Patch Notes

[murdoc]

ATI.

I keep getting sucked into getting AMD cards by reading performance reviews and I keep wishing I had spent the extra on nVidia cards.

[Zetor]

Yeah... this is the second major MMO I played that had issues with ATI cards/drivers (first one was COH, ATI cards caused hard lockups after playing for some time... they eventually fixed that with a new catalyst driver though). Oh well.

[Nebu]

I once had a friend summarize video cards to me this way: ATI makes better hardware, nVidia makes more compatible drivers.

Any truth to that statement?

[Mattemeo]

My laptop uses an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and I'm having more issues post-patch than I was before. Framerate performance in Taris is between 10 and 20 fps, and switching AA through off, medium and high doesn't seem to change that for better or worse (though AA does actually work). I still get a lot of graphical glitches such as floating artifacts in conversation cinematics (the infamous boom-mic) and those things that shoot green lasers into the sky quite often cause the green laser walls of frame-death. I'm running at native 1920x1080 and have shadows turned to 'simple'. Everything else is as recommended at high. Changing anything else doesn't seem to make much impact. I do honestly think the game isn't optimised properly for ATI performance.

[ajax34i]

Even if there is, there are lots of OEM manufacturers of cards, and you can't really compare them all.  EVGA, ASUS for example have a reputation of higher quality hardware, as well as more immediate warranty replacement policies, and that factors into people's perception of how "good" the hardware is.

[kildorn]

I once had a friend summarize video cards to me this way: ATI makes better hardware, nVidia makes more compatible drivers.

Any truth to that statement?

ATI hardware tends to be pretty nice, it varies some gens though.

They've never in their lives actually employed a trained programmer or QA staff however. I can promise that every time I update my video drivers it will be a two hour affair of trying to make them not only work but actually display the same way the old ones did. :P

(still bitter about the overscan/underscan bug from last year, and the "oh yeah, that will be fixed in three revisions" answer)

[Mrbloodworth]

ATI.

Naw, I don't buy that. 99% of all games work just fine with AMD cards.

That's why its constantly a problem with games. 

[Paelos]

I was pulling 3800+ out of green slicing chests at Tier 5 rich last night.

It's not my imagination that it's higher than normal I think, but I'm also guessing they patch it out this morning with little fanfare and it will haunt me.

[Sky]

Since the voodoo 4, I've bought nvidia except for the (awesome) 9800pro. I've been happy. A couple of gtx460s SLI and happy right now.

The Bloom + AA thing has always been that way. But you had to tweak the ini to find that out before.

EVGA's hardware is nice, but their assembly is crap. They have a bad habit of poorly attached heatsinks, my original 460 was mediocre until I put my own heatsink on it and saw how badly theirs had been attached. After going through maybe 4 8800gtx cards to get one that didn't overheat, I'm convinced it was the same issue. At the least I'd reseat everything with new paste; the nice thing about EVGA is you won't void your warranty by doing so (I could re-attach the stock HS and still be under warranty right now). My second was an MSI Twin Frozr which is decent for stock cooling, though I'm an utter Accelero cooling fan (heh) now. That shit makes good cards great.

[Falconeer]

On the pvp performance issue, I wonder how many are expecting to pvp with pve graphics settings. Another thing they need to poach from EQ2: import/export graphics profiles. Go to Ilum, load pvp graphics profile tweaked for pvp performance.

No, the problem doesn't have much to do with settings, nor with our computers. It's on their side. With everything on LOW (everything) the game was giving me 2 frames per second during the post patch Imperial zerg. And my computer handles the game awesomely with all maxed in normal circumstances. The engine is shitty enough to not be able to handle too many characters on screen, that is all. And that's why they are lowering the population caps on Ilum with today's patch.

[apocrypha]

Yup, you're right about the slicing Paelos, I pulled in a bunch of 4000cr+ tier 6's just before todays downtime hit.

Will keep an eye on the various google docs spreadsheets people are maintaining and see how the various missions play out.

[Mrbloodworth]

On the pvp performance issue, I wonder how many are expecting to pvp with pve graphics settings. Another thing they need to poach from EQ2: import/export graphics profiles. Go to Ilum, load pvp graphics profile tweaked for pvp performance.

No, the problem doesn't have much to do with settings, nor with our computers. It's on their side. With everything on LOW (everything) the game was giving me 2 frames per second during the post patch Imperial zerg. And my computer handles the game awesomely with all maxed in normal circumstances. The engine is shitty enough to not be able to handle too many characters on screen, that is all. And that's why they are lowering the population caps on Ilum with today's patch.

I'm not aware of many games that can handle customization and high numbers of non-bots.

[Falconeer]

On the pvp performance issue, I wonder how many are expecting to pvp with pve graphics settings. Another thing they need to poach from EQ2: import/export graphics profiles. Go to Ilum, load pvp graphics profile tweaked for pvp performance.

No, the problem doesn't have much to do with settings, nor with our computers. It's on their side. With everything on LOW (everything) the game was giving me 2 frames per second during the post patch Imperial zerg. And my computer handles the game awesomely with all maxed in normal circumstances. The engine is shitty enough to not be able to handle too many characters on screen, that is all. And that's why they are lowering the population caps on Ilum with today's patch.

