RAGE textures look like crap with max settings?

[Phynaz]

Id has always been a small group out in left field doing their own thing.

Id currently has nearly 300 employees. They are very far from their roots as a small independent group of devs.

 

[zerocool84]

At a guess the problem is your video cards aren't really designed for megatextures and only have enough vram for more traditional textures which are simply repeated throughout the game. The huge textures in Rage take up a lot of vram and you can't just add up vram from two or more video cards. To get higher resolution textures you'd need at least 1.5gb vram on a single card and for really significant results as much as 3gb. The newest radeon 7970 with hardware acceleration for megatextures has a 384 bit bus and 3gb vram and can even use system ram as virtual memory for storing some of the megatextures if necessary. That way it pages the hard drive less and loads the textures faster reducing texture pop-in. Here's some examples of higher textures:

http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery/Album/1461#4

The upcoming Doom 4 will be the first real test of what the id tech 5 is capable of including more graphics effects like DoF, HDR, cloth simulation, and motion blur and will be compatible with AMD's new hardware acceleration. By the time Quake is released it should be possible using the newest graphics cards to see the game in all its glory on something like a 4k OLED monitor where you won't even need AA.

Yet games like BF3 look infinitely better from close and far and runs fine on a single 5870. It's the game not the card.

 

[wuliheron]

Id currently has nearly 300 employees. They are very far from their roots as a small independent group of devs.

The id tech 5 was designed specifically to make it easy to train artists and others which also makes it easy to lay them off once the work is complete. That's precisely what they did once the work was complete and Rage was released. They may have more employees then they used to, but a lot of them are contract workers who have little say in the company and the original core group of independent developers still maintains significant control over the company.

 

[wuliheron]

Yet games like BF3 look infinitely better from close and far and runs fine on a single 5870. It's the game not the card.

Right, and Half Life 2 looks great on wimpy computers that can only play Crysis at the lowest graphics settings available so Crysis must be a bad game.

 

[zerocool84]

Right, and Half Life 2 looks great on wimpy computers that can only play Crysis at the lowest graphics settings available so Crysis must be a bad game.

BF3 looks and runs better than Rage. Your comparison doesn't work. For your comparison to work, HL2 would have to look better than Rage. Rage is a poorly made game.

 

[wuliheron]

BF3 looks and runs better than Rage. Your comparison doesn't work. For your comparison to work, HL2 would have to look better than Rage. Rage is a poorly made game.

That's what I'm telling you. Rage does look better, but you need an industrial computer to run it in all its glory. Critics made the same comment about Crysis when it first came out. They said its a great looking game, but almost nobody can play it maxed out because you'd need at least a $10,000.oo rig to do so.

Even the version of Rage they released is merely a watered down and compressed version of the original which was made on 30" monitors with 2k resolutions. Its serious future tech designed for when 4k OLED monitors and TVs become commonplace and your current rig becomes as outdated as an old IBM 386. That might sound like its in the far flung future, but within five years you'll see a complete redesign of the gaming PC as heterogeneous architecture begins to dominate. Its no longer merely a question of having the fastest cpu and most powerful gpu, but raw bandwidth concerns that will define the future of PC gaming so you can move all those textures and geometry efficiently.

 

[kylebisme]

Yet games like BF3 look infinitely better from close and far and runs fine on a single 5870.

BF3's textures certainly look better up close, but how do you figure BF3 or any other game looks better than Rage otherwise? I've played both games extensively, and am at a loss as to what you are referring to here. Distant surfaces in BF3 look like a patchwork of repeating textures with decals thrown on top, because that's exactly what it is; while Rage's environments look hand crafted with unique details across the landscape, which is the benefit of MegaTexture.

As for your claim of BF3 running fine on a 5870, is 29.3 fps average on 1080p ultra what you call fine? On the other hand, even a 5770 manages a better minimum fps than that in Rage at 1080p cranked, and nearly twice the average, and that's with twice the AA.

That's what I'm telling you. Rage does look better, but you need an industrial computer to run it in all its glory.

