Textures get muddy/low-res since 1.1.2

Neomar

Textures on buildings, grounds and environment get "blurred/extremely low-res since patch 1.1.2 with the mac-client. Sometimes its there directly after login or hits you for sure within some playtime. Seeing it on two macs over here, no matter if windowed or fullscreen (windowed). Restarting the game helps for some minutes.

_subjectnamehere_

YES! This happens to me too....no more memory leaks on my end, but...

When I start the game, my textures look great. As I play for a few hours, they slowly begin to degrade to almost nothing...really low settings. I check my video settings, and nothing has changed there...they are all set to high.

But in-game, they look terrible.

It doesn't happen to me after minutes...it happens after a few hours of play.

Come on, Zenimax....fix this issue!

KhajitFurTrader

See also this thread.

Either it's a new anti-crash/memory conserving technique (which would imply it's intentional), or it's something going awry with LOD, as @Moonraker surmised.

Neomar

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

Either it's a new anti-crash/memory conserving technique (which would imply it's intentional), or it's something going awry with LOD, as @Moonraker surmised.

I don't believe its a conserving memory workaround. At least I HOPE

The textures don't look just "a bit low" - they are totally out of control. My horse looks like a flat meatball. Even the signs in front of craftshops are unrecognizable - basically like 4x4 pixels sized up. Every texture gets blown up like 2000%. I hope its just some lines of code that went terribly kamikaze and can be fixed.

Added a screenshot; thats where I'm usually starting from. Ground textures get muddy, walls as well. Look at the plants in the background; they are only "half-drawn". The horse in the left background has a muddy texture etc pp. 10 minutes later, basically all textures look low res:



Problem occurs on 2012 27'' iMacs (3,1 Mhz i5) with 10.7.5 and 10.9.2/3, running ATI Radeon 6970M 1GB.

Moonraker

If it's LOD system and on higher settings which use more memory, then as its reaches predetermined thresholds it ramps down detail and will show quicker as the higher the settings, the more memory used.

It would be useful to know if this is actually improving crash frequency from memory issue especially in Cyrodiil?

Neomar

Hey Moonraker, hey FurTrader,

happy to have both of you around, appreciated your knowledge and support here and over there at TF already a lot.

Moonraker: Then it might not be the LOD system. I know its effect. Since 1.1.2, some textures stay muddy, even right after login. I login the game, mount my horse and - it looks like a giant blob. I visit a city; half of the buildings/grounds are muddy. No matter how close or far I get: they stay muddy. Look at the flowers/grass in the screenshot above: They are just half drawn/sprinkles. Dungeons: Same issue with textures. This occurs less general right on login, but for sure after some gaming. All player-toons stay crystal sharp, thou. Their horses: not.

Yes, I have textures set to high. Pre-1.1.2 I had very, very rarely crashes in PvE-environments (like: every 2 or 3 hours, or even none). Didn't PvP much, yet. No data on this.

Moonraker

Neomar wrote: »

Hey Moonraker, hey FurTrader,

happy to have both of you around, appreciated your knowledge and support here and over there at TF already a lot.

Moonraker: Then it might not be the LOD system. I know its effect. Since 1.1.2, some textures stay muddy, even right after login. I login the game, mount my horse and - it looks like a giant blob. I visit a city; half of the buildings/grounds are muddy. No matter how close or far I get: they stay muddy. Look at the flowers/grass in the screenshot above: They are just half drawn/sprinkles. Dungeons: Same issue with textures. This occurs less general right on login, but for sure after some gaming. All player-toons stay crystal sharp, thou. Their horses: not.

Yes, I have textures set to high. Pre-1.1.2 I had very, very rarely crashes in PvE-environments (like: every 2 or 3 hours, or even none). Didn't PvP much, yet. No data on this.

I think the LOD system was changed to alter LOD more agressively so it may show even at launch. For instance, on my iMac 27 Late 2013 with Ultra-High, at launch I am already at 1.7GB memory used and then will increse over time.

