Regarding DirectX 11—Minor Graphics Options Differences

[Stormcrow.7513]

Thanks for making the Gsynch work again :) 

[Artair.1687]

12 hours ago, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

"Please keep sending us differences you see. Thanks for the note regarding Glide-R-Tron, I was able to reproduce that, it should be fixed soon."

Awesome glad to hear it 🙂

[Ashantara.8731]

Now, if only you could also separate the green Object/Character Outlines from the Post-Processing option and gave it its own toggle, I'd be willing to finally use Post-Processing.
 

Edited May 11, 2022 by Ashantara.8731

[RoyalPredator.9163]

Where are the graphic upgrades? 

There are no new techs implemented.

Not even some tessellation.

No dynamic weather at all. Weak effects. 

Waters still look way different than each other in same maps, some are really dumb. 

Also, it has no visual physics. Not even underwater filters. 

Not asking for much, but something noticeable global changes. 

[Orion Templar.4589]

It's been mentioned by others, but I'll add my voice to being surprised when I press Window+D (or +M) to minimize all windows, GW2 won't stay minimized.  As soon as I click another app GW2 pops back to full screen.  We definitely need it to stay minimized until we intentionally click to switch back to it.

[Lunaria.1543]

18 hours ago, Orion Templar.4589 said:

It's been mentioned by others, but I'll add my voice to being surprised when I press Window+D (or +M) to minimize all windows, GW2 won't stay minimized.  As soon as I click another app GW2 pops back to full screen.  We definitely need it to stay minimized until we intentionally click to switch back to it.

To be fair, most games fight for your screen like described, it might just be a thing with how Windows works.

If you want the window to actually stay minimized, maybe try pressing ESC and then use the minimize button on top right.

This is a really odd button in general, most games don't have this sort of thing, but it works!

[Orion Templar.4589]

Here's something I observed during the Renyak fight of the Seitung Province meta event. With DX11 not enabled, I'm accustomed to this event having a pretty low FPS, but even though things run slowly, they run slowly at a constant pace. With DX11 enabled, the FPS was still low, but the lag was punctuated. In other words, the visuals of the event would actually freeze momentarily, and then "speed up" as all the visuals appeared to catch up.  Then it would freeze again and then catch up again.  This punctuated lag was actually much worse to play than the consistent lag with DX11 off.  The punctuated lag with DX11 caused me to miss visual cues,  press a key at the wrong time, take a bunch of hits all at once as things caught up, etc.

[Vegeta.2563]

On 5/9/2022 at 1:30 PM, Perfect Self.6849 said:

Please break down the Postprocessing setting into several independent options (best case scenario would be sliders) controling their respective effects, as it stands now its basically unusable because it controls bloom and the bloom is absolutely blinding.

It also seems to control some kind of contrast or saturation effect which is also way overdone in the default available steps, especially when combined with the insane bloom/glow setting.

This is why I liked using GW2Hook.  It let you completely remove Bloom and still use Postprocessing with the vibrant colors.  I turn on DX11 and the bloom effect is like trying to look at the hood of a car with the sun reflecting off of it.

The problem though, is that there hasn't been any activity or sign of the dev in a long while.  I have sent several DM's on reddit and to his account in game.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Vegeta.2563

[Vegeta.2563]

On 5/10/2022 at 1:06 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

"Please keep sending us differences you see. Thanks for the note regarding Glide-R-Tron, I was able to reproduce that, it should be fixed soon."

So, I still see unicorn colored blocks for -maploadinfo  https://i.imgur.com/DO5jFcE.png

I also don't see shadows for text in most elements, most visible on player names (also PvP badges don't render) https://i.imgur.com/ulpmUdk.png

This is running on Windows 7 Pro 64-bit (which has DX11 installed).

Edited May 13, 2022 by Vegeta.2563

[rootwyrm.6408]

11 hours ago, Orion Templar.4589 said:

Here's something I observed during the Renyak fight of the Seitung Province meta event. With DX11 not enabled, I'm accustomed to this event having a pretty low FPS, but even though things run slowly, they run slowly at a constant pace. With DX11 enabled, the FPS was still low, but the lag was punctuated. In other words, the visuals of the event would actually freeze momentarily, and then "speed up" as all the visuals appeared to catch up.  Then it would freeze again and then catch up again.  This punctuated lag was actually much worse to play than the consistent lag with DX11 off.  The punctuated lag with DX11 caused me to miss visual cues,  press a key at the wrong time, take a bunch of hits all at once as things caught up, etc.

