So Brad treeted out a link to some latest 4K gameplay images. Does this mean we are seeing fully tweaked and tuned level of graphics? I would assume not.
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/media/images/
I upgraded to 4k monitors/tvs about a year ago and have greatly enjoyed playing a number of games in native 4K now.
But the images posted seema little subpar for 4K.
Here is a screengrab of Piper in Fallout4 as an example for comparison.
http://pantheonfan.com/_images/piper.png
heres one from DyingLight
http://pantheonfan.com/_images/dyinglight.png
Unfortunately if you do not have a 4K monitor you will probably not appreciate this discussion.
This goes along with the font adjustment IMO, but it would be nice.
I have a 4k 42inch TV and even at 1080p Things can be too small.
UI scaling doesn't help with games or even some apps.
I can't imagine people with a monitor in the 20 to 30 inch range that is 4k.
I suppose being closer to the monitor helps a bit.
zewtastic said:So Brad treeted out a link to some latest 4K gameplay images. Does this mean we are seeing fully tweaked and tuned level of graphics? I would assume not.
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/media/images/
I upgraded to 4k monitors/tvs about a year ago and have greatly enjoyed playing a number of games in native 4K now.
But the images posted seema little subpar for 4K.
Here is a screengrab of Piper in Fallout4 as an example for comparison.
http://pantheonfan.com/_images/piper.png
heres one from DyingLight
http://pantheonfan.com/_images/dyinglight.png
Unfortunately if you do not have a 4K monitor you will probably not appreciate this discussion.
The images being in 4k doesn't mean that the graphical quality is even close to done. Kilsen (on Reddit) and Brad (in the last livestream) himself has stated countless times that the artwork is in very early "pre-pre-alpha" stages and that the models and textures still have many more passes to go through before they would be deemed ready for even beta access. I wouldn't judge the games art quality quite yet.
Edit: fixed a typo
UnknownQuantity said:This goes along with the font adjustment IMO, but it would be nice.
I have a 4k 42inch TV and even at 1080p Things can be too small.
UI scaling doesn't help with games or even some apps.
I can't imagine people with a monitor in the 20 to 30 inch range that is 4k.
I suppose being closer to the monitor helps a bit.
Although not blind (yet), my eyesight is not what it was. I currently have 2 - 40" Samsung 4K tv's I use for PC monitors and I love them.
But yes sometimes some text can get difficult to see. But it is always sharp as a tack, and when writing code, having very sharp code to read is the best.
It's as simple as this:
http://www.pantheonmmo.com/images/Union-of-Shadows_03_1080p.jpg
That image? Not a .PNG. There are JPG artifacts on all edges in that image. Some of the other images (that were recently released) also suffer from the same JPG edge-artifact issue.
I'm not sure what image processor they're using to post them, or if it's an issue with the hosting provider adjusting them, or they just don't see it as a problem, but .JPG's are crap for clarity. It may also be they're using (or something along the way is) the default JPG color sampling template, too, which reduces the color palette to half of what it should be.
And to everyone who is about to clamor up and say "but but but, what about jpg 100%?!?" then my response is, if you're not using JPG for it's strengths (high compression, low quality, small size) why not use .PNG then? :)
I expect poor quality when I see screenshots posted as .JPG, and i'm never disappointed.
X
The pictures David and I take in-game are 4k but I have to change them to jpeg to upload across all platforms and to make them easily viewable on mobile and tablet devices, so for clarification, we have a mix of 4k and 1080, PNG and JPG and have not finished with graphics yet ;)
I personally don't needed bleedingly intense graphics in my MMO gaming, that's what I look for in my single player games. I'd rather something that'll run on a few years old machine and be open to a larger player base to have more people to group with then fry my retinas when the sun rises in game surrounded by only 23% of the possible players who are interested in the game.
Heck, I'd be fine with cleaned up vanguard graphics for the most part.
A screenshot is one thing, but what is most important is how smooth will the framerate be with such intensive textures, full spell effects and dozens of people and NPCs all doing their thing within visual range. Then add in the server load from 1,000+ other people all adventuring and optimization is of utmost importance.
Vandraad said:A screenshot is one thing, but what is most important is how smooth will the framerate be with such intensive textures, full spell effects and dozens of people and NPCs all doing their thing within visual range. Then add in the server load from 1,000+ other people all adventuring and optimization is of utmost importance.
Absolutely true.
Vandraad said:A screenshot is one thing, but what is most important is how smooth will the framerate be with such intensive textures, full spell effects and dozens of people and NPCs all doing their thing within visual range. Then add in the server load from 1,000+ other people all adventuring and optimization is of utmost importance.
So true. I'd give up some details to ensure smooth fluid movement and effects.
Fulton said:Vandraad said:A screenshot is one thing, but what is most important is how smooth will the framerate be with such intensive textures, full spell effects and dozens of people and NPCs all doing their thing within visual range. Then add in the server load from 1,000+ other people all adventuring and optimization is of utmost importance.
So true. I'd give up some details to ensure smooth fluid movement and effects.