I'm not aware of many games that can handle customization and high numbers of non-bots.

One word: Rift.

[Secundo]

The pvp clownshoes have pretty much buried everything else, but another issue is that AA doesn't seem to be working on (some or all?) AMD cards. The button does nothing on my 4890. Shadow performance wasn't fixed either, but I'm not sure if that ever was in the patch.

I have a 5870 and AA works fine on it now using ingame settings.
Shadows on high works fine but the low setting is meaningless.. It's almost the same as shadows off except for the slight performance hit.

The thing I wish for most right now is a way to change the FOV. It's too low and seem to suffer from consoleitis.

[Nebu]

One word: Rift.

Seeing this makes me sad.  Rift was a game with such high quality and such great missed potential.  If the game had a bit more character, content, and refined gameplay, it could have been something spectacular.  I still miss the soul system.

[Sky]

I agree with Neb about Rift, but they did really shut down all customization at a really close level.

EQ2 did the same thing, the graphics option page for EQ2 was another thing they did amazingly well. You could set where that LoD would pop, how many high detail characters to allow, how many LOW detail characters to allow, etc.

Secundo is correct on the FOV, it gets a bit fishy at the edges. Not sure I'd call it console-itis, though. 

[Threash]

 

2) It's a much larger number of players than you think.  When I went to Ilum on my server, the raid frames took 5 minutes to load for a guild member that joined in the fun.  Ilum was so overcrowded with Empire players that the lag caused horrible framerates.  I expect this was the same on other servers as well.  

I was there for three hours on my server, i am not disputing the number of players who flocked to Ilum thinking of making massive amounts of valor.  What i am saying is that it wasn't true, the valor simply wasn't there and what was wasn't all that great.  If someone DID shoot up massive amounts of valor levels it had to be done through cross faction exploiting because what people were actually doing was hardly better than warzone farming.  People heard those turrets gave tons of valor so they flocked there, then spent considerable amounts of time and effort trying to take them down.  The turrets never gave any valor, and they were hard enough to kill that it took upwards of three or more raids to reliably kill them without wiping and the only valor the got came from the poor republic suckers who didn't manage to get away and only until they got sick of it and logged.

[Falconeer]

I agree with Neb about Rift, but they did really shut down all customization at a really close level.

EQ2 did the same thing, the graphics option page for EQ2 was another thing they did amazingly well. You could set where that LoD would pop, how many high detail characters to allow, how many LOW detail characters to allow, etc.

Yes, that is true and I just zipped too many things into that word. My gripe is that in Star Wars you cannot lower the settings enough to make the thing work. It doesn't scale shit. In other games developers have been clever enough to realize that in extreme situations you might have wanted to play with stick figures if that was your choice but you could still move around. In SWTOR, if it's choppy it stays choppy. And you don't even get the shiny in return, since the characterts don't look that great to begin with, and the last thing you are looking at in a zerg is the pattern on a brown jedi vest.

[Nebu]

I was there for three hours on my server, i am not disputing the number of players who flocked to Ilum thinking of making massive amounts of valor.  What i am saying is that it wasn't true, the valor simply wasn't there and what was wasn't all that great.  If someone DID shoot up massive amounts of valor levels it had to be done through cross faction exploiting because what people were actually doing was hardly better than warzone farming.  

You needed to be on a server with a significant number of level 50 Republic players.  These players would be killed, respawn, and killed repeatedly due to a broken mechanic.  The fact that Ilum grants a buff yielding additional valor broke the system even more.  The republic players had nowhere to retreat to.  They just kept respawning and dying until someone posted that they could break the loop by queuing for a WZ and time out. Many MANY people made valor gains in a few hours that took others a week or two of gameplay to attain. 

[Crumbs]

Many MANY people made valor gains in a few hours that took others a week or two of gameplay to attain. 

Seems that they've doubled the price of pvp gear.  Fixed?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=194823

[Nebu]

That's only on sub 50 gear... and it was needed.  You could buy a complete set of pvp gear in a few matches.  With the addition of a sub 50 bracket and lack of expertise on this gear, it's pretty much just cosmetic anyway.

[Threash]

I was there for three hours on my server, i am not disputing the number of players who flocked to Ilum thinking of making massive amounts of valor.  What i am saying is that it wasn't true, the valor simply wasn't there and what was wasn't all that great.  If someone DID shoot up massive amounts of valor levels it had to be done through cross faction exploiting because what people were actually doing was hardly better than warzone farming.  

You needed to be on a server with a significant number of level 50 Republic players.  These players would be killed, respawn, and killed repeatedly due to a broken mechanic.  The fact that Ilum grants a buff yielding additional valor broke the system even more.  The republic players had nowhere to retreat to.  They just kept respawning and dying until someone posted that they could break the loop by queuing for a WZ and time out. Many MANY people made valor gains in a few hours that took others a week or two of gameplay to attain. 

