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Developer Update: Shadow Optimizations in Game Update 1.4


EricMusco

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Would be interested to know the metrics on the % of active players with shadows turned on if they can be provided.

 

For me optimizing an optional area doesn't seem so productive compared to a mandatory area would be interesting to see if the majority of players do play with shadows turned on.

 

Nice job though, I'm sure it will make fixed screenshots look a bit better.

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Umm... Shadow optimizations? Lol... You're funny :) - Sorry, try doing some testing and research - Any decent rig can far outperform this game engines limitations, unfortunately no amount of hardware can actually substitute for a broken engine. Shadow optimization, great... Not my issue at all, everything on high, everything on low, you will receive the exact same bottlenecks in warzones, some operations, and high population areas due to this games pathetic engine. This is with any PC. Let's not debate this here.

 

Read my thread here, and find countless others, then we'll talk: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=507316

 

In addition to these functional changes, there have been numerous optimizations made to the underlying core technology to reduce the load on the player’s computer. In most cases, players should notice an improvement to framerate compared to the previous system. Players with high-end AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI machines should notice a large improvement when running the game with the new shadow system.

 

OK?

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Although the shadows are indeed pretty on the PTS, I can sadly tell that the promised optimization for SLI setups is NOT working.

 

I'm getting 60+ FPS whatever the settings on live servers.

 

On the PTS, whenever I put the shadows on high, it drops to 28-30... Even with today's patch (it even got a little worse?)

 

Dual GTX 570 with latest NVidia drivers.

 

Got to agree. Nice that shadows might be less silly looking, but perf got worse with this patch, so no chance of me getting to see them. Honestly, base perf is just awful, please fix that before worrying about frills.

Having to have an SLI set up to enable shadows is lame.

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WHY DOES bioware waste their time fixing somehting that is not a major issue. Alot of people I know and play with would rather see content be released, or a ton of bugs be fixed than to see shadows a little clearer. SO close to unsubscribing.
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WHY DOES bioware waste their time fixing somehting that is not a major issue. Alot of people I know and play with would rather see content be released, or a ton of bugs be fixed than to see shadows a little clearer. SO close to unsubscribing.

 

Yes, what they should really do is make a big patch full of new content and bug fixes and put it on the PTS for us to test it.

 

Because this is the internet, I'll point out that that was sarcasm (They did, if you didn't notice). Them renovating their shadowing method and improving performance on top of consolidating servers and giving us extra free character slots is icing on the cake. But yes, let us all continue to complain like entitled children and immaturely threaten to unsubscribe in order to get whatever our message is across.

 

Oh, I accidentally ended up in General Discussion, that explains it. Well, enjoy your angst, I'm getting out of here.

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In addition to these functional changes, there have been numerous optimizations made to the underlying core technology to reduce the load on the player’s computer. In most cases, players should notice an improvement to framerate compared to the previous system. Players with high-end AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI machines should notice a large improvement when running the game with the new shadow system.

 

OK?

Let's hope this is true.

 

Frankly I think it's 100% referring to just the new shadows system:

Players with high-end AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI machines should notice a large improvement when running the game with the new shadow system.

 

Regardless, their wording suggests that the load on the system will be reduced, this means nothing to the current engine's limitations given my system is hardly utilized running this hopelessly threaded game - The "core changes" may simply be noticeable to lower-end PC's, and the only benefit for higher-end PC's will be the new shadow system. lol I remember the 1.3 patch notes..... Still funny.

 

We'll see, i'm definitely not getting my hopes up that's for sure. This way I won't be disappointed yet again, but may be happily surprised. I think the former.

 

Carrot on a stick.

Edited by billyconnite
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Let's hope this is true.

 

Frankly I think it's 100% referring to just the new shadows system:

Players with high-end AMD CrossFire or Nvidia SLI machines should notice a large improvement when running the game with the new shadow system.

Regardless, their wording suggests that the load on the system will be reduced, this means nothing to the current engine's limitations given my system is hardly utilized running this hopelessly threaded game - The "core changes" may simply be noticeable to lower-end PC's, and the only benefit for higher-end PC's will be the new shadow system. lol I remember the 1.3 patch notes..... Still funny.

The problem is that the 1.4 shadows completely cripple performance on high-end SLI systems. Running on a single card (or with SLI disabled) is way faster than on SLI in 1.4 (at least on the public test server) and turning on SLI makes the game unplayable in many areas on a high end computer. In 1.3, SLI gives a good performance boost over a single card, but 1.4 has definitely crippled SLi performance when all the options are turned up (not sure about CrossfireX, as I currently don't have cards to test it). It's completely odd that the blog post clearly states that SLi and Crossfire performance on high-end machines is greatly increased by these changes, when in reality, it has the adverse effect. Edited by Glzmo
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When I saw an article about "Shadow Optimizations"," I was excited. Then I read the article.