Same. Always, without a doubt.
A screenshot from a MMO will almost always look subpar compared to a screenshot from a single-player game.
The reason should be obvious: the game engine must be capable of running at a reasonable frame rate with not just the player, but 20-50 or more people on screen.
This necessitates simpler graphics than what is possible when you only have the player and no one else.
Of course, it would be possible for the game to dynamically adjust the detail level based on how many people are around, but that would require the highest details to already be in the game assets - and that means designer time, which is at this point probably better used for adding content than to add detail levels that most people won't see most of the time (since this is primarily a multi-player, group and raid game, and also not everyone has hardware that can run 4k at good frame rates).
In some years, if the game stays alive, maybe they can add higher-quality models...
In Vanguard they made one critical mistake - they went for a detail level that wasn't practicably doable with the hardware most people had at the time. Heck, my hardware back then was close to the fastest available for any money, and it was still slow. And we know the consequence - for most people, playing at anything better than the EQ 1 level of graphics was like a slideshow. And you all know where it went from there.
Aethor said:In Vanguard they made one critical mistake - they went for a detail level that wasn't practicably doable with the hardware most people had at the time. Heck, my hardware back then was close to the fastest available for any money, and it was still slow. And we know the consequence - for most people, playing at anything better than the EQ 1 level of graphics was like a slideshow. And you all know where it went from there.
Vanguard was an odd beast. My wife's computer was superior to mine at the time and handled VG horribly while my patchwork eq1 rig ran it honestly almost flawlessly (my friend with the exact same parts almost couldn't get it to run passably til he bought a new rig). You could have 4 PC's, exactly the same hardware and drivers and they'd all react slightly different with Vanguard.
That said, I'd settle for five year old graphics capabilities happily to avoid seeing that mess by trying to be cutting edge again.
It's not so much the graphics that matter with 4k. It's the properly sized user interface. Most people who play on 4K have to turn down the graphics settings a fair amount to get smooth gameplay at 60 FPS.
Vanguard was seamless I believe and that contributed to it's problems.
Vanguard emphasized that it didn't have zones but in a way it didn't quite work that way. When you hit what in another game would have been a zone border it was invisible - which gave the look and feel of not having zones - but you still zoned out of one area and into the other as in other games. I'm not saying look and feel aren't important but seamless may be a bit of an oversimplification.
I don't believe there's as much of a dichotomy between having beautiful graphics/effects being implemented and having a large, active playerbase that some are inferring. With the ability to have a variety of graphics' options, I don't see why those of us who would love to stress our computers shouldn't be able to, while those who are on older machines can tune the settings down so they can play smoothly :) Optimization is the big thing.
Run run run loading screen run run run
I didn't mind the invisible zone walls, after a few wtf moments you got used to where they were hiding, I just wish some of the "chunks," didn't take 5 min to load while others took half a second of load screen. I HATED zoning into the area with Tengral Keep because it would take forever. Same as the desert human city (khal?). I always assumed it was due to player density (getting back to environmental displays and amount of players impact on graphics performance vs cutting edge gfx)
UnknownQuantity said:It's not so much the graphics that matter with 4k. It's the properly sized user interface. Most people who play on 4K have to turn down the graphics settings a fair amount to get smooth gameplay at 60 FPS.
Vanguard was seamless I believe and that contributed to it's problems.
Yes UI or as they are called in the industry UX designs can vary widely for 4K. Games like Fallout 4, Skyrim, Dying Light, Borderlands, etc. which are also designed largely with consoles in mind are very UI friendly, but most MMOs which would never be played on a console ignore the 4K friendly UI. I played Arche Age and BDO on 4K, and while gorgeous visually, the UI was definitely a challenge. Especially if your eyesight is less than optimum.
Getting expected performance @4K definitely requires a latest generation video card. My "older" system has a 980ti, which is a very powerful performer and handles 4K fine for the most part, I just built a new super system and threw in a Nvidia 1070. The 1070 seems much more comfortable with 4K.
Getting a 4K tv tweaked for maximum performance on PC does require a lot of work. I spend about an hour a month calibrating the color, brightness and contrast settings for consistent accuracy.
My new 4K Samsung is a full HDR tv and you have to manually make that settings change, as HDR is not on by default. In the Nvidia configurations you have to make sure Output dynamic range is set to full, as well as refresh rate is 60hz.
I use a SpyderPro for my monitor calibration and it works ok, but if I were buying today I might choose something else.
*Industry Insider Note*
When I first started working in the game industry one of the first things I asked artists was how they calibrated their monitors. As a longtime photographer I was curious. Artists in my studio used Cintiq's for art creation.
When they had no idea what I was talking about I began to realize that there was less accuracy in creating consistent graphics than I had thought. Although Cintiq's do have a high degree of color accuracy, more than a standard monitor, they are by no means all consistent and 100% accurate.
I always found it kind of funny when the artists would get together in front of a large 60" (also uncalibrated) monitor to critique designs, specifically color shades and textures.
