Shader 3.0 [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 04:15 PM

<cite>Qubic@Valor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Looks okay, metal surfaces look awesome and I really like the colored lighting.Though isn't it a bit cheap to show the Shader 1 pictures with GPU shadows disabled and the Shader 3 pictures with them enabled? I think most of the atmosphere bonus at least in the plain environment pictures comes from these shadows.</blockquote>Hi everyone. Thanks for the compliments. If you have any more questions I'll be following this thread for a while.I wanted to comment about showing the new GPU shadows in comparison with the 1.x screenshots. GPU shadows are completely 3.0 shader code, so yes, it is still comparing 1.x with 3.0. Sorry if it seems cheap. Totally wasn't meant for anything but to show how the game is looking with all the 3.0 upgrades so far.I'll let you know as we find out more on system requirements to run smoothly in 3.0.I'll also see if I can't post any high-res pics from the presentation here. Yes, the video was not very clear, but great none-the-less. I was a little disappointed about the projector quality as well; even the monitor in front of me was messing with the quality. He, oh well.Alright. My code compiled. Gotta get back to writing. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

feldon30

06-30-2009, 04:21 PM

High Dynamic Range allows you to have detail both in the shadows, and in the highlights. With normal computer 3D rendering, either you have detail in the shadows and the highlights are pretty bright, or you have very dark background, but the highlights are detailed. HDR is also great for fantasy in that you can make scenery really pop and be not only super saturated but also bring out details otherwise not visible. Hyper-realism is what some people call it. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_d...c_range_imaging</a> And thanks to Ryan/Imago-Quem for making EQ2 look awesome!!!

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 04:24 PM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>What does HDR do? >.></blockquote>We're entertaining a lot of ideas of what to add next, including HDR (High-Dynamic-Range). This usually refers to a type of realistic bloom when you're eyes are in shadow and looking at an object between you and a light. The light blurs, glows, and bleeds into the edges of the object. You see a dark silhouette of the object with a blast of light behind it. Looks great. The high dynamic range is because it uses 32-bit floating point buffers to encode and process the effect before it reaches your screen. So really HDR applies to many graphical effects. Might be better to say HDR lighting or HDR bloom. The GPU Shadows are even HDR!Ha, Feldon, we must have been writing at the same time. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Xalmat

06-30-2009, 04:35 PM

Is there any chance you can post the pictures demoed at Fan Faire for download? I mean you use Powerpoint, and there's a free Powerpoint viewer available from Microsoft and all <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 04:48 PM

<cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite><blockquote>Is there any chance you can post the pictures demoed at Fan Faire for download? I mean you use Powerpoint, and there's a free Powerpoint viewer available from Microsoft and all <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I'm looking into it right now.

ke'la

06-30-2009, 05:18 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'll also see if I can't post any high-res pics from the presentation here. Yes, the video was not very clear, but great none-the-less. I was a little disappointed about the projector quality as well; even the monitor in front of me was messing with the quality. He, oh well.</blockquote>Trying to get Film or Pictures from projected images is tough... couple that with what seemed like a fairly cheap (relitivly speaking) projector, while taking the video with a Digital Camera designed to take Still Pictures... Then recording it in AVI at 320x240. Then having to use MS Movie Maker to split it into two parts which converted it to WMV. All that combined tends to lower the quality of the final product<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />... though I think it did come out fairly well if I do say so myself.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

Xalmat

06-30-2009, 05:31 PM

People use cameras to take screen shots? I always just hit the Print Screen key and Ctrl + V it into my favorite art program. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />But yeah I can certainly sympathize with the poor quality of youtube at times.

feldon30

06-30-2009, 05:34 PM

We would have had to incapacitate a dozen Eq2 devs and security to get that close. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Fendaria

06-30-2009, 05:50 PM

I loved the look of the new pictures even if the resolution and display was bad. It looked great.My one problem though, is the same problem I have now with lights, torches, and gamma settings. I can't see things far away in a whole lot of zones. For example, a few of the pictures were of the bridge before the castle in Nek Forest. With the old system, you can see the castle. Turn on the shaders and the ground at your feet and the bridge look great but you can't see the castle anymore. Most of the shots I saw display this. Stuff nearby the character looks amazing, stuff farther away is to dark to see much of anything. (I can also get this to happen with the current graphics engine, but only with more of the fancier stuff turned on when I try to make stuff look good and not washed out).I've spent hours trying to 'tune' the light settings, gamma, and everything, but I've never been happy with the results and always end up tweaking them for the next set of zones I have to go into. A lot of the time I give up and just toggle on the 'light' button in Profit so I can see. Maybe stuff farther away should really be darker but I like being able to see.I have max ambient light set, max torch intensity set, and it still seems like you can't see very far.Fendaria

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 06:35 PM

<cite>Fendaria wrote:</cite><blockquote>I loved the look of the new pictures even if the resolution and display was bad. It looked great.My one problem though, is the same problem I have now with lights, torches, and gamma settings. I can't see things far away in a whole lot of zones. For example, a few of the pictures were of the bridge before the castle in Nek Forest. With the old system, you can see the castle. Turn on the shaders and the ground at your feet and the bridge look great but you can't see the castle anymore. Most of the shots I saw display this. Stuff nearby the character looks amazing, stuff farther away is to dark to see much of anything. (I can also get this to happen with the current graphics engine, but only with more of the fancier stuff turned on when I try to make stuff look good and not washed out).I've spent hours trying to 'tune' the light settings, gamma, and everything, but I've never been happy with the results and always end up tweaking them for the next set of zones I have to go into. A lot of the time I give up and just toggle on the 'light' button in Profit so I can see. Maybe stuff farther away should really be darker but I like being able to see.I have max ambient light set, max torch intensity set, and it still seems like you can't see very far.Fendaria</blockquote>I thought there would be a few people out there that want more light everywhere, ambient light. While this doesn't reflect true reality, I'll see what I can do with the settings while upgrading the system. The issue is, if everything has the same light intensity, or if the ambient lighting is brought up so high, it blends the colors together and there's no pop from normal-mapping, bump-mapping, torches, or even specular if you bring it up high enough. We'll see what we can cook up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 06:39 PM

Ok, I've got the ok for screenshots. Let's see what I can manage to paste in here. Something not too big...<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_1.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_1.jpg" />Anyone want to see a few more? I can paste a few here between compile times. Also, I'll see if I can get some high-res pics posted somewhere nice.

Ama

06-30-2009, 06:49 PM

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind answering them Imago. First one is how will HDR be enabled for machines using outdated drivers and/or low end graphics cards? Still using a 256mb ATI 9800 pro card here. Starting to see most games actually require my card as a bare minimum recommending a 512mb.Dealing with multi-core technologies will we see HDR being computed on processors as well as graphics cards? Also what about people who have crossfired/SLI enabled graphics cards? Finally with the upcomming windows 7 how well will HDR mesh with the new DirectX11 that will be pushed with it? Designing a new computer and hope to be running windows 7 ultimate with DX11 on it. I've seen HDR in effect on console games and it is a very interesting prospect for MMOs.

Armawk

06-30-2009, 07:03 PM

"Anyone want to see a few more?"/friendly_sarcasm_onNo, noone wants to see more at all../friendly_sarcasm_offYES PLEASE. As many screenshots as possible are always wanted here.

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 07:16 PM

<cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have a couple of questions if you don't mind answering them Imago. First one is how will HDR be enabled for machines using outdated drivers and/or low end graphics cards? Still using a 256mb ATI 9800 pro card here. Starting to see most games actually require my card as a bare minimum recommending a 512mb.Dealing with multi-core technologies will we see HDR being computed on processors as well as graphics cards? Also what about people who have crossfired/SLI enabled graphics cards? Finally with the upcomming windows 7 how well will HDR mesh with the new DirectX11 that will be pushed with it? Designing a new computer and hope to be running windows 7 ultimate with DX11 on it. I've seen HDR in effect on console games and it is a very interesting prospect for MMOs. </blockquote>Hi Amana, Since EQII hasn't decided when/if HDR will be developed for the game, I can't say much due to the lack of research with HDR + EQII. I'll do my best here for you: Most HDR requires 32-bit floating point buffer support. You'll need that, or maybe at least 16-bit floating point buffer support. Time permitting and complexity non-gating, I'm sure we'd love to split processing across multiple CPU's and GPU's. At this moment I couldn't tell you how feasible this would be in EQII. EQII won't be adding any additional DX11 support anytime soon. As far as having DX11 support on your system and mixing in DX9 HDR, Microsoft has been pretty good at keeping things backwards compatible. I don't foresee any problems there. I hope we can make you very happy for a long while, Amana, while we continue to upgrade EverQuest II for you.

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 07:20 PM

Here are those cheating 3.0 GPU Shadows vs. having 1.x only shaders and CPU Shadows on. The comparison is between only running 1.x shaders vs. 3.0 shaders.<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_2.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_2.jpg" />

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 07:55 PM

Here are a few more:<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_3.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_3.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_4.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_4.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_5.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_5.jpg" />

Purrcey

06-30-2009, 09:31 PM

The specular and bump mapping look quite good. All these years I was trying to figure out how to my my mapping more pronounced in EQ2. I am glad to see the texture now do truly have some "texture" to them.Have any Screen Shots of anything else besides Nek?CHEERS

Xalmat

06-30-2009, 09:36 PM

He mostly showed pictures of Nektulos Forest at Fan Faire, along with a zone that was clearly built for test and demo purposes.

Dragowulf

06-30-2009, 09:59 PM

Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 11:56 PM

<cite>PurrceyPurespirit007 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The specular and bump mapping look quite good. All these years I was trying to figure out how to my my mapping more pronounced in EQ2. I am glad to see the texture now do truly have some "texture" to them.Have any Screen Shots of anything else besides Nek?CHEERS</blockquote>Not yet. Sorry.

Imago-Quem

06-30-2009, 11:59 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_6.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_6.jpg" />

Josgar

07-01-2009, 12:05 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?<img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader1_6.jpg" /><img src="http://www.thegraphicspoint.com/EQII_Screenshots/640x480_EverQuestII_Shader3_6.jpg" /></blockquote>SEXY!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I love the new dev team that SOE is forming.Domino and Imago-Quem are awesome.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />DDDDWill reflectoins look any different?

Zabjade

07-01-2009, 12:06 AM

Dang it your trying to make me give up my stable XP single core for an unstable Vista multi-cor! O.o Expensive.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 12:16 AM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?</blockquote>SEXY!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I love the new dev team that SOE is forming.Domino and Imago-Quem are awesome.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />DDDDWill reflectoins look any different?</blockquote>Not with the first 3.0 upgrade. We'll see if it does later. It is one of the ideas floating around here for what to upgrade next.

Josgar

07-01-2009, 12:17 AM

Thank you for taking such a beautiful game and bringing it even more to life <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Carpediem

07-01-2009, 01:21 AM

Just curious - what video card, and processor do they have you working with?

Pitt Hammerfi

07-01-2009, 01:28 AM

Will we possibly see fur shaders on mounts and animals ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /><img src="http://www.lightstorm3d.com/portfolio/fur/furNoise.jpg" width="400" height="400" />And metal shaders <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /><img src="http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/Content_on_10_20_2004_17_25_37/000.jpgfd3a2542-49b4-4628-aa74-fdedd14c69caLarge.jpg" />And grass and dirt/rock shaders<img src="http://files.turbosquid.com/Preview/Content_on_3_9_2004_11_38_17/rendu2.jpg57fea820-b490-4906-8f7a-93307ff50f9dLarge.jpg" />Hopefully it ends up looking like this minus the modern character of course <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><img src="http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x150/Eddie5vs1/932984_20071119_screen001.jpg?t=1246423256" width="1024" height="576" />

Dragowulf

07-01-2009, 02:48 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?</blockquote>SEXY!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I love the new dev team that SOE is forming.Domino and Imago-Quem are awesome.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />DDDDWill reflectoins look any different?</blockquote>Not with the first 3.0 upgrade. We'll see if it does later. It is one of the ideas floating around here for what to upgrade next.</blockquote>The next thing that I truly believe needs upgrading is the sky and atmosphere. I'm not going to be modest, It's ugly.

Pitt Hammerfi

07-01-2009, 03:06 AM

Sorry few more questions..Will the implementation of shader model 3 have any effect on the new GPU shadow system ?Will it stop the flickering shadow on ground textures that are happening with the current mix of shader 1.1 and shader 3.0 ?Will it make it easier to implement light sources other than the sun/moon ?

Morghus

07-01-2009, 04:04 AM

What I am really interested in, is if this will be one of the first steps taken to truly improve the game engine. The engine as it is suffers from massive framerate loss, the options relating to adjusting the graphics arent entirely clear in their purpose, and the game itself is a massive memory chugging/slow loading beast.I have been playing for several years now, and I've always hoped to be able to play the game with the same level of fluid smoothness as in the many promotional videos released of the game.As it stands now, it is very difficult to play with more than one person's particles/spellcasting effects turned on to any level, and turning the complex shaders entirely off is massively performance enhancing even on recent systems.The sheer increase in choppiness and network lag in raid and group zones is also utterly debilitating in gameplay, yet almost never noticed while solo in a sparsely populated zone.

guillero

07-01-2009, 06:12 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?</blockquote>SEXY!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I love the new dev team that SOE is forming.Domino and Imago-Quem are awesome.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />DDDDWill reflectoins look any different?</blockquote>Not with the first 3.0 upgrade. We'll see if it does later. It is one of the ideas floating around here for what to upgrade next.</blockquote>The next thing that I truly believe needs upgrading is the sky and atmosphere. I'm not going to be modest, It's ugly.</blockquote>I completely agree with this! And seriously, I hope sooner then later.The skyboxes have become really really outdated now and could use a serious facelift.Jer

Akaran2

07-01-2009, 09:50 AM

eeep.I just upgraded (was sorta forced into it) to a Pentium Dual Core CPU, E5200, 2.5ghz with 4gb ram (tho it's only reading 2.99). I've got a nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS, PCI/E slot. I have XP, but thinking about going Windows 7.Tell me this will run this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />

feldon30

07-01-2009, 11:07 AM

Why did you get an nVidia GeForce 8600 instead of one of the new generation of nVidia or ATI card?

Fendaria

07-01-2009, 11:44 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fendaria wrote:</cite><blockquote>I loved the look of the new pictures even if the resolution and display was bad. It looked great.My one problem though, is the same problem I have now with lights, torches, and gamma settings. I can't see things far away in a whole lot of zones. For example, a few of the pictures were of the bridge before the castle in Nek Forest. With the old system, you can see the castle. Turn on the shaders and the ground at your feet and the bridge look great but you can't see the castle anymore. Most of the shots I saw display this. Stuff nearby the character looks amazing, stuff farther away is to dark to see much of anything. (I can also get this to happen with the current graphics engine, but only with more of the fancier stuff turned on when I try to make stuff look good and not washed out).I've spent hours trying to 'tune' the light settings, gamma, and everything, but I've never been happy with the results and always end up tweaking them for the next set of zones I have to go into. A lot of the time I give up and just toggle on the 'light' button in Profit so I can see. Maybe stuff farther away should really be darker but I like being able to see.I have max ambient light set, max torch intensity set, and it still seems like you can't see very far.Fendaria</blockquote>I thought there would be a few people out there that want more light everywhere, ambient light. While this doesn't reflect true reality, I'll see what I can do with the settings while upgrading the system. The issue is, if everything has the same light intensity, or if the ambient lighting is brought up so high, it blends the colors together and there's no pop from normal-mapping, bump-mapping, torches, or even specular if you bring it up high enough. We'll see what we can cook up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Could the range on a torch be extended? I really like the look of it and hate turning it off.Fendaria

Akaran2

07-01-2009, 12:10 PM

The card isn't new... the mobo, the power sup, the ram, the chip...Funny story.My wife had me get the Ghostbusters video game for the PC for our aniv. She loves me, she knows I'm a huge fan.I get it, I install it, I find out I don't meet minimum system req's. So she lets me open up a card at Newegg (I hate cards, I don't run debt - ever) to pick up a dual core chip. Fine, I love her a lot. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I call around and ask about compatability, and the nice person at Tiger Direct (my usual purchase spot) tells me that yes, the new chip will run with my old mobo.It didn't. [Removed for Content] near burnt out the thing.. close, but didn't.And so my loving wife told me to get a mobo.. one that'd work, but would be on the cheaper side.. just to last me another year. So another 70$ later, the new mobo comes in. The day it arrives I notice my power supply's fans aren't running. So I call Ultra, ask about my lifetime warranty, get told to DON'T USE IT! A REPLACEMENT IS OTW!So I wait another few days. Power sup arrives.Find out I have the wrong ****ing RAM.. so that's upgraded. Another hit on the new card.Now I'm 200$ in debt on this, my system is back up and running, but I can't afford a new card upgrade. =pAnd the pc version doesn't even have multiplayer. Geh.

