Low-resolution faces when "Lighting 2.0" is turned off

frtoaster · March 2017

Holodeck ticket 4,378,482 (submitted on 03/09/2017)

When I tried to submit this bug report in-game, I received the following error message:

[System] [TicketError] Profanity detected in description; this is not allowed.

Therefore, I submitted a report with a link to this forum thread. As you can see, my bug report contains no profanity.

Player characters, bridge officers, and NPCs have low-resolution faces if "Lighting 2.0" is turned off. This problem started after the patch on March 9, 2017. The problem remains even if I set "Character detail distance" and "Character texture detail" to maximum. The problem does not occur if "Lighting 2.0" is turned on, but you should not assume that everyone has "Lighting 2.0" enabled. People running the game without "Lighting 2.0" have been poorly supported since "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts" was released. For example, ship reflections are still too bright when "Lighting 2.0" is turned off. See the bug reports below.

Holodeck ticket 4,132,213: Surfaces of ships too bright and reflective
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1224112/surfaces-of-ships-too-bright-and-reflective

Holodeck ticket 4,132,215: Bloom increased on ships
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1224113/bloom-increased-on-ships

Screenshots

Compare the "Before" and "After" screenshots below.

Player Characters

Alien female
Before (08/16/2015): http://i.imgur.com/pFMNcV0.jpg
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/YeUz2jz.png

Vulcan female
Before (08/16/2015): http://i.imgur.com/z2Pp3Vv.jpg
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/0Q0Dd9I.png

Bridge Officers

Trill female
Before (08/17/2015): http://i.imgur.com/vHK1yW7.jpg
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/VUZ2iV8.jpg

Andorian female
Before (08/17/2015): http://i.imgur.com/Rltb7ia.jpg
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/CGbpzor.jpg

NPCs

Admiral T'nae
Before (08/16/2015): http://i.imgur.com/VbmyijG.png
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/Vpn5Qtg.png

Commander Viala
Before (10/02/2016): http://i.imgur.com/sYFFDcc.png
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/pzMRP4j.png

Chief Ch'Shen
Before (10/02/2016): http://i.imgur.com/zIHjcyG.png
After (03/09/2017): http://i.imgur.com/dBd3VQd.png

Steps to reproduce

1. Install the following build:

Version: ST.71.20170212a.15
SVN build number: 205815
Release: Season 12
Holodeck patch date: 03/02/2017

2. Start the game, turn "Lighting 2.0" off, and set "Lighting quality" to "High".
3. Take screenshots of your characters, your bridge officers, and NPCs.
4. Exit the game and install the following build:

Version: ST.71.20170212a.20
SVN build number: 206311
Release: Season 12
Holodeck patch date: 03/09/2017

5. Restart the game and take screenshots of the same characters, bridge officers, and NPCs.
6. Compare the screenshots from the two builds.

Graphics Settings

Holodeck 03/03/2017
http://i.imgur.com/4UTSbPm.png
http://i.imgur.com/8yIlk0A.png
http://i.imgur.com/aBr5391.png

System Information

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), Service Pack 1
CPU: Intel Core i7-4700MQ
RAM: 12 GB
Video card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M (2 GB GDDR5)

where2r1 · March 2017

In your NPC window examples....the background is much more blurry in the "afters", as well. So, not just the character, itself....it is just over all more blurry.

Edit....Oh, looking closer to the other examples...same thing, back grounds are more blurry, too.

What causes that?

I switched back to Lighting 2.0 off, BTW. I rather have the gamma turned to 110% with Lighting 2.0 off...than run with Lighting 2.0 on. Too many unevenly lit locations on the KDF side....though kudos on the First City map.

frtoaster · March 2017

where2r1 wrote: »

In your NPC window examples....the background is much more blurry in the "afters", as well. So, not just the character, itself....it is just over all more blurry.

Edit....Oh, looking closer to the other examples...same thing, back grounds are more blurry, too.

What causes that?

I switched back to Lighting 2.0 off, BTW. I rather have the gamma turned to 110% with Lighting 2.0 off...than run with Lighting 2.0 on. Too many unevenly lit locations on the KDF side....though kudos on the First City map.

The problem with the faces started with the patch on March 9, 2017. The blurry backgrounds are older; those problems started with "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts".

