I want to thank EVERYBODY for the support we are all giving to this post. Many good opinions here. More than 50 pages in 1 day clearly shows one thing: as customers paying for a 50$ product and worth 15$ a month, we deserve an answer.

 

//Update

 

Ok, since this has become the "official" post for the High Resolution Textures issue, I'm going to update this post for newcomers with the information we have at the moment. So, here are the facts we know:

 

1- The game had high resolution textures during beta. But they disappeared before releasing the live client.

 

2- You are NOT playing in high settings, no matter what your preferences window says. At this moment, medium=high, and there is no high, so you are all playing viewing your char's textures in medium quality.

 

3- This was expected to be fixed in the PTS. However, at this moment the issue hasn't been fixed for 1.1. What is more, they deleted the "Medium" quality option, and now there are only two options. Low and High. And yes, you are right: High is just the new Medium, as you can see in this screenshot:

 

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/9238/swtor3.png

 

More info on this, by MaxWham:

 

Ok, I've made myself to download the whole Test Client, and that's what I've found:

Now there are only 2 options for "Texture Quality", "Shader Complexity" and "Character

Level of Detail":

 

http://floomby.com/content/Unhn91yMJ0

 

http://floomby.com/content/mx3gBmTTkS

 

http://floomby.com/content/axEz2UPYUE

 

This is how the game looks on Low:

 

http://floomby.com/content/5hsuNryE1E

 

And High:

 

http://floomby.com/content/SpcGe55FUk

 

So you see enviroment textures do change, but the character ones are always the same...

The options of "Low" and "High" only affect cutscenes, but unfortunately I can't make screenies during them:(...

 

4- Somehow, the high resolution textures are already in the game. But they are not being used while playing with your character. You can see em during dialog cutscenes. You can see them on your companions wardrobe preview window. And you can see them for 0,5 secs after clicking on your holo terminal in your ship. Here are some examples:

 

Medium: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/59/screenshot2012010419385.jpg/

High: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/screenshot2012010419390.jpg/

 

Medium: http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/8974/screenshot2012010710454.jpg

High: http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/553/hirez.png

 

Medium: http://imgur.com/NqI7j

High: http://imgur.com/M7Geg

 

ToonPhil shared with us this one: http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3646/swtorhightextures1.png

 

Another one from Adamant:

 

Medium: http://i.imgur.com/PsqBo.jpg

High: http://i.imgur.com/U1RMk.jpg

 

And yet another one: http://i146.photobucket.com/albums/r277/UnruheEndlos/The%20Old%20Republic/TORTextureComparison.jpg

 

One of the best high/med comparison photosets I've seen in this forum, by Rhykker: http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/5493/hirez.jpg

 

Gif showing the difference between both: http://m.uploadedit.com/bac/1325903803236.gif

 

and another gif: http://i40.tinypic.com/ip8wmb.gif

 

And a video:

 

Also, I'm getting this from the user Lemon_King. I can't confirm it, so I'll just leave it here so we have as much information as possible (at least it is more information than what Bioware is giving us atm):

 

FYI: Did some mining, in the Renderer where it handles Dynamic Models - There is code for once it has all the textures for a Player / NPC Dynamic model is resizes the texture by 50%. So forcing MipMap Bias to -1 won't work around this issue.

However, a crafty dll Mod for RemoteRenderer could get around this issue by setting the resize to 1:1 instead of 1:2."

 

It is important to note that after 90+ pages, Bioware still hasn't said anything about this.

 

I'm also quoting this very well written post:

 

Well, that thread on the PTS forum shows that they at least know about this one and are reading it. I have faith in Bioware to fix this issue, I'm sure they understand the damage to their credit by removing the medium texture setting and changing it to be called "high" and obviously the cat's out of the bag now. I think in general if they answer the following questions here, most of us will be satisfied -

 

1. Please clarify the "work around" requested in the first post of this thread, including a clarification of the sentence: If you installed prior to 5:00AM CST on January 4th, 2012, your graphics will display as "Low" even if actual in-game settings are higher due to automatic preference detection. and if reinstalling the game from origin, or any other source will remedy this issue.

 

2. Please explain the removal of the "medium" texture setting on the PTS and its apparent promotion to being called "high" despite the fact that it still retains all of the characteristics and low quality textures of the current "medium" setting.

 

3. Please indicate if a fix is being worked on/implemented, and if so, when we may roughly be able to expect it.

 

Muddy textures are not a game breaker. You can still, as I have, have an enormous amount of fun with this game. I think we jump the gun if we say that bioware is sweeping the problem under the carpet, without an explanation, we wont know for sure if that is the case until 1.1 goes live.

