Shader 3.0 [Archive] - Page 2 - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 06:17 PM

<cite>Striothia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Striothia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Please Quem,I'm begging here. Please don't make the mistake so many other developers have with PS 3.0 (And DX10) and use the more efficient processes to just add more shiny and bling to the game. PS 3.0 had great performance gains that can really be utilized to increase overall performance and retain the graphic capacity.EQ2 is not a great performance engine, it looks nice but its just not very efficient. Don't let this be all about new eye candy. I'd love to run in PS 3.0 because its just more efficient flat out. Just way to many have eaten that efficiency away with more shine.</blockquote>There are some shortcuts I'm not taking that the 1.x system does. This improves lighting in some grander lighting effects since the resolution scales accurately with the lighting calculations in the 3.0 technique.As far as speed goes, 3.0 should get much faster the better your graphics card is. There are many optimization oportunities exposed with the 3.0 upgrade, but it will still take time to augment for optimization. At least it will be more feasible to do now.</blockquote>I'd like to tag on an old request.Like others have stated when raiding the game is a rather eye assaulting light show. I can raid with spell effects per caster set at anything other then zero. However I choose not to because its just a giant lightshow where nothing can be seen.I would really like an option to turn off player character spell effects, but retain them for mobs. Because most of the really nice animations of mobs for AoEs and specials are turned off by turning off spell effects per caster ( Turned to 0). The other 23 other players in the raid I could care less about their repetative and unoriginal spell effects that just blind you. The npcs however are cool to watch, informative because you can see what they've done. (Pawbuster is a great example).Please, can you look into this and see if its feasible to differentiate between players and npcs for this option? Its been long requested. And I imagine it would not be easy but it would be really nice, and actually let many of us see all the nice animations put into npcs for raid mobs for a change.</blockquote>I've been bringing this idea up a lot with the team. We're considering the time it will take along with how it fits with our current priorities and planned upgrades and feature list. Hopefully it's not too complex and we can add it in the near future.

guillero

07-17-2009, 03:02 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><cite></cite></blockquote>And the 3.0 upgrade is not just shader conversions. Most of the rendering engine is ignored for 3.0 shaders where I've developed a new pipeline for 3.0. This is because 3.0 shaders behave very differently than 1.x shaders, and require engine data to be processed and sent to the shaders in a different way. Some features won't be touched very much by the 3.0 upgrade. Things like water, bloom, shadows, particles, flora, the skybox, clouds, and a few more. They'll need to be upgraded or optimized independently. </blockquote>Are the other features been converted to Shader 3.0 shortly after as well?Maybe after the SM3.0 update in September you can work on the Clouds and Skyboxes and take in SM3.0 clouds and skybox along with it? <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Jer

Guy De Alsace

07-17-2009, 04:39 AM

Just like to say that I play Half Life 2 on max, Unreal Tournament 3 on max and X3 : Reunion on max and on 2 monitors with no HD chugging at all - with 1.5GB. Oh and Oblivion on 2 monitors on max with slight chugging.My machine is also a single core P4 3.0Ghz.Whichever way you look at it - EQ2's engine really is championship quality slow. At Very High Performance it looks worse than the original Unreal which came out like 10 years ago.

Muraazi

07-17-2009, 06:19 AM

Don't know if its been asked or even answered yet, since it is kind of a long thread. But.....Any chance we could get a couple screenshots of the shader 3.0 stuff? I saw the video and it was nice looking but kinda grainy.

Omgidomms

07-17-2009, 12:45 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hope the performance of the game does get a boost from 3.0 for most people. It is one of our goals with the upgrade. I swapped in an 8800 from a 7900 Nvidia graphics card and am getting much better 1600x1200 resolution performance, even better than 1.x shaders. So far the curve is showing a boost using 3.0 shaders, equivalent to the better your graphics card gets.</blockquote>Do you have any figures on what this boost gives to the high end rigs?What difference is there between a 8800gtx and gtx 295 with the same cpu? (with the current shader 1.0 it's almost nothing)

Vasgti

07-17-2009, 02:55 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite>I completely agree. It's the same with NVidia PhysX.Awesome feature. But seriously. How many people actually have the very latest and more expensive graphic cards in wich the Agea PhysX processor is included?Both me and my gf have GeForce 9800 GTX 512MB cards now and they still don't contain the PhysX processor.</blockquote>Actually every nVidia 8 series card, 9 series, GTS, GTX series - yes even a 8400gs and up had PhysX built in. Your 9800GTX most certainly does. Try checking out some Physx demos on nVidias site and watch your card scream.

Dragowulf

07-17-2009, 03:39 PM

<cite>Muraazi wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't know if its been asked or even answered yet, since it is kind of a long thread. But.....Any chance we could get a couple screenshots of the shader 3.0 stuff? I saw the video and it was nice looking but kinda grainy.</blockquote>Look at the first five pages.

Imago-Quem

07-17-2009, 04:23 PM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just like to say that I play Half Life 2 on max, Unreal Tournament 3 on max and X3 : Reunion on max and on 2 monitors with no HD chugging at all - with 1.5GB. Oh and Oblivion on 2 monitors on max with slight chugging.My machine is also a single core P4 3.0Ghz.Whichever way you look at it - EQ2's engine really is championship quality slow. At Very High Performance it looks worse than the original Unreal which came out like 10 years ago.</blockquote>Comparitively, EQ2 is a highly dynamic environment where a ton more data is processed on your machine and to-and-from the servers here at SOE. This factor greatly reduces performance but adds the vast amounts of possible armor sets, items, characters, effects, and environments while keeping it all live and dynamic with the virtual world, world wide.

Gungo

07-17-2009, 05:56 PM

I am not sure if this is a graphics department issue, but would it be possibly to merge existing cites/zones to cut down on amount of zoning especially in the starting cities of freeport and qeynos. I know at one point it was stated the cities were made with the idea that they could be combined eventually.Also have we considered the effects of adding<li>Ambient occlusion or Global illumination </li><li>I know you discussed Volumetric lighting(aka god rays) but does this include more realistic fog? </li>

feldon30

07-17-2009, 11:58 PM

I think the #1 timesink on shrinking down cities would not be graphics, although there is something odd about how the zones are laid out which becomes obvious when you zoom out to max distance and run through the cities. I think the #1 timesink would be adjusting potentially THOUSANDS of quests, NPC locations, NPC pathing, zone-specific animations, etc. I could see it taking the entire EQ2 team 4-6 months to do this to Qeynos and Freeport.

Deritos

07-18-2009, 12:06 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just like to say that I play Half Life 2 on max, Unreal Tournament 3 on max and X3 : Reunion on max and on 2 monitors with no HD chugging at all - with 1.5GB. Oh and Oblivion on 2 monitors on max with slight chugging.My machine is also a single core P4 3.0Ghz.Whichever way you look at it - EQ2's engine really is championship quality slow. At Very High Performance it looks worse than the original Unreal which came out like 10 years ago.</blockquote>Comparitively, EQ2 is a highly dynamic environment where a ton more data is processed on your machine and to-and-from the servers here at SOE. This factor greatly reduces performance but adds the vast amounts of possible armor sets, items, characters, effects, and environments while keeping it all live and dynamic with the virtual world, world wide.</blockquote>when are we gonna see some screenshots of shader 3.0 ? This is in the 'In Testing' section... doesnt that mean it should be on test?

Pitt Hammerfi

07-18-2009, 01:03 AM

How about procedural textures <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Would cut out the need for dowloading huge texture files, and would improve permormance off the scale <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />Here's a link to an interesting dev tool called Substance Air, hehe intergrating it may however be impossible. the idea sounds great though, turning 2m/b textures into 2kb desrciptions of textures.<a href="http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=PRODUCTS.substance">http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=...DUCTS.substance</a>

ke'la

07-18-2009, 03:56 AM

<cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>when are we gonna see some screenshots of shader 3.0 ? This is in the 'In Testing' section... doesnt that mean it should be on test?</blockquote>There are already screen shots in this tread, along with a link to a video(taken at a very low resolution) also linked earlier in this tread. As for it being on test... the LU that will included this does not come out until September, and he had only started the conversion proccess(only Nek Forest was converted), it likly won't hit test until all zones are converted and it has run though thier compatablity lab atleast a few times to limit the number of conflicts out of the box... so probly not until mid-Aug at the earliest.

Dragowulf

07-18-2009, 07:23 PM

I think something else that you should add to the list is better support for Anti-Aliasing. You can turn it on by editing the text, but that's really inconvenient. There are also A LOT of bugs with it. When you enable anything in the Atmospheric Effects section in the Display Options AA will no longer work. It seems like only one or the other will work. Another problem is when you turn on the shader anywhere 1+ AA will not work either. There are some restrictions too like how you AA only works if you set your graphics card AA setting to 4x or less, and anything above 4x will disable it completely.

Guy De Alsace

07-20-2009, 05:32 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think something else that you should add to the list is better support for Anti-Aliasing. You can turn it on by editing the text, but that's really inconvenient. There are also A LOT of bugs with it. When you enable anything in the Atmospheric Effects section in the Display Options AA will no longer work. It seems like only one or the other will work. Another problem is when you turn on the shader anywhere 1+ AA will not work either. There are some restrictions too like how you AA only works if you set your graphics card AA setting to 4x or less, and anything above 4x will disable it completely.</blockquote>I have 8 x AA and 16 x anisotropic running ok. I've had problems with AA where I've gone down to very fast performance for a raid, gone back to balanced and - because it re-enables bloom- lost AA. Had to reboot the computer for it to work again.Also lost AA switching accounts and at other random times for no obvious reason. However the game looks far better with AA on than it does with bloom - I think bloom should be disabled by default and AA enabled by default.There will be no need for bloom if HDR is supported anyway I think.

Detor

07-20-2009, 12:08 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote> DX10 helps solve the sorting problem but I don't expect EQ2 going to DX10 anytime soon.</blockquote>That's because you're going straight to DX11 right? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

Dragowulf

07-20-2009, 02:10 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote> DX10 helps solve the sorting problem but I don't expect EQ2 going to DX10 anytime soon.</blockquote>That's because you're going straight to DX11 right? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Or maybe that's because the games haven't really caught up with the new technology. There isn't a significant amount of games that use DX10 as is and Vista has been out for how long now?

Imago-Quem

07-20-2009, 02:43 PM

<cite>Ratzin@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hope the performance of the game does get a boost from 3.0 for most people. It is one of our goals with the upgrade. I swapped in an 8800 from a 7900 Nvidia graphics card and am getting much better 1600x1200 resolution performance, even better than 1.x shaders. So far the curve is showing a boost using 3.0 shaders, equivalent to the better your graphics card gets.</blockquote>Do you have any figures on what this boost gives to the high end rigs?What difference is there between a 8800gtx and gtx 295 with the same cpu? (with the current shader 1.0 it's almost nothing)</blockquote>Sorry, I haven't recorded the results on multiple setups including the really high end stuff just yet. I'll let you know what I'm getting as soon as I can.

Imago-Quem

07-20-2009, 04:40 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am not sure if this is a graphics department issue, but would it be possibly to merge existing cites/zones to cut down on amount of zoning especially in the starting cities of freeport and qeynos. I know at one point it was stated the cities were made with the idea that they could be combined eventually.Also have we considered the effects of adding<li>Ambient occlusion or Global illumination </li><li>I know you discussed Volumetric lighting(aka god rays) but does this include more realistic fog? </li></blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the #1 timesink on shrinking down cities would not be graphics, although there is something odd about how the zones are laid out which becomes obvious when you zoom out to max distance and run through the cities. I think the #1 timesink would be adjusting potentially THOUSANDS of quests, NPC locations, NPC pathing, zone-specific animations, etc. I could see it taking the entire EQ2 team 4-6 months to do this to Qeynos and Freeport.</blockquote>Ya, that's a huge change. Not sure if that'll be coming anytime soon. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" />

Imago-Quem

07-20-2009, 06:24 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also have we considered the effects of adding<li>Ambient occlusion or Global illumination </li><li>I know you discussed Volumetric lighting(aka god rays) but does this include more realistic fog? </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change) 1. Upgraded flora system 2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support 6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system 8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul 10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling) 11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays 13. Under water flora (coral system) 14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges) 15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust) 16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog 17. Depth of Field 18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping 21. GPU PhysX

Josgar

07-20-2009, 06:50 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also have we considered the effects of adding<li>Ambient occlusion or Global illumination </li><li>I know you discussed Volumetric lighting(aka god rays) but does this include more realistic fog? </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change) 1. Upgraded flora system 2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support 6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system 8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul 10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling) 11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays 13. Under water flora (coral system) 14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges) 15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust) 16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog 17. Depth of Field 18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping 21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>What are the level of difficulties for each item? Is it to hte point where you could only pull off one feature a game update? Or could a few be done an update?You don't have to be detailed or anything, just curious.

Imago-Quem

07-20-2009, 06:58 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>How about procedural textures <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Would cut out the need for dowloading huge texture files, and would improve permormance off the scale <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />Here's a link to an interesting dev tool called Substance Air, hehe intergrating it may however be impossible. the idea sounds great though, turning 2m/b textures into 2kb desrciptions of textures.<a href="http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=PRODUCTS.substance">http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=...DUCTS.substance</a></blockquote>That's really awesome! Not sure if it's too much work at this point, but I'll add the idea in for consideration. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I suspect it would take the engine quite a while to generate 100's or thousands of textures compared to just loading them. Your load time might end up being the same. I wouldn't know for sure unless I researched more. Cool stuff though.

Imago-Quem

07-20-2009, 11:59 PM

<div><a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=95632">ke'la</a></div><cite></cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>when are we gonna see some screenshots of shader 3.0 ? This is in the 'In Testing' section... doesnt that mean it should be on test?</blockquote>There are already screen shots in this tread, along with a link to a video(taken at a very low resolution) also linked earlier in this tread. As for it being on test... the LU that will included this does not come out until September, and he had only started the conversion proccess(only Nek Forest was converted), it likly won't hit test until all zones are converted and it has run though thier compatablity lab atleast a few times to limit the number of conflicts out of the box... so probly not until mid-Aug at the earliest.</blockquote>Ya, somehow this thread got on "In Testing Feedback". But it picked up here and I just went with it. Sorry nothing's out for Test yet. I am working my way through the zones, objects, weapons, and armor/clothing to make sure everything's converting properly and working out obvious bugs. I'm not sure exactly yet when it will be ready for Test, but it will be after QA works through it and at least 1 month before we release it to Live. It's a major graphical change, a lot of work, and very complex. Please be patient with me. I am right now in the final stages.

guillero

07-21-2009, 03:56 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><li> </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change) 1. Upgraded flora system2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling)11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays13. Under water flora (coral system)14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges)15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog17. Depth of Field18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>Pretty good list to be honest.Altho wouldn't you put weather system on place 4? As I think, together with the first 3 points. It pretty much fits together as a whole.But these optimisations will sertainly have a huge impact on most players immersion in the game, when it comes to noticing it.The sky and weather can't really be ignored <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Jer

ke'la

07-21-2009, 08:47 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><div><a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=95632">ke'la</a></div><cite></cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>when are we gonna see some screenshots of shader 3.0 ? This is in the 'In Testing' section... doesnt that mean it should be on test?</blockquote>There are already screen shots in this tread, along with a link to a video(taken at a very low resolution) also linked earlier in this tread. As for it being on test... the LU that will included this does not come out until September, and he had only started the conversion proccess(only Nek Forest was converted), it likly won't hit test until all zones are converted and it has run though thier compatablity lab atleast a few times to limit the number of conflicts out of the box... so probly not until mid-Aug at the earliest.</blockquote>Ya, somehow this thread got on "In Testing Feedback". But it picked up here and I just went with it. Sorry nothing's out for Test yet. I am working my way through the zones, objects, weapons, and armor/clothing to make sure everything's converting properly and working out obvious bugs. I'm not sure exactly yet when it will be ready for Test, but it will be after QA works through it and at least 1 month before we release it to Live. It's a major graphical change, a lot of work, and very complex. Please be patient with me. I am right now in the final stages.</blockquote>Does that mean that if for some reason you arn't able to get it into a Test Build by say Mid-Aug(assuming a Mid-Sept LU) you would be willing to delay its implimentation to the following LU?

ke'la

07-21-2009, 08:50 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><li> </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change)1. Upgraded flora system2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling)11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays13. Under water flora (coral system)14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges)15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog17. Depth of Field18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>Pretty good list to be honest.Altho wouldn't you put weather system on place 4? As I think, together with the first 3 points. It pretty much fits together as a whole.But these optimisations will sertainly have a huge impact on most players immersion in the game, when it comes to noticing it.The sky and weather can't really be ignored <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Jer</blockquote>I think the reason it is lower then the other three is while it is popular, it is a far differant an more complex system then the first three, and possably the 2 and 3 have to be done befor work can even start on 7. The thing I find interesting is how high up on the list Hair Strands are. I would think both the complexity of a hair system, and the lower popularity(atleast on the boards) would have put that lower down.

Barx

07-21-2009, 12:04 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the reason it is lower then the other three is while it is popular, it is a far differant an more complex system then the first three, and possably the 2 and 3 have to be done befor work can even start on 7. The thing I find interesting is how high up on the list Hair Strands are. I would think both the complexity of a hair system, and the lower popularity(atleast on the boards) would have put that lower down.</blockquote>Agreed on hair. That seems like a silly / frivilous thing, I can only assume it would be easy to do (thus bumping it up the list)? Personally I'd certainly want most other things before that, and especially general optimization before it. I'd also rank clouds above flora, the existing system isn't *nearly* as bad as the Norrath and the Technicolor Cloudpatterns.

Imago-Quem

07-21-2009, 03:07 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><li> </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change)1. Upgraded flora system2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling)11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays13. Under water flora (coral system)14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges)15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog17. Depth of Field18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>Pretty good list to be honest.Altho wouldn't you put weather system on place 4? As I think, together with the first 3 points. It pretty much fits together as a whole.But these optimisations will sertainly have a huge impact on most players immersion in the game, when it comes to noticing it.The sky and weather can't really be ignored <img src="../images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Jer</blockquote>I think the reason it is lower then the other three is while it is popular, it is a far differant an more complex system then the first three, and possably the 2 and 3 have to be done befor work can even start on 7. The thing I find interesting is how high up on the list Hair Strands are. I would think both the complexity of a hair system, and the lower popularity(atleast on the boards) would have put that lower down.</blockquote>Here's what I used to ordered it: player popularity, complexity, and internal design artist requests. The hair for example was bumped because the art director has mentioned it quite a few times and since I had not heard any thoughts about it from players it was bumped up pretty high. The more I hear from players about the features, the better I can prioritize. Then we'll go over the list internally and the leads of EQ2 will take a vote on the best bang for the bucks. Your disinterest in hair above other things will definitely impact the order here. Thanks for the feedback! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

Homeskillet

07-21-2009, 03:11 PM

If you can make hair no longer look like play-doh for some races that would be awesome.