 

That behavior sounds a lot more in line with packet loss rather than DX11 related.

I'd get out pingplotter or the like, run /ip, and check packet loss during the fight. Please note that the final point (the address from /ip) will always be 100% because they are configured to not respond to ICMP, and it's likely one or more other hops will be configured similarly.

[Orion Templar.4589]

9 hours ago, rootwyrm.6408 said:

 

That behavior sounds a lot more in line with packet loss rather than DX11 related.

I'd get out pingplotter or the like, run /ip, and check packet loss during the fight. Please note that the final point (the address from /ip) will always be 100% because they are configured to not respond to ICMP, and it's likely one or more other hops will be configured similarly.

That's possible I suppose, but I wasn't thinking it was network lag for a couple reasons:

1. In these events with many people and visual effects, if I toggle between DX11 on and DX11 off the behavior changes. With DX11 off FPS drops but it is consistent. With DX11 on FPS drops but it is punctuated.
2. With DX11 on seeing the punctuated lag as soon as the event ends or I leave the area, the punctuated effect goes away

[kokocabana.8153]

For those that are posting issues with DX11, would it be possible for you to also list your GPU. It might help the devs if there is certain hardware related to those that are experiencing issues.

[Orion Templar.4589]

1 minute ago, kokocabana.8153 said:

For those that are posting issues with DX11, would it be possible for you to also list your GPU. It might help the devs if there is certain hardware related to those that are experiencing issues.

For me it is a GeForce GTX 750 Ti, driver version at the moment is 496.49. (Windows 10 21H2)

[Ashantara.8731]

On 5/9/2022 at 8:30 PM, Perfect Self.6849 said:

Please break down the Postprocessing setting into several independent options

YES, please separate Post-Processing, Bloom, and Outlines -- thanks!

[DemonAtTheWheel.1804]

On 5/9/2022 at 1:18 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Exclusive Full-Screen

.....

We don't plan on implementing exclusive full-screen in the same way for DirectX 11.

You guys REALLY  need to re-think that rather imbecilic stance.

You do realize that many users rely on "ATL+TAB" to drop the game to be minimized, killing sound and the load on the system in the process right? A fairly large portion of games still support that as well, even on much much newer engines than DX11.

Then you go and link to a Microsoft article claiming that FSE is a thing of the past.... cause we all know Microsoft has never, ever, been wrong right. :cough: Windows ME, Windows Vista, Windows Phone

Great, there is no longer a performance hit for running windowed full screen vs exclusive full-screen.... that does not mean exclusive full screen is garbage that no one ever used or preferred for reasons beyond the rather minimal (at least on a high end system) bump to performance. 

I get that screen flickering is not desirable. That does not in any way take away from the fact that some users PREFER the multi-tasking process of minimizing the game while switching gears to another task.... cause some times you are multi tasking things that are not the game at the same time you are playing.

At the very least, you need to give us check-boxes to make the "everything is windowed" user experience emulate the original "ALT+TAB" functionality, as well as anything else that we are losing from the dropping of FSE. 

Edited May 14, 2022 by DemonAtTheWheel.1804

[Holgarf.6581]

On 5/9/2022 at 6:18 PM, Rubi Bayer.8493 said:

Hi everyone, I have a message from our Senior Graphics Programmer James Fulop. Read on!

 

Hey all,

James Fulop here, Senior Graphics Programmer for Guild Wars 2.

I'm here to give an update on how a couple of the graphics options behave differently between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11. The main difference is the DirectX 11 graphics backend doesn't implement exclusive full-screen options in the same way as DirectX 9. This then creates knock-on effects with the Refresh Rate and Full-Screen Gamma slider options.

Exclusive Full-Screen

To be clear, when I talk about exclusive full-screen, I am referring to the resolution options with explicit resolution counts. For example, with the "Full Screen - 1920 x 1080" option, the graphics menu can be a little confusing since Window mode and resolution choice are in the same drop-down menu.