Froed20

07-01-2009, 12:24 PM

All the pretty pictures seem to be broken...

ke'la

07-01-2009, 12:31 PM

<cite>Akaran2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>The card isn't new... the mobo, the power sup, the ram, the chip...Funny story.My wife had me get the Ghostbusters video game for the PC for our aniv. She loves me, she knows I'm a huge fan.I get it, I install it, I find out I don't meet minimum system req's. So she lets me open up a card at Newegg (I hate cards, I don't run debt - ever) to pick up a dual core chip. Fine, I love her a lot. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> I call around and ask about compatability, and the nice person at Tiger Direct (my usual purchase spot) tells me that yes, the new chip will run with my old mobo.It didn't. [Removed for Content] near burnt out the thing.. close, but didn't.And so my loving wife told me to get a mobo.. one that'd work, but would be on the cheaper side.. just to last me another year. So another 70$ later, the new mobo comes in. The day it arrives I notice my power supply's fans aren't running. So I call Ultra, ask about my lifetime warranty, get told to DON'T USE IT! A REPLACEMENT IS OTW!So I wait another few days. Power sup arrives.Find out I have the wrong ****ing RAM.. so that's upgraded. Another hit on the new card.Now I'm 200$ in debt on this, my system is back up and running, but I can't afford a new card upgrade. =pAnd the pc version doesn't even have multiplayer. Geh.</blockquote>I wouldn't be buying a DX10 card right now anyway with DX11 comming out near the end of this year with Win 7. Also I do believe the reason you are seeing about 3megs is that is the limit that XP can see without going to 64bit. If you can keep that card though the first Generation of DX11 cards, to pick up DX11 Gen2 cards(about 2 years or so) that is what I would do personally.

Trilarian-2

07-01-2009, 12:42 PM

None of the picture links are working for me... <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" />

Josgar

07-01-2009, 01:15 PM

It looks like his website crashed <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Anordil

07-01-2009, 02:30 PM

/cries <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" />I wanted to see the pretty pictures. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I'm excited to see this coming down the pike. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

EasternKing

07-01-2009, 02:36 PM

What bothers me with the propsed changes is, what actual use are they going to be?And i will expound now on what i mean. my machine is dual core 2.4ghz intel processors, 4 gig high speed ram, a 3gig a sec 400 gig hard drive, i have a 8800GTX 756meg graphic card, by any chalk of the imagination i should be able to run eq2 in extreme quality settings and be running 40-50 fps,This is [Removed for Content] of my screen and FPS on extreme quality in an fairly empty over land zone with not much stuff around for it to drag the fps down.<img src="http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa275/theeasternking_photo/EQ2_000114.jpg" />as you can see i have a whopping 26fps, as soon as i leave SS docks and goto EFP for example that drops to 10-15fps.next is same zone same place on very high performance,<img src="http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa275/theeasternking_photo/EQ2_000113.jpg" />im at 53 fps, not particularly amazing when you consider the specs of my machine vrs the specs of what eq2 requires from your machine to run.Once i get into a raid, instances im lucky if i stay above 10fps, even on very high performance, contested mobs in overland zones? im around 6fps perma.so id really like to know, what is changing shaders going to do, to an already diablolically designed game engine that does not even utilize the hard ware you have properly?i mean sure it will be fantastic when im sat about doing nothing to look at pretty scenery, once i actuallty start playing eq2 pretty much everything is turned off and dowm to mimimum settings, or the game lags badly.Yes the changes you have made look superb, my major concern is its just going to make an already system heavy game, even more cumbersome and be detrimental to the games performance, i had a pretty powerful machine and already eq2 wont run properly on it.

Dragowulf

07-01-2009, 02:44 PM

To my understanding, Imago-Quem said in the video that lower resolutions actually see a performance increase, and right now higher resolutions it's about the same, but they're tweaking higher resolutions for it to run better.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 03:09 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Will we possibly see fur shaders on mounts and animals ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And metal shaders <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And grass and dirt/rock shadersHopefully it ends up looking like this minus the modern character of course <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I would absolutely LOVE to do all of these for you. We'll see what we can manage. What comes first is still under discussion. But remember these take "time" to implement. It's very tricky stuff, and working on a 10 year old graphics engine is a huge added complexity.

Freliant

07-01-2009, 03:36 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Will we possibly see fur shaders on mounts and animals ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And metal shaders <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And grass and dirt/rock shadersHopefully it ends up looking like this minus the modern character of course <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I would absolutely LOVE to do all of these for you. We'll see what we can manage. What comes first is still under discussion. But remember these take "time" to implement. It's very tricky stuff, and working on a 10 year old graphics engine is a huge added complexity.</blockquote>/thumbs upWait... isn't EQ the one with the 10y/o graphics engine? EQ2 is 4 and 1/2 years old ^_^Unless you are counting development time of the game itself...

ke'la

07-01-2009, 08:20 PM

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Will we possibly see fur shaders on mounts and animals ? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And metal shaders <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And grass and dirt/rock shadersHopefully it ends up looking like this minus the modern character of course <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I would absolutely LOVE to do all of these for you. We'll see what we can manage. What comes first is still under discussion. But remember these take "time" to implement. It's very tricky stuff, and working on a 10 year old graphics engine is a huge added complexity.</blockquote>/thumbs upWait... isn't EQ the one with the 10y/o graphics engine? EQ2 is 4 and 1/2 years old ^_^Unless you are counting development time of the game itself...</blockquote>The Graphics Engine is based on Shader 1.0 so that is where the 10 years comes in. Also yes you should include development time in because you can't just flip a switch and change graphics engines right befor game launchs I would think the Graphics engine is one of the first things built.To the poster complaining about his Uber System getting bad preformance. Part of the problem with EQ2 is that it is a very Graphics design, and apearently in order to do anything on your Video Card that looks cool it has to send multiple requests for each item... under 3.0 that won't be as big of an issue. Remember that part of the differances between Generations of Shader Models, is Microsoft optimising the way programs talk to the video card.Also I do belive Imago stated he is currently running the same Vid card as you are and he is seeing a very large performance boost.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:05 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Sorry few more questions..Will the implementation of shader model 3 have any effect on the new GPU shadow system ?Will it stop the flickering shadow on ground textures that are happening with the current mix of shader 1.1 and shader 3.0 ?Will it make it easier to implement light sources other than the sun/moon ?</blockquote>No, there won't be any affect on the new GPU Shadows. But a touch up is coming for the flicker issue.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:07 PM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote>What I am really interested in, is if this will be one of the first steps taken to truly improve the game engine. The engine as it is suffers from massive framerate loss, the options relating to adjusting the graphics arent entirely clear in their purpose, and the game itself is a massive memory chugging/slow loading beast.I have been playing for several years now, and I've always hoped to be able to play the game with the same level of fluid smoothness as in the many promotional videos released of the game.As it stands now, it is very difficult to play with more than one person's particles/spellcasting effects turned on to any level, and turning the complex shaders entirely off is massively performance enhancing even on recent systems.The sheer increase in choppiness and network lag in raid and group zones is also utterly debilitating in gameplay, yet almost never noticed while solo in a sparsely populated zone.</blockquote>As long as I'm here, this is the first of many graphical upgrades to come.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:25 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can you please show us that underwater picture that was so popular at Fan Faire? =)</blockquote>You mean this?</blockquote>SEXY!<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I love the new dev team that SOE is forming.Domino and Imago-Quem are awesome.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />DDDDWill reflectoins look any different?</blockquote>Not with the first 3.0 upgrade. We'll see if it does later. It is one of the ideas floating around here for what to upgrade next.</blockquote>The next thing that I truly believe needs upgrading is the sky and atmosphere. I'm not going to be modest, It's ugly.</blockquote>I completely agree with this! And seriously, I hope sooner then later.The skyboxes have become really really outdated now and could use a serious facelift.Jer</blockquote>Adding it to the list...

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:26 PM

<cite>Akaran2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>eeep.I just upgraded (was sorta forced into it) to a Pentium Dual Core CPU, E5200, 2.5ghz with 4gb ram (tho it's only reading 2.99). I've got a nVidia GeForce 8600 GTS, PCI/E slot. I have XP, but thinking about going Windows 7.Tell me this will run this. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I don't foresee any problems with this specification + EQII 3.0 Shaders.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:28 PM

<cite>Fendaria wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fendaria wrote:</cite><blockquote>I loved the look of the new pictures even if the resolution and display was bad. It looked great.My one problem though, is the same problem I have now with lights, torches, and gamma settings. I can't see things far away in a whole lot of zones. For example, a few of the pictures were of the bridge before the castle in Nek Forest. With the old system, you can see the castle. Turn on the shaders and the ground at your feet and the bridge look great but you can't see the castle anymore. Most of the shots I saw display this. Stuff nearby the character looks amazing, stuff farther away is to dark to see much of anything. (I can also get this to happen with the current graphics engine, but only with more of the fancier stuff turned on when I try to make stuff look good and not washed out).I've spent hours trying to 'tune' the light settings, gamma, and everything, but I've never been happy with the results and always end up tweaking them for the next set of zones I have to go into. A lot of the time I give up and just toggle on the 'light' button in Profit so I can see. Maybe stuff farther away should really be darker but I like being able to see.I have max ambient light set, max torch intensity set, and it still seems like you can't see very far.Fendaria</blockquote>I thought there would be a few people out there that want more light everywhere, ambient light. While this doesn't reflect true reality, I'll see what I can do with the settings while upgrading the system. The issue is, if everything has the same light intensity, or if the ambient lighting is brought up so high, it blends the colors together and there's no pop from normal-mapping, bump-mapping, torches, or even specular if you bring it up high enough. We'll see what we can cook up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Could the range on a torch be extended? I really like the look of it and hate turning it off.Fendaria</blockquote>Maybe. I'll look into it.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:33 PM

<cite>Fayle@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>All the pretty pictures seem to be broken...</blockquote>Not sure what the deal was. Could you try again? I "was" just updating my website hosting subscription that the pics are linked to.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:36 PM

<cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>What bothers me with the propsed changes is, what actual use are they going to be?And i will expound now on what i mean. my machine is dual core 2.4ghz intel processors, 4 gig high speed ram, a 3gig a sec 400 gig hard drive, i have a 8800GTX 756meg graphic card, by any chalk of the imagination i should be able to run eq2 in extreme quality settings and be running 40-50 fps,This is [Removed for Content] of my screen and FPS on extreme quality in an fairly empty over land zone with not much stuff around for it to drag the fps down.as you can see i have a whopping 26fps, as soon as i leave SS docks and goto EFP for example that drops to 10-15fps.next is same zone same place on very high performance,im at 53 fps, not particularly amazing when you consider the specs of my machine vrs the specs of what eq2 requires from your machine to run.Once i get into a raid, instances im lucky if i stay above 10fps, even on very high performance, contested mobs in overland zones? im around 6fps perma.so id really like to know, what is changing shaders going to do, to an already diablolically designed game engine that does not even utilize the hard ware you have properly?i mean sure it will be fantastic when im sat about doing nothing to look at pretty scenery, once i actuallty start playing eq2 pretty much everything is turned off and dowm to mimimum settings, or the game lags badly.Yes the changes you have made look superb, my major concern is its just going to make an already system heavy game, even more cumbersome and be detrimental to the games performance, i had a pretty powerful machine and already eq2 wont run properly on it.</blockquote>Part of the reason we're moving to 3.0 is to unlock areas for performance gain. I am currently increasing the framerates for lower resolution and working on increasing it more and for higher resolutions.

Imago-Quem

07-01-2009, 11:43 PM

<table cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td align="left" valign="top">ke'la</td> <td height="28" valign="top"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td width="100%"><img src="../styles/EQ2/eq2_default/images/common/icon_minipost.gif" border="0" width="12" height="9" /> 07/01/2009 16:20:39 Subject: Re:Re:Re:Re:Shader 3.0 </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"><hr /></td></tr> <tr><td colspan="2"><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>Will we possibly see fur shaders on mounts and animals ? <img src="../images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And metal shaders <img src="../images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />And grass and dirt/rock shadersHopefully it ends up looking like this minus the modern character of course <img src="../images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I would absolutely LOVE to do all of these for you. We'll see what we can manage. What comes first is still under discussion. But remember these take "time" to implement. It's very tricky stuff, and working on a 10 year old graphics engine is a huge added complexity.</blockquote>/thumbs upWait... isn't EQ the one with the 10y/o graphics engine? EQ2 is 4 and 1/2 years old ^_^Unless you are counting development time of the game itself...</blockquote>The Graphics Engine is based on Shader 1.0 so that is where the 10 years comes in. Also yes you should include development time in because you can't just flip a switch and change graphics engines right befor game launchs I would think the Graphics engine is one of the first things built.To the poster complaining about his Uber System getting bad preformance. Part of the problem with EQ2 is that it is a very Graphics design, and apearently in order to do anything on your Video Card that looks cool it has to send multiple requests for each item... under 3.0 that won't be as big of an issue. Remember that part of the differances between Generations of Shader Models, is Microsoft optimising the way programs talk to the video card.Also I do belive Imago stated he is currently running the same Vid card as you are and he is seeing a very large performance boost.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sorry, quotes weren't working for the above. {what a mess}Anyway, yes, the technology used is 10 years old and the engine's initial development started then as well. The system has been modified and twisted to work for more and more things for more than 10 years.</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>

Wrapye

07-02-2009, 12:01 AM

I'm curious to see how this will impact the appearance of our houses, with the lighting sources and whatnot that have been placed in them.

EasternKing

07-02-2009, 12:06 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite><blockquote>What bothers me with the propsed changes is, what actual use are they going to be?And i will expound now on what i mean. my machine is dual core 2.4ghz intel processors, 4 gig high speed ram, a 3gig a sec 400 gig hard drive, i have a 8800GTX 756meg graphic card, by any chalk of the imagination i should be able to run eq2 in extreme quality settings and be running 40-50 fps,This is [Removed for Content] of my screen and FPS on extreme quality in an fairly empty over land zone with not much stuff around for it to drag the fps down.as you can see i have a whopping 26fps, as soon as i leave SS docks and goto EFP for example that drops to 10-15fps.next is same zone same place on very high performance,im at 53 fps, not particularly amazing when you consider the specs of my machine vrs the specs of what eq2 requires from your machine to run.Once i get into a raid, instances im lucky if i stay above 10fps, even on very high performance, contested mobs in overland zones? im around 6fps perma.so id really like to know, what is changing shaders going to do, to an already diablolically designed game engine that does not even utilize the hard ware you have properly?i mean sure it will be fantastic when im sat about doing nothing to look at pretty scenery, once i actuallty start playing eq2 pretty much everything is turned off and dowm to mimimum settings, or the game lags badly.Yes the changes you have made look superb, my major concern is its just going to make an already system heavy game, even more cumbersome and be detrimental to the games performance, i had a pretty powerful machine and already eq2 wont run properly on it.</blockquote>Part of the reason we're moving to 3.0 is to unlock areas for performance gain. I am currently increasing the framerates for lower resolution and working on increasing it more and for higher resolutions.</blockquote>Sounds fantastic then, i cant wait to try/see the new stuff out.

Akaran2

07-02-2009, 12:08 AM

<3But seriously, thank you. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Pitt Hammerfi

07-02-2009, 12:12 AM

I find it funny, you have provided more answers than the people asking questions <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Talk about pwning a thread... lol usually the questions pwn the dev <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Boli32

07-02-2009, 01:05 AM

Actually I know everyone is umming and ahhing about how great the game is gonna look with this new setup but as it was stated before about FPS and efficiency could mean it will be unplayble at these settings; with even the best computersWhat I'm asking is whilst you're still in the development stage is it possible to actually REDUCE the GFX settings further than they are now... I don't mean to "line drawings" but in a way you can pull back the sliders to lower than it is now and its more efficient to boot allowing if wanted high framerate and overall visability for raids and contested fights?I know we would all like to see perfectly realistitc GFX and have them on max settings even in the biggest raids... but that won't be possible for a long long time; the next best thing is ofc to look into this nice new shader 3.0 to work the other end of the spectrum and allow the sliders to be dropped to give high performance and clarity for times we may want to run it in "that mode"Anyways.. that's my 2 pence..... seriously tho... those screenies are looking niiiice <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Pitt Hammerfi

07-02-2009, 01:08 AM

<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Actually I know everyone is umming and ahhing about how great the game is gonna look with this new setup but as it was stated before about FPS and efficiency could mean it will be unplayble at these settings; with even the best computersWhat I'm asking is whilst you're still in the development stage is it possible to actually REDUCE the GFX settings further than they are now... I don't mean to "line drawings" but in a way you can pull back the sliders to lower than it is now and its more efficient to boot allowing if wanted high framerate and overall visability for raids and contested fights?I know we would all like to see perfectly realistitc GFX and have them on max settings even in the biggest raids... but that won't be possible for a long long time; the next best thing is ofc to look into this nice new shader 3.0 to work the other end of the spectrum and allow the sliders to be dropped to give high performance and clarity for times we may want to run it in "that mode"Anyways.. that's my 2 pence..... seriously tho... those screenies are looking niiiice <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>A lot of people can raid on extreme quality.The new i7's and gtx's run eq2 flawless.