Imago-Quem

07-21-2009, 03:14 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><div><a href="../user/profile.m?user_id=95632">ke'la</a></div><cite></cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>when are we gonna see some screenshots of shader 3.0 ? This is in the 'In Testing' section... doesnt that mean it should be on test?</blockquote>There are already screen shots in this tread, along with a link to a video(taken at a very low resolution) also linked earlier in this tread. As for it being on test... the LU that will included this does not come out until September, and he had only started the conversion proccess(only Nek Forest was converted), it likly won't hit test until all zones are converted and it has run though thier compatablity lab atleast a few times to limit the number of conflicts out of the box... so probly not until mid-Aug at the earliest.</blockquote>Ya, somehow this thread got on "In Testing Feedback". But it picked up here and I just went with it. Sorry nothing's out for Test yet. I am working my way through the zones, objects, weapons, and armor/clothing to make sure everything's converting properly and working out obvious bugs. I'm not sure exactly yet when it will be ready for Test, but it will be after QA works through it and at least 1 month before we release it to Live. It's a major graphical change, a lot of work, and very complex. Please be patient with me. I am right now in the final stages.</blockquote>Does that mean that if for some reason you arn't able to get it into a Test Build by say Mid-Aug(assuming a Mid-Sept LU) you would be willing to delay its implimentation to the following LU?</blockquote>Yep. Would have to. Can't knowingly give Live broken stuff.

Dragowulf

07-21-2009, 03:22 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote><li> </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change)1. Upgraded flora system2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling)11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays13. Under water flora (coral system)14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges)15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog17. Depth of Field18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>Pretty good list to be honest.Altho wouldn't you put weather system on place 4? As I think, together with the first 3 points. It pretty much fits together as a whole.But these optimisations will sertainly have a huge impact on most players immersion in the game, when it comes to noticing it.The sky and weather can't really be ignored <img src="../images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />Jer</blockquote>I think the reason it is lower then the other three is while it is popular, it is a far differant an more complex system then the first three, and possably the 2 and 3 have to be done befor work can even start on 7. The thing I find interesting is how high up on the list Hair Strands are. I would think both the complexity of a hair system, and the lower popularity(atleast on the boards) would have put that lower down.</blockquote>Here's what I used to ordered it: player popularity, complexity, and internal design artist requests. The hair for example was bumped because the art director has mentioned it quite a few times and since I had not heard any thoughts about it from players it was bumped up pretty high. The more I hear from players about the features, the better I can prioritize. Then we'll go over the list internally and the leads of EQ2 will take a vote on the best bang for the bucks. Your disinterest in hair above other things will definitely impact the order here. Thanks for the feedback! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Hair is pretty darn significant and should be in the top 10, but not enough to be before the first 7 imo. The list priorities seem good at first glance. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />Complexity refers to the time it would take to implement, correct?

Gungo

07-21-2009, 03:57 PM

If peopel in the art department are excited about a feature and have ideas to use that feature in imaginative ways. Then ideas such as hair strands should be bumped up. Especially since hair textures play a huge part in many models. They are the people that will use the feature the most after all.

Dragowulf

07-21-2009, 04:27 PM

<cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>If peopel in the art department are excited about a feature and have ideas to use that feature in imaginative ways. Then ideas such as hair strands should be bumped up. Especially since hair textures play a huge part in many models. They are the people that will use the feature the most after all.</blockquote>Gungo has a valid point. If you have been people in the art department that are excited about adding a certain feature or has enthusiastic requests then I would bump them up because usually those requests come from mere passion.

CimTaurus

07-21-2009, 04:28 PM

SLI/Crossfire support should be closer to the top.This is becoming more and more of a common set up for gamers.Now with quad Crossfire and Triple SLI available it seems SOE needs to get with the program.We won't see any benefits from these multi card set ups until you guys start supporting them.

Eriol

07-21-2009, 04:31 PM

Hair is tricky in that it can make a huge impact, or it can be a massive eyesore if done wrong. If it's done, it's a LOT more than just the graphics guy, but a concerted effort by the art team as well.As for myself, I'd put general optimizations above ALL of them. Get a good solid "framework" in there that the other features can be built on top of. I know what it's like trying to migrate a feature to a new architecture, and it's not pretty. But often it's even LESS pretty to make a new feature on top of something that's "questionable" at best. Overhaul existing, bringing forward as few things as you can, and with the well-designed and well-optimized base, THEN build the rest of the "neat" features on top of it.In a way you're already doing this by moving all of the new features to shader 3.0 and NOT implementing them under 1.0 (I fully endorse this), but don't neglect the "engine" part of it either. Do that first too, and in the end it'll probably make the rest faster.

Zilth

07-21-2009, 05:25 PM

One suggestion I have for the graphics wizard, since this appears to be the thread for them, lol.Its it possible to separate NPC animations from PC animations?For instance, in the game options, max animations (or spell results? cant remember off the top of my head) per character, it would be very nice to enable animations for mobs while not having animations for actual player characters appear... especially in raid settings.

Imago-Quem

07-21-2009, 05:37 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Complexity refers to the time it would take to implement, correct?</blockquote>Pretty much.If it's complex it would take a while to implement. Some things are simple in concept, but complex in code, or at least complex to add to EQ2. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

guillero

07-21-2009, 06:27 PM

<cite>CimTaurus wrote:</cite><blockquote>SLI/Crossfire support should be closer to the top.This is becoming more and more of a common set up for gamers.Now with quad Crossfire and Triple SLI available it seems SOE needs to get with the program.We won't see any benefits from these multi card set ups until you guys start supporting them.</blockquote>LOL! It actually loses in popularity as more and more people are finding out it is a total scam and rip-off.The performance gain in a SLI/Crossfire setups is so minimal, that the next card being released 3 months later already beats your SLI / Crossfire setup and that for half the price!I personally think that SLI/Crossfire support can be bumped to the bottom. Total waste of time if you ask me.I am a serious game fanatic for over 20 years now and total gadget freak...have always build and upgraded my PC's, but like many others I will never buy 2 graphic cards for just 10 fps gain. Let alone even 3!!!! It's ridiculous.That money is better spend in extra RAM, a CPU upgrade or some extra Harddrive, etc.Jer

Encryption767

07-21-2009, 06:56 PM

I have a couple of questions myself. Is there a way to adjust LOD behind the depth of field curtain so that performance may increase? Also I would like to know if deffered shading is used especially since the lighting is starting to look really nice in the shots you have given us. Plus does EQ2 do any sort of texture streaming at all? Such as GTAIV and the UE3?Would also like to ask has procedural animation been concidered for model animations besides cloth or if you guys dont handle that department then have you heard anything about it from the devs that do?

ke'la

07-21-2009, 07:07 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the reason it is lower then the other three is while it is popular, it is a far differant an more complex system then the first three, and possably the 2 and 3 have to be done befor work can even start on 7. The thing I find interesting is how high up on the list Hair Strands are. I would think both the complexity of a hair system, and the lower popularity(atleast on the boards) would have put that lower down.</blockquote>Here's what I used to ordered it: player popularity, complexity, and internal design artist requests. The hair for example was bumped because the art director has mentioned it quite a few times and since I had not heard any thoughts about it from players it was bumped up pretty high. The more I hear from players about the features, the better I can prioritize. Then we'll go over the list internally and the leads of EQ2 will take a vote on the best bang for the bucks. Your disinterest in hair above other things will definitely impact the order here. Thanks for the feedback! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Just to be clear, I personally would like to see hair improved from the hard shells alot of them are right now... that said I just figured it would be more difficult then some of the other stuff listed, thats why I thought it was kinda high... that and the lack of apparent player interest one way or the other.

Pitt Hammerfi

07-21-2009, 09:38 PM

Hair/Fur remember, not just hair <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />You'd get a bigger impact if your Wargs/horses and werewolves were fluffy instead of just a new hairstyle choice for players. IMO anyway <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />

Barx

07-21-2009, 10:38 PM

This request is kind of out of left field, but it's something that I think would be REALLY useful.Quite simple really: the ability to set the max # of spell results for players separate from that for mobs. There's several times where I want to be able to see something on the mob (or what the mob is casting) but I could care less for the 10,000 music notes and such on everyone in a raid.Any possiblity of getting that sometime Soon(tm)?

Imago-Quem

07-22-2009, 02:42 PM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think something else that you should add to the list is better support for Anti-Aliasing. You can turn it on by editing the text, but that's really inconvenient. There are also A LOT of bugs with it. When you enable anything in the Atmospheric Effects section in the Display Options AA will no longer work. It seems like only one or the other will work. Another problem is when you turn on the shader anywhere 1+ AA will not work either. There are some restrictions too like how you AA only works if you set your graphics card AA setting to 4x or less, and anything above 4x will disable it completely.</blockquote>I have 8 x AA and 16 x anisotropic running ok. I've had problems with AA where I've gone down to very fast performance for a raid, gone back to balanced and - because it re-enables bloom- lost AA. Had to reboot the computer for it to work again.Also lost AA switching accounts and at other random times for no obvious reason. However the game looks far better with AA on than it does with bloom - I think bloom should be disabled by default and AA enabled by default.There will be no need for bloom if HDR is supported anyway I think.</blockquote>Right now the AA is completely driven by your driver. EQ2 doesn't have any source code that actually does AA. I'll add it to the list, along with AA + bloom.

Imago-Quem

07-22-2009, 02:50 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote> DX10 helps solve the sorting problem but I don't expect EQ2 going to DX10 anytime soon.</blockquote>That's because you're going straight to DX11 right? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Or maybe that's because the games haven't really caught up with the new technology. There isn't a significant amount of games that use DX10 as is and Vista has been out for how long now?</blockquote>It's just that adding a new DX version would require a very large code change and DX10+ operate in quite different ways than DX9. To utilize it properly the engine would even require a re-org of structures and batches, including new ways of setting up the graphics data. That's just to get it into DX10 with no differences. After all that we would finally, much later, be able to write some DX10 effects.

Achala

07-22-2009, 03:12 PM

<cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote>This request is kind of out of left field, but it's something that I think would be REALLY useful.Quite simple really: the ability to set the max # of spell results for players separate from that for mobs. There's several times where I want to be able to see something on the mob (or what the mob is casting) but I could care less for the 10,000 music notes and such on everyone in a raid.Any possiblity of getting that sometime Soon(tm)?</blockquote>/seconded...I like this idea. But I'd want three sliders. One for me (maxed out, of course), one for the mobs, and one for everyone else. Because I want to see MY heroic flurry of particle effects. And, like you said, I want to see the mobs effects. But everyone else tagging along with me don't need to be spamming my screen with their notes and whatnot. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Jaale

07-22-2009, 03:40 PM

Hair/fur please! My Kerrah deserves to look like he has fur not like he's been cast in a plastic mold! Maybe if it's been raining to have the fur plastered down like it is now but a little life would be great! Maybe then we can have a mane of hair like a lion if people wanted! (Though I prefer the tiger look personally.) I would also like to be able to set it so that you can choose who has spell effects, I think the best idea is the ME, NPC and other players to have sliders so I can choose how much each has. I like the idea of being able to set it so it's just me and the mob in raids.

Huntress Jellica

07-23-2009, 11:49 AM

<cite>Achala wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote>This request is kind of out of left field, but it's something that I think would be REALLY useful.Quite simple really: the ability to set the max # of spell results for players separate from that for mobs. There's several times where I want to be able to see something on the mob (or what the mob is casting) but I could care less for the 10,000 music notes and such on everyone in a raid.Any possiblity of getting that sometime Soon(tm)?</blockquote>/seconded...I like this idea. But I'd want three sliders. One for me (maxed out, of course), one for the mobs, and one for everyone else. Because I want to see MY heroic flurry of particle effects. And, like you said, I want to see the mobs effects. But everyone else tagging along with me don't need to be spamming my screen with their notes and whatnot. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>QFE. Excellent idea, and something I've been wanting for a while now.I would love to be able to see what the mobs are doing (Varsoon's curse, Gruush's AoE, etc), but I couldn't care less what the other people in the raid are casting.

Cragger

07-23-2009, 12:16 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>How about procedural textures <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Would cut out the need for dowloading huge texture files, and would improve permormance off the scale <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />Here's a link to an interesting dev tool called Substance Air, hehe intergrating it may however be impossible. the idea sounds great though, turning 2m/b textures into 2kb desrciptions of textures.<a href="http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=PRODUCTS.substance">http://www.allegorithmic.com/?PAGE=...DUCTS.substance</a></blockquote>That's really awesome! Not sure if it's too much work at this point, but I'll add the idea in for consideration. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I suspect it would take the engine quite a while to generate 100's or thousands of textures compared to just loading them. Your load time might end up being the same. I wouldn't know for sure unless I researched more. Cool stuff though.</blockquote>Heh, got to love when old school becomes new school again. Back in the day all things had to be procedural because of the limited amout of data space and memory space. Talking about kilobytes here, megabytes where unheard of. Will wright has shown the power of such efficiency with Spore in this day and age where massive amounts of memory has lead to such arts being lost <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. To bad EA dumbed the heck of out of that game.

Imago-Quem

07-24-2009, 10:16 PM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite><blockquote>Also have we considered the effects of adding<li>Ambient occlusion or Global illumination </li><li>I know you discussed Volumetric lighting(aka god rays) but does this include more realistic fog? </li></blockquote>Ok, here's the list, ordered, to my best guess, of what players and internal management would vote for in regards to popularity and feasibility:(Totally subject to change) 1. Upgraded flora system 2. Upgraded cloud system 3. Upgraded sky-box effects 4. Point-light shadow maps 5. SLI/Crossfire support 6. HDR lighting 7. Upgraded weather system 8. Hair strands 9. General optimization overhaul 10. Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling) 11. Ambient Occlusion 12. God rays 13. Under water flora (coral system) 14. Ocean effects (waves, clear edges) 15. Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust) 16. Atmospheric haze / depth fog 17. Depth of Field 18. Subsurface scattering 19. Global illumination 20. Caustic mapping 21. GPU PhysX</blockquote>What are the level of difficulties for each item? Is it to hte point where you could only pull off one feature a game update? Or could a few be done an update?You don't have to be detailed or anything, just curious.</blockquote>It's hard to say without starting some research in the feature. Not only do I need to research the graphical feature but also how the feature might fit into the EQ2 engine. Since I'm not writing a new graphics engine I can't just make something up, which is WAY easier. I have to integrate. It's a lot more bug prone and complicated. But based on some graphical understanding and experience, here's my best shot (difficulty from easy-1 to nearly impossible-10): ( 2 ) Point-light shadow maps (only because sun-lights are done now)( 3 ) Atmospheric haze / depth fog( 3 ) Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)( 4 ) Upgraded sky-box effects( 5 ) Upgraded cloud system( 5 ) SLI/Crossfire support( 5 ) HDR lighting( 5 ) General optimization overhaul (difficulty totally depends on how much)( 5 ) God rays( 6 ) Subsurface scattering( 7 ) Upgraded water (refraction, reflection, rippling)( 7 ) Upgraded weather system ( 7 ) GPU Sun Shadows( 7 ) Upgraded flora system( 7 ) Caustic mapping( 7 ) Depth of Field( 7 ) Under water flora (coral system)( 8 ) Ocean effects (waves, clear edges)( 8 ) Ambient Occlusion( 8 ) Hair strands( 9 ) Global illumination( 9 ) 3.0 Shader upgrade( 9 ) GPU PhysX As far as how quickly I can implement and integrate these features, it seems to scale with difficulty, about like this: difficulty x 0.666 = months.So it would probably take me about 9 years to get all of the above into EQ2.

Imago-Quem

07-24-2009, 10:34 PM

<cite>Huntress Jellica wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Achala wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote>This request is kind of out of left field, but it's something that I think would be REALLY useful.Quite simple really: the ability to set the max # of spell results for players separate from that for mobs. There's several times where I want to be able to see something on the mob (or what the mob is casting) but I could care less for the 10,000 music notes and such on everyone in a raid.Any possiblity of getting that sometime Soon(tm)?</blockquote>/seconded...I like this idea. But I'd want three sliders. One for me (maxed out, of course), one for the mobs, and one for everyone else. Because I want to see MY heroic flurry of particle effects. And, like you said, I want to see the mobs effects. But everyone else tagging along with me don't need to be spamming my screen with their notes and whatnot. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>QFE. Excellent idea, and something I've been wanting for a while now.I would love to be able to see what the mobs are doing (Varsoon's curse, Gruush's AoE, etc), but I couldn't care less what the other people in the raid are casting.</blockquote><cite>Graal@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would also like to be able to set it so that you can choose who has spell effects, I think the best idea is the ME, NPC and other players to have sliders so I can choose how much each has. I like the idea of being able to set it so it's just me and the mob in raids. </blockquote><cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote>This request is kind of out of left field, but it's something that I think would be REALLY useful.Quite simple really: the ability to set the max # of spell results for players separate from that for mobs. There's several times where I want to be able to see something on the mob (or what the mob is casting) but I could care less for the 10,000 music notes and such on everyone in a raid.Any possiblity of getting that sometime Soon(tm)?</blockquote>Definitely something I've been bringing up a lot lately in the offices... since a lot of players are too. I'm fully booked on fixing up GPU Shadows whenever a bug comes out and getting Shader 3.0 ready for shipping. Brian is the other person that usually deals with this type of programming. I've mentioned it to him a few times now. We've brainstormed on how it could be done. I'll be sure to bring it up in my next meeting with the coding team lead.

Imago-Quem

07-24-2009, 10:59 PM

<cite>Encryption767 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have a couple of questions myself. Is there a way to adjust LOD behind the depth of field curtain so that performance may increase? Also I would like to know if deffered shading is used especially since the lighting is starting to look really nice in the shots you have given us. Plus does EQ2 do any sort of texture streaming at all? Such as GTAIV and the UE3?Would also like to ask has procedural animation been concidered for model animations besides cloth or if you guys dont handle that department then have you heard anything about it from the devs that do?</blockquote>1.) LOD outside depth of field curtain. Not sure exactly what you mean by this, but we do have options to change where LOD switches occur. They can be changed by setting your performance levels also.2.) Deferred shading. It is not used. Each object has its own material, colors, textures, and shader effects. A lot of objects might have similar shading applied, but it is not applied in a deferred fashion. If it were, I would have been done with the 3.0 upgrade a long time ago.3.) I don't know a lot about the EQ2 texture resource management, but the engine does use a lot of it, along with caching and what not. I'm pretty sure there's a set batch of textures and resources loaded per zone and then others are loaded as you get near them.4.) Procedural animations. No, we haven't been thinking about adding in procedural animations, but we do have a new animation artist who is awesome!

Captain Apple Darkberry

07-24-2009, 11:17 PM

<cite>Eriol wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hair is tricky in that it can make a huge impact, or it can be a massive eyesore if done wrong. If it's done, it's a LOT more than just the graphics guy, but a concerted effort by the art team as well.As for myself, I'd put general optimizations above ALL of them. Get a good solid "framework" in there that the other features can be built on top of. I know what it's like trying to migrate a feature to a new architecture, and it's not pretty. But often it's even LESS pretty to make a new feature on top of something that's "questionable" at best. Overhaul existing, bringing forward as few things as you can, and with the well-designed and well-optimized base, THEN build the rest of the "neat" features on top of it.In a way you're already doing this by moving all of the new features to shader 3.0 and NOT implementing them under 1.0 (I fully endorse this), but don't neglect the "engine" part of it either. Do that first too, and in the end it'll probably make the rest faster.</blockquote>If changing the hair system would allow races to wear hats without their hair disappearing...I would move it to the top 5. There are ZERO hats I will wear on my Halflings because they turn me into a BALD person wearing a hat.

