Feedback Thread: Graphics Update

[Ibn]

Use this thread to let us know what you think of the updated graphics of Throne of Destiny!

[McVigor]

Intel P4 1.8ghz 640meg ram
ATI RADEON 9600XT 256M

all latest drivers and whatnot.

Seems I can only run on the lowest graphics settings, which aren't even as good as the old-Dark Majesty clients --

and when I turn it up past that even slightly, it bombs when I get anywhere near the new viamontian town. Freezing, and sputtering along at 1 FPS every 10 minutes.

Ran away from it, after returning to the lowest of low settings, took the holtburg portal and tweaked them a little to bring them up to Dark Majesty standards - and when I recalled back to the Viamont town everything crashed. I could hear things happening around me, but the only graphics visable were garbeled. (interface garbeled all over the 3d-area, etc

Not going good for me if I can't even make it resemble DM graphics!

what did you guys do??

[Fiction_LC]

Im building my computer tomorrow we will see how they are
Nvidia 6800 GT 512MB SLI
Kingston Hyper X 2GB DDR400 3200 Ram
MSI K8N Neo 4 SLI with on board 7.1 Creative labs, and on board over clocking(cpu,gfx,ram)
AMD FX55
21.3'' LCD
and more stuff :)

[kc5omo]

The new graphics are great... but the text size is very small... is there anyway to increase the text size without lowering the res.

[Zylick]

It is a little better. You are doing well, But you are capable of much much more. I suggest that more come very quickly if you still want to play in the game of today.

[Very_Bored]

http://pics.gpctexas.net/thumbnails.php?album=16

See my pics reference bug # 112 for corrupt ui

[StormyEyebright]

OMG If you are going to put a quest in the middle of town it is kind of rediculous when you cannot even make it into town. Hopefully this will be fixed before the Preview is over because I do want to play. :mad:

[Davethewave]

I like it all so far, I admit I was expecting more of a change but it's good.. The one main problem so far that I don't like is the new text/font especially in the map, it looks cool but is difficult to read.

[Shao Majii]

The colors are off.
Text is tiny and hard to read.

AMD sempron 2 Ghz
ATI Radeon 9250 128Mb

New town? Forget it. I can't get past the lifestone outside. Why?

And to top it off, NAT issues weren't fixed. At this rate, I will not be getting ToD, nor will I continue to play at all. Not much point to sticking with DM, all the patches will be focused on TD.

[-Slyzer-]

I like the new refresh rate on the radar but its now a lot harder to click on dots in the radar. Before you just had to click in the general area of a dot, but now you have to click directly on the dot. I don't have that kind of coordination :o

One minor problem I noticed with the new UI is that when dragging a spell into my spellbar from my spellbook, moving the spell to the left and right sides does not scroll the spellbar.

I've also noticed low performance in Sanamar (Expected and turning the graphics to low solves it for the most part [Still random chops here and there but bareable]). But I also get random chops here and there in the wilderness with medium-high graphics and severe freezes when I approach even sparsely populated towns (Silyun). I'm running an AMD Athlon XP 2800+ (2.08ghz) cpu , with 512mb RAM, and an ATI 9600 pro 256mb video card, more than twice the recommended system requirements. I also get a relatively high cpu temp when playing the game, ~60 degrees celsius constantly. My brother's computer runs pretty smoothly but randomly reboots every hour or so when playing. He runs an Intel Pentium 4 2.8ghz cpu, with 512mb RAM and an ATI 9800 pro 128 mb.

Other than those problems the game looks great so far, the Halaetian Isles seem to be a lot of fun (I haven't gotten gotten around to a lot of the content yet ;) ).

[BrightYellow]

I was very disappointed, here is why:

I have a computer with a 2.4 GHz Athlon, a ATI 9700 pro video board, 512 MB RAM. THis is not the top of the line, but it runs AC2 beautifully, and Morrowind looks absolutely fantastic.

In 1280*1024:

With the default graphics setting, AC:TOD is almost as playable as AC with max settings, but not quite. The screen freezes quite frequently for 0.5-1 second, and the weird dressing/undressing of the trees in the distance is more frequent than in AC1 (a bit like in the thickest Caul spots). That is in Shoushi or the Hebian-to area.

With higher settings, I may freeze for 5 or more seconds, without any white dot around, in the forests.

Regarding quality, I admit the visual result is neat, nicer than AC1, but nowhere near games like AC2 or Morrowind, and again, with a much worse playability.

With the absolute lowest settings I could manage (besides going down to 800x600), I was finally able to reach Sanamar. I can't tell how nice it looks, it was like Pacman on a Pet CBM.

With anything higher as settings, the computer crashes for low virtual memory (yes, it's one of those super slow crashes that take 35 minutes to clear).



Needless to say, I would have never ever insisted a full hour (i.e. 2 full crashes at Sanamar drop) if I didnt know AC before. AC:TD will appear extremely unprofessionnal regarding graphics to anyone not favorably biased.

1) At the very least, I would REMOVE THE SUGGESTION TO BOOST THE GRAPHICS QUALITY.

2) I would add an auto-test to dertermine what is the adequate settings a configuration can sustain. You will see that normal computers (like mine) will be forced to fallback to graphics hardly better than the current AC

3) I find it absolutely outrageous that a game may crash because of a low virtual memory of 1.3 GB. You must detect this before allowing the crash. The auto-degrade system is completely unable to save the day at a portal drop like Sanamar, and that is completely abnormal for a commercial game.

In conclusion:
- the graphic update can hardly be considered as a significant upgrade, unless the game is pushed to the maximum settings, which makes it unplayable in "old" areas (Shoushi, etc.), and crashes the whole computer in the new areas.
- the handling of abnormal situations in absolutely not professionnal. I am still amazed by what I have witnessed today. I cannot remember seeing anything that bad since the opening of the main city doors in Rubies of Eventide Alpha.
- although I understand that redoing the whole game was not the goal, I am globally very defavorably impressed by the efficiency of the update (ratio toll on the computer / actual improvement). I am very surprised that a company which proved an oustanding mastery of high efficiency in graphic quality (AC2, and all the MEO/LOTRO previews) can produce such a "filthy hog" and advertises it as an asset to an expansion pack.
- the only positive feedback I have is the nicer and more responsive UI.

[slayersmog]

I seem to be stuck in town. =( I laged out , now when I try to log in...I am in portal space, start to see things comming into view...and bang booted again.
Now I can't even log in to play, or to try to change settings.....what can I do, at this time i am open to any suggestions.



"Help"!!!!!!! :(

[Zeds]

with my computer , which runs WoW and EQ2 with zero problems at high res and max graphics , I should have zero problems with the lesser graphics displayed in this preview

the fact it I can dual log characters on WoW in the most populated part of the game with no slowdown.

yet in the preview there is horrible lag and skipping , and stuttering of movement , cursor degrading , poor font quality ...etc etc ad nauseum


the graphics arent ugly , they simply arent that much of a improvemnment, and shouldnt cause all these issues

I liked the trees but have trouble actually seeing any real upgrade in graphics over the DM engine's graphics

[BrightYellow]

Slayersmog, make a new char, and put all the settings as down as you can, lower the resolution. You will then be able to log in your other chars, so you can have your tokens.

[slayersmog]

Thanks, I'll try that.

Tokens? by that you mean the blue and yellow augmented Gems?
I thought that that was to be what one gets when preordering.

On a second note, I feel bad for Turbine....all the work and time invested, and it all seems to be falling apart..nobody seems to be pleased with results. I am hopping this prob is just because of all the traffic on this one server.

[wolftear]

I was hoping the preview would bring me back to AC, but it is still just all of
the same old problems.

After playing WOW and many other mmorpg's, the graphics upgrade is still
too far behind todays games to be at all interesting.
I run a dual core 3.4ghz with 2 gigs of RAM and can barely move in towns and
lag even when alone in a dungeon with a few penguins.

Another disapointment was the size of the new island. It would have been
nice to have a new territory to explore. I played for an hour and saw pretty
much all of it, popping into a few dungeons along the way. Not like the glory
days 5 years ago when it took me almost 4 months to even get up the nerve
to run into the direlands without a small army trailing behind.

I'll hold out hope for a future when AC doesn't have such a far reaching
reputation as a cheaters paradise, the performance issues are solved, and
perhaps even a new graphics engine to bring it up to par or at least close to todays standards.

[Mildly amused]

Possibly observer arrow, but I found graphics to be a bit less choppy after switching to newer nvidia drivers. Look is good but performance is still abysmal on Athlon 3200/gforce 5900.

[Schubaal]

I dunno what's causing all the problems, lol, I'm using average quality graphics settings on Intel Chipset integrated graphics, 64mb hardware 96mb shared, and I can run through Sanamar with only a Live Event range of lag... I've honestly lagged more on the King quest

[RareBreed]

The graphics are great.....but I kept crashing, either to desktop or I just had to reboot and that was after I set everything to low. Then directX started to crash, and I do have dx9. Hopfully most of this is do to the number of people on the server.
Also, I don't know if this matters any, but the housing is messed up....I'm thinking we shouldn't buy housing, or put anything in the chest we want to keep......right?

[ShaunaEyebright]

Intel Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
1 GB RAM
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro 128 MB Video Card


Had to drop the quality down to medium when in Sanamar or my frame rate droped to about 30 frames/minute, but everywhere else things worked perfectly even on highest graphics quality in 1152*864 (I can go higher but my monitor isn't really happy with me when I do that). My normal hunting grounds are smoother than DM and that sky absolutely ROCKS.

It seems like I run faster, but I think that's just an optical illusion without all the jerks and jumps of the DM client's graphics.

Just need to work on that overload around Sanamar...I think the only reason some people are even able to move is because every other toon is wearing Olthoi armor (only one texture to load for 1/2 of 1000 avatars).

[Skeksis]

I have a comment, not about graphics, but about the UI.

When I ID a creature/person/object and that object gets out of range, the right panel disappears. AC-DM goes back to your inventory. Is this going to stay like that or is it a fix that didn't make the preview patch? It's very annoying to have to open your inventory every time that happens.

[MaddyFF]

OMG If you are going to put a quest in the middle of town it is kind of rediculous when you cannot even make it into town. Hopefully this will be fixed before the Preview is over because I do want to play. :mad:

And people wanted the players to start populating the towns again...

[Angier]

Those with the high-end machines panicking about the framerates in town, rest assured that it's not so much a graphics settings thing as it is the sheer number of objects your card needs to know about (onscreen and offscreen).

I have a Celeron 800 with an ATI Radeon 9600/128mb card, fairly low-end, and I could crank the graphics decently high in empty towns.

I also think the "Medium" textures are actually quite a bit uglier than the "Low" textures, so it'll be my standard setting. With medium textures and other settings toned down the display looked quite reasonable.

I honestly don't see where the textures are so much better than the old client even with the settings cranked. I know you're proud, Turbine, but I think the TERRITORY CONTROL would have been a far better investment of your time.



-Arc

[McVigor]

Well.. Seems everyone here with problems has ATI cards.

I played WOW and COH w/ highest graphics settings too with no problems.

Kinda baffling that AC would perform so terribly by comparison.

[gjpc]

Sounds like I am the only dual head person here so far.

P4 2.8 Ghz HT
1 GB ram
GeForce 6800GT with two 21 inch monitors

When I choose any full screen resolution that spans the two screens the status bar on top including health, stam, mana, etc does not scale.

At higher resolutions I only see a distorted health meter across the top of the screen. The button targets seem to be there though.

Scales correctly in windows mode.

otherwise rendering has been pretty flawless.

[gjpc]

P4 2.8 Ghz HT
1 GB ram
GeForce 6800GT with two 21 inch monitors


I tried setting 2500x1024 and left the world to see if the status bar would come back.

Instead, the status bar is totaly gone on reentry and the UI can only be called back by guessing where the UI targets are. The world was then retired for maintenance.

Do any developes have 2 screen systems? I am a coder and I could not possibley get along without at least 2 screens, sometimes I hook up four!