Holodeck ticket 4,134,286: Depth of field too shallow in contact window
Holodeck ticket 4,134,293: Depth of field too shallow in the tailor and ship tailor

According to Thomas Marrone, the blurry background in the contact window is intended.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/5t6z6r/lukari_science_vessel_viewscreen_overlay_seriously/ddofomh/

thomasmarrone wrote:

Thank you for your feedback. My understanding is that this was an intentional change. I will pass along your feedback but I don't think this will go back to the way it was.

I don't know why anyone would want to look at blurry backgrounds, but that's what he said.

The problem with the tailor background can't be intended, because it doesn't even work right when "Lighting 2.0" is turned on, though the two cases are broken in different ways. Here's what I discovered the last time I tested it.

frtoaster wrote: »

I decided to retest this bug. I'm seeing different behavior from what khamseenair reported. I'm not sure whether that's due to differences in our graphics settings, differences in our computer specs, or changes to the code that were made in Season 12.

1. Contrary to what khamseenair said, I'm not seeing any differences whether "Screen-space ambient occlusion" is on or off.

2. In the ship tailor, I see a blurry background whether "Lighting 2.0" is on or off and whether "Screen-space ambient occlusion" is on or off.

3. When "Lighting 2.0" is off, I see a blurry background the first time I visit the tailor. Changing the tailor lighting temporarily fixes the issue, even if you simply reselect "Default Lighting". If you exit and reopen the tailor once, the issue will remain fixed. However, if you exit and reopen the tailor twice, the issue will return.

4. When "Lighting 2.0" is on, I see a star field the first time I visit the tailor. Changing the tailor lighting causes the star field to disappear; it gets replaced by a completely blank background. This happens even if you simply reselect "Default Lighting". If you exit and reopen the tailor once, the blank background is still there. However, if you exit and reopen the tailor twice, the star field will return.

I'm not sure why the tailor requires you to exit and reopen it twice in order to reset the lighting state.

Besides the blurry backgrounds, there are a number of graphics issues that remain unfixed, most of them dating back to "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts". There's the problem with ship reflections that I mentioned above.

frtoaster wrote: »

For example, ship reflections are still too bright when "Lighting 2.0" is turned off. See the bug reports below.

Holodeck ticket 4,132,213: Surfaces of ships too bright and reflective
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1224112/surfaces-of-ships-too-bright-and-reflective

Holodeck ticket 4,132,215: Bloom increased on ships
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1224113/bloom-increased-on-ships

There's also this bug in the Nimbus System:

Holodeck ticket 4,230,963: Nimbus and space station too dark when "Lighting 2.0" is off

And this bug on Risa:

Holodeck ticket 4,171,546: The day/night cycle on Risa is broken

Other issues that come to mind:

1. You can't see the purple halo and the purple "warp trails" of the Future Flyer if you turn "Lighting 2.0" off and set "Reflection quality" to "High"; the water outshines the visual effect. If you turn off both "Lighting 2.0" and reflections, then you can barely make out the purple, but basically the halo and "warp trails" don't look right unless "Lighting 2.0" is turned on.

2. The code that generates the 2D maps hasn't been working right since "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts". I know they've made at least two attempts to fix it, but it's still not quite right. The most prominent examples I can think of right now are (a) the orange pixels in the 2D map of the Sierra System and (b) the huge squares in the 2D map of Risa and the smaller black square around the dance floor.

P.S. Risa is actually a complete mess right now. I made a list two months ago:

http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13144129#Comment_13144129

But there are so many things wrong with Risa that I make at least half a dozen more bug reports about it.

alcyoneserene · March 2017

Bug looks even worse than the long standing, unacknowledged pixelated faces bug that was present before lighting 2.0 and still persists.

frtoaster · March 2017

alcyoneserene wrote: »

Bug looks even worse than the long standing, unacknowledged pixelated faces bug that was present before lighting 2.0 and still persists.

Can you clarify which "pixelated faces" bug you are referring to?

Here are the bugs I'm aware of affecting the face from before "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts".

Holodeck ticket 3,687,942: Undocumented change to female noses

This change happened between July 11, 2015, and August 2, 2015. I told crypticjoejing about this bug, and he said they would look into it. I never found out the results of that investigation, but the noses were never changed back to the way they looked before.

Holodeck ticket 3,763,008: Strange bump beneath the noses of female NPCs

I also told crypticjoejing about this bug. He said it was a problem with the normal map, and the bug has since been fixed.

