Star Wars: The Old Republic General Discussion

Blowfish

Gummy Panda wrote: »

New patch. Performance is now awful even when I turn off AA. This game is not optimised. The Hero engine must be garbage considering I've been in wow zones with more going on and lots of players with everything on full and the game playing like silk.

I hate to point out the obvious, but WoW is a 7 year old game with which you can pretty much count the triangles. Expecting to get the same performance from SWTOR is just a bit far fetched.

Gummy Panda

Blowfish wrote: »

I hate to point out the obvious, but WoW is a 7 year old game with which you can pretty much count the triangles. Expecting to get the same performance from SWTOR is just a bit far fetched.

Sorry but wow's engine is not the engine they started with in 2004. Its been heavily modified since then. I'd expect more performance issues from wow considering how patched it is. SWTOR has a few people in a run into a room and there is performance issues. The FPS are sky rocketing then dipping all over the place. The blue glow from the holoterminal on the ship affects FPS as well.

No signs of GCD locking tonight but there was ability lag which is a pain as melee.

Blowfish

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Sorry but wow's engine is not the engine they started with in 2004. Its been heavily modified since then. I'd expect more performance issues from wow considering how patched it is. SWTOR has a few people in a run into a room and there is performance issues. The FPS are sky rocketing then dipping all over the place. The blue glow from the holoterminal on the ship affects FPS as well.

There is still absolutely no comparison between the two when it comes to graphical quality. If you are having fps issues, you need to either reduce the settings or upgrade your hardware.

nesf

Blowfish wrote: »

There is still absolutely no comparison between the two when it comes to graphical quality. If you are having fps issues, you need to either reduce the settings or upgrade your hardware.

No he(?) makes a fair point. I've a beast of a machine here and I'm having the same pattern of fps drops and spikes. My machine is sufficiently powerful that it's not noticeable when playing but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with the engine.

I like the game but the engine is **** for a AAA MMO.

Gummy Panda

Blowfish wrote: »

Gummy Panda wrote: »

Sorry but wow's engine is not the engine they started with in 2004. Its been heavily modified since then. I'd expect more performance issues from wow considering how patched it is. SWTOR has a few people in a run into a room and there is performance issues. The FPS are sky rocketing then dipping all over the place. The blue glow from the holoterminal on the ship affects FPS as well.

There is still absolutely no comparison between the two when it comes to graphical quality. If you are having fps issues, you need to either reduce the settings or upgrade your hardware.

I've lowered the settings and out spec recommended. It's the game. A guild mate has a newly built PC and is suffering performance issues as well while he is running every other game on ultra/high. Should he upgrade hardware as well?

The performance issues kicked in again with patch.

ShaneU

After the patch I've had some freezing issues, other people have had problems with frame rate. Can't notice any difference in graphics with AA on. The high detail character models are what I want, tired of looking at blurry clothes all the time. This is my first MMO and I'm enjoying it, I played the WoW trial to level 20 and got bored, it just seemed aimless to me.

nesf

Gummy Panda wrote: »

I've lowered the settings and out spec recommended. It's the game. A guild mate has a newly built PC and is suffering performance issues as well while he is running every other game on ultra/high. Should he upgrade hardware as well?

The performance issues kicked in again with patch.

Is he using ATI in crossfire? If so turning off shadows helps a bit. The rest of the settings don't seem to matter much.

Raphael

My performance is unchanged after patch. Biggest difference i've noticed is that slicing got a slight buff, and is now profitable again, and that mats now stack when you toss them into cargo holds. So yay that.

Raphael

My performance is unchanged after patch. Biggest difference i've noticed is that slicing got a slight buff, and is now profitable again, and that mats now stack when you toss them into cargo holds. So yay that.

nesf

Raphael wrote: »

that mats now stack when you toss them into cargo holds. So yay that.

Oh, sweet Lord yes...

Kirby

It runs fine on mine at max with lots of resource heavy super-sampling AA. But I've got a good machine. My sister has an average laptop and it struggles with swtor yet can play the sims fine. This is not acceptable in my eyes. The game needs serious work for fit in with the majority of the pc gaming market....which have rubbish rigs. They need to know their audience and it was a mistake to prohibit so many customers from enjoying the game. Compare another recent game like Starcraft 2. Visually stunning with all the eye candy. But you can turn it all off and run it with a decade old pentium. Thats great coding.

The game is not optimized well. That is true. However stories of "My mate just built a new rig and it struggles" are hard to believe. Any sub 700 rig in the last 3 years can run the game no problem. Your mate is either foolish in his choice of parts or doesn't know what he's doing.

People don't research before they buy and end up with lemons and integrated graphics and just assume that because its new or expensive its the bee's knees.

WoW was a good engine with regards requirements. You could run it on weak machine and be fine aslong as you stayed away from the main city hubs and raiding as it would make you chug in single figures. But the rest of the game questing, soloing, pvp etc would be grand.