[Adversary]

Having the same problems mentioned here, running an ATI 9800 pro Radeon All-in-wonder, morrowind, doom 3, etc run flawlessly, overall im disappointed that this is what we have to show for missing out on monthly patches for 4-5 months, patches that could be fixing some more major problems...

[Bardo]

Some of the graphics look much better but not all and it's kind of heavy on the system.

I've got a:
3.4 Pentium
128 Radeon 9700 (yeah, mobile)
1 gig ram
broadband
Always plugged in (big factor on AC2, when I pull the plug by accident AC2 almost dies)

... I got the blue screen of death today?

It runs well most of the time but at some points like one of the corners of Sanamar I could not look towards the center of town unless I tapped the turn button and waited, otherwise it was just chop that part right out of the turn. I would be looking at the vendor, turn and be looking at the wall next to me with about a second of no movement in between.

The other time so far that I've noticed was running through one of the new dungeons to get a Dericost Tome. There was nobody inside, just a sparse group of enemies throughout and as I would run (particularly turning) I would get stuck for a second and get back to the game. I've backtracked up 2 flights before I realised how far off I was one time because of how disorienting it was.

Try to take it as a bug report more than knocking the game. The game is ancient in terms of game time and how many games can say that they've been played by thousands of people for 6 years strait? You are doing great with the work but you still have more to do.


I've got one small graphical request though. When moving things around in the spellbar, could you give us back the little arrow that used to show up next to the picture to show us where it was actually pointed?

[skyman]

I was hoping for more like wow or ac2...with ac1 gameplay/interface

I won't ever go back to a graphically 10 year old game, sorry.

I loved ac1

[Eponite]

The graphics are a slight improvement from DM but not enough to make a new player stay around long enough for content. I can have detail on the highest setting without lag in town. Only when I start increasing the draw distance from near to very far does my video card start lagging.

[Solarias-D]

well, if all of you started playin in the beginning, you should know by now that it IS the beginning of ToD, the updates will make it better..

i say VERY good job considering it was downloadable content, and considering also that the download size was quite small

keep up the good work turbine!

[IWILLSMITEU]

why does everyone want graphics upgrades anyway acdm graphics are oh oh u gotta buy a new comptuer for more content that is retarded lol old ac was fine u could even play without 3d card which was cool this ac is ok except in sanmar i have emachines computer with geforce 4 mx don't upgrade graphics more so i need 3000$ computer lol that is lame i don't know why all the kiddies need better graphics acdm is fine.

[Bardo]

I guess it's not so much that I needed a graphics upgrade, it was just that when they announced it, I was hoping for something amazing. Maybe playing Legions spoiled me on the graphics =).

I have to admit that the characters aren't NEARLY as clunky as they used to be.

[Protostar]

I have an AMD athlon 64 3400+
eVGA GeForce FX 5700 LE (256 mb)
1 gig ram PC 2700
80 gig HD 1/2 full
XP pro

I CANNOT enter a town with 5 or more poeple in it without locking up or going to about 1 frame every 5-10 seconds. I have my graphics on the absolute lowest setting. I updated my video drivers after I logged in for the first time and could not move at all in the training hall all by myself. It fixed the problem I had everywhere else in the game.

When I am away from town hunting I am just fine. I can enter dungeons with many creatures and not have a problem, but as soon as I enter a town I'm locked-up. I have to move my camera above my head so that my display doesn't render anything but the ground and my char.

My comp runs WoW/Doom and many other high-end graphical games flawlessly. I really want to continue playing this game and I have been playing it since the original Open Beta in Oct '99.

[Cuttler]

The graphics are nice, updated but not overpowering for older machines. I havn't had a chance to play much yet but so far here's what I like and don't like (since you don't have threads for the game mechanic changes)

Like:
-I don't have to leave the game world to change the keyboard settings.
-Extended unstretched UI to utilize that blank space under the compass when the UI is not stretched. I like having the compass out of the main window with the ability to see a bit more of my main pack items.

Don't Like:
-The hover tags occurring near the mouse now, I'd prefer to have an option to put them back in the upper left corner. It also appears that it is more difficult to get the tags to appear when hovering over compass items but it could just be my perception. Thank God you didn't put labels over our heads though, I think that makes games look cheesy.
-I don't like the bigger red information readouts either. After 6 years I don't need to boldly see "Using corpse of Drudge Slinker" in red capturing my attention. The hardly noticeable white in the upper left corner didn't drag my eye up to it. Again, options to revert all these minor GUI changes back to old AC would be nice.

Thank you for your time.

[Bardo]

I know this will sound dorky but right now my favorite addition is the fact that when you scroll up, if you recieve new text (combat, chat, etc.), it doesn't scroll all the way to the bottom. Instead a blinking arrow pops up on the bottom of the chat window to let you know that you have new things in the chat window and it keeps the window stationary.

SOOOOO COOL, Thanks =)

[ZiggZagg]

So far I think the graphics look good, and I'm looking forward to even more with the coming patches.

I find the text very small and hard to read.

So far I haven't found any real graphics problems.

[Kev]

Seems interesting... but its hard to play...

I play for on average 10 minutes before the game decides to cause a major system error which restarts my computer...

ATI Radeon 9600 xt ~~~ 5.6 drivers (newest official)

2.4Ghz p4
1gig ram

plenty to handle the graphics... but why does it restart? never had an issue with anything else :-P

[Unicron]

The graphics are nice, updated but not overpowering for older machines

EXCUSE ME?

The graphics are okay but people playing on modern day super computers are having an extremely difficult time running this game while their computers handle games that look 100 times better and perform a 100 times better...

There is something seriously wrong with the way they setup their graphics engine...its extremely slow on computers that should have no problems running this game

[skyman]

I am sure that its more of a driver issue than an engine issue... My 3ghz 1g ram 246m fx6800gt had no problems playing it with all settings maxed at 1280x1024 ...it seemed to run even better than at lower res

its just the LOW LOW low poly count and FOV that got me at hello

[hippiechick64]

OK I havent had a chance to really play it, was in for about 4 hours yesterday when our air conditioner broke and I had to escape to cooler climates (outside under a shade tree LOL) so Im not going to bother commenting on content at this time. But I really would like to share my opinion of the preview from what I have gathered so far.

As most of you know, I am taking a break this summer. Ive had a really sinking feeling all along about the xpac and Ive also been pretty darn bored lately so I thought with no patches, low population etc. this was a great time to take a break. Even though I had that sinking feeling, Ive still been secretly excited about the xpac and was one of the first in it yesterday cuz I was hanging on the edge of my seat lol.

I had absolutely no trouble dowloading, installing, making a new account, getting in to the game, etc. It was smooth as silk on 2 computers. And once in, I had no lag issues whatsoever but as I said, I was in early so I may have missed out on it. Ill find out today when I go back in.

Ok so I go in and start making a new Viam character and the very first thing I noticed was that the paper doll looked like something out of a console game I played in the early 90s. Ive always felt that AC had a bad "look" to the characters, just basically "old" and lacking options. But I had hope for the xpac.

I did the new starter quests and they were as fun as any new starter quest would be in any new town. Nothing to get all worked up over but not bad. While running around I went poking around the character options etc.

I was REALLY hoping for more chat options, not necessarily AC2 quality (AC2 has AWEsome chat options) but SOMEthing. At least a general or area chat. But other than the chat box staying put so I can copy paste theres nothing new. They weren't promised or even mentioned, so I can't get real upset about that.

The graphics are AWEsome in comparison to ACDM but still far below par for the industry. Im not a big graphics person, Id trade graphics for content any day of the week, and they DID say that they had better graphics that will be patched in later. So again, no big deal to me.

Theres a lot more, things I like, things I dislike, but as I explored the island and looked at some new loot items etc. I got to thinking. All of this could have been patched in over the last several months that we have all patiently suffered with no patches. If we had had patches all along, we could have got where we are now. This isnt an xpac. This is the patches we missed out on all bundled up into one big patch and with a $30 price tag on it.

I expected there to be a leap from DM to TOD and instead I got patched.

So, Im going to hop in there and poke around on some higher level characters and see if I can find SOMEthing, ANY thing that can get me excited aout AC again. I love this game. I always have. AC has been thru 3 states, 6 cities, 2 kids, one husband and several life changing events with me. I have met some of THE best people this world has to offer in that world of Dereth. So Im really going to try to make it fun and exciting again for me and my allegiance. But that sinking feelilng? Its in the pit of my stomach now.

MJ

[BrightYellow]

I am sure that its more of a driver issue than an engine issue... My 3ghz 1g ram 246m fx6800gt had no problems playing it with all settings maxed at 1280x1024 ...it seemed to run even better than at lower res


:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Who can afford such a machine? Name ONE other player who has a 1GB RAM computer (not even mentionning the 6800 hardware). Not everyone will spend thousands on just a game computer.

Also, did you see how good all the games around look on much more standard machines??? How come Guild War, SWG, FFXI, WoW, all shine on standard computers that choke on this sub-par graphic "upgrade"?

A *DRIVER* issue?? This is completely ridiculous. The "engine" is a slow tired hog, either riddled with leak bugs, or stuffed with stupendous amounts of ineffective useless massive texture that look weird on squarish models.

Worse, the "auto-degrade" feature is not working right, allowing severe crashes that I've never found in anything else than alpha games.

In any case, I couldn't care less about graphics, otherwise I wouldnt be playing AC in the first place. All I want is being able to carry on playing AC, the good old AC I love, and from this preview, it looks like I am going to have to stop.

Have you tried to select something with the new client in the panic of a tough fight? I was soloing the Tursh Totem this afternoon on the standard AC, and tried to imagine myself in the furious heat of the fight, with the new client, even dumbed down to pacman quality... I wouldn't stand a chance!! :mad: When you are machine-gunned vulned with 4-5 spells per second, you can't afford the hickups the new client allows itself to take every other second. Part of the fun of AC is its fast furious action fights, so you dont want to freeze even 0.5 second while sliding, just because some fancy wall you cant see came within range to qualify for prefetch (or whatever fancy feature that chokes the thing).

AND THAT'S NOT EVEN COUNTING THE DIFFICULTY TO SELECT TARGETS! :mad:

I would love to be able to fall back to the old AC1, ulgy as it is, but I understand that we will all be forced to move onto this new client. This open preview is extremely worrying.

[hippiechick64]

:This open preview is extremely worrying.

Welcome to my sinking feeling

mj

[Fyire]

well after about 40 min of playing, 5 crashes, portal storms from you know where. and the inablitly to go anywhere or do anything I pretty much have come to the conclusion that, something is broken. the glitchy graphics after 15-20 min of play is beyond wierd. my cursor has ghosts around the screen my pointer turns into a block and then everything goes wacko from there. pixils where i should have graphics to the point i cant see to do anything processor ussage goes through the roof and the pagememory begins to have a corrinary.

I dont have an old system, it excedes the recommended requirements whats the deal?

AMD 2500+ Barton
768meg ddr 2700
180G hard drive
Windows XP Pro
Radeon 9800 Pro 128
**************
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 6/23/2005, 14:36:49
Machine name: VANESSA
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7021
BIOS: Version 07.00T
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 768MB RAM
Page File: 362MB used, 1512MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: The file ctaud2k.sys is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer.
Music Tab: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.
Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D: 0/4 (n/a)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
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Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
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Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6517 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 2/22/2005 18:36:24, 224256 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
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{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
D3D7 Test Result: Not run
D3D8 Test Result: Not run
D3D9 Test Result: Not run

***********************************
hope thats enough info for you as to what im running and the issues im observing.
***********************************

this game shouldnt be giving me any issues at all, as far as the graphics are concerned. Love the way it looks... hate the way it works

personaly I say delay it till its fixed, Id rather have it right than have it broke when I get it and not be able to play it.

[Kai Linn]

System Specs:

AMD XP 2600+
Ge Force 6600GT 128M AGP Vid
Nvidia 71.89 ForceWare Driver
512M DDR DRam


Pros: new graphics look nice with Alpha rending turned to multi pass.

Cons:
1) DO NOT like the UI modifications to the PACK portions of the paper doll area.
2) DO NOT like that I can't change the font and font size for the text window.
3) DO NOT like that the graphics detail has to be scaled down considerably every time I near a crowded town.

