A Discussion on GW2's Graphics

[Diak Atoli.2085]

@TESLA.7415 said:

@AgentMoore.9453 said:Most of the graphics in the game are fine, and I actually prefer them to the creepy not-quite-realism other games have been trying their hand at lately. I wouldn't mind sharpening up some of the blurry textures, however. The basic Moa pet and some of the ambient animals, for instance, are unfocused and in some cases made noticeably out of triangles. There was also a hubbub recently about blurry infusion textures which could use a tune-up.

Do you have an Nvidia card? Have you used their built-in filters in the games? It makes a big difference. There is also ReShade, which is a bit trickier to setup, but works well.

Wait, NVidia has filters for GW2!? How have I missed this?

[TESLA.7415]

@thepenmonster.3621 said:

@Mister Asdasd.6194 said:

@"Yannir.4132" said:These kids, complaining about graphics... Back in my day, characters were a blob of pixels, and I was still happy enough to play. I still do. I never understood why people bought Pokemon Fire Red over the regular red... (and I'm under 30...)

Back in my days Fallout was a top down turn based rts/rpg with pixelated 2d sprites, and it is still better than the newer ones that came out from Fallout 3 and after

You fetuses. Generation

Asteroids

, son. And I still got the scars from my

Pac Man

Fever.

Such a youngster. I played RPG's before they had graphics in the form of Infocom's text adventures. That's right: Completely text-based games. You should try them. They are public domain now: https://if.illuminion.de/infocom.html

Even before this, I played the original "Trek" game which was an ASCII game: https://www.codeproject.com/Articles/28228/Star-Trek-1971-Text-Game

Oh yeah, and we used to have to walk to school in the snow barefoot, uphill in both directions.

[TESLA.7415]

@Diak Atoli.2085 said:

@TESLA.7415 said:

@"AgentMoore.9453" said:Most of the graphics in the game are fine, and I actually prefer them to the creepy not-quite-realism other games have been trying their hand at lately. I wouldn't mind sharpening up some of the blurry textures, however. The basic Moa pet and some of the ambient animals, for instance, are unfocused and in some cases made noticeably out of triangles. There was also a hubbub recently about blurry infusion textures which could use a tune-up.

Do you have an Nvidia card? Have you used their built-in filters in the games? It makes a big difference. There is also ReShade, which is a bit trickier to setup, but works well.

Wait, NVidia has filters for GW2!? How have I missed this?

The filters work in all games. It was added a bit after AMD launched their new GPUs and was bragging about their new sharpening filter. Nvidia topped them right afterwards because you can set these while in game and they are separate for all games. AMD's has to be set outside the game and is either on or off for all games.

Have GeForce Experience installed, press ALT=F3 in the game. The filters can be added there and are adjustable for strength, etc.

https://i.imgur.com/U0SdCYf.png

[Sovarica.4368]

GW2 Graphics are fine but a lot of areas look way nicer than others, the lighting effect can make your characters look really awesome in some parts of the game but these areas are not that plentiful. Maps like Edge of the Mist look really good. I noticed a lot of maps look blurry then some maps look really sharp especially the new ones.

I think anything gw2 related on youtube looks awful because it has massive blur issues due not being able to handle all of those effects

[VAHNeunzehnsechundsiebzig.]

I like the graphics. I do not like the massive fps drop with lots of people around. Also bring back some of the removed idle animations - and add some more hair/face styles.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

They really should be working on a Vulkan version of their engine. It's crazy to be using DirectX9 in 2019.

[GaijinGuy.8476]

O P T I M I Z A T I O NThis is what Gw2 needs first.

[Bladestrom.6425]

The main issue is the dependancy on core cpu speed, but I remember at the beginning of gw2 they spent a lot of time optimising, so I suspect they may be tied by the engine as it stands, and a rewrite would take away resource from content delivery.

