlying issue at hand here. If you could post that helpful info id appreciate it - thanks !!!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Hi All,

    We're working on the settings change crash.

    For people experiencing the texture quality loss: Does resetting your settings, like sabredruid did, fix the problem?

    Dave
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Also, I have a bug open on frame rate stuttering on GTX4XX and 5XX series cards - at least that's what was reported. The last serious frame stuttering problem he had on NVIDIA cards (around 190.62 I think) was a driver problem. Not necessarily the problem here, though.

    I'm not sure this command will be accessible, but try /fpsgraph 1. That shows a frame time history instead of sliding window average that /showfps 1 does. You can post a screenshot of

    I'm running a GTX 480 at the moment, and it's not showing a lot of stuttering or unusual behavior, but I have a bit of a different usage pattern than some of you. Finally, we did make some extensive lighting system changes, so perhaps those are causing one-time shader loading stalls.

    Dave
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Also, I have a bug open on frame rate stuttering on GTX4XX and 5XX series cards - at least that's what was reported. The last serious frame stuttering problem he had on NVIDIA cards (around 190.62 I think) was a driver problem. Not necessarily the problem here, though.

    I'm not sure this command will be accessible, but try /fpsgraph 1. That shows a frame time history instead of sliding window average that /showfps 1 does. You can post a screenshot of

    I'm running a GTX 480 at the moment, and it's not showing a lot of stuttering or unusual behavior, but I have a bit of a different usage pattern than some of you. Finally, we did make some extensive lighting system changes, so perhaps those are causing one-time shader loading stalls.

    Dave

    We do have access to the /fpsgraph 1 and now I have some questions about what to do from here.

    1 How do we take a screen shot that includes the UI? I hit print screen but the UI and fps graph didn't show up.

    2 What do all the different colored lines mean? I saw mostly blue with some purple and an occasional green line.

    BTW I have a single GTX 470 with the 275.33 drivers installed and at times I do get some stuttering but Im not entirely sure what the cause is.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Hi All,

    We're working on the settings change crash.

    For people experiencing the texture quality loss: Does resetting your settings, like sabredruid did, fix the problem?

    Dave

    No, it doesn't. I've tried in the past, closing a dialogue window, altering character texture and texture distance. After reinitializing dialogue, no change.

    Also, regarding my own puppet there's no change being done real time. I typically need to restart the game to get acceptable-looking textures for the slider settings I have... and those usually don't last long.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Also, I have a bug open on frame rate stuttering on GTX4XX and 5XX series cards - at least that's what was reported. The last serious frame stuttering problem he had on NVIDIA cards (around 190.62 I think) was a driver problem. Not necessarily the problem here, though.

    I'm not sure this command will be accessible, but try /fpsgraph 1. That shows a frame time history instead of sliding window average that /showfps 1 does. You can post a screenshot of

    I'm running a GTX 480 at the moment, and it's not showing a lot of stuttering or unusual behavior, but I have a bit of a different usage pattern than some of you. Finally, we did make some extensive lighting system changes, so perhaps those are causing one-time shader loading stalls.

    Dave

    Hi Dave

    Finally its nice to see a team member take note of our struggle. Running dual GTX 470 in SLI here so yup its affecting me big time sadly :-( any idea whats going on and what we can do to help the process ? any information you need or anything i can do to help here id be more than happy to help. I want to get rid of this fps problem once and for all. Is there a particular nvidia driver where the issue is less noticeable ?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Also, I have a bug open on frame rate stuttering on GTX4XX and 5XX series cards - at least that's what was reported. The last serious frame stuttering problem he had on NVIDIA cards (around 190.62 I think) was a driver problem. Not necessarily the problem here, though.

    I'm not sure this command will be accessible, but try /fpsgraph 1. That shows a frame time history instead of sliding window average that /showfps 1 does. You can post a screenshot of

    I'm running a GTX 480 at the moment, and it's not showing a lot of stuttering or unusual behavior, but I have a bit of a different usage pattern than some of you. Finally, we did make some extensive lighting system changes, so perhaps those are causing one-time shader loading stalls.

    Dave

    Damn, you have a 480? wow. :cool: I'm jealous. :) I only have a 470.

    I haven't been noticing a stuttering issue... hrm. *checks fpsgraph*
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    The fpsgraph lowered my FPS by about 10 so Im not sure how much help its really gonna be, I don't know if that will happen for everyone else.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    We do have access to the /fpsgraph 1 and now I have some questions about what to do from here.

    1 How do we take a screen shot that includes the UI? I hit print screen but the UI and fps graph didn't show up.

    /screenshot_ui_jpg
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Do any of these changes effect some of the blockiness seen across both Cryptic games?

    http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6932/renderingblocks.jpg

    Shows up on ground maps too, more often inside of the installation maps.

    I'm using an ATI Radeon 6970 with the 11.6 drivers and my card is running at a very stable temperature.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    picardalpha2clearance, the same thing happened to me as well!
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Hi Dave

    Finally its nice to see a team member take note of our struggle. Running dual GTX 470 in SLI here so yup its affecting me big time sadly :-( any idea whats going on and what we can do to help the process ? any information you need or anything i can do to help here id be more than happy to help. I want to get rid of this fps problem once and for all. Is there a particular nvidia driver where the issue is less noticeable ?

