Terrible Graphics Performance

turakkatase · April 2013

I have a high end machine, but I've been getting terrible looking graphics. Note that the frame rates are pretty much fine. When I launch the game, everything looks great at max graphics, but very quickly, the game will get very blurry, not very detailed, look like a game from 10 years ago. I am not at half resolution. Lowering the anti-aliasing fixes it temporarily, but soon enough the issue occurs again. Temperatures of my GPUs and CPU are fine. I've always suspected that STO had really bad GPU usage, but Crysis 2 at max graphics is outperforming STO. Are there any known issues with STO on high end systems like this?

Also, possibly related, occasionally if I alt-tab out of the game and then back in, the game crashes with an out of video RAM error (which is impressive if STO has such a bad leak that it uses up 6GB of video RAM).

Specs:
Intel i7-3930k (3.2GHz hexcore)
2 AMD 7970s with 3GB of video RAM each running in crossfire.
32 GB of DDR3 1866 RAM.

k022 · April 2013

Bloom effects mabey?

maxvitor · April 2013

It's probably a setting in your video drivers, check your system anti-aliasing settings.
"Tent" Filters and Morphological filtering produces image softening, too much of which leaves you with a blurry image. You could also try running the game in Windowed Maximized mode instead of Full screen.

jornado · April 2013

I was having the same problem, I had it chalked up to running out of video RAM, but if you are getting it on 3gb cards, I doubt thats it, unless as you say it has an incredible memory leak.

I fixed it by unchecking the advanced settings check box in STOs graphic settings and the moving the quality slider all the way down, then all the way back up again.

The problem comes back any time I mess with view distance settings, hence why I assumed it was running out of VRAM loading all the distant detail textures, but I only have a 512mb card.

Hope that works for you!

turakkatase · April 2013

It seems to be memory. I pulled up GPU-Z and looked at my graphics card's memory utilization, and it was very high (around 2.7GB out of the card's 3GB). Lowering the view distance helped me maintain the quality longer, but it still dropped fairly quickly. I am trying to run this on three monitors, so the resolution is much higher then normal. I can run several other games at the same resolution and have no issues, so I think the issue is with STO's coding. I guess I'll drop down to one monitor and see if my memory utilization falls to a more reasonable level.

jornado · April 2013

From another thread it looks link new Romulus is an especially leaky zone, have you noticed any other places its particularly bad or is it just as bad everywhere?

Note, it may be STO just doesn't know how to control its memory usage on larger cards; after reducing my view distance I have no loss of quality on a 512mb card, and I read approximately 70mb free as a minimum at all times.

edit: that's with all view distances at a minimum of 150%.

cv01sparticas · May 2013

I am having a problem with a specific environment and I am wondering if it is a problem being created by video settings. Every time I go to my Fleet's Starbase, I am greeted on the Ops Section of the Starbase by a very very very dark environment. Now when I walk around this environment, the shadows and skybox never changes and you can even see them really well. Its just the initial environment inside the Starbase Ops section is too dark. Now when I step into the Holodeck on the same level of the Ops Section, just stepping from the hallway into the holodeck the environment brightens up and returns to what it normally is supposed to look like.

Would anyone know the problem?

tombmaster123 · May 2013

I have needed to run sto legacy of Romulus on low graphics whenever I try to play it. I normally have the graphics slider on recommended when playing the normal game and get no lag. When I try to run legacy of Romulus on recommended, I get bad lag. It seems like some areas are poorly optimized.

edrickvellorin · May 2013

tombmaster123 wrote: »

I have needed to run sto legacy of Romulus on low graphics whenever I try to play it. I normally have the graphics slider on recommended when playing the normal game and get no lag. When I try to run legacy of Romulus on recommended, I get bad lag. It seems like some areas are poorly optimized.

This probably should have been in one of the Tribble forums. If you have an Nvidia graphics card and a CPU that has a built-in video card (for example Core I3/I5/I7 or some AMD CPUs) the Tribble game client may be using the CPU's integrated video card instead of your Nvidia card. (If you have an ATI card instead, it's possible the same might happen but I don't know for sure.)

Here's a post I previously made on how to fix this for Nvidia cards:
sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=626321

lister1936 · May 2013

In the STO previous to the launch of Legacy of Romulus i?ve used the recommended vido card options. And i can play to the game with a good/normal graphics in spaces and ground. Now with the Legacy of Romulus looks worse than the STO previous to the launcher of Legacy of Romulus.

What happen with the bloom effects??, now looks very awful.

I hope that Cryptic fix that in the next week i use an Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT and intel core duo. I said that previous to the launch of the Legacy of Romulus i can play to the game in recommended settings and i haven?t much graphics problems (sometimes i have a purpple screen but this is a weird cases now-sinces i format my computer and i clean it?s internals i haven?t the problems that i had-) i can play the game with goods(normal graphics.