Gungo

07-24-2009, 11:53 PM

I Guess i will take 2-5 and throw in an 8 for the animation artists. Thats a good goal for the next 2 years =P. Its a joke of course but seems like at least you got alot you can choose.( 2 ) Point-light shadow maps (only because sun-lights are done now)( 3 ) Atmospheric haze / depth fog( 3 ) Underwater upgrade (refraction, dust)( 4 ) Upgraded sky-box effects( 5 ) Upgraded cloud system( 5 ) SLI/Crossfire support( 5 ) HDR lighting( 5 ) General optimization overhaul (difficulty totally depends on how much)( 5 ) God rays( 8 ) Hair strands

ke'la

07-25-2009, 04:01 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>So it would probably take me about 9 years to get all of the above into EQ2.</blockquote>So what are you doing posting here... get back to work. ::Cracks Whip::j/k we all know you are doing the best you can with what you have and most are pleased with what we see so far.

Dragowulf

07-26-2009, 05:46 PM

I'm not sure if this is up your alley, but does EQ2 utilize 2gb+ of RAM?Also is there any support for 64-bit machines?

AlawnGnome

07-27-2009, 01:01 AM

The most important thing is moving stuff from the cpu to the gpu. Any possible way you can do that would be great. Of the things you listed these are the ones that look the best to me. ( 5 ) SLI/Crossfire support( 5 ) HDR lighting( 5 ) General optimization overhaul (difficulty totally depends on how much)( 8 ) Hair strands( 9 ) 3.0 Shader upgrade( 9 ) GPU PhysX

Seolta

07-27-2009, 08:14 PM

AlawnGnome - Shader 3.0 is already happening...so you should exclude it from your list imo.The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization and SLI/Crossfire....everything else on the list is fluff.SOE will NOT entice new subscribers with flora upgrade, cloud upgrade etc etc. but WILL attract new subs(and retain some current subs) with performance improvements.Why bother with things like HDR before you optimize for current hardware so that ppl with avg. gaming machines can actually benefit from the visual enhancements???The common knowledge is that EQ2 looks gorgeous but runs like a pig...let's get real here and address the most important issues first.Disclaimer: Imago is pretty rad for going out of his way to engage the community on these issues and my usual "tart" attitude in the post above is aimed more at the community who "votes" for things like "prettier clouds" over concrete improvements like SLI support.

Guy De Alsace

07-28-2009, 05:28 AM

Personally, I feel proper [Removed for Content] animation needs to be #1 priority <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

guillero

07-28-2009, 08:33 AM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>AlawnGnome - Shader 3.0 is already happening...so you should exclude it from your list imo.The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization and SLI/Crossfire....everything else on the list is fluff.SOE will NOT entice new subscribers with flora upgrade, cloud upgrade etc etc. but WILL attract new subs(and retain some current subs) with performance improvements.Why bother with things like HDR before you optimize for current hardware so that ppl with avg. gaming machines can actually benefit from the visual enhancements???The common knowledge is that EQ2 looks gorgeous but runs like a pig...let's get real here and address the most important issues first.Disclaimer: Imago is pretty rad for going out of his way to engage the community on these issues and my usual "tart" attitude in the post above is aimed more at the community who "votes" for things like "prettier clouds" over concrete improvements like SLI support.</blockquote>Dude... let me quote my previous post:SLI/CrossfireIt actually loses in popularity as more and more people are finding out it is a total scam and rip-off.The performance gain in a SLI/Crossfire setups is so minimal, that the next card being released 3 months later already beats your SLI / Crossfire setup and that for half the price!I personally think that SLI/Crossfire support can be bumped to the bottom. Total waste of time if you ask me.I am a serious game fanatic for over 20 years now and total gadget freak...have always build and upgraded my PC's, but like many others I will never buy 2 graphic cards for just 10 fps gain. Let alone even 3!!!! It's ridiculous.That money is better spend in extra RAM, a CPU upgrade or some extra Harddrive, etc.----------------------------------------And now go rant somewhere else, instead of isulting people and the developer in question.It's perfectly clear you got a SLI or Crossfire setup and do a request for it. Hence, you are not alone and so it's on the wish list. If you've had actually taken a look at it.All the other stuff might be fluff to you, but for many of us it isn't.If all that other stuff is so fluff to you, then you don't care about graphics as whole, making your SLI/Crossfire setup even more laughable... and you can just set your EQ2 settings to High Performance and you got all the high framerates you want!Jer

Silverdrop

07-28-2009, 12:16 PM

Barx

07-28-2009, 12:20 PM

<cite>Silverdrop wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>AlawnGnome - Shader 3.0 is already happening...so you should exclude it from your list imo.The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization and SLI/Crossfire....everything else on the list is fluff.Why bother with things like HDR before you optimize for current hardware so that ppl with avg. gaming machines can actually benefit from the visual enhancements???</blockquote>Relevant parts highlighted: Since when is SLI/Crossfire the standard on an average gaming machine?</blockquote>Since that person probably has a SLI or Crossfire rig that they want to run better <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.But seriously, 99% of the time when it comes to EQ2 you are better off with a single, good video card then two decent ones in SLI/Crossfire. That's sort of the reason most mid-range machines don't go SLI/Crossfire but instead go with a single card.

Detor

07-28-2009, 01:13 PM

<cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since that person probably has a SLI or Crossfire rig that they want to run better <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />.But seriously, 99% of the time when it comes to EQ2 you are better off with a single, good video card then two decent ones in SLI/Crossfire. That's sort of the reason most mid-range machines don't go SLI/Crossfire but instead go with a single card.</blockquote>In my experience it's better to have 1 good video card, than 2 good video cards when it comes to EQ2. For whatever reason for EQ2 I actually get better performance if I go into the control panel and set it to "Multiple display" mode instead of "Multi-GPU mode" - even though I don't have multiple displays. I don't know why but EQ2 hates SLI even being on, even though the game is set to Single-GPU mode anyway by default from nvidia.In other games the performance boost isn't really enough considering the cost, so I'm right there with you when you say you won't be buying any future SLI setups.

Barx

07-28-2009, 02:07 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>In my experience it's better to have 1 good video card, than 2 good video cards when it comes to EQ2. For whatever reason for EQ2 I actually get better performance if I go into the control panel and set it to "Multiple display" mode instead of "Multi-GPU mode" - even though I don't have multiple displays. I don't know why but EQ2 hates SLI even being on, even though the game is set to Single-GPU mode anyway by default from nvidia.In other games the performance boost isn't really enough considering the cost, so I'm right there with you when you say you won't be buying any future SLI setups.</blockquote>Aye, EQ2 doesn't really support it is the reason. So what you're getting is all the overhead from the SLI/Crossfire but none of the actual benefit.I used to have a 7950 GX2 -- it was basically two 7900's in a single-card SLI format. I ditched it for a GTS 250 that consumes less power, is FAR less hot (the 7950 would sizzle along at 90C in some games, it was getting old and tired; the 250 hits maybe 50C), and performs a lot better.

Dragowulf

07-28-2009, 02:30 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think something else that you should add to the list is better support for Anti-Aliasing. You can turn it on by editing the text, but that's really inconvenient. There are also A LOT of bugs with it. When you enable anything in the Atmospheric Effects section in the Display Options AA will no longer work. It seems like only one or the other will work. Another problem is when you turn on the shader anywhere 1+ AA will not work either. There are some restrictions too like how you AA only works if you set your graphics card AA setting to 4x or less, and anything above 4x will disable it completely.</blockquote>I have 8 x AA and 16 x anisotropic running ok. I've had problems with AA where I've gone down to very fast performance for a raid, gone back to balanced and - because it re-enables bloom- lost AA. Had to reboot the computer for it to work again.Also lost AA switching accounts and at other random times for no obvious reason. However the game looks far better with AA on than it does with bloom - I think bloom should be disabled by default and AA enabled by default.There will be no need for bloom if HDR is supported anyway I think.</blockquote>Right now the AA is completely driven by your driver. EQ2 doesn't have any source code that actually does AA. I'll add it to the list, along with AA + bloom.</blockquote>AA doesn't work with Shaders on too. It kind of sucks that it's either or with AA and Shaders/Bloom.

ke'la

07-28-2009, 03:31 PM

<cite>Lord_Ebon wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>In my experience it's better to have 1 good video card, than 2 good video cards when it comes to EQ2. For whatever reason for EQ2 I actually get better performance if I go into the control panel and set it to "Multiple display" mode instead of "Multi-GPU mode" - even though I don't have multiple displays. I don't know why but EQ2 hates SLI even being on, even though the game is set to Single-GPU mode anyway by default from nvidia.In other games the performance boost isn't really enough considering the cost, so I'm right there with you when you say you won't be buying any future SLI setups.</blockquote>Aye, EQ2 doesn't really support it is the reason. So what you're getting is all the overhead from the SLI/Crossfire but none of the actual benefit.I used to have a 7950 GX2 -- it was basically two 7900's in a single-card SLI format. I ditched it for a GTS 250 that consumes less power, is FAR less hot (the 7950 would sizzle along at 90C in some games, it was getting old and tired; the 250 hits maybe 50C), and performs a lot better.</blockquote>The only reason I have a 7950 in my computer is because it was given as a Free Upgrade to it for the price of a 7900. This was about 4 months befor the next gen card came out, and my exsisting computer was on its last legs, so I didn't have time to wait for them.

Josgar

07-28-2009, 05:41 PM

I wonder how Lavastorm and Everfrost will look.

Seolta

07-29-2009, 09:12 AM

<div>Wow,Jerokane and the rest of the peanut gallery totally help me in making my point that many players apparently have no grasp of the technical issues affecting the game and in particular the graphics system.1. For those of you with reading comprehension difficulty let me quote myself with a VERY important word highlighted:"The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization ***AND*** SLI/Crossfire"It's so funny to see these misinformed people jump off on some insane anti-SLI rant and totally ignore the rest of that sentence.GPU optimization would ideally come chronologically before SLI/Crossfire support so that there would be sufficient overhead on the GPUs to actually see a significant impact on performance.If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.2. Although Jerokane has taken it upon himself to officially decree SLI to be a "total scam and rip-off" it appears that some very accomplished professionals have published proof to the contrary via extensive testing.Here are 2 examples from Tom's Hardware which just happens to be one of the most highly regarded hardware review sites on the web:A. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4770-crossfire,2288.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...sfire,2288.html</a>Here's an excerpt: "Two Radeon HD 4770s are unbeatable at $220. Almost across the board, in every single benchmark, a pair of 4770s is able to oust the Radeon HD 4890. Moreover, the 4770s use less power under load, run cooler, and, if our samples were any indication, overclock like mad. Need I even mention the two cards keeping pace with the GTX 280—a $305+ board?"B. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-sli,2298.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...x-sli,2298.html</a>Another excerpt: "Given the shortage of GeForce GTX 295s in the channel right now, we thought it’d be interesting to see how closely the performance of a GeForce GTX 295 could be matched by two GTX 275s. And the answer, given the GTX 275’s rather substantial clock speed advantage, is that you’ll quite easily outmode a GTX 295 using a couple of 275s—often with frame rates that are 10% higher or more. Moreover, the single-GPU cards are actually cheaper than the premium dual-GPU board." (The above review features an SLI setup that outperforms a pricier single slot/dual gpu card costing $100 more FYI)In both cases the multi gpu setups were found to be cheaper and better performing than the comperable single card solution.Any gamer/system builder worth his or her salt will tell you that this has been the case for some time now and not merely an abberation.While it's true that **When NVIDIA first re-introduced the concept of SLI 5 yrs ago(after acquiring the assets of the company that first introduced it - 3DFX)** multi gpu setups offered lackluster performance increases. This is definitely a different story today.Developers have embraced SLI and both Nvidia and ATI have improved their multi gpu driver optimizations so that performance scaling of multi vs. single card setups has been very favorable for some time now, as evidenced in the reviews linked above and countless others. 3. In fact I DO NOT run an SLI or Crossfire setup in any of 3 gaming rigs...primarily because the majority of my gaming time is spent in EQ2 which actually runs worse(in most cases) on a multi-gpu setup. However, I am sick of sacrificing FPS in the other games I do occasionally play simply because of EQ2's archaic performance "irregularities".4. Did you even bother reading the postscript Jerokane? I'm actually *praising* Imago, while admitting that any ill will in the original post is directed squarely at ppl who try to dismiss technical improvements they don't understand as "useless", spout off illogical diatribes based on misinformation, mis-construe and mis-quote other people's posts, and respond to opinion based posts with personal attacks just like yours.</div>

Barx

07-29-2009, 09:30 AM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>Wow,Jerokane and the rest of the peanut gallery totally help me in making my point that many players apparently have no grasp of the technical issues affecting the game and in particular the graphics system.1. For those of you with reading comprehension difficulty let me quote myself with a VERY important word highlighted:"The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization ***AND*** SLI/Crossfire"It's so funny to see these misinformed people jump off on some insane anti-SLI rant and totally ignore the rest of that sentence.GPU optimization would ideally come chronologically before SLI/Crossfire support so that there would be sufficient overhead on the GPUs to actually see a significant impact on performance.If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.2. Although Jerokane has taken it upon himself to officially decree SLI to be a "total scam and rip-off" it appears that some very accomplished professionals have published proof to the contrary via extensive testing.Here are 2 examples from Tom's Hardware which just happens to be one of the most highly regarded hardware review sites on the web:A. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4770-crossfire,2288.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...sfire,2288.html</a>Here's an excerpt: "Two Radeon HD 4770s are unbeatable at $220. Almost across the board, in every single benchmark, a pair of 4770s is able to oust the Radeon HD 4890. Moreover, the 4770s use less power under load, run cooler, and, if our samples were any indication, overclock like mad. Need I even mention the two cards keeping pace with the GTX 280—a $305+ board?"B. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-sli,2298.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...x-sli,2298.html</a>Another excerpt: "Given the shortage of GeForce GTX 295s in the channel right now, we thought it’d be interesting to see how closely the performance of a GeForce GTX 295 could be matched by two GTX 275s. And the answer, given the GTX 275’s rather substantial clock speed advantage, is that you’ll quite easily outmode a GTX 295 using a couple of 275s—often with frame rates that are 10% higher or more. Moreover, the single-GPU cards are actually cheaper than the premium dual-GPU board." (The above review features an SLI setup that outperforms a pricier single slot/dual gpu card costing $100 more FYI)In both cases the multi gpu setups were found to be cheaper and better performing than the comperable single card solution.Any gamer/system builder worth his or her salt will tell you that this has been the case for some time now and not merely an abberation.While it's true that **When NVIDIA first re-introduced the concept of SLI 5 yrs ago(after acquiring the assets of the company that first introduced it - 3DFX)** multi gpu setups offered lackluster performance increases. This is definitely a different story today.Developers have embraced SLI and both Nvidia and ATI have improved their multi gpu driver optimizations so that performance scaling of multi vs. single card setups has been very favorable for some time now, as evidenced in the reviews linked above and countless others. 3. In fact I DO NOT run an SLI or Crossfire setup in any of 3 gaming rigs...primarily because the majority of my gaming time is spent in EQ2 which actually runs worse(in most cases) on a multi-gpu setup. However, I am sick of sacrificing FPS in the other games I do occasionally play simply because of EQ2's archaic performance "irregularities".4. Did you even bother reading the postscript Jerokane? I'm actually *praising* Imago, while admitting that any ill will in the original post is directed squarely at ppl who try to dismiss technical improvements they don't understand as "useless", spout off illogical diatribes based on misinformation, mis-construe and mis-quote other people's posts, and respond to opinion based posts with personal attacks just like yours.</div></blockquote>1/2. GPU optimization should be a priority, but not SLI/Crossfire. I'm sure they could do another survey and see how many folks use it, it's probably not a huge amount. Yes, those setups tend to be better than a single card, but optimization is most important for the lower-mid end, not the high-end where you see most SLI/C and dual-GPU cards. SLI/C should be on his list, but I sure as heck wouldn't put it at #1 or #2. Insulting people because they rank clouds or something higher than general optimization just shows what their priorities are, it has nothing to do with their technical knowledge.3. If you go with a high-end SLI or Crossfire card, do you really need to care about the few fps you're losing in EQ2? If it makes a huge advantage to you in newer games, buy it. Personally I don't notice a huge gain in quality above 20 fps.4. Countering a personal attack with a personal attack is the pot calling the kettle black. Sorry, it's just true; if a bear roars at you and you poke it with a stick, it's going to act back (and that does not further the discussion here)Back on topic, there is always room for optimization, and I expect that he's tweaking things here and there as he goes. I expect shader 3.0 to be neutral or maybe even a slight gain, since it is a technology better suited to modern cards and it should reduce the total number of shaders (since the old effects can be combined / reduced into fewer). CPU shadows make my PC chug, but I can put GPU shadows on for only a few fps loss. I call that one heck of an "optimization" in shadows. (I know that's not what you mean by optimization, I'm just making a point that the game can be made better without the #1 focus being pure code optimization).