 

To make a long story short, I've found that for me, the best option is to play with shadows on during the outdoor periods, and then turn them to "low" (i.e. the only shadows are little circles at the characters' feet) during the indoor parts (including city-planets like Coruscant and Nar Shaddaa.) (On a side note, when I first got the game, shadows went from "High" to "Low" or "Off" instantly. Now it takes a reloading of the entire screen. This is improvement ... how?)

 

So when I heard all the talk about "everything will cast dynamic shadows" and how the shadows will be rounded, my heart sank as I can only dread the extra processor power that will take, and the subsequent frame rate loss.

 

On the topic of shadows, I would have recommended some much different ideas, such as "1.5 shadows" for the terrain in the "medium" shader settings, trying to get the current "high" shadows , or things like that.

 

Blocky terrain shadows are better than no terrain shadows at all. Please don't make us non-uber-end users have to choose between shadowed terrain and playability!

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Thank you SO much! When I first started playing the game, I was very upset with the shadow details. I had to totally turned it off! I LOVE this game and I'm really glad to see Bioware is polishing this game step by step. Good job guys... keep up the good work! ;)
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Way to bring the borked SLI performance live, Bioware, even though it was reported before. Why do you even put patches on the public test server when you ignore feedback and bug reports on critical issues like this and bring the patches live without fixing them? Having worse performance in 1.4 with SLI enabled than a single card is Inacceptable! On Tython, I had 90-110FPS with full details on my dual GeForce GTX 580 3GB SLI rig in 1.3, in 1.4 it's 20-35. On a single card in 1.4 with SLI disabled I get 35-50 FPS.

 

Bioware, why do you bring such buggy builds live even though you know of the issues?!

 

I am disappointed and mad at you.

Edited by Glzmo
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Way to bring the borked SLI performance live, Bioware, even though it was reported before

 

Not only did they broke SLI. They also broke Crossfire.

 

So, once again, they screwed all the people with dual GPU rigs, yet they claim improved performance with the patch.

 

So much Biofail.

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Way to bring the borked SLI performance live, Bioware, even though it was reported before. Why do you even put patches on the public test server when you ignore feedback and bug reports on critical issues like this and bring the patches live without fixing them? Having worse performance in 1.4 with SLI enabled than a single card is Inacceptable! On Tython, I had 90-110FPS with full details on my dual GeForce GTX 580 3GB SLI rig in 1.3, in 1.4 it's 20-35. On a single card in 1.4 with SLI disabled I get 35-50 FPS.

 

Bioware, why do you bring such buggy builds live even though you know of the issues?!

 

I am disappointed and mad at you.

Yep, running shadows on High last night I was capped at 60fps (V-synced). Log in today and I'm struggling to manage 30 at the same settings with my SLI 560 Ti cards...

 

Come on, Bioware.

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  • Dev Post
Hey everyone - we're aware of some issues introduced in Game Update 1.4 that may cause frame stuttering or performance problems (particularly on CrossFire or SLi setups). If you are experiencing these problems, please try disabling shadows. We are working on resolving these issues, but disabling shadows in the meantime may result in a performance increase. If you notice a performance increase after disabling shadows, please post to let us know (as some of you already have). We'll update you if we have any more information to share as we work on this issue. Thank you! Edited by AllisonBerryman
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THis are my fps according to CTRL+SHIFT+F informations, I tested BH ship (so it is not dependent anyway from other people presence) and on the fleet

 

On the ship:

Shadows off: around 108 fps

Shadows low: around 108 fps (same as off)

Shadows high: around 80 fps

Yesterday i was around 108 fps with shadows on

 

On the fleet:

Shadows off: around 35 fps

Shadows low: around 30 fps

Shadows high: around 22 fps

Yesterday i was around 50 fps with shadows on

 

 

I have a ATI radeon HD 5700 updated to latest driver.

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Did you guys try running the repair option? I started to experience a crash to desktop and couldn't log in so I had to run it. After doing so I just so happened to re-enable shadows and the game seemed to be running smooth again. See if it works for you.

 

After further testing this did NOT resolve my issue with shadows. Sorry! :eek:

Edited by jugheadz
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Okay I am getting horrible frames even when I disable shadows. The game ran fine for me on Max before patch 1.4, but now the game still performs horribly ON VERY LOW settings. My GPU is a single 6970 and therefore should be able to handle this game.

 

i7-3770k

Radeon HD 6970

8GB RAM

7200RPM HDD

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I have NVIDIA GTX 580 Core i7 950 and 8 GB RAM

 

With Patch 1.4 I have severe lag. Even if I disable shadows and select the lowest graphic options from game menu the problem persists. I had no issues before applying patch 1.4.

 

Note: Disabling ambient occlusion or enabling it at quality setting does NOT increase OR decrease my frame rate.

Enabling or disabling AA does not change FPS.

 

I run the game at highest settings at Full HD + NVIDIA ambient occlusion quality, negative LOD allowed, FXAA, NVIDIA 16 AF override and 8xCSAA, triple buffer.

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