Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
You need to check the facts. Console 4k is not the same as pc 4k. That's why xbox can offer 8k resolution. There are many tricks used for console games much akin to CryEngine's software based Ray tracing. The truth remains that cross platform titles are downgraded for pc. We can discuss the next generation of consoles in theory, but the truth is the consoles are designed with hardware immediately available after the previous release. Thus, the consoles will always be less powerful than an up to date pc.
Considering the percentile of 4k gamers on pc compared to 1440p and 1080p, it's still irrelevant. You should probably check the facts yourself lol. Most gamers are not even pushing 120 frames regardless of resolution except for the ones trying to be super competitive in esport games which are usually small scale deathmatches. Even with frame generation it doesn't actually improve the performance of the game itself, it just makes it seem like it has better performance but the back end performance is still the original performance.
Yes, they will be working on 8k eventually but to praise 8k gaming now is stupid as most developers are not even wasting their time with that as 4k gaming hasn't even reached an optimal frame rate standard yet or a majority of the market. Playing ashes in 4k regardless of pc or console is still pointless trade off for performance in my opinion. You're probably a bit confused on what engines do for the game vs hardware as consumerism can be quite confusing with so much marketing around GPU's AI performance gains vs the actual software. I never said PC's would not out perform the limitations of a console but that consoles can technically run an mmorpg regardless of 30-60 frames per second on 4k. Tech is advancing, just like ps6 and the new xbox in 2028 will probably be a lot more capable in performance than the current generation. lol.
The fact remains that you can easily push the boundaries of graphics on a console - see Gran Turismo, just the same as you can push the graphics on pc - see 2007 Crysis. There is a reason for the meme 'Can it run crysis?' And more to the point there is a reason why exclusive games will always look better than cross platform. Especially on pc.
However, the devs have to cater to top end and low end again. Another reason why the game will look worse the closer we get to launch. Can't alienate the majority of players even on pc. In some ways, we'd have been better off with an exclusive console release so the graphics can be pushed rather than reigned in.
I remember the Crysis meme lol.
I agree, should not have to use upscalers if the game is properly designed and optimised. I was reading up on AMD getting into AI chips for GPU's so we could see a lot more potential from team RED and team Blue for gamers since team Green (nvidia) is going all in on AI chips now. Plus the potential for generational compatibilities and synergies between cpu's and gpu's assuming apu's do not expand in the way they hope which also suggests that handhelds and smart gaming devices are going to get a significant boost.
Will obviously have to wait to see what the consoles decides to go with with their next consoles. They can perform quite well for the industries standard. The quality of product is going to plateau for a few years. I hate to say it but consoles hold the gaming gaming back in terms of larger advancements in graphical quality and performance. It comes down to the art direction of the game with optimisation for performance which I brought up in my much earlier posts.
one day
Stephen is on record saying that the primary focus of Intrepid is to develop good game mechanics and a compelling story, while graphics are only a vehicle through which players will experience those two things. The goal being that the graphics will be good enough to look nice and atmospheric, but not distract from what is actually important in the game.
And if nothing short of the best graphics is already a disappointment to you, then I guess Intrepid will have to do without you. And this is not me trying to be mean, but it would be a logic consequence because having below "high end" graphics mean losing you but gaining access to everyone not having a high end PC / laptop.
You don't need to worry. Before every video they show during their livestreams, before every single video, Steven states that this is a work in progress, and to take things as what they are: an Alpha version of a game still in development.
It's because of posts like this that he has to say this every single time.
Watch the official livestreams, not the random streamer-goons. You'll get much better info.
What do you expect from a 2014 game? The current gen of consoles wasn't even out in 2014. Thus, textures will be rubbish compared to current textures. BDO still looks better than the current iteration of ashes though. All thanks to the most recent upgrade to the engine which is what I referred to with regards to graphical overhauls at later points.
What do i expect? I expect the same quality as the other mmorpgs and other games that don't look generic.
Beauty shot of AoC vrs a beauty shot of BDO. AoC would win with perfect angle, bdo looks generic and boring from textures to bushes and trees you can only try to argue it is somewhat close do to less polish.
Now to make things more even remove Post process of BDO and compare it to AoC, BDO looks like an extremely ugly game as it gives off a even more generic feeling.
If we take a genric screenshot from both games on the normal day to day look that is not a beauty shot.
You can clearly the level of detail is clearly higher in AoC in all elements of the art on a base level. And this is in alpha mind you, once they do polish and start to work and finish their really epic scenes it won't even be a question at that point.
People out here need to give more credit to artist than be picking certain angles in a game that in currently being developed and using that as an argument why its bad /worse and not just saying (unfinished)
Readers added some context:
Mag7 has used a generic shot of a low level character in an area in BDO released with the game's launch that has not been updated since in details, with the lighting set to the old values, to compare with semi-recent Ashes gameplay.