Unfortunately those first two factors in the cons make the AC/DM client more fun to play for me at this time. Hopefully Turbine will get those fixed BEFORE release.


I'm not spending $30 so I can play a game at 800X600 instead of 1280X1024. I'll unsub and let Turbine fix it first, if it comes to that.

[seeker]

If I use high textures, when I get near Sanamar, my FPS drops from 40 to .05
I can run up behind the town off to the side, but as soon as I turn to look, I turn to stone.
There is also a noticable drop in framerate looking at many other higher res textures in other areas, but Sanamar is an incredible lag-pit.

I have a nVidia geforce ti4400 128MB card, 2.2G P4, 1 GB RAM
I prefer to run in 1600x1200 although I'm running version 66.93 video drivers

chat font is barely readable, this is a serious problem.

As mentioned previously selecting targets in the radar screen is very difficult, another serious problem.

The brightness control seems more like a gamma control than brightness, I'm unable to find a satisfactory setting.

I would rather wait for these issues to be fixed than release it the way it is.

Other than that, I love the new textures :)

[Zylick]

well after about 40 min of playing, 5 crashes, portal storms from you know where. and the inablitly to go anywhere or do anything I pretty much have come to the conclusion that, something is broken. the glitchy graphics after 15-20 min of play is beyond wierd. my cursor has ghosts around the screen my pointer turns into a block and then everything goes wacko from there. pixils where i should have graphics to the point i cant see to do anything processor ussage goes through the roof and the pagememory begins to have a corrinary.

I dont have an old system, it excedes the recommended requirements whats the deal?

AMD 2500+ Barton
768meg ddr 2700
180G hard drive
Windows XP Pro
Radeon 9800 Pro 128
**************
------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 6/23/2005, 14:36:49
Machine name: VANESSA
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: MSI
System Model: MS-7021
BIOS: Version 07.00T
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2500+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.8GHz
Memory: 768MB RAM
Page File: 362MB used, 1512MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: The file ctaud2k.sys is not digitally signed, which means that it has not been tested by Microsoft's Windows Hardware Quality Labs (WHQL). You may be able to get a WHQL logo'd driver from the hardware manufacturer.
Music Tab: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.
Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D: 0/4 (n/a)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

---------------
Display Devices
---------------
Card name: RADEON 9800 PRO
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON 9800 PRO AGP (0x4E48)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_4E48&SUBSYS_00021002&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (16 bit) (70Hz)
Monitor: Proview 17-inch 785/786/786N
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6517 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 2/22/2005 18:36:24, 224256 bytes
WHQL Logo'd: Yes
WHQL Date Stamp: n/a
VDD: n/a
Mini VDD: ati2mtag.sys
Mini VDD Date: 2/22/2005 18:36:04, 986624 bytes
Device Identifier: {D7B71EE2-0D08-11CF-C76A-0820A1C2CB35}
Vendor ID: 0x1002
Device ID: 0x4E48
SubSys ID: 0x00021002
Revision ID: 0x0000
Revision ID: 0x0000
Video Accel: ModeMPEG2_C ModeMPEG2_D
Deinterlace Caps: {6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(YUY2,YUY2) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
{552C0DAD-CCBC-420B-83C8-74943CF9F1A6}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,2) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{6E8329FF-B642-418B-BCF0-BCB6591E255F}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,1) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_PixelAdaptive
{335AA36E-7884-43A4-9C91-7F87FAF3E37E}: Format(In/Out)=(NV12,0x3231564e) Frames(Prev/Fwd/Back)=(0,0,0) Caps=VideoProcess_YUV2RGB VideoProcess_StretchX VideoProcess_StretchY DeinterlaceTech_BOBVerticalStretch
Registry: OK
DDraw Status: Enabled
D3D Status: Enabled
AGP Status: Enabled
DDraw Test Result: Not run
D3D7 Test Result: Not run
D3D8 Test Result: Not run
D3D9 Test Result: Not run

***********************************
hope thats enough info for you as to what im running and the issues im observing.
***********************************

this game shouldnt be giving me any issues at all, as far as the graphics are concerned. Love the way it looks... hate the way it works

personaly I say delay it till its fixed, Id rather have it right than have it broke when I get it and not be able to play it.


I have the same system and it give me the same problem thats wierd.

[gjpc]

P4 2.8 Ghz HT
1 GB ram
GeForce 6800GT with two 21 inch monitors


More Dual Head Issues:

1. the red "centered messages, really need to go back to the left side and green is so much better.
2. The keyboard controls panel must be movable! it sits right on the crack, and is very hard to work.
3. now ALL of my modes except 800x600 are dual screen. Would be nice to have a choice in there between dual and single head on the overlapping useful resolutions.

I am still deciding if I like the "fishbowl" effect. I would like to have a reasonable display at resolutions that will not enhace the fish bowl.

[Zero_Washu]

Use this thread to let us know what you think of the updated graphics of Throne of Destiny!

Lousy and embarrassing performance.

For the dated engine this game has performance that makes even stellar machines look like Pentium IIs.

The performance issues alone prevent me from buying the expansion. Flat out there is NO EXCUSE in this day and age for performance issues like this game has.

[Ragsinn]

I love the new look and its only going to get better graphicly.

I was avg 30fps @ 1260x1024 in Sanamar fps dropped to 15 from time
to time with 45 fps high

The monsters are looking very very nice.

I dont like the UI ( same reasons most are saying , fonts to small , brightness
control is more of a gama control and hard to get set right) The Radar looks
great but agin hard to use to select targets.

There seems to be a huge memory leak with acclient.exe that causes my computer to warm boot if I portal from city to city( times vary ). I hope thats not the client that ships on the 18th.

Over all the preview looks great , and the small issues I pointed out are not enough to keep me from playing AC TOD .

A lot of folks have pointed out that the graphics are dated and are never going to be of the quality that newer games can produce. I agree but then I love the old cars with a fresh coat of paint and all shined up , there is somthing to be said about tried and true

I play games ! Here are my system specs.

P4 2.4 clocked to 3.0 ( Themaltake Volcano cooling )
1 gig pc 3200 samsung memory ( 512x2 low latency)
x800 pro 256 meg ( latest Ati Drivers )
Asus p4s533( soon to be upgraded )

I have about 600-700$ in the whole system, folks talking about 3000$
computers to play AC ..dont shop much IMHO .


Thanks for reading.
Happy Hunting!

[StormyEyebright]

I'm not spending $30 so I can play a game at 800X600 instead of 1280X1024. I'll unsub and let Turbine fix it first, if it comes to that.

Dang it I already spent over $200 on the expansion. I don't mind the people in town, I just wish that the server could handle it if people want to resettle there. I'm hoping that when the expansion goes live the fact that there will be more than one world will keep the people down to a lower number and not lock up computers because of population. geez I hope I didn't waste $200 on a game that works worse than the current game.

[evanescent01]

I've mixed feeling on the graphics: in some ways the detail is interesting but it seems very linear. My major complaint would be the new character creation system -- why go backwards?

I dislike everything about it from the ridiculous wheel for color that doesn't work or interact with most of the elements to jumping immediately into game after you make the character. The system implemented with AC is the best I've seen -- why would you abandon that??

Otherwise, I'm glad the graphics didn't shift beyond the rendering to the horrible movement patterns of AC2. I also am not a fan of the default camera shift in combat (finally figured out how to adjust after an untimely death) nor do I care for everything giving popups -- please implement an option to diasble that feature. I hate balloon help on my PC and it's absurd in a game.

I'll add some feedback into the other related threads, but I do hope that you keep (or at least adjust the current) the Temple of Enlighten/Forget on that fast timer. I think that alone would sell MANY boxes of TOD -- if the accelerated character changes were permitted (even if only until Sept. 2005) after installing the TOD expansion.

All total, good job adding some potentially nice graphics infrastructure. In the process of evolving -- don't forget the things you did very well (e.g. Character Creation graphics & system).

[Nhari]

I'm not 100% sure it's a Throne of Destiny issue or not, but my system ran out of virtual memory about an hour after playing. That's nothing to sneeze at, considering I have 1 gig of pc3200 RAM. My video card, while a GeForce 6800, only has 128 megs of video RAM, but that's still not shabby. Furthermore, I did a clean install of Windows just the other day, so I know there's no old trouble lurking around in the harddrive. I also used memtest for 24 hours after the clean install and there were no issues with my RAM.

This isn't an issue I've run into before with any program, which is what leads me to believe there might be a memory leak or something with Throne of Destiny. One minute I'm running around just fine, the next minute I'm getting a lot of slowdown and HD noise. I alt-tab out, only to see that yellow triangle with the exclamation mark in it and the virtual memory warning. If it would help, I'd be glad to post my dxdiag, but I'll spare you the spam until requested.

Base stats:

Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1022MB RAM (SD Corsair)
Page File: 202MB used, 2258MB available
Virtual Memory: 1536-3072 MB
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 6800
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7189 (English)

[sol-star]

A lot of folks have pointed out that the graphics are dated and are never going to be of the quality that newer games can produce. I agree but then I love the old cars with a fresh coat of paint and all shined up , there is somthing to be said about tried and true




An old car doesn't lose performance or eat more gas when you slap new paint on it.

[Silifi Of Death]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Who can afford such a machine? Name ONE other player who has a 1GB RAM computer (not even mentionning the 6800 hardware). Not everyone will spend thousands on just a game computer.



What? Everyone and their grandma has 1GB RAM. It costs like 80 dollars for a 512 MB stick. I could easily get 1GB for 150$.

Every modern day game needs at least 1GB RAM these days.

[Kilandros]

These graphics are insultingly bad. They appear as though you'd given the task to a mentally retarded 5 year-old.

Simply put, it seems like all you did was polish up the landscape to the point that it just looks fake. The characters have lost a great deal of texture and appear blurred--but hey, that grass sure does look great!

Please give us the option to stick with the old graphics.

[sol-star]

I was having seriuos problems too. Nvidia just released new drivers yesterday. Install these and give it a try. My freeze ups, lag, choppy graphics, most everything that was bothering me went away. No kidding!:)

[Nhari]

I was having seriuos problems too. Nvidia just released new drivers yesterday. Install these and give it a try. My freeze ups, lag, choppy graphics, most everything that was bothering me went away. No kidding!:)

I'll give that a try, Sol-star, thanks. I was just skipping the new drivers until they were WHQL certified, but I'll give them a shot. I have to believe the virtual memory thing is a memory leak, though. My performance was initially just fine on high graphics settings (low draw distance, though), and there's no way 1000 megs of RAM and 3000 megs of Virtual RAM should cap out within an hour; for the record that was two clicks outside of Shoushi, too. There were only two or three white dots anywhere in the vicinity.

[Skeksis]

I was just skipping the new drivers until they were WHQL certified, but I'll give them a shot.

The new drivers are WHQL. I just DLed them today.

[Zero Night]

Dude, all you guys bragging about your fancy, frickin' 1000-dollar computers and how "omg I get like a tiny bit of frame lag every few HOURS IM SO MAD"

EVEN IN DM I HAVE choppiness and frame lag most of the time BUT I'M USED TO IT. I could even get used to ToD's frame lag and choppiness....

IF IT DIDNT HAVE A FRICKIN' WHITE SQUARE EVERYWHERE. THANKS my piece-of-crap computer, I cant even lower the graphics, because its all white. I click the button, ITS ALL WHITE, cant see a frickin' thing.

Do you devs just have to make the graphics better? AT LEAST should have an option to KEEP DM's old graphics, because my worthless, inferior computer cant run it.

When the expansion's launch actually comes out, the price isn't the problem. I can't blow 1000 bucks on a new computer(ONE THAT DOESNT have a built-in graphics card. Who the hell makes one like that anyway?), but I can spend 30 bucks on this game, no problem. But if I do, I can't play it. If I don't buy it, I can't get all the uber new stuff.

Yep, this is pretty lame.

[Sierge]

Ibn there appears to be a major problem with Nvidia cards.