guillero

07-29-2009, 10:22 AM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>Wow,Jerokane and the rest of the peanut gallery totally help me in making my point that many players apparently have no grasp of the technical issues affecting the game and in particular the graphics system.1. For those of you with reading comprehension difficulty let me quote myself with a VERY important word highlighted:"The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization ***AND*** SLI/Crossfire"It's so funny to see these misinformed people jump off on some insane anti-SLI rant and totally ignore the rest of that sentence.GPU optimization would ideally come chronologically before SLI/Crossfire support so that there would be sufficient overhead on the GPUs to actually see a significant impact on performance.If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.2. Although Jerokane has taken it upon himself to officially decree SLI to be a "total scam and rip-off" it appears that some very accomplished professionals have published proof to the contrary via extensive testing.Here are 2 examples from Tom's Hardware which just happens to be one of the most highly regarded hardware review sites on the web:A. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-4770-crossfire,2288.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...sfire,2288.html</a>Here's an excerpt: "Two Radeon HD 4770s are unbeatable at $220. Almost across the board, in every single benchmark, a pair of 4770s is able to oust the Radeon HD 4890. Moreover, the 4770s use less power under load, run cooler, and, if our samples were any indication, overclock like mad. Need I even mention the two cards keeping pace with the GTX 280—a $305+ board?"B. <a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-sli,2298.html">http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews...x-sli,2298.html</a>Another excerpt: "Given the shortage of GeForce GTX 295s in the channel right now, we thought it’d be interesting to see how closely the performance of a GeForce GTX 295 could be matched by two GTX 275s. And the answer, given the GTX 275’s rather substantial clock speed advantage, is that you’ll quite easily outmode a GTX 295 using a couple of 275s—often with frame rates that are 10% higher or more. Moreover, the single-GPU cards are actually cheaper than the premium dual-GPU board." (The above review features an SLI setup that outperforms a pricier single slot/dual gpu card costing $100 more FYI)In both cases the multi gpu setups were found to be cheaper and better performing than the comperable single card solution.Any gamer/system builder worth his or her salt will tell you that this has been the case for some time now and not merely an abberation.While it's true that **When NVIDIA first re-introduced the concept of SLI 5 yrs ago(after acquiring the assets of the company that first introduced it - 3DFX)** multi gpu setups offered lackluster performance increases. This is definitely a different story today.Developers have embraced SLI and both Nvidia and ATI have improved their multi gpu driver optimizations so that performance scaling of multi vs. single card setups has been very favorable for some time now, as evidenced in the reviews linked above and countless others. 3. In fact I DO NOT run an SLI or Crossfire setup in any of 3 gaming rigs...primarily because the majority of my gaming time is spent in EQ2 which actually runs worse(in most cases) on a multi-gpu setup. However, I am sick of sacrificing FPS in the other games I do occasionally play simply because of EQ2's archaic performance "irregularities".4. Did you even bother reading the postscript Jerokane? I'm actually *praising* Imago, while admitting that any ill will in the original post is directed squarely at ppl who try to dismiss technical improvements they don't understand as "useless", spout off illogical diatribes based on misinformation, mis-construe and mis-quote other people's posts, and respond to opinion based posts with personal attacks just like yours.</div></blockquote>I perfectly understand the technology behind SLI/Crossfire. Thank you.A mere 10% or so performance increase is a ripp off and a scam. You can put it all you want. High and low.Why would I want to spend double the money on two cards, just for a mere +/- 5 - 10 fps gain on highest settings??When you get above 30fps and able to run games in like 50fps on highest settings on a single card.And when I crank in a second one in SLI I suddenly get 55 to 60fps. WOW! woot.... I am really going to notice all that difference. NOT.I understand that in the First Person Shooter games a lot of gamers are high frame rate junkies and really believe that when they get 10 extra framerates they suddenly become a better gamer and can woop someones rear butt all the sudden. Sure sure. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" />I have been following all these framerates discussions for over 10 years now and it all still gives me a good laugh. And so does the GFX industry playing perfectly into that with their SLI/Crossfire technology. Hence, today they even try to ripp you off and lure you into buying even three video cards [Removed for Content]!I have been playing FPS games since the early Hexen, Quake, UT99 days up till UT3 and all I need was 30-40fps and I wooped just as many player's butts then those crybabies bragging about having 70-90 or more framerates.And in MMO's high framerates mean even less as they are much slower paced then First Person Shooters (where it's feasible to have around 40 or so framerates).I run EverQuest 2 in high quality settings (with lots of tweaks here and there) and have between 30-50 fps and runs smooth as silk.You really not gonna see any difference when you get above 40-50fps. You just don't.A funny sidenote is also that all current TFT screens are 60Hz and so when you get passed 60fps it's pretty much pointless anyway.---------As long as SLI technology isn't gonna offer me at least near DOUBLE the performance when paying for TWO cards I still keep seeing it as a rip off.Not to mention that when you crank in a second card and put it in SLI/Crossfire... the motherboard kills the buss speed of the second PCIe x16 slot by 50% ! Also a little sidenote.Jer

zimmer

07-29-2009, 01:33 PM

Unfortunately you did not read Seolta's post passed the first word.Same performance or better for a lot less money is what he was trying to say. I have seen this as well. Toms Hardware has also proven how much we need the x16 vs x8 PCI-E slots. That is to say there was no difference because x8 provides enough bandwidth so the slots being cut down to x8 is fine. As well newer board do not do this and use a second controller to keep the slots up to x8.So if I am getting 15fps and adding a second card for cheap to get 26fps or so is not worth it your telling me? Simple logic tells me it is. All depends on where your starting from if your getting a steady 40 that is great for you but most are not. I think it is selfish of you to decide for everyone the level of importance SLI has. state your opinion and provide backup reasoning maybe but your trying to make it fact when it is not so

guillero

07-29-2009, 02:56 PM

<cite>zimmer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Simple logic tells me it is. All depends on where your starting from if your getting a steady 40 that is great for you but most are not. I think it is selfish of you to decide for everyone the level of importance SLI has. state your opinion and provide backup reasoning maybe but your trying to make it fact when it is not so</blockquote>I think you forgot to read his first post. Pot meets keddle there.Jer

feldon30

07-29-2009, 03:20 PM

What is a Keddle?

Josgar

07-29-2009, 03:53 PM

Is it seriously that hard to play the game on non max settings >.>

Landiin

07-29-2009, 04:02 PM

In EQ2 SLI is over kill for today's GPUs unless u just want the best of the best there isn't any need for it in EQ2..

zimmer

07-29-2009, 04:28 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>zimmer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Simple logic tells me it is. All depends on where your starting from if your getting a steady 40 that is great for you but most are not. I think it is selfish of you to decide for everyone the level of importance SLI has. state your opinion and provide backup reasoning maybe but your trying to make it fact when it is not so</blockquote>I think you forgot to read his first post. Pot meets keddle there.Jer</blockquote> I think you are not understanding what I was saying but that's ok. I was just restating what he was saying in a way I was hoping you would understand. Today's Top of the line GPU's can handle EQ2 but yesterday's may not. Not talking about building a brand new system.

feldon30

07-29-2009, 04:48 PM

Amazing how long this thread stayed nice, but with the SLI bullpucky, yeah, it's pretty much gone off the rails.Hopefully someone can clean it up or steer it back on course.Ultimately, EQ2 devs have to make decisions to implement changes and features that at least 1% of the playerbase will see. SLI-specific optimizations would fall well outside that. General improvements to GPU utilization and graphics performance, all while improving the graphics, seem to be de rigeur.

zimmer

07-29-2009, 05:06 PM

Feldon, if you have insider info as to how many EQ2 players have SLI please do tell =) I would be curious.With Steam it is easy to get a picture of the average player but I have found from talking to a lot of players in EQ2 most have better system's than the average Steam user as EQ2 needs it. More ram, better cpu, high end video etc.

ke'la

07-30-2009, 01:38 AM

<cite>zimmer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Feldon, if you have insider info as to how many EQ2 players have SLI please do tell =) I would be curious.With Steam it is easy to get a picture of the average player but I have found from talking to a lot of players in EQ2 most have better system's than the average Steam user as EQ2 needs it. More ram, better cpu, high end video etc.</blockquote>They have a High end SINGLE video card because EQ2 does not support SLI, heck until resontly it didn't even support Multi-Core Procs, and even now it barly does.If your building a PC for EQ2, or are upgrading an exsisting one to improve EQ2 performance, the LAST thing you want to do is go Crossfire/SLI, it will accually hurt your over all performance, in EQ2.As far as "Insider Info" goes, while I doupt Feldon has that info I am sure either Imago-Quem, his Boss, or some other member of the graphics team do, and Imago-Quem has also have stated that SLI/Crossfire is a low priority. Why that is for sure I don't know, but I would guess it has to do with a combination of how much work it would be to support SLI/Crossfire and the limited numbers of people who would see a benifit from it.BTW, SLI/Crossfire is Number 5 on the list, IMO that is not a bad spot to be consitering there is no visable benifit to adding it, you can't show pritty pictures and say this is because of SLI support for exsample.

guillero

07-30-2009, 03:50 AM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Amazing how long this thread stayed nice, but with the SLI bullpucky, yeah, it's pretty much gone off the rails.Hopefully someone can clean it up or steer it back on course.Ultimately, EQ2 devs have to make decisions to implement changes and features that at least 1% of the playerbase will see. SLI-specific optimizations would fall well outside that. General improvements to GPU utilization and graphics performance, all while improving the graphics, seem to be de rigeur.</blockquote>Yes,Let's drop the SLI discussion and get back to the Shader 3.0 discussion... wich this thread is all about.Can't wait till it hits the Test Server to check Shader 3.0 out tho <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Guess we have to wait a week or two...Jer

Slugbait

07-30-2009, 04:01 AM

<cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.</div></blockquote>I think the thing worth noting here is that simply moving things from where they are now (CPU bound) to shader 3.0 (GPU bound) *is* the optimization. All these other things on the list are above and beyond the initial task, which is making the game run more acceptably on modern hardware. The fact that more shiny is coming out of it is because the shader 3.0 makes these things possible, especially because of performance increases given by doing things in a way that is more efficient on modern hardware.

guillero

07-30-2009, 04:50 AM

<cite>Slugbait wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.</div></blockquote>I think the thing worth noting here is that simply moving things from where they are now (CPU bound) to shader 3.0 (GPU bound) *is* the optimization. All these other things on the list are above and beyond the initial task, which is making the game run more acceptably on modern hardware. The fact that more shiny is coming out of it is because the shader 3.0 makes these things possible, especially because of performance increases given by doing things in a way that is more efficient on modern hardware.</blockquote>Slug,According to Seolta we are a Peanut gallery and have no understanding of the technical issues of the graphics system.Only SLI/Crossfire support is going to fix ALL the issues and all the rest is fluff.So I guess we can just go eat some roasted peanuts. Wanna have some too? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />Jer

ke'la

07-30-2009, 10:34 AM

<cite>Slugbait wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.</div></blockquote>I think the thing worth noting here is that simply moving things from where they are now (CPU bound) to shader 3.0 (GPU bound) *is* the optimization. All these other things on the list are above and beyond the initial task, which is making the game run more acceptably on modern hardware. The fact that more shiny is coming out of it is because the shader 3.0 makes these things possible, especially because of performance increases given by doing things in a way that is more efficient on modern hardware.</blockquote>Accually my understanding is not that Shader 3.0 makes it possable to add shiny, it is just that in 3.0 code the stuff looks better, meaning that the shiny of the 3.0 upgrade is accually a Side Effect, of switching over to code that has a greater ablity to optimize for modern equipment.

Slugbait

07-30-2009, 11:38 AM

Only SLI/Crossfire support is going to fix ALL the issues and all the rest is fluff.There's probably enough people with SLI/Crossfire to want to justify doing some sort of work into it, but I dunno. I could actually SLI the 8800 GT from my old computer with the 8800 GT in my new computer, but i'd rather get a new card. Then again, I feel like I should just wait for the next cheap good card to come out.I have really no clue what code is required for SLI when it comes to graphics stuff. You'd think that it just 'works'. If my understanding of modern hardware is right, which it probably isn't, SLI would be equiv to doubling your shader pipelines, because that's practically all modern hardware is. That's why the 8800 has had some difficulties with EQ2? I dunno.Accually my understanding is not that Shader 3.0 makes it possable to add shiny, it is just that in 3.0 code the stuff looks better, meaning that the shiny of the 3.0 upgrade is accually a Side Effect, of switching over to code that has a greater ablity to optimize for modern equipment.Yeah, this is what I was thinking. The 8800 is built to do shaders. If your game isn't doing as much with shaders and is doing things on your CPU or whatever, it's not going to be super efficient. For all I know, switching to 3.0 shaders and making things GPU bound will solve both issues of speed and SLI/Crossfire support. I really don't know though, I'm not a graphics programmer, at least at that level and certaintly never on anything as big as EQ2 <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />I dunno, I've played EQ2 off and on for years and this shader stuff has me really stoked. Can't wait for it.

ke'la

07-30-2009, 12:05 PM

<cite>Cutedge@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>Only SLI/Crossfire support is going to fix ALL the issues and all the rest is fluff.There's probably enough people with SLI/Crossfire to want to justify doing some sort of work into it, but I dunno.There is that is why it is number 5 on the "best guess" priority list, remember though that the list is not in anyway a promis, it is just the order Imago thinks will provide the most bang for the buck...not even sure if he has run it by the rest of the group or has any aprovals for any of it.I could actually SLI the 8800 GT from my old computer with the 8800 GT in my new computer, but i'd rather get a new card. Then again, I feel like I should just wait for the next cheap good card to come out.Thats what the other poster was saying, yes you could get equivilant graphics to a High End Card by going SLI, but for nearly the same price you can get 1 top end card now, and SLI it latter(then gain by the time that rolls around a new, new card will be out)I have really no clue what code is required for SLI when it comes to graphics stuff. You'd think that it just 'works'.On an easy(1) to Next to Impossable(10) scale Imago rated it a 5, "... based on some graphical understanding and experience..." not any research on the specifics of what adding it to EQ2 would require, that could jump it from a 5 to a 1k (on the 1 to 10 scale) or it could make it a 1(highly unlikly) If my understanding of modern hardware is right, which it probably isn't, SLI would be equiv to doubling your shader pipelines, because that's practically all modern hardware is. That's why the 8800 has had some difficulties with EQ2? I dunno. My understanding it is more like putting a second engine in your car, while in Theory it should double your power out put, with all the overhead just adding in that second power plant brings with it, it really is only a 30-40% increase in power at best, and then only if you can accually use that power otherwise it accually can hobble you somewhat.Accually my understanding is not that Shader 3.0 makes it possable to add shiny, it is just that in 3.0 code the stuff looks better, meaning that the shiny of the 3.0 upgrade is accually a Side Effect, of switching over to code that has a greater ablity to optimize for modern equipment.Yeah, this is what I was thinking. The 8800 is built to do shaders. If your game isn't doing as much with shaders and is doing things on your CPU or whatever, it's not going to be super efficient. For all I know, switching to 3.0 shaders and making things GPU bound will solve both issues of speed and SLI/Crossfire support. I really don't know though, I'm not a graphics programmer, at least at that level and certaintly never on anything as big as EQ2 <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> SLI/Crossfire support will be differant, that is why it has its own spot on Imago's list, the big thing this is doing is lowering the number of instructions(or something like that) that needs to be carried out befor it is handed off to the GPU for rendering.I dunno, I've played EQ2 off and on for years and this shader stuff has me really stoked. Can't wait for it.</blockquote>

vochore

07-30-2009, 01:55 PM

<blockquote>. Toms Hardware has also proven how much we need the x16 vs x8 PCI-E slots. That is to say there was no difference because x8 provides enough bandwidth so the slots being cut down to x8 is fine. As well newer board do not do this and use a second controller to keep the slots up to x8.</blockquote>just wanted to poke my head in here for a min but from seeing what both of you have writing down i think you need to get away from tomshardawre and go to a real gaming website like guru3d.com mainly becuse for the last few years most gaming motherboards no longer even use 8x pcie slots,they have mb chipsets that now keep both pcie slots running at a full 16x all the time and if you get 1 of the newest boards with triple pcie all 3 run at 16x.8x is so 3 years ago. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Josgar

07-30-2009, 03:29 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Here are a few more:<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_3.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_4.jpg" /></blockquote>In these two pictures of Nektulos the red light emitted adds a wonderful feel to the area. Will Everfrost have an icey lighting to it and will lavastorm have a more lava-y feeling?

zimmer

07-30-2009, 04:32 PM

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><blockquote>. Toms Hardware has also proven how much we need the x16 vs x8 PCI-E slots. That is to say there was no difference because x8 provides enough bandwidth so the slots being cut down to x8 is fine. As well newer board do not do this and use a second controller to keep the slots up to x8.</blockquote>just wanted to poke my head in here for a min but from seeing what both of you have writing down i think you need to get away from tomshardawre and go to a real gaming website like guru3d.com mainly becuse for the last few years most gaming motherboards no longer even use 8x pcie slots,they have mb chipsets that now keep both pcie slots running at a full 16x all the time and if you get 1 of the newest boards with triple pcie all 3 run at 16x.8x is so 3 years ago. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>That is what I said in the quote you quoted me on. As well guru3d has not done testing in the x8 vs x16 area otherwise I would reference that as well.agreed guru3d is more directed at gamers than just hardware folks though toms does cover a heck of a lot on all areas.

AlawnGnome

08-01-2009, 03:56 PM

<cite>AlawnGnome wrote:</cite><blockquote>The most important thing is moving stuff from the cpu to the gpu. Any possible way you can do that would be great. Of the things you listed these are the ones that look the best to me. ( 5 ) SLI/Crossfire support( 5 ) HDR lighting( 5 ) General optimization overhaul (difficulty totally depends on how much)( 8 ) Hair strands( 9 ) 3.0 Shader upgrade( 9 ) GPU PhysX</blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>AlawnGnome - Shader 3.0 is already happening...so you should exclude it from your list imo.The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization and SLI/Crossfire....everything else on the list is fluff.SOE will NOT entice new subscribers with flora upgrade, cloud upgrade etc etc. but WILL attract new subs(and retain some current subs) with performance improvements.Why bother with things like HDR before you optimize for current hardware so that ppl with avg. gaming machines can actually benefit from the visual enhancements???The common knowledge is that EQ2 looks gorgeous but runs like a pig...let's get real here and address the most important issues first.Disclaimer: Imago is pretty rad for going out of his way to engage the community on these issues and my usual "tart" attitude in the post above is aimed more at the community who "votes" for things like "prettier clouds" over concrete improvements like SLI support.</blockquote>I was just listing which ones I liked. It wasn't in any particular order. I left it in the order it was posted in before. GPU optimization and moving things from the CPU to the GPU should be the most important thing by far. After that I would like to optimize multicore CPU support better. A couple things run on the second core but not very much. 90% or more is on the first core. I know some of this is hard to do after the engine was made. The HDR looks cool to me from what I have seen in other games. Hair strands if they could be done on the GPU and PhysX sound cool. SLI would be kind of nice but it isn't huge to me. I have one computer with it and one without it. I am glad the shader thing is coming in. It looks great. The rest of the things on the original list (mostly looks stuff) I don't really think are too important unless GPU optimization is done and there is better multi core support. I would like it if the game could run better on the really high settings in game now. My understanding is that if the game was written now to take advantage of current hardware it could run way better at the higher settings.

ke'la

08-02-2009, 01:00 PM

<cite>AlawnGnome wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>AlawnGnome wrote:</cite><blockquote>The most important thing is moving stuff from the cpu to the gpu. Any possible way you can do that would be great. Of the things you listed these are the ones that look the best to me. ( 5 ) SLI/Crossfire support( 5 ) HDR lighting( 5 ) General optimization overhaul (difficulty totally depends on how much)( 8 ) Hair strands( 9 ) 3.0 Shader upgrade( 9 ) GPU PhysX</blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>AlawnGnome - Shader 3.0 is already happening...so you should exclude it from your list imo.The ONLY thing that matters atm is GPU Optimization and SLI/Crossfire....everything else on the list is fluff.SOE will NOT entice new subscribers with flora upgrade, cloud upgrade etc etc. but WILL attract new subs(and retain some current subs) with performance improvements.Why bother with things like HDR before you optimize for current hardware so that ppl with avg. gaming machines can actually benefit from the visual enhancements???The common knowledge is that EQ2 looks gorgeous but runs like a pig...let's get real here and address the most important issues first.Disclaimer: Imago is pretty rad for going out of his way to engage the community on these issues and my usual "tart" attitude in the post above is aimed more at the community who "votes" for things like "prettier clouds" over concrete improvements like SLI support.</blockquote>I was just listing which ones I liked. It wasn't in any particular order. I left it in the order it was posted in before. GPU optimization and moving things from the CPU to the GPU should be the most important thing by far. After that I would like to optimize multicore CPU support better. A couple things run on the second core but not very much. 90% or more is on the first core. I know some of this is hard to do after the engine was made. The HDR looks cool to me from what I have seen in other games. Hair strands if they could be done on the GPU and PhysX sound cool. SLI would be kind of nice but it isn't huge to me. I have one computer with it and one without it. I am glad the shader thing is coming in. It looks great. The rest of the things on the original list (mostly looks stuff) I don't really think are too important unless GPU optimization is done and there is better multi core support. I would like it if the game could run better on the really high settings in game now. My understanding is that if the game was written now to take advantage of current hardware it could run way better at the higher settings.</blockquote>Any upgrade he does to any of the graphics systems, would more then likly be done in a way that puts more of the proccessing burden on parts of the PC other then Core 0 of your proc. GPU Shaddows where done in Shadder 3.0, and this upgrade will move alot of other things to Shadder 3.0 wich will move some proccessing to the Videocard. My guess is whatever is desided to be worked on next will also utilize your computer in the best way possable, without rewritting the whole engine, and baised on the current PC envorment.

psisto

08-02-2009, 02:15 PM

I agree with the post above, thats my guess on how things will be handled.As for those people crying out for SLI: Im sorry to say that in the current state, optimizing for SLI is pointless. Once more stuff is actually handled by the GPU, youll automagically see more performance from your SLI rig.Think of it this way:Two trucks, one representing CPU, one GPU. the GPU truck is running 2/3rds empty, whilst the CPU truck is threatening to have its axles break under the load. Now... if you replaced the GPU truck with one of those huge mining trucks without taking load off the CPU truck - how exactly do you expect the game to run better again? <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />So once more load moves to the GPU, youll see performance AND visual improvements across the board. Which is the beauty of it , its rare that you get that kind of win-win deal

xpraetorianx

08-10-2009, 02:53 AM

there hasnt been an update to the 3.0 stuff in awhile. how is it coming and when can we expect to see some more screens perhaps in the daylight or other areas in the game?