Having said that, the engine is eight years old and no amount of "modyfing" over the years changes that. It shows its age. Visually swtor is streets ahead. It just runs really poorly for alot of people. Boo-urns to the developers for that. It might cost them big time.

MikeyJoyce

Well when i was trying out the game last week it was running Dreadful!
Indeed Warcraft's engine is old but it looks very nice especially the Goblin starter zones which look fantastic.

Anyways my hardware is more than capable to run Swtor atm i have
Intel i5 2500k Overclocked 4.0ghz
8gb 1666hz ram
4850 x 2 2GB ( Single Card )

Now judging by this hardware the game should be smooth as silk but its not. I do get 60 fps but the game feels jumpy and laggy. Now all these problems may be occurring because of my graphics card but tbh because of crossfire and AMD's complete disregard for keeping drivers up to date ( they have got better i suppose ) but all in all with this hardware there really shouldnt be any problem especially for a MMO.

Anyways here is a fix for anyone out there running a crossfire setup that will improve your fps ( how much is dependent on the rest of your hardware)
After i enabled this setting my fps was lowered to 50-55 BUT the jumpiness was significantly reduced and the game felt a whole lot better.

Anyways get the Catalyst drivers 12.1
Go to Gaming ..
Application Profiles..
Setup a new Profile for Swtor and browse to swtor.exe now the launcher swtor is hidden in a subfolder.

Go back to ccc and in the new profile set

AMD crossfireX for 3D applications to
Optimize 1x1

I know this wont help everyone but if you have crossfire and if you have problems try that and see if it works for you as it did for me.

Back to my main point I agree that the engine can be good but i don't think the engine is the one they should have chosen seeing as the hero engine is regarded as not being so fantastic throughout the industry.

But i believe the game is NOT optimized and could have been made work a whole lot better with the general population of PC's and as said above this might cost them big time because one of WOWs more advantages was its ease of access a lot of computers can pick up wow and play with no significant problems.

Gummy Panda

Kirby wrote: »

The game is not optimized well. That is true. However stories of "My mate just built a new rig and it struggles" are hard to believe. Any sub 700 rig in the last 3 years can run the game no problem. Your mate is either foolish in his choice of parts or doesn't know what he's doing.

It runs for him but not at expected performance. He was okay till the patch, now he gets this weird blurring/flickering effect with camera.

Mikey, I'm running Optimal performance through cc. Performance was getting better every hot fix. Patch just turned it on its head.

Gummy Panda

I was reading on swtor.com that even though your graphic settings say shadows are turned off, they were turned back on by patch.

People are suggesting removing the settings .ini files. Might try that tonight

Raphael

Interesting...

Edit: Checked my ini now, and shadows are set to false - that said, I was playing with my graphics settings straight after patch to see the changes, and may have turned them on and off there.

ShaneU

Getting fed up with all this downtime. More maintenance now, tells me to visit the forums for more details and the forums put me in a waiting room! Ridiculous

Dustaz

regarding graphics and the engine, I've always had dreadful performance from sw and my machine really isnt that bad. I havent noticed it get worse with this patch, but then again i play most games on low graphics because i dont give a toss about them. In an mmo, you are really only looking at cooldowns, hp/mana bars and patrols/boss mechanic/enemy players. You can stop and admire the detail on the wookies bullet belt once, but after that you dont notice. I guess thats why wow went down the cartoon route.


A much bigger hit to performance is the farce that ilum has become since the patch. 200 imperial players zerging around the republic base with about 75 or 80 republics zerging back. 4fps, no chance to actually "play". Its like Tarren Mill/Southshore all over again. My advice is to get down to ilum, farm yourself up to rank 60 and then bore everyone to death for years to come about "how amazing pvp was in the good old days in ilum".

Im really not sure how bioware thought this change would encourage world pvp. Everyone just goes and spams each other till they get their 30 kill credits. I spent about an hour in ilum last night doing the daily, then the weekly and then farming before i got bored of just aoe'ing in a slideshow and went and watched tv. pretty much exactly like tm/ss except i guess with the added bonus of being able to rank up to something worthwhile.

Blowfish

Dustaz wrote: »

A much bigger hit to performance is the farce that ilum has become since the patch. 200 imperial players zerging around the republic base with about 75 or 80 republics zerging back. 4fps, no chance to actually "play". Its like Tarren Mill/Southshore all over again. My advice is to get down to ilum, farm yourself up to rank 60 and then bore everyone to death for years to come about "how amazing pvp was in the good old days in ilum".

Im really not sure how bioware thought this change would encourage world pvp. Everyone just goes and spams each other till they get their 30 kill credits. I spent about an hour in ilum last night doing the daily, then the weekly and then farming before i got bored of just aoe'ing in a slideshow and went and watched tv. pretty much exactly like tm/ss except i guess with the added bonus of being able to rank up to something worthwhile.

Agreed. It's a pity really, Ilum had finally started to get more lively just before the patch. What had started happening was that those that just wanted the daily would come in, flip points and then leave which was fine. The ones that actually wanted to PvP though would end up forming small scale (4-8) groups on each side and roam the map battling each other which could be fun.