My machine:

P4 2.8 gig
1 gig ram
Nvidia Asylum FX 5200 256 Mb AGP
Win Xp Pro SP2
Direct X 9.0c
3 Mb DSL

All the latest drivers and updates.

What I am seeing is major computer crashing ie: system reboot when I portal and in the new island when using vendors. The MS bug report states that there is an Nvidia driver problem that cannot be resolved. I do have Nvidia's latest driver installed. If people can't use Nvidia cards without crashing out then you will lose a lot of player base. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. I tried a bug report on Gamespot but their site is screwed up.

As far as the graphics go I think the are truly poor for this day in age. They could and should be a lot better. The game still has major lag problems that it has had since the beginning. The new land mass is really small for a major expansion. The vitae system is poor because the points to remove 1 point is way too high, leave it where it was. There is only one thing going for this expansion pack at this time and that is the ability to get skill credits above lvl 126. Is this enough to make people buy it? I'm still up in the air.

Sierge

[olgraybeard]

AMD XP 2100
512 MB PC 2100
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB
SOYO KT 400 Platnum Dragon (board sucks)

Many graphics problems
Seen posted throught the thread, corrupted image (garbled portions of siplay area such as the chat message area or the pack area. Also see things like vendors with no heads that eventually appear.

Of note for the developers, this seems to be a buildup issue. It appears that the more activity in the area, the sooner the graphic problems appear. However, in areas with low activities, the problem eventually manifests. It would appear some register or stack or something is filling up related to graphic imaging and not clearing.

Once the corruption begins, it is a short time till a crash to the desk top.

Also, had my ATI card report on one crash that the VPU had been reset due to not responding. Allowed the error report to go to ATI

For folks that are crying. This is a pre-release, looking for problems and bugs under stressed conditions. They need explicit reporting of issues to try to ID location within the code to try and fix it.

Reports such as the font is to small in chat, the red fonted messages are a distraction when in middle of screen and things like that are also good because they are learnig the users preference. They asked for feedback, not slams. Helping themm helps the end user (us)

[belgareth]

Please change the font and the font size.
It is barely readable on my system and it makes my eyes hurt.

I´m using a Nvidea Ti4200 at 1280x1024 with directx 9.0c
I tried other resolutions but that did not help much.

[sheridan]

I'm having serious trouble reading the text on TOD. A simpler text in the message block would be a great help. As for the graphics in general, I can't seem to find a combination of settings that work as well as the current graphics engine on AC. I you know of one please make it the default settings.

[Dagger_Demon]

This garbage needs to be fixed now...

It seems everyone or almost everyone with ATI cards are getting corrupted images and and like a lagging mouse, screwed up UI etc.

I can't believe my high end PC is have trouble handling this POS game...

It handles WoW graphics completely maxed (WoW's graphics BLOWS AC OUT OF THE WATER IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW TURBINE), everything turned up, antriscopic filtering up, anti analiasing up, everything maxed to the limit. And yet AC I crash every 5 minutes because of TURBINES PROBLEM...

I love how turbine screws everything up, ever since you put housing in it's been going downhill, now you can't even get the expansion pack right which is already over a month late. What you going to extend the release more or something, because this is not suitable for sure.





Yet all these posts, but not one reply from IBN, seems like this always happens, are we going to have to make a 1000 post thread to get this fixed like we had to do on DT with the lag issue?

[Bardo]

Another request... you think you could make the green triangles different colors. The dead triangle and raise triangle look so alike that I find myself trying to raise a skill only to find that I don't have enough XP to do it

[Amaroth]

Careful my eVGA fried while playing....

[Bhodi Amashi]

Thank God I don't use ATI cards.

[Sanux]

personally, i think the font and text issue can and will be resolved (most likely?) pretty easily. Along with a few other things. But the graphics issue is a serious pain in the #$% for many (including myself). I'm not here to trash on everything you guys have done. What do you people expect anyway? The engine is an old engine... i'm sure there is only SO MUCH you can do to revamp it. I like the improvement. Everything seems fine to me except for the graphics issue. I'm sure you (the dev team) are gonna have your hands full getting this cleared up. Thank you for the nice expansion. ^_^ I'm having a lot of fun! And good luck regarding the graphics issues.

And for everyone else. I'm sure they have enough complaints (i;ve seen tons as it is) to know what is going on.. be patient, heh :-P

[Yoshitsune]

My first thought was "Hey this is beta" but then "no its not". The client we have is the one on the CD and the one I'll pick up from the store.

First suggestion to anyone upping the res and setting Alpha Mulitpass - get out of town! No, really leave Sanamar. I made the mistake of upping everything by the Blacksmith on day 1. locked up mid stride eventually killed the connection - no, the game did. Day 2 rolled up a new character - set the graphics at 1280-1024 Medium Bilinear and no multipass - basically what I have on ACDM. No problems - well except in town. But I think that's due to populaton especially at the Turbine Vendor.

Speaking of which has it always been that double clicking on a spell set the scroll back to the first position? Terrible for a user that is trying to pick up the Life spells at the end of the list having to scroll almost all the way back after each purchase. My work around has been to select the spell and click the Add to List button then switching to the Buying tab and purchasing that way. Only I try to keep my list short as the Immeniant Portal Storm has on occasion booted me to the wilderness right before a purchase. No haven't tried the Buy Item button but I'll do that today.

Congratulations on making the characters seem less marionette. I love the way even old places look new - I've always love Timaru so I made that little jaunt lastnight.

I think there's a performance issue probably leak related - time to check if my home PC has PerfMon. Any suggestions on counters? Never performance tested a game before. Seems people think pageing file. Assuming you used dotNet probably .NET CLR Memory - Allocated bytes/sec.

[Nightstarr SC]

Ok well today I got to really play with stuff. screen shots just don't do any good. The update to me is just that good

The toons are smooth compared to angles. On one of the axes I pick up today when I view it close up you could see a carck an pits in it instead of a smooth sufarce with a line on it. Sand looks like sand with different different colors and looks wind blown. Instead of just tan sqaure. Trees and rocks are like OMG real.

there are so many different things you can use to make stuff more detail its not funny. I don't think people are using them all and thats why they are complaining.

The font size seems small but looks the same as the default on ACDM


I played with graphics for 30mins and just going wow. and ML is freaking cool when you run by the waterfalls

[baybear57]

My main concern with the graphic update is characters' faces. The difference in eyes, nose, mouth, skin and hairline on my characters between Leafcull and Destiny is enormous.

I took a lot of time creating the facial characteristics and expression I wanted on my characters. Now that's changed -- my main is cross-eyed and has an Eddie Munster hairline, and my secondary looks like a complete b-word.

I haven't reported this on the bug list, because I don't think it technically qualifies as a bug. The faces don't change with the graphics settings, and I haven't found any other workaround.

I'd hate to have to re-roll a lvl 135 character just because I don't like the way she looks. I want my Leafcull face back!!!!!

[Red Cobra]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Who can afford such a machine? Name ONE other player who has a 1GB RAM computer (not even mentionning the 6800 hardware). Not everyone will spend thousands on just a game computer.

...




*Raise Hand*

ASUS A8V
AMD Athlon64 3800 (water cooled)
2GB DDR400 RAM
nVidia 6800 AGP (away from home and cant remember exact manufacturer and RAM base)
Serial ATA disks
Gigabit Networking to a Cable modem choke point (grrrr)
Windows2000 Professional
Swap File (Virtual Memory) offloaded to second SATA disk (120GB)

Most of my complaint are cosmetic and can likely be corrected by installing the latest nVidia drivers.

Bigest graphic headache:

- Raster flicker on character selection screen. Currently initiated by mouse movement and permanent thereafter. Flicker vanishes upon game entry.

Biggest operational headache:

- Portal Storms from Hell..... It seems "just like old times" :rolleyes:

When more simulations are available that will make efficient use of multiple monitors, will build me a 270degree display cage.

:p

[Frank The Knife]

I think Turbine did a good job with the graphics update. I was impressed.

[Lucky_WE]

Its wierd to see all these high end computers having such a hard time.

I am using an HP built computer with a sub par graphics card. I only have troubles at the new town SAMANAR?(spell check).

I think the new graphics are great as well.

I dont like the new red lettering that is put on my screen. I hope we have the option to take it off.

I wouldnt worry so much about the earlier posters. The users not having problems are ingame and playing instead of posting here.

[Hellbound]

I had no problems what so ever with my machine.

AMD athlon XP 2800
1 gig ram
Geoforce 5600 FX 250 meg graphics card.

I set all to max resolution, max all the other options.
I had some lag in town (was 30+ players there) , but not too bad.

Hellbound

[Ragsinn]

An old car doesn't lose performance or eat more gas when you slap new paint on it.


It does if you dont also fix whats under the hood ..IE latest drivers , latest dx,
defragmented drives ..yada yada yada.

My main point being. Ive played alot of other MMORPG's and Yet here I am .
If your not happy. Why pay? Move along ..enough folks stop paying Turbine
will either pull the plug , or fix the things that the majority of folks have a beef with. While Im sorry that the majority of folks posting here seem to be unhappy
for what ever reason , they still seem to me like the person who stands in the room with some one who broke wind , only to be able to complain about it.

peace!

[JuaqimIR]

I upped the graphics settings to max and had no trouble while running around SHoushi and inside the Grotto but as soon as I jumped throught the Hebian-To portal I started getting lag then lockup then "This application has caused an exception ..." message. My computer was totally locked up for several minutes and I eventually forced a reboot to recover.

System: Dell Dimension desktop 2.8ghz CPU, 1GB ram, NVidia graphics card.

[imagine_like_ac]

I'm with Bardo on this:

Another request... you think you could make the green triangles different colors. The dead triangle and raise triangle look so alike that I find myself trying to raise a skill only to find that I don't have enough XP to do it

[Jin Saotome]

Right now, each time I try to logg into destiny my Router crashes along with my DSL modem. The 'ethernet' light blinks rapidly along with all my Lan lights, and I'm forced to reset the whole network. It also takes my computer a good 5 minutes to bring up it's internet connection, but the rest of my computers on the network work fine.

Is this due to the memory leak?

[Atoner]

I like the new GUI and graphics update a lot. I think if you've not played AC1 in awhile you might not see the differences as clearly, but they are definitely there. The new popups and scrollable chat window are good first steps towards a modern GUI, and I like the direction they suggest the team is taking things.

Usability:

Please let us make the chat fonts bigger, and adjust the font size for all menuing throughout the system. It's too hard to see.

Feature Requests:

Make the right-side bar, top bar, and bottom chat windows optionally transparent and let us move them around. Do the same for the loot/vendor/ust window, don't make it stuck to the bottom of the screen.

Put some "inspection" information in the 3D tooltips; it doesn't have to be huge, but seeing a monster's level or some stats on an item from a tooltip would be great.

A "loot all" button and an "ust all" button on the loot window would be nice.

-Atoner-

[olgraybeard]

II reduced crashes from graphics problems

I went into the ATI Catalyst Ceneter and selected Avanced check box for 3D. Went to all of the options in the folder on left and set the option to allow program to select/control settings.

Played for over 2 hours before I crashed (I said improved, not fixed was going about 10 minutes at most in town). This time, did not start getting artifacts before video cause me to crash to desk top. I could wander around the new city and had lag about like an event in ACDM.

[McVigor]

Following the advice of Very_Bored, I got TOD running much much better with my ATI card.

For everyone still having issues with the latest Catalyst 5.6 Drivers:

Throne of Destiny is not optimized for the latest ATI Drivers.

To fix it, uninstall Catalyst 5.6 - and use the drivers on the CD that came with your Card.

It improved things greatly for me. Even in Sanamar. (where I'm seeing more the 'usual' chop that came w/ crowded towns.) But it isn't reducing my system to a steaming mass of goo like it used to.

Take a breathe of fresh-air and break out those dusties.

I'm even in windowed mode as I speak! (type)

[Versace]

I appreciate the effort that went into the graphics update. The trees are lovely, they really are. For all I know the olthoi are scarier than a religious fanatic in your bathroom. I wouldn't know though.

