About Time They Sorted Graphics Out

jelly0 · August 2014

Seriously, getting sick of being in groups larger than 5 people.

If you are going to show me everyone elses weapons firing around me, SHOW MINE AS WELL.

This has always been a big problem and I thought it would go away when I had a system I could run the game at full graphics on but nooooooooooooo.

http://i.imgur.com/S4yCr4V.jpg

lianthelia · August 2014

Yeah it gets annoying for sure. Why do I care about others weapon fire and effects when I can't see mine and in some cases can't even see my own shields. Sometimes I swear I can't see shards...I can't see shields or shard and next thing I know *boom* I'm dead when flying my little T'Varo...

monkeybone13 · August 2014

It's been a problem with the Crystalline Entity event since season 9 launched. Before that I could have the game settings on high and everything ran smoothly with little to graphics lag and all weapons and effects showed up.

I go to the Undine space battlezone and the more players in a single spot, the more graphics lag I get. It makes the whole game stutter where everything on screen and the sounds moves for a split second then stops for a split second over and over again until the enemies are gone and nobody is shooting anything.

ussintercept · August 2014

lianthelia wrote: »

Yeah it gets annoying for sure. Why do I care about others weapon fire and effects when I can't see mine and in some cases can't even see my own shields. Sometimes I swear I can't see shards...I can't see shields or shard and next thing I know *boom* I'm dead when flying my little T'Varo...

My current issue is I cant see the shards coming at me in Elite CC. So Im constantly being pummeled by The Crystalline Entity.

And since Im a Cannon geared Tac/Escort Captain. I get it even worse since I cant simply turn to a new shield facing when my front facing goes down. Fortunately I only seem to go down about once a round to the random two shards following each other. But its still annoying that I can see everyone elses rainbow beams but not the very enemy Im facing.

coolheadal · August 2014

Change the maps in 8472 to fewer players instead of 15/16 players. I know it will get choppy at the Planet Killer so I go for the Undine Ships instead of the Planet Killer.

orondis · August 2014

I do find it rather funny that my computer can run Star Citizen without much of an issue, while STO clunks away causing my computer to heat up.

captainleavitt · August 2014

orondis wrote: »

I do find it rather funny that my computer can run Star Citizen without much of an issue, while STO clunks away causing my computer to heat up.

This! Oh so much this! I can max out star citizen and it causes no problems whatsoever which is a million times more gpu and cpu taxing then sto but yet the ui in this game is so bad that sometimes my entire ship vanishes and I have no clue what direction I'm facing or where I'm shooting cause I can't see my weapons either.

Unfortunately this will never get fixed because it doesn't generate income for cryptic and if it does ever get fixed, it will be a miracle. I completely expect the graphics to break down even further in X2 since something always breaks when they release stuff.

coolheadal · August 2014

orondis wrote: »

I do find it rather funny that my computer can run Star Citizen without much of an issue, while STO clunks away causing my computer to heat up.

Yeah but that's a different type of game engine used and different company etc. STO high end. Are you on laptop instead of full desktop PC. I know this game can use lower settings instead of using the Max settings I use that on my Desktop PC here.

coolheadal · August 2014

captainleavitt wrote: »

This! Oh so much this! I can max out star citizen and it causes no problems whatsoever which is a million times more gpu and cpu taxing then sto but yet the ui in this game is so bad that sometimes my entire ship vanishes and I have no clue what direction I'm facing or where I'm shooting cause I can't see my weapons either.

Unfortunately this will never get fixed because it doesn't generate income for cryptic and if it does ever get fixed, it will be a miracle. I completely expect the graphics to break down even further in X2 since something always breaks when they release stuff.

Can't compare these the other game with this one. Of course they would need to shutdown the game and install expensive servers and redo the Game Engine along with new coding. If they did it right would really have test models local and say in Europe to see how everything is flowing. Since there are mostly 15/16 players in 8472 limit that number and spawn out less 8472 contacts and Goo/Bubble.

Voth Ground Zone can be taxing at times too. Like way to many things going on and you can see the Game Engine start to do the choppy hustle..

captainleavitt · August 2014

coolheadal wrote: »

Can't compare these the other game with this one. Of course they would need to shutdown the game and install expensive servers and redo the Game Engine along with new coding. If they did it right would really have test models local and say in Europe to see how everything is flowing. Since there are mostly 15/16 players in 8472 limit that number and spawn out less 8472 contacts and Goo/Bubble.

Voth Ground Zone can be taxing at times too. Like way to many things going on and you can see the Game Engine start to do the choppy hustle..