Now it just seems to be a large group of Imps camping just out of range of the turrets staring angrily and taking pot shots at the small group of Republics hanging around. I'm hoping that it calms down after a while and those that normally wouldn't be there will get bored soon enough and leave the rest of us to it.

Omphin

Blowfish wrote: »

Agreed. It's a pity really, Ilum had finally started to get more lively just before the patch. What had started happening was that those that just wanted the daily would come in, flip points and then leave which was fine. The ones that actually wanted to PvP though would end up forming small scale (4-8) groups on each side and roam the map battling each other which could be fun.

Now it just seems to be a large group of Imps camping just out of range of the turrets staring angrily and taking pot shots at the small group of Republics hanging around. I'm hoping that it calms down after a while and those that normally wouldn't be there will get bored soon enough and leave the rest of us to it.

What way was it b4 in ilum? i only hit 50 last night and made my way there to get the daily done. Got there to the lagfest and stood in the crowd of fistwaving till i got my 30 armaments, got bored with it and left. hope they fix it. Or maybe not allow raids there or something cause it sucks for both sides

Blowfish

Omphin wrote: »

What way was it b4 in ilum? i only hit 50 last night and made my way there to get the daily done. Got there to the lagfest and stood in the crowd of fistwaving till i got my 30 armaments, got bored with it and left. hope they fix it. Or maybe not allow raids there or something cause it sucks for both sides

Basically previous to the patch to get the daily, you had to capture 5 points or kill 5 enemies.

What ended up happening was that some people on each side deliberately flipped the points back and forth between sides without killing eachother because it meant the daily was done quicker. In fact, I was regularly given out to by other Imps for attacking the Repubs as they were point swapping.

As silly as the point swapping was, it did mean that as I mentioned above, those who weren't really interested in PvPing just went in grabbed the daily within 10 mins and left. There was definitely a small but growing core (on both sides) though that had started to hang around for some actual decent battles.

Blowfish

So, predictably enough with the sub date here, they are showing some of the stuff that they'll be adding here.

Nothing revolutionary really (bar the legacy system I suppose), but it'll be nice to have SWTOR 'fleshed out' feature wise.

Dustaz

Blowfish wrote: »

So, predictably enough with the sub date here, they are showing some of the stuff that they'll be adding here.

Nothing revolutionary really (bar the legacy system I suppose), but it'll be nice to have SWTOR 'fleshed out' feature wise.

They've been working on that new dungeon for a YEAR? Did it yesterday and im in no hurry back. Left4dead inspired with some nice touches. Horrible amount of trash, decent loot though. Like nearly everything sw:tor, its a great idea that just doesnt quite make the grade.

The game should not have launched without UI customisation of some sort, so they cant be serious in touting that as a feature

Blowfish

Dustaz wrote: »

They've been working on that new dungeon for a YEAR? Did it yesterday and im in no hurry back. Left4dead inspired with some nice touches. Horrible amount of trash, decent loot though. Like nearly everything sw:tor, its a great idea that just doesnt quite make the grade.

I think they meant the've been working on the entire Rakghoul storyline for a year. Granted though I haven't gotten around to the instance yet so don't know what it's like.

Gummy Panda

Blowfish wrote: »

Nothing revolutionary really (bar the legacy system I suppose), but it'll be nice to have SWTOR 'fleshed out' feature wise.

legacy system seems like a form of guild perks with the guild elements. Rather then give heirloom items like wow it could be a legacy tree that you unlock stuff like 5% more xp. Well thats what I hope, another system were you have to make choices.

Varik

Played until i got the my legacy and will probably start again in a month.

Blowfish

Gummy Panda wrote: »

legacy system seems like a form of guild perks with the guild elements. Rather then give heirloom items like wow it could be a legacy tree that you unlock stuff like 5% more xp. Well thats what I hope, another system were you have to make choices.

That could be part of it alright, but if you look at the vid, one of the things shown when mentioning the legacy system was a Miraluka Sith Warrior. Given that you can't currently play a SW as a Miraluka, it seems the legacy system will let you unlock new race/class combos.

Stev_o

That guy was consuming someone's soul. He never blinked once.

Venom

Blowfish wrote: »

I think they meant the've been working on the entire Rakghoul storyline for a year. Granted though I haven't gotten around to the instance yet so don't know what it's like.

Even so the Rakghoul storyline is just 2 flashpoints. A year on just 2 flashpoints seems a crazy waste of resources imho.

As for the legacy system I hope to **** they add in some option that boosts the XP you get from class quests by 100% so you don't have to redo 90% of the games missions every thing you level up a different class.

ShaneU

Does legacy XP level up other characters on the same server, or is it just to unlock legacy options that don't exist yet?

Blowfish

ShaneU wrote: »

Does legacy XP level up other characters on the same server, or is it just to unlock legacy options that don't exist yet?

The latter. It'll be March before we see them roll out the legacy options.