You see, I've been too depressed to do much more than pop into Holtburg every once in a while to buy some items to see what they look like or what previously useless salvage is now useful. Even then, I tend to zap in and out, modeling the clothing in the privacy of my basement.

Why? Why oh why oh why? My previously adorable toon now looks like her face has been smashed by one of Bugs Bunny's anvils that fell from the sky and missed Daffy Duck, hitting her instead while she was lounging on a beach. Does she look this way because I had to change the resolution so I could attempt to read the chat?

***Speaking of the chat. What were you thinking? Not going to say anymore about it because it's so bad that I would say unforgivable things if I did.***

Also, I don't know if I need to adjust some setting or something, but my swarthy robe now looks washed out. The black isn't as sharp and instead of having gold trim, it's sort of coppery. I'm hoping that's something I can fix, and I'm going to keep trying before I look at my dress collection.

[Jin Saotome]

Hmmm, it won't allow me to roll my drivers back because I don't have the disk! There anyway you can get this online somewhere?

[McVigor]

well.. apparently there's still a memory leak/ similar issue.

It was working great for about an hour or two, though ;p

When it crashed it gave me the 'Send Error Report' prompt -

wth.. I sent it, and the pop-up from MS said, "Upgrading your driver will remedy this problem.!"

LOL! LIEZ

ugh

[Kydan]

I am noticing severe memory leaks and having reboots occur when portalling. Mostly when entering the Samanar area. I have had at least 5 reboots in the last 2 days, and 1 client crash. ACDM doesn't do this though, so I know it has to be the client. I have also had the problem with the mouse pointer becoming a corrupted white block, or even a normal cursor that doesn't change, even when using items like healing kits.

The graphics do look nice, and I have it running on max detail. Camera controls seem a bit wonky though, as it's very hard to recenter the camera behind my avatar, and there is no hotkey that I've found to make it return to default position. The picture of the target in the target ID window looks real nice. Better then the ingame avatar. I can't get Mouse Look to work at all. The center mouse button only controls the camera, not my character. Font size is very small. I am running at 1600 by 1200 resolution though, so not sure how it's appearing to other people.

I have been away from AC for 3 years, so this is coming from my perspective after playing other games, but there really should be a Loot all button. Also the chat bar doesn't retain it's size when relogging. It has to be set manually each time I log in.

I am running a Athlon XP 1900+, 768 MB DDR Ram, Soundblaster Live!, GeForce FX 5600 w/256 MB Ram with 71.89 drivers. I had the newest drivers, but they don't play video properly, so I had to downgrade to the last previous version.

[Hamfast]

Kydan,

try "0" on the number pad, it reset's the camera to it's default position behind your head...

[eolorian]

I am also using a radeon card and I have more crashes in ACTD than i ever did in AC beta, AC final, and ACDM put together. I sure hope you can fix it, my wife is hoping you dont :D

[Greymaine]

Well about the graphics. A big disappointment sorry. I absolutly love the game play in AC1 and I love the graphics of AC2 now if you combine the graphics of AC2 with the game play of AC1 you have a winner that will bring people back and bring in new players for a long time. But as it stands now I will be playing more on Guild Wars and will be trying WOW. You can't imagine how sad that make me because I know no other game out there has the game play of AC1 which I love. You have very loyal fans, I have played AC1 since its release and I think we deserved better. Trust me if you put AC2 graphics into ACTOD you will have a winner that will blow away the competition. Too bad you don't see it that way. Sorry but I am just dissapointed because I can see what you have and what you could have and your blowing it. I will probably still continue to play for awhile but if the game play gets better with other games being released I will be out in flash. I can't get over that you didn't combine the graphics of AC2 with the playability of AC1 I'm at a loss. Greymaine of Leafcull

[Reiki Angel]

I am so far.. very dissapointed. I upgraded my computer specifically so I could handle the graphics requirments for TD. With all my drivers updated I cannot function in this preview game. The freeze I get anytime I get anywhere close to the new town is terrible, and remains even away from the town. After trying to play this preview, I have given up. If this is the way the retail version is going to be, I sure won't be installing it.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD ~2004 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. Version 07.00T, 4/2/2001
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 331.90 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Name NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter RAM 128.00 MB (134,217,728 bytes)
Installed Drivers nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.7189
DirectX 9.0

[Renegade Knight]

I made my character on Destiny look like the one I have on Wintersebb, and all I can say is, you've made my badass looking character look like a business man facial wise.... :mad:

[sol-star]

I am so far.. very dissapointed. I upgraded my computer specifically so I could handle the graphics requirments for TD. With all my drivers updated I cannot function in this preview game. The freeze I get anytime I get anywhere close to the new town is terrible, and remains even away from the town. After trying to play this preview, I have given up. If this is the way the retail version is going to be, I sure won't be installing it.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0 AuthenticAMD ~2004 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. Version 07.00T, 4/2/2001
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Total Physical Memory 512.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 331.90 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Name NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter RAM 128.00 MB (134,217,728 bytes)
Installed Drivers nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version 6.14.10.7189
DirectX 9.0

The newest nivida drivers are Version: 77.72 Try those it made a huge difference for me. http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

[Zenra_Icewind]

I lag horribly graphically if I keep it up on anything but medium everything.

I lag systemly just like I do in WE if there's too many people, and that's expected in a preview. It happened on Verdantine. TOo many people, not enough memory! Heh.

I have my qualms about the tiny text that's barely readable in my 1280 x 1024 res that I always play and and good lord does it lag even more if you try to play it in windowed mode.

Other than that, it runs pretty smoothly.

And sadly I'm not all that impressed. It's like...AC with a makeover. I'm still up in the air about getting it when it hits shelves. I'm going to see what my roommate thinks about it since she got her preorder. I know the preview is just a taste, but if it doesn't taste any better when it comes out, i'm not gonna buy the whole meal, and I'll stick with Dark Magesty.

[Het]

I have had some issues with graphics corruption and black-screen hard locks and crashes to desktop.....
Athlon 2K with a Radeon 9600XT and a gig of ram...
But....the real issue, for me, is that everyone, even those that choose not to get the expansion, will be forced to use the new client...
That will stop the people, of which I'm of the impression there are quite a few, that play AC now specifically because thier hardware won't handle the newer games....
There was some talk about this on TD last night, and I have to agree with those that mentioned that EQ, which is as old as AC, and has had many, many more expansions, will still allow people to run the original client with none of the upgrades if they choose...I'd like to see AC do the same, as they did with the DM expansion...New content for those that buy it....But those that don't aren't forced to use a different, and what many obviously feel is an unstable at best and unfinished at worst client, which probably won't even work on older hardware in any acceptable manner.
The issue here, to me, is....That AC sure doesn't need to do anything that renders the game less playable for those that are here because they can't run newer games...The populations can't take it...They're so low now during prime time that the towns and most normally inhabited places are abandoned.
I haven't made a decision about the expansion for myself, yet....But then, I really don't play hardcore anymore, it's just a big colorful chat room to me, and has been for several years....But, I know a lot of people that simply won't be able to play the game with the stability and apparent hardware needs of the new client...and losing any sizeable segment of the populations sure can't be a good thing for the game at this stage.

[mrbeepa]

The graphics is the biggest disappointment in the preview for me anyways. I have kept my AC account active hoping for a great improvement in graphics. I was sooooo disappointed! Still box faces and creatures! still 2 plane trees, well you did add some 4 & 6 plane trees but not much of an improvement if you compare to the likes of World of Warcraft graphics. I like the game play in AC better than WoW so really hoped you would come through with great graphics! :( Now I"m not sure which I will stay with. These graphics really suck.
I would have thought your team would have assessed the competition and considered the graphics you are competing against in other mmrpg games.
I all can say is I'm truly disappointed! :( :(

[sheridan]

Ok the graphics have changed, and after 4 hours of fiddling with it I can now see the improvement in quality, but that didn't do anything for the text block's sorry font. Moving to the 22 inch display didn't help!

Then there is the flicker that shows up as the graphics pages. From here it looks like your going to have to include a setup book for the graphics!

[Zero_Washu]

After a few days of play and such.
System, A2500/1Gb/6800/10K HDD

Observations
Resolution has no real effect on my framerate. I use 1600x1200 as that is my monitors default size (Dell 2001FP). (or 1600x900 in windowed mode as it makes getting to the desktop much easier). For those who don't know you can get to windowed mode by accessing the AC directory under (your documents) and editing the userpref file.

Landscape draw distance has little effect in open areas, other than some weird tree popping/unpopping as if the graphics code cannot make up its mind.

Texture detail is the killer. Using the new city as a test area since it is the most crowded produced some interesting results. (did all tests at portal in spot facing the city)

Using Windows Task Manager to view the memory usage of the client.

1. Low Texture Quality, about 140,000k of memory used and it held mostly steady. Framerate was in the 40s

2. Medium Texture Quality, about 180,000k and it held mostly steady as well, never crested 200,000k. Framerate was in the high 30s and some 40s.

3. High Texture Quality, instanty bounced to 370,000k and kept climbing. Eventually topped out near 580,000k. Framerate was not even single digits as textures loaded. Eventually topped out in the teens as PEAK FPS. Client responsiveness was next to non-existant. Even trying to set the graphics back wasn't easy.

Other UI/Graphics issues.

1. The FOV seems different from AC1 and I cannot get it to feel right.

2. Font size must be selectable.

3. MOUSE LOOK functionality of AC1 must be restored to TOD on button #2. Both right-click examine and right-click and hold mouse look MUST BE RESTORED. The majority do not use 3-button mice and the industry standard long left those behind as a quirk of usuability replacing them with scroll wheels.

4. Speak of scroll wheeled mice, why don't you support their functionality instead?

5. \ key targetting (or is it ]) does not always put targetting brackets on an item on the ground but you can use "R" to pick it up. It is not USUABLE in your inventory though. If you use the mouse to target, then "R" to pickup pressing "R" again will use it properly.

6. Hardware cursor goes white block then to windows cursor frequently. Seems to mostly occur when examining items on a corpse.

7. Blue screens, etc. (GPU failure once - never seen that before). Most occurences are when I open a vendor.

FWIW, I cannot recall the last time I blue screened my computers. Yes multiple PCs all experience the same issue. (one is a laptop with a GF2Go chipset).

8. Windowed mode, looks great. Can we run two copies of AC at the same time then?

9. Graphics. Where the horizon is I occasionally see a white line. This is most evident at Holtburg or Cragstone and looking over the water. It does not seem to occur looking over an ocean view, only views where there is land beyond that is mostly flat.

10. Graphics, is the detail of the land textures supposed to blur close up? It looks really good until nearly underfoot?

11. Graphics, Banderling faces are blury but the rest of their body looks fine on the examination panel.

12. Graphics, Some spell graphics still cause a bit of stutter lag the first time a "MOB" uses them.

13. Graphics, housing is still a pain to come across, about as bad as high texture Sanamar (sp?) is.

14. Graphics, open land looks good at high detail and has no performance issues except when housing appears. However as mentioned before tree popping can get exaggeratted in some locales. (standing still even!)

15. Graphics, Window mode. It has no discernable performance difference from full screen.

16. Client, the new AC2 style actions text that is red/centered does not replicate all functionality of the old systems light gray left side text.

Overall much of the look of the game has been improved. The problem is that in some areas the texture issues your engine has makes the game unplayable. I cannot imagine a PC that will be able to play with your upcoming higher resolution textures. Ya'll really need to look into your texture loading and caching routines. They are abysmal as it stands. The hit taking to performance in the cities and even a crowded marketplace will turn off many players. One solution I would suggest is to have adaptive performance degradation also reduce textures if it knows your porting into a congested area or if that is not possible it needs to drop texture density when FPS drops to single digits and raise it back after it crests 24+

More later.

[Trekman]

Once upon a time there was an online game that was playable even on old hardware, or the occasional older company notebook.

Graphics were more than outdated - but the players did not really care, because they liked the game. The interface was very basic, but expandable by software written "by players for players".