    It is indeed great to finally see someone take the time for us. I have reset some settings and after that it crashed. When I restarted and put everything in higher settings again, it crashed. When I restarted though, I had great graphics. Apart from the crashes I think it works quite well.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    AuroraKet wrote: »
    Damn, you have a 480? wow. :cool: I'm jealous. :) I only have a 470.

    I haven't been noticing a stuttering issue... hrm. *checks fpsgraph*

    I also have dual 6970s, dual GTX480s, 5870s, 4870X2, regular 4870, and on and on. And even Intel Integrated! The tradeoff is that I have to fix compatibility bugs on all of them. Thankfully I get to pass some of those bugs off to the programmers who created the bug.

    We're slowly working on all compatibility and performance bugs, but it's a long list unfortunately.

    Thanks for your patience!

    Dave
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I also have dual 6970s, dual GTX480s, 5870s, 4870X2, regular 4870, and on and on. And even Intel Integrated! The tradeoff is that I have to fix compatibility bugs on all of them. Thankfully I get to pass some of those bugs off to the programmers who created the bug.

    We're slowly working on all compatibility and performance bugs, but it's a long list unfortunately.

    Thanks for your patience!

    Dave

    Hehehe. Not too good a tradeoff, then. Though for the record, I'll post my own settings, with a single GTX470...

    1920x1080
    60hz refresh
    100 brightness
    synch/half res off
    4x antialiasing
    max lights per object and max shadows lights on highest settings
    100% world texture quality
    125% char texture quality
    100 world detail distance,
    100% terrain detail distance
    100% char detail distance
    high detail objects on
    max physics debris objects: 100
    raise settings in char creator 'on'
    (Effects)
    Post processing on
    Visual FX quality 'high'
    soft particles on
    Bloom quality high
    Bloom intensity 50% (<--- might be one to check, folks with issues)
    Screen space occlusion on
    cinematic focus on
    underwater view on
    reflection quality high
    lens flare quality high
    (Troubleshooting)
    Framerate stabilizer off
    auto-stabilize framerate off
    CPU limit: off
    multi-core rendering on
    full detail char animations on
    GPU accelerated particles on
    Reduced file streaming on
    software cursor off
    Minimum shadow buffer bias off
    reduce cpu/gpu usage off
    frame rate limit : off
    memory limit: auto

    That's with:
    Athlon x4 945 (3 ghz)
    8 gb ram
    Windows 7 64 bit
    1 gb GeForce GTX 470
    Driver version 270.61

    ...

    And I'm having no problems like they're describing, at all.

    I'm wondering if the bloom, or reduced file streaming, or something like that, might be helping...
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    single 460 here. Had to turn bloom down to 70, but everything else is maxed out. I dialed back bloom because it was just too bright. All of my stuttering with shadows enable went away once season 4 hit. Wonder why some of us with Nvidia cards got improved performance while others did not. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    boglejam wrote: »
    single 460 here. Had to turn bloom down to 70, but everything else is maxed out. I dialed back bloom because it was just too bright. All of my stuttering with shadows enable went away once season 4 hit. Wonder why some of us with Nvidia cards got improved performance while others did not. Doesn't make a lot of sense.

    That's why I dialed mine back as well. It was just WAY too bright on some things. It seems a lot better at 50% for me.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    try set antialiasing on "none"
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    Running a 3-year old laptop with this card. Before Season 4 launched, I was starting to get sound issues and some choppiness in the visuals at the same time - camera would start spinning around during fights (ground and space) for no reason - but generally didn't have too much issue on slowdown.

    Post-launch, the game is nigh on unplayable at times. Space flight is constantly choppy - sector and system - to the point where I can set course for a location and it will take 5 minutes to get there due to backtracking, where the same course would only take 30 seconds before. Ground control is next to useless - running from K-7 or Ganalda transporter room to the shipyard is impossible because the game keeps putting me back to the transporter room, or worse into walls on the opposite side of the station.

    I know it's easy to criticise, but could the Devs turn off the updates for maybe a week just to check the issues? Or is it the updates for the Ground combat causing the problems?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    I also have dual 6970s, dual GTX480s, 5870s, 4870X2, regular 4870, and on and on. And even Intel Integrated! The tradeoff is that I have to fix compatibility bugs on all of them. Thankfully I get to pass some of those bugs off to the programmers who created the bug.

    We're slowly working on all compatibility and performance bugs, but it's a long list unfortunately.

    Thanks for your patience!

    Dave

    So it wasnt us nvidia owners going crazy then ? just how bad is it dave ? how fixable is it ? i was contemplating a new rig just to be able to get the performance i use to but sli 470s surely should be enough for the game. I appreciate you cant wave a magic wand but any eta when we might see some improvements ?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited July 2011
    LoganElder wrote:
    try set antialiasing on "none"

    sigh AA will do jack s**t - season 4 caused degraded engine performance for nvidia cards (cant speak about ati) as pre season 4 performance was fantastic and i couldnt fault the game but now post season 4 engine performance is extremely bad in some places. Turning all graphic options off or reducing them to the lowest settings does nothing for me personally i still get the same fps if i have the game set on uber high or uber low. Again the engine as it is on holo has serious bugs with nvidia cards.
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