 

That being said, this is a Triple A title, from a Triple A studio, and a Triple A publisher. We are indeed paying customers who really want noting more than an explanation. I think we all generally understand that this isn't a "snap your fingers" fix, because if it was they would have no reason to hold it back. The frustration from most reasonable people in this thread is one of lack of explanation/communication.

 

We can split hairs about if the issue is lighting, or if its textures (though the visual proof shows textures http://m.uploadedit.com/bac/1325903803236.gif). And we can say "Why not just settle? Its a good game," But the core of this problem is a simple one - missing high res textures, and the apparent lack of information on a fix.

 

Say you buy a blender at Wal-Mart, you have really been wanting this blender. You have read previews about it online, you have been watching videos about it, and have been ooggling at pictures of it. One of its prime features, often advertized is the new "Mega Frappe" button. This button helps to differentiate this blender from its competition.

 

Alas! When you buy the blender and fervently remove it from the box, you find that the Mega Frappe button has been pried out, and the words "Mega Frappe" have been crossed out with a magic marker. Surely you would feel like you have been just been, for lack of a better word, screwed.

 

Now, replace the words Blender, with SWTOR and Mega Frappe with Hi-Res Textures and I think that you will find that the frustration is indeed well placed.

 

I have faith in Bioware to fix this issue, but we really do need to be told what is going on.

 

//Update.

 

So, this is what the official known bugs forums says:

 

If you installed prior to 5:00AM CST on January 4th, 2012, your graphics will display as "Low" even if actual in-game settings are higher due to automatic preference detection.

Workaround: Your graphics setting will display properly once modified and saved.

 

Workaround: Individual preferences will display properly once modified and saved.

 

Also, it was stated on 1.0.2 patch that:

 

Upon a new installation and first launch of the game, settings files and in-game graphics preferences are now consistent with each other.

 

So, please Bioware, can we get a clarification on this? Does this mean that if we reinstall the game using the online installer, we will get high resolution textures everytime and not only during dialog cutscenes?

 

If not, any ETA on when the high resolution textures bug will be fixed?

 

Thanks in advance for answering this confusive situation.

Edited January 9, 2012 by Adelbert
Updating the information on the first post.

Nope, no matter what the high res textures during gameplay aren't working.

 

Try it. Stand in an area and look down, now cycle the low/medium/high texture options and you can clearly see a difference between low and medium BUT there is zero difference between medium and high (not even onboard ram usage goes up - i monitored it).

 

I recon we also only have medium shadows aswell and it was just labled as high (they;re far to blocky to be considered high IMO).

Edited January 6, 2012 by MajorMelchett

We really need an official response on this...we have new threads on it daily and honestly I'm not complaining about that. People should keep making threads about this and responding to ones already made because we aren't getting any real info on this.

 

The official workaround is to re-adjust your graphics settings but it doesn't do anything.

 

Please Bioware we need a response it has been 3 weeks...

So what? We have to re-install the game to get high-res textures?

So what? We have to re-install the game to get high-res textures?

 

I have no idea...but I'm actually doing that right now. I doubt we're gonna get a response so I decided to just go ahead and reinstall. I will let you all know once I'm done. *sigh* =(

 

I know some people will say I am really shallow for this but I think I am going to take a break until this is fixed if the reinstall doesn't work.

 

Textures for me are really important in a game and as I play through it I feel as if I am missing out seeing the beautifully crafted worlds, armor, etc. on low texture detail. Once I hit a dialogue conversation and see how gorgeous it is supposed to look it makes me more bummed out during gameplay =.=

Edited January 6, 2012 by Improv-

On disc 2 now lol. Man I have my fingers crossed this whole time. Please work.

For many people this game barely runs smoothly with the textures in the game now. You really think BW wants to risk more QQ by putting hi-res textures into the game and then having people figure out it drops them to 12 FPS? I'm not saying no one will be able to run them but putting them in the game now will just exacerbate the perception that this game is poorly coded. I'd say leave them out until they fix whatever flaws are making the lower-res version run like crap on so many systems. Edited January 6, 2012 by Mannic

Wanna see something funny.

 

Stand at your intercom on your ship. Zoom in close to your character. Click the intercom

 

Vioala!!! For .5 seconds you have high res textures for your armor!

 

 

 

BioWare trolled us with the textures in this game and they have yet to own up to the fact they are missing features from a shipped product that have representations in the game.

For many people this game barely runs smoothly with the textures in the game now. You really think BW wants to risk more QQ by putting hi-res textures into the game and then having people figure out it drops them to 12 FPS? I'm not saying no one will be able to run them but putting them in the game now will just exacerbate the perception that this game is poorly coded. I'd say leave them out until they fix whatever flaws are making the lower-res version run like crap on so many systems.