Then the game developers decided to

- make the used font ugly, unreadable on higher resolutions and NOT changable
- increase the hardware requirements dramatically for basically the same polygon counts with a bit better textures
- make turning around in a town a slideshow on an Athlon 3200+ with NVidia GeForce 6800GT and 2 GB of RAM - although polygon count didn't increase
- include "controversial" features of their other online game's interface
- change the default FOV to be rather "unnatural"
- probably make future development of Decal plugins difficult or impossible by using a different compiler/library system for basically the same client functionality (but the near future will show)
- change the Mouse functionality to make it incompatible to most of the older systems where AC was played until now

The release of AC:ToD had been delayed two times - the last and big delay was officially explained by "problems in the client".

Now the client seems to be finished after additional weeks of development - and "unfortunately the @font command had to be removed because it cannot work with the new UI code" (confessed by IBN).

Are you really serious ?????

I can only second what I already read a few times here : PLEASE give us back the old client if you are not able to write a good new one - if you are not even able to keep the /font command...

An Expansion Pack with the old client/engine but with the new content would have been finished in time - avoiding multiple frustration by release delays and current client experiences....

I am sorry if I sound harsh - but as an AC veteran I love the game too much to keep my piehole shut....

[mrbeepa]

One person suggested putting AC2 Graphics in and that would solve it! LOL! They sucked too! Take a look at World of Warcraft! (WoW) This is what you should have competed with and are competing with. Like so many others the gameplay of AC1 and DM is the best and I have kept my account active while playing other games, mostly WoW, in hopes that the dev's were also paying attention to the other games and going to provide us with a wonderfully new graphics in which to play! I think the lvl cap raise is great and I have always been comfortable with the developing content. But your graphics suck bigtime and now I have to decide whether to continue playing AC and lookin at 2 plane trees and box creatures and characters or whether I want to continue to enjoy the wonderful graphics, so life like and fluid in WoW. and the sound tracks for the areas are well done as well? It is really depressing and saddening. I am perplexed but I have to tell you I enjoy the great graphics so much I'm leaning much towards playing WoW and sending AC to the garbage can where you guys have put it! :( :( :mad:

[Trekman]

mrbeepa - here you see the dilemma that Turbine is in now :
I say "why didn't you keep the old client", you basically say "why didn't you completely rewite the client".

Many of the remaining players did not need a graphics update. They liked the game for what it was - much ingame depth with grandfather graphics.

Other players like you compared AC with much newer games with and of course AC had to lose big time.

Both points of view are valid, depending on the reasons why they played AC.

And Turbine decided to please both....they invested months of work into new textures but were not able to change/rewrite the core of the problem - the polygon count limitation of the engine.

So basically the graphics remains the same - the new textures make it a bit prettier, but it still can not compete with newer games.

Now many of both player groups are alienated or disappointed by the same graphics with much higher hardware requirements....

I guess when I turn down graphics quality (although I have a rather strong PC) I can get the old performance and quality. Still the fact remains that the font is suddenly not changeable any more because Turbine simply was not able to keep the command (unbelievable !) and that the FOV looks like I am on drugs....

Edit : the polygon count is not the only problem of the old AC engine. There are games out there with a high count like EQ2, but also with a rather low count.
Especially WOW combines a low polygon count with very clever textures to make the game look good AND run on older hardware better than the current AC:ToD client. And this is what really is embarrasing...

[McVigor]

I truly believes these are driver related issues.

This does not mean that those of us with all the latest drivers, hotrod machines are going to be doomed to poor-performance.

It simply means that they have not included the optimizations required for some of them.

On Windows XP Proffesional, I ran a Directx diagnostic test, and found that I have a file 'directx.cpl' thats running in 'Final Debug' mode (which will tax performance, due to bug-checkers running alongside the app.)

Its just how DirectX 9c installed.... I have no idea how to switch it from debug to release as there is no option available to do-so.

It could be a part of the problem.

When I ran on my latest ATI drivers (Catalyst 5.6) it ran like crap. LOL
Following someones suggestion (Very_Bored, I believe) I rolled back to the drivers that were included in the box w/ my card -

It ran better, but not flawlessly, and it didn't act like my video card was going to explode in Sanamar. LOL!

still.. after a few hours, it crashed - but the noted improvment was definately attributed to some kind of driver issue. (Which is cool, because it means it can be fixed relatively easily - usually.)

It's an 'optimization' thing, in the end.

Just thought to convey the positives! hang in there everybody!

[Trekman]

McVigor - maybe you are right.

One of the remaining strengths of AC was its independency on driver versions.
Even though the later versions require DirectX 8, basically only 2 problems were occurring very few times that were driver-related (black 3D screen, mouse cursor problem).

If what you say is correct, now AC is in line with all the other, newer games out there : you need to experiment and gamble with versions of video driver, possibly audio driver, chipset driver, DirectX version and so on.

And this although the game *basically* looks the same as before.

It may be a "matter of optimization" - but definitely not on the players' part.
After months of development and weeks of delay the client ought to be optimized already.

Maybe the client is a big achievement when you look at the internal code. New development system with more possibilities, a bit new functionality (who asked for the resizeable chat window ?), ......
And maybe Turbine can be proud of the internal code.

But we players do NOT look at the internal code. We look at what we see on the screen and how fast we see it.

I hope that Turbine will fix/complete the client during the next *very few* patches. I really do. Because in its current form it is inacceptable.

[mrbeepa]

Trekman I appreciate your explaination of the graphics problem. It makes sense what you say but I dont have that high end of machine. Its fair I would say and like you said WoW runs great on low end machines and looks better. Which just increases my disappointment cause they certainly must have had people lookin for months at the competition???? They dropped the ball or got cheap whichever the case may be. I posted a post just before this a long one describing my utter dismay with the turn of events. It really sucks cause I put so much time into my AC characters and have kept them active for months just waiting for this big expansion! I had hoped that Turbine was smart enought to evaluate the competition and to come up with solutions. Obviously that was an erroneous assumption! I will truly miss the game and I think it sucks big time that I have to let go of my 5 year old characters! :( But I have to make a choice and I'm not going back to stick figures when it really isn't necessary!

There's so much more they could have done and didn't :(

[mrbeepa]

I have made a couple small posts in this thread but I just have to put one final commentary as it seems I will no longer be able to keep playing AC. :mad: :(
Like many I have played this game for the last 5 years, well actually about 4.5 cause the last 6 - 8 months I have played other games (Mostly WoW) and just kept my account active while I waited for this the big expansion that was going to make the wait and money all worth while. You DIMSMALLY FAILED US TURBINE! I am a member of large guild on Harvestgain and 90% of the members of our guild have done the same as me for months. Playing other games which satisfy our yearn for better graphics, more realism. AC has always had the absolute best Character creation and building system that I have ever seen and it had a chance to be the most awesome mmorpg ever to be made. But you've dropped the ball and cheated us and yourselves out of a wonderful possiblity! MY personal situation doesn't allow me to wait for a further bail out of the game which I doubt is possible now. :( :mad: I have to make a choice between playing WoW or keep playing the stick and box characters you've left us with in AC. I have put so much time into my AC characters it is really difficult even now to let go but I know I will not play with the lousy graphics you have sprung on us as an upgrade! I imagine as this game is really going to blow now you have brought about its demise. Not many people I know will give up the life like graphics of WoW and other games to continue donating to Turbine. In WoW the experience is so refreshing so life like you feel more like your in the game. It is a very awesome experience. I will miss buffing myself, my mage was my favorite AC character. I really like the magic system, and the character system was the best but it is nothing if you dont keep the graphics up to the lvl of your competition! WoW plays seamlesslly on my machine while like everyone else I have experienced many severe crashes, lockups and much lag. jerkiness playing the preview. Unfortunately there is so little to like in your expansion it is really maddening and saddening! 5 years of game play has to end because you chinced or just didn't have bright enough envisionaries to compete?? I dont know what the problem was, but I truly wish it had been a more realistic effort???? WoW doesn't have the gameplay that AC has always had but it will grow and keep eveolving maybe gettiing better game play. But you had the chance to be the most awesome game ever! I just can't believe your people were so blind as to throw it all down the tubes! It really sucks but before the end of the month my five years old characters will come to an end???

Beama/Beepa/Fatal At the end of this month we all say good bye to AC! :(

[cernorama]

i wanted to make a comment on the opening graphics screen i think you should place the enter and create character buttons in different areas i 75% of the time keep hitting the make new char button instead of enter.. just my 2 cents

[Moondancer]

Get that tree out of my villa's door, so I can get in!! :D

The radar is acting a bit weird; used to be I could move my cursor over a dot and get an ID of what the dot was, but it's twitchy about it now.

And...I don't really the changes to my character's face, it doesn't look like her now (she looks ticked off, not smiling anymore). I'm hearing a few folks complain of the same thing. :(

[Isparian]

text FONT ...

This is the main issue for me ...

Text (in chat and in config window, for example) is hard to read at higher resolutions ... IMHO it's because of serif font used. I understand why the font - it kinda goes with game theme and all ... but something needs to be done.


Solution? ... if you can't increase the font (and maybe don't - it wont fit in anymore as it does now) - change font to non-serif one (like Arial, Tahoma or Verdana) OR at least give us an option to change it.



/Isparian

[Red Cobra]

MB: ASUS A8V
CPU: AMD64 3800+
RAM: 2GB
AGP: nVIDIA 6800 128mb
O/S: Win2k Pro

All drivers and BIOS up to date (as of 25JUN05)

Graphics in 800x600 mode are excellent. I see many folks that complain of small text... and i have see small text when in higher resolutions. The text font in higher resolution ( > 800x600 ) does appear to "lose" some clarity (trailing portions of letters such as "f", "e", and others seem to blur away. However, as I indicated earlier, this problem is only truly visible at resolutions > 800x600.

Presentation graphics outdoors: Rocks look like rocks... bushes look like bushes... However, all of the trees I have seen, when viewed "close up" (read: "at bark tasting distance") appear to have square trunks, with very well defined edges. I have never seen a large Banyan tree that was constructed from processed lumber.. but I'll bet I can imagine one now :rolleyes:

Presentation graphics indoors: All man-made objects appear excellently rendered. Tiles look like tiles... bricks look like bricks and cut rocks all look like cut rocks.

By and large, I am quite satisfied with the graphics in the new engine.

I am, however, a bit disappointed with teh presentatioin/rendering of naturally round items as they tend appear a bit artificial.

/bow

[sheridan]

Ok maybe this is just a small thing but some of the signs that were readable aren't now.
The building name plates in the apartments for one. In fact the lighting in the apartments doesn't seem to adjust along the same brightness path as the outdoor lighting.

I noticed that the landblock borders still have the same old wierd junctions as well. It's good to see that not everything has changed.

[Lynx]

So far I'm disappointed with this "expansion". The new race are nothing more than humans with blue skin and I don't feel any effort was put into them. In fact it appears to be a marketing ploy IMO since alot of people where looking forward to it by leaving a slot open to make a toon of this race. They could not even bring the graphics up to ac2 standards. Although this will be a nice or "patch like" addition for AC players such as myself, I don't feel it will be enough to make a significant impact on bringing folks back and keeping the players we have. I don't know much about computer programing but I know it has something to do with the engine AC1 uses and its limitations which appear to be alot. I guess this all we can expect.
I also experienced a crash and got that blue screen with writing. It had something to do with the graphic's driver and it happened as I was portaling to the main town on new island. I'm hoping these problems are a result of too many people on one server.

[Sajuro]

Moondancer -

If you wouldn't mind, could you go to your villa and do a "/loc" to get the detailed location of your villa? Send that information to me via a PM so that I can forward that info on to the developers and they can go in and move that pesky tree. Thanks!

Get that tree out of my villa's door, so I can get in!! :D

The radar is acting a bit weird; used to be I could move my cursor over a dot and get an ID of what the dot was, but it's twitchy about it now.

And...I don't really the changes to my character's face, it doesn't look like her now (she looks ticked off, not smiling anymore). I'm hearing a few folks complain of the same thing. :(

[Trekman]

I also experienced a crash and got that blue screen with writing. It had something to do with the graphic's driver and it happened as I was portaling to the main town on new island. I'm hoping these problems are a result of too many people on one server.

No - it is a problem of the Preview Client, DirectX or your video driver - most likely a combination of those.

Sajuro, I am sorry - but for me it speaks volumes that someone from "AC Quality Assurance" answers about one misplaced tree in the landscape instead of responding to the repeatedly posted *essential* graphics performance and stability problems...

[Sajuro]

Sajuro, I am sorry - but for me it speaks volumes that someone from "AC Quality Assurance" answers about one misplaced tree in the landscape instead of responding to the repeatedly posted *essential* graphics performance and stability problems...

You can find our response to the graphics performance and stability issues in a stickied post here: http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?t=23129

This is, with good reason, a high priority for us and we have our best graphics engineer hard at work on this issue at this very moment.

[teh-frozz]

You better have the whips goin' at'em too! lol

Hell, fly me down there and I'll be your official "Work Motivator" you ain't workin', then frozz starts whippin'!

[sol-star]

I was pretty happy with the way the graphics looked till I logged in today. Now all I see on the 3d part of the screen is a mass of tangled multi-colored triangles. Other games I play still work ok.

[Trekman]

You can find our response to the graphics performance and stability issues in a stickied post here: http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?t=23129

This is, with good reason, a high priority for us and we have our best graphics engineer hard at work on this issue at this very moment.

Thank you for the update :)

So - if I interpret you correctly you have one "best engineer" dealing with the problem ~3 weeks before launch after the client had been developed and hopefully tested for months (including a Beta that already caused weeks of delay) and still has the problem ? :p Sorry, couldn't resist...

Or did you mean "engineersssss" ?

You know - if this were a Beta or even an Alpha release (what "Previews" usually are) I would not be as worried.

But as far as I remember this client basically is the Release version.
Minor bug fixes through patching granted - but these problems look too serious to me for a quick fix... :eek:

Well - I do not complain before July 18th - only rant a bit due to currently dashed hopes... ;)

[Isparian]

... as for my post about fonts (~9 posts back)


on ACVault guides I found a command to change chat text properties (http://acvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Guidebooks.Detail&id=15&category_select_id=2#text) ... but - while some of the commands there work, the @font and @font size commands dont ...


Anyone knows if those commands were ever available, or was it only for Pre ToD AC1?

[BrightYellow]

I dont know if there was any change done to the client, but since I switched to windowed mode, all my extreme frustration is gone. I did write 2 days ago:

With this utter crap of new client, I crash all the time. Whether I log off, log in, enter town, turn right, run straight, enter a portal, watch the trees, alt-tab, everything. I get white trasnparent cursors, full reboot, loss of cursor, virtual memory crash (@1.3 GB!!), black screens, jagged lines all over smearing the desktop even after crash, the latest DX9 corrupted if I dont reboot. I tried with all kinds of low or high details, all resolutions, I get various smearing patterns, but nothing works. I tried the basic drivers that shipped with the comp, the latest ATI driver, the MS-recommended one, again the colors and patterns of the crashes may vary, but that's it.

The windowed mode solved entirely the stability issues: from one crash every 15 minutes, with hickups every 10 seconds, to no crash in 4 hours, and very few hickups!!

I don't know why there would be such a huge difference between windowed and fullscreen mode, but I suggest that people with major stability problems like me give it a try.

[Trekman]

... as for my post about fonts (~9 posts back)


on ACVault guides I found a command to change chat text properties (http://acvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Guidebooks.Detail&id=15&category_select_id=2#text) ... but - while some of the commands there work, the @font and @font size commands dont ...


Anyone knows if those commands were ever available, or was it only for Pre ToD AC1?

The /font commands where available in ACDM (not sure about original AC).

Turbine had to remove/disable them in the ACTOD client because they were not able to "make it work in the new UI code". :confused:
Which says volumes about the "new UI code" I guess... :eek:

I hope they feel embarrassed..... ;)

[Ironfield]

I am sure that its more of a driver issue than an engine issue... My 3ghz 1g ram 246m fx6800gt had no problems playing it with all settings maxed at 1280x1024 ...it seemed to run even better than at lower res

its just the LOW LOW low poly count and FOV that got me at hello
I think its more a server issue than our computers and graphic cards.

Turbine need the newest and fastest Servers for this game.

Its like you fill an Pool with a very thin watherpipeline, it will not help when your Pool is a hightec product. You need a new Pipeline also.

[Tamtam]

Is anyone having stacking trade Items in there main pack infusions/heads/ an so on ? ? ? I make the Trade Item But go to Stack it an left click / an hold to slide Item to next slot to Stack . . . System crashes back to windows an then have to relog ! ! ! Any Help Here would Help thank you ! ! ! :eek:

[KPD157]

Yes Tamtam I think there is some sort of memory access problem when you stack items and or even when you open corpses some times :)

My friend tried to hunt this one dungeon openned a corpse got crashed and died its not fun and It doesn't happen every time.

Also the graphics lag when other players are around and the UI clicking on the radar is still too restricted. The UI also needs to allow a key binding for both Nearest Compass Object to include people as well :)

Just my Two Pyreals the Preview is pretty much unplayable with all the crashing :)

[Protes]

Well here's my opinion thus far with the Graphics Update on the Preview.


I've been playing on the Preview server for 1 to 2 hours a day since it launced on 6/22. For the most part I like the texture updates I have seen. I've explored quite a bit of content, both new and old, to get a feel for the overall changes in to the enviroments. The landscapes throughout Dereth and the surrounding Islands in my opinion look improved with more vivid colors and detail. I really enjoyed portal hopping to the various towns (via Arwic Sub. and Umbral Hall) and seeing the towns changed. I took part in the Focus Group and had a chance to only view a very, very small fraction of the changes to Dereth. Each town and surrounding areas in my opinion looks much better than what it does under the current game. I can't wait to see what ToD will be like with the high resolution graphics :cool:

I am having a blast exploring the Halaetan Islands. The landscape is huge; plenty of points of interests to check out, among other things. Props to whomever designed the new obsidian bridge on Halaetan Isands :)


One suggesstion I have though in regards to mainland Dereth. Perhaps some day in the future,additional landscape models could be added into the game and offer a more distinct "look" to the various enviroments across the landscape. For example - the Blackmire Swamp and East Direlands Swamp has the same visual look between the two. Maybe by adding additional tree models for one area or adjusting the color scheme on an existing models to selective landblocks would change it enough so the areas have it's own unique look.


There have been some major graphical issues that I have experienced while playing on the Preview server. I've already reported some of the bugs. The most recent graphical issues I was encountering may have been fixed with the lastest patch on the Preview server.

For reference my PC specs are:
AMD 1.8GHz
1 GB Ram
Radeon 9800 Pro


Overall I really am enjoying the Preview and I'm excited more than ever for Throne of Destiny to be released.

[Ironfield]

Is anyone having stacking trade Items in there main pack infusions/heads/ an so on ? ? ? I make the Trade Item But go to Stack it an left click / an hold to slide Item to next slot to Stack . . . System crashes back to windows an then have to relog ! ! ! Any Help Here would Help thank you ! ! ! :eek:
Same problem here.

Im not a big expert but i think AC use only arround 128MB on memory and over this the swapfile.
Any experte out there they can look on this? Maybe is there a way so that AC use more of our memory?

Long time ago i asked MS but got no answear.

I can't wait to see what ToD will be like with the high resolution graphics

What you mean Protes? Is this not the high res yet what we see in prev?

[Vinny]

Same problem here.

Im not a big expert but i think AC use only arround 128MB on memory and over this the swapfile.
Any experte out there they can look on this? Maybe is there a way so that AC use more of our memory?


Actually, AC will grab up to 256mb as soon as you launch it and continue to allocate more memory as you play. You should have at least 512mb to avaoid a lot of swapping.

[Trekman]

I think most of us know how graphics look in WoW and in AC-TOD - but the fact that WoW looks much better is not the point here.

I play both games on the same hardware : Athlon XP 3200+, 2 GB RAM, RAID0 disk (combined 2 drives 7200rpm, important for texture loading, paging etc.), NVidia Geforce 6800GT 256 MB.

Definitely NOT low-end hardware.......

Both games with best possible graphics settings, but without Antialiasing and with medium rendering distance.

Framerates according to ingame display :

ACDM : ~30-60 (hard to read the numbers of /framerate display)
WoW : 19 - 50 (lowest when flying on Gryphon across certain regions)
ACTOD : 9 - 25 (lowest when turning around in town)

Even the bestestest textures cannot justify the slideshow I see in towns.
Today was a client update - but these numbers did not change.

I know what many will say now : "who forces you to play with best possible settings ? Turn them down....".
Of course I could - and it seems I have to.

Nevertheless I am not sure what bothers me more : the tremendous performance difference for basically the same polygon count with some better textures, or the fact that besides one very general and locked statement Turbine does not even bother to give us the feeling that they will be able to complete this obvious "beta version" of the client....

[Trekman]

Addition to my previous post :

I think the performance issues are not caused by the actual Rendering, but by the handling of textures.

The 9 FPS happen when getting to a "new" area with new textures like towns, settlements,....after some seconds (duration depending on complexity of the surroundings).
But the visible delays aka "slideshow" at the beginning of the process are much longer than 9 FPS would imply.

When (apparently) all textures have been prepared, the framerate goes up to "acceptable, but still low in comparison".

My hardware (especially disk system) should be fast enough to provide a smooth dataflow when loading textures - at least it is for all other games.

Other possibility :

We all know the "settlement lag", apparently caused by downloading a lot of objects including every single hook in range.
But at least in ACDM this effect was limited to settlements (for me).
Now I have the same *everywhere*.

Regardless whether it is a problem of downloading objects from the server or of preparing textures - PLEASE fix it....

Edit : I have to correct my numbers partially.
I just was in Holtburg - in an area with approximately the same number of people (maybe a few less) PKL'ing as in the part of the new starter town where I took my numbers first.
The framerate in Holtburg was 50-70, but still with the initial "slideshow".

So the framerate seems to be dependent on the area. Is it a coincidence that the new starter town is so much "slower" ?

[Elad Treborsun]

Not sure if this is the place to do this but while runing around I came to 47.3s 83.4e and saw a grove of pine trees with no trunks just floating above the ground.

Other than that I seemed to do ok till I tried to go to the new town and and got grabbed by the lag monster and it froze up my computer.

[dh123lh1]

WELL LETS CRY ABOUT IT OR WE COULD ASK THEM TO FIX IT, AS FAR AS TXT SIZE IF YOU CAP LOCK AND SCREAM AT EVERYONE YOU CAN JUST MAKE IT OUT, OTHERWISE FORGET IT, i KNOW EVERYONE FROM THE BLIND OLD GRANDPA lIKE ME TO THE YOUNGEST PLAYER WITH PERFECT VISION, THERE SHOULD BE A FONT SETTING NOT TO CHANGE THE FONT STYLE BUT TO CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE FONT, JUST KEEP IT USABEABLE DONT LET THE FONT BECOME SO LARGE THAT IT CAUSE'S THE EXPANDED CHAT WINDOW TO OPEN, BUT IT COULD BE AT LEAST THE FONT ITS AT x 3 OR 4 AND NO SMALLER THAN THAT, BUT WOULD BE BEST IF THERE WAS A USER SELECTION EVERN IF IT WAS SMALL - THIS BEING WHAT THE FONT IS NOW, MEDIUM - 2 TO 3 TIMES FONTS PRESENT SIZE, LARGE - 4 TO 5 TIMES THE FONTS SIZE RIGHT NOW, AND XXXLARGE - ( MY GOSH YOUR BLIND) THIS WOULD BE A 2O POINT FONT.

OK COMPARING THE GAMES FONT WITH A NOTEPAD WINDOW , BY OPENING GAME IN WINDOW IN THE SELECTIONS AREA UNCHECK FULLSCREEN VIEW, THE FONT IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS A 6 POINT BOLD FONT, OR SLIGHTLY SMALLER, AND A 12 TO 14 POINT FONT WOULD BE PERFECT @ 800x600 RESOLUTION.