Your belief that more VRAM will make Rage look notably better nonsense, as I've explained to you before. Anyone can look at that Anandtech gallery you linked and see that the difference viable between 8k and 16k texture settings is nearly nothing, and having more VRAM to turn that up even higher would only result in even less of an improvement. Again, the issue with Rage is how bad the textures look up close, and that's because they had to make the textures that low resolution to allow them to do unique texturing on everything without using an absurd amount of disk space.

 

[wuliheron]

Your belief that more VRAM will make Rage look notably better nonsense, as I've explained to you before. Anyone can look at that Anandtech gallery you linked and see that the difference viable between 8k and 16k texture settings is nearly nothing, and having more VRAM to turn that up even higher would only result in even less of an improvement. Again, the issue with Rage is how bad the textures look up close, and that's because they had to make the textures that low resolution to allow them to do unique texturing on everything without using an absurd amount of disk space.

Hey, I didn't say it would make it look noticeably better. That's a personal judgement call in my opinion. Some people can't stand motion blur and think eliminating it from a game makes a huge difference but, personally, I don't see what the big deal is. All I said was you need more vram to get higher resolution textures and provided a link to pictures showing the difference. You'll also need more vram if id ever releases a high resolution texture pack and I think its worth communicating that simple fact to people before they possibly buy one.

 

[kylebisme]

Hey, I didn't say it would make it look noticeably better.

You said, "Rage does look better, but you need an industrial computer to run it in all its glory" which is simply not the case. Any current off-the-shelf gaming PC can run Rage well while making the game look pretty much as good as it can.

You'll also need more vram if id ever releases a high resolution texture pack

No, loading in high res textures for up close surfaces doesn't take significantly more VRAM, because you're loading loading a few textures for whatever surfaces are up close into VRAM, while stuff in the distance uses lower resolution mipmaps. The difference in such a case is a matter of perhaps a few dozen Mb at most, hence the reason so many other games can load in high resolution textures for up close surfaces. Again, the issue is one of disk space, as with all the surfaces being uniquely textures having high resolution texture data to load in for whatever surfaces one comes close to would take an absurd amount of disk space for a game world anywhere near the size as the one in rage.

Also, nobody from id ever suggested they would release any high resolution texture pack, that's just a pipedream misunderstanding of what Carmack actually said.

 

[wuliheron]

You said, "Rage does look better, but you need an industrial computer to run it in all its glory" which is simply not the case. Any current off-the-shelf gaming PC can run Rage well while making the game look pretty much as good as it can.

Not with the high resolutions textures it can't.

No, loading in high res textures for up close surfaces doesn't take significantly more VRAM, because you're loading loading a few textures for whatever surfaces are up close into VRAM, while stuff in the distance uses lower resolution mipmaps. The difference in such a case is a matter of perhaps a few dozen Mb at most, hence the reason so many other games can load in high resolution textures for up close surfaces. Again, the issue is one of disk space, as with all the surfaces being uniquely textures having high resolution texture data to load in for whatever surfaces one comes close to would take an absurd amount of disk space for a game world anywhere near the size as the one in rage.

Also, nobody from id ever suggested they would release any high resolution texture pack, that's just a pipedream misunderstanding of what Carmack actually said.

Its pretty clear you just don't have a clue about how the technology works or how large megatextures are. Some of these textures are 128,000 x 128,000 or 16,384,000,000 pixels. They aren't little repeated textures like most games use and you can't just add a slightly higher resolution right where you want it and nowhere else.

They take up a lot of space on your hard drive because they provide unique textures everywhere you look. Every wall has unique graffiti and every patch of ground can have unique artwork. The obvious drawback is that they are so huge they require more vram then most computers have and increasing the resolution even slightly would require so much data it could not be distributed except by using high speed internet, multiple bluray disks, or some other expensive distribution method.

 

[JSt0rm]

Not with the high resolutions textures it can't.