Holodeck ticket 3,489,666: Low-resolution textures on outfits, skin, and hair

This bug was never fixed, though I'm sure Cryptic is aware of it, since callevista commented in the thread. I noticed the bug on Risa during the summer event of 2015. It seems to occur most often when there are a lot of people around and when I switch between multiple characters; both of these conditions are common during the summer event. Here's what I think is causing the bug: When the client runs out of memory for textures, it begins to load smaller, lower-quality textures instead of unloading the textures that are no longer in use to free up memory. If you restart the client, the bug goes away (at least temporarily), because all that memory has been freed.

In contrast, the problem with the faces that started on March 9, 2017, doesn't seem to be a memory issue. I notice it immediately after logging in, and it doesn't go away if I restart. I think it might be a lighting issue. It reminds me of how faces look when "Lighting quality" is set to "Low". Ironically, faces look better now with "Lighting quality" set to "Low" than they do with "Lighting quality" set to "High". I'm guessing that Cryptic forgot to enable certain lighting effects when "Lighting 2.0" is off and "Lighting quality" is set to "High".

where2r1 · March 2017

frtoaster wrote: »

The problem with the faces started with the patch on March 9, 2017. The blurry backgrounds are older; those problems started with "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts".

Look again, Frtoaster.

Look at your BEFORE pics....next to your AFTER pics.
I can tell that ALL of it is blurrier....not just the NPCs faces.

SO, if BEFORE pics are effected by the blurry backgrounds from "Agents of Yesterday" (which is a stylistic change)....the AFTER backgrounds have another level of blurry on top of that after the March 9, 2017 patch.
And whatever they did with the March 9th patch, has spread to make NPC and Character faces lose details.

frtoaster · March 2017

where2r1 wrote: »

Look again, Frtoaster.

Look at your BEFORE pics....next to your AFTER pics.
I can tell that ALL of it is blurrier....not just the NPCs faces.

SO, if BEFORE pics are effected by the blurry backgrounds from "Agents of Yesterday" (which is a stylistic change)....the AFTER backgrounds have another level of blurry on top of that after the March 9, 2017 patch.
And whatever they did with the March 9th patch, has spread to make NPC and Character faces lose details.

I'm sorry if I was unclear. The "Before" screenshots in my bug report are from before "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts". Unfortunately, I don't have very many screenshots from the time between the release of "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts" (October 25, 2016) and March 9, 2017. I do have one of Ensign Lessa taken on February 26, 2017.

Ensign Lessa
Holodeck 02/26/2017: http://i.imgur.com/rw09h0u.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/l2kXNav.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/S3trR8p.png (Lighting 2.0: On)

I also have a few screenshots from the time when "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts" was on Tribble.

Commander Viala
Holodeck 10/02/2016: http://i.imgur.com/sYFFDcc.png (Lighting quality: High)
Tribble 10/02/2016: http://i.imgur.com/QYmcnGV.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/09/2017: http://i.imgur.com/pzMRP4j.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/cyXo8Tb.png (Lighting 2.0: On)

Chief Ch'Shen
Holodeck 10/02/2016: http://i.imgur.com/zIHjcyG.png (Lighting quality: High)
Tribble 10/02/2016: http://i.imgur.com/ZqeZIBC.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/09/2017: http://i.imgur.com/dBd3VQd.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/1XVnoUy.png (Lighting 2.0: On)

I hope that makes things clearer. The blurry backgrounds started with "Agents of Yesterday: Artifacts"; the loss of facial detail started on March 9, 2017. In my judgment, the two issues have different causes: The blurry backgrounds were caused by a change in depth of field, and the loss of facial detail was caused by a change in lighting. Turning on "Lighting 2.0" restores the detail to the faces.

frtoaster wrote: »

In contrast, the problem with the faces that started on March 9, 2017, doesn't seem to be a memory issue. I notice it immediately after logging in, and it doesn't go away if I restart. I think it might be a lighting issue. It reminds me of how faces look when "Lighting quality" is set to "Low". Ironically, faces look better now with "Lighting quality" set to "Low" than they do with "Lighting quality" set to "High". I'm guessing that Cryptic forgot to enable certain lighting effects when "Lighting 2.0" is off and "Lighting quality" is set to "High".

Here are two more examples to illustrate the point I was making earlier. Much of the facial detail is missing when "Lighting 2.0" is off and "Lighting quality" is set to "High". And as you can see from the screenshots, the bug seems to affect the winter coat as well.