Level of character has absolutely nothing to do with the environment from the textures, the level of detail in the trees, the detail in the lighting, etc.
Also point is not a beauty shot its a generic shot. I get you are just here to try to disagree with anything i say just cause but you are making a point they have not updated BDO enough as a point against a game in Alpha development???
Anyone who somehow thinks that I'm 'persecuting' Mag here can search 'Land of the Morning Light' for BDO and decide if my comment was worthwhile.
You are missing the entire reason for my point just to disagree with me cause you want to be combative.
So now we are ignoring generic shot of both, you trying to find a beauty type shot which as also not the purpose, also you trying to bring up levels matter yet with AoC you don't have high level areas, you needing to pick a certain location over general spots in the game.
Land of morning light is more asian inspired so it can appear less "generic" because less games have that style. Place still looks like the same old BDO but slightly improved. All the same points still stand if you compare both and find a "generic" shot of that area.
Remove all the post process effects and such and it again looks really bad. When AoC is a finished game and you compare it to a beauty shot of BDO with all post process BDO will look even more dated.
Consoles don't have to be as powerful as the most current high end hardware. The Series X has a GPU that is roughly equivalent to a 3060ti or 6700XT and a CPU that's essentially a mildly underclocked Ryzen 3700x and the PS5's hardware is nearly as powerful. Both would be more than capable of running this game at 1440p or even 4K at 30fps. MMOs basically never push technological/graphical boundaries and AoC will be no different. Like pretty much every other MMO it will be highly scalable and should easily run on even lower end PCs. Also, "console 4K vs PC 4K" isn't a real thing. There are plenty of native 4K games on the current consoles and to be honest, they could probably play just about any game out at native 4K 30fps with settings equivalent to low/medium settings on PC if that's what the developers wanted to target. There is little reason to focus on native 4K though when temporal upscaling solutions give 90% of the image quality for 70% of the performance cost.
Also, the current gen console GPUs are RDNA2 based (of which the first desktop GPU released roughly two weeks before the Xbox Series X, not "immediately available after the previous release" which was in 2013) and actually have hardware acceleration for ray tracing, since you mentioned the software based solution used in CryEngine. That solution was developed primarily for lower end/older PC GPUs (which is why Crytek initially showed it running on a Vega 56) and the last gen "premium" consoles.
The consoles are rated to be 6700xt only in terms of terraflops. The actual performance rating is 2070, 2070 super and 2080 area which in 3rd gen is rtx 3060. Hence the Ray tracing capabilities. Furthermore, who wants to play at 30fps in a MMORPG where frame drops can happen at any given location.
Nah, they're pretty close to the 6700 or 6700XT (this is only 10% faster on average than a 2080 to begin with though) in real world performance when optimized for properly (this happens less for the Series X due to the smaller install base and less focus on optimization). RT "capabilities" are also identical to the 6700XT relative to overall compute as they're the exact same architecture, so any performance hit should be the same relative to overall performance (meaning if the 6700XT loses ~40% in a game with RT enabled then the consoles would also both lose ~40%). There are also examples of the consoles losing far less performance with RT enabled than desktop RDNA2 GPUs like with Hogwarts Legacy. The game was straight up unplayable on RDNA2 GPUs at 1440p (6700XT barely averaged in the double digits with RT on medium and the 6900XT only averaged around 30fps) and yet the console's RT modes were targeting 1440p (obviously with dynamic resolution scaling, with 1080p as the lower bound, where the 6700XT still couldn't touch 30fps) and maintained close to a consistent 30fps.
Also, if the game is made well, framerate drops shouldn't just be happening out of nowhere like that. Proper design, planning, and optimization should take that into account and leave enough headroom to minimize that as much as possible. Also MMOs aren't exactly action dependent and don't need high framerates to be enjoyable for most people.
Nah, the consoles perform pretty close to the 6700xt, which is only about 10% faster than the 2080 to begin with, in real world performance. And their RT "capabilities" are the same relative to their compute performance as the 6700xt since they're the exact same architecture.
You're just misunderstanding what was said. The consoles were running the game (meaning Hogwarts Legacy) better at the same internal resolution because it's easier to optimize for them, not because the internal resolution is different (it isn't). That wasn't a case of this made up "console 4K vs PC 4K" thing because that just simply isn't a real thing. The consoles run games about as well as a 6700 or 6700XT. Those two GPUs will be more than enough to play this game at 1440p. There is zero technical reason AoC won't be able to release on consoles. Even the Series S should be able to play it acceptably with FSR or TSR at 1080p
the second part i ment which i posted it in Q/A
A lot of newer games on PC use upscaling and dynamic resolution scaling as well and not all console games use either technique. There are plenty of native 4K games on console. Regardless you're not arguing against the actual point because you can't. There is no technical reason this game shouldn't be able to run on the current gen consoles.