Its pretty clear you just don't have a clue about how the technology works or how large megatextures are. Some of these textures are 128,000 x 128,000 or 16,384,000,000 pixels. They aren't little repeated textures like most games use and you can't just add a slightly higher resolution right where you want it and nowhere else.

They take up a lot of space on your hard drive because they provide unique textures everywhere you look. Every wall has unique graffiti and every patch of ground can have unique artwork. The obvious drawback is that they are so huge they require more vram then most computers have and increasing the resolution even slightly would require so much data it could not be distributed except by using high speed internet, multiple bluray disks, or some other expensive distribution method.

The point is even if we had a "industrial computer" we dont have the high res textures so we cant run the game in its glory.

I used my 1 time money back on steam on rage.

 

[kylebisme]

Not with the high resolutions textures it can't.

There is no high resolution texture pack for Rage, but if there was, yes pretty any current off-the-shelf gaming PC can could run it just fine, it would just take up an absurd amount of space on disk.

Its pretty clear you just don't have a clue about how the technology works

Back at you. I'm well aware of the fact that the megatextures are utterly massive, but I'm also aware of the fact that only portions of those textures are loaded into VRAM at any given time, and only downsampled mipmaps of those portions of those textures are loaded in are loaded in for things that aren't up close to the camara. So again, yes loading higher resolution texturing in for whatever surfaces are close to the camara at any given moment would use a bit more memory, but the rest of the scene would look as good as it can with the same lower resolution mipmaping, and hence the game wouldn't use much more VRAM as a whole.

 

[wuliheron]

The point is even if we had a "industrial computer" we dont have the high res textures so we cant run the game in its glory.

I used my 1 time money back on steam on rage.

If you hate the low resolution textures I certainly can't fault you for that and don't believe there's any accounting for taste. I love the game myself, but I'll be the first to admit it has serious flaws and is mediocre. Definitely not for everyone.

Hopefully they'll release a high resolution texture pack at some point in the future, but if not I'm eager to see what Doom 4 looks like with additional graphics effects and, perhaps, higher resolution textures.

 

[JSt0rm]

i will be checking out d4 for sure but I refuse to mess with such low res textures in my gaming (unless its minecraft). Too many other deserving games to be played to spend time on something with such technical flaws.

 

[wuliheron]

There is no high resolution texture pack for Rage, but if there was, yes pretty any current off-the-shelf gaming PC can could run it just fine, it would just take up an absurd amount of space on disk.

Back at you. I'm well aware of the fact that the megatextures are utterly massive, but I'm also aware of the fact that only portions of those textures are loaded into VRAM at any given time, and only downsampled mipmaps of those portions of those textures are loaded in are loaded in for things that aren't up close to the camara. So again, yes loading higher resolution texturing in for whatever surfaces are close to the camara at any given moment would use a bit more memory, but the rest of the scene would look as good as it can with the same lower resolution mipmaping, and hence the game wouldn't use much more VRAM as a whole.

As one US senator was fond of saying, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money". As you say the textures are utterly massive and even with only portions of them being loaded into vram they take up much more space then repeated textures. The game already streams the textures off the hard drive pretty much nonstop, but you insist it must be possible to add more and they won't be large.

Got any swampland for sale? Maybe a perpetual motion machine?

 

[HeXen]

i really don't think megatexturing was the way to go. Especially without a high res pack which unfortunately would eat too much space. I like the idea, but really, looking at games like Witcher 2, Crysis 2...etc. i think repeated textures are the most feasible way to go.

Hopefully D4 will prove otherwise. .....but i doubt it.

 

[kylebisme]

Got any swampland for sale? Maybe a perpetual motion machine?

Nope. I know what mipmaps are, and how they reduce VRAM usage without degrading image quality, while you're obviously clueless as to anything of the sort.

 

[kylebisme]

i think repeated textures are the most feasible way to go.