 

Why? Why punish those who can run the game. If it wasn't a setting in the first place then we wouldn't be complaining. But it is.

 

It would be like if DICE decided to make Ultra textures in BF3 not do anything because some people will cry about not being able to run the game.

 

They shouldn't leave them out because a few people are going to cry about it.

 

I understand the game has FPS issues even for those with high end rigs and that sucks. But for those of us who have no FPS issues we shouldn't be punished and miss out on a graphic setting, the most important one for that matter even though it's IN the game because of a few others. At the moment the textures aren't "okay" looking. In game they are flat out disgusting for many armor sets and game areas and it's something you'd expect from a game made in 2005.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Improv-

Wanna see something funny.

 

Stand at your intercom on your ship. Zoom in close to your character. Click the intercom

 

Vioala!!! For .5 seconds you have high res textures for your armor!

 

 

 

BioWare trolled us with the textures in this game and they have yet to own up to the fact they are missing features from a shipped product that have representations in the game.

 

Mind=Blown

They actually have acknowledged this as problem in one of the many many threads about this topic already.

Why? Why punish those who can run the game. If it wasn't a setting in the first place then we wouldn't be complaining. But it is.

 

It would be like if DICE decided to make Ultra textures in BF3 not do anything because some people will cry about not being able to run the game.

 

They shouldn't leave them out because a few people are going to cry about it.

 

I understand the game has FPS issues even for those with high end rigs and that sucks. But for those of us who have no FPS issues we shouldn't be punished and miss out on a graphic setting, the most important one for that matter even though it's IN the game because of a few others. At the moment the textures aren't "okay" looking. In game they are flat out disgusting for many armor sets and game areas and it's something you'd expect from a game made in 2005.

 

Because the problem isn't solely related to hardware. There are people with beastly machines who can't get the game to run smoothly and there are people running machines barely above the minimum specs who (so they claim) are having no issues at all. The game obviously has its problems with certain hardware configurations that have nothing to do with the relative power of that hardware but are related to something else like drivers, bios versions or memory management.

 

Until the game runs in a way one might expect given the relative power of a machine, Bioware's just going to create more problems for themselves by putting in hi-res textures. Because the guy sitting on an SLI machine clocked to 4 GHZ with 16 GIGS of performance RAM isn't going to be happy when his machine can only run the game at 12 FPS with hi-res textures while some dude with a dual-core and a 460 is running at 60 FPS. It's just going to exacerbate the "Bioware can't code" complaints.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Mannic

So, please Bioware, can we get a clarification on this? Does this mean that if we reinstall the game using the online installer, we will get high resolution textures everytime and not only during dialog cutscenes?

 

If not, any ETA on when the high resolution textures bug will be fixed?

 

Thanks in advance for answering this confusive situation.

 

What you quoted has nothing to do with high-res textures being available or not. It's actually pretty clear about the issue they fixed. I'd try to restate it another way but I doubt anything I said could be any clearer.

 

The fix was that settings were not being saved correctly, as the note explains. That's all it was.

Edited January 6, 2012 by imtrick

Because the problem isn't solely related to hardware. There are people with beastly machines who can't get the game to run smoothly. The game obviously has its problems with certain hardware configurations that have nothing to do with the relative power of that hardware but are related to something else like drivers, bios versions or memory management.

 

Until the game runs in a way one might expect given the relative power of a machine, Bioware's just going to create more problems for themselves by putting in hi-res textures. Because the guy sitting on an SLI machine clocked to 4 GHZ with 16 GIGS of performance RAM isn't going to be happy when his machine can only run the game at 12 FPS with hi-res textures while some dude with a dual-core and a 460 is running at 60 FPS. It's just going to exacerbate the "Bioware can't code" complaints.

 

I understand what you mean and I agree. It really sucks for those with high end rigs having FPS problems.

 

However, it's not as if the entire programming studio is going to be working on this issue and not fixing the FPS issues. If this is something they can fix now they should just do it for those who can run the game properly. Again, I feel for those who have the rigs to max this game out but can't I have been there with other games and it pisses you off when you spend 800 bucks on GPU's alone and a game doesn't run the way it should.

 

The other thing is Bioware has already stated this is fixed by re-applying your settings. But it doesn't do anything. Now we are supposed to reinstall the game? I am doing it right now and if it doesn't work man I'm gonna be really annoyed.

 

I'm on disc 3 atm wish me luck.

 

What you quoted has nothing to do with high-res textures being available or not. It's actually pretty clear about the issue they fixed. I'd try to restate it another way but I doubt anything I said could be any clearer.