This is the thing though. Not too long ago people with somewhat low end pc's didn't have too many if any at all ui problems within sto. Very recently and I mean very recently framerates have sunk to all time lows. The best solution would be to overhaul the engine but I understand that is not a feasable option for many reasons.

What cryptic needs to do is better optimize and tweak the existing code so it's not a complete cluster ****. The problem of doing that is I'm willing to bet that the total lack of fixing many and many of the bugs over the years has directly contributed to the ui breakdown.

The point I'm trying to make is that even with all the new spam going on in battles cryptic could easily fix up there code to make it more stable. The problem here is that they would have to take time out of making scam boxes to have a programmer go in and clean up the code abit and there going to be extremely reluctant to do it since it would cut into there profit margin.

inkrunner · August 2014

Their outdated engine is struggling under the vast amount of FX, textures, and shaders etc. that they've been adding to it.

Without a serious infrastructure overhaul, the performance will likely continue to deteriorate, the end result being a game that is unplayable regardless of system specs.

Game engines aren't immortal, Cryptic.

reynoldsxd · August 2014

I think it is more a case of "the guy who created it is not around in the company anymore" and the rest simply does not have a clue what they are doing.

This actually is quite common in software development.

hypl · August 2014

This is the main reason why I stopped spending money on this game. No matter how much awe-inspiring or revolutionary game content is added to this game, the experience will always feel like an old, outdated, sluggish, low-res, glitched-out, bug ridden mess.

Star Trek Online is pretty on the outside, but internally it's a [REDACTED].

thedoctorbluebox · August 2014

The graphics engine of this game needs a major overhaul. It cannot keep up with all the npcs, ships, and graphic effects on the screen at one time. The more they add, the worse it is getting.

baudl · August 2014

If they can't fix the engine, they should atleast try to decrease the number of NPC ships and player ships at any given time (more instances, fewer NPC ships with more HP)

Undine zone is freaking rediculous with 15 people...5 is enough anyway, maybe it would actually be a challenge then to kill all 3 planetkillers in time.

Same with crystaline catasprophy...it is more than doable with only 5 people (2 are AFK anyway most of the time, and another 2 blow up constantly)

thedoctorbluebox · August 2014

IMO reducing what you see on screen is not the answer, just a shortcut.

They need to fix the underlying problem.

ussintercept · August 2014

baudl wrote: »

If they can't fix the engine, they should atleast try to decrease the number of NPC ships and player ships at any given time (more instances, fewer NPC ships with more HP)

Undine zone is freaking rediculous with 15 people...5 is enough anyway, maybe it would actually be a challenge then to kill all 3 planetkillers in time.

Same with crystaline catasprophy...it is more than doable with only 5 people (2 are AFK anyway most of the time, and another 2 blow up constantly)

The problem with that is the area is quite large. And if you dont blitzkreg the map quick enough areas of the map will be 're - taken' by the Undine. Forcing you to back track to those areas and re-secure them. It happens all the time even when youre in a 15+ manned map. I seriously doubt 3-5 players would be able to anything besides cut down on the spam that forces your game to pretend things are invisible.

As for the Crystalline Entity. This is a simple too many things going on at once problem that was directly caused by the overhauls done by Cryptic to make it 'more' interesting. Theres just too many moving parts and individual mobs involved for it to work properly.

I understand they wish to provide us an overwhelming experience that makes us feel like we're truely apart of some Epic Space Battle but if the engine cant take it. They should know better then to aim for it.

zipagat · August 2014

Yeah it would be great if I could see what my ship is doing rather than another player. Not being able to see my own shield and weapons is really not helpful especially when I can see the persons next to me just fine.

aelfwin1 · August 2014

orondis wrote: »

I do find it rather funny that my computer can run Star Citizen without much of an issue, while STO clunks away causing my computer to heat up.

Agreed with the OP and with the above .

Considering that owners of modern graphics cards have not reported a single benefit from the Season 9 graphics update, yet plenty of people complained about graphics issues and overheating, I think it's time that Cryptic takes a look at reverting the STO back to a per-Season 9 graphics status .

If they can't optimize the new coding then revert it back .
They will be doing themselves and their new / old players a favor .
I hate to think X2 will lunch with the way things stand now .

bones1970 · August 2014

grafix after season 9 patch, nws wave 6 and higher is so bad that you need to play it at lowest grafix settings.
Before that patch every thing was on highest setting and working perfectly !!!
I agree with aelfwin1: If they can't optimize the new coding then revert it back .

thescottyb · August 2014

I think < this > is what the game engine feels like it's being asked to deal with.

About Time They Sorted Graphics Out

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