Another thing: Now the character and the ship looks like have more sawteeth than before the Legacy of Romulus launch.

poiuylkjhg09876 · May 2013

Dear cryptic, REALLY dropped the ball on the graphics here. Tell you're video coder to kick the drugs and get help. This would only be funny if i WAS joking. I see what the attempt was and the reasoning, it was wrong and flawed. Why is it the biggest attempts are the biggest flops?
Oh well, doesn't matter i am putting this frustration and inevitable time suck towards another vapid black hole like entity. So don't fix anything on my account, i will try my damndest to not come back.

karr007 · May 2013

So indeed LOR needs more tweak. Since the update my fps is absolute fail, it was never drasticly high before, but now i experience complete freeze and it is very often on the ground maps, doesn't matter if it is combat or social zone, space is also worse but nowhere near as ground. It is true that my configuration is a bit rare - i use amd A6 3420M APU with Radeon 6520G it aint very powerfull but it used to get the jobe done. I tried different settings but it didn't effect the fps at all.

femshep · May 2013

The problem I'm having is that the skin on my characters and crew across all factions are missing textures and showing up as black spots on their skin in game. At the character select screen the missing skin textures are causing a glowing effect with the new energy shaft that appears around and behind the main character of mine and crew.

This is really ticking me off. Before this update the graphics were fine.

tanthil · May 2013

no probs since lor. but i would like to chip in and say yes this games graphic utilization is terrible i run 2 670s and they will run around 70c. i play bf3 at max graphics and the cards run around 35-40c. i actualy bought these cards specifically for how cool and quiet they run, they still run quiet but 70c is VERY hot especialy considering the graphics they are producing are kind of low in comparison to alot of other games

renomiller · May 2013

Here's what I'm getting

http://s12.postimg.org/lk3rxmy19/2013_05_23_00001.jpg

Was never like this before the expansion, it does this hourly, I have to exit and load launcher to fix it but it doesn't stay fixed.

It's very distracting, and since it wasn't a problem before I hope you fix it.

nanomorph · May 2013

One graphics glitch that I've noticed that might shed some light on this is that the rendering performance is now on par with how the game was prior to the expansion, if you had SSAO turned on. Turning SSAO on incurs no additional performance penalty.

So what I'm basically saying is that turning SSAO off doesn't result in an expected boost to framerate.

New Romulus is the worst area for this too. Framerate used to be in the mid-30s (with SSAO off), now it's easily half that (using an ATI 4890).

lister1936 · May 2013

renomiller wrote: »

Here's what I'm getting

http://s12.postimg.org/lk3rxmy19/2013_05_23_00001.jpg

Was never like this before the expansion, it does this hourly, I have to exit and load launcher to fix it but it doesn't stay fixed.

It's very distracting, and since it wasn't a problem before I hope you fix it.

I see my character a little best but this the way of the graphics performance for my.

darkfader1988 · May 2013

I can feel both the increased load on both my High end Pc and my older laptop, both performance dropped with the same graphics settings.

kirisee · May 2013

The game graphics have been updated all through the game, much higher res now. I'm not having any problems except for getting a message box right after the launcher starts to load the game, then i must pick a lower resolution and then the game starts just fine.

Weird part is it then goes back to full high res mode lol.

To OP, I see your running your 2 video cards in Crossfire mode while playing the game? I've read from alot of places that running in Crossfire is not such a great idea for some games if it's not supported....and i don't think STO supports it...might try turning off the mode and try the game again....just an idea

trickypingu · May 2013

I had a similar issue. Try going to the Troubleshooting section on the Video tab, and right at the very bottom change the memory doodad (I changed from AUTO to 1064+) - It solved the problem for me, and its worth a shot

drepanon · May 2013

Yes, After LOR I cannot play (when and if I can log in) I have a motion sickness issue and certain gaming engines cause me to become dizzy and nauseous... I started playing STO while out of work from a surgery for 6 weeks and I pretty much played this night and day ever since... with the release of LOR I cant play 15 minuets without feeling that dizzy feeling... not sure what changed graphically but it may mean its time for me to fine another game.

and I waited a few years to find a game I enjoyed... oh well.

: (

Hoping somehow its a temporary difference but I've played other games for years and then a major patch changes the client and its over for me.

colonelchenchuan · May 2013

kirisee wrote: »

The game graphics have been updated all through the game, much higher res now.

Actually that isnt true. They arent "higher" res. This was explained in the BETA. They graphics were not "upgraded" but "updated". So some textures llok worse because its more noticble.

Regarding the OP. There seems to be a huge issue with viewing distance. Its way way way off IMO.

There are some textures that actually load the lower grade version when you get next to them. Others dont load the "better" texture until you are on top of it. Somethings at a distance are sharp and clear while things close up are muddy. Just moving slightly can cause a texture to switch between the "distant" version and the "close" version.

If you want to see a example of every issue with the new Textures, simply play Boldly They Rode. The outside portion is a master class on whats wrong.

Terrible Graphics Performance

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