Morghus

08-10-2009, 03:10 AM

<cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite><blockquote>there hasnt been an update to the 3.0 stuff in awhile. how is it coming and when can we expect to see some more screens perhaps in the daylight or other areas in the game?</blockquote>Yar, as far as potentially neat looking areas to showcase improvements...I pick:Timorous DeepNew Tunaria/Tunarian ThroneChardokRuins of VarsoonMistmoore's Inner Sanctum, Mistmoore's chamberTrakanon's LairA generic void palace type area(can those really look any better?)North QeynosEnchanted Lands dock areaSinking SandsPoet's PalaceSilent City, temple areaGreater Faydark

ke'la

08-10-2009, 04:52 AM

<cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite><blockquote>there hasnt been an update to the 3.0 stuff in awhile. how is it coming and when can we expect to see some more screens perhaps in the daylight or other areas in the game?</blockquote>If they hope to get this in to the September LU as planed they will have to be pushing it to test in the next week or too I would think.

guillero

08-10-2009, 08:47 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>More like this week. At maximum next week, if they want to have enough time to gather feedback and being able to fix the bugs.Seeing how much time and fixes the GPU shadows needed (and now it's on live still needs!).The sooner it can be pushed to TestLive the better me thinks.Jer

Imago-Quem

08-10-2009, 08:46 PM

Sorry for the lack of updates here. I've been away for a few days. Shader 3.0 is coming along. I've built a crazy tool that creates the 3.0 shaders for me (creating them by hand would take well over a year to complete). So far I've run the tool over most of the original game and one expansion. You wouldn't believe the complexity of this stuff, bleh! And now I'm walking through the game fixing the parts that didn't convert correctly.

Imago-Quem

08-10-2009, 08:54 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm not sure if this is up your alley, but does EQ2 utilize 2gb+ of RAM?Also is there any support for 64-bit machines?</blockquote>What I've gathered is we do support over 2GB of RAM as long as you either have a 64bit OS or your 3GB flag turned on in your OS.We don't have any 64bit code written for the game and will not likely support it anytime soon. It would require some very extensive work to be done.

guillero

08-11-2009, 03:40 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sorry for the lack of updates here. I've been away for a few days. Shader 3.0 is coming along. I've built a crazy tool that creates the 3.0 shaders for me (creating them by hand would take well over a year to complete). So far I've run the tool over most of the original game and one expansion. You wouldn't believe the complexity of this stuff, bleh! And now I'm walking through the game fixing the parts that didn't convert correctly.</blockquote>Outch. That means 4 expansion to go. Guess we won't see Shader 3.0 on Test this month then. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Jer

MurFalad

08-11-2009, 11:27 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Here's what I used to ordered it: player popularity, complexity, and internal design artist requests. The hair for example was bumped because the art director has mentioned it quite a few times and since I had not heard any thoughts about it from players it was bumped up pretty high. The more I hear from players about the features, the better I can prioritize. Then we'll go over the list internally and the leads of EQ2 will take a vote on the best bang for the bucks. Your disinterest in hair above other things will definitely impact the order here. Thanks for the feedback! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Firstly, really impressed with what I've seen, although the changes are so huge that I wonder if the artists are having to get involved redesigning the graphics in some zones?And on the hair, I would put that as one of the top priorities myself (even if I do play "bald" Froglok's) since if the February update is to entice new players then making the avatars look better would be great, some of the current hair styles do look a bit plasticy. Saying that though the Flora + Sky would be such a huge improvement too that its hard to not want it all done at once <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />And that's a thought, will Frogloks look different with the shader 3.0 update?(I know we already look beautiful enough, but I'm wondering if we might look perhaps, damper? <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)One last suggestion, I wonder if an in game survey would help to see what people would most want for graphical improvements? While I have a very good PC myself I do know most friends have something much more basic, so their desires are going to be performance related I guess.

Kitsune

08-12-2009, 11:12 PM

Hair, oh please let's have some more styles, including more natural ones! I really do dislike all the improbable sculpted hairstyles, and the constantly disappearing long braid. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Cynziel

08-13-2009, 12:47 AM

<cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Here's what I used to ordered it: player popularity, complexity, and internal design artist requests. The hair for example was bumped because the art director has mentioned it quite a few times and since I had not heard any thoughts about it from players it was bumped up pretty high. The more I hear from players about the features, the better I can prioritize. Then we'll go over the list internally and the leads of EQ2 will take a vote on the best bang for the bucks. Your disinterest in hair above other things will definitely impact the order here. Thanks for the feedback! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Firstly, really impressed with what I've seen, although the changes are so huge that I wonder if the artists are having to get involved redesigning the graphics in some zones?And on the hair, I would put that as one of the top priorities myself (even if I do play "bald" Froglok's) since if the February update is to entice new players then making the avatars look better would be great, some of the current hair styles do look a bit plasticy. Saying that though the Flora + Sky would be such a huge improvement too that its hard to not want it all done at once <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And that's a thought, will Frogloks look different with the shader 3.0 update?(I know we already look beautiful enough, but I'm wondering if we might look perhaps, damper? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />)One last suggestion, I wonder if an in game survey would help to see what people would most want for graphical improvements? While I have a very good PC myself I do know most friends have something much more basic, so their desires are going to be performance related I guess.</blockquote>HAIR!!! Yes please!! Better hair, more detailed, maybe actually flowing a bit more like the soga versions?Overall this game is going to look amazing in some months!! Very exciting stuff, I'm a visual junkie so this makes me soooo happy! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Kitsune

08-13-2009, 12:57 AM

I'm with you on flowing long hair. Not one decent long haired toon.. and I want my Fae or Arsai to have long hair as I have it myself.You know, I would like to seee Kerran Females with some hair too. They are so anthromorphised that it would look really good on them. Mine looks bald .....

MurFalad

08-13-2009, 07:25 AM

<cite>Kitsune wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm with you on flowing long hair. Not one decent long haired toon.. and I want my Fae or Arsai to have long hair as I have it myself.You know, I would like to seee Kerran Females with some hair too. They are so anthromorphised that it would look really good on them. Mine looks bald .....</blockquote>Actually a thought just occurred, if the new expansion is Ratatonga flavoured then making hair+fur look better would have a big impact on the player base, or at least make more sense doing now then later (say for an expansion that features mostly water).

Narino

08-13-2009, 08:16 AM

Yes, hair please, and beards, they need a revamp sooo bad <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /> The original models are very good I think, the body part I mean, the heads sure could use a bit (read a LOT) of a touch up, most npc races look so good, I don't understand why the player models faces look so meh, Bristlebane is exactly how I think an halfling should look, the high elves in new tunaria are beautifull, the vampires are great, I think its a texture thing...more tattoos for dwarfs...anyway I digress, hair pleeeasse <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />oh! And a big thank you for the great job the dev team is doing in this game!

Aera

08-13-2009, 03:20 PM

So wait, we're getting the new shader system this next GU?

Xalmat

08-13-2009, 03:21 PM

Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee

Paperninja

08-13-2009, 05:53 PM

These shader updates look great. It's nice that it's something that can be done with some back-end programming and not something that requires an art team.I'm a little perplexed as to why the game released with 1.0 shader models though. I know 2.0 was probably well used by then. I'd expect the 3.0 shaders to actually perform better than 1.0. I could imagine alot of stream lining took place between revisions. So it looks better and will probably perform better. Win/Win. The GPU shadow upgrade was much appreciated as well.Are all these changes being initiated by one guy? I assume a newly hired software engineer?

ke'la

08-13-2009, 06:37 PM

<cite>Paperninja wrote:</cite><blockquote>These shader updates look great. It's nice that it's something that can be done with some back-end programming and not something that requires an art team.I'm a little perplexed as to why the game released with 1.0 shader models though. I know 2.0 was probably well used by then. The Game started development in 1999 or so. DX9 hit the market in 2002, and Shader 2.0 came out with it. That is why it does not support Shadder 2.0 they where way to far in development to swich to it.I'd expect the 3.0 shaders to actually perform better than 1.0. I could imagine alot of stream lining took place between revisions. So it looks better and will probably perform better. Win/Win. The GPU shadow upgrade was much appreciated as well. Imago has said that he is seeing a marked improvment in Frame Rate on the newer video cards.Are all these changes being initiated by one guy? initiated? no, I don't think so, the accual development itself, yeah more or less. It apears that what happens is the Graphics Team in total gets together and detrumins what part of the Graphics Engine gets revampped next, and then Imago does it. Though I could be wrong in that.I assume a newly hired software engineer?Not that newly hired, Imago was introduced at last years(Aug'08) Fan Faire as a recent hire in a new position as graphics engineer to upgrade/optimise the EQ2 engine. The First thing he worked on, I believe, was adding GPU Shaddows.</blockquote>

Dragowulf

08-13-2009, 10:21 PM

Was that picture in the preview shader 3.0? I'm asking because it didn't look any different than how it is now.

Imago-Quem

08-13-2009, 10:24 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Slugbait wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Seolta@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><div>If long overdue GPU optimization means nothing to you next to fluffier clouds then you prove that you have no technical proficiency or aptitude and should not be posting in a thread re: technical issues kthx.</div></blockquote>I think the thing worth noting here is that simply moving things from where they are now (CPU bound) to shader 3.0 (GPU bound) *is* the optimization. All these other things on the list are above and beyond the initial task, which is making the game run more acceptably on modern hardware. The fact that more shiny is coming out of it is because the shader 3.0 makes these things possible, especially because of performance increases given by doing things in a way that is more efficient on modern hardware.</blockquote>Accually my understanding is not that Shader 3.0 makes it possable to add shiny, it is just that in 3.0 code the stuff looks better, meaning that the shiny of the 3.0 upgrade is accually a Side Effect, of switching over to code that has a greater ablity to optimize for modern equipment.</blockquote>Here's what the Shader 3.0 upgrade does:1) It's a new graphics pipeline, meaning all that code to manage objects drawing over and over for each little detail is wrapped up and re-coded for Shader 3.2) It's better precision, so larger lighting effects and close-up viewing of object lighting is much more realistic and pixel perfect. In other words the new Shader 3.0 lighting code is all new and improved for precise per-pixel lighting.3) It gives us much more power. Composing better effects is much easier and even possible now with Shader 3.0. This will help a lot for future graphics updates to the game, as well as give our artists a lot more creative power.4) It opens doors for optimized speeds. For one, the combined shader 3 effect is friendly for performance in higher end graphics cards. Also, we have new and obvious ways to increase the speed of the game in the future.5) They're all new shaders built from scratch using the powerful HLSL language. Each graphical effect in the game (with some exceptions) have been translated and re-engineered for 3.0 shaders, as well as improved somewhat along the way for a more vibrant game.

guillero

08-14-2009, 07:32 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>Here's what the Shader 3.0 upgrade does:1) It's a new graphics pipeline, meaning all that code to manage objects drawing over and over for each little detail is wrapped up and re-coded for Shader 3.2) It's better precision, so larger lighting effects and close-up viewing of object lighting is much more realistic and pixel perfect. In other words the new Shader 3.0 lighting code is all new and improved for precise per-pixel lighting.3) It gives us much more power. Composing better effects is much easier and even possible now with Shader 3.0. This will help a lot for future graphics updates to the game, as well as give our artists a lot more creative power.4) It opens doors for optimized speeds. For one, the combined shader 3 effect is friendly for performance in higher end graphics cards. Also, we have new and obvious ways to increase the speed of the game in the future.5) They're all new shaders built from scratch using the powerful HLSL language. Each graphical effect in the game (with some exceptions) have been translated and re-engineered for 3.0 shaders, as well as improved somewhat along the way for a more vibrant game.</blockquote>YES ! YES ! DROOL ! DROOL! When is it coming to Test Server? *grins* <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />

psisto

08-14-2009, 12:03 PM

I second that notion. I love what can be seen on the early screenshots, and im more than eager to see the changes first hand, see the difference in performance, and especially the visual impact, which, gathering from the other screens, should be fairly huge. I cant wait to see how the other zones look like now, especially since more changes than "just" the conversion seem to have been made. Great work Imago, and Im psyched for GU53, since this is one big treat and likely comes with much new things!

Arathy

08-14-2009, 01:20 PM

So does that mean when Shader 3.0 goes live, it will smooth out the edges of the current GPU shadows in game, which at times are extremely pixelated?

Lantis

08-14-2009, 03:12 PM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee</blockquote>If Imago didn't know yet... His manager officially suspended his night sleep privilege until GU53 with this <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Unless his current tools greatly increased development and test time on this. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

08-14-2009, 11:40 PM

<cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee</blockquote>If Imago didn't know yet... His manager officially suspended his night sleep privilege until GU53 with this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> Unless his current tools greatly increased development and test time on this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sleep? I only lie down to compute code in my head.

Avenged

08-15-2009, 01:32 AM

like everyone else i am also very excited, to say the least, about all this work you are doing to improve the look feel and performance of this great game. /bow

Paperninja

08-15-2009, 02:42 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee</blockquote>If Imago didn't know yet... His manager officially suspended his night sleep privilege until GU53 with this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> Unless his current tools greatly increased development and test time on this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sleep? I only lie down to compute code in my head.</blockquote>After you upgrade the shader engine, please change positions at sony and overhaul the monk class. You seem competent enough to get it done.

ke'la

08-15-2009, 05:55 AM

<cite>Paperninja wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee</blockquote>If Imago didn't know yet... His manager officially suspended his night sleep privilege until GU53 with this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> Unless his current tools greatly increased development and test time on this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sleep? I only lie down to compute code in my head.</blockquote>After you upgrade the shader engine, please change positions at sony and overhaul the monk class. You seem competent enough to get it done.</blockquote>You do know the class Mechanics and Graphics engines are two completly differant programing Disciplines right?Asking Imago to work on class balance is like asking a Heart Surgeon to do Brain Surgery.

Armawk

08-15-2009, 08:09 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>Spot on, class mechanics is in fact not even really a programming discipline at all, its a design discipline. I'm a pretty good programmer, but my one situationally forced dabble into balance and unit mechanics (for an RTS) is a horrible memory I will never repeat, and the results were dropped. Im sure Imago has NO wish to go there at all.

Araxes

08-15-2009, 06:05 PM

I'm quite certain he was making a joke. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Sarriss

08-16-2009, 02:27 PM

Guy De Alsace

08-17-2009, 04:41 AM

Was wondering if next project was to enable EQ2 to produce beer and kebabs on demand?Give them an inch.... <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Chisa

08-17-2009, 04:43 AM

I just watched some videos about it. It really does look amazing!

guillero

08-17-2009, 05:32 AM

<cite>Nebiru@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just watched some videos about it. It really does look amazing!</blockquote>Well going from Shader 1.0 suddenly to Shader 3.0 is a rather big step hehe. So yes, this is going to be a very exciting Game Update! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Jer

DngrMou

08-17-2009, 04:29 PM

stayx

08-17-2009, 05:17 PM

Any news about the white slash bug?

Tarias

08-17-2009, 07:36 PM

how about ray tracing as a replacement for rasterization Imago ?I mean with i7s and Cells around there should be something possible

guillero

08-18-2009, 04:04 AM

<cite>Tarias wrote:</cite><blockquote>how about ray tracing as a replacement for rasterization Imago ?I mean with i7s and Cells around there should be something possible</blockquote>And how many people can afford the i7 or Cell ??They need to focus on changes that will reach and affect the majority of the players. Not a handful of people that are rich or have rich mommies and daddies that keep buying the latest of the latest hardware and slamming hundreds of dollars around every 6 months when something new comes out.It's the same with SLI. As long as only a very small percentage is bothering spending the money on a SLI setup. Then it shouldn't have high priority.With these graphic optimisations and updates you want to make as big of an impact as possible to the majority of your playerbase.Jer

Barx

08-18-2009, 03:15 PM

In a less combative way of saying it... ray-tracing may be a good thing for the future of PC games, but it's not something mainstream and definately not something I'd see as a priority for EQ2 at all. You're talking a comlpetely different way of presenting the game, that's not a small thing to do.

Emerix

08-18-2009, 04:23 PM

<cite>Tarias wrote:</cite><blockquote>how about ray tracing as a replacement for rasterization Imago ?I mean with i7s and Cells around there should be something possible</blockquote>I'm guessing you were just kidding! Frankly, real time raytracing will take a while yet =) Even Core i7 and co arent powerful enough for real time raytracing. It is why Intel's Larrabe will basically consist of many many older pentiums. Since you need a lot of parallel processing power for raytracing.

Jesdyr

08-18-2009, 05:38 PM

I dont know if this has been mentioned ..Can you take a look at the performance hit of smooth fonts on the UI? The UI for the game seems to slow FSP by a very large amount. A good amount of this seems to be coming from smooth fonts (which gets worse the longer you play).