Example 1
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/OjEqlxu.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: Low)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/1aNordL.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/B1DDbLF.png (Lighting 2.0: On)

Example 2
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/RlCVeVq.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: Low)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/Rh6DfH9.png (Lighting 2.0: Off; Lighting quality: High)
Holodeck 03/13/2017: http://i.imgur.com/1m8c90i.png (Lighting 2.0: On)

NOTE: When "Lighting 2.0" is on, "Lighting quality" is automatically set to "High".

where2r1 · March 2017

OK. I think I get it: Lighting options should not be messing with the details we are seeing on our monitors.

Except they are. At least on your examples.

I can mess with Lighting Quality on or off when I go to Risa today to grab some screen shots, later. Should I leave shadows turned off? Or turn those back on? I have to scroll back and look at your settings.

Edit: Just looking at the settings...you have Ambient Occlusion set to OFF. From what I recall...turning that on and off changed the shading for me.

Could that be part of the problem, too?

where2r1 · March 2017

OK... first run through... just using the settings I have set up...had to come back here to get your settings.

Double check this, Frtoaster:
POST PROCESSING ON = blurry backgrounds on NPC windows.
POST PROCESSING OFF = sharp background on NPC windows.

Edit: Wasn't Post Processing the thing that was turning off water for me everywhere, when I was testing the new lighting stuff on Tribble? Ugh...I have to go back and look that up.

Wasn't there something in the notes recently that they fixed the water thing? You were saying the problem with the NPC windows background was that the FOV (field of view) was wrong? How is the water related to that???

That was the only setting I remember you had: Post Processing ON.
Now, let me grab the rest of your settings and hit Risa, again.

++++++++++++++++

Edit, again: With your settings....(how in the heck do you live with the shadows looking like this???? Well, I don't have a great monitor so...that could be it).

First of all...can not turn Post Processing to off with Lighting 2.0...because it switches to ON and grays out, can't even select off. (BTW...on my settings everything under Post Processing is OFF and no Lighting 2.0).

But the weirdness switches radial buttons, anyways.

CINEMATIC FOCUS: ON = blurry background in the NPC window....it, also, blurring out the edges of the NPC itself.

CINEMATIC FOCUS: OFF = sharp background and NPC looks normal.

I have to go look up my water disappearing on Tribble comment and see if it was Post Processing or the Cinematic Focus that was messing with that.

+++++++++++++++++++

Edit, again..... I found the post that contains my comment about water disappearing on this thread here:

http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/comment/13075728

I am seeing water and icons on top of NPCs disappear when I turn "Cinematic Focus"/depth of field to OFF (in the Graphics tab of options). BUT this happens only when Lighting 2.0 setting is ON.

Water is on First City at that Fire Fountain (just to be clear, it is where the Judge, Nexa and the 2 Romulan talking to each other sit, outside the Exchange/Bank room). And I am looking at the Menbet, Security Officer, Torbak and Trenk in the main room of the Ganalda Station.

There is no change to the water or NPC icons when Lighting 2.0 is OFF (they are always there)....whether Cinematic Focus is on or off.

THIS looks like a/the problem with Cinematic Focus...on or off. Again. Because the post before mine...dragonsbite noted he was seeing blurry NPCs tied to Cinematic Focus.

++++++++++++++++++

Well, one nice thing about testing with Post Processing turned ON.... I notice that the jagged edges on straight lines disappear.

(Hey, my power board is still running under water, instead of surfing the top! And that thing with animation on the jets of the Superior Floater, still not working right. They got a lot of work to do before Risa is ready for Summer Event)

frtoaster · March 2017

where2r1 wrote: »

OK. I think I get it: Lighting options should not be messing with the details we are seeing on our monitors.

Except they are. At least on your examples.

You should see fewer details on the face if "Lighting quality" is set to "Low". Prior to March 9, 2017, there were more details on the face when "Lighting quality" was set to "High" and "Lighting 2.0" was turned off. Now, you only see those details when "Lighting 2.0" is turned on.

where2r1 wrote: »

Edit: Just looking at the settings...you have Ambient Occlusion set to OFF. From what I recall...turning that on and off changed the shading for me.

Could that be part of the problem, too?

I doubt it. I remember changing the following settings to the highest possible and restarting the game. I saw the same problem after restarting. The only thing that seems to get rid of it is turning "Lighting 2.0" on.