Rheem

07-02-2009, 03:39 AM

<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Actually I know everyone is umming and ahhing about how great the game is gonna look with this new setup but as it was stated before about FPS and efficiency could mean it will be unplayble at these settings; with even the best computersWhat I'm asking is whilst you're still in the development stage is it possible to actually REDUCE the GFX settings further than they are now... I don't mean to "line drawings" but in a way you can pull back the sliders to lower than it is now and its more efficient to boot allowing if wanted high framerate and overall visability for raids and contested fights?I know we would all like to see perfectly realistitc GFX and have them on max settings even in the biggest raids... but that won't be possible for a long long time; the next best thing is ofc to look into this nice new shader 3.0 to work the other end of the spectrum and allow the sliders to be dropped to give high performance and clarity for times we may want to run it in "that mode"Anyways.. that's my 2 pence..... seriously tho... those screenies are looking niiiice <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I think the main reason for these upgrades isn't just so that the game looks better, but so it runs better too.

ke'la

07-02-2009, 04:19 AM

<cite>Boli32 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Actually I know everyone is umming and ahhing about how great the game is gonna look with this new setup but as it was stated before about FPS and efficiency could mean it will be unplayble at these settings; with even the best computersWhat I'm asking is whilst you're still in the development stage is it possible to actually REDUCE the GFX settings further than they are now... I don't mean to "line drawings" but in a way you can pull back the sliders to lower than it is now and its more efficient to boot allowing if wanted high framerate and overall visability for raids and contested fights?I know we would all like to see perfectly realistitc GFX and have them on max settings even in the biggest raids... but that won't be possible for a long long time; the next best thing is ofc to look into this nice new shader 3.0 to work the other end of the spectrum and allow the sliders to be dropped to give high performance and clarity for times we may want to run it in "that mode"Anyways.. that's my 2 pence..... seriously tho... those screenies are looking niiiice <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>He answered that question already, the of the reasons for going to 3.0 is to unlock more ways to Optimise the games performance... the increased Prittyness is just an added benifit... atleast that is how I read this:<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Part of the reason we're moving to 3.0 is to unlock areas for performance gain. I am currently increasing the framerates for lower resolution and working on increasing it more and for higher resolutions.</blockquote>

Dragowulf

07-02-2009, 06:29 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>Well, part of the reason...From what I've been seeing from our Imago is that he is making these additions, adjustments, and improvements on the graphics engine like Shaders 3.0 and GPU Shadows because not only would it increase performance on many systems (and not just because of his job), but it also makes the game look "prettier" and significantly increases immersion which the game lacks. So far he's doing an outstanding job and I can't wait to see what's coming next.Now if only we could somehow get the animation department inspired to think like Imago. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />So with all that said some things that we do lack in the graphics department is that immersive atmospheric feeling you can find in other MMO titles. It's quite hard to explain, but Shaders, bloom, sky, etc etc all play a huge role in this. I believe the textures are fine, just the core graphics engine needs some Imago-lovin.

Dragowulf

07-02-2009, 06:30 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Adding it to the list...</blockquote>So...what's on the list..? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

ke'la

07-02-2009, 08:02 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>Well, part of the reason...I ment it to say one of the reasons, but I didn't proof read it correctly.From what I've been seeing from our Imago is that he is making these additions, adjustments, and improvements on the graphics engine like Shaders 3.0 and GPU Shadows because not only would it increase performance on many systems (and not just because of his job), but it also makes the game look "prettier" and significantly increases immersion which the game lacks. So far he's doing an outstanding job and I can't wait to see what's coming next.Now if only we could somehow get the animation department inspired to think like Imago. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/ed515dbff23a0ee3241dcc0a601c9ed6.gif" border="0" />So with all that said some things that we do lack in the graphics department is that immersive atmospheric feeling you can find in other MMO titles. It's quite hard to explain, but Shaders, bloom, sky, etc etc all play a huge role in this. I believe the textures are fine, just the core graphics engine needs some Imago-lovin.</blockquote>There now sometimes is a link off of my video of someone from Guk server taping some of the amimations panel... if you saw what they where working on thier I don't think you would say they are lacking insperation... wait know I think it was the link of the Panda.It is Santiago from Guk who posted the video... <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2PkAiNJRVA" target="_blank">here</a>

Dragowulf

07-02-2009, 01:32 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>I was referring to player animations.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 02:12 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>I was referring to player animations.</blockquote>We have an AWESOME new animation artist on our team, Tom Tobey. Just awesome. If you were at Fan Faire this year you would have seen some of his work (eg. Panda Bear). All hand made too!

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 02:18 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Adding it to the list...</blockquote>So...what's on the list..? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Well, let's see...- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.

Kokus

07-02-2009, 03:04 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Adding it to the list...</blockquote>So...what's on the list..? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Well, let's see...- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.</blockquote>I'm assuming this will all be finished by the next Game Update? Thanks!

Pitt Hammerfi

07-02-2009, 03:14 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite>- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.holy crap lol now thats a list <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> hope it all gets implemented eventually.My order of most importance in that list would be:1. Fast and expansive grass / flora 2. Better skyboxesThe above 2 items are the most common looked at 2 items in the game, the ground and the sky.I dont mind the sky, and sometimes things like sunsets in majdhul can look awesome, but sometimes the clouds can look a bit old especially in freeport.The worst thing in eq2 imo are the ground textures like dirt/rocks and grass, they look horrible in some places, and so does the flora. You just have to run around Zek/Commonlands or Moors of Yakesha to see what i mean.Take a look at games like Tiger woods, and Oblivion, hehe i know they are single player games, but there are ways to draw grass/flora without it being expensive.Flora in EQ2 is really really poor, do you use Geometry instancing for flora ? if not you shouldGeometry Instancing:<a href="http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter03.html">http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP..._chapter03.html</a>Look at the below ground textures, i mean i could always link pictures to crysis, but that would be over the top heh, but what would the cost be to render the below terrain/flora<img src="http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/245/944936_20080902_screen013.jpg" width="1280" height="720" />Below is an old pic of eq2 running on my old pc, you can cleary see the ground textures are pretty poor compared to new games.<img src="http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/77/eq20004699gi.jpg" />Why does the top pictures terrain/flora look alot more vibrant ? is it shaders ? or is it something else ? comparing the 2 side by side it looks like eq2 is running on 16 bit color heh.Take a look at this guys grass shader, not sure how he did it<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxg59rdxeE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxg59rdxeE</a>

Armawk

07-02-2009, 05:09 PM

One positive note.. those pics show it well. The atmospheric 'bloom' (note the blooming around the freeport floating tower) and distance fade in the EQ2 pic is fantastic and please dont change it too much as its one really good aspect of the games look!

Josgar

07-02-2009, 05:38 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Adding it to the list...</blockquote>So...what's on the list..? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Well, let's see...- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.</blockquote>Can you take a look at the lack of any kind of weather in 95% of zones?

Achala

07-02-2009, 05:57 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>holy crap lol now thats a list <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> hope it all gets implemented eventually.My order of most importance in that list would be:1. Fast and expansive grass / flora</blockquote>/secondedThe flora is, IMHO, one of the weakest links in the game's look and feel. The popin (without modifying the ini files, using only the settings available in the GUI) is terrible, and the flora displacement is a great idea but in practice looks really funny particularly because the flora is often paper thin.I loved the flora in Age of Conan. Vanguard:SOH also has better looking flora than EQ2 (though the grass looks odd when you pan your camera around since it looks like it is moving because it always faces the camera). Those worlds (just the open world outdoor environments, ignoring character models, cities, dungeon design, etc.) were really beautiful and vibrant. Age of Conan, in particular, is lush and colorful, and most of it was just due to flora.

Mythal_EQ2

07-02-2009, 06:42 PM

This list... and everything you've changed so far... is simply awesome.One thing I'd still like to see though (unless it's included in the list somewhere)... Can you move particle effects to the GPU too? And give us some more options with regards to which particle effects to show / hide (especially for raids)?D.

Nakaru-Nitepaw

07-02-2009, 06:52 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>- better skyboxes </blockquote>Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.

Armawk

07-02-2009, 07:01 PM

<cite>Achala wrote:</cite><blockquote>I loved the flora in Age of Conan. Vanguard:SOH also has better looking flora than EQ2 (though the grass looks odd when you pan your camera around since it looks like it is moving because it always faces the camera). Those worlds (just the open world outdoor environments, ignoring character models, cities, dungeon design, etc.) were really beautiful and vibrant. Age of Conan, in particular, is lush and colorful, and most of it was just due to flora. </blockquote>I think Conan has a real problem with some of its flora though.. nasty nasty photomapped entire bushes that autoface to the camera (as you describe for vanguard) and are really obvious etc. great on screenshots, nasty in moving practice. I think being more efficient and longer range (especially longer range!) would fix the flora here nicely, the popin lets it down badly.There are two fundamentally different types of flora here.. the one being talked about is I assume only the procedural moving stuff, anything larger or non procedural is just an object like any other in the game (and quality of it is massively varied depending when/by who it was done)

Dragowulf

07-02-2009, 07:24 PM

Flora just needs a complete makeover. As it is now the Flora looks like weeds, it doesn't even look like grass, plants, flowers. Imo it should be more concentrated oon the ground, and not spread apart 10 ft. away from eachother. Long grass, short grass, flowers, plants, wheat fields, finally some real corn fields? Flora displacement should be the flora displacing in the wind and as you step through it or run by it. It should have that feel to it...that's what I'm looking for.Though I think Flora would be a bigger task to complete.Sky, skyboxes, stars, atmosphere are all just blah (hideous). As it is now EQ1 has better graphics in that department.I'm sure that whatever you do with the list and however you do it and in what order - we will see the performance increase as well as a prettier game.

Dragowulf

07-02-2009, 07:27 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>I was referring to player animations.</blockquote>We have an AWESOME new animation artist on our team, Tom Tobey. Just awesome. If you were at Fan Faire this year you would have seen some of his work (eg. Panda Bear). All hand made too!</blockquote>I saw the video shown at Fan Faire. It was simply amazing.There just needs to be more immersive player animations imo. Especially with moods/socials emotes

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 08:35 PM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Adding it to the list...</blockquote>So...what's on the list..? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Well, let's see...- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.</blockquote>Can you take a look at the lack of any kind of weather in 95% of zones?</blockquote>Ah, yes. That was another one.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 08:44 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite>- Hair/Fur - HDR Lighting - Fast and expansive grass / flora - new water - new oceans - better skyboxes - atmospheric haze - volumetric fog - God rays - point light shadow mapsThat's what I've got scratched down here. There may be a few other ideas we've passed around also.holy crap lol now thats a list <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> hope it all gets implemented eventually.My order of most importance in that list would be:1. Fast and expansive grass / flora 2. Better skyboxesThe above 2 items are the most common looked at 2 items in the game, the ground and the sky.I dont mind the sky, and sometimes things like sunsets in majdhul can look awesome, but sometimes the clouds can look a bit old especially in freeport.The worst thing in eq2 imo are the ground textures like dirt/rocks and grass, they look horrible in some places, and so does the flora. You just have to run around Zek/Commonlands or Moors of Yakesha to see what i mean.Take a look at games like Tiger woods, and Oblivion, hehe i know they are single player games, but there are ways to draw grass/flora without it being expensive.Flora in EQ2 is really really poor, do you use Geometry instancing for flora ? if not you shouldGeometry Instancing:<a href="http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GPUGems2/gpugems2_chapter03.html">http://http.developer.nvidia.com/GP..._chapter03.html</a>Look at the below ground textures, i mean i could always link pictures to crysis, but that would be over the top heh, but what would the cost be to render the below terrain/floraBelow is an old pic of eq2 running on my old pc, you can cleary see the ground textures are pretty poor compared to new games.Why does the top pictures terrain/flora look alot more vibrant ? is it shaders ? or is it something else ? comparing the 2 side by side it looks like eq2 is running on 16 bit color heh.Take a look at this guys grass shader, not sure how he did it<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxg59rdxeE">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwxg59rdxeE</a></blockquote>Ya, there's a huge difference between single player and multi-player. The single player experience is "much" more controlled, as well as lacking in continuous in-game server updates. MMO's usually display a ton more characters on screen, moving objects, etc. as well. Even just the number of possible armor sets displayed at once, each with their own shader and texturing, causes a huge drop in framerates. A lot of sets will even have multiple textures and shaders used for a single set. In any case, I'm always looking for ways to optimize what we've got.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 08:46 PM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote>One positive note.. those pics show it well. The atmospheric 'bloom' (note the blooming around the freeport floating tower) and distance fade in the EQ2 pic is fantastic and please dont change it too much as its one really good aspect of the games look!</blockquote>Don't worry, I'm not subtracting anything from the game.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 08:49 PM

<cite>Mythal_EQ2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>This list... and everything you've changed so far... is simply awesome.One thing I'd still like to see though (unless it's included in the list somewhere)... Can you move particle effects to the GPU too? And give us some more options with regards to which particle effects to show / hide (especially for raids)?D.</blockquote>I'm passing this idea around the offices. I'm still not sure how complex it would be to add this in. Talked about it for a while with one of our Senior Programmers and the Artists I've talked to like the idea. It's definitely an option we'd like to add in but will have to be prioritized with so many other upgrades we're trying to bring into the game right now.

Katanalla

07-02-2009, 08:52 PM

I wonder, will the sky ever be accurate? cause I don't think around ice cap you'd have the sun right over head at any point of time - in fact should be night / day for weeks at a time >.>Anyways, look forward to new shader changes! Coming soon to a PC near you. . . LLAMAS IN 3D!

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 08:57 PM

<cite>Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>- better skyboxes </blockquote>Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.</blockquote>Particularly, yes, the cloud layer. There's not a lot of coding beyond that, besides the bloom and sunset colors. But more effects could be added in like a more vibrant sun or other effects visually that interact with the sky such as heat shimmers, dilating effects, God rays, etc..

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 09:00 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Flora just needs a complete makeover. As it is now the Flora looks like weeds, it doesn't even look like grass, plants, flowers. Imo it should be more concentrated oon the ground, and not spread apart 10 ft. away from eachother. Long grass, short grass, flowers, plants, wheat fields, finally some real corn fields? Flora displacement should be the flora displacing in the wind and as you step through it or run by it. It should have that feel to it...that's what I'm looking for.Though I think Flora would be a bigger task to complete.Sky, skyboxes, stars, atmosphere are all just blah (hideous). As it is now EQ1 has better graphics in that department.I'm sure that whatever you do with the list and however you do it and in what order - we will see the performance increase as well as a prettier game.</blockquote>I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 09:03 PM

<cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>I wonder, will the sky ever be accurate? cause I don't think around ice cap you'd have the sun right over head at any point of time - in fact should be night / day for weeks at a time >.>Anyways, look forward to new shader changes! Coming soon to a PC near you. . . LLAMAS IN 3D!</blockquote>We'll see. When I start looking into the sky system I'll see if it's feasible to do this.

Ama

07-02-2009, 09:10 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have a couple of questions if you don't mind answering them Imago. First one is how will HDR be enabled for machines using outdated drivers and/or low end graphics cards? Still using a 256mb ATI 9800 pro card here. Starting to see most games actually require my card as a bare minimum recommending a 512mb.Dealing with multi-core technologies will we see HDR being computed on processors as well as graphics cards? Also what about people who have crossfired/SLI enabled graphics cards? Finally with the upcomming windows 7 how well will HDR mesh with the new DirectX11 that will be pushed with it? Designing a new computer and hope to be running windows 7 ultimate with DX11 on it. I've seen HDR in effect on console games and it is a very interesting prospect for MMOs. </blockquote>Hi Amana, Since EQII hasn't decided when/if HDR will be developed for the game, I can't say much due to the lack of research with HDR + EQII. I'll do my best here for you: Most HDR requires 32-bit floating point buffer support. You'll need that, or maybe at least 16-bit floating point buffer support. Time permitting and complexity non-gating, I'm sure we'd love to split processing across multiple CPU's and GPU's. At this moment I couldn't tell you how feasible this would be in EQII. EQII won't be adding any additional DX11 support anytime soon. As far as having DX11 support on your system and mixing in DX9 HDR, Microsoft has been pretty good at keeping things backwards compatible. I don't foresee any problems there. I hope we can make you very happy for a long while, Amana, while we continue to upgrade EverQuest II for you.</blockquote>InterestingI do have one last quick question here. Dealing with your technologies will people who have their computers set to "high performance and low graphics *forget the name*" see better texturing? Quite curious to see if new advances are made that will allow for more crisp textures to be shown when people have their computer set to performance mode. Was deffinately funny being in the RoK beta and putting my computer to Extreme quality in Teren's Grasp. Took some great shots then BAM!! hit with that max memory 39million number thing.