Imago-Quem

08-19-2009, 02:35 PM

<cite>Sarriss@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lantis@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader 3.0 is slated for GU53! /glee</blockquote>If Imago didn't know yet... His manager officially suspended his night sleep privilege until GU53 with this <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> Unless his current tools greatly increased development and test time on this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sleep? I only lie down to compute code in my head.</blockquote>Makes for some funky dreams, huh.</blockquote>Most definitely. I would call those nightmares.

Imago-Quem

08-19-2009, 02:36 PM

<cite>Deeperia@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any news about the white slash bug?</blockquote>Sorry, no update yet. I'm slammed with the Shader 3.0 update right now.

Imago-Quem

08-19-2009, 02:40 PM

<cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I dont know if this has been mentioned ..Can you take a look at the performance hit of smooth fonts on the UI? The UI for the game seems to slow FSP by a very large amount. A good amount of this seems to be coming from smooth fonts (which gets worse the longer you play).</blockquote>I know the UI is a hog, but I haven't had the chance to look into it really. If I do, I'll keep this in mind. Thanks.

Imago-Quem

08-19-2009, 02:44 PM

Emerix

08-19-2009, 05:59 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Aviola@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tarias wrote:</cite><blockquote>how about ray tracing as a replacement for rasterization Imago ?I mean with i7s and Cells around there should be something possible</blockquote>I'm guessing you were just kidding! Frankly, real time raytracing will take a while yet =) Even Core i7 and co arent powerful enough for real time raytracing. It is why Intel's Larrabe will basically consist of many many older pentiums. Since you need a lot of parallel processing power for raytracing.</blockquote>I don't believe I'll be tackling ray-tracing anytime soon. I've heard of DirectX coming out with ways to help with ray-tracing, along with AIT, Nvidia, and Intel, but I haven't heard of the support hitting the floor yet.</blockquote>DX11 is also supposed to "help" developers making software for multiple CPUs. It's going to be a big thing.

Pitt Hammerfi

08-19-2009, 07:44 PM

Anymore screenies of the shader model 3.0 ?I take it this pic is using them ? well the floor looks shinier than usual anyway.<img src="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/images/en/features/articles/gu53/preview/miragul2.jpg" width="1000" height="721" />

MurFalad

08-21-2009, 05:44 AM

<cite>Aviola@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Tarias wrote:</cite><blockquote>how about ray tracing as a replacement for rasterization Imago ?I mean with i7s and Cells around there should be something possible</blockquote>I'm guessing you were just kidding! Frankly, real time raytracing will take a while yet =) Even Core i7 and co arent powerful enough for real time raytracing. It is why Intel's Larrabe will basically consist of many many older pentiums. Since you need a lot of parallel processing power for raytracing.</blockquote>Toms hardware had an article on raytracing recently titled "When will ray tracing replace rasterization".<a href="http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ray-tracing-rasterization,review-31636.html" target="_blank">http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ray-t...view-31636.html</a>From reading through I got the impression that just adding in ray tracing does not solve all the graphical problems that rasterization has since it adds in new problems (mainly speed, and also anti-aliasing), they give some speeds of real time ray tracing achieved in the article. From that one Intel I7 or PhenonII looks to be woefully slow for now, and I guess it will be 2-3 years until the mass market gets that sort of processing power let alone something 2-3 times faster. Maybe EQ4?

Guy De Alsace

08-23-2009, 09:39 PM

Methinks people are getting ahead of themselves talking about ray-tracing when the game cant even do antialiasing properly yet.<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Policroma

08-24-2009, 08:06 AM

On the previously-tackled subject of procedural textures, am I the only one who believes that such a thing could greatly optimize textures on player characters? Such as clothing?

guillero

08-24-2009, 10:00 AM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Methinks people are getting ahead of themselves talking about ray-tracing when the game cant even do antialiasing properly yet.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I agree. Full Anti-Alialiasing support should be highest on the list after the Shader 3.0 implementation.It worked somewhat before the GPU Shadows implementation, but it never really worked the moment you turned on Bloom.Jer

psisto

08-24-2009, 12:50 PM

<cite>Policroma@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the previously-tackled subject of procedural textures, am I the only one who believes that such a thing could greatly optimize textures on player characters? Such as clothing?</blockquote>Player characters I would highly doubt, since they have a lot of specific detail to them. Maybe as an extra layer to enhance the detail of armor etc. I see more of a potential in ground/landscape textures, they could be described as procedurals more easily, and would do away with the tiling in wide open spaces

Xanoth

08-24-2009, 03:35 PM

The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?<img src="http://www.xanadu-community.com/sfh/4440/EQ2_000018.jpg" width="1920" height="1058" />

Policroma

08-25-2009, 07:09 AM

<cite>psistorm wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Policroma@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the previously-tackled subject of procedural textures, am I the only one who believes that such a thing could greatly optimize textures on player characters? Such as clothing?</blockquote>Player characters I would highly doubt, since they have a lot of specific detail to them. Maybe as an extra layer to enhance the detail of armor etc. I see more of a potential in ground/landscape textures, they could be described as procedurals more easily, and would do away with the tiling in wide open spaces</blockquote> Can somebody please delete the below post? I ran into a forum bug or something.Anywho...The thing is, don't character textures in this game work by loading the entire set of armor, even if you're only wearing one piece? There *has* to be a reasonable way to clean that up.

Policroma

08-25-2009, 07:09 AM

Barx

08-25-2009, 10:36 AM

<cite>Policroma@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote> Anywho...The thing is, don't character textures in this game work by loading the entire set of armor, even if you're only wearing one piece? There *has* to be a reasonable way to clean that up.</blockquote>The armor set textures are probably all in one file that then gets cut up and pasted on the appropriate pieces. To my knowledge, that's relatively normal and not a major issue.

Chefren

08-26-2009, 04:34 PM

Bumped to December?! Nooo... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" />

Barx

08-26-2009, 04:35 PM

Chefren

08-26-2009, 04:47 PM

Brenlo states "tentatively scheduled for early December" in his announcement.

Barx

08-26-2009, 04:49 PM

<cite>Einina@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>Brenlo states "tentatively scheduled for early December" in his announcement.</blockquote>Huh, I could have sworn that said late November the first time I read it. But in either case it should be closer to 2 months from GU53 than 3.I can't wait =)

Armawk

08-26-2009, 06:20 PM

Figures, the thing I was actually waiting for gets bumped by a QUARTER OF A YEAR. No blame on the dev doing the work, but gah its depressing sometimes.

Xanoth

08-26-2009, 06:41 PM

I guess this doesn't bode well for an ATI fix... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />

Armawk

08-26-2009, 10:54 PM

Xanoth, how can you be making screenshot tests or detail comments on support for cards of shader 3 stuff when it isnt even on test yet and noone outside the dev team has run it?

Xanoth

08-27-2009, 07:07 AM

This issue is on Live. Has been for months. Over a month ago a "hot fix" was promiced. Still no sign.

Armawk

08-27-2009, 07:22 AM

You said "The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870" and added a screenshot. Im asking how you know this is the case? Shader 3 is nowhere near live OR test, noone knows how it looks on a 4870 except the devs if they have run it.

TemberWolf

08-27-2009, 08:00 AM

He's probably talking about the issues with the new GPU shadows which are SM3.0.

Barx

08-27-2009, 10:12 AM

Yeah, GPU shadows are technically the first part of the shader 3.0 implementation. They're just not the actual tons and tons of shader effects in the game that we refer to as the shader 3.0 update.

Bright_Morn

08-27-2009, 11:46 AM

I hope that shader 3.0 goes on test when it is ready and doesn't have to wait for another update. This was what I was mainly looking forward to with this update.

Barx

08-27-2009, 11:48 AM

<cite>Taliesan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hope that shader 3.0 goes on test when it is ready and doesn't have to wait for another update. This was what I was mainly looking forward to with this update.</blockquote>It should, they can patch things to Test whenever they are ready if they choose, it's patching to Live that they have to either do small hotfixes or clump things in GUs for.

Imago-Quem

08-28-2009, 08:36 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Anymore screenies of the shader model 3.0 ?I take it this pic is using them ? well the floor looks shinier than usual anyway.</blockquote>Looks kinda like Shade 3. Don't know where you got the pic from though.Sorry, I've got a bunch of pics here, just working as fast and as much as I can to get all the shaders actually working right now.

Imago-Quem

08-28-2009, 08:42 PM

<cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?</blockquote>Not sure what I'm looking at here. If you post the pic with shadows off and then with shadows on it might help. Actually, I'm not sure if you're talking about shadows here at all.As far as a problem with bump maps and lighting with 3.0 GPU shadow maps, I do have a fix that's been on hold for a bit while I work out the major parts of the shader 3.0 update first. There was a weird bug with the fix that occurs on our hardware after about 2 hours, only occurs on a couple sets of hardware, and only lasts for about 10 minutes. I haven't had the time to repro, debug, and fix that, so the fix was put on hold. Looking at it again today for GU53.

Imago-Quem

08-28-2009, 08:46 PM

<cite>Einina@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>Bumped to December?! Nooo... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sorry, Shader 3.0 has been bumped to December. Working my tail off here to get it to you guys as fast as possible, yet still working relatively well before you get it.

Ashmen_Skimmerhorn

08-28-2009, 09:46 PM

Logged into test today and played around with shadows again. Before today, both on test and live, when shadows are enabled there is outlining around your character and other objects.Today when I was playing with them the outlining is MUCH thicker now. On live its a very thin white line that outlines characters and objects but on test it is a really thick clear'ish/blur'ish outline. Looks horrible <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />When the resolution is set to 2x its present and thick and gets thicker when set to 3x.Seems to be only present when looking at your character or objects while casted in a shadow or if the background of your character/object is a shadow.I can take screens if you want.

ke'la

08-29-2009, 07:45 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Anymore screenies of the shader model 3.0 ?I take it this pic is using them ? well the floor looks shinier than usual anyway.</blockquote>Looks kinda like Shade 3. Don't know where you got the pic from though.Sorry, I've got a bunch of pics here, just working as fast and as much as I can to get all the shaders actually working right now.</blockquote>I believe that pic was from Kiara's GU53 Preview artical, so I guess it is possable it is a Shadder 3.0 screen. You would have to ask her if it is or not though.

Imago-Quem

08-31-2009, 02:14 PM

<cite>Ashmen_Skimmerhorn wrote:</cite><blockquote>Logged into test today and played around with shadows again. Before today, both on test and live, when shadows are enabled there is outlining around your character and other objects.Today when I was playing with them the outlining is MUCH thicker now. On live its a very thin white line that outlines characters and objects but on test it is a really thick clear'ish/blur'ish outline. Looks horrible <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />When the resolution is set to 2x its present and thick and gets thicker when set to 3x.Seems to be only present when looking at your character or objects while casted in a shadow or if the background of your character/object is a shadow.I can take screens if you want.</blockquote>Nope. No need for a screenshot. I know exactly what you're talking about. Some code got pushed to Test while the shadows were in an intermediate state between an old and newer version. Sorry about that. It should be updated soon, as well as a fullscreen mode fix for the outlining you're seeing on Live.

Imago-Quem

08-31-2009, 02:18 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Anymore screenies of the shader model 3.0 ?I take it this pic is using them ? well the floor looks shinier than usual anyway.</blockquote>Looks kinda like Shade 3. Don't know where you got the pic from though.Sorry, I've got a bunch of pics here, just working as fast and as much as I can to get all the shaders actually working right now.</blockquote>I believe that pic was from Kiara's GU53 Preview artical, so I guess it is possable it is a Shadder 3.0 screen. You would have to ask her if it is or not though.</blockquote>It's possible then I guess. Someone could have released a screenshot with Shader 3.0 enabled. Do you have a link to this preview? And does anyone know what zone and location this is? I could take a look at what it really looks like in Shader 3.0.

feldon30

08-31-2009, 02:34 PM

<a href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=3203&section=News&locale=en_US" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ws&locale=en_US</a> Last screen shot on the page. It's the antechamber of Miragul's: Crucible (aka Miragul's Planar Shard -- the x4 raid version of the same zone).

Imago-Quem

08-31-2009, 03:21 PM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=3203&section=News&locale=en_US" target="_blank">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ws&locale=en_US</a> Last screen shot on the page. It's the antechamber of Miragul's: Crucible (aka Miragul's Planar Shard -- the x4 raid version of the same zone).</blockquote>(Edit: nope, that seems to be shader 1)*and the reflection is, I'm pretty sure, an optical illusionIt could be shader 3. The page says it's a shader revamp, though it also says they're "ready". I've still got some work to do for shader 3.0 to be polished enough for Live and Test. What's throwing me with the screenshot is the walls. They don't look shader 3 to me. Also the CPU shadows are running in this shot. CPU shadows are currently not running with 3.0 shaders. And it also looks like there's a reflection of the staircase to the right. I haven't seen a shader for this effect yet even with shader 1. It could be that the artists are creating new cool shaders in shader 1 & 2. They have gotten very skilled over the years using our tools and shader system. But really, it could be a partial shader 3.0 screenshot, or if there's a hole in the ceiling and the sun is casting a shadow and the walls just look low res in the shot. I'll have to check who posted this.

Xanoth

08-31-2009, 04:58 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?</blockquote>Not sure what I'm looking at here. If you post the pic with shadows off and then with shadows on it might help. Actually, I'm not sure if you're talking about shadows here at all.As far as a problem with bump maps and lighting with 3.0 GPU shadow maps, I do have a fix that's been on hold for a bit while I work out the major parts of the shader 3.0 update first. There was a weird bug with the fix that occurs on our hardware after about 2 hours, only occurs on a couple sets of hardware, and only lasts for about 10 minutes. I haven't had the time to repro, debug, and fix that, so the fix was put on hold. Looking at it again today for GU53.</blockquote>The bug only occurs when bump mapped surfaces fall under shadow. Bug is repeatable, but only under certain shadows. Some zones make it easier to reproduce than others.Happens on live and on test. If you want any more information I'm happy to take various screen shots. my DxDiag can be found in support forums, can provide a link if needed also.

Imago-Quem

08-31-2009, 05:40 PM

<cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?</blockquote>Not sure what I'm looking at here. If you post the pic with shadows off and then with shadows on it might help. Actually, I'm not sure if you're talking about shadows here at all.As far as a problem with bump maps and lighting with 3.0 GPU shadow maps, I do have a fix that's been on hold for a bit while I work out the major parts of the shader 3.0 update first. There was a weird bug with the fix that occurs on our hardware after about 2 hours, only occurs on a couple sets of hardware, and only lasts for about 10 minutes. I haven't had the time to repro, debug, and fix that, so the fix was put on hold. Looking at it again today for GU53.</blockquote>The bug only occurs when bump mapped surfaces fall under shadow. Bug is repeatable, but only under certain shadows. Some zones make it easier to reproduce than others.Happens on live and on test. If you want any more information I'm happy to take various screen shots. my DxDiag can be found in support forums, can provide a link if needed also.</blockquote>Yes, I believe this is the issue I have a fix for in fullscreen mode. Hopefully it will get to you very soon.

ke'la

08-31-2009, 06:05 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?</blockquote>Not sure what I'm looking at here. If you post the pic with shadows off and then with shadows on it might help. Actually, I'm not sure if you're talking about shadows here at all.As far as a problem with bump maps and lighting with 3.0 GPU shadow maps, I do have a fix that's been on hold for a bit while I work out the major parts of the shader 3.0 update first. There was a weird bug with the fix that occurs on our hardware after about 2 hours, only occurs on a couple sets of hardware, and only lasts for about 10 minutes. I haven't had the time to repro, debug, and fix that, so the fix was put on hold. Looking at it again today for GU53.</blockquote>The bug only occurs when bump mapped surfaces fall under shadow. Bug is repeatable, but only under certain shadows. Some zones make it easier to reproduce than others.Happens on live and on test. If you want any more information I'm happy to take various screen shots. my DxDiag can be found in support forums, can provide a link if needed also.</blockquote>Yes, I believe this is the issue I have a fix for in fullscreen mode. Hopefully it will get to you very soon.</blockquote>Speaking of Bugs, have you had a chance to look at what is causing the GPU Shaddows to shift up, when ever they are inabled while playing in Letterbox?

Bakual

09-01-2009, 03:49 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=3203&section=News&locale=en_US" target="_blank">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ws&locale=en_US</a> Last screen shot on the page. It's the antechamber of Miragul's: Crucible (aka Miragul's Planar Shard -- the x4 raid version of the same zone).</blockquote>(Edit: nope, that seems to be shader 1)*and the reflection is, I'm pretty sure, an optical illusionIt could be shader 3. The page says it's a shader revamp, though it also says they're "ready". I've still got some work to do for shader 3.0 to be polished enough for Live and Test. What's throwing me with the screenshot is the walls. They don't look shader 3 to me. Also the CPU shadows are running in this shot. CPU shadows are currently not running with 3.0 shaders. And it also looks like there's a reflection of the staircase to the right. I haven't seen a shader for this effect yet even with shader 1. It could be that the artists are creating new cool shaders in shader 1 & 2. They have gotten very skilled over the years using our tools and shader system. But really, it could be a partial shader 3.0 screenshot, or if there's a hole in the ceiling and the sun is casting a shadow and the walls just look low res in the shot. I'll have to check who posted this.</blockquote>It's only maximum settings, nothing special I think. Only difference being is the unusual position of the camera, we usually don't look at the room like this (we probably can't).

ke'la

09-01-2009, 04:16 AM

<cite>Bakual wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/news_archive_content.vm?id=3203&section=News&locale=en_US" target="_blank">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/...ws&locale=en_US</a> Last screen shot on the page. It's the antechamber of Miragul's: Crucible (aka Miragul's Planar Shard -- the x4 raid version of the same zone).</blockquote>(Edit: nope, that seems to be shader 1)*and the reflection is, I'm pretty sure, an optical illusionIt could be shader 3. The page says it's a shader revamp, though it also says they're "ready". I've still got some work to do for shader 3.0 to be polished enough for Live and Test. What's throwing me with the screenshot is the walls. They don't look shader 3 to me. Also the CPU shadows are running in this shot. CPU shadows are currently not running with 3.0 shaders. And it also looks like there's a reflection of the staircase to the right. I haven't seen a shader for this effect yet even with shader 1. It could be that the artists are creating new cool shaders in shader 1 & 2. They have gotten very skilled over the years using our tools and shader system. But really, it could be a partial shader 3.0 screenshot, or if there's a hole in the ceiling and the sun is casting a shadow and the walls just look low res in the shot. I'll have to check who posted this.</blockquote>It's only maximum settings, nothing special I think. Only difference being is the unusual position of the camera, we usually don't look at the room like this (we probably can't).</blockquote>Accually I think we can, but our charactor would be center Frame, while this looks like it was taken with a floating charactor in first person.