Screen-space ambient occlusion: On
Shadows: High
Max lights per object: 5
Max shadowed lights: 3
Character detail distance: Max
Character texture detail: 200%

where2r1 wrote: »

Double check this, Frtoaster:
POST PROCESSING ON = blurry backgrounds on NPC windows.
POST PROCESSING OFF = sharp background on NPC windows.

I might be wrong about this, but I believe turning off post-processing turns off everything in that section:

Bloom
Screen-space ambient occlusion
Cinematic focus (depth of field)
Lens Flare
Underwater view

where2r1 wrote: »

Wasn't there something in the notes recently that they fixed the water thing? You were saying the problem with the NPC windows background was that the FOV (field of view) was wrong? How is the water related to that???

The blurry backgrounds are caused by a change in depth of field. Field of view is something else: it refers how wide an angle you can see. Water should not be related to depth of field; that was a bug.

where2r1 wrote: »

Edit, again: With your settings....(how in the heck do you live with the shadows looking like this???? Well, I don't have a great monitor so...that could be it).

Probably because I'm used to it?

where2r1 wrote: »

CINEMATIC FOCUS: ON = blurry background in the NPC window....it, also, blurring out the edges of the NPC itself.

CINEMATIC FOCUS: OFF = sharp background and NPC looks normal.

I have to go look up my water disappearing on Tribble comment and see if it was Post Processing or the Cinematic Focus that was messing with that.

"Cinematic focus" is just another name STO uses for depth of field. If you turn off post-processing, depth of field also gets disabled. Post-processing isn't a separate effect by itself; it's a category under which several effects get grouped. Turning off post-processing disables all of those effects.

Depth of field used to be used sparingly, for example, to blur the background in certain cut-scenes and put focus on the people or objects at the front. That's only temporary, however, and the depth of field returns to normal when the scene ends. Now, blurry backgrounds are in every contact window, as well as the tailor and ship tailor. And the way it works in the tailor can't be intended, because it makes no sense.

http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13161521#Comment_13161521

where2r1 wrote: »

(Hey, my power board is still running under water, instead of surfing the top! And that thing with animation on the jets of the Superior Floater, still not working right. They got a lot of work to do before Risa is ready for Summer Event)

Yes, submerged powerboards have been an issue for a while now. When you say "jets", are you referring to the flames that come out of the thrusters or to thrusters themselves? I noted these issues with floater thrusters a while ago:

frtoaster wrote: »

4. Floaters

(a) On males, the side thrusters and wing thrusters of superior floaters do not rotate.

(b) The left and right thruster rotations are not symmetric. When you move left by pressing the Q key, the thrusters rotate by a different angle than they do when you move right by pressing the E key. The difference can be a bit hard to see, but after checking several times, I'm sure that the angles are different. I tested this using standard floaters on males and superior and standard floaters on females; I didn't test enhanced floaters, because I don't have any on my characters. The problem affects both the side thrusters and the wing thrusters. Note that standard floaters do not have wing thrusters.

(c) The rear thruster on (both male and female) superior floaters are still the wrong size.

where2r1 · March 2017

Well...if you want your NPC Windows to look the way you like it (sharp back grounds and unsmudged faces), you may have to run with "Cinematic Focus" turned OFF....until Cryptic fixes whatever ails it. OR forever....which ever comes first.

Except...I believe something ELSE is going on with that Post Processing radial button (not just the settings listed underneath it). Because even with ALL the other buttons turned OFF. It is clearing up the jagged edges.

Did you miss that at the end there:
"Well, one nice thing about testing with Post Processing turned ON.... I notice that the jagged edges on straight lines disappear."

I will verify it again (next time I am on the game)....a good reboot never hurts this poor program every once in a while. Yes, I am considering turning Bloom, Ambient Occlusion, Cinematic Focus, Lens Flare and Underwater View to OFF...but leave Post Processing ON...just to get rid of the jagged edges in the over all picture.

Do you know if Post Processing is connected to anti-aliasing?

++++++++++++++++

As for shadows...well, that could just be the way my monitor reflects those particular settings you are using. (You are on a laptop??)

Underwater power boards, messes mightily with the jumping over things while riding the power board....even on my Ferasan.

On the Floaters: beats me what you are calling "thrusters". The parts that I am talking about are the things on it that look like flames. None of it looks right.

None of the "flame-looking-thingies" rotate with the direction you are asking the floater to move up or down. I swear the top set of "flame-looking-thingies" used to swivel to denote movement and...I don't remember the "flame-looking-thingies" on the main body of the unit being ON all the time at "full blast".

