ESO Engine Updates being worked on

Baitness

In case anybody wasn't aware, ZOS is trying to ship a 64 bit client with the thieves guild update:

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2016/01/21/thieves-guild-first-look

Also, they just answered some engine questions in ESO Live:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242998/eso-live-ask-us-anything-the-answers

 Q: Is a DX12 upgrade a possibility in the future? ESO runs pretty darn well, except when there are many things requiring animation on screen at once. My slight understanding of this is that there are too many "draw calls" going out in such situations, and that DX12 handles them drastically better. Right now I run my game on lower settings specifically because of the lower framerate I get in cities, and it sounds like DX12 could improve the situation.

A: Yes, we are planning on a DX12 upgrade and expect that this will give us a number of graphics performance improvements. We cannot provide an ETA at this time, but it is something we’re working towards.

Q: First, can we get the fog pushed back? The fog is constant and thick, and takes away a lot of immersion for me. 

In certain situations, the fog is intended to be heavy and thick to contribute to the mood and atmosphere of the region. Aldcroft in Glenumbra, for example, is a spooky and moody place – as are many areas of Tamriel. The fog distances do change based on weather and time of day, and yes, we are able to change them. But, we have set maximum fog distances in each environment to hide other immersion-breaking issues such as LOD (line of distance) transitions, and very low-detail terrain, the worst culprits being the mountains and large rock features in the geography. This is an old issue and something we have been slowly working on addressing.
Additional LODs for all of the environment assets is somewhat prohibitive, but we are working through the problem. We have improved our tree LOD system and our skybox system so that we can have trees draw further in the distance and create the illusion of extended background mountain ranges, so the fog distance in Orsinium (the zone for our next upcoming DLC game pack), is set somewhat farther back than other zones. We would like to go back through the older zones and update them accordingly, but that work is currently lower priority than creating new DLC zones.

I am pretty excited about this, an ETA would have been nice but I am really surprised we got any info about it at all.

Entinerint

I've used this 64-bit launcher since the game came out, it removes the fog and makes the game 100x more tolerable.

https://www.gamemodi.net/

Also if you leave on the depth of field, the bad LODs and distant terrain are negated by the fact that it's all out of focus.

Maybe I'm crazy but I would not have been able to play the game all this time in its vanilla state.

Brenics

Thanks for the link. Also was worried once they go 64x sweetfx wouldn't work. 

vadio123

  ty 

Baitness

Entinerint said:

I've used this 64-bit launcher since the game came out, it removes the fog and makes the game 100x more tolerable.

https://www.gamemodi.net/

Also if you leave on the depth of field, the bad LODs and distant terrain are negated by the fact that it's all out of focus.

Maybe I'm crazy but I would not have been able to play the game all this time in its vanilla state.

Thanks for the link Entinerint.  I tried it once, but ended up uninstalling it.  The creator refused to show his code (one of the requirements for it being on ESO UI) and a quick look through the configuration files shows some lines that are troubling.  The config files make it look like he plans to add some extra features for payment (IIRC the config files referred to being a 'GameModiPlus Subscriber'), and some of those features I think will get the mod banned (automatic potion use stood out).

Right now I am uncomfortable using anything that includes either of those things (anything concerning payment or automating any part of the game).  He hasn't done anything wrong yet, mind you, and the ESO Launcher has been available a long time.  He may have completely cancelled any plans he had for stuff like that.  Even so, I just am not comfortable with using it.

I appreciate you helping me out though, the fog really does annoy me!  Right now I do the best I can with a sweetfx profile.  Orsinium had a longer view distance and the thieves guild DLC looks like it does as well, so I have that going for me.

gervaise1

Good answers. No timetable for stuff but these type of answers at least give you confidence; yes that is an issue we know about it; no that is deliberate.

And totally understandable that new stuff is the priority; no new DLC no money and I suspect the majority of people will be happy with that.

Entinerint

Baitness said:

Entinerint said:

I've used this 64-bit launcher since the game came out, it removes the fog and makes the game 100x more tolerable.

https://www.gamemodi.net/

Also if you leave on the depth of field, the bad LODs and distant terrain are negated by the fact that it's all out of focus.