We don't plan on implementing exclusive full-screen in the same way for DirectX 11. With the current state of Windows 10, there is no discernable performance difference between exclusive full-screen and windowed full-screen (see the article here for details: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/demystifying-fullscreen-optimizations/). Additionally, by not using exclusive full-screen, it alleviates a lot of the application freezing and monitor flickering that happens when changing window focus of the full-screen application. Currently, the multitasking experience for full-screen is much nicer on DirectX 11.

The resolution option menu will remain the same (Window / Windowed Fullscreen / Full Screen - [resolution]). At a certain point under the hood, "Full Screen - [resolution]" windows are exactly the same as "Windowed Fullscreen" windows.

Refresh Rate

This setting lets you manually override the hardware refresh rate of your monitor.

On DirectX 9, this only works when in exclusive full-screen. Since this setting does not work for DirectX 11, there are two options to manually change the frame rate of the game. One would be to use the Frame Limiter option, which tells the client to manually throttle the frame rate. The second option would be to manually change the refresh rate of the monitor through Windows. Currently this is done through Settings -> Systems -> Display -> Advanced display settings -> Refresh rate on Windows 10.

Gamma

You could consider this a "brightness" slider.

On DirectX 9, gamma only works when in exclusive full-screen. It basically works by tweaking a setting on the monitor to change how the output is rendered.

For DirectX 11, I have changed how this is implemented to instead be a full-screen postprocessing effect that happens after all the rendering is complete. An added bonus is that this makes this setting work on all window options. Be aware that the response curve of the slider may be slightly different between DirectX 9 and DirectX 11.

Thank you all for your feedback on the DirectX 11 feature and for participating in the beta. I hope this post helped you learn a little bit about the game under the hood. Thanks for reading.

Well, not surprising, but I suppose if it makes little difference there is no need to mess around with window/fullscreen mode. It is nice that DX11 is a thing now, after waiting 23 billion years, even if it screwed up textures and causes out-of-control bloom (resulting in post-processing needing to be turned off). However if gamma is as a post-processing effect, does turning the post-processing option in settings to combat the DX11 OVERBLOOM turn this off? (See what DX11 mode does for me when post-processing is on (basically makes a bunch of maps so blooming bright that I can't see floors, details or AOE circles):

Normally I'd run fullscreen mode in games anyway, except for GW2 since the game absolutely 100% requires a wiki to be remotely playable - unless you want to spend a week finding a single NPC hidden in some out-of-the-way area.

Sucks that I'm getting 48 FPS in Seitung with a fairly beefy CPU (and that's after dropping settings and now setting player count to low from medium). Gotta love those 3D plants I guess.

[Grim West.3194]

Map is screwed up in 3 screen mode (Nvidia Surround). Zoomed in so much you can't locate anything or port anywhere except to local wps. And 3 screen character select screen is also zoomed in so all you see is the character's belly button. Not game breaking like the map issue though.

 

Haven't tried DX11 for a while so maybe they fixed it. I only play gw2 in 3 screen mode, so this is a big deal for me. Not a problem for most people. DX11 otherwise worked great. Looking forward to being able to use it.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Grim West.3194

[kokocabana.8153]

On 5/14/2022 at 3:32 PM, Holgarf.6581 said:

Well, not surprising, but I suppose if it makes little difference there is no need to mess around with window/fullscreen mode. It is nice that DX11 is a thing now, after waiting 23 billion years, even if it screwed up textures and causes out-of-control bloom (resulting in post-processing needing to be turned off). However if gamma is as a post-processing effect, does turning the post-processing option in settings to combat the DX11 OVERBLOOM turn this off? (See what DX11 mode does for me when post-processing is on (basically makes a bunch of maps so blooming bright that I can't see floors, details or AOE circles):

Normally I'd run fullscreen mode in games anyway, except for GW2 since the game absolutely 100% requires a wiki to be remotely playable - unless you want to spend a week finding a single NPC hidden in some out-of-the-way area.

Sucks that I'm getting 48 FPS in Seitung with a fairly beefy CPU (and that's after dropping settings and now setting player count to low from medium). Gotta love those 3D plants I guess.