There is no night nor day cycle...that should mess up finding the accolades (Mok'bara, Fireworks, Trill/Klingon fight) and Pavyl.

frtoaster · March 2017

where2r1 wrote: »

Except...I believe something ELSE is going on with that Post Processing radial button (not just the settings listed underneath it). Because even with ALL the other buttons turned OFF. It is clearing up the jagged edges.

Did you miss that at the end there:
"Well, one nice thing about testing with Post Processing turned ON.... I notice that the jagged edges on straight lines disappear."

I will verify it again (next time I am on the game)....a good reboot never hurts this poor program every once in a while. Yes, I am considering turning Bloom, Ambient Occlusion, Cinematic Focus, Lens Flare and Underwater View to OFF...but leave Post Processing ON...just to get rid of the jagged edges in the over all picture.

Do you know if Post Processing is connected to anti-aliasing?

It's possible that turning off post-processing also disables anti-aliasing; I'm not sure. Maybe, a dev can clarify what exactly is and isn't included in post-processing.

where2r1 wrote: »

As for shadows...well, that could just be the way my monitor reflects those particular settings you are using. (You are on a laptop??)

Yes, I am on a laptop.

where2r1 wrote: »

On the Floaters: beats me what you are calling "thrusters". The parts that I am talking about are the things on it that look like flames. None of it looks right.

None of the "flame-looking-thingies" rotate with the direction you are asking the floater to move up or down. I swear the top set of "flame-looking-thingies" used to swivel to denote movement and...I don't remember the "flame-looking-thingies" on the main body of the unit being ON all the time at "full blast".

By "thrusters", I mean the nozzles on the jet pack. I believe what you're noticing is that the nozzles don't rotate on male superior floaters. The flames coming out of the nozzles don't rotate either, but that's probably a symptom of the nozzles not rotating. The main thruster in rear of the floater shouldn't fire unless you press the space bar; the thrusters on the sides of the floater should fire during other movements. If you're seeing something different, that may be a bug. Incidentally, the main thruster in the rear is still the wrong size, even though they tried to fix it once before long ago.

http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/comment/13144129#Comment_13144129

frtoaster wrote: »

4. Floaters

(a) On males, the side thrusters and wing thrusters of superior floaters do not rotate.

(b) The left and right thruster rotations are not symmetric. When you move left by pressing the Q key, the thrusters rotate by a different angle than they do when you move right by pressing the E key. The difference can be a bit hard to see, but after checking several times, I'm sure that the angles are different. I tested this using standard floaters on males and superior and standard floaters on females; I didn't test enhanced floaters, because I don't have any on my characters. The problem affects both the side thrusters and the wing thrusters. Note that standard floaters do not have wing thrusters.

(c) The rear thruster on (both male and female) superior floaters are still the wrong size.

frtoaster · March 2017

As of March 15, 2017, this bug is fixed on Tribble. Unfortunately, they also changed or removed several graphics options.

Holodeck 03/15/2017: http://imgur.com/a/i01fc
Tribble 03/15/2017: http://imgur.com/a/BAU1f

I noticed that Starfleet Academy is darker than before. That's probably because the new setting "Bloom quality: On" corresponds to the old setting "Bloom quality: Low". Other maps that depend heavily on bloom for lighting, such as Risa and Nimbus, are probably darker as well; I will have to check later.

I'll probably be starting a new thread about these changes soon.

where2r1 · March 2017

frtoaster wrote: »

I noticed that Starfleet Academy is darker than before. That's probably because the new setting "Bloom quality: On" corresponds to the old setting "Bloom quality: Low". Other maps that depend heavily on bloom for lighting, such as Risa and Nimbus, are probably darker as well; I will have to check later.

Ugh...that's a long flight to Nimbus just to check bloom!!

Anyhoo...YES on my one (and only) male character when I was on Risa and watching the Floaters.
You mean, it works correctly on the female characters? I guess, that would be why I think it looks blatantly weird....I am usually on female characters.

frtoaster · March 2017

where2r1 wrote: »

Ugh...that's a long flight to Nimbus just to check bloom!!

Anyhoo...YES on my one (and only) male character when I was on Risa and watching the Floaters.
You mean, it works correctly on the female characters? I guess, that would be why I think it looks blatantly weird....I am usually on female characters.