Imago-Quem

09-01-2009, 07:10 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Xanoth@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote>The shaded bump mapping issue is still present with Shader 3.0 for Radeon HD 4870 (I'd imagine all cards that had this problem also).Any progress on a fix for this?</blockquote>Not sure what I'm looking at here. If you post the pic with shadows off and then with shadows on it might help. Actually, I'm not sure if you're talking about shadows here at all.As far as a problem with bump maps and lighting with 3.0 GPU shadow maps, I do have a fix that's been on hold for a bit while I work out the major parts of the shader 3.0 update first. There was a weird bug with the fix that occurs on our hardware after about 2 hours, only occurs on a couple sets of hardware, and only lasts for about 10 minutes. I haven't had the time to repro, debug, and fix that, so the fix was put on hold. Looking at it again today for GU53.</blockquote>The bug only occurs when bump mapped surfaces fall under shadow. Bug is repeatable, but only under certain shadows. Some zones make it easier to reproduce than others.Happens on live and on test. If you want any more information I'm happy to take various screen shots. my DxDiag can be found in support forums, can provide a link if needed also.</blockquote>Yes, I believe this is the issue I have a fix for in fullscreen mode. Hopefully it will get to you very soon.</blockquote>Speaking of Bugs, have you had a chance to look at what is causing the GPU Shaddows to shift up, when ever they are inabled while playing in Letterbox?</blockquote>I've only had a few minutes to look into it so far. No fix yet.

Imago-Quem

10-01-2009, 11:56 PM

Gathered a couple screenshots from what I've been working on.Please, ignore the framerates. They may be higher than what's really happening in the scene.The images with the GUI on screen are shader 1.0 (the current game). The others are rendering with the upgraded 3.0 shaders. DAY <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000325.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000326.jpg" /> Rainy <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000351.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000352.jpg" /> Night to Morning <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000371.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000372.jpg" /> Indoors <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000377.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000378.jpg" />

Hamervelder

10-02-2009, 01:59 AM

Looking great!

Guy De Alsace

10-02-2009, 04:29 AM

Look great!Does my ATi Radeon 1950 Pro support SM 3.0? I think it probably will but I'm unsure tbh. Not a tech head here.

Morghus

10-02-2009, 04:41 AM

Looks nice, can you maybe post some of the enchanted lands, new tunaria, veeshan's peak, greater faydark, and poet's palace? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Also...I think I spy some new armor appearances!

guillero

10-02-2009, 05:20 AM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Look great!Does my ATi Radeon 1950 Pro support SM 3.0? I think it probably will but I'm unsure tbh. Not a tech head here.</blockquote>As far as I know, all DirectX9 video cards should support SM 3.0.

Guy De Alsace

10-02-2009, 06:24 AM

Bremer

10-02-2009, 06:59 AM

On the last 2 screenshots, where is that armor from? Doesn't look familiar.

feldon30

10-02-2009, 10:12 AM

Thanks for the screen snapshots. Blogged.

Drumstix

10-02-2009, 04:39 PM

I like what I see. I'm looking forward to it.But... can anyone explain why there's so many places in the game (shown in the 2nd comparison and other places already in the game) that are so SHINY.Why do textures look like that, almost like they're wet? Sure reflecting light is good, but it looks so bad. It doesn't look like "light reflections" at all. It looks like they textures have been polished with a high coat of cleaner or something, LOL.I mean look at the tree on the right of the screenshot:<a href="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000352.jpg" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQI.../EQ2_000352.jpg</a>Since when are trees shiny like that, unless they're made out of plastic or something fake? I'm not gonna stop playing over it, haha, but I'm just saying. It could look SO much better if this whole "reflective" system of light was revamped.Thoughts?

Bright_Morn

10-02-2009, 04:53 PM

<cite>Drumstixx@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>But... can anyone explain why there's so many places in the game (shown in the 2nd comparison and other places already in the game) that are so SHINY.Why do textures look like that, almost like they're wet?<snip></blockquote>Um, that is the rainy screen shot, so it should be wet, hence reflective.

Josgar

10-02-2009, 05:49 PM

Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Gadge

10-02-2009, 10:33 PM

Thanks for the updated pics - they look great! The one in the rain is especially impressive. I am going to play from 1-90 starting December - I am looking forward to admiring your work.Keep it up - and please please try to get it out for December. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Landiin

10-04-2009, 12:02 AM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..

ke'la

10-04-2009, 01:30 AM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.

Drumstix

10-04-2009, 02:26 PM

<cite>Taliesan@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Drumstixx@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>But... can anyone explain why there's so many places in the game (shown in the 2nd comparison and other places already in the game) that are so SHINY.Why do textures look like that, almost like they're wet?</blockquote>Um, that is the rainy screen shot, so it should be wet, hence reflective.</blockquote>Fair is fair. I didn't realize it was raining in that screenshot. I guess it is mostly when it's raining.It's just being around freeport, and seeing so many surfaces SHINY when you would expect them to be dusty/dirty reguardless of rain does detract a bit from the scenery. Like I said though, I don't wanna make it a big thing over the huge upgrade we're recieving.I'd rather support this topic and this change <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

MurFalad

10-05-2009, 07:38 AM

It looks great, while having the same detail the zones just look so much more alive.One thing I noticed (I might be reading too much into this), I saw the FPS marked in the top left, 16.48 shader 1.0 to 33.03 shader 3.0 first picture, 58.48 shader 1.0 to 68.63 shader 3.0 second picture, I'm wondering if these are the sorts of speedups we could see, or just pot luck for when the screenshot was made?(It also makes me wonder where the CPU/graphics bottleneck will be after this update, right now it feels like a ATI 4870 1GB or NVidea 260GTX 896mb is more then enough graphics card wise @1600x1280 at least).

Transen

10-05-2009, 08:54 AM

<cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>One thing I noticed (I might be reading too much into this), I saw the FPS marked in the top left, 16.48 shader 1.0 to 33.03 shader 3.0 first picture, 58.48 shader 1.0 to 68.63 shader 3.0 second picture, I'm wondering if these are the sorts of speedups we could see, or just pot luck for when the screenshot was made?</blockquote>You'll notice that the FPS for the 1.0 are with the UI turned on and the 3.0 pics have the UI turned off. The UI makes a noticable difference with FPS...as to how much of a difference I'm unsure, but I'm betting the gains are not going to be nearly as good as the pics show.Still, it's a significant visual improvement. If I can get that and a performance boost, I'd call that a win all around.

Landiin

10-05-2009, 11:57 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.

Ashmen_Skimmerhorn

10-05-2009, 01:09 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>You show me an Elf, Ogre, Troll, Ratonga in RL............ This is a video game, it doesnt have to look exactally like real life. This shiny look has been in EQ2 since launch anyway, its not new to shader3.0 Turn up your graphics and then in lighting turn up your specular lighting and then check the box that says extra specular lighting while raining and then you'll see it.

ke'la

10-05-2009, 08:11 PM

<cite>Transen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>MurFalad wrote:</cite><blockquote>One thing I noticed (I might be reading too much into this), I saw the FPS marked in the top left, 16.48 shader 1.0 to 33.03 shader 3.0 first picture, 58.48 shader 1.0 to 68.63 shader 3.0 second picture, I'm wondering if these are the sorts of speedups we could see, or just pot luck for when the screenshot was made?</blockquote>You'll notice that the FPS for the 1.0 are with the UI turned on and the 3.0 pics have the UI turned off. The UI makes a noticable difference with FPS...as to how much of a difference I'm unsure, but I'm betting the gains are not going to be nearly as good as the pics show.Still, it's a significant visual improvement. If I can get that and a performance boost, I'd call that a win all around.</blockquote>If you notice the bold text I made in Imago's quote below, he said pay no attention to the FPS, cause it is wrong. In fact he said it was higher the what was really going on.<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Gathered a couple screenshots from what I've been working on.Please, ignore the framerates. They may be higher than what's really happening in the scene.The images with the GUI on screen are shader 1.0 (the current game). The others are rendering with the upgraded 3.0 shaders.{Snipped the Pics}</blockquote>

Transen

10-05-2009, 10:34 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you notice the bold text I made in Imago's quote below, he said pay no attention to the FPS, cause it is wrong. In fact he said it was higher the what was really going on.</blockquote>I did. But then I don't know what rig that dev is using (or any other dev for that matter) so I chose not to comment on that specifically. I'm just pointing out from my personal experience that there is a difference in frame rate between a screen with the UI up and without the UI up and that THAT is going to cause a noticable difference in frames per second where the screen with the UI rendering turned on is going to have a lower frame rate than the one without the UI rendering. That part had gone unmentioned so I mentioned it.Editted for some weird misquoting mechanism of this message board's "quote" button.

ke'la

10-06-2009, 03:35 AM

<cite>Transen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you notice the bold text I made in Imago's quote below, he said pay no attention to the FPS, cause it is wrong. In fact he said it was higher the what was really going on.</blockquote>I did. But then I don't know what rig that dev is using (or any other dev for that matter) so I chose not to comment on that specifically. I'm just pointing out from my personal experience that there is a difference in frame rate between a screen with the UI up and without the UI up and that THAT is going to cause a noticable difference in frames per second where the screen with the UI rendering turned on is going to have a lower frame rate than the one without the UI rendering. That part had gone unmentioned so I mentioned it.Editted for some weird misquoting mechanism of this message board's "quote" button.</blockquote>I was accually more talking to the person you quoted, as apposed to you...and you are right frame rate does get a ton better without the UI in most cases, so I don't see way it wouldn't in this case too.as for this, it is cause I have a ' in my forum Handle, and sence I have had the Handle sence befor they changed forums, where it worked, and someone else already has Kela without the '. I am not about to change it.

DngrMou

10-06-2009, 09:59 AM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>I'm here to spew some crap. I've seen trees like that after it rains. And....living in the NE, following an ice storm, trees can look like they're encased in crystal. Very beautiful on a sunny morning.

Imago-Quem

10-06-2009, 08:52 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>Here:<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark2.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark3.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark4.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark5.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/wetBark6.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000379.jpg" />

ke'la

10-06-2009, 09:16 PM

Got to love dev ownage. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

Armawk

10-06-2009, 09:22 PM

I should also point out that yesterday morning I had to close my blinds in the office because I was literally being sunstruck by the reflections off the wet wood of the decks and other wooden things outside my window. wet wood is often REALLY shiny, and bark often has a hard surface which is inherently shiny anyway even when not wet.

Juravael

10-06-2009, 09:59 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>Amazing... simply amazing.Good one Imago-Quem <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /> A picture says a thousand words!

Zuuljin

10-07-2009, 03:30 AM

SS's look great, but how does the SM3.0 effect performance? I know you said to disregard the FPS in those shots, but it does look like the SM3.0 shots are getting higher FPS. Will we see a noticible framerate improvement?

Guy De Alsace

10-07-2009, 05:27 AM

Awesome graphics in those last shots...wait a sec....*looks out of window**blinks*Nah the SS's are better graphics...<img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Purrcey

10-07-2009, 02:03 PM

Just wanted to pop in and ask if there was a fix coming for the solid black textures that appear in some zones. The ones uneffected by shadow quality in either gpu/cpu. Specifically the ones you can only fix by setting complex shaders to -1?Right now I play in Gumby-mode because of it. Prior to GU 53 update I played in next to max settings on my monster rig with good FPS. I want my eye-candy back please...

NrthnStar5

10-07-2009, 02:10 PM

Any word on when this will hit test for us to see in action???

xpraetorianx

10-08-2009, 08:12 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yeah, that happens when it rains if you have certain lighting settings on. Its really pretty <img src="../images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Yea it is raining there but it all looks like it is coated with High Gloss lacquer.. IMO it takes away from the game being THAT shiny. No untreated wood would ever shine like that. Fact is EQ2 is full of ugly shiny textures that shouldn't be shiny. Like hair, OMG can u say molded helmets..</blockquote>Have you ever accually seen a piece of untreated lumber out in the rain, on a slightly sunny day(yes, in some areas that happens) it does accually shine like that, as for the hair, if you take a look at his I hope one day to be able to work on this list you'll see that he does have upgrading hair on the list.</blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>WOW Imago totally smoked you with his actual real world shots. NICE ONE IMAGO!!! You rock. You think a guy from a guild with the name 'Keepers of the Oak' would know something about I dunno.... WOOD [Removed for Content]10$ says he doesnt post in this thread again.

Landiin

10-09-2009, 02:55 PM

Oh common them are a couple examples.. But 90% of all tree's are not going to glisten like that like 100% of the trees will in once this goes live. Not saying Imago isn't doing a good job and some of the screen shots are amazing but cut down on all the shiny siht.Where is my $10 buck xpraetorianx?

ke'la

10-09-2009, 07:25 PM

<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh common them are a couple examples.. But 90% of all tree's are not going to glisten like that like 100% of the trees will in once this goes live. Not saying Imago isn't doing a good job and some of the screen shots are amazing but cut down on all the shiny siht.Where is my $10 buck xpraetorianx?</blockquote>UM lets look at what you said again...<cite>Toran@Oasis wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes I have and no it does not look like that.. It isn't even close. Wood NEVER looks like that.You show me one RL pick of a real tree that looks like it is plastic and shines like that then ok but untill then don't spew ur crap.</blockquote>Those shots of RL trees are of 6 differant types of trees, one of wich is very similar in type to the tree in the screen cap, I have been to betanical gardens with all kinds of differant types of trees, and the only ones that DON'T shine when it is semi-sunny or when there are rain bands(full sunlight with small cloud bursts of rain in every so often), are the trees with very soft barks that absorb the water instead of sluff it off.Trees with hard barks don't allow the water to penitrate them(it also keeps bugs and things out), the water stays on the surface of the tree and when the sun light hits it the tree shines.Now where you live maybe you don't experiance the type of weather that causes this event to happen, but where I live, it happens quite frequently, and we have 100s of differant types of trees where I live.::EDIT::BTW changing the spelling of a cencered word to bypass the filter (or *** it out) will get you a nasty note from The Mods, and possably get your post deleted.

Landiin

10-09-2009, 08:58 PM

Hlel if you take a pic of any thing up close like that any thing will look shiny. But ok I'll give some tries my look that but but still I can step out side and take a pic of a wooded area where not one tree looks like that and its been raining here for 3 weeks just about.. BTW I did it again..

ke'la

10-09-2009, 10:10 PM

That is your problem, it is all the clouds over your head that are keeping the trees from reflecting the light. It is only when there is both Rain and Sunlight that trees shine in the rain, or when they are in spray from Waterfalls, etc.Also it is not just close up, it shines just as much from a distance as IT IS THE WATER on the surface that is shiny, not the bark itself... Last I checked water shined quite well.::EDIT::I already told you that the devs don't take kindly to bypassing the filters by miss spelling words. I really would prefure it if your posts don't get deleted, so people can see full conversations.

xpraetorianx

10-10-2009, 08:04 AM

IMO, you automatically lose any bets for continuing to argue a point that has already been blown up in your face. Should just stop before you say something else crazy..like... "Why does the sky have that wierd bright glow effect when its really sunny out? It doesnt do that in the real world!!" haha

Gadge

10-12-2009, 11:37 AM

This glossy tree discussion needs to end already - you folks may as well be arguing with a turnip. Once the Dev posted the pics the argument was over whether the individual chooses to acknowledge it or not.<cite>NrthnStar5 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any word on when this will hit test for us to see in action???</blockquote>That's what I would like to know. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> I am going to hazard a complete guess and say early November?/pokes Imago anxiously whilst hopping up and down.

Lillaanya

10-12-2009, 02:40 PM

Wow! I am really excited to see this coming up! The screenshots so far look really awesome. One thing I noted that seems "off" in the screenshots was in the rainy one. And working with shaders day to day myself I totally understand that it may be one of those things that is more work than worth it to change. Normally, when it is raining, the vertical surfaces of things are not so wet that they become glossy. A little darker maybe with stone, or other semi porus materials as it absorbs a little of the water that hits it directly, but not usually glossy unless there is water actually sheeting down the surface. However, I can see this taking a whole extra set of maps to achieve the "right" look and may not be worth the time spent. Just my 2cp hehe.<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000352.jpg" /> </blockquote>

Landiin

10-12-2009, 04:51 PM

<cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite><blockquote>IMO, you automatically lose any bets for continuing to argue a point that has already been blown up in your face. Should just stop before you say something else crazy..like... "Why does the sky have that wierd bright glow effect when its really sunny out? It doesnt do that in the real world!!" haha</blockquote>Do I really have to go out and take pic of the woods to show that wet trees are not all like that? Yes if I zoom up on most things close enough it will be shinny. Yea I kind of lost when I said NEVER/ANY.. my bad.. You all know what I mean so quit being so FB. Like I said; I like where he is taken the graphics, just lay off of making most every thing so danm glossy..

Antipalad

10-12-2009, 04:55 PM

So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?

Gargamel

10-13-2009, 02:34 PM

Well it was supposed to go in the last patch and was pushed back one so I'd think it certainly could. Now weather SOE decides to hold it until Feb to push some nice gfx changes along with the expansion patch is up in the air.

Tro

10-14-2009, 08:29 AM

<cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?

Imago-Quem

10-14-2009, 09:27 PM

<cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.

Detor

10-14-2009, 10:24 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.</blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

guillero

10-15-2009, 04:46 AM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.</blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>A super computer should do the trick. lol.

Morghus

10-15-2009, 05:01 AM

I'm curious if the shader upgrade will do anything for those of us who play with complex shaders turned off. Will there be any gain in performance on top of that which may be gained with shaders turned on?

Antipalad

10-15-2009, 06:33 AM

Any chance of game starting to utilize vertex shaders at a more agressive level as well as opposed to leaving the cpu(s) struggling with them?

Tro

10-15-2009, 08:21 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.</blockquote>Good deal and I know you have been working your tail off.. I for one really do appreciate all your hard word and dedication to the daunting task at hand.. I hope they are paying you well <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Grugg

10-15-2009, 11:40 AM

<cite>Lillaanya wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wow! I am really excited to see this coming up! The screenshots so far look really awesome. One thing I noted that seems "off" in the screenshots was in the rainy one. And working with shaders day to day myself I totally understand that it may be one of those things that is more work than worth it to change. Normally, when it is raining, the vertical surfaces of things are not so wet that they become glossy. A little darker maybe with stone, or other semi porus materials as it absorbs a little of the water that hits it directly, but not usually glossy unless there is water actually sheeting down the surface. However, I can see this taking a whole extra set of maps to achieve the "right" look and may not be worth the time spent. Just my 2cp hehe.</blockquote>The glossiness kills that image. Makes everything look toy-ish, plastic. With shadows turned off in that image, too, there's no atmosphere. Judging by the architecture, the environment should be rather dark and gloomy.

Landiin

10-15-2009, 01:30 PM

<cite>Grugg wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Lillaanya wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wow! I am really excited to see this coming up! The screenshots so far look really awesome. One thing I noted that seems "off" in the screenshots was in the rainy one. And working with shaders day to day myself I totally understand that it may be one of those things that is more work than worth it to change. Normally, when it is raining, the vertical surfaces of things are not so wet that they become glossy. A little darker maybe with stone, or other semi porus materials as it absorbs a little of the water that hits it directly, but not usually glossy unless there is water actually sheeting down the surface. However, I can see this taking a whole extra set of maps to achieve the "right" look and may not be worth the time spent. Just my 2cp hehe.</blockquote>The glossiness kills that image. Makes everything look toy-ish, plastic. With shadows turned off in that image, too, there's no atmosphere. Judging by the architecture, the environment should be rather dark and gloomy.</blockquote>Can't agree more..Other then that, Imago is doing a fantastic job on the conversion.