VIDEO ISSUES AND MIN SYS REQUIREMENTS
I AM RUNNING A INTEL PENTIUM III 600 EB PROCESSOR
MOTHER BOARD = SOYO SY6VBA - 133
WITH 768 MEGS OF PC-133 SD RAM
VID CARD = ATI - RADEON 7000 POWERED HIS EXCALIBUR 64 MEG 4X AGP MOTHERBOARD HAS 2X AGP AND VID CARD TURNS DOWN TO 2X SO WORKS
OH THIS IS THE CARD WITH tv OUT VIA SVIDEO

OK PRIOR TO SOME MINIMAL OVERCLOCKING OF THE PROCESSOR GOT IT UP TO 697 MHZ BEFORE THE OVERCLOCKING TURNING EVERYTHING ALL THE WAY DOWN STILL TOOK 10 MIN TO MOVE FROM LS IN TOWN IN HOLTBURG TO MAGE AT BOTTOM OF HILL, AFTER OVERCLOCKING THE 600 EB PROCESSOR TO 697 MHZ IT WORKS AS GOOD IF NOT LOTS BETTER THAN AC DM I HAVE TURNED THE GRAFIX BACK UP TO MEDIUM AND RESET THE LANDSCAPE SELECTION DOTS OR CHECK BOXES WHICH HAD TO CLEAR ALL OF BEFORE OVERCLOCKING SYS,

ANYWAY, I WOULD LIKE TO GET THE VIDEO TO PERFORM A LITTTLE BETTER, IN VERY CROWDED AREAS, HE GETS A LITTLE JURKY UNTIL I TURN OF THE LANDSCAPE TEXTURES THEN BACK TO RUNNING FINE AGAIN.

ANY ONE KNOW HOW I WOULD GO ABOUT OVERCLOCKING MY VIDEO CARD ITS GOT A 450 MHZ PROCESSOR ON IT WHICH I FIND AMAZING MY VID CARD HAS A FASTER PROCESSOR THAN MY FIRST PENTIUM SYSTEM WHICH WAS A 233 AND I USED TO PLAY AC ON THAT AND DARK MAJESTY WITH NO PROBS AT ALL.

i WOULD APPRECIEATE YOU GETTING THE MIN PROCESSOR SPEED DOWN TO 600 MHZ SO i DONT HAVE TO OVERCLOCK BUT UNLESS I UPGRADE TO THRONE I WONT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS, ANYWAY THATS WHY I HAVE NEVER PLAYED ANY MORE OF AC 2 THAN 1 DAY OF THE PREVIEW, WITH A 600 MHZ PROCESSOR IT WASN'T HAPPENING BUT UNTIL I DOWNLOADED THAT TRIAL I COULD FIND NO MIN SYS REQUIREMENTS JUST AS WITH THRONE OF DESTINY I COULDN'T FIND THE MIN SYS REQUIREMENTS UNTIL I HAD PLAYED FOR 5 DAYS, THEN I SEARCHED AND FINALLY FOUND, THIS IS INFO THAT SHOULD BE ON THE DOWNLOAD PAGE OR ON THE PAGE THAT LEADS TO THE DOWNLOAD.

ANYWAY YOU HAVE DONE MUCH BETTER WITH THRONE THAN YOU DID WITH AC2 IN TRYING TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMERS, BUT I HAPPEN TO PERSONALLY KNOW OVER 35 GAMERS WHO LIVE AND BREATHE AC, AND THEY ALL HAVE AROUND 500 TO 650 MHZ SYSTEMS, AND NONE OF US ARE UPGRADING TO PLAY A GAME, AND THEY ARE AFRAID OF OVERCLOCKING SO THEY WONT EVEN TRY PREVIEW, I WOULD HATE FOR YOU TO PHASE OUT DARK MAJESTY LIKE HAS BEEN DONE WITH AC SINCE IF I KNOW 35 GAMERS WITH LESS THAN THE MIN SYS REQUIREMENTS THEN I AM SURE AT LEAST 1/3 TO 3/4 OF YOUR PLAYERS WONT MEET THOSE MIN SYS REQUIREMENTS AND YOU WILL EFFECTIVELY RUN THEM OFF FROM YOUR GAME, AS THEY ARE SAYING IN THE ALLEGIANCE CHAT ROOMS THAT THEY ARE STOPING THEIR SUBSCRIPTIONS THIS MONTH OR IN THE NEXT 2 TO 3 MONTHS SINCE JUST LIKE THE CHANGE FROM AC TO DM AC STOPPED GETTING MUCH IF ANY MONTHLY UPDATE THAT WAS WORTH PLAYING AT ALL AND THEY WONT GO FOR THAT AGAIN SO UNLESS YOU FIX THIS MIN SYS REQUIREMENT YOUR GOING TO LOOSE LOTS AND LOTS OF MONEY, I ALSO KNOW 10 PEOPLE WHO STILL PLAY DM WITH 233 MHZ'S TO 333 MHZ SYSTEMS, AND THESE GUYS AND GIRLS ARENT EVEN TRYING THE THRONE SINCE TRYING AC2 TRASHED SEVERAL OF THEIR SYSTEMS

[Protes]

What you mean Protes? Is this not the high res yet what we see in prev?

No it isn't Ironfield. On the Preview server we're currently seeing the graphics for those players that don't purchase/upgrade to the expansion pack.


Ibn posted this in ToD Weekly Status Update! 5/26

Almost. All players get access to the new graphics engine and its features as well as upgraded textures.

However, as part of a content update soon after the AC:TD launch, we will be unlocking a set of even more detailed textures for Throne of Destiny subscribers only.

As noted in the AC Vault interview, this set of “Very High” resolution textures were originally intended to be part of the AC:TD launch. However due to a bug they were never properly tested. Then, as we were testing the game, we realized that the gorgeous new graphics we were looking at for the game were actually not the highest resolution version! We’d been looking at the “High” resolution textures, which were so incredible that we believed we were looking at the “Very High” resolution textures.

So, initially AC:TD and non-AC:TD subscribers will see the exact same graphics after the launch. The Very High res textures will be unlocked as part of a regular content update shortly after the launch, and will be AC:TD-only, along with the new Islands, the ability to find and use Rare items, and all the other features of AC:TD.

link - http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?&postid=211637#post211637

[Dungeon Dan]

My experience with the preview seems to be going very well so far. Thought I would share some tips, and my setup.

For the "goldfish bowl view" problem, I've noticed that the "Field of View" setting has some wacky defaults. At 1280 X 1024, I moved the slider to the middle and the screen looks the way it should. No fishbowl problems. Your results may vary.

Ok, I have my res set to 1280 X 1024 with every graphical setting maxed out (Anistropic filtering? Why not!).

When I first logged on, I made a character in Holtburg under the assumption that the Viamont town would be too crowded to be playable. However, Holtburg was teeming with people as well...and the game was very laggy in town.

I was going to head out of town to get away from the masses, but ran out of time and logged for a few days.

The next time I logged back in there were only around 10 people in town, and the lag was gone. I ran around and did a couple of the nicely revamped newbie quests and made the decision that I really like what I've seen so far, and that I will be returning to AC after about 10 months away.

The more topical point though, is that during all of this I had no lag except for the typical AC lag of occasionally loading a texture into memory...which I was asking for with the draw distance set to "80,000 miles" anyway. No crashes either. In short, the game was running great with everything maxed.

Here's my rig:

AMD Athlon 2500
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128 MB) with the newest driver set (one without Catalyst though)
Audigy 2 ZS
Windows XP Home
1 Gig of RAM

Now here's probably the most important point. My system is clean. Utterly. If you look in the bottom right next to my clock, you'll see exactly ZERO icons. This is how a good desktop system should be. No programs running in the background. This goes even more so for the "popular" security programs that tend to kill your system as much as they protect it.

Before anyone starts to argue...I've been fixing computers and building custom gaming machines as my way of life for YEARS. Strangely, my systems always seem to run better then most other folks, even when their specs are higher. ;)

Spyware? Run the free downloadable Microsoft Spyware killer or Ad-Aware once a week.

Viruses? If everyone that uses your computer is a responsible user, you'll probably never get a virus. Ever. I've not had one in 17 freakin' years. If you have a hubby or wife that loves their porn or illegal software, then download "F-Prot". It's noticeably superior to Nortons or McAfee, it's cheaper, and it doesn't take over your computer and keep your games from working.

If you have little icons running in your corner. Do the following, which is completely safe on Windows XP:

Go to "Start". Select "Run". Type "msconfig", and press enter. Click on the "start-up" tab. Click "disable all" in the bottom right, and select apply or "ok". Restart your system. Your system is now running far better for your efforts. Congrats!

I hope all of this helps everyone. I really like where AC is going, and hate to see anyone discouraged because of fixable issues. If you have any other tech questions, feel free to hit me with them. Take care, all.

[thejackcat]

You've uglified my pretty Maggie the Jackcat character. She is now mean and nasty looking. I posted some comparison pics here (http://forums.thejackcat.com/index.php?showtopic=370&view=findpost&p=2785). Where are my glamorous eyelashes and my nice smile??

[Kaos Dark Rose]

Yikes maggie on one hand the graphics look great. But she does look rather mean now.

[Protes]

^ Well I certainly sympathize with Maggie. My main character went from having black hair in DM to grey hair on the Preview server :eek:

[Dungeon Dan]

Hmmmmm...I checked the pictures Maggie. To me, she just looks very "determined" now. Like the look of an attractive but battle-wisened warrior who is about to plunge into a horde of olthoi.

That's not the look she gives her friends, it's the look she gives her enemies.

I dunno ma'am, I'm sure my characters will look different in the face too...but I'll just look at it from a role-playing or "how my character has adapted since they first entered Dereth" perspective, the same as I applied to yours.

I do however understand that this is greatly a matter of personal perspective. I see it as adding a new dynamic onto the rich history of our old characters, so it's no big deal for me. Your perspective is probably quite different.

If I took a more crass approach, I'd say to just leave a helmet on 24/7 and say that your character has been cursed by a jealous, ancient god.

:)

Hope I was helpful, and not just irritating. Been using your site for a loooooooong time, and certainly appreciate it GREATLY.

[Trekman]

You've uglified my pretty Maggie the Jackcat character. She is now mean and nasty looking. I posted some comparison pics here (http://forums.thejackcat.com/index.php?showtopic=370&view=findpost&p=2785). Where are my glamorous eyelashes and my nice smile??

Dr. Maggie and Mrs. JackCat ?

Hmmm - I cannot compare my character as it is on Solclaim and therefore not copied to Destiny :rolleyes:

But he is bald anyway - I wonder what they can make out of him :D

[Bit O Honey]

:eek: ok....since this last patch 7/6 :eek:
i donno what you all did in it for update in graphics but i havent had any problems till i patched last night.. now i get all white toons..randomely when i walk into laggy areas..and some weapons are all white and sparkaly.its weird.its either just a white toon or just white weapons..whats causing this??? :confused:

to get rid of it i have to log all the way out...i cant even switch toons to stop it.

[Trekman]

Hello ? Is someone from Turbine still reading this thread after 10 pages ? :p

In previous posts I described the effect that my screen freezes for several seconds and assumed that it is caused by the handling of textures.

This still is true to a certain degree when entering new ("uncached") areas.
It seems to be better since the last patch - but I am not sure yet.

Anyway - sometimes the freezes also happened for instance while standing in Qalaba'r for a while - and even while /framerate shows consistent values above 60.

I think I discovered another culprit for them.

Especially when portalling to AB the freezes were dramatic - several seconds frozen, after that the landscape totally changed every time.
The number of trees, but also the ground textures (and I think even ground polygons).
And all that repeatedly.

This did lead me to the assumption that the freezes had something to do with Adaptive Degrade and I turned it off.

After disabling it I noticed a biiiiig decrease in these freezes. My PC is strong enough to draw all objects in time, so the basic framerate does not change.

I have the feeling (no benchmarks) that the Adaptive Degrade routine acts more "huffy" to fluctuations in the network bandwidth than in ACDM and recalculates the objects to be drawn much more often and/or slower.

Or the more complicated textures simply make the Adaptive Degrade so slow when drawing and hiding objects.

Or both.....