The last time I tested this, thrusters rotated on female superior floaters, as well as both male and female standard floaters. I did not test enhanced floaters, because I don't have any. There is also a slight asymmetry between the left and right thruster rotations.

alcyoneserene · April 2017

frtoaster wrote: »

alcyoneserene wrote: »

Bug looks even worse than the long standing, unacknowledged pixelated faces bug that was present before lighting 2.0 and still persists.

Can you clarify which "pixelated faces" bug you are referring to?

A pixelated bug that seems to persist from before Lighting 2.0. After a few toon hops, it randomly strikes. Here's a recent example, taken at regular renderscale 1. Notice the blocky pixels on the face:

gaevsman · April 2017

In the advanced settings, the video card memory, is set on auto?, i fixed that when a manually set it to 1024 and more, and texture resolution at 125%....

frtoaster · April 2017

alcyoneserene wrote: »

frtoaster wrote: »

alcyoneserene wrote: »

Bug looks even worse than the long standing, unacknowledged pixelated faces bug that was present before lighting 2.0 and still persists.

Can you clarify which "pixelated faces" bug you are referring to?

A pixelated bug that seems to persist from before Lighting 2.0. After a few toon hops, it randomly strikes. Here's a recent example, taken at regular renderscale 1. Notice the blocky pixels on the face:

That's probably the same as this bug:

frtoaster wrote: »

Holodeck ticket 3,489,666: Low-resolution textures on outfits, skin, and hair

This bug was never fixed, though I'm sure Cryptic is aware of it, since callevista commented in the thread. I noticed the bug on Risa during the summer event of 2015. It seems to occur most often when there are a lot of people around and when I switch between multiple characters; both of these conditions are common during the summer event. Here's what I think is causing the bug: When the client runs out of memory for textures, it begins to load smaller, lower-quality textures instead of unloading the textures that are no longer in use to free up memory. If you restart the client, the bug goes away (at least temporarily), because all that memory has been freed.

gaevsman wrote: »

In the advanced settings, the video card memory, is set on auto?, i fixed that when a manually set it to 1024 and more, and texture resolution at 125%....

Are you talking about my bug or alcyoneserene's bug? My bug has nothing to do with "Video memory limit" or "Character texture detail". The normal maps are reversed for people not running Lighting 2.0:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/60kkxl/pc_alarming_gfx_ingame_control_settings/df79bci/

This bug is currently fixed on Tribble. We are waiting for the fix to hit Holodeck. It will probably come on April 25th, when Season 13 is released. At that time, we will probably also get the unannounced graphics changes currently on Tribble.

frtoaster wrote: »

As of March 15, 2017, this bug is fixed on Tribble. Unfortunately, they also changed or removed several graphics options.

Holodeck 03/15/2017: http://imgur.com/a/i01fc
Tribble 03/15/2017: http://imgur.com/a/BAU1f

By the way, "Video memory limit" was one of the options removed.

ighten · April 2017

frtoaster wrote: »

By the way, "Video memory limit" was one of the options removed.

Wont that cause issues to people running Intel HD on laptops as the GPU part of the proc will report a random ficticious low number for its memory (think its something like 128).

quote

Dedicated Memory Reporting
The graphics driver now reports some amount of fictitious “dedicated” graphics memory to the operating system (128MB by default) to work around applications issues in a number of games. These games incorrectly look for some amount of “dedicated” graphics memory because they weren’t coded with the unified memory architecture for processor graphics.
The amount reported can be modified or disabled if desired by changing the following registry value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Intel\GMM, create a REG_DWORD value named “DedicatedSegmentSize”. The value is interpreted as number of MB to report (0-512MB). A value of 0 disables reporting the dummy memory segment. If the registry key/value is not found, the driver will report the default 128MB.

rndfluctuation · April 2017

It's as if it's getting worse across patches now I notice it really badly after session 13 patch

frtoaster · April 2017

ighten wrote: »

frtoaster wrote: »

By the way, "Video memory limit" was one of the options removed.

Wont that cause issues to people running Intel HD on laptops as the GPU part of the proc will report a random ficticious low number for its memory (think its something like 128).

quote

Dedicated Memory Reporting
The graphics driver now reports some amount of fictitious “dedicated” graphics memory to the operating system (128MB by default) to work around applications issues in a number of games. These games incorrectly look for some amount of “dedicated” graphics memory because they weren’t coded with the unified memory architecture for processor graphics.
The amount reported can be modified or disabled if desired by changing the following registry value:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Intel\GMM, create a REG_DWORD value named “DedicatedSegmentSize”. The value is interpreted as number of MB to report (0-512MB). A value of 0 disables reporting the dummy memory segment. If the registry key/value is not found, the driver will report the default 128MB.

