Please add quality settings for 3D models

Hi! I am really missing a way to reduce the polygon count of player models / npcs, monsters, environment assets overall in the graphics settings.

I’m coming from two different angles on this: First, obviously - performance optimization. Making the game run better overall, or make it perform better on older hardware.

But also, to be honest, from a personal taste and love for oldschool game visuals.
Many models and assets in the game currently are featuring WAY more polygon detail than they ever need. Not only does that impact performance, it also makes things look very… rounded. Smoothed. It is an aesthetic that I’m not the biggest fan of. And I would love to seriously turn down quality settings, all the way to make things look really oldschool, as if they could run on a netbook. While this certainly takes some work to implement, you can actually use tools in 3D modeling software to intelligently reduce polycount pretty much automatically.
I would highly appreciate it, if you would offer a selection of quality settings that goes beyond what you might be comfortable with aesthetically. I guess people who care more about framerate than looks and lowspec-gamers would also appreciate this. :slight_smile:

(Bonus points if you also would allow to entirely disable texture filtering, so you could have lovely pixelated textures for a nice retro look. ^^)

1 Like

Well… thats a request i dont think we have seen on the forum before…

About performance, well, the next patch (0.9) is arguably the first patch that the devs have committed to making performance optimisations & changes for… Having helped out here on the technical side for a while now, I am hoping for some profound improvements in this regard.

Realistically tho, I am hoping for more stable framerates across the game - especially wrt. various known performance problem areas (maps, skills, mob densities etc) and overall improvement in stability.

Moving the game to server-authoritative mode will also have an impact on the performance as there will be things done server side instead of client side that may offload CPU processing and improve local FPS (network issues aside).

As your for your low poly options… I am not sure that going all that way to low poly is something that the majority of people would be happy with… even those looking for performance improvements.

I am not sure if Unity 2019LTS (the game engine) has any way of making this possible easily - sure the current settings of Very Low to Ultra need some better granularity (imho, there is very little visual difference between some of them) but I dont think this is going to be easy to do and the devs are already struggling under the workload…

Even if addressing the GPU side of things (models & textures etc) down to low poly helps, I doubt very much that Unity is capable of dropping performance requirements down to levels of netbook play - I think that is a bridge too far and I dont even think its worth aiming for… In this instance I would think things like Geforce Now would be a better approach to that problem.

Visually, considering the genre & viewing angle/zooms, I am not sure a low poly is the way to g. I never really liked the low poly look - it suits a lot of games but even the 2d isomentric arpg games of yesteryear had a lot of detail on the models etc and low poly just looks odd to me… I am thinking of old NWN & even some of the early 3d based games - and those just look crappy imho… Personally, I wouldnt want LE to go that far - I do not feel nostalgic about old low poly games - barring a few visual graphic styles that lend themselves to low poly type graphics, I am very glad that we have generally left the old low poly 3d models in the past…

Just thinking of those old oval heads with flat textures & blocky bodies does nothing for me…

But hey, this is feedback so maybe you will find a kindred spirit in one of the devs and they will look kindly on your idea…

I hope not tho…

1 Like

Since it would be an option, at least no player would be hurt. It would just widen the spectrum of graphical fidelity for players to choose from. The netbook analogy was not meant as a serious performance goal though, don’t worry. More of a hint towards the fact that I would actually have no issue if polygon edges become visible. :slight_smile:

When it comes to polycount, Diablo 3 has a perfect balance in my opinion. It’s kind of what I would like to see on the “ultra low” setting for LE. Most important detail is in texture work and shaders anyway.

Maybe I can give you better insight into what I mean, by using a different game as an example that does it right. I recently got “The incredible adventures of Van Helsing: Final Cut” in a sale and there, you can turn down the character detail quite a lot. Have a look at these two screenshots. I stronly believe that - if we weren’t talking about this topic and you didn’t know, you wouldn’t actually notice that one of them has the highest quality setting for the characters, and the other one is significantly reduced in polygon detail, while maintaining the overall shape. And especially, consider the fact that in this genre, the camera is quite far away from the action. And things are moving a lot, there are lots of creatures on the screen at once. During gameplay, you will definitely not notice it, unless you compare it side by side and are looking specifically for the graphical fidelity. But yeah, basically I am asking for highly optimized 3D meshes.

Details.zip (990.3 KB)

Here are two screenshots with different settings for character detail. Since I can’t insert images here, I zipped them for interested folks.

This is a unique request, but I am not sure if it will result will be something that you are happy with.

Simply scaling down 3D art will not make it look good, evne if you like that style.

If a game is designed around this in mind the devs will make sure that all 3D art will also look good with that low level of detail.

Some already existing pieces of 3D Model would probably look very messy if you simplyscale it down.

Also I think the details of 3D art is one of the lesser important thigns regarding performance.

I would not expect many people to be willing to download and open a zip file from an unknown person. You should upload the images to an image sharing site, such as Imgur, and link them.

But guessing at what you’re looking for, I agree with other posters that wanting very low poly models for purely aesthetic purposes is a very niche ask and I wouldn’t hold my breath on getting it.

1 Like

Not that low poly. Just low enough that you start seeing some edges, but the overall shape should not suffer. What we have in the game at this point in time looks to me like a lot of wasted performance without actual benefits in perceived detail. And while yes, just lowering the polycount of a few models might not have much impact in performance on modern hardware, optimizing all assets will definitely make a difference on low spec systems and make the game more accessible to a broader audience.

You’re not wrong, but none of that really needs to be said. “Performance matters” is a given. And if the state of LE’s performance is such that I can run it with no problems on the highest settings on a 5 year old machine with a mid range graphics card, I’m skeptical that EHG is going to get much ROI on pushing model poly counts even lower on the lowest settings. And realistically, there comes a point where a player who has “old hardware” needs to accept and deal with the idea that they’re going to get locked out of future games, either in actuality or by virtue of unacceptably degraded performance. But again, targeting performance in that way is a given and it doesn’t need to be advocated for. They’re already taking reasonable steps in that direction and have been the whole time.

My comment was directed at your desire for models that have a distinct visual conveyance of their lower poly counts for purely aesthetic purposes - your “love for oldschool game visuals”. It’s niche, and I wouldn’t hold my breath on getting it here.

3 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.