Character/NPC texture LOD problem

shivadevaux

Recently I have noticed that only my own character gets consistently rendered in with high detail textures. All the other player characters and NPCs in the world are first rendered at low quality, and get then upgraded to medium quality textures when I get closer. I'm not talking about the normal LOD process here, as this happens when I should already be seeing the high quality textures.

When I log into the game and have a few characters around me chances are that they are rendered for a split second with high quality textures, but then switch back to low or medium quality. When I start a conversation with an NPC the high quality texture for the NPC is displayed, but outside the conversation the NPC is again rendered with medium (sometimes low) quality textures.

I took a few snaps standing next to Queen Ayrenn in Greenshade.

Queen Ayrenn as she is displayed in world:


Queen Ayrenn, shortly after having initiated a conversation (textures have switched to high quality):


Queen Ayrenn during conversation (textures still at high quality):


I have tried switching my user settings file to a vanilla one, which didn't help and I have tried running the game without add-ons, which also didn't help. If I remember correctly, the Mac client did have a problem displaying the NPCs during conversations with high quality textures during beta/early release, but this LOD problem is something I only have noticed recently.

I don't know if that is a known issue, just throwing it out, since I want my ESO to look as good as possible


Mac Specs:
Mac Pro Late 2013, Quad Xeon E5 3.7GHz, Dual AMD D300, 12 GB DDR3 RAM, OSX 10.9.5


EDIT: Found an old screenshot from 04/19/2014 with a ton of player characters that are all rendered in high quality detail, which supports my feeling that this is an issue that the Mac client didn't have shortly after release:

chris.dillman

Hi shivadevaux

This is not a bug.

The LOD levels were tweaked on the Mac to cut down on memory usage and related crashing.

Without these tweaks the Mac client would need around 1 gig more free ram to run.

Down the road when we move the PC / Mac to a 64bit build we will be able to turn all the memory saving features off.

JNight

chris.dillman wrote: »

Hi shivadevaux
Down the road when we move the PC / Mac to a 64bit build we will be able to turn all the memory saving features off.

any rough estimate on when that will be? this texture loading thing makes the game look ugly.

shivadevaux

chris.dillman wrote: »

Hi shivadevaux
This is not a bug.
The LOD levels were tweaked on the Mac to cut down on memory usage and related crashing.
Without these tweaks the Mac client would need around 1 gig more free ram to run.
Down the road when we move the PC / Mac to a 64bit build we will be able to turn all the memory saving features off.

Hey there,

thanks for the answer (although I had hoped that it wouldn't be this answer:)
Any way to make these tweaks optional (either as an option in game, clearly stating that this will decrease stability or by adding a line/switch in the user settings file)? So players can trade stability for a better looking game?

And now that you mention it, I think I remember that analysis of the the Mac crashes by pointed towards the client running out of memory (although, personally IIRC, my client was rock solid until Update 3) and that the client app was limited to the 32bit app 4GB address space ...

Looking forward to the 64bit build down the road then

KhajitFurTrader

chris.dillman wrote: »

Down the road when we move the PC / Mac to a 64bit build we will be able to turn all the memory saving features off.

ZOMG! 64 BIT CLIENT CONFIRMED, RELEASE YESTERDAY!!

Sorry.

You know how customers can be sometimes.

Please, whenever you guys feel that you have something ready to show, which needs testing on a broader basis, let us know, and let us test it. The more, the merrier, as they say.