Imago-Quem

07-02-2009, 09:24 PM

<cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote>I have a couple of questions if you don't mind answering them Imago. First one is how will HDR be enabled for machines using outdated drivers and/or low end graphics cards? Still using a 256mb ATI 9800 pro card here. Starting to see most games actually require my card as a bare minimum recommending a 512mb.Dealing with multi-core technologies will we see HDR being computed on processors as well as graphics cards? Also what about people who have crossfired/SLI enabled graphics cards? Finally with the upcomming windows 7 how well will HDR mesh with the new DirectX11 that will be pushed with it? Designing a new computer and hope to be running windows 7 ultimate with DX11 on it. I've seen HDR in effect on console games and it is a very interesting prospect for MMOs. </blockquote>Hi Amana, Since EQII hasn't decided when/if HDR will be developed for the game, I can't say much due to the lack of research with HDR + EQII. I'll do my best here for you: Most HDR requires 32-bit floating point buffer support. You'll need that, or maybe at least 16-bit floating point buffer support. Time permitting and complexity non-gating, I'm sure we'd love to split processing across multiple CPU's and GPU's. At this moment I couldn't tell you how feasible this would be in EQII. EQII won't be adding any additional DX11 support anytime soon. As far as having DX11 support on your system and mixing in DX9 HDR, Microsoft has been pretty good at keeping things backwards compatible. I don't foresee any problems there. I hope we can make you very happy for a long while, Amana, while we continue to upgrade EverQuest II for you.</blockquote>InterestingI do have one last quick question here. Dealing with your technologies will people who have their computers set to "high performance and low graphics *forget the name*" see better texturing? Quite curious to see if new advances are made that will allow for more crisp textures to be shown when people have their computer set to performance mode. Was deffinately funny being in the RoK beta and putting my computer to Extreme quality in Teren's Grasp. Took some great shots then BAM!! hit with that max memory 39million number thing. </blockquote>I don't know of any plans to replace the low-resolution textures used in the game, but 3.0 might make these look a lot better. Not sure yet what I'm going to do when settings are turned really low. At the moment, for 3.0, I don't let it get that low, still calculating directional lighting and normal-mapping.

tkia

07-02-2009, 10:01 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.</blockquote>When you get to that point could you consider a bit more differentiation on height in the flora? I've had to turn flora density down, not for performance issues but because half of my height challenged toons can't actually see where they're going in first person view <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Freliant

07-02-2009, 10:07 PM

<cite>tkia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.</blockquote>When you get to that point could you consider a bit more differentiation on height in the flora? I've had to turn flora density down, not for performance issues but because half of my height challenged toons can't actually see where they're going in first person view <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>lol, are you asking a dev to mow the lawn so halflings can see better??That is actually funny!

tkia

07-02-2009, 11:08 PM

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>tkia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.</blockquote>When you get to that point could you consider a bit more differentiation on height in the flora? I've had to turn flora density down, not for performance issues but because half of my height challenged toons can't actually see where they're going in first person view <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>lol, are you asking a dev to mow the lawn so halflings can see better??That is actually funny!</blockquote>Well I'm sure Brenlo will appreciate it just as much as my fae <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

NrthnStar5

07-02-2009, 11:26 PM

I would love to see each zone have their own weather random weather patterns. Most zones have zero weather which, disappoints me. Lotro seems to have a very good weather system. The sky has always been one of my major issues too, look at Lotro and Vanguard's skies for inspiration.

Josgar

07-03-2009, 12:36 AM

Pitt Hammerfi

07-03-2009, 02:07 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, there's a huge difference between single player and multi-player. The single player experience is "much" more controlled, as well as lacking in continuous in-game server updates. MMO's usually display a ton more characters on screen, moving objects, etc. as well. Even just the number of possible armor sets displayed at once, each with their own shader and texturing, causes a huge drop in framerates. A lot of sets will even have multiple textures and shaders used for a single set. In any case, I'm always looking for ways to optimize what we've got.</blockquote>Surely Ground Textures and Flora couldn't be that taxing ?Both of them wouldnt need any client/server communication. They just sit there all on the client side ? Maybe just have an option for 1024x1024 ground texures (optional downloadable texture pack, like oblivion and fallout 3), and a new flora system with a slider for transparecy and density ? hehe not asking for much am i? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" />

Dragowulf

07-03-2009, 02:07 AM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>- better skyboxes </blockquote>Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.</blockquote>Particularly, yes, the cloud layer. There's not a lot of coding beyond that, besides the bloom and sunset colors. But more effects could be added in like a more vibrant sun or other effects visually that interact with the sky such as heat shimmers, dilating effects, God rays, etc..</blockquote>Could clouds cast shadows?</blockquote>That would be nuts.

Omgidomms

07-03-2009, 04:20 AM

Taking my hat off for the work your doing, really great! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Personally I feel your doing one of the most important tasks with EQ2, and I hope you get the time and resources you need.

Ikke

07-03-2009, 05:48 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite> <blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite> <blockquote>{snip} Could clouds cast shadows?</blockquote> That would be nuts.</blockquote> No, that would be realistic. If on a very sunny day a single cloud passes in front of the sun it get's dark. What do you think that darkness is? I must be honset though. I don't think you could realisically model that in the game. But it would be nice.

JinjAB

07-03-2009, 06:41 AM

Would love to see a corn field that small races/shrunk toons can't see out of and tall races just see tracks of bending corn as the tiny ones move through it!Also, with weather...let druids make it rain or stop it raining (as in EQ, was fun and you felt, kinda, powerful!)

vochore

07-03-2009, 12:44 PM

havnt seen this posted yet or i might have just missed it but do you have any plans of adding ingame aa anytime so we dodnt have to keep doing the ini hack to get aa to work.

Ama

07-03-2009, 01:58 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, there's a huge difference between single player and multi-player. The single player experience is "much" more controlled, as well as lacking in continuous in-game server updates. MMO's usually display a ton more characters on screen, moving objects, etc. as well. Even just the number of possible armor sets displayed at once, each with their own shader and texturing, causes a huge drop in framerates. A lot of sets will even have multiple textures and shaders used for a single set. In any case, I'm always looking for ways to optimize what we've got.</blockquote>Surely Ground Textures and Flora couldn't be that taxing ?Both of them wouldnt need any client/server communication. They just sit there all on the client side ? Maybe just have an option for 1024x1024 ground texures (optional downloadable texture pack, like oblivion and fallout 3), and a new flora system with a slider for transparecy and density ? hehe not asking for much am i? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Actually Ground textures and flora textures can be quite taxing on a system. However there are ways of dealing with this to put less strain on the computer system. In HL2 the way to get great detail on objects like disturbed terrain is using a displacement. Flora systems can be quite finicky if you go beyond 2D sprite graphics into 3D graphics. Again there are ways to do this such as using static models which have no animation what so ever. When you start using dynamic animation models for trees, bushes, and the like it can overload a computer system. I'm thinking that if they use a specialized rendering code that renders objects within a hemisphere of the player they can achieve alot of great effects. Ontop of this giving the player the ability to control how far the see into the distance can also have an effect on it as well. Wouldn't be surprised if in the future for huge areas we see a sort of fog that acts like a rendering barrier. This way high quality graphics can be seen without causing extreme taxing on a personal computer. Not everyone is going to have an Intel 975 chip cranked to 4.5 gig with 12gigs of ram and 2 linked 1gig+ video cards. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

LordPazuzu

07-03-2009, 07:36 PM

Vanguard uses SpeedTree for tree foliage and flora. It looks awesome and runs very smoothly. Any chance of bringing that over here?

Jaale

07-03-2009, 09:11 PM

I would like to see how these changes affect an area like the hole, I love the thought of having to crawl slowly along because you can only see a few feet in front of you with the slime on the wall reflecting the torch light back at you giving everything an eerie local glow. Think of the film the decent for atmosphere. Mostly these are amazin' changes and I can't wait to see what it would look like when I get to run it with these changes! Now if spell effects could affect the lighting and 3.0 shaders........... (though that maybe too much work.)

Katanalla

07-03-2009, 11:58 PM

Would there be any room for astronomical events?Such as a moon cycle, where every say 6 days you get a short like 10minute long eclipse, turning everything dark haha. Or very cloudy, dark miserable days of endless rain. . .Dust storms. . . jet stream effect ~ volcanoes around Lavastorm would give Faydwer occasional smoke covering the sky. . .Although to be honest I'd expect a continent like Lavastorm to be far cooler given its location right next to north pole, but then again I think that Norrath continents were just laid out aimlessly as the expansions come and go in thought 'hey this fits here.'I expect Odus to be to far left of the world map between feerrott and Karan, and a bit over further to left than where Mara is. . .Then when we get Velious its going to be down at very bottom of map by that little peninsula is <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Just my predictions!Anyways. . . Yea will we get cool effects like eclipses, dark cloudy days, dust storms, etc.

Freliant

07-04-2009, 12:13 AM

<cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would there be any room for astronomical events?Such as a moon cycle, where every say 6 days you get a short like 10minute long eclipse, turning everything dark haha. Or very cloudy, dark miserable days of endless rain. . .Dust storms. . . jet stream effect ~ volcanoes around Lavastorm would give Faydwer occasional smoke covering the sky. . .Although to be honest I'd expect a continent like Lavastorm to be far cooler given its location right next to north pole, but then again I think that Norrath continents were just laid out aimlessly as the expansions come and go in thought 'hey this fits here.'I expect Odus to be to far left of the world map between feerrott and Karan, and a bit over further to left than where Mara is. . .Then when we get Velious its going to be down at very bottom of map by that little peninsula is <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Just my predictions!Anyways. . . Yea will we get cool effects like eclipses, dark cloudy days, dust storms, etc.</blockquote>I believe there are already lunar and solar events that happen regularly. You just have to be in the right zone at the right time.I distinctly remember a solar eclipse in the Thundering stepes a few years back. (or I was hallucinating, either way, it was awesome.)

JFanta

07-04-2009, 06:58 AM

Is the shader in eq2 just 1.0 now(b4 the shadow map coming)? It looks better then using shader 1.0 in eq2.

ke'la

07-04-2009, 09:17 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>I wonder, will the sky ever be accurate? cause I don't think around ice cap you'd have the sun right over head at any point of time - in fact should be night / day for weeks at a time >.>Anyways, look forward to new shader changes! Coming soon to a PC near you. . . LLAMAS IN 3D!</blockquote>We'll see. When I start looking into the sky system I'll see if it's feasible to do this.</blockquote>Wouldn't that require making whole new skyboxes for each zone. Is that how it is right now... or is it just one Skybox run though filters?

ke'la

07-04-2009, 09:39 AM

<cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Such as a moon cycle, where every say 6 days you get a short like 10minute long eclipse, turning everything dark haha. Or very cloudy, dark miserable days of endless rain. . .Dust storms. . . jet stream effect ~ volcanoes around Lavastorm would give Faydwer occasional smoke covering the sky. . .Fawdwer is too far away for the smoke to carry there, plus the prevailing winds blow most of it to Nek Forest. Although to be honest I'd expect a continent like Lavastorm to be far cooler given its location right next to north pole, but then again I think that Norrath continents were just laid out aimlessly as the expansions come and go in thought 'hey this fits here.'It would be cooler if it wasn't for all that Melted Rock all over the place...that tends to keep things from getting cool. </blockquote>

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 03:33 PM

<cite>tkia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>tkia wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'm sure when I get to the flora system it will be a completely new system, just like the shadows.</blockquote>When you get to that point could you consider a bit more differentiation on height in the flora? I've had to turn flora density down, not for performance issues but because half of my height challenged toons can't actually see where they're going in first person view <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>lol, are you asking a dev to mow the lawn so halflings can see better??That is actually funny!</blockquote>Well I'm sure Brenlo will appreciate it just as much as my fae <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I'll definitely look into it. Seems feasible, and cool. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 03:48 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ya, there's a huge difference between single player and multi-player. The single player experience is "much" more controlled, as well as lacking in continuous in-game server updates. MMO's usually display a ton more characters on screen, moving objects, etc. as well. Even just the number of possible armor sets displayed at once, each with their own shader and texturing, causes a huge drop in framerates. A lot of sets will even have multiple textures and shaders used for a single set. In any case, I'm always looking for ways to optimize what we've got.</blockquote>Surely Ground Textures and Flora couldn't be that taxing ?Both of them wouldnt need any client/server communication. They just sit there all on the client side ? Maybe just have an option for 1024x1024 ground texures (optional downloadable texture pack, like oblivion and fallout 3), and a new flora system with a slider for transparecy and density ? hehe not asking for much am i? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I really couldn't say anything for the texture downloads. I also don't "think" it would be very easy or quick for our team to be adding in extra textures to upgrade the zones. In any case, I'll mention it to the art team.As far as the flora system, I'll definitely see if we can add transparency, density, and height sliders... when I get to building the system. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 03:51 PM

<cite>NrthnStar5 wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would love to see each zone have their own weather random weather patterns. Most zones have zero weather which, disappoints me. Lotro seems to have a very good weather system. The sky has always been one of my major issues too, look at Lotro and Vanguard's skies for inspiration.</blockquote>I haven't looked into our weather system a whole lot, but when I get there I'll be sure to see how the system works across zones, as well as gaze at the glory in LOTRO and Vanguard for inspiration, hehe. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Mörk

07-04-2009, 03:57 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>- better skyboxes </blockquote>Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.</blockquote>Particularly, yes, the cloud layer. There's not a lot of coding beyond that, besides the bloom and sunset colors. But more effects could be added in like a more vibrant sun or other effects visually that interact with the sky such as heat shimmers, dilating effects, God rays, etc..</blockquote>I remember going to Italy for the first time, driving through Switzerland on the overnight coach. I woke up sometime around dawn (having fallen asleep on a motorway in France) with clouds below me and mountains above...Imagine that from a sokokar in Kylong Plains <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Breaking through the cloud layer flying from Teren's Grasp from above, into driving rain over Karnor's Castle.Okay, so it probably won't happen like that... but I can hope.

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 03:58 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Eschia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>- better skyboxes </blockquote>Do you mean the cloud layer? Right now it can look really aweful at times. It looks like a scrolling flat surface with a texture on it. It can sometimes be yellow and pink acid clouds, and looks very unrealistic. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> EQ1 has one up on it. A new cloud layer would be awesome.</blockquote>Particularly, yes, the cloud layer. There's not a lot of coding beyond that, besides the bloom and sunset colors. But more effects could be added in like a more vibrant sun or other effects visually that interact with the sky such as heat shimmers, dilating effects, God rays, etc..</blockquote>Could clouds cast shadows?</blockquote>That would be nuts.</blockquote>We actually want to add this, and funny as it is, I don't imagine the implementation being extremely difficult, not like new shadows and a shader system. We've only been constrained by time and resources at this point. I'm "the" graphics programmer, so we have to take these one at a time. It takes research, prototyping, integration, optimizations, crazy bug fixing, and time on Test and more bug fixing to make it into the game. We have to take all of these into consideration when thinking about what we're going to add in next. The time it takes to make these systems really makes us think hard about what we'll be adding in next.

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 04:01 PM

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote>havnt seen this posted yet or i might have just missed it but do you have any plans of adding ingame aa anytime so we dodnt have to keep doing the ini hack to get aa to work.</blockquote>No plans right now. Autenil messed around with it a while back, but it hasn't been touched in a while.

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 04:04 PM

<cite>Jinj@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would love to see a corn field that small races/shrunk toons can't see out of and tall races just see tracks of bending corn as the tiny ones move through it!Also, with weather...let druids make it rain or stop it raining (as in EQ, was fun and you felt, kinda, powerful!)</blockquote>We'll see. Details like this are a bit too atomic right now. I think this would require a bit more coordination with team members' work and a bit more work to add in.

Imago-Quem

07-04-2009, 04:09 PM

<cite>Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vanguard uses SpeedTree for tree foliage and flora. It looks awesome and runs very smoothly. Any chance of bringing that over here? </blockquote>I'm sure I'll be looking into a few systems to find out which works best for our engine. It really depends on how things can be added into the game. With an engine already developed you have to bend around a lot of corners to get new techniques to work in old, but HUGE, systems.

Dragowulf

07-04-2009, 04:18 PM

How hard would it be to add some sort of displacement/vertex tool to the engine? The Source engine uses it to make terrain and some models with little to no performance decrease and it looks really good. Right now terrain and trees looks sort of bland because everything is seems squared off. I've used Valve's Hammer Editor and believe it or not, the displacement tool is sooo easy to use.I doubt you dip any part of your body in this deparment, but it's worth a try.

Ikke

07-04-2009, 04:36 PM

Just to derail this (VERY GOOD) thread for a second:Thank you Imago-Quem for this wonderful interaction with us.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />These kind of threads make me happy to be part of the EQ2 community!Now let's get back to the regular schedule.

LordPazuzu

07-04-2009, 04:50 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vanguard uses SpeedTree for tree foliage and flora. It looks awesome and runs very smoothly. Any chance of bringing that over here? </blockquote>I'm sure I'll be looking into a few systems to find out which works best for our engine. It really depends on how things can be added into the game. With an engine already developed you have to bend around a lot of corners to get new techniques to work in old, but HUGE, systems.</blockquote>Awesome, thanks for the reponse. Good luck, I'm sure it's not easy.I think this is the first direct reponse I've EVER gotten from a dev in this game, I hope they give you a raise soon.

Eriol

07-05-2009, 02:00 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>With an engine already developed you have to bend around a lot of corners to get new techniques to work in old, but HUGE, systems.</blockquote>I work in SCADA on the development side. Trust me I know about "old, but HUGE" systems. There's literally parts of our code that are over 20 years old (C, but still quite good, and not evil "[Removed for Content]" type code). Not MANY, but a few, and we're still constrained by some of those requirements, so believe me I understand.

Morghus

07-05-2009, 02:03 AM

<cite>Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Meaghan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>Vanguard uses SpeedTree for tree foliage and flora. It looks awesome and runs very smoothly. Any chance of bringing that over here? </blockquote>I'm sure I'll be looking into a few systems to find out which works best for our engine. It really depends on how things can be added into the game. With an engine already developed you have to bend around a lot of corners to get new techniques to work in old, but HUGE, systems.</blockquote>Awesome, thanks for the reponse. Good luck, I'm sure it's not easy.I think this is the first direct reponse I've EVER gotten from a dev in this game, I hope they give you a raise soon.</blockquote>Yea seriously aside from yourself, Domino and Rothgar...and perhaps a few others, many of the other developers are far too "aloof" and detached/unreachable by the player base for their own good.