If the threshold is lower than 1.7GB then it would be impacting LOD or non player/ NPC textures even at launch. Not sure if LOD 'pop=in' on NPC's is effected also i.e. how close to them to load higher textures.

It could be something else of course and just my initial feeling and from PTS testing.

It would be useful to know if this is occurring for Mac players at launch and if so what graphics settings and memory is used at initial character launch.

And, if it is actually helping reduce crash frequency or not.

Moonraker

KhajitFurTrader wrote: »

See also this thread.

Either it's a new anti-crash/memory conserving technique (which would imply it's intentional), or it's something going awry with LOD, as @Moonraker surmised.

Actually I was referring to the former and it is an intended function. It may also be something different Hard to tell currently but I believe it is related to changes in the LOD management.

Moonraker

From a fairly quick one hour test on default Ultra-High settings (now has View Distance 100 which pushes memory more) I have not seen any difference except the horse textures which tend to get lower over time was really low. Lower than I have seen it before. But otherwise all seemed as before.

So, not sure what is happening to cause this as I would have assumed by textures would get hit earlier as it's using more memory at launch and use at those settings. From image you can see ground and othr textures are as they should be and character textures.

Think horses tend to look poor is that they tend to load later after other textures and why they seem worse more often.

Loxy37

Only time I see low res textures is when I approach NPCs, they are low res for a second but I only have a 1GB card. A suggestion, lower the textures to Med but keep up sampling on high and see if it delays or stops it. Also when it happens, try switching to desktop and back or /reloadui. If that fails then switch from high to med and back again.

Out of interest. How much memory does your gfx card have and what type is it? Also hoe much system memory do you have?

Moonraker

Loxy37 wrote: »

Only time I see low res textures is when I approach NPCs, they are low res for a second but I only have a 1GB card. A suggestion, lower the textures to Med but keep up sampling on high and see if it delays or stops it. Also when it happens, try switching to desktop and back or /reloadui. If that fails then switch from high to med and back again.

Out of interest. How much memory does your gfx card have and what type is it? Also hoe much system memory do you have?

That happens as it has a distance at which it will then load higher textures. Further away it is lower and has been like that for a while. Very close up things look more pixelated which is normal for NPCs.

Publius_Scipio

I will add to this thread and say that today I noticed some things in the world got "stuck" in a low res state (i.e. crafting tables and horse). Players looked fine for me.

I'm assuming a log out and back in resets textures back to higher res?

Neomar

Switches back temporarily, yes.

/reloadui or switching windowed/fullscreen (windowed) doesn't help.

Moonraker

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I will add to this thread and say that today I noticed some things in the world got "stuck" in a low res state (i.e. crafting tables and horse). Players looked fine for me.

I'm assuming a log out and back in resets textures back to higher res?

I think that certain textures get loaded later so tend to show low texture. I have always noticed for example, that the Blacksmiths anvil is always low texture for me and horse often is or becomes increasingly so. To restore it you need to reboot the game to drop the memory again.

It's a little different from what others have posted I think which is ground textures and walls. Sometimes it takes the client some time to draw in objects within the bounds of the View Distance. So, if there is some server lag houses don't 'pop' into higher quality with some delay.

Publius_Scipio

Moonraker wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I will add to this thread and say that today I noticed some things in the world got "stuck" in a low res state (i.e. crafting tables and horse). Players looked fine for me.

I'm assuming a log out and back in resets textures back to higher res?

I think that certain textures get loaded later so tend to show low texture. I have always noticed for example, that the Blacksmiths anvil is always low texture for me and horse often is or becomes increasingly so. To restore it you need to reboot the game to drop the memory again.

It's a little different from what others have posted I think which is ground textures and walls. Sometimes it takes the client some time to draw in objects within the bounds of the View Distance. So, if there is some server lag houses don't 'pop' into higher quality with some delay.