[Kamikae.9536]

Yeah the engine is desperate for a refresh, it has been since HoT was released. To be honest some areas of GW1 looked prettier and more "photorealistic" Honestly I think they could do a "Core" expansion and refresh the old maps, add a hard mode for story instances, and freshen up the core areas, models, armors and such The new areas look great but I go from 50-60 FPS in core tyria to 15 or less in areas like Thunderhead Keep or other new areas. I get not wanting to limit players by upgrading to a higher DX version or switching to OpenGL or Vulkan but I doubt any machines running windows XP are keeping up with the game anyways. I agree that GW2 is one of the best MMO's on the market both visually and gameplay wise. However it feels like the game developers have lost the passion and and been falling down the gemstore rabbit hole. But I'm falling into a plethora of other discussions

TLDR: The game is pretty but could still be better, We need a new engine with the aforementioned Optimization

[Teratus.2859]

@Tainted Outcome.7481 said:My questions for fellow forum posters are the following:1) In its current state, would upgrading the game's graphics be an appropriate use of developer time and resources?2) What sorts of graphical improvements, if any, would you like to see implemented into GW2?

1. No, total waste of developer time and resources.
2. None, Gw2 is perfectly fine the way it is.

If there's one thing that really p***** me off about games these days is how much time and resources are wasted on trying to make the game as visually pleasing as possible.Usually this is done at the cost of many other things and most new games these days end up looking like very pretty pieces of garbage that are dull and boring to play and they lack that sense of spirit and personality that games used to have decades ago that made them so fun and to this day still loved by many.

Having style is far more important to a game than having the best possible graphics.. having great gameplay is far more important than having highest possible resolution and having a great storyline that sucks players in and makes them fall in love with the world and it's characters is always going to be more important that pushing for the most impressive visuals.

A pretty game is nothing if it's not backed by great gameplay and a gripping story.You can have a game with great gameplay and a gripping story that looks ok or unimpressive and people will still love it.You can't have a game with amazing top of the line visuals etc that lacks great gameplay and a gripping story and still have that game be regarded as good.. because it just isn't.

If more AAA companies cared less about graphics and more about what actually makes games fun and great then perhaps the AAA market wouldn't be overflowing with garbage games these days.

I'll take games like Gw2, Subnautica, Octopath Traveler and the colossal menu of old amazing games over most of the new AAA stuff that comes out these days.I simply need more than a pretty face to find someone interesting.. and the same applies to games.

[GW Noob.6038]

I'm just grateful that GW2 supports my 3440 x 1440 monitor! :P

[Dante.1508]

I don't get it i think GW2 looks great?

[thepenmonster.3621]

@TESLA.7415 said:Such a youngster. I played RPG's before they had graphics in the form of Infocom's text adventures. That's right: Completely text-based games. You should try them.

I had an older friend back in the 80s who was really into text games. He was a real cutting edge computer type of guy. Part of the Church of the Holy Amiga. Died of cancer back around 2000 so it just goes to show.

[Dawdler.8521]

@Kamikae.9536 said:I get not wanting to limit players by upgrading to a higher DX version or switching to OpenGL or Vulkan but I doubt any machines running windows XP are keeping up with the game anyways.This is a non-issue as the game would either have a menu or cmd line option, just like it had with x64, or with changing the renderer to deferred, etc.

DirectX12 is however the far more likely option, I find it unlikely they would bother with recoding the renderer to Vulkan (OpenGL is as obsolete as DX9).

[Yannir.4132]

@GaijinGuy.8476 said:O P T I M I Z A T I O NThis is what Gw2 needs first.

I can stand behind performance improvements, I just find them unlikely.Would be awesome if the devs suddenly made the game support running on multiple cores.

@Teratus.2859 said:A pretty game is nothing if it's not backed by great gameplay and a gripping story.You can have a game with great gameplay and a gripping story that looks ok or unimpressive and people will still love it.You can't have a game with amazing top of the line visuals etc that lacks great gameplay and a gripping story and still have that game be regarded as good.. because it just isn't.

If more AAA companies cared less about graphics and more about what actually makes games fun and great then perhaps the AAA market wouldn't be overflowing with garbage games these days.

I'll take games like Gw2, Subnautica, Octopath Traveler and the colossal menu of old amazing games over most of the new AAA stuff that comes out these days.I simply need more than a pretty face to find someone interesting.. and the same applies to games.

Then you have these modern masterpieces like Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt or Divinity: Original Sin 2 that deliver you the whole package of a great game with breathtaking graphics as well. With Larian in the helm of making Baldur's Gate 3, my hopes are high for that title as well.

