TY scott. As I mentioned I will be reporting on the Mortal Empires campaign turn times. I feel like that may be the most significant patch ever.
Plus I will be playing the Joan of Arc character-- I never have played Britainia much.
Finally if you want to try a new campaign in ME let me suggest the Empire campaign. Holy smokes == they changed all the mechanics. You have tons of special units. Plus it is hard. Not 100 turn hard == 200 turn hard.
Chaplin
1785
It only happens in certain places and even then when shade is applied. This is usually a slope or when a cloud is passing over. Below is with sharpening on for all shots also.
SSAO on:
SSAO off:
This is just a custom map battle on Charnel Valley. I just go to the shaded slopes and it gets bad. I wonder what would happen in your screens if you were back just a bit on that shaded slope of the dune. It also could be an issue with certain custom maps. I don’t know. I have been fighting it awhile. I just recently discovered the SSAO link. I can repeat the finding on snow maps.
Ooh - neat. It’s a small thing, but nice - one reason I’ve always tended to play the “main” faction of each race is because of the naming conventions.
Strato
1787
Gotrek and Felix are now exempted from Supply Lines. If they are replaced by a generic Lord, supply lines will adjust accordingly
That’s a nice feature in the new patch. When CA implemented Gotrex and Felix, you really had to really pay for them, and when on the higher difficulties, the supply cost of 15% 30%? extra become fairly hefty to deal with.
All previously hidden unique items are now visible in the skill tree of the relevant character
** Hidden unique items now always trigger at a specified level instead of randomly generating*
** Hidden unique items now trigger in both the Eye of the Vortex and Mortal Empires campaigns*
Finally!!!
I find myself in a bind. Do I stop my current Vampire Coast campaign and wait for the patch, or keep going. I’m guessing the new patch will still be compatible with old save files? I really don’t know…
SamS
1788
With the number of changes I would be shocked if the patch was save game compatible. But this is your last chance to play Vampire Coast and not the “Awakened” so keep Queen Bess going!
I have never seen this before, at least not that I remember noticing. I just tried a custom battle on that same map, and along that same ridge I didn’t see any sort of checkerboarding like you have in your SSAO On image. I just confirmed I have it on. I was playing with the High Elves though, is it something unique to the Skaven models or something? I haven’t even played as the Skaven yet.
I took some screenshots along the same ridge as you were on:
Here are my settings:
EDIT: I think I am seeing what might be causing the checkerboarding, it’s a halo of light around certain models. Skaven, for example, or this Star Dragon. And this halo of light around some units I have most definitely seen before, but I don’t think I ever observed it checker-boarding the ground, so I didn’t realize this is what you were talking about, I suspect.
That halo of light does indeed go away when you turn SSAO off, so that’s probably your checkerboard culprit. I don’t see any differences with SSAO on or off, so I guess I’ll leave it off to make my dragons look better. :)
I wonder if using SSAO through the NVidia Control Panel would produce better results?
Chaplin
1790
Hmmm. I just ran an experiment with the same map, high elves, and your settings from the screenshot.
It is not as bad around the feet, but I see it on the terrain and around the spears and lances if I move around. Halo is a decent way to express it. I just have drivers running, I don’t have the GeForce Experience installed. Maybe that would help? I am not sure what options I would look at in Nvidia Control panel.
Yeah, that halo effect is even somewhat visible in my first screenshots - like I said, I had assumed it had to do with ground textures, so I was looking at feet/ground, but it’s not - it’s a halo around some units (to stronger or lesser degrees, I suspect). Turning SSAO off does fix it, so off that option will stay for now.
DO NOT use GeForce Experience with Warhammer 2. I had the strangest issue when I first installed it, every time I launched it, it had reverted back to default (low for some reason) video settings and 1080p resolution, and not matter what I did I couldn’t make my settings “stick” until I finally disabled the Overlay (and the “optimize games upon first installing them” option, but I think the Overlay was ultimately the culprit).