Detor

10-15-2009, 01:38 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.</blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>A super computer should do the trick. lol.</blockquote>It's actually more in reach than you might imagine. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />ATI's new 5870 videocard can run HAWX at 7680x1600 4xAA 16xAF at 34FPS average. 5760x1200 is a lot lower pixel count than that, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793&type=expert&pid=4" target="_blank">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?ai...xpert&pid=4</a>I've just got to save up for the 3 monitors and the videocard of course.Imago should expense an Eyefinity setup for himself - for testing purposes of course. hehe

bluefish

10-15-2009, 02:38 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talsmar@Crushbone wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>So, is there any chance of this going in before the next expansion?</blockquote>I also would like to know.. Is the Shader 3.0 update still slated for a December 09 release?</blockquote>That's the plan. Working my tail off to get there. There are 290,000+ shader objects in the game that are getting updated and the render pipeline is very different for shader 3.0, so there's a lot of room for bugs and performance issues, which are the two things I've been working on for a while now.</blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>A super computer should do the trick. lol.</blockquote>It's actually more in reach than you might imagine. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />ATI's new 5870 videocard can run HAWX at 7680x1600 4xAA 16xAF at 34FPS average. 5760x1200 is a lot lower pixel count than that, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=793&type=expert&pid=4" target="_blank">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?ai...xpert&pid=4</a>I've just got to save up for the 3 monitors and the videocard of course.Imago should expense an Eyefinity setup for himself - for testing purposes of course. hehe</blockquote>EQ2 relies more on the main CPU ..so even that video card probably won't make much of a difference and also 60 FPS is not needed in eq2 .. anything above 30fps is extremely smooth.. before I upgraded my system I was dipping down into the teens suring raids and was still very playable .. don't get me wrong I get over 60 FPS right now in some areas with all details max at 1920x1080 resolution 4xaa and 16x af but I can assure sure evening on raids 30FPS is VERY VERY playable.ATI did good this time around .. that 5800 series is a beast

Imago-Quem

10-15-2009, 05:37 PM

Terrius

10-15-2009, 06:05 PM

*thinks Imago should get the coolest uberest monster of a computer for his awesomeness* /nod <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Cant wait for Shader 3.0!

Imago-Quem

10-15-2009, 06:41 PM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm curious if the shader upgrade will do anything for those of us who play with complex shaders turned off. Will there be any gain in performance on top of that which may be gained with shaders turned on?</blockquote>Probably not, but there will be a quality increase. When complex shaders are turned off you're pretty much rendering things as fast as they go for the GPU. Shader 3.0 will render a little more and look way "awesomer" when complex shaders are turned off but there will be little to no performance loss. If you're looking for faster speed than complex shaders turned to off then you'll have to reduce CPU intensive settings until we start optimizing the CPU side of the engine more.

Imago-Quem

10-15-2009, 06:58 PM

<cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any chance of game starting to utilize vertex shaders at a more agressive level as well as opposed to leaving the cpu(s) struggling with them?</blockquote>Not yet. Updates like that would be quite large since the engine is so entrenched in the shader 1.0 limitations. Even supporting and re-engineering the pipeline to render better for 3.0 doesn't cover these types of special techniques. It would be an entirely new set of projects to work this in. Even determining what "can" be sent to the GPU would take a while. For example, we already know things like animations have to be on the CPU to allow for CPU data reads from the transformed geometry. And the grass would have to be remade from scratch like how the GPU shadows were. Actually, most effects were written "for" the CPU and would have to be remade from scratch to work in the GPU because the techniques are so different. So there might be bit of a wait before we can get our hands on updates like this.

Imago-Quem

10-15-2009, 07:09 PM

<cite>Lillaanya wrote:</cite><blockquote>Wow! I am really excited to see this coming up! The screenshots so far look really awesome. One thing I noted that seems "off" in the screenshots was in the rainy one. And working with shaders day to day myself I totally understand that it may be one of those things that is more work than worth it to change. Normally, when it is raining, the vertical surfaces of things are not so wet that they become glossy. A little darker maybe with stone, or other semi porus materials as it absorbs a little of the water that hits it directly, but not usually glossy unless there is water actually sheeting down the surface. However, I can see this taking a whole extra set of maps to achieve the "right" look and may not be worth the time spent. Just my 2cp hehe.<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>{edited picture out} </blockquote></blockquote>You're right. It's a simple procedure to add such an update, but would still take time to integrate across all shaders, update, and test. I might do this still... but later.

Detor

10-15-2009, 10:09 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sorry there's still the server sync speeds and the CPU holding things down. Can't guarantee awesome framerates all the time with just shader and shader pipeline updates.</blockquote>There is one thing I'd like to know that you're probably one of the only ones that can answer. Does EQ2 have adjustible FOV? I've been reading a lot about the ultrawide resolutions that Eyefinity has, and in several games the sides of the window end up having a 'stretch' to them when the game's FOV is left at its default. Luckily they can be altered usually to look right, but I'm not sure if EQ2 is one of those. Is there a way to adjust FOV in game or by ini like some other games?

Droiyan7KOR

10-17-2009, 05:26 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Look great!Does my ATi Radeon 1950 Pro support SM 3.0? I think it probably will but I'm unsure tbh. Not a tech head here.</blockquote>As far as I know, all DirectX9 video cards should support SM 3.0.</blockquote>It isn't true, though I dough...err doubt how many still use such old card (there are already many games that requires SM 3.0 as minimum spec and they even not possible to launch in SM 2.0x cards).Geforce FX series support only SM 2.0, it even not properly implemented SM 2.0 (in that time NVIDIA support closed standard 'CG' shader language not Direct3D)ATI X000 series such as X700, X800XT,X850XT PE support SM 2.0b, it's slightly better than 2.0 but it isn't 3.0.Both series are DX9 based cards but definitly not SM 3.0,But it is not a problem (about $10~$50 cards such 7600GT, 8600GT, 9500GT (includes used good) as are much faster than FX5900Ultra and X850XT PE which are flagships of SM 2.0x generation).I have a question to DEVs.What is current priority of in-game AA / AF (Anti-Aliasing / Anisotropic Filtering) option? any hope to see them on GU53 ?

Antipalad

10-17-2009, 08:20 PM

Another thing I'm wondering is will we ever get to use all the memory on our graphics cards? Putting textures to max and so on will degrade performance over time. I heard somewhere a long time ago that the engine didn't utilize more than 256mb of texture memory, is it possible to increase this without major changes to the renderer?

ke'la

10-18-2009, 01:22 AM

<cite>Droiyan7KOR wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote>Look great!Does my ATi Radeon 1950 Pro support SM 3.0? I think it probably will but I'm unsure tbh. Not a tech head here.</blockquote>As far as I know, all DirectX9 video cards should support SM 3.0.</blockquote>It isn't true, though I dough...err doubt how many still use such old card (there are already many games that requires SM 3.0 as minimum spec and they even not possible to launch in SM 2.0x cards).Geforce FX series support only SM 2.0, it even not properly implemented SM 2.0 (in that time NVIDIA support closed standard 'CG' shader language not Direct3D)ATI X000 series such as X700, X800XT,X850XT PE support SM 2.0b, it's slightly better than 2.0 but it isn't 3.0.Both series are DX9 based cards but definitly not SM 3.0,But it is not a problem (about $10~$50 cards such 7600GT, 8600GT, 9500GT (includes used good) as are much faster than FX5900Ultra and X850XT PE which are flagships of SM 2.0x generation).I have a question to DEVs.What is current priority of in-game AA / AF (Anti-Aliasing / Anisotropic Filtering) option? any hope to see them on GU53 ?</blockquote>So my Nvidia 9750 Being the last of the DX9 video cards handles shader 3.0 no problem right?As for using more Video RAM, would that effect system memory at all cause if so that would help performance on lower RAM machines and even 32bit ones.

Eboncross

10-18-2009, 03:10 AM

This may have been metioned but I honestly dont feel like going thru 33 pages to find out.Right now the game seems to run worse with SLI enabled. Will I be able to enable SLI with this shader 3.0 and not have performance problems? Is this performance issue a seprate issue then what this shader is intended for or would it be related?

Kriath

10-18-2009, 03:11 AM

ke'la

10-18-2009, 08:11 AM

<cite>Aychtee@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>This may have been metioned but I honestly dont feel like going thru 33 pages to find out.Right now the game seems to run worse with SLI enabled. Will I be able to enable SLI with this shader 3.0 and not have performance problems? Is this performance issue a seprate issue then what this shader is intended for or would it be related?</blockquote>I don't believe that this will do anything to make SLI work, infact I believe adding Multi-GPU support is on the wish list that Imago would like to work on, if we can figure out how to temporally clone him(just for the work part not the consumption of reasources).

BungFoo

10-18-2009, 04:56 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any chance of game starting to utilize vertex shaders at a more agressive level as well as opposed to leaving the cpu(s) struggling with them?</blockquote>Not yet. Updates like that would be quite large since the engine is so entrenched in the shader 1.0 limitations. Even supporting and re-engineering the pipeline to render better for 3.0 doesn't cover these types of special techniques. It would be an entirely new set of projects to work this in. Even determining what "can" be sent to the GPU would take a while. For example, we already know things like animations have to be on the CPU to allow for CPU data reads from the transformed geometry. And the grass would have to be remade from scratch like how the GPU shadows were. Actually, most effects were written "for" the CPU and would have to be remade from scratch to work in the GPU because the techniques are so different. So there might be bit of a wait before we can get our hands on updates like this.</blockquote>I just want to tell you that I really appreciate not only the work that you do on eq2 but also the way that you communicate with the players.

Hamervelder

10-19-2009, 01:27 AM

<cite>Dennika@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Any chance of game starting to utilize vertex shaders at a more agressive level as well as opposed to leaving the cpu(s) struggling with them?</blockquote>Not yet. Updates like that would be quite large since the engine is so entrenched in the shader 1.0 limitations. Even supporting and re-engineering the pipeline to render better for 3.0 doesn't cover these types of special techniques. It would be an entirely new set of projects to work this in. Even determining what "can" be sent to the GPU would take a while. For example, we already know things like animations have to be on the CPU to allow for CPU data reads from the transformed geometry. And the grass would have to be remade from scratch like how the GPU shadows were. Actually, most effects were written "for" the CPU and would have to be remade from scratch to work in the GPU because the techniques are so different. So there might be bit of a wait before we can get our hands on updates like this.</blockquote>I just want to tell you that I really appreciate not only the work that you do on eq2 but also the way that you communicate with the players.</blockquote>Ditto. Thanks for keeping us so thoroughly informed. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

10-19-2009, 05:35 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sorry there's still the server sync speeds and the CPU holding things down. Can't guarantee awesome framerates all the time with just shader and shader pipeline updates.</blockquote>There is one thing I'd like to know that you're probably one of the only ones that can answer. Does EQ2 have adjustible FOV? I've been reading a lot about the ultrawide resolutions that Eyefinity has, and in several games the sides of the window end up having a 'stretch' to them when the game's FOV is left at its default. Luckily they can be altered usually to look right, but I'm not sure if EQ2 is one of those. Is there a way to adjust FOV in game or by ini like some other games?</blockquote>We do have an adjustable field of view (FOV) but it is locked for developers only. What would you want to use this for in EQ2?

Jesdyr

10-19-2009, 06:36 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sorry there's still the server sync speeds and the CPU holding things down. Can't guarantee awesome framerates all the time with just shader and shader pipeline updates.</blockquote>There is one thing I'd like to know that you're probably one of the only ones that can answer. Does EQ2 have adjustible FOV? I've been reading a lot about the ultrawide resolutions that Eyefinity has, and in several games the sides of the window end up having a 'stretch' to them when the game's FOV is left at its default. Luckily they can be altered usually to look right, but I'm not sure if EQ2 is one of those. Is there a way to adjust FOV in game or by ini like some other games?</blockquote>We do have an adjustable field of view (FOV) but it is locked for developers only. What would you want to use this for in EQ2?</blockquote>AMD (ati) has new tech with the 5000 series cards called "<a href="http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx" target="_blank">Eyefinity</a>". It is like the Matrox triple head tech that it lets you span one desktop across multiple monitors.From the link -"ATI Eyefinity is defined as two or more display outputs operating simultaneously and independently from each other. Support is available for Duplicated (Clone) and Extended multiple monitor modes, with new support for the capability to group displays into a massive single large surface spanning across multiple displays for use with your desktop workspace, video playback, with support for both windowed and full screen 3D applications."

Imago-Quem

10-19-2009, 10:19 PM

<cite>Antipaladin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Another thing I'm wondering is will we ever get to use all the memory on our graphics cards? Putting textures to max and so on will degrade performance over time. I heard somewhere a long time ago that the engine didn't utilize more than 256mb of texture memory, is it possible to increase this without major changes to the renderer?</blockquote>The game is not limited to 256MB of video memory. As far as textures go, the artists will generate specific max sizes for each object's textures and that's as high of a resolution as you'll get unless we revisited each object in the game and painted new textures for them at higher resolutions. That's not likely to happen. Some features use more of your video memory, like the GPU Shadows, and, as we add more graphical features to the game, more memory will be required to use all features at once. For current and future textures, the artists try to create textures only at the largest resolution as you might ever need in the game while not seeing any blocky textures. If it's a large object, use a large texture set; if it's small, use a small one, etc. Sometimes you'll run into cases where a texture may get blocky even at maximum resolution. This is a compromise every game has to make in order to keep the download size and video memory down to a manageable level.

Imago-Quem

10-19-2009, 10:42 PM

<cite>Aychtee@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>This may have been metioned but I honestly dont feel like going thru 33 pages to find out.Right now the game seems to run worse with SLI enabled. Will I be able to enable SLI with this shader 3.0 and not have performance problems? Is this performance issue a seprate issue then what this shader is intended for or would it be related?</blockquote>The Shader 3.0 update is not related to SLI support, so, no, it won't make SLI run faster. Sorry, maybe later.

Imago-Quem

10-19-2009, 11:28 PM

<cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote>As long as I get 60 FPS at 5760x1200 I'll be happy. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Sorry there's still the server sync speeds and the CPU holding things down. Can't guarantee awesome framerates all the time with just shader and shader pipeline updates.</blockquote>There is one thing I'd like to know that you're probably one of the only ones that can answer. Does EQ2 have adjustible FOV? I've been reading a lot about the ultrawide resolutions that Eyefinity has, and in several games the sides of the window end up having a 'stretch' to them when the game's FOV is left at its default. Luckily they can be altered usually to look right, but I'm not sure if EQ2 is one of those. Is there a way to adjust FOV in game or by ini like some other games?</blockquote>We do have an adjustable field of view (FOV) but it is locked for developers only. What would you want to use this for in EQ2?</blockquote>AMD (ati) has new tech with the 5000 series cards called "<a href="http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/eyefinity/Pages/eyefinity.aspx" target="_blank">Eyefinity</a>". It is like the Matrox triple head tech that it lets you span one desktop across multiple monitors.From the link -"ATI Eyefinity is defined as two or more display outputs operating simultaneously and independently from each other. Support is available for Duplicated (Clone) and Extended multiple monitor modes, with new support for the capability to group displays into a massive single large surface spanning across multiple displays for use with your desktop workspace, video playback, with support for both windowed and full screen 3D applications."</blockquote>Ya, we will automatically scale the FOV with your window size, but as far as I know we don't allow the player to modify it. Reason being we aren't supposed to release features where the player can easily "create bugs". In this case if we allow you to modify the FOV you can really make the game look messed up. Maybe we can add a small ranged FOV adjuster. I'll talk to the guys about it.

Jesdyr

10-20-2009, 12:30 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, we will automatically scale the FOV with your window size, but as far as I know we don't allow the player to modify it. </blockquote>I think that it will be fine then since it scales already. One review I read about it said the only game they tested that looked right was WOW.I know SOE did some promotion with the matrox tech a while ago so I kind of figured it would be good with eyefinity. I just installed a 5850 and I with an HDMI to DVI adapter I will be able to test a 3 monitor setup. I guess I will play around with it at some point.

Detor

10-20-2009, 09:24 AM

<cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, we will automatically scale the FOV with your window size, but as far as I know we don't allow the player to modify it. </blockquote>I think that it will be fine then since it scales already. One review I read about it said the only game they tested that looked right was WOW.I know SOE did some promotion with the matrox tech a while ago so I kind of figured it would be good with eyefinity. I just installed a 5850 and I with an HDMI to DVI adapter I will be able to test a 3 monitor setup. I guess I will play around with it at some point.</blockquote>Anandtech said that. I've read people have successfully increased the FOV setting for Source engine games (Steam), and Farcry 2 so far though so they look right with Eyefinity. Before you change the FOV though some games will stretch the image on the 2 side monitors. After you change the FOV you simply see more of the game world around you rather than it stretching.Imago, here's why:<a href="http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=783&type=expert&pid=6" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?ai...xpert&pid=6</a>Scroll down to the bottom and there are several videos on that page, then some more videos on the next few pages if you want to see more.

Guy De Alsace

10-21-2009, 10:43 AM

If you have a flat screen you can put your eyes so that the screen is just in focus (2-3 inches away) then force your eyes to focus on infinity (as though you were looking at an object far away). The image then is a pretty convincing 3D although maintaining it is very hard!Dont try it with a CRT monitor though because you will get a severe headache very quickly.

Imago-Quem

10-21-2009, 03:04 PM

<cite>Detor wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jesdyr@Unrest wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, we will automatically scale the FOV with your window size, but as far as I know we don't allow the player to modify it. </blockquote>I think that it will be fine then since it scales already. One review I read about it said the only game they tested that looked right was WOW.I know SOE did some promotion with the matrox tech a while ago so I kind of figured it would be good with eyefinity. I just installed a 5850 and I with an HDMI to DVI adapter I will be able to test a 3 monitor setup. I guess I will play around with it at some point.</blockquote>Anandtech said that. I've read people have successfully increased the FOV setting for Source engine games (Steam), and Farcry 2 so far though so they look right with Eyefinity. Before you change the FOV though some games will stretch the image on the 2 side monitors. After you change the FOV you simply see more of the game world around you rather than it stretching.Imago, here's why:<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=783&type=expert&pid=6" target="_blank">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?ai...xpert&pid=6</a>Scroll down to the bottom and there are several videos on that page, then some more videos on the next few pages if you want to see more.</blockquote>Yes, Eq2 opens the FOV for monitor setups like this. I've tried it myself with just 2 monitors (not recommended). Have only tried it in windowed mode as well. Fullscreen attaches to a single monitor right now. You can try it out even with a single monitor, if you have a widescreen and your monitor resolution is set to something like 1600x1200, by stretching the window size short and wide. Your field of view should adjust appropriately.

Imago-Quem

10-22-2009, 09:52 PM

Thought I'd post another screenshot.Honeycombs gushing honey. Shader 1.0<img src="http://TheGraphicsPoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000388.jpg" /> Shader 3.0<img src="http://TheGraphicsPoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/EQ2_000389.jpg" />