Anyone use Global Illumination?

Red_Feather

I turned it on for the first time and I think it makes things look more interesting. It seems to not impact my fps much either maybe because I have a newer gpu. Might be my imagination, but the night time looked pretty interesting with it on. Lots of little details of lighting I never noticed before. 😯

Sylvermynx

Where's the setting for that? Don't think I've ever seen it....

danno8

It hits my FPs by 10+ frames. SSAO is still the best compromise between FPS and quality in my opinion. I would use SSGI only if I had a large number of frames to spare all the time.

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Where's the setting for that? Don't think I've ever seen it....

Was it you that had the usersettings problem? Or the other person with Silver in their name, lol. Anyway it's in graphics settings for the last few patches under Ambient Occlusion. I believe it was introduced with Blackwood.

SilverBride

danno8 wrote: »

Was it you that had the usersettings problem? Or the other person with Silver in their name, lol.

I had an issue with user settings not being account wide and having to set them for each character individually, but not the settings themselves. That was Sylvermynx, as she has since clarified below.

But now I'm curious about this Ambient Occlusion. What is it supposed to do?

Sylvermynx

danno8 wrote: »

It hits my FPs by 10+ frames. SSAO is still the best compromise between FPS and quality in my opinion. I would use SSGI only if I had a large number of frames to spare all the time.

Sylvermynx wrote: »

Where's the setting for that? Don't think I've ever seen it....

Was it you that had the usersettings problem? Or the other person with Silver in their name, lol. Anyway it's in graphics settings for the last few patches under Ambient Occlusion. I believe it was introduced with Blackwood.

Yeah, that was moi. Ambient occlusion huh. Looking at the options there, the one already chosen is SSAO. I'll probably just leave it at that until I have a new machine. I'm already pushing things running 2 4k monitors on my antique GPU.

danno8

SilverBride wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Was it you that had the usersettings problem? Or the other person with Silver in their name, lol.

I had an issue with user settings not being account wide and having to set them for each character individually, but not the settings themselves. That was Sylvermynx, as she has since clarified below.

But now I'm curious about this Ambient Occlusion. What is it supposed to do?

Well Ambient Occlusion in the past has been mostly about how two objects, when placed close together, tend to obstruct the light that reaches each object. Specifically the areas of the two objects that are very close to touching or actually touching each other.

Example:



With SSGI the AO also takes into account nearby bright surfaces and also will brighten other nearby surfaces that are close to the original bright surface. So you get both Ambient Occlusion shadows, and Ambient Lighting.

If you've heard about Ray Traced lighting this goes beyond just the "Screen Space" lighting and includes off-screen light sources so it is much more realistic and doesn't change depending on what you are looking at like it does with simple screen space GI.

Ray Tracing is extremely intensive, so SSGI is a good compromise. Although even it can be taxing on older hardware.

SilverBride

I will have to try this. Maybe it will help with the lighting in my houses.

Thanks for the great explanation!

Sylvermynx

Thanks for the great explanation, @danno8! And yes, it might actually help a lot in housing. However, I'm probably not getting a new machine until next spring, so.... (I'd rather pay off the mortgage!)

Red_Feather

danno8 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

danno8 wrote: »

Was it you that had the usersettings problem? Or the other person with Silver in their name, lol.

I had an issue with user settings not being account wide and having to set them for each character individually, but not the settings themselves. That was Sylvermynx, as she has since clarified below.

But now I'm curious about this Ambient Occlusion. What is it supposed to do?

Well Ambient Occlusion in the past has been mostly about how two objects, when placed close together, tend to obstruct the light that reaches each object. Specifically the areas of the two objects that are very close to touching or actually touching each other.

Example:



With SSGI the AO also takes into account nearby bright surfaces and also will brighten other nearby surfaces that are close to the original bright surface. So you get both Ambient Occlusion shadows, and Ambient Lighting.

If you've heard about Ray Traced lighting this goes beyond just the "Screen Space" lighting and includes off-screen light sources so it is much more realistic and doesn't change depending on what you are looking at like it does with simple screen space GI.

Ray Tracing is extremely intensive, so SSGI is a good compromise. Although even it can be taxing on older hardware.

That is a great explanation danno. Thank you. I really hope I can keep this setting on. Even if I have to lower others.