Maybe I'm crazy but I would not have been able to play the game all this time in its vanilla state.

Thanks for the link Entinerint.  I tried it once, but ended up uninstalling it.  The creator refused to show his code (one of the requirements for it being on ESO UI) and a quick look through the configuration files shows some lines that are troubling.  The config files make it look like he plans to add some extra features for payment (IIRC the config files referred to being a 'GameModiPlus Subscriber'), and some of those features I think will get the mod banned (automatic potion use stood out).

Right now I am uncomfortable using anything that includes either of those things (anything concerning payment or automating any part of the game).  He hasn't done anything wrong yet, mind you, and the ESO Launcher has been available a long time.  He may have completely cancelled any plans he had for stuff like that.  Even so, I just am not comfortable with using it.

I appreciate you helping me out though, the fog really does annoy me!  Right now I do the best I can with a sweetfx profile.  Orsinium had a longer view distance and the thieves guild DLC looks like it does as well, so I have that going for me.

For sure, yeah.

I think those plans went down the drain when he stopped playing ESO and got hit with a "DO NOT DO THIS" from ZOS. So long as that stuff doesn't happen, ZOS is cool with it.

He recently did an update for Wrothgar that changed a LOT of things, negating the old code hooking method, basically so that updates would no longer break it.

JDis25

I plan on jumping back into ESO sometime this year. I always saw promise and they are doing some good things. Idk about the PvP side, but I really only play this game for the PvE.

XAleX360

Baitness said:

In case anybody wasn't aware, ZOS is trying to ship a 64 bit client with the thieves guild update:

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2016/01/21/thieves-guild-first-look

Also, they just answered some engine questions in ESO Live:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242998/eso-live-ask-us-anything-the-answers

 Q: Is a DX12 upgrade a possibility in the future? ESO runs pretty darn well, except when there are many things requiring animation on screen at once. My slight understanding of this is that there are too many "draw calls" going out in such situations, and that DX12 handles them drastically better. Right now I run my game on lower settings specifically because of the lower framerate I get in cities, and it sounds like DX12 could improve the situation.

A: Yes, we are planning on a DX12 upgrade and expect that this will give us a number of graphics performance improvements. We cannot provide an ETA at this time, but it is something we’re working towards.

Q: First, can we get the fog pushed back? The fog is constant and thick, and takes away a lot of immersion for me. 

In certain situations, the fog is intended to be heavy and thick to contribute to the mood and atmosphere of the region. Aldcroft in Glenumbra, for example, is a spooky and moody place – as are many areas of Tamriel. The fog distances do change based on weather and time of day, and yes, we are able to change them. But, we have set maximum fog distances in each environment to hide other immersion-breaking issues such as LOD (line of distance) transitions, and very low-detail terrain, the worst culprits being the mountains and large rock features in the geography. This is an old issue and something we have been slowly working on addressing.
Additional LODs for all of the environment assets is somewhat prohibitive, but we are working through the problem. We have improved our tree LOD system and our skybox system so that we can have trees draw further in the distance and create the illusion of extended background mountain ranges, so the fog distance in Orsinium (the zone for our next upcoming DLC game pack), is set somewhat farther back than other zones. We would like to go back through the older zones and update them accordingly, but that work is currently lower priority than creating new DLC zones.

I am pretty excited about this, an ETA would have been nice but I am really surprised we got any info about it at all.

Baitness, this was from an ESO live back in September 2015. Still great news, but the fact that we didn't get any ETA yet makes me wonder how much it will actually take them.

Phry

XAleX360 said:

Baitness said:

In case anybody wasn't aware, ZOS is trying to ship a 64 bit client with the thieves guild update:

http://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/2016/01/21/thieves-guild-first-look

Also, they just answered some engine questions in ESO Live:

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/242998/eso-live-ask-us-anything-the-answers

 Q: Is a DX12 upgrade a possibility in the future? ESO runs pretty darn well, except when there are many things requiring animation on screen at once. My slight understanding of this is that there are too many "draw calls" going out in such situations, and that DX12 handles them drastically better. Right now I run my game on lower settings specifically because of the lower framerate I get in cities, and it sounds like DX12 could improve the situation.

