Low-texture horses

Devilpuppet

I have no idea if this is Mac-specific, but I'll put it here anyway, since I play on Mac

I noticed that horses (and some other animals and pets) are very low resolution, even if I have everything on ultra/high. (my framerate will die and my iMac will get ready for liftoff, but it runs on ultra )

Here are some screenshots (click for high resolution)

Screenshot of a player on a horse

Screenshot of a player on a horse, with another player (Argonian) in front with high texture.

Crop of the second screenshot

As you can see, the horse is a much lower texture than the characters and environment. Is there anyone who noticed this before and, maybe, has a fix for it?

I'm running this on a mid-2010 iMac with 1GB video memory and 12 GB RAM. Runs on a 2.8 quad-core i5.

KhajitFurTrader

I haven't noticed this, but keep in mind that the client determines the level of detail (LOD) distance on criteria like number of toons in an area. To preserve memory, lower-res textures only get replaced with higher resolution ones depending on distance, and that distance might change dynamically. There might even be some mechanism at work that weighs the texture quality to be displayed on certain assets depending on the type of asset. Horses might not rank very high in that. This game is build around the idea of having posses of hundreds prancing around on their noble steeds in Cyrodiil.

Try getting very close to the horse, stay there for a while, and see whether the textures change. Try doing the same in a less populated area.

Also, I remember reading somewhere on these forums that some "hidden" graphical settings only get set by changing the overall graphics quality, i.e. some effects, for which no separate option exists, are only shown on high or ultra. E.g. if you start with your overall graphics quality on medium and then manually change the individual settings to high or ultra (so graphics quality becomes "custom"), some effects won't be triggered. I'll see if I can find that post again.

So, try to reset your graphics quality to "ultra", turn everything on except VSYNC, and see whether horses look better. I'll look for myself tomorrow and take some screenshots for comparison.

LavaDrop

Yeah, low res for me too, compared to other models. Anyone with a PC or Bootcamp to double check?

Kie

I have noticed this with horses too, even my own horse. I wish they were as high res as the ones standing around at the stables.

Moonraker

They are adding higher resolution textures for non-humanoid NPCs as per the PTS Patch Notes v.1.1:

High Resolution Enemy Textures

New, higher-resolution textures for all non-humanoid enemies are now available! These are viewed automatically.

I believe that also covers non 'enemies also but not sure.

Here are a couple of examples I took from PTS today as I noticed they seemed higher quality skins on the horses though I can't be sure. In fact they may be the same just the fact I had recently loaded the character or the light etc.





Another thing. If you get very close to something it often looks lower quality i.e. within like a metre or so. A few metres away usualy loads NPC textures to
higher resolution.

I hink the higher resolution shown on the Argonian NPC shows how it is with loaded in higher quality texture and the last one shown shows how textures can look bad really close up.

Example is the Imperial horse head really close up;



I can show it better here with two shots. One standing some metres away from a stone wall and wooden post looks OK (Ultra-High) But close up really pixellated. That's just the way it works when very close;

LavaDrop

I think we're witnessing the reality that the game was made for 3rd person perspective but first person was added because old school fans wanted it. IMHO I don't think 1st person suits an MMO, unless you want to die constantly.

KhajitFurTrader

LavaDrop wrote: »

I think we're witnessing the reality that the game was made for 3rd person perspective but first person was added because old school fans wanted it. IMHO I don't think 1st person suits an MMO, unless you want to die constantly.

1st person view isn't that bad to play in ESO. Yes, in other MMOs I've known it's not really viable, albeit being available, because gameplay mechanics don't really support it. ESO does. If only the promised FOV option would be finally added, I'd be playing a lot more in 1st person. It's fun.

Btw, 1st person view is not "old school"(*), it's what TES is about. It stems from a time when game series like Eye of the Beholder, Might & Magic, or Wizardry were defining the RPG genre. Arena and Daggerfall were no different. Ultima had a very simple fixed point isometric "3rd person" view, but then again the Ultima Underworld series, which were the mold for all "classic" 3D dungeon crawlers, had 1st person.

Next April 1st, ZOS should announce that 1st person view will be mandatory in Cyrodiil. It's always delightful to watch people froth at the mouth for the tiniest of reasons (this message was approved by Sheogorath).

---

*) By definition, anything I can remember like it was only yesterday cannot be old school, because it was quite new back then.

LavaDrop

But the game was not designed from the get go to be 1st person. How can it be if everything that is aggressive to the player has visual cues on the ground as to avoid them? In 1st person you can't see the cone or rectangle from many attacks. You have to guess were the flames are going to drop from fire casters.

Moonraker

LavaDrop wrote: »

But the game was not designed from the get go to be 1st person. How can it be if everything that is aggressive to the player has visual cues on the ground as to avoid them? In 1st person you can't see the cone or rectangle from many attacks. You have to guess were the flames are going to drop from fire casters.

It's not or wasn't though the made the design decision to include First person functionality.

I actually use both. For fights I'll use Third-Person to allow me to see the ground effects and provide better situational 'around me' awareness. But for general questing I'll often use FP as I find it more immersive.

ZOS added in the visual cues (can be toggled in settings) to NPCs to give a good amount prompt for including damage/ action so FP is not as limited as it be otherwise.

kifyiib14a_ESO

I've noticed that the textures on hrrses are really poor as well relative to the rest of the game world. From what I can tell of the screenshots posted about the new 'higher res' textures they'll be adding, they look the same as the current ones honestly. The low resolution is really only bothersome on the head of the horse, for me at least. The bridle, eyes and markings are extremely ... meh. They aren't even of the same quality as vanilla Skyrim horses or EVEN Vanilla Oblivion horses! I really hope to see a higher resolution for horses in the future, given that they seem to be putting a bit of an emphasis on them with the adding of horse racing and suchlike.

Moonraker

kifyiib14a_ESO wrote: »

I've noticed that the textures on hrrses are really poor as well relative to the rest of the game world. From what I can tell of the screenshots posted about the new 'higher res' textures they'll be adding, they look the same as the current ones honestly. The low resolution is really only bothersome on the head of the horse, for me at least. The bridle, eyes and markings are extremely ... meh. They aren't even of the same quality as vanilla Skyrim horses or EVEN Vanilla Oblivion horses! I really hope to see a higher resolution for horses in the future, given that they seem to be putting a bit of an emphasis on them with the adding of horse racing and suchlike.

I'm not convinced that they actually have changed the horse textures. I think it's just that there is more of the original detail as there is low population and no scaling of LOD.

So don't take those as reflecting any possible changes. It's hard to get up close to NPCs to check and not sure it changes to low quality when very close thing.

achimb16_ESO3

I agree with the OP - my horse looks really ugly in comparison to my char, even when noone else is around. Even in old EQ2, the horses looked more detailed and never that washed out.