 

The fix was that settings were not being saved correctly, as the note explains. That's all it was.

 

Pleae clarify what you mean by this.

 

The way I understand it is that the settings you were choosing were not being displayed in game. What other issue can this be? If settings were not being saved correctly then the in game graphics weren't what you set it as correct? So if this is now fixed then the game should properly show you the settings you chose, IE: High textures.

 

Here read this:

 

"If you installed prior to 5:00AM CST on January 4th, 2012, your graphics will display as "Low" even if actual in-game settings are higher due to automatic preference detection.

Workaround: Your graphics setting will display properly once modified and saved.

 

Workaround: Individual preferences will display properly once modified and saved. "

 

"your graphics display as "Low" even if actual in-game settings are higher"

Edited January 6, 2012 by Improv-

So, this is what the game looks like all the time:

 

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/59/screenshot2012010419385.jpg/

 

And this is when you click on your holo terminal, just for 0,5 secs:

 

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/851/screenshot2012010419390.jpg/

 

So yeah, somehow high-res textures are already in-game, but no way to use them outside cutscenes.

Wanna see something funny.

 

Stand at your intercom on your ship. Zoom in close to your character. Click the intercom

 

Vioala!!! For .5 seconds you have high res textures for your armor!

 

 

 

BioWare trolled us with the textures in this game and they have yet to own up to the fact they are missing features from a shipped product that have representations in the game.

 

You should all try this, the differences for your entire character, gear and face, are quite astounding. Shame not to be able to use high res as a norm, I now feel cheated.

I was gonna indulge in hi-res textures, but I took an EA in the knee

K, reinstalled and no difference. Don't bother.

 

Now that I saw how it's supposed to look (from the holo-terminal) I'm gonna take a break from the game because I am really missing out here. I am hoping Tuesday's big patch fixes it...

On high, the game uses ~256mb of texture memory... (actually, 360 with triple buffering and edge detect AA).

 

Can anyone else confirm? Thanks.

On high, the game uses ~256mb of texture memory... (actually, 360 with triple buffering and edge detect AA).

 

Can anyone else confirm? Thanks.

 

I can't tell you what the exact number is atm but for me medium and high used the same amount of VRAM.

Didn't realise the difference...I feel gimped.

i've said for a while the textures/graphics should be better in this game. Hopefully before too long they will be..im going to play out the rest of my "free" paid for month, i'll see how i feel after that

i've said for a while the textures/graphics should be better in this game. Hopefully before too long they will be..im going to play out the rest of my "free" paid for month, i'll see how i feel after that

 

Yeah if it's not fixed before then I'll wait for a fix before re-subbing.

I know how you all feel. Last year i built my current rig for this game alone. $1400 was put into this system because I thought the game was going to be released last spring. I expected to be able to play the game on high 8xAA full shadows ect ect with no problems. At the moment, I have everything on high and maxed and my in card controls I maxed everything out as well. Not much changed after doing so. But even though this is the case and the game is not being dislplayed in HD on my brand NEW 24in LED 1080P 120hrz HD TV, I know in time BW will get this fixed and I will be able to then enjoy the game in full maxed Hi-res HD. So, I am willing to give BW time to fix the more important issues first. But like most of you, graphics are one of the most important aspects of a game to me. But still, I will give them time.

 

 

But there is a big difference between low settings and the highest this game currently allows.

 

I installed this game on my Laptop with is only a AMD Atholon (2x) 2.2 ghz cpu, 4gb ram, and some ATI 4450 intergrated GPU (that is pathetic). All settings are set to low with shadows ect turned off and I get about 7-18 FPS. When I compare my laptop to my desktop, the game is instantly night and day. The quality of textures and detail with in the game on my DT are amazing. When you see the game on a low end system, you come to appreciate what you have on a high end system.

 

My Desk top

 

AMD 1075T 6x 3.2 Ghz *(no OC), 8 GB of veng ram, 1tb HDD, PNY GTX 460 1gb GPU (just add a second 460 SLI yesterday) and Win 7 64bit (Ult). My rig is not even current by idursty standards but when I compare my laptop to my Desk Top, booom no comparison. My DT runs teh game on maxed ingame and in card settings around 50-72 FPS no matter where I am (warzones, flashpoints, fleet, on the ground, in space ect ect) its always stays between 50-72.

 

All I am trying to say, if you can veiw the game on med or semi/some what/slightly lower end highish settings, you are still 100x better than those who have to play it on low settings.

So what? We have to re-install the game to get high-res textures?

 

As far as I can tell there are no high res textures.