Well what I am saying is that the textures of the crafting stations were of much poorer quality my last play session than I have ever seen them. And the textures did not bump up after a few seconds.

I think they need to do some tweaking in a future patch most likely.

Moonraker

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

Moonraker wrote: »

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

I will add to this thread and say that today I noticed some things in the world got "stuck" in a low res state (i.e. crafting tables and horse). Players looked fine for me.

I'm assuming a log out and back in resets textures back to higher res?

I think that certain textures get loaded later so tend to show low texture. I have always noticed for example, that the Blacksmiths anvil is always low texture for me and horse often is or becomes increasingly so. To restore it you need to reboot the game to drop the memory again.

It's a little different from what others have posted I think which is ground textures and walls. Sometimes it takes the client some time to draw in objects within the bounds of the View Distance. So, if there is some server lag houses don't 'pop' into higher quality with some delay.

Well what I am saying is that the textures of the crafting stations were of much poorer quality my last play session than I have ever seen them. And the textures did not bump up after a few seconds.

I think they need to do some tweaking in a future patch most likely.

Yes, it sounds similar to what I see on those. I just haven;t seen ground textures like some of the screenshots show generally.

Neomar

Moonraker wrote: »

It's a little different from what others have posted I think which is ground textures and walls. Sometimes it takes the client some time to draw in objects within the bounds of the View Distance. So, if there is some server lag houses don't 'pop' into higher quality with some delay.

No – since 1.1.2, the textures just stay low-res on buildings, ground, crafting tables, whatever (at least on our 2 clients over here). I keep starring at them, hoping to see them plop into their nice versions, but they don't. Sadly.

PrinceBoru

Happens to me as well.

Moonraker

Neomar wrote: »

Moonraker wrote: »

It's a little different from what others have posted I think which is ground textures and walls. Sometimes it takes the client some time to draw in objects within the bounds of the View Distance. So, if there is some server lag houses don't 'pop' into higher quality with some delay.

No – since 1.1.2, the textures just stay low-res on buildings, ground, crafting tables, whatever (at least on our 2 clients over here). I keep starring at them, hoping to see them plop into their nice versions, but they don't. Sadly.

For you... What I was saying that that's how it generally behaves. But it will always depend on each players computer and graphics settings, plus other factors like addons etc.

I don't know what setup you have to comment more really. I know for me with high end iMac I don't have that issue on all buildings etc also. Only occasionally before the View Distance gets drawn in due probably to some lag.

It may be effecting lower end or older Macs more but bit early to know from reports so far as few give system details.

curlyqloub14_ESO

Texture issues here as well - horses (and other various things like boxes, cabinets, and backpacks) are all very low rez now. I'm on an iMac as well (see comp specs below), but I did not have this issue before the patch. Horses never looked awesome, but this ghostly white blob that is now my horse is definitely new since the 1.1.2 patch.

A complete logout and quit client > restart will fix things for a bit, but they degrade over time again. At first this was just annoying, but it's starting to affect gameplay now. When the textures get low, I often can no longer see small objects like lorebooks or items I might be tracking for a quest, which means I missing things or can't find what I'm looking for unless I quit/restart.

In regards to previous crashing from memory leak, I have no idea if this related or not. I do seem to be crashing less, but it is still happening. Unless this is new bug, the memory leak crashes seem to be improved, but are definitely NOT completely fixed.

27" imac late 2013
Processor 3.5 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4096 MB
Software OS X 10.9.2 (13C1021)

seaef

Same issue here. It starts after about 1 hour of gameplay and gets progressively worse. Restarting solves the problem. I also noticed it almost always happens as my Mac's available memory drops below 4 GB.

Neomar

Moonraker wrote: »

It may be effecting lower end or older Macs more but bit early to know from reports so far as few give system details.

Thanks for your patience, Moonraker. I'm on a mid 2011 iMac with 16 GB RAM, Ati Radeon HD 6970M (1 GB), i5 3,1 Mhz – one on 1.7.5, one on 1.9.2.