I'm not sure. You could try changing GfxSettings.VideoMemoryMaxHMBs in your gameprefs.pref file, but I don't know if the client still obeys that setting.

For 512 MB of video RAM, try changing

       PrefEntry GfxSettings.VideoMemoryMaxHMBs 0

to

       PrefEntry GfxSettings.VideoMemoryMaxHMBs 4

frtoaster · April 2017

rndflactuation wrote: »

It's as if it's getting worse across patches now I notice it really badly after session 13 patch

This particular bug has been fixed for me after the Season 13 patch. Are you sure you're not experiencing a different bug? Screenshots would help.

rndfluctuation · April 2017

frtoaster wrote: »

rndflactuation wrote: »

It's as if it's getting worse across patches now I notice it really badly after session 13 patch

This particular bug has been fixed for me after the Season 13 patch. Are you sure you're not experiencing a different bug? Screenshots would help.

A transparency bug - beside the char looking very low quality/pixelated (which I noticed got worse - I probably don't usually notice such things), now it has a patch instead of a comm badge. Some others gave similar screenshots affecting upper torso in outfit (patch-like appeared), or possibly arm badge, for me it's comm badge and another char shows a preview with old outfit of an arm badge patch as well.

The char with a comm badge "patch" is my main so logged almost always daily, and noticed on 1st login since session 13 (off course still exists)

Could be it's a different bug, (or could pixalation be some comp/net resources issue which are temporary) sorry I am ignorant in that regard, though. Either way patch transparency bug exists and persists for me and appeared exactly at session 13 start.

frtoaster · April 2017

rndflactuation wrote: »

A transparency bug - beside the char looking very low quality/pixelated (which I noticed got worse - I probably don't usually notice such things), now it has a patch instead of a comm badge. Some others gave similar screenshots affecting upper torso in outfit (patch-like appeared), or possibly arm badge, for me it's comm badge and another char shows a preview with old outfit of an arm badge patch as well.

The char with a comm badge "patch" is my main so logged almost always daily, and noticed on 1st login since session 13 (off course still exists)

Could be it's a different bug, (or could pixalation be some comp/net resources issue which are temporary) sorry I am ignorant in that regard, though. Either way patch transparency bug exists and persists for me and appeared exactly at session 13 start.

I don't know if you're having the same transparency issue as everyone else, but a temporary workaround is to turn on both "Postprocessing" and "Cinematic focus (depth of field)". Note that if you turn on "Screen-space ambient occlusion" but not "Postprocessing", then certain hairstyles, such as the one worn by the Cardassian tailor on ESD, will still look wrong.

rndfluctuation · May 2017

Just a response note:
Somehow messing up with the settings before (changed something then reset selectively graphics settings, I don't remember why and what, and it was after session 13) removed this issue from terrain (on kobali) and my char, though it still shows this way when I look at U -> <charname> name menu picture.

So thank you but I can't test it orderly probably, though if what you suggest could remove the issue form U-><charname> picture view, it probably would help to indicate this.

The issue is not a manual, direct and immediate changed setting effect per se, as it appeared on 1st login in session 13 and not by any change (and I think by default settings too, but unsure 100%.)

I am unsure though it would be wise from my side to (perm) enable those settings as my system is really low in specs, especially my graphic "card" (IntelHD3000 IGP actually, which is the main "trouble",) and having a low memory for the comp itself too, and performance is low, but am going to at least see tooltips for those settings and try if can.

P.S.
Yes, could very likely it's a transparency bug and not what the main topic is about, I apologize thinking before those were same/linked before as seeing char details (and a later Kobali visit showed terains viewed as being) dropped together with this effect, on my on side. My issue (disregarding char details issue) looks like the screenshots posted in the transparency bug topic. As for the pixelation, I am getting used to this so not noticing this anymore, or it was solved together with the above reset as well or before it - unsure. Will take a look next time I login.

Edit: Yes, the transparency issue is gone when I enable those two option, also from the u-><charname> picture screen. However I can't keep it that way - due to having a very low performance. (as for the resolution, it seems other thing. probably I mostly related to the patch issue instead and to some kobali terrain issue. This could be an "interchange" of low options of default, memory issue or something else I don't understand, but I have no idea so no longer relevant.)

Low-resolution faces when "Lighting 2.0" is turned off

Comments