Imago-Quem

07-05-2009, 04:36 AM

<cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would there be any room for astronomical events?Such as a moon cycle, where every say 6 days you get a short like 10minute long eclipse, turning everything dark haha. Or very cloudy, dark miserable days of endless rain. . .Dust storms. . . jet stream effect ~ volcanoes around Lavastorm would give Faydwer occasional smoke covering the sky. . .Although to be honest I'd expect a continent like Lavastorm to be far cooler given its location right next to north pole, but then again I think that Norrath continents were just laid out aimlessly as the expansions come and go in thought 'hey this fits here.'I expect Odus to be to far left of the world map between feerrott and Karan, and a bit over further to left than where Mara is. . .Then when we get Velious its going to be down at very bottom of map by that little peninsula is <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Just my predictions!Anyways. . . Yea will we get cool effects like eclipses, dark cloudy days, dust storms, etc.</blockquote>This would be more for the designers to ponder about. We can already add these in but they have to be planned way in advance to fit the zone. The designers write it into the story of an area, the artists develop the textures and event landscape, animations, etc.. I could then implement the eclipse lighting effects, dust clouds, weather effects, etc.. I'll talk to them about more epic events happening around the world more often while players travel throughout the lands.If I end up on a weather system upgrade I'll be sure to look into these types of weather effects.

Imago-Quem

07-05-2009, 04:54 AM

<cite>JFantasy wrote:</cite><blockquote>Is the shader in eq2 just 1.0 now(b4 the shadow map coming)? It looks better then using shader 1.0 in eq2.</blockquote>There are "some" 2.0 code segments in the game, but nearly all 1.x. Pretty amazing, hu! I was shocked when I found it out looking through the source code. The reason why it looks so good is because the system is built on a layered effect technique, is very optimized, and cuts costs with pre-calculated data. The layered effect allows the artist to virtually add and add small effects to the seen until it has all the coolness they want. With 3.0 we are using a single set technique to improve quality and performance. We also have more control and, like the difference is between drawing in Microsoft Paint vs. Adobe PhotoShop, we have more power with less brush strokes.The downside to the layered effect is the cost of each layer. The more layers the more costly, and each layer has a high cost for not doing much given all the restrictions of 1.x shaders. In 3.0 we can combine these layers to perform the same effect at the fraction of the cost. But in 3.0 we're also implementing more precise, realistic lighting effects.

Imago-Quem

07-05-2009, 05:02 AM

<blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>I wonder, will the sky ever be accurate? cause I don't think around ice cap you'd have the sun right over head at any point of time - in fact should be night / day for weeks at a time >.>Anyways, look forward to new shader changes! Coming soon to a PC near you. . . LLAMAS IN 3D!</blockquote>We'll see. When I start looking into the sky system I'll see if it's feasible to do this.</blockquote>kela wrote:Wouldn't that require making whole new skyboxes for each zone. Is that how it is right now... or is it just one Skybox run though filters?</blockquote>I believe it is the same skybox effects run through "filters". These "filters" would be different textures, colors, weather controls, time tables, etc., that are setup/created per zone by the artists. As far as changing day and night cycles and rotation sequences it would require some extra coding and exported tool sets for the artists to control. My understanding of EQ2's weather and sky system are still not mastered, so it's hard to say much more about it.

Imago-Quem

07-05-2009, 05:17 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>How hard would it be to add some sort of displacement/vertex tool to the engine? The Source engine uses it to make terrain and some models with little to no performance decrease and it looks really good. Right now terrain and trees looks sort of bland because everything is seems squared off. I've used Valve's Hammer Editor and believe it or not, the displacement tool is sooo easy to use.I doubt you dip any part of your body in this deparment, but it's worth a try.</blockquote>If I'm understanding you correctly I believe this is a performance decision. The triangle count in EQ2 is kept within bounds and adding more displacement to the parts of an object would require more triangles, and therefore more geometry processing for the engine.On the other hand, the artists have asked me to build a displacement tool for the terrain developers on our team. I have not gotten even close to having enough time to begin this type of a project yet, but it's on "the list".

Morghus

07-05-2009, 05:28 AM

Are there any plans to eventually go back and perhaps "hollow out" for lack of a better word objects like parts of the terrain or trees/placed objects like house items? I've seen in some games they employ occlusion to objects out of the line of sight, or hollow out objects that had lots of geometry while still preserving the look of it to reduce framerate loss.Another thing that would be nice to get looked at is standardizing the size of particle effects. As it is on large targets specifically small or normal sized particles can become incredibly massive due to being imposed on large targets, causing even more performance issues especially from "truck sized" bard music notes.Also, it would be great if further clarification could be made on the various graphical settings in-game and their impact on performance.

Imago-Quem

07-05-2009, 06:03 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote>Are there any plans to eventually go back and perhaps "hollow out" for lack of a better word objects like parts of the terrain or trees/placed objects like house items? I've seen in some games they employ occlusion to objects out of the line of sight, or hollow out objects that had lots of geometry while still preserving the look of it to reduce framerate loss.Another thing that would be nice to get looked at is standardizing the size of particle effects. As it is on large targets specifically small or normal sized particles can become incredibly massive due to being imposed on large targets, causing even more performance issues especially from "truck sized" bard music notes.Also, it would be great if further clarification could be made on the various graphical settings in-game and their impact on performance.</blockquote>I know we've gone back to zones in the past to "hollow them out", but I haven't heard about the plans in this area for a while. Sorry.The particle sizes are all determined by the artists on our team. I know they know the particles can be a performance hog sometimes. I don't know their plans on fixing this right now. Sorry x2. The particle sizes "could" be scaled programmatically. I'll see what the technical lead thinks about adding this in, but it, like all the other things we "really want to add", will have to be prioritized.It is nearly impossible to tell what performance impact you'll have per setting. It depends on what you have running on your system, your hardware setup, graphics drivers, and even the combination of settings you're using. Some hardware and drivers might perform poorly in every version of their hardware for a certain effect, while another set of hardware and drivers may be optimized for that particular effect and run great. A lot of our settings have different performance level options. As always, enabling more effects will keep taxing your system, bringing your performance down. Sorry x3.

Omgidomms

07-05-2009, 06:30 AM

Can we see some daylight previews of the shader 3.0 with gpu shadows enabled? (ss or majdul maybe? 1024x768 or higher) Please please <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I still play with the no shadows cause it uses too much resources, might be because my cpu is still limiting it. (Even though it's gpu shadows, alot is still done by the cpu?)

Dragowulf

07-05-2009, 06:42 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>How hard would it be to add some sort of displacement/vertex tool to the engine? The Source engine uses it to make terrain and some models with little to no performance decrease and it looks really good. Right now terrain and trees looks sort of bland because everything is seems squared off. I've used Valve's Hammer Editor and believe it or not, the displacement tool is sooo easy to use.I doubt you dip any part of your body in this deparment, but it's worth a try.</blockquote>On the other hand, the artists have asked me to build a displacement tool for the terrain developers on our team. I have not gotten even close to having enough time to begin this type of a project yet, but it's on "the list".</blockquote>That's seems to be exactly what I was talking about. Pretty big coincidence.To clarify, This is the same displacement tool we're talking about though, to displace geometry? Like as shown <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94m9maEmdkg&feature=related" target="_blank">here</a>. If you were to add something similar for the terrain developers, would it be easier and less time consuming for them to create terrain?And yes you are definitely right. It does impact performance for the more triangle face counts you have.

Dragowulf

07-05-2009, 07:02 AM

Were you the dev who assisted in adding this "Snap On" system introduced in RoK for armor models instead of doing the Skeletal Revamp? I remember hearing about a "graphics dev" being hired for that, or something similar.One last question in this post: Since the next GU is around September, I was wondering if you guys have a estimated time on it will be put on Test prior the GU going live. Is it like a month, a couple of weeks before, or how does it work with this new quarterly update system? This is more of a general question on when the GU's go on test before go Live.I would like to say thank you for your quick and thorough responses, I'm starting to run out of questions!!!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />I'm -almost- liking you as much as Rothgar!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" />

Katanalla

07-05-2009, 10:36 AM

Oh yea, amazing response time with actual answers, love it.Off topic but do you know if they're making rabbit mounts?You seem to know everything, what are you the sphinx?and now to make it on topic, how will these rabbit mounts look with 3.0 shaders >.>

Josgar

07-05-2009, 02:12 PM

Ardors

07-05-2009, 03:25 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>IIt is nearly impossible to tell what performance impact you'll have per setting. It depends on what you have running on your system, your hardware setup, graphics drivers, and even the combination of settings you're using. Some hardware and drivers might perform poorly in every version of their hardware for a certain effect, while another set of hardware and drivers may be optimized for that particular effect and run great. A lot of our settings have different performance level options. As always, enabling more effects will keep taxing your system, bringing your performance down. Sorry x3.</blockquote>It's fair to say that most people have a decent GPU running in their rigs now a days, and as we all know, goes very under used atm by EQ2. I just got a top end ati 4890 over a old gen GF8800 gts and didnt get 1fps increase in my gameplay. So anything you guys can migrate to the GPU I am sure will translate to increase performance.

Dragowulf

07-05-2009, 03:52 PM

<cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh yea, amazing response time with actual answers, love it.Off topic but do you know if they're making rabbit mounts?You seem to know everything, what are you the sphinx?and now to make it on topic, how will these rabbit mounts look with 3.0 shaders >.></blockquote>I hear that you have to be a citizen of Felwithe to ride one.</blockquote>For the last time, Felwithe is now longer.

Jgok

07-05-2009, 08:05 PM

<cite>Freliant wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Would there be any room for astronomical events?Such as a moon cycle, where every say 6 days you get a short like 10minute long eclipse, turning everything dark haha. Or very cloudy, dark miserable days of endless rain. . .Dust storms. . . jet stream effect ~ volcanoes around Lavastorm would give Faydwer occasional smoke covering the sky. . .Although to be honest I'd expect a continent like Lavastorm to be far cooler given its location right next to north pole, but then again I think that Norrath continents were just laid out aimlessly as the expansions come and go in thought 'hey this fits here.'I expect Odus to be to far left of the world map between feerrott and Karan, and a bit over further to left than where Mara is. . .Then when we get Velious its going to be down at very bottom of map by that little peninsula is <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Just my predictions!Anyways. . . Yea will we get cool effects like eclipses, dark cloudy days, dust storms, etc.</blockquote>I believe there are already lunar and solar events that happen regularly. You just have to be in the right zone at the right time.I distinctly remember a solar eclipse in the Thundering stepes a few years back. (or I was hallucinating, either way, it was awesome.)</blockquote>There was a pretty spectacular partial eclipse with the remnants of luclin blocking the sun a week or so ago, but I can't remember which zone I was in when I saw it. Might have been TS, even... That seems to be the zone with the best sky view.

Katanalla

07-05-2009, 09:05 PM

was it an actual eclipse? like make everything dark randomly? or just random overlap?

Josgar

07-06-2009, 12:00 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh yea, amazing response time with actual answers, love it.Off topic but do you know if they're making rabbit mounts?You seem to know everything, what are you the sphinx?and now to make it on topic, how will these rabbit mounts look with 3.0 shaders >.></blockquote>I hear that you have to be a citizen of Felwithe to ride one.</blockquote>For the last time, Felwithe is now longer.</blockquote>I beg to differexp03_dun_felwithe.vpk

Katanalla

07-06-2009, 12:11 AM

The zone is a lie.

Powers

07-06-2009, 09:48 AM

<cite>Morghus wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yea seriously aside from yourself, Domino and Rothgar...and perhaps a few others, many of the other developers are far too "aloof" and detached/unreachable by the player base for their own good.</blockquote>That's not very fair. The developers who take time to personally interact with the players are going above and beyond the call of duty. Not everyone can do that; some very good developers may just lack the communication skill needed to interact productively with non-experts. Or they may just be shy. They rely on the community team to bring concerns to them and relay answers to us. That's the community team's job. Every minute a developer spends posting on the forum is one less minute they have for creating the game, unless they're doing it in their free time.I'm not saying that Imago-Quem et al. should stop interacting with players, but we must recognize that doing so is their choice and not an essential component of their job descriptions.Powers &8^]

Omgidomms

07-06-2009, 03:06 PM

Hi,Got a quick question about the 3D engine.Is it possible to fix the "tearing" ond the side of models in the game?It's very easy to see at night that models have a white-ish edge even though their background is darker.Example (Running with 4xAA, it's even more visible without AA)<img src="http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/5863/eq2.png" />

Imago-Quem

07-07-2009, 02:31 PM

<cite>Ratzin@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can we see some daylight previews of the shader 3.0 with gpu shadows enabled? (ss or majdul maybe? 1024x768 or higher) Please please <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />I still play with the no shadows cause it uses too much resources, might be because my cpu is still limiting it. (Even though it's gpu shadows, alot is still done by the cpu?)</blockquote>The CPU still has to manage the shadow objects, erase covered triangles, batch up object parts, determine if an object might cast a shadow into your view, setup the object data, and send the data to the GPU. Also, your graphics driver will take up some CPU processing time as well. Who knows how much that is, but likely it's very small.

Imago-Quem

07-07-2009, 02:33 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>How hard would it be to add some sort of displacement/vertex tool to the engine? The Source engine uses it to make terrain and some models with little to no performance decrease and it looks really good. Right now terrain and trees looks sort of bland because everything is seems squared off. I've used Valve's Hammer Editor and believe it or not, the displacement tool is sooo easy to use.I doubt you dip any part of your body in this deparment, but it's worth a try.</blockquote>On the other hand, the artists have asked me to build a displacement tool for the terrain developers on our team. I have not gotten even close to having enough time to begin this type of a project yet, but it's on "the list".</blockquote>That's seems to be exactly what I was talking about. Pretty big coincidence.To clarify, This is the same displacement tool we're talking about though, to displace geometry? Like as shown <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94m9maEmdkg&feature=related" target="_blank">here</a>. If you were to add something similar for the terrain developers, would it be easier and less time consuming for them to create terrain?And yes you are definitely right. It does impact performance for the more triangle face counts you have.</blockquote>Yes, that is why the artists have requested the tool, because it would shrink their development time of landscapes by a great amount.

Imago-Quem

07-07-2009, 02:38 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Were you the dev who assisted in adding this "Snap On" system introduced in RoK for armor models instead of doing the Skeletal Revamp? I remember hearing about a "graphics dev" being hired for that, or something similar.One last question in this post: Since the next GU is around September, I was wondering if you guys have a estimated time on it will be put on Test prior the GU going live. Is it like a month, a couple of weeks before, or how does it work with this new quarterly update system? This is more of a general question on when the GU's go on test before go Live.I would like to say thank you for your quick and thorough responses, I'm starting to run out of questions!!!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />I'm -almost- liking you as much as Rothgar!!! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Nope. Not responsible for the snap on system.I am told to place my updates on Test for at least a month before it goes live. Not sure if that goes for everything here.

Imago-Quem

07-07-2009, 02:45 PM

<cite>Katanallama@Mistmoore wrote:</cite><blockquote>Oh yea, amazing response time with actual answers, love it.Off topic but do you know if they're making rabbit mounts?You seem to know everything, what are you the sphinx?and now to make it on topic, how will these rabbit mounts look with 3.0 shaders >.></blockquote>No rabbit mounts. Sorry.But of course rabbit mounts would look awesome in 3.0 shaders. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

Josgar

07-07-2009, 03:00 PM

I'm so exicited for these graphical revamps that EQ2 will be reciving <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I'm like a kid in a candy store!

Imago-Quem

07-07-2009, 04:17 PM

<cite>Ratzin@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi,Got a quick question about the 3D engine.Is it possible to fix the "tearing" ond the side of models in the game?It's very easy to see at night that models have a white-ish edge even though their background is darker.Example (Running with 4xAA, it's even more visible without AA)</blockquote>If that object is inside a shadow, you're outside, GPU Shadows are turned on, and you have an Nvidia graphics card, you're likely seeing the light halo around the object from the shadow bug (fixed in an upcoming update).Make sure your lighting resolution is turned to max.Other than those I would have to look into it further to find out what's going on.

Jaale

07-07-2009, 04:42 PM

Hi Imago-Quem, just a quick question. At the moment if you have a dual core processor you can tick a box to spread the load. I'm running an ATI Radeon HD 4870 x2 which has more than one core (technically) is it possible as you go on in the future and more gets moved to the GPU to make use of more than one of them in the same way? (or am I barking up the wrong tree with a gnome made sniffer hound?)

Imago-Quem

07-08-2009, 01:45 PM

<cite>Graal@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hi Imago-Quem, just a quick question. At the moment if you have a dual core processor you can tick a box to spread the load. I'm running an ATI Radeon HD 4870 x2 which has more than one core (technically) is it possible as you go on in the future and more gets moved to the GPU to make use of more than one of them in the same way? (or am I barking up the wrong tree with a gnome made sniffer hound?)</blockquote>It is possible, but I haven't put it on my plate yet as a todo. It may get added in sometime in the future. Too early to tell right now.

Thantoes

07-08-2009, 02:55 PM

Just a quick "If you could please". With the new shadows, moving things from CPU to GPU would it be possible for the "Team" to post their system specs? I mean, with you working on the changes and being able to get decent Frame rates in several different situations and settings what do you run?I ask to possibly help players compare their rig setup and settings with what the devs use. So if you can go into certian zones with your system set to High settings and still getting good playable FRs, perhaps we could use that as a baseline.Thank-you

Morghus

07-08-2009, 03:06 PM

<cite>Raisn@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just a quick "If you could please". With the new shadows, moving things from CPU to GPU would it be possible for the "Team" to post their system specs? I mean, with you working on the changes and being able to get decent Frame rates in several different situations and settings what do you run?I ask to possibly help players compare their rig setup and settings with what the devs use. So if you can go into certian zones with your system set to High settings and still getting good playable FRs, perhaps we could use that as a baseline.Thank-you</blockquote>That would be some useful information. But one thing to keep in mind is that if they load up the game into an empty server rather than loading into the same servers we play on the performance would likely be quite different.What I would really like is if they found some way of seriously cutting down on the amount of performance drops from having multiple fully rendered players on screen, as just about any player character will literally drop the framerate/performance many times more than having multiple npcs using monster (non player) models.It would also be great if the textures the game uses could be perhaps compressed or displayed in a way that cuts down on the VPU/memory usage as these can lead to extra long load times and less stability over time due to the massive textures.