There WAS a significant number of republic players, they in fact held us off with the help of those turrets for a good while.  They did not keep respawning and dying for very long, nobody is that stupid, they just fucking logged off after dying a few times.  And even when they were still there the valor gains are not what you are making them out to be AT ALL.  You simply needed way too many people to camp those turrets and the valor only goes to the people in the raid of the one  who got the killing blow and only if they specifically did damage to them, not exactly easy when anyone who rezzed  died instantly.  It simply did not happen, you are basing this off the bullshit that was posted on the forums which has already been proven a lie because the massive valor gains were supposed to be coming from the turrets.

[Crumbs]

That's only on sub 50 gear... and it was needed.  You could buy a complete set of pvp gear in a few matches.  With the addition of a sub 50 bracket and lack of expertise on this gear, it's pretty much just cosmetic anyway.

Ah i see.  I'm home sick from work today and servers are down, so not much else to do but join the mob mentality of the SWTOR forums 

[murdoc]

Many MANY people made valor gains in a few hours that took others a week or two of gameplay to attain.  

Seems that they've doubled the price of pvp gear.  Fixed?

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=194823

I just logged in and checked, this is bullshit unless my memory is really off.

The most expensive level 40 gear is 325 wz commendations, weapons might be more expensive - I have forgotten how much they were - but they're now 580 commendations. If anything, the price has gone down.


Edit: Nevermind, my memory sucks. It was raised.

[taolurker]

How about they simply ban the insignificantly small number of people who exploited and leave the rest of us alone?

1) I'd be happy if they reset all of their valor to 0 and took their pvp gear.  

2) It's a much larger number of players than you think.  When I went to Ilum on my server, the raid frames took 5 minutes to load for a guild member that joined in the fun.  Ilum was so overcrowded with Empire players that the lag caused horrible framerates.  I expect this was the same on other servers as well.  

There are a LOT of level 50 players on servers that had headstart.  Many of them have been playing alts because the endgame is terrible.  Events like this brought them out of the woodwork in droves.

It's a vast conspiracy, and all of this was so they could effectively test the maximum number of people in a zone, how they track player exploits, and how well their PvP system will work. I wonder whether they'll learn anything from this?

[Paelos]

Yup, you're right about the slicing Paelos, I pulled in a bunch of 4000cr+ tier 6's just before todays downtime hit.

Will keep an eye on the various google docs spreadsheets people are maintaining and see how the various missions play out.

I knew it!

RELEASE THE SPREADSHEET KRAKEN!

[Minvaren]

ATI.

Naw, I don't buy that. 99% of all games work just fine with AMD cards. It's just a convenient excuse for sloppy coding. Doubly so here because the engine doesn't actually have any new technology in it.  

KotOR and KotOR2 had issues with ATI cards as well, they're just carrying on the tradition.   

On the plus side, I finally discovered and made a new purple heal pack last night!  It heals for the same amount that the previous purple used to.   

[tmp]

That's only on sub 50 gear... and it was needed.  You could buy a complete set of pvp gear in a few matches.  With the addition of a sub 50 bracket and lack of expertise on this gear, it's pretty much just cosmetic anyway.

So then why was it needed?

People really insist the games should stab them repeatedly in the cock, don't they.

[Nebu]

So then why was it needed?

People really insist the games should stab them repeatedly in the cock, don't they.

I like the sub 50 pvp gear because a) I could level in pvp and use the rewards to buy my orange gear with good mods in it at 20 and 40.  and b) it looked cool for the most part.

Noone NEEDS the pvp gear for < 50 pvp.  It's just an alternative way to obtain gear/mods.

Gamers like to bitch about things on forums.  News at 11.

[tmp]

Noone NEEDS the pvp gear for < 50 pvp.  It's just an alternative way to obtain gear/mods.

No, i meant why was the price hike on those "needed". Because the idea that "you can buy them after just few matches ohnoes" produces in me "so fucking what" when that complaint is followed with "it's just cosmetic gear that doesn't do anything special".

[Ingmar]

Yeah I'm with tmp here I think, if the gear isn't that great, why does it need to be more expensve?

[Nebu]

No, i meant why was the price hike on those "needed". Because the idea that "you can buy them after just few matches ohnoes" produces in me "so fucking what" when that complaint is followed with "it's just cosmetic gear that doesn't do anything special".

Ah... I got ya.  My bad.  I agree with you completely.

[Trippy]

I once had a friend summarize video cards to me this way: ATI makes better hardware, nVidia makes more compatible drivers.

Any truth to that statement?

NVIDIA drivers are better. The hardware statement is an oversimplification. ATI's GPU generally are more power efficient than NVIDIA's GPUs and are slightly cheaper to make so they typically have a slightly better performance to price ratio compared to NVIDIA and they typically run cooler and use less power. In terms of absolute performance NVIDIA is competitive -- e.g. for the previous gen NVIDIA has the fastest single GPU card.

[Hayduke]

For what it's worth I noticed a pretty noticeable performance upgrade after patch 1.1 on my Radeon 4850.  So maybe they found some tweaks for older cards.

[luckton]

Older cards perhaps, not new ones.  I'm not seeing any difference on my 6850.