[Teratus.2859]

@Yannir.4132 said:

@GaijinGuy.8476 said:O P T I M I Z A T I O NThis is what Gw2 needs first.

I can stand behind performance improvements, I just find them unlikely.Would be awesome if the devs suddenly made the game support running on multiple cores.

@Teratus.2859 said:A pretty game is nothing if it's not backed by great gameplay and a gripping story.You can have a game with great gameplay and a gripping story that looks ok or unimpressive and people will still love it.You can't have a game with amazing top of the line visuals etc that lacks great gameplay and a gripping story and still have that game be regarded as good.. because it just isn't.

If more AAA companies cared less about graphics and more about what actually makes games fun and great then perhaps the AAA market wouldn't be overflowing with garbage games these days.

I'll take games like Gw2, Subnautica, Octopath Traveler and the colossal menu of old amazing games over most of the new AAA stuff that comes out these days.I simply need more than a pretty face to find someone interesting.. and the same applies to games.

Then you have these modern masterpieces like Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt or Divinity: Original Sin 2 that deliver you the whole package of a great game with breathtaking graphics as well. With Larian in the helm of making Baldur's Gate 3, my hopes are high for that title as well.

Yeah the rare gem titles.They do exist but for the most part they are diamonds among an ocean of garbage.

I am a massive Baldurs Gate fan as well so I to am really looking forward to seeing what comes of the 3rd game.. though i'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified they'll screw it up lolI'm also a big Elder Scrolls fan but I have very little faith in the 6th game atm due to the s***show Bethesda has become in recent years XD

[starlinvf.1358]

@"Kamikae.9536" said:Yeah the engine is desperate for a refresh, it has been since HoT was released. To be honest some areas of GW1 looked prettier and more "photorealistic" Honestly I think they could do a "Core" expansion and refresh the old maps, add a hard mode for story instances, and freshen up the core areas, models, armors and such The new areas look great but I go from 50-60 FPS in core tyria to 15 or less in areas like Thunderhead Keep or other new areas. I get not wanting to limit players by upgrading to a higher DX version or switching to OpenGL or Vulkan but I doubt any machines running windows XP are keeping up with the game anyways. I agree that GW2 is one of the best MMO's on the market both visually and gameplay wise. However it feels like the game developers have lost the passion and and been falling down the gemstore rabbit hole. But I'm falling into a plethora of other discussions

TLDR: The game is pretty but could still be better, We need a new engine with the aforementioned Optimization

GW1 wasn't photorealistic..... In fact, it accomplished it by being practically the opposite. Both games have an art style made to mimic canvas painting, using a very selective range of color tones. A lot of early areas have semi-baked lighting and light/shadows tone built into the textures, rather then proper dynamic lighting. Even many of the "light ray" effects when you have post processing turned on are not full dynamic lighting.

Its both ironic and oddly appropriate that a lot of "advertising grade" photos of scenery have a lot of post processing done to them to increase vibrancy, contrast and shifting color temps to make them more visually pleasing. This creates a Hyper-Realistic quality that sits just of on the boarder of Surrealism, and is intentionally meant to invoke nostalgia-like feelings. Like a vivid memory of something, but you've never seen it before then. Just look for a "Comfy" thread on your favorite image board, and you can see this at work.

The reason for the hit and miss in later maps ultimately boils down to how much time and man power could be spent on tweaking map visuals. Some location and material types don't lend well to the type of color control they use, which takes more effort to look consistent. A similar struggle was felt in GW1, as Prophs and Factions had pitch perfect coloring, despite the fairly wide range of locations. But Nightfall being mostly desert and waste land, and maps being a lot more flat, lead to a lot of visual fatigue. Color isn't bad at all, and structures were more interesting due to contrast of the bland desert; but after seeing the same 20 shades of brown for hours on end, with the only visual refuge being villages and towns, it gets old quick. POF worked hard to avoid this by frequently mixing Oasis elements across all the maps, and having the Desolation carefully broken up using striking terrain features.