Dragowulf

07-08-2009, 08:24 PM

Can we get some advanced realtime caustic mapping? You should add that to your list! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />We kind of have it with the glass, windows, and mirrors, but not really.<a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/?action=view&current=cognac-caustic01.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/cognac-caustic01.png" border="0" /></a><a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/?action=view&current=05-10-06.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/05-10-06.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/?action=view&current=rainbow1.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/rainbow1.png" border="0" /></a><a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/?action=view&current=dragon.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/dragon.png" border="0" /></a><a href="http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/?action=view&current=causticson.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a143/innocent974/causticson.jpg" border="0" /></a>

Taurus_WD

07-08-2009, 09:32 PM

Since I foresee new graphics options to be checked and unchecked, can we also get a look at a revamp of how the options are layed out? I mean it seems impossible to find anything and very unintuitive, so when these get added could they at least be somewhat intuitive?Obviously intuitive is going to mean something different for everyone, but there's just so much text to go through, maybe when you're talking about graphics when you get to something like fauna it'll say "Fauna" and then have a little icon that shows a sample plant(s), and as you up the slider you see more plants in more detail and as you slide it back down you see less plants.I'm sure this would be a hard thing to work into the UI, but even after nearly 5 years of playing when I think of an option I want to turn on or off it seems like I have to spend a good 5-20 minutes going through everything to remember where it's at. It'd also be cool if you reworked the "default" graphics options to be something like the various level of qualities and performances, but maybe include "Moods" where one mood would be "Dark (High Quality)" and that one sets your gamma so you see at night time, and makes all the shadows show up, and enables the new shader, etc., etc.Either way, these graphics look awesome, and I can't wait to turn them on in-game when my new PC arrives.

Imago-Quem

07-09-2009, 04:02 PM

<cite>Raisn@Nektulos wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just a quick "If you could please". With the new shadows, moving things from CPU to GPU would it be possible for the "Team" to post their system specs? I mean, with you working on the changes and being able to get decent Frame rates in several different situations and settings what do you run?I ask to possibly help players compare their rig setup and settings with what the devs use. So if you can go into certian zones with your system set to High settings and still getting good playable FRs, perhaps we could use that as a baseline.Thank-you</blockquote>We're always swapping graphics cards and using different systems. It would be difficult and time consuming to gather a compilation of setups we tend to run under here. A lot of us don't actually work on performance related features, so we would also have to make a list of those who do, check their specs, find out which ones they tend to be swapping around on, and even check to see the settings they use per computer setup - which likely changes all the time. In the end, I think this is too time-consuming for us here. If we did system checks and things like it we'd end up never making a game.We do have a compatibility laboratory here that verifies if the game is "playable" for each new feature we add to the game. They test on a wide variety of system specs.

Thantoes

07-09-2009, 04:10 PM

Fair enough.Thank-You for your reply and continuing upgrades to a game I started playing with EQ1 JUST before Kunark came out.

Pitt Hammerfi

07-09-2009, 04:27 PM

The above seascape picture also reminds me of somethingWhen you redo flora can you also make a underwater version of the flora effect, i.e coral?Underwater in eq2 is very very barren in some places. It would be easy to paint the seabeds with a coral brush.

Imago-Quem

07-09-2009, 04:50 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can we get some advanced realtime caustic mapping? You should add that to your list! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />We kind of have it with the glass, windows, and mirrors, but not really.</blockquote>I've added it to the list. Probably lower on priority for now. I will likely be adding an effect that shows up in a lot of areas in the game next. Caustic mapping might be a feature I get to down the road.

Imago-Quem

07-09-2009, 04:55 PM

<cite>Acuza@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Since I foresee new graphics options to be checked and unchecked, can we also get a look at a revamp of how the options are layed out? I mean it seems impossible to find anything and very unintuitive, so when these get added could they at least be somewhat intuitive?Obviously intuitive is going to mean something different for everyone, but there's just so much text to go through, maybe when you're talking about graphics when you get to something like fauna it'll say "Fauna" and then have a little icon that shows a sample plant(s), and as you up the slider you see more plants in more detail and as you slide it back down you see less plants.I'm sure this would be a hard thing to work into the UI, but even after nearly 5 years of playing when I think of an option I want to turn on or off it seems like I have to spend a good 5-20 minutes going through everything to remember where it's at. It'd also be cool if you reworked the "default" graphics options to be something like the various level of qualities and performances, but maybe include "Moods" where one mood would be "Dark (High Quality)" and that one sets your gamma so you see at night time, and makes all the shadows show up, and enables the new shader, etc., etc.Either way, these graphics look awesome, and I can't wait to turn them on in-game when my new PC arrives.</blockquote>We have a UI upgrade planned. I'll see if this can be added in.

Jaale

07-09-2009, 04:57 PM

I just want to say thank you Imago, for answering the questions we've been firing at you and for all the hard work you've done so far and that you have in front of you in the future. Honestly now... if you were to lay "the list" out, do you think you could reach the moon yet? <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Imago-Quem

07-09-2009, 04:57 PM

<cite>Pitt Hammerfist wrote:</cite><blockquote>The above seascape picture also reminds me of somethingWhen you redo flora can you also make a underwater version of the flora effect, i.e coral?Underwater in eq2 is very very barren in some places. It would be easy to paint the seabeds with a coral brush.</blockquote>I'll check into it when/if I get to the flora system (added it into the list). Good idea by the way! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

Dragowulf

07-09-2009, 05:30 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Can we get some advanced realtime caustic mapping? You should add that to your list! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/49869fe8223507d7223db3451e5321aa.gif" border="0" />We kind of have it with the glass, windows, and mirrors, but not really.</blockquote>I've added it to the list. Probably lower on priority for now. I will likely be adding an effect that shows up in a lot of areas in the game next. Caustic mapping might be a feature I get to down the road.</blockquote>Cuastic mapping kinds of stuff are one of those backburner things - something that you want to do after all the important things are changed.As for what you said in underlined I wholeheartedly agree with. I believe that the types of changes that effect most areas in the game are the most important and should be higher on the priority list.

Xethren

07-11-2009, 03:42 AM

If the game is in the process of being updated graphically, and more processess being put on the video card instead of the cpu (very nice job on the GPU shadows btw!) are there any future plans to revamp the sky?I like the twinkling stars and the moons, just the clouds only look like a drifting sea of pixels.Morrowind had one of the most gorgious skies of any game. Any chance of something like that being done later?<img src="http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd267/thistlechild/Morrowind%20-%20the%20elder%20scrolls/nightsky4.jpg?t=1247294654" width="1024" height="768" />

guillero

07-13-2009, 04:28 AM

<cite><a href="mailto:Xethren@Antonia">Xethren@Antonia</a> Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the game is in the process of being updated graphically, and more processess being put on the video card instead of the cpu (very nice job on the GPU shadows btw!) are there any future plans to revamp the sky?I like the twinkling stars and the moons, just the clouds only look like a drifting sea of pixels.Morrowind had one of the most gorgious skies of any game. Any chance of something like that being done later?</blockquote>I really hope they would be able to upgrade the sky system any time soon.I personally think, that at this moment the Skies in EQ2 are giving this game the most outdated feel at the moment, compaired to most other graphical areas.Especially the clouds are looking horrible. Mostly because of the small texture size it seems, giving it the nasty copy&paste feeling.AoC and LOTRO at the moment have one of the most beautiful and stunning MMO sky systems.Would love to see EQ2 matching up with that. It would really give the game a HUGE boost in overal look!Jer

ke'la

07-13-2009, 05:05 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite><a href="mailto:Xethren@Antonia">Xethren@Antonia</a> Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the game is in the process of being updated graphically, and more processess being put on the video card instead of the cpu (very nice job on the GPU shadows btw!) are there any future plans to revamp the sky?I like the twinkling stars and the moons, just the clouds only look like a drifting sea of pixels.Morrowind had one of the most gorgious skies of any game. Any chance of something like that being done later?</blockquote>I really hope they would be able to upgrade the sky system any time soon.I personally think, that at this moment the Skies in EQ2 are giving this game the most outdated feel at the moment, compaired to most other graphical areas.Especially the clouds are looking horrible. Mostly because of the small texture size it seems, giving it the nasty copy&paste feeling.AoC and LOTRO at the moment have one of the most beautiful and stunning MMO sky systems.Would love to see EQ2 matching up with that. It would really give the game a HUGE boost in overal look!Jer</blockquote>IMO it is not really the whole sky system that is the problem, it really is mainly the clouds that are the major issue, cause when the sky is clear IMO it looks really good, especally at night around Luclin, but once the clouds show up the whole effect is ruined. Kinda like painting a Vett, Mary Kay Pink... the two parts just don't work together very well.

Dragowulf

07-13-2009, 07:05 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>Well, I somewhat agree. While the stars have to be the best part of the sky aside from Luclin and Drinal, they are still pretty static and just don't captivate me. I would love to have something like shooting stars, big stars, small stars, twinkling stars, and bright stars so there is variance. As seen in that screenshot of Morrowind the stars have variety.The clouds are the worst. As an above poster said the clouds look like a one-layered drifting pixelmess. The only place I have seen where it looks semi decent is in DoF. Aside from the aesthetics, there needs to be smart clouds where they don't all travel the same direction everyday all day, all week, all month, all year(s).The sunsets/sunrises need to be improved...is there even sunrises? Dawn/dusk needs to have more feeling as well so you know when they occur without looking into the horizon.Small things like these improve the quality of the game and always gives that "wow" factor.

guillero

07-13-2009, 07:16 AM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>It really depends wich zones. Some of the zones of the latest expansions have a somewhat better skybox. Granted.But a lot of the old zones and capital cities have just bad skyboxes. Period. Not just the clouds.Just go have a look in Antonica for example. The background behind the clouds look just as awful.While I like EverQuest2 a lot, the skyboxes have always been a downer for me personally.Jer

ke'la

07-13-2009, 08:58 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote>{0}</blockquote>It really depends wich zones. Some of the zones of the latest expansions have a somewhat better skybox. Granted.But a lot of the old zones and capital cities have just bad skyboxes. Period. Not just the clouds.Just go have a look in Antonica for example. The background behind the clouds look just as awful.While I like EverQuest2 a lot, the skyboxes have always been a downer for me personally.Jer</blockquote>True many of the older zones do have fairly bad boxes in total, I spend most of my time in the Post EoF zones, so I don't see it that much.The worst bit about the Cloud System is that it is not tied to the Rain system, so you could have Rain and completly clear blue skies... and while that does happen Tropical areas, it doesn't happen in more Temperate areas like what you see in Antonica, in those areas the Water Vaper always forms clouds befor it rains.

Guy De Alsace

07-13-2009, 09:33 AM

Some suggestions:<ul><li>Place a diffraction spike effect on some distanct lights. Nothing fancy, just a sem-transparent texture.</li><li>Perhaps try some twinkle effects currently on the rilissian mount on some other shiny metal objects or even the sea if lit by the moon.</li><li>Full darkness on a moonless night so all you can see is the area around your torch.</li><li>Add a "flies around head" fluff effect</li><li>Use "distant impostors" for world objects that otherwise wouldnt be visible (like LotR)</li></ul>

Jimako

07-13-2009, 03:07 PM

While not specifically SM3.0 related and Im not sure if this has been posted already, how about using nVidia PhysX to handle particle calculations rather than all those expensive CPU ones. This should provide a nice boost in framerates and will scale very well on most systems

Imago-Quem

07-13-2009, 04:28 PM

<cite>kela wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite><a href="mailto:Xethren@Antonia">Xethren@Antonia</a> Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote>If the game is in the process of being updated graphically, and more processess being put on the video card instead of the cpu (very nice job on the GPU shadows btw!) are there any future plans to revamp the sky?I like the twinkling stars and the moons, just the clouds only look like a drifting sea of pixels.Morrowind had one of the most gorgious skies of any game. Any chance of something like that being done later?</blockquote>I really hope they would be able to upgrade the sky system any time soon.I personally think, that at this moment the Skies in EQ2 are giving this game the most outdated feel at the moment, compaired to most other graphical areas.Especially the clouds are looking horrible. Mostly because of the small texture size it seems, giving it the nasty copy&paste feeling.AoC and LOTRO at the moment have one of the most beautiful and stunning MMO sky systems.Would love to see EQ2 matching up with that. It would really give the game a HUGE boost in overal look!Jer</blockquote>IMO it is not really the whole sky system that is the problem, it really is mainly the clouds that are the major issue, cause when the sky is clear IMO it looks really good, especally at night around Luclin, but once the clouds show up the whole effect is ruined. Kinda like painting a Vett, Mary Kay Pink... the two parts just don't work together very well.</blockquote><cite></cite><blockquote>Dragowulf2Well, I somewhat agree. While the stars have to be the best part of the sky aside from Luclin and Drinal, they are still pretty static and just don't captivate me. I would love to have something like shooting stars, big stars, small stars, twinkling stars, and bright stars so there is variance. As seen in that screenshot of Morrowind the stars have variety.The clouds are the worst. As an above poster said the clouds look like a one-layered drifting pixelmess. The only place I have seen where it looks semi decent is in DoF. Aside from the aesthetics, there needs to be smart clouds where they don't all travel the same direction everyday all day, all week, all month, all year(s).The sunsets/sunrises need to be improved...is there even sunrises? Dawn/dusk needs to have more feeling as well so you know when they occur without looking into the horizon.Small things like these improve the quality of the game and always gives that "wow" factor.guilleroIt really depends wich zones. Some of the zones of the latest expansions have a somewhat better skybox. Granted.But a lot of the old zones and capital cities have just bad skyboxes. Period. Not just the clouds.Just go have a look in Antonica for example. The background behind the clouds look just as awful.While I like EverQuest2 a lot, the skyboxes have always been a downer for me personally.Jerke'laTrue many of the older zones do have fairly bad boxes in total, I spend most of my time in the Post EoF zones, so I don't see it that much.The worst bit about the Cloud System is that it is not tied to the Rain system, so you could have Rain and completly clear blue skies... and while that does happen Tropical areas, it doesn't happen in more Temperate areas like what you see in Antonica, in those areas the Water Vaper always forms clouds befor it rains.</blockquote>Yes, I have a new cloud system written down for a possible update. So far it seems the two most popular ideas are a new flora system and a new cloud system. I'll keep watching for which people are most interested in updating first. Here's what I have so far: <ul type="disc"><li >Hair</li><li >Flora</li><li >Under water flora (coral system)</li><li >Water</li><li >Ocean</li><li >Sky</li><li >Atmosphere (haze)</li><li >HDR lighting</li><li >God rays</li><li >Point-light shadow maps</li><li >Cloud system</li><li >Sky lighting system</li><li >Weather system</li><li >Caustic mapping</li><li >GPU PhysX</li></ul>Some of these might end up being too complex to implement within a reasonable amount of time given EQ2's current state. Some will be easier than others. Some will be less popular. Some will affect more objects and zones for an overall greater player impact. So I will be prioritizing quite stringently.By the way, the 3.0 upgrade is coming along here and things are looking pretty awesome if I don't say so myself. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/47941865eb7bbc2a777305b46cc059a2.gif" border="0" /> I'm working my way through the zones mending the bugs generated from the upgrade, brainstorming ideas on how to optimize the framerates more, and developing the last few effects. I've had some late nights, but I love this stuff! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />

Barx

07-13-2009, 04:36 PM

Progress is always good =)And I /second the skyboxes / clouds. Ugh, some of them are just... terrible. At night with stars or if its a clear day it's not so bad, but the clouds are really bad. There's nothing I hate more than zoning into, say, Lavastorm and having a pink-and-green colored cloud-mottled monstrosity for a sky <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" />

Encantador

07-13-2009, 05:13 PM

please please please .... please etc etc ADD REFLECTIONS TO THE LIST. some of the reflections of land in water are just awful. Wrong images, 'jumping', mis-aligned, out of synch with moving view point, just about every fault you can think of.One other thing I dislike is the use of 'dimming' to simulate rain. I know thats not the technical term but its the best way I can sum up the greying out that happens.

Dragowulf

07-13-2009, 06:13 PM

About the water/ocean. We have some of the best graphics for that than in any other MMO, but the problem is that it feels like the water is just thrown into the world and doesn't really fit, interact, or react with the environment, besides reflections. For example in CL there are docks and when the water collides with the docks there should be that interaction, or when it rains there should be droplets hitting the water. The environment needs to blend with the water. My biggest problem with it is when you are in say Sinking Sands and you look at the ocean and see the same water textures/animations copy and pasted with no variance.I'm really looking forward to see more of this Shader 3.0. I really do hope you keep us up-to-date on your future projects. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

SageGaspar

07-13-2009, 07:00 PM

<cite>Encantador wrote:</cite><blockquote>please please please .... please etc etc ADD REFLECTIONS TO THE LIST. some of the reflections of land in water are just awful. Wrong images, 'jumping', mis-aligned, out of synch with moving view point, just about every fault you can think of.</blockquote>The reflections are at the top of my list too, any time a surface is supposed to be reflective I instead get some bizarre hallucinagenic spiral or simply a copy of the zone pasted onto the surface of water. It happens for lots of other people I know too. Probably the number one thing that ruins the game for me aesthetically.