Randay

for me it looks like they tried to fix the memory leaks by preventing the memory to fill up with to much stuff. so what happens now is that the client doesnt completely load objects into the memory to prevent overflooding it > causing a crash.

but thats just what my stomache tells me. i think it should be able to programm that the memory gets freed a bit to be able to load more textures.

i am staying patient, as i am seeing improvement. i can now finally play for more than 1 hour in cyrodil, maybe 2 befor i have to restart the client as i am staying in the middle of lots of graphical blobbs around me.

lets see what zenimax comes up with. (just wondering that they still havent commented on our many posts)

seaef

Randay wrote: »

but thats just what my stomache tells me. i think it should be able to programm that the memory gets freed a bit to be able to load more textures.

I have been thinking the same thing.

Randay wrote: »

...i can now finally play for more than 1 hour in cyrodil, maybe 2 befor i have to restart the client...

I look at it as a reminder to get up from my desk and walk around a bit ;-)

Publius_Scipio

My report on the subject from Cyrodiil.

I was questing in Cyrodiil, ventured into a dungeon, did that and then emerged out into the world again. Textures were stuck extremely low and bad looking (the ground, rocks, trees, sides of structures, horse). The textures never bounced back.

The good news is that I never crashed in cyrodiil and I was there for over an hour. I think the textures getting bad and the memory leak fixes are somehow related.

I hope they are aware and will put further fixes into future patches.

seaef

Another thing I noticed (I don't know if it will help Zen or not). It's not just the game world that goes blurry. Icons in the UI do as well.

tfraley

Seeing the same issues posts as others here including passive ablitilitys .

Wish they would spend some time and fix the mac clients already.
There is way to many bugs for a game we are paying monthly for.

MacPro early 08
2x2.8gh quad core intel xeon
10gb memory
Ati Radeon HD 4870 1024mb
OSX 10.9.3

Windshadow_ESO

I think the degradation in visuals we are seeing in the mac client over time must be linked to the improved stability that we now have.
As others have said the way the eye of your horse dissolves in to its surrounding grey makes a great marker telling you to log out before actual game play is affected.
As long as things keep improving I will keep playing and with luck in another month or so all this will be just a memory

LavaDrop

Am I the only one that finds the lack of official information from ZoS insulting? I feel like we're all blindfolded and trying to hit the information piñata.

Moonraker

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

My report on the subject from Cyrodiil.

I was questing in Cyrodiil, ventured into a dungeon, did that and then emerged out into the world again. Textures were stuck extremely low and bad looking (the ground, rocks, trees, sides of structures, horse). The textures never bounced back.

The good news is that I never crashed in cyrodiil and I was there for over an hour. I think the textures getting bad and the memory leak fixes are somehow related.

I hope they are aware and will put further fixes into future patches.

If it's as we suspect then the reason is it has been adjusted from the previous iteration of the client to more aggressively down sample textures to help stabilise the client as lower textures = less memory used. That's simplistic but about it.

There was a feature in place already which did this but guess that it is just being more aggressive to reduce memory usage for stability. I expect if it is too aggressive it can be adjusted back up.

Moonraker

LavaDrop wrote: »

Am I the only one that finds the lack of official information from ZoS insulting? I feel like we're all blindfolded and trying to hit the information piñata.

Problem is what do you want them to say exactly? What tends to happen from previous games is that developer posts details of technical stuff and it gets picked over and misunderstood and probably doesn't help so much.

The main thing is that they are working on it to improve the situation.

In the last patch notes it stated that a fix went in the help memory usage and then the PC client developed a really nasty memory crash It's been hotfixed since already. I just guess that it's mostly a question of continued testing for memory leaks in the various elements of the game including client, game engine etc. And they look to work out the root causes over time.

What we can do as end users is report how updates impact our play as people are doing and the developers can take that feedback in consideration in their work. They do read the forums as they have said before.