A: Yes, we are planning on a DX12 upgrade and expect that this will give us a number of graphics performance improvements. We cannot provide an ETA at this time, but it is something we’re working towards.

Q: First, can we get the fog pushed back? The fog is constant and thick, and takes away a lot of immersion for me. 

In certain situations, the fog is intended to be heavy and thick to contribute to the mood and atmosphere of the region. Aldcroft in Glenumbra, for example, is a spooky and moody place – as are many areas of Tamriel. The fog distances do change based on weather and time of day, and yes, we are able to change them. But, we have set maximum fog distances in each environment to hide other immersion-breaking issues such as LOD (line of distance) transitions, and very low-detail terrain, the worst culprits being the mountains and large rock features in the geography. This is an old issue and something we have been slowly working on addressing.
Additional LODs for all of the environment assets is somewhat prohibitive, but we are working through the problem. We have improved our tree LOD system and our skybox system so that we can have trees draw further in the distance and create the illusion of extended background mountain ranges, so the fog distance in Orsinium (the zone for our next upcoming DLC game pack), is set somewhat farther back than other zones. We would like to go back through the older zones and update them accordingly, but that work is currently lower priority than creating new DLC zones.

I am pretty excited about this, an ETA would have been nice but I am really surprised we got any info about it at all.

Baitness, this was from an ESO live back in September 2015. Still great news, but the fact that we didn't get any ETA yet makes me wonder how much it will actually take them.

Before they do that kind of thing, they need to look at how many of their players actually can use it, in a years time the take up might be significant enough to warrant using dx12, but even then, i think it will just be at the stage where its supported, but the game being based more likely on dx11,  as i think only the XB1 is going to be using dx12 in the future, and with the PS4 having a much larger presence in the game than XB1, i am not entirely sure how that will pan out, it might well be entirely dependent on how many PC players use Win10.
Still, moving to a 64 bit client is good news, though it kind of implies that the console versions are stuck on a 32 bit client, or am i mistaken in this?

Solar_Prophet

Very nice. Can't say the fog ever really bothered me though, I'm usually too busy paying attention to the foreground to notice it. Better performance in cities would be quite welcome, as the game runs extremely well almost maxed out on my machine everywhere else. 

Iselin

Yeah the 64-bit client is something I'm also looking forward to.

Regarding Sweetfx... I'm one of the few who has never been a fan. Probably because of all the digital photography and editing I've done over the years. I do appreciate the extra options it gives you but I find the results, especially those posted on the net as "after" examples, incredibly overcooked in both contrast and saturation... the most overused photo "enhancements" used by beginner digital photo editors.

GeezerGamer

I would be happy if I could just move WASD to M1 M2 M3

fivoroth

To be honest the fog never bothered me. Actually I prefer it as it adds to the atmosphere. Eliminating fog just because people want to see further away does not seem rea life like to me. In real world you do have fog and sometimes it's so thick you can only clearly see a few feet away from you. 

I would much rather they focused on adding more content. Graphics and fog of vision are not particularly important to me. I am surprised some people even found the game intolerable because of this.

JudgeUK

I only wish they would provide a traditional mmo UI - with the option to unclick any features people didn't want.
All this out of date (or in a few cases deceased) addon messing about, just to get you to a point that's still not as good as a standard mmo UI puts me off.
I fully appreciate that some people want the Skyrim feel - in an mmo. Ok, then clickable features would give them that. Heck they could just unclick eveything if UI features where set up as fully optional.

But it's more than Skyrim - it's an mmo, and a significant part of it's market will be mmo players coming in from other games.

Now I heard that they did run with a more conventional UI in beta, but removed it. Not sure why if players could just unclick features they didn't like.

There are a few games out there that mix the Keyboard/Mouse & Controller UI's and do a pretty good job of it.
However, a fuller UI probably won't happen after this length of time, but maybe one day.

DAS1337

fivoroth said:

To be honest the fog never bothered me. Actually I prefer it as it adds to the atmosphere. Eliminating fog just because people want to see further away does not seem rea life like to me. In real world you do have fog and sometimes it's so thick you can only clearly see a few feet away from you. 