Suaddar

07-14-2009, 03:50 AM

I second the cloud/sky upgrade. I would also like to see weather. Real weather. Like, "real rain" weather. EQ was notorious for crazy weather, and Druids even had the ability to change it. Does Karnor's Castle ALWAYS have to rain?I'd also like to see some spell particle effects updated/changed. I play a Fury... and the graphic for my Ice DoT "Tempest".... is a lightning bolt colored blue. Great...thanks.... but that's not a tempest.

Xethren

07-14-2009, 04:00 AM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote>Yes, I have a new cloud system written down for a possible update. So far it seems the two most popular ideas are a new flora system and a new cloud system. I'll keep watching for which people are most interested in updating first. Here's what I have so far:<ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul>Some of these might end up being too complex to implement within a reasonable amount of time given EQ2's current state. Some will be easier than others. Some will be less popular. Some will affect more objects and zones for an overall greater player impact. So I will be prioritizing quite stringently.By the way, the 3.0 upgrade is coming along here and things are looking pretty awesome if I don't say so myself. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/47941865eb7bbc2a777305b46cc059a2.gif" border="0" /> I'm working my way through the zones mending the bugs generated from the upgrade, brainstorming ideas on how to optimize the framerates more, and developing the last few effects. I've had some late nights, but I love this stuff! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>Glad to know that progress is in the works! And thanks for bringing that up. not only revamp the sky, but also dynamic weather would add a lot of effect!

Calain80

07-14-2009, 04:57 AM

A new flora system would be great!

salle

07-14-2009, 09:38 AM

Really looking forward to this =)(oh and underwater flora would be nice)

Divex

07-14-2009, 11:06 AM

The number one thing that ruins the game for me(graphically) is turning off the particle effects because the lag i get from having them on. I believe the cause of this is they are run by the CPU and not the GPU. It is said they will change this, but I know(heard) the particle effects are tied into somehting else so this will be hard to do. To me, this would be a higher priorty seeing how the majority of us are in instances rather than laying a blanket down with your high elf GF star gazing.BTW: I do not run '98 packard bell when playing the game.

Emlar_from_Halas

07-14-2009, 12:35 PM

Since you mentioned Weather system, may I ask for some random lightning and thunder ?Cheers

VALKOR

07-14-2009, 01:07 PM

I'll throw in for improved flora followed by improved skyscape. Running through fields in Age of Conan was amazing - tall grass that actually moved and could reach from your ankles to your thighs depending on where you were running. Much better than colored splotches on the ground with some spiky shrubs.Thanks for all the feedback. It's really nice to see ideas tossed out, responses made, and consideration actually given by a developer. Much better than the whole RA thread with its faux feedback asking what color hair we wanted the RA to have...

Jaale

07-14-2009, 01:20 PM

I would like to see lightening then a few moments later a crash of thunder as well.One of my favourite memories is being stood outside the tavern in nettleville one of the starter areas and having the lights beam out on a dark and rainy night, It made the tavern more inviting and when the door opened you could see the floor shiney and slick with rain.<img src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.overment/EQ2_000008.jpg" /><img src="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/j.overment/EQ2_000006.jpg" width="1152" height="864" />I will say this was on an old Gf-card so it probably wasn't at the best settings but I still rememeber it clearly.I can't wait to see what this will be like with the new shaders and how a better sky box will make it cloudy when it rains and maybe having thicker/more rain falling.

Theramor-GoV

07-14-2009, 01:26 PM

Imago-Quem,Just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work your putting in on this.I was at FF 09 and saw the Nek Forest pics and I've been looking forward to this since it was announced.T

Dragowulf

07-14-2009, 02:24 PM

<cite>Graal@Blackburrow wrote:</cite><blockquote>I would like to see lightening then a few moments later a crash of thunder as well.One of my favourite memories is being stood outside the tavern in nettleville one of the starter areas and having the lights beam out on a dark and rainy night, It made the tavern more inviting and when the door opened you could see the floor shiney and slick with rain.I will say this was on an old Gf-card so it probably wasn't at the best settings but I still rememeber it clearly.I can't wait to see what this will be like with the new shaders and how a better sky box will make it cloudy when it rains and maybe having thicker/more rain falling.</blockquote>I don't think it should be really slick and shiny, but I do think there should be an effect like some sort of darkened dampness to the textures.

Powers

07-14-2009, 02:45 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul></blockquote>I would say that Point-light shadow maps and reflections should be top priority. Everything else is all good, whatever you can do is great.For those who don't like the quality of current reflections, make sure your reflection settings are at "Cube Map+Mirror".Powers &8^]

Dragowulf

07-14-2009, 03:07 PM

<cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul></blockquote>I would say that Point-light shadow maps and reflections should be top priority. Everything else is all good, whatever you can do is great.For those who don't like the quality of current reflections, make sure your reflection settings are at "Cube Map+Mirror".Powers &8^]</blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.

Imago-Quem

07-14-2009, 03:18 PM

<cite>SageGaspar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Encantador wrote:</cite><blockquote>please please please .... please etc etc ADD REFLECTIONS TO THE LIST. some of the reflections of land in water are just awful. Wrong images, 'jumping', mis-aligned, out of synch with moving view point, just about every fault you can think of.</blockquote>The reflections are at the top of my list too, any time a surface is supposed to be reflective I instead get some bizarre hallucinagenic spiral or simply a copy of the zone pasted onto the surface of water. It happens for lots of other people I know too. Probably the number one thing that ruins the game for me aesthetically.</blockquote>I've actually already started some work on the reflection system, but sadly it is complex and finicky the way it is currently developed. I plan to at least fix up the current reflection feature so it works more correctly. Reflections can be very expensive depending on how many surfaces need to reflect. Generally you will only see one surface reflection at a time.

Ama

07-14-2009, 03:22 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SageGaspar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Encantador wrote:</cite><blockquote>please please please .... please etc etc ADD REFLECTIONS TO THE LIST. some of the reflections of land in water are just awful. Wrong images, 'jumping', mis-aligned, out of synch with moving view point, just about every fault you can think of.</blockquote>The reflections are at the top of my list too, any time a surface is supposed to be reflective I instead get some bizarre hallucinagenic spiral or simply a copy of the zone pasted onto the surface of water. It happens for lots of other people I know too. Probably the number one thing that ruins the game for me aesthetically.</blockquote>I've actually already started some work on the reflection system, but sadly it is complex and finicky the way it is currently developed. I plan to at least fix up the current reflection feature so it works more correctly. Reflections can be very expensive depending on how many surfaces need to reflect. Generally you will only see one surface reflection at a time.</blockquote>What about close system reflections in a small environment like a house vs a large environment like a player reflection off of a body of water? One thing that always seemed weird to me was how the mirror in my room would show a choppy version of myself.

Arathy

07-14-2009, 04:36 PM

I admit I know next to nothing on how most of these systems work, but wow you do some great work, especially with the shadows! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />My question is, is there anything you can do to prevent those errant images from showing up in reflections, water surfaces, and sometimes on NPC skins?There are examples of this issue on the forums, sadly I don't have any myself.. though I have seen the issue myself. Usually on elephants in the commonlands.

Cragger

07-14-2009, 05:15 PM

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.

Armawk

07-14-2009, 05:41 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>I think you might be a bit wrong there.. most people HAD shadows off because they were so bad a performance hog that they couldnt have them on. I never heard of anyone who didnt want them on! Putting a new shadow engine that people can actually run (and optimising the old one so that is now a viable option for more people) as the top priority made enormous sense as that system was a big problem.

Dragowulf

07-14-2009, 05:58 PM

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>I think you might be a bit wrong there.. most people HAD shadows off because they were so bad a performance hog that they couldnt have them on. I never heard of anyone who didnt want them on! Putting a new shadow engine that people can actually run (and optimising the old one so that is now a viable option for more people) as the top priority made enormous sense as that system was a big problem.</blockquote>Well I'm sure the majority of EQ2 players do not have an 8+ series NVidia GPU or nice dual core intel processors so I doubt they would be running either shadow system. The forum's vocal minority might have the great awesome specs, but you'd be surprised what horrible systems the nonvocal majority are running these days.Acceptable FPS would be around 35-45 average.

Zuuljin

07-15-2009, 02:11 AM

After playing around and paying more attention to things being suggested in this thread, I would say without a doubt the 2 things that should be high priority are new sky/cloud system and a flora upgrade. Everything else looks good, and alot of the new stuff is... new, but fixing the sky and flora alone will bring this game up to date instantly. I really think the sky alone is what gives outdoor area's a low quality look, even when the rest of the zone itself is high quality.

guillero

07-15-2009, 03:25 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul></blockquote>I would say that Point-light shadow maps and reflections should be top priority. Everything else is all good, whatever you can do is great.For those who don't like the quality of current reflections, make sure your reflection settings are at "Cube Map+Mirror".Powers &8^]</blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>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.That's why I tink skyboxes and weather system should be priority in that list.As that is something everyone will immediately notice. Even people with older hardware.You start improving things that has the biggest overal impact and then move on to the lesser ones.The new GPU shadow system (now live), the upcoming Shader Model 3.0 system. They all will have a big impact.Add a Skybox overhaul and improved weather system. And it will give EverQuest 2 litterly a huge facelift that everyone will notice!That's my 2cents.Jer

Dragowulf

07-15-2009, 04:11 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul></blockquote>I would say that Point-light shadow maps and reflections should be top priority. Everything else is all good, whatever you can do is great.For those who don't like the quality of current reflections, make sure your reflection settings are at "Cube Map+Mirror".Powers &8^]</blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>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.That's why I tink skyboxes and weather system should be priority in that list.As that is something everyone will immediately notice. Even people with older hardware.You start improving things that has the biggest overal impact and then move on to the lesser ones.The new GPU shadow system (now live), the upcoming Shader Model 3.0 system. They all will have a big impact.Add a Skybox overhaul and improved weather system. And it will give EverQuest 2 litterly a huge facelift that everyone will notice!That's my 2cents.Jer</blockquote>I definitely agree with the NVidia PhysX issues you stated.Sky should be before Flora. Reason being is the sky is ALWAYS enabled whereas Flora isn't and again, players can have it turned off.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" />

Marina

07-15-2009, 05:08 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Powers wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><ul type="disc"><li>Hair</li><li>Flora</li><li>Under water flora (coral system)</li><li>Water</li><li>Ocean</li><li>Sky</li><li>Atmosphere (haze)</li><li>HDR lighting</li><li>God rays</li><li>Point-light shadow maps</li><li>Cloud system</li><li>Sky lighting system</li><li>Weather system</li><li>Caustic mapping</li><li>GPU PhysX</li></ul></blockquote>I would say that Point-light shadow maps and reflections should be top priority. Everything else is all good, whatever you can do is great.For those who don't like the quality of current reflections, make sure your reflection settings are at "Cube Map+Mirror".Powers &8^]</blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>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.That's why I tink skyboxes and weather system should be priority in that list.As that is something everyone will immediately notice. Even people with older hardware.You start improving things that has the biggest overal impact and then move on to the lesser ones.The new GPU shadow system (now live), the upcoming Shader Model 3.0 system. They all will have a big impact.Add a Skybox overhaul and improved weather system. And it will give EverQuest 2 litterly a huge facelift that everyone will notice!That's my 2cents.Jer</blockquote>I definitely agree with the NVidia PhysX issues you stated.Sky should be before Flora. Reason being is the sky is ALWAYS enabled whereas Flora isn't and again, players can have it turned off.<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>as far as i understand it , Nvidia PhysX works with any 8800+ Card , u just need to update ur drivers :pits just an option in ur driver settings , and u dont need an extra physx processor for itits still all calculated by the gpunot sure how u come up with that .P

Armawk

07-15-2009, 05:17 AM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well I'm sure the majority of EQ2 players do not have an 8+ series NVidia GPU or nice dual core intel processors so I doubt they would be running either shadow system. The forum's vocal minority might have the great awesome specs, but you'd be surprised what horrible systems the nonvocal majority are running these days.Acceptable FPS would be around 35-45 average.</blockquote>Im quite sure the majority of players have a dual core of some kind in fact, or at least a reasonably fast single core, and its hardly exotic to have a dx9 video card (you do NOT need a very modern GPU to run shadows now, nor do you need a very fast processor)The extremely innefficient shadow system has been, hands down, the most criticised and complained about technical issue in the game. right now you can run GPU shadows in low mode (which looks great) on almost any PC which will run the game decently, with a few odd exceptions of hardware it doesnt get on with. I think you completely underestimate the progress made in that area.

guillero

07-15-2009, 05:23 AM

<cite>Miarina@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>as far as i understand it , Nvidia PhysX works with any 8800+ Card , u just need to update ur drivers :pits just an option in ur driver settings , and u dont need an extra physx processor for itits still all calculated by the gpunot sure how u come up with that .P</blockquote>No it isn't.Sure PhysX drivers are installed automatically with the NVidia driver package, but your graphic card needs to support it.Only the very expensive top end 8800, 9800 cards and the latest 2xx cards support PhysX.Trust me. I thought it too, when we bought our 9800 GTX cards and found out it didn't support PhysX.And my gf has even the more expensive Asus black edition that we paid over $200 for!Jer

krrr

07-15-2009, 09:48 AM

vochore

07-15-2009, 01:26 PM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Miarina@Runnyeye wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>as far as i understand it , Nvidia PhysX works with any 8800+ Card , u just need to update ur drivers :pits just an option in ur driver settings , and u dont need an extra physx processor for itits still all calculated by the gpunot sure how u come up with that .P</blockquote>No it isn't.Sure PhysX drivers are installed automatically with the NVidia driver package, but your graphic card needs to support it.Only the very expensive top end 8800, 9800 cards and the latest 2xx cards support PhysX.Trust me. I thought it too, when we bought our 9800 GTX cards and found out it didn't support PhysX.And my gf has even the more expensive Asus black edition that we paid over $200 for!Jer</blockquote>actualy he was correct....all nvidia cards 8000 series on up suppoerts both cuda and physx with the newest drivers,the only problem is the lower end cards do not have the horsepower to run both the main graphics and physx at the same time.my oldcard was an 8800 gt.it supported physx but when i tryed 1 of the demo games from nvzone running physx even at the lower end it brought my fps down to 15 fps or lower...basicly unplayable.now if you have been keeping up with the last few nvidia drivers and you have 2 pcie slots nvidia has made it posible to run a midrange card in your first slot and a lower end card in the sec slot and designate the sec card for nothing but physx alowing the main card to handle just graphics.this is just what i am saving my 8800 gt for when i build my new system at the end of the year.

guillero

07-15-2009, 01:30 PM

<cite>vochore wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote></blockquote>actualy he was correct....all nvidia cards 8000 series on up suppoerts both cuda and physx with the newest drivers,the only problem is the lower end cards do not have the horsepower to run both the main graphics and physx at the same time.my oldcard was an 8800 gt.it supported physx but when i tryed 1 of the demo games from nvzone running physx even at the lower end it brought my fps down to 15 fps or lower...basicly unplayable.now if you have been keeping up with the last few nvidia drivers and you have 2 pcie slots nvidia has made it posible to run a midrange card in your first slot and a lower end card in the sec slot and designate the sec card for nothing but physx alowing the main card to handle just graphics.this is just what i am saving my 8800 gt for when i build my new system at the end of the year.</blockquote>I stand corrected. It seems indeed that NVidia screwed up with earlier drivers.I have just updated the drivers on both our systems and now both your vid cards are PhysX enabled in the NVidia Control panel.Seems the b a stards just fixed it with the very last drivers!!! grrrr.But nonetheless. I am very happy now! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />Jer

ke'la

07-15-2009, 02:17 PM

<cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Dragowulf@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote>Most players don't have shadows on. So top priority, no imo.IMO top priorities should be the items on the list in which the majority of players will see a difference in whether they have good computers or not.</blockquote>I think you might be a bit wrong there.. most people HAD shadows off because they were so bad a performance hog that they couldnt have them on. I never heard of anyone who didnt want them on! Putting a new shadow engine that people can actually run (and optimising the old one so that is now a viable option for more people) as the top priority made enormous sense as that system was a big problem.</blockquote>Well I'm sure the majority of EQ2 players do not have an 8+ series NVidia GPU or nice dual core intel processors so I doubt they would be running either shadow system. The forum's vocal minority might have the great awesome specs, but you'd be surprised what horrible systems the nonvocal majority are running these days.Acceptable FPS would be around 35-45 average.</blockquote>Um, the new Shadow system only requires a DX9 Video Card... even the cheapest video card on the market is cappable of running DX9 Graphics. I am also fairly certain that you can't even get a Single Core Proc in an OEM Computer anymore... though you might be able to get them as a piece part. In fact with the 3.0 system comming out he is seeing a better performance increase on lesser cards then he is on more top of the line cards.