The thing is, you can't do stuff like these windswept dunes with repeated textures. Well you can blend a few layers of textures and lay some decals to get the vague look of windswept dunes, but you can't get anywhere close to the painted look Rage has without letting the artists go in and hand paint everything, and that requires a virtual texturing system such as MegaTexture. Granted, until Blu-ray drives and mad bandwidth connections are a lot more common, virtual texturing will require the tradeoff of loosing fine detail up close to get so much more detail spread across large landscapes, but that won't always be the case.

 

[destrekor]

There is no fix. Console game is console game, the textures are terrible. The engine is a complete oddity where things look great at a distance but the textures look god awful up close.

I'm done with id software, will never buy a game from them again unless it gets perfect reviews

No, that is not what the issue is.

There are some good textures in Rage. (from what I've seen, the setting/story interested me but it looked like a typical product of an iD of the Doom 3 and Beyond era, and that is... like a shitty game once in motion).

Those in the OP are shitty beyond words, and out of place for a reason: they aren't supposed to be like that. The broken engine uses a texture streaming method that ultimately seems to fail more often than not and results in the shitty distant-view LOD still being presently active even when you are right on top of the damn object.
Not all the textures in the local scene are wrong like that. I said fails more often than not, but that is in reference to it failing once versus there being a pretty much perfect scene. For most users, there always seems to be a few objects or even multiple objects that retain the shitty textures in memory instead of updating to the highest quality permitted. It's particularly jarring when it fails with an object that dominates a scene, as opposed to it being a coke bottle in a corner draped in shadows.

 

[zerocool84]

As for your claim of BF3 running fine on a 5870, is 29.3 fps average on 1080p ultra what you call fine? On the other hand, even a 5770 manages a better minimum fps than that in Rage at 1080p cranked, and nearly twice the average, and that's with twice the AA.

Everyone knows MSAA kills AMD cards. It runs infinitely better with FXAA.

 

[wuliheron]

Nope. I know what mipmaps are, and how they reduce VRAM usage without degrading image quality, while you're obviously clueless as to anything of the sort.

Ooooh, I bet you also know what a pixel is. That must make you an expert on megatextures!

 

[kylebisme]

Everyone knows MSAA kills AMD cards. It runs infinitely better with FXAA.

The benchmarks I've seen only show AMD taking a bit more of a hit from MSAA than Nvidia, and it looks notably better than FXAA.

Ooooh, I bet you also know what a pixel is. That must make you an expert on megatextures!

I don't claim to be an expert on anything, but I know enough about graphics technology to know you're wrong here. If you're unwilling to believe me, you could always go over to Beyond3D where plenty of experts are, and ask them. Or of course you could just continue with your ignorant quips in vacant denial.

 

[wuliheron]

i really don't think megatexturing was the way to go. Especially without a high res pack which unfortunately would eat too much space. I like the idea, but really, looking at games like Witcher 2, Crysis 2...etc. i think repeated textures are the most feasible way to go.

Hopefully D4 will prove otherwise. .....but i doubt it.

Despite all its shortcomings and the controversy surrounding the game it has received several awards, mostly good reviews, and sold decently on consoles. The driver problems on PC have been a complete disaster, but Doom 4 will use the same engine and we shouldn't see a repeat. It will definitely look better if for no other reason then it will include more graphics effects.

The only thing holding back this kind of technology is the hardware which is guaranteed to get better very fast. Pretty much ever major developer today is already looking into variations on the technology which promises cinematic quality graphics like the movie Avatar and graphics effects you just can't do any other way. Up to now there hasn't been that much variety in how graphics are done because the hardware couldn't support a lot variety, but that's about to change.

 

[wuliheron]

I don't claim to be an expert on anything, but I know enough about graphics technology to know you're wrong here. If you're unwilling to believe me, you could always go over to Beyond3D where plenty of experts are, and ask them. Or of course you could just continue with your ignorant quips in vacant denial.

So now I'm wrong for being skeptical and trusting the professional reviews I've read on the subject. If you have proof I'll gladly check it out, but I ain't going on no wild goose chase for anyone.

 

[kylebisme]

Who are you trusting here exactly? Cite your sources if you actually have any. Regardless, I made a thread on this subject over at B3D.