I would much rather they focused on adding more content. Graphics and fog of vision are not particularly important to me. I am surprised some people even found the game intolerable because of this.

Yes, sometimes, even rarely, in real life, there is fog.  However, the problem that people have is that you don't ALWAYS have fog.  Which is the case in ESO.  I tried sweetfx once, then uninstalled it when it completely borked my game using DSR.

Baitness

XAleX360 said:

Baitness, this was from an ESO live back in September 2015. Still great news, but the fact that we didn't get any ETA yet makes me wonder how much it will actually take them.

Thanks dude, I didn't know they were from September (though I could have realized Orsinium clearly was not out yet in them).  I noticed this because someone recently transcribed the Q & A section fom all ESO Lives and posted it on the forums.  I had heard nothing at all about engine improvements for fog, or for getting DX12, so I thought I should post it.

XAleX360

Baitness said:

XAleX360 said:

Baitness, this was from an ESO live back in September 2015. Still great news, but the fact that we didn't get any ETA yet makes me wonder how much it will actually take them.

Thanks dude, I didn't know they were from September (though I could have realized Orsinium clearly was not out yet in them).  I noticed this because someone recently transcribed the Q & A section fom all ESO Lives and posted it on the forums.  I had heard nothing at all about engine improvements for fog, or for getting DX12, so I thought I should post it.

No problem. It was actually a great find as it slipped by basically everyone until now!

SlyLoK

The 64bit client should help a good bit with performance.

But the thought of DX12.. That would be amazing. I think ESO is already one of if not the best looking MMO out and to add DX12 and the bells and whistles it brings. I cant imagine how great the game would look.

tom_gore

ESO's environment graphics and animations are ok. It's the ugly armor textures and meshes that make the game look bad.

That, and no capes!

tom_gore

SlyLoK said:

The 64bit client should help a good bit with performance.

But the thought of DX12.. That would be amazing. I think ESO is already one of if not the best looking MMO out and to add DX12 and the bells and whistles it brings. I cant imagine how great the game would look.

Until they competely redo armor meshing and textures (so that plate mail does not bend and fluctuate when your character breathes) DX12 won't do much good.

SlyLoK

tom_gore said:

SlyLoK said:

The 64bit client should help a good bit with performance.

But the thought of DX12.. That would be amazing. I think ESO is already one of if not the best looking MMO out and to add DX12 and the bells and whistles it brings. I cant imagine how great the game would look.

Until they competely redo armor meshing and textures (so that plate mail does not bend and fluctuate when your character breathes) DX12 won't do much good.

There are plenty of things DX12 brings. Not having separate armor models on top of character models wouldnt stop DX12 from making everything else look better.

However moving to a 64bit client opens up much more memory to use for ESO.. Whow knows maybe they will work on making armor textures look less like a flat texture.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

filmoret

LOL at the guy who said weather effects was ruining his immersion.

Entinerint

filmoret said:

LOL at the guy who said weather effects was ruining his immersion.

What weather effects?

The fog isn't weather, it's everywhere no matter what the weather is like. Clear day in Auridon? Pale blue fog at 300 feet.

There's actually a separate fog and haze shader for foggy weather that only becomes active when it's rainy or misty out. But the distance fog has nothing to do with weather.

Sovrath

JudgeUK said:

I only wish they would provide a traditional mmo UI - with the option to unclick any features people didn't want.
All this out of date (or in a few cases deceased) addon messing about, just to get you to a point that's still not as good as a standard mmo UI puts me off.
I fully appreciate that some people want the Skyrim feel - in an mmo. Ok, then clickable features would give them that. Heck they could just unclick eveything if UI features where set up as fully optional.

But it's more than Skyrim - it's an mmo, and a significant part of it's market will be mmo players coming in from other games.

Now I heard that they did run with a more conventional UI in beta, but removed it. Not sure why if players could just unclick features they didn't like.

There are a few games out there that mix the Keyboard/Mouse & Controller UI's and do a pretty good job of it.
However, a fuller UI probably won't happen after this length of time, but maybe one day.

huh, I think the UI is great. I've never played an mmo that had a traditional "mmo interface" that I liked. It always cluttered the screen.