Orr is another good example. Despite being, overall, the weakest maps when it comes to visual stimulation, all the assets had the ground work done the same way you'd see in other maps. The difference boils down to how they handle light... as in Orr has next to no variance in light intensity, even around Fort Trinity. While you can make the argument that its supposed to be Oppressive (and I completely agree).... there aren't enough areas to modulate the mood, which creates that same fatigue found in Nightfall. When you look at it closely, Orr is actually incredibly well set up in nearly every other aspect. A wide range of colors, all using a consistant muted color tone, excellent use of shapes to break up monotony, certain areas have fog + wash out color filter to make it feel like a faded photo, with enough terrain features and land marks to make impossible to get lost. But if you look at every other map in Core Tyria, they all have a sense of Natural Light as a character; even in the areas (like Fireheart Rise) that are meant to be oppressive, you do get the sense that light is actively fighting to intrude on upon it.

If isn't obvious yet, good use of Light makes the difference in video game. Even the illusion of light and shadow baked into textures is enough to convince us a scene is logical- and actually was the way they used to do things when ray casting was barely an option. For awhile, a lot of games and game demos went overboard with color vibrancy to push being "photo-realistic", but came off more as hyper-real with seemingly impossible colors for reflected light..... and sadly, a lot of people fell for it. Heres something fun to research. Find screen shots of all of the COD games from MW1 forward, and compare that to other Mil-themed shooters that came out around the same time. In the BF series from Battlefield 3 onward, its kind of comical how they handle light and color. Bonus hypocrisy can also be found in reshader projects, which doesn't really fix colors so much as signal boost outlines and readability.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

It still looks good, you notice its age though. Especially the old areas didn't age too well, depending on the map. Especially on mounts like griffon or skyscale you notice a strange effect in the old map: the maps look like a diorama: a small version of what should be, they look out of proportion, just check the size of Divinity's Reach on map and compare it while looking at it. It's completely wrong. Also the mountains are super small. You'll notice it if you are on a Skyscale.

New maps are far more detailed, especially the textures of mountains look still astonishingly well for this old engine.

I think what most people complain isn't the 'outdated' graphics, but the shitty performance. I run 16GB RAM, an SSD and a GTX 1660 and I still can't reach 60 FPS in some maps, especially with other ppl around.

[thepenmonster.3621]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:Especially on mounts like griffon or skyscale you notice a strange effect in the old map: the maps look like a diorama: a small version of what should be, they look out of proportion, just check the size of Divinity's Reach on map and compare it while looking at it. It's completely wrong. Also the mountains are super small. You'll notice it if you are on a Skyscale.

Yup. Core Tyria is meant to be experienced on foot. Mounts made it far more trivial than any power creep.

[Yannir.4132]

@Teratus.2859 said:Yeah the rare gem titles.They do exist but for the most part they are diamonds among an ocean of garbage.

I am a massive Baldurs Gate fan as well so I to am really looking forward to seeing what comes of the 3rd game.. though i'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified they'll screw it up lolI'm also a big Elder Scrolls fan but I have very little faith in the 6th game atm due to the s***show Bethesda has become in recent years XD

Have faith in Larian(the studio that made D:OS2), they are massive fans of BG games as well. If you watch interviews of the CEO, Sven, he even cracks a few jokes only a true BG and D&D fan knows. I expect them to do massively better job than Beamdog did with Siege of Dragonspear.

[Teratus.2859]

@Yannir.4132 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:Yeah the rare gem titles.They do exist but for the most part they are diamonds among an ocean of garbage.

I am a massive Baldurs Gate fan as well so I to am really looking forward to seeing what comes of the 3rd game.. though i'd be lying if I said I wasn't terrified they'll screw it up lolI'm also a big Elder Scrolls fan but I have very little faith in the 6th game atm due to the s***show Bethesda has become in recent years XD

Have faith in Larian(the studio that made D:OS2), they are massive fans of BG games as well. If you watch interviews of the CEO, Sven, he even cracks a few jokes only a true BG and D&D fan knows. I expect them to do massively better job than Beamdog did with Siege of Dragonspear.

Here's hoping :)We'll find out eventually though, i'm just trying not to get my hopes up too much even though I am really looking forward to seeing the game.

[TheQuickFox.3826]

A native DX11 and/or Vulcan renderer would be welcome to me. Just with the current game engine. This won't bring any dramatic improvements, but may help a bit for relatively little effort. (In comparison to a game engine rewrite)