Why does my game look worse than it did 4 years ago?

[Dax.4012]

One thing making it hard to return to GW2 is something has changed with the graphics settings and I can't seem to get the brightness/gama balance right. It looks terrible. I'm using the same exact machine from 8 years ago AND my newer gaming laptop from 3 years ago, and I can't ever make it look like the game I fell in love with. It went from looking like a painting to looking like over exposed children's art. The colors and contrast are all wrong. Not to mention the rendering looks like I'm watching it on an old cathode TV. I keep hoping it will magically get better when I finally get a new computer. 

P.S. Someone has brought up Dx11 as a possible culprit. If so how are there any fixes?

[cosyfiep.9081]

they removed -dx9 which I had been using as well, as a result the over saturation and extreme brightness (cant even go to snow areas during the day) are what we have now, I am told dx11 has issues that were never fixed, yet they moved us to it (for financial reasons if I recall) and never bothered to fix those issues. As a result lots of people gave up and left the game, some of us have just continued to play with the horrible graphics. Not sure about fixes, some folks have used their graphics cards' interface thingys (not a techie but geforce has something that has helped some), for me I adjusted my brightness and just dont go to areas like snow or desert during the day (night is tolerable)  and pray that at sometime they will actually fix the issues (or I win the lottery and can upgrade my computer).

[Dax.4012]

That is what I experiences and it is as I feared. Oh well. I too will have to hope I can someday afford a computer that does better with that. 

[Liewec.2896]

just a hint but have you tried Reshade? 😁

if not you should! its very easy to set up and makes the game look really nice! 😉

[Dayra.7405]

Since this DX11 port I made 2 chances in the graphic settins:

1. I set postprocessing to low, because I hate this shiny effect
2. I set light adaptation to yes, this improves light/contrast alot, at the cost that it takes a moment.

With these 2 chances 11 looks nearly as good as 9.

Edited December 28, 2023 by Dayra.7405

[Ashantara.8731]

On 12/27/2023 at 4:17 AM, Dax.4012 said:

One thing making it hard to return to GW2 is something has changed with the graphics settings and I can't seem to get the brightness/gama balance right. It looks terrible. I'm using the same exact machine from 8 years ago AND my newer gaming laptop from 3 years ago, and I can't ever make it look like the game I fell in love with. It went from looking like a painting to looking like over exposed children's art. The colors and contrast are all wrong. Not to mention the rendering looks like I'm watching it on an old cathode TV. I keep hoping it will magically get better when I finally get a new computer. 

P.S. Someone has brought up Dx11 as a possible culprit. If so how are there any fixes?

Have you not read my previous response on your other thread?

Deactivate Post-Processing in the game's graphics settings and use ReShade for a more beautiful look.

[Liewec.2896]

22 hours ago, Ashantara.8731 said:

Have you not read my previous response on your other thread?

Deactivate Post-Processing in the game's graphics settings and use ReShade for a more beautiful look.

i'm starting to think they aren't actually after advice and just wanted to complain, i totally agree with you about reshade, my game looks absolutely beautiful!

and thanks to the DX upgrade it also runs a lot better, in short i think the game has improved overall.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Liewec.2896

[Kiof.5710]

I've been reading this thread and have a question about ReShade.  I downloaded the program and had it find GW2, then I get to a list of effects to install.  Standard Effects and  SweetFX are preselected.  Should I just leave those as is or do you have suggestions as to other options to choose?

[Ashantara.8731]

37 minutes ago, Kiof.5710 said:

I've been reading this thread and have a question about ReShade.  I downloaded the program and had it find GW2, then I get to a list of effects to install.  Standard Effects and  SweetFX are preselected.  Should I just leave those as is or do you have suggestions as to other options to choose?

That depends on what you intend to change. You can always install all of them and then manually delete the shaders you don't intend to use.

FYI, I am using these: Curves.fx, FakeHDR.fx, Levels.fx, LumaSharpen.fx, Tonemap.fx

[Kiof.5710]

Thank you.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

this specific issue is likely a driver issue as many driver packs have a preset profile for this game (often hidden), which was configured for the directx 9 engine that is now removed, giving the illusion that this is a dx11 problem despite that it only happens on certain systems. i believe even the official nvidia driver pack also has a hidden profile for it as well, unless you manually override it with your own.

 

for now, i would just turn off in-game postprocessing entirely and use an external shading engine like reshade to perform color correction!

Edited December 29, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Fueki.4753]

7 hours ago, Liewec.2896 said:

and thanks to the DX upgrade it also runs a lot better, in short i think the game has improved overall.

For some people, the game runs better.

For other people, the game runs worse.

For other other people, the game no longer runs at all.

But we don't have any numbers, so we don't know if there are more players for whom the game is better now, or if there are more people having a worse experience than before.

For me it runs worse, is uglier than before and it no longer supports true full screen. This means, a single patch worsened my experience of the game in three ways. Disabling post-processing didn't help much.

Edited December 29, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[Chaba.5410]

49 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

For other other people, the game no longer runs at all.

LOL.  That's because they increased the minimum system requirements and players who have 10 year old GPUs are really in trouble.

[Dax.4012]

15 hours ago, Liewec.2896 said:

i'm starting to think they aren't actually after advice and just wanted to complain, i totally agree with you about reshade, my game looks absolutely beautiful!

and thanks to the DX upgrade it also runs a lot better, in short i think the game has improved overall.

OH yes. Thank you. I posted 1 response and my own thread when I had my original question and I did see your response the next day and do appreciate it. Sorry if my double post caused any confusion. 

[Dax.4012]

On 12/28/2023 at 9:30 AM, Ashantara.8731 said:

Have you not read my previous response on your other thread?

Deactivate Post-Processing in the game's graphics settings and use ReShade for a more beautiful look.

Sorry. I went from posting on someone else's thread, to creating my own thread, to then having a secondary question about GeForce Experience. All of which was posted at the same time and then I drove for 24 hours from Texas to Virginia. But I do appreciate all the responses. 

[Ashantara.8731]

12 hours ago, Dax.4012 said:

Sorry. I went from posting on someone else's thread, to creating my own thread, to then having a secondary question about GeForce Experience. All of which was posted at the same time and then I drove for 24 hours from Texas to Virginia. But I do appreciate all the responses. 

Hope you weren't typing while driving! 😱😄

If there are any more questions, people on here are always glad to help. 🙂

[DeanBB.4268]

On 12/26/2023 at 8:17 PM, Dax.4012 said:

Why does my game look worse than it did 4 years ago?

I'm guessing because you're old now, like me, with ever deteriorating eyesight!

[Dax.4012]

23 hours ago, DeanBB.4268 said:

I'm guessing because you're old now, like me, with ever deteriorating eyesight!

Oh yeahhhh. They promised me a bionic eye by now. I should really be complaining about that more. X)