I was having the same issues that you had with the clouds in SAB being completely white and the glare was very distracting in sunny areas. I realized that I was using gamma to increase brightness in the game when it should not be used that way.

 

My in-game gamma was set to 1.3 and it had the same effect that you have in your screenshots. I recommend that you set your gamma back to 1.0. The game will appear a bit darker in caves/nighttime if you don't have post-processing on, but you should compensate for it by manually increasing your monitor's brightness. With my gamma back to 1.0, I actually leave post-processing on as I like the way it looks along with Reshade with Tekkit's presets. It sharpens up the textures so much.

[Cobalt Flame.8056]

Hello everupme.

I have a message from one of our developers regarding today's update:
 

Quote

Some of the issues brought forward in this thread have been addressed in today’s build. Thanks for your feedback everyone. Feel free to post continued thoughts here. ~James

 

[Kilty.4906]

There is a dx11 bug in which some postprocessing effects are not applying to the image. I took some screenshots showing the difference between the dx9 version and the dx11 version:

• Example #1:   Dx9 - Dx11 - At the grotto in Dragon's End

• Example #2:   Dx9 - Dx11

• Example #3:   Dx9 - Dx11 - Void's reality distortion

• Example #4:   Dx9 - Dx11

• Example #5:   Dx9 - Dx11

There is also another bug where the postprocessing effect used while underwater in the Dragon's End map remains in the image even after resurfacing: before  -  after

Note: I've reported these bugs on a separate thread, to be honest, I don't know where it is the best place to report dx11 related bugs.

Edited June 8, 2022 by Kilty.4906
clarified that I was reporting two bugs

[kokocabana.8153]

1 hour ago, Kilty.4906 said:

There is a dx11 bug in which some postprocessing effects are not applying to the image. I took some screenshots showing the difference between the dx9 version and the dx11 version:

• Example #1:   Dx9 - Dx11 - At the grotto in Dragon's End

• Example #2:   Dx9 - Dx11

• Example #3:   Dx9 - Dx11 - Void's reality distortion

• Example #4:   Dx9 - Dx11

• Example #5:   Dx9 - Dx11

Also, the postprocessing effect used while underwater in the Dragon's End map remains in the image even after resurfacing: before  -  after

Note: I've reported this on a separate thread, to be honest, I don't know where it is the best place to report dx11 related bugs.

Can you be a little more specific on what we are supposed to be looking for in the before and after screenshots? 

[Kilty.4906]

3 minutes ago, kokocabana.8153 said:

Can you be a little more specific on what we are supposed to be looking for in the before and after screenshots? 

Do you mean this?

1 hour ago, Kilty.4906 said:

Also, the postprocessing effect used while underwater in the Dragon's End map remains in the image even after resurfacing: before  -  after

If you look close, the "after" screenshot has a postprocessing effect that makes it brighter. This effect is applied when you are underwater in Dragon's End. The problem is that it doesn't go away even after you resurface.
So it's a before I go underwater screenshot and after I resurfaced screenshot. 

[kokocabana.8153]

I don't own EoD so I can't comment on what the images are supposed to look like.

You started your post by saying that post processing wasn't being applied followed by 5 examples. What I see are 5 brighter dx11 images which looks like post processing is being applied. That is the source of my confusion.

Edited June 8, 2022 by kokocabana.8153

[Kilty.4906]

2 minutes ago, kokocabana.8153 said:

I don't own EoD so I can't comment on what the images are supposed to look like.

You started your post by saying that post processing wasn't being applied followed by 5 examples. What I see are 5 brighter "after" images which looks like post processing is being applied. That is the source of my confusion.

Oh, they are two separate bugs. Sorry! I edited it to make it more clear. The first five are a comparison of the dx9 postprocessing effect and the dx11 postprocessing effect, and the 6th is an underwater postprocessing effect that doesn't go away even after you are out of the water.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

I run it on a RTX3080 with 32GB of ram on a 3840 * 1600 ultra wide monitor. Mostly i get 60-100+ fps, but still wondering why it drops down to the 30s or even 20s with a lot of other players around as I have max details but medium details/amount of other player details. Should be easily higher with DX11?