Imago-Quem

07-15-2009, 05:54 PM

<cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>SageGaspar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Encantador wrote:</cite><blockquote>please please please .... please etc etc ADD REFLECTIONS TO THE LIST. some of the reflections of land in water are just awful. Wrong images, 'jumping', mis-aligned, out of synch with moving view point, just about every fault you can think of.</blockquote>The reflections are at the top of my list too, any time a surface is supposed to be reflective I instead get some bizarre hallucinagenic spiral or simply a copy of the zone pasted onto the surface of water. It happens for lots of other people I know too. Probably the number one thing that ruins the game for me aesthetically.</blockquote>I've actually already started some work on the reflection system, but sadly it is complex and finicky the way it is currently developed. I plan to at least fix up the current reflection feature so it works more correctly. Reflections can be very expensive depending on how many surfaces need to reflect. Generally you will only see one surface reflection at a time.</blockquote>What about close system reflections in a small environment like a house vs a large environment like a player reflection off of a body of water? One thing that always seemed weird to me was how the mirror in my room would show a choppy version of myself. </blockquote>It really depends on how many textures, shaders, and triangles are being rendered for the scene. Each mirror would have to redraw EVERYTHING from its point of view. That's why the resolution is worse in the reflection, making reflections faster. I agree, there should be a setting to allow you to up the reflection resolution. I'll see if that's possible when I get back to it.It would be complex, and possibly too slow, to figure out how complex the scene is to determine if a reflection should be drawn or not. Maybe I could come up with an option to allow you to select the max amount of reflections you want. But I still have to go and fix the reflection system first.

Imago-Quem

07-15-2009, 06:02 PM

Please remember all these features we're talking about are subject to approval from my team, not just me. They're great ideas and we'll make sure to plan features you'll all love best, but I still can't say yes or no myself for any feature. It has to go through the team. That's how our game stays great. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />But it's still fun to look at what's already coming, like 3.0 Shaders, and the feature set we'll be considering for the future! The features listed are the ones I'll be rooting for when the team meets together to discuss what comes next.I just wanted to make sure I pointed that out.

Mythal_EQ2

07-16-2009, 01:48 AM

What I'd really like to see is moving the particle effects from the CPU to the GPU... and giving us a little more control over them as well.Currently, not only does turning on particle effects (especially in raids) hugely affect performance, but also they just end up blotting out everything to the point where you can only see the pretty flashes but little of your raid or incoming mobs.

Deritos

07-16-2009, 02:19 AM

When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing

Morghus

07-16-2009, 02:22 AM

Guy De Alsace

07-16-2009, 05:22 AM

<cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>It already does IMO, even without the proposed changes. I'm afraid I'm with the "all very well but what about performance" crowd.EQ2's engine was way ahead of its time but its catastrophically slow. One of the key things that makes the game slow to a total crawl is memory usage it seems. On my machine whch has 1.5GB - which isnt great I admit - I would need to run the game on a setting that would be embarrassing for a 1995 game let alone one I'm playing in 2009 to not get any HD chugging. That's got to be wrong!Something major and fundamental needs to be altered within the core game I think to bring it truly up-to-date.Unfortunately the eye-candy side of me cant wait to play the game with all these frills - even at single figure FPS. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

guillero

07-16-2009, 05:33 AM

<cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>It already does IMO, even without the proposed changes. I'm afraid I'm with the "all very well but what about performance" crowd.EQ2's engine was way ahead of its time but its catastrophically slow. One of the key things that makes the game slow to a total crawl is memory usage it seems. On my machine whch has 1.5GB - which isnt great I admit - I would need to run the game on a setting that would be embarrassing for a 1995 game let alone one I'm playing in 2009 to not get any HD chugging. That's got to be wrong!Something major and fundamental needs to be altered within the core game I think to bring it truly up-to-date.Unfortunately the eye-candy side of me cant wait to play the game with all these frills - even at single figure FPS. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I am sorry to burst your bubble tho. But name one recent MMO or any other decent game these days that you can run at high settings on a machine with only 1,5GB?Even with Windows XP you needed at least 2GB to run most latest games decently.At the moment me and my gf have 4GB in our PC's and run Windows 7 RC (wich is a lot better on memory usage then Vista SP2 and XP SP3).Seriously, with current very low RAM module prices, there is no excuse anymore to crank in at least 2GB in your PC. Unless you still have a PC out of the stone age that doesn't handle more then 1,5 GB RAM. But then you will never run EQ2 or any other of post 2004 MMOs great anyway (not even WoW since TBC and WOTLK).Jer

Rorasis

07-16-2009, 10:52 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>It already does IMO, even without the proposed changes. I'm afraid I'm with the "all very well but what about performance" crowd.EQ2's engine was way ahead of its time but its catastrophically slow. One of the key things that makes the game slow to a total crawl is memory usage it seems. On my machine whch has 1.5GB - which isnt great I admit - I would need to run the game on a setting that would be embarrassing for a 1995 game let alone one I'm playing in 2009 to not get any HD chugging. That's got to be wrong!Something major and fundamental needs to be altered within the core game I think to bring it truly up-to-date.Unfortunately the eye-candy side of me cant wait to play the game with all these frills - even at single figure FPS. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I am sorry to burst your bubble tho. But name one recent MMO or any other decent game these days that you can run at high settings on a machine with only 1,5GB?Even with Windows XP you needed at least 2GB to run most latest games decently.At the moment me and my gf have 4GB in our PC's and run Windows 7 RC (wich is a lot better on memory usage then Vista SP2 and XP SP3).Seriously, with current very low RAM module prices, there is no excuse anymore to crank in at least 2GB in your PC. Unless you still have a PC out of the stone age that doesn't handle more then 1,5 GB RAM. But then you will never run EQ2 or any other of post 2004 MMOs great anyway (not even WoW since TBC and WOTLK).Jer</blockquote>While his machine isn't the greatest, I don't think all the extra eye candy will be very good. Shader model 3 is supposed to increase performance, isn't it? Why use that performance increase to make room for more eye candy? Should just use it to increase performance and leave it at that. The game doesn't run too well.

Dragowulf

07-16-2009, 11:17 AM

<cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>It already does IMO, even without the proposed changes. I'm afraid I'm with the "all very well but what about performance" crowd.EQ2's engine was way ahead of its time but its catastrophically slow. One of the key things that makes the game slow to a total crawl is memory usage it seems. On my machine whch has 1.5GB - which isnt great I admit - I would need to run the game on a setting that would be embarrassing for a 1995 game let alone one I'm playing in 2009 to not get any HD chugging. That's got to be wrong!Something major and fundamental needs to be altered within the core game I think to bring it truly up-to-date.Unfortunately the eye-candy side of me cant wait to play the game with all these frills - even at single figure FPS. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I am sorry to burst your bubble tho. But name one recent MMO or any other decent game these days that you can run at high settings on a machine with only 1,5GB?Even with Windows XP you needed at least 2GB to run most latest games decently.At the moment me and my gf have 4GB in our PC's and run Windows 7 RC (wich is a lot better on memory usage then Vista SP2 and XP SP3).Seriously, with current very low RAM module prices, there is no excuse anymore to crank in at least 2GB in your PC. Unless you still have a PC out of the stone age that doesn't handle more then 1,5 GB RAM. But then you will never run EQ2 or any other of post 2004 MMOs great anyway (not even WoW since TBC and WOTLK).Jer</blockquote>Aion, brand new MMORPG. My laptop is quite old and has a low-mid ranged dual core Intel processor, GeForce 7900 GTX gpu, and 1.5GB of ram on XP Home. I can play it on my laptop on maxed settings with about 35 FPS give or take on average.The game is aesthetically pleasing and while the graphics are more stylized, I consider them pretty darn good. But you do have to take into consideration that it uses the pretty old and heavily modified Crytek engine so I don't know where that fits in.

Ama

07-16-2009, 11:22 AM

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 01:55 PM

<cite>Arathyen@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>I admit I know next to nothing on how most of these systems work, but wow you do some great work, especially with the shadows! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />My question is, is there anything you can do to prevent those errant images from showing up in reflections, water surfaces, and sometimes on NPC skins?There are examples of this issue on the forums, sadly I don't have any myself.. though I have seen the issue myself. Usually on elephants in the commonlands.</blockquote>Not quite sure what you're talking about. Would you be able to get a screenshot?

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 02:00 PM

<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.

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 02:17 PM

<cite>Mythal_EQ2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>What I'd really like to see is moving the particle effects from the CPU to the GPU... and giving us a little more control over them as well.Currently, not only does turning on particle effects (especially in raids) hugely affect performance, but also they just end up blotting out everything to the point where you can only see the pretty flashes but little of your raid or incoming mobs.</blockquote>Remember, everything, in the end, is rendered by your GPU, particles included. The issue lies in the CPU setup of particles and how it is sending the data to your graphics card. Particles are usually see-through. Anything see-through in a game will cause a greater performance drop. Your graphics card, and even your CPU, clips/erases the parts of objects that are behind other objects so the GPU doesn't have to calculate anything for those objects that are hidden in the scene. When something is see-through the GPU has to draw it and everything behind it still. If you keep piling see-through objects up the GPU has to process ALL of them PLUS the things behind them. To make see-through objects worse, the CPU also has to "order" them - because the furthest one away has to be drawn first and this order changes every frame. This takes a surprisingly long time when you have a lot of see-through objects on screen / aka particles. It's the same with windows, flora, trees, plants, glass, water, and ANYTHING that has partial transparency at all. DX10 helps solve the sorting problem but I don't expect EQ2 going to DX10 anytime soon.I would have to look further into the source code on the particle system to determine where the GPU gain might lie. It could be with animation and batching techniques. We'll see.

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 02:25 PM

<cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>I don't expect us to plan any graphical updates more than 6 months apart. Other than that, I can't really say.

feldon30

07-16-2009, 02:26 PM

<cite>Riliszkas@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader model 3 is supposed to increase performance, isn't it? Why use that performance increase to make room for more eye candy? Should just use it to increase performance and leave it at that. The game doesn't run too well.</blockquote>He is making the game look how it was always supposed to look. We're already paying the price for all these light sources in EQ2, performance wise, but they don't work right. When a person runs through Nek Forest with a light source, it SHOULD light up the trees, the terrain, the mobs, and have a pronounced glow. We're already taking the performance hit for having that light source, but it just plain doesn't work. The light just sort of shines on the ground not even necessarily under the player's feet, and the terrain just doesn't look like it is being realistically lit. This is clearly due to bugs and shortcuts in the Shaders 1.1 that EQ2 uses.It sounds to me like he has been able to convert these 1.1 shaders to 3.0 shaders by batch processing (he's updated 3,000 shaders already) and at the same time, fix a lot of outstanding bugs that made surfaces not correctly receive and benefit from point light sources.So the game will look awesome, and have better performance at lower resolutions and the same performance at higher resolutions.If I can glean anything from your post, you feel that the priority should be performance enhancements, namely making the game playable on lower end hardware, or allowing particles to be turned on during raids without the game becoming unplayable. But the impression I got is that he will have to tie up development time with other folks to move particles to the GPU as they are interwoven with game animations. The Shader changes on the other hand, I believe he has been able to do without tying up the whole EQ2 graphics team, and thus it could be done now while the animation team is busy working on the expac.Perhaps I am assuming or oversimplifying...

Lader

07-16-2009, 02:59 PM

<cite>Imago-Quem wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Arathyen@Najena wrote:</cite><blockquote>I admit I know next to nothing on how most of these systems work, but wow you do some great work, especially with the shadows! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" />My question is, is there anything you can do to prevent those errant images from showing up in reflections, water surfaces, and sometimes on NPC skins?There are examples of this issue on the forums, sadly I don't have any myself.. though I have seen the issue myself. Usually on elephants in the commonlands.</blockquote>Not quite sure what you're talking about. Would you be able to get a screenshot?</blockquote>i think what hes talking about is the pictures you see that have nothing to do with where youre at. i notice this most when i cast petrify (it was a conjuror spell that did dmg/stunned the mob; i dont know if thats still the name of it) on a mob. If you look at the mob right after it lands you will see the character select screen image (the conjuror, standing in new tunaria)

Josgar

07-16-2009, 03:26 PM

I hope the sky upgrade comes right after the 3.0 shaders. It would be the biggest difference for the game after the shaders.

ke'la

07-16-2009, 04:21 PM

<cite>Riliszkas@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Danteran@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote>When can we expect to see these awesome features on test?HDR and god ways, omg I Can't wait to see this in game. EQ2 is going to look amazing</blockquote>It already does IMO, even without the proposed changes. I'm afraid I'm with the "all very well but what about performance" crowd.EQ2's engine was way ahead of its time but its catastrophically slow. One of the key things that makes the game slow to a total crawl is memory usage it seems. On my machine whch has 1.5GB - which isnt great I admit - I would need to run the game on a setting that would be embarrassing for a 1995 game let alone one I'm playing in 2009 to not get any HD chugging. That's got to be wrong!Something major and fundamental needs to be altered within the core game I think to bring it truly up-to-date.Unfortunately the eye-candy side of me cant wait to play the game with all these frills - even at single figure FPS. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></blockquote>I am sorry to burst your bubble tho. But name one recent MMO or any other decent game these days that you can run at high settings on a machine with only 1,5GB?Even with Windows XP you needed at least 2GB to run most latest games decently.At the moment me and my gf have 4GB in our PC's and run Windows 7 RC (wich is a lot better on memory usage then Vista SP2 and XP SP3).Seriously, with current very low RAM module prices, there is no excuse anymore to crank in at least 2GB in your PC. Unless you still have a PC out of the stone age that doesn't handle more then 1,5 GB RAM. But then you will never run EQ2 or any other of post 2004 MMOs great anyway (not even WoW since TBC and WOTLK).Jer</blockquote>While his machine isn't the greatest, I don't think all the extra eye candy will be very good. Shader model 3 is supposed to increase performance, isn't it? Why use that performance increase to make room for more eye candy? Should just use it to increase performance and leave it at that. The game doesn't run too well.</blockquote>Nothing has been done to the game OTHER then changing from Shader 1.0 to 3.0... all that "eye candy" has ALWAYS been there... no addtional polygons, or lighting effects have been added, this is truely just an engine inhancement that just happens to make the game look a heck of alot better(while giving a performance boost to most).

Cragger

07-16-2009, 04:22 PM

<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.

ke'la

07-16-2009, 04:30 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>Good Idea, I second this...after the skybox revamp... unless this is an easy fix.

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 05:39 PM

<cite>Amana wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Mythal_EQ2 wrote:</cite><blockquote>What I'd really like to see is moving the particle effects from the CPU to the GPU... and giving us a little more control over them as well.Currently, not only does turning on particle effects (especially in raids) hugely affect performance, but also they just end up blotting out everything to the point where you can only see the pretty flashes but little of your raid or incoming mobs.</blockquote>Actually what would be pretty sweet is letting the user dictate if they want to have the game use CPU or GPU for certain graphical elements. With EQ2 starting to utilize multi-core technologies this would be a great benefit. Imagine being able to tell a game to utilize 1 core for physics rendering while the other 3 are left untouched.My only curiosity is what elements are best left for CPU use and what are best left for GPU use. </blockquote>Pretty sure this type of control will never be there. It would require each feature to have been developed for CPU and GPU, and their implementations are almost always entirely different.If we keep adding in GPU implementations for the current CPU features, then yes, we could see this option come up more often... like the shadows.

Imago-Quem

07-16-2009, 06:11 PM

<cite>feldon30 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Riliszkas@Splitpaw wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shader model 3 is supposed to increase performance, isn't it? Why use that performance increase to make room for more eye candy? Should just use it to increase performance and leave it at that. The game doesn't run too well.</blockquote>He is making the game look how it was always supposed to look. We're already paying the price for all these light sources in EQ2, performance wise, but they don't work right. When a person runs through Nek Forest with a light source, it SHOULD light up the trees, the terrain, the mobs, and have a pronounced glow. We're already taking the performance hit for having that light source, but it just plain doesn't work. The light just sort of shines on the ground not even necessarily under the player's feet, and the terrain just doesn't look like it is being realistically lit. This is clearly due to bugs and shortcuts in the Shaders 1.1 that EQ2 uses.It sounds to me like he has been able to convert these 1.1 shaders to 3.0 shaders by batch processing (he's updated 3,000 shaders already) and at the same time, fix a lot of outstanding bugs that made surfaces not correctly receive and benefit from point light sources.So the game will look awesome, and have better performance at lower resolutions and the same performance at higher resolutions.If I can glean anything from your post, you feel that the priority should be performance enhancements, namely making the game playable on lower end hardware, or allowing particles to be turned on during raids without the game becoming unplayable. But the impression I got is that he will have to tie up development time with other folks to move particles to the GPU as they are interwoven with game animations. The Shader changes on the other hand, I believe he has been able to do without tying up the whole EQ2 graphics team, and thus it could be done now while the animation team is busy working on the expac.Perhaps I am assuming or oversimplifying...</blockquote>Sounds about right, Feldon. Couple things though. I'm "in the process" of converting 3,000+ shaders. That's about how many are in the game right now. But what I'm actually doing is going through the entire game and processing all "objects" (eg. spoon, barrel, an armor plate, a plant, a skin type, etc.) through a tool I've made that creates new 3.0 shaders for them depending on what effect they need. There are more than just thousands of objects to convert to Shader 3.0. The shader "code" conversions were done a while back, covering about 3,000 shaders. Now I actually have to "build" the new shaders for each object and integrate them into our database. 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. The 3.0 graphical "changes" you've seen are a type of lighting "fix", you could say, to the 1.x implementation. Some of these changes we could possibly go back to 1.x and find a way to fix them, but its just logical to slap the fix right in with 3.0 as it comes out. Other things, like lighting resolution and accuracy upgrades, will be 3.0 only. But this is less often observed in-game, and distinguishable only by the most "observant". 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.Fo particles, the size is more of an art project. The optimization of sorting, animating, and rendering are for people like me. These can be worked on independently at the moment. I just need another me!