I need to review the nvidia CP but the first time I ever heard of SSAO it was with Diablo III and you could set it to use SSAO through the CP (only - it wasn’t yet in the graphics options like it is today). It looked so good! I have always had SSAO on ever since, up until this morning, in all my games. So I know there at least used to be a way to define SSAO as a setting per game/program. After work I’ll try to test that out and if it works (enabled, but no halo) I’ll report back how to set it up.
jpinard
1792
How do you know if GeForce Experience is over-writing your settings? Doing it’s auto-optimization thing?
I believe it’s supposed to auto-set newly installed games to optimized defaults. It’s a check box, which I cleared. I don’t know if it was causing the issue - like I said, I think the culprit was actually the overlay - but I turned off just in case.
Bobtree
1794
I agree with @Scotch_Lufkin about the sharpening. In particular it causes sparkly artifacts when in motion due to minification (undersampling), which AA otherwise will reduce. This is bad in TWW where you have legions of little figures with shiny spears and long view distances.
@Chaplin SSAO is tricky because it’s a hack and works better in some situations than others. In TWW it looks like it’s interfering with the projected shadows. When I see distracting dirty halos or artifacting I’ll turn it off (especially in games focusing on one character). Sometimes driver-override settings can help (like in MGSV).
Chaplin
1795
Whew, thanks for the heads up on GeForce Experience, despite my reservations, I was a hair from installing it before I read this out of frustration.
I did some more experimenting. Like I said, this thing has been haunting me. I can’t seem to get settings that leave me happy.
The only real difference from @Scotch_Lufkin outside of possible Nvidia Control Panel settings was resolution. I tried that in windowed mode. I still saw the SSAO issues, but it was a lot less pronounced. This was probably because it was not blown up as much in front of me. I really noticed the halo on the ridge line to the left at start. However, even his screenshots looked cleaner. My eyes really go to the spears and lances which makes sense with what @Bobtree is saying since I was watching the pointy toes and more pronounced leg silhouette of the Skaven before (as apposed to the relatively blocked long mail coats of the Elves).
I can’t tell if it is better or not, but the x2 - x8 has a 20 or so FPS change with many more dips than FXAA.
Right now, I am looking at:
SSAO= off
Sharpening= on
Screen space reflections= on
Anti-Aliasing= ??
This seems to give the best quality I can get. However, it still feels a bit off from what @Scotch_Lufkin is showing or what I see in videos online.
I really appreciate the technical help everyone. I have wanted to soak up this game for years. I finally took the plunge on the new PC recently, but something still seems off. The new turn speed patch and holiday free time would sure make this the perfect time to indulge in TW:W2.
I think you should turn this off, myself. I noticed in your images things like the horizon/backdrops look more defined but poorer for it than in mine, and I suspect this is why. EDIT: That could also be a depth of field effect, which I think looks good and have turned ON. I did post my settings above, you could set yours identical to mine, give it a whirl and see how it feels?
EDIT2: Even in my examples I posted, I feel my units look better without sharpening turned on. This may just be an aesthetic preference though, YMMV.
My backdrop:
Yours:
I also don’t feel there is anything to be gained going from FXAA to x2 or higher, and even at x2 the frame rate drop is horrible. Stick with FXAA, or even at super high resolutions, turn it off entirely. FXAA should be the ideal setting, though, I think.
EDIT3: I think I remember you are doing the 5620x1440p resolution, so I would for sure give anti-aliasing=off a try, I don’t know if you’d even notice any aliasing at that resolution, but you’d for sure notice the frame rate boost. If you have sharpening off, you will also not notice a lot of aliasing (to me, all sharpening does is make things look more aliased).
Chaplin
1797
Edit: 5120x1440p. I am pretty sure there is no way around the slight stretching at the far edges, but I have accepted that trade for the immersion factor. Playing in a normal sized window feels claustrophobic now. That is a totally different issue though that I hope gets solved over time with proper ultra-ultra wide support.
I have mimicked your settings completely (even resolution in windowed mode). I still can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong on my side as your images seem better even with the same settings. The images you show just above has mine with the SSAO on. That for sure is creating havoc. I just don’t know if it is me or the setting itself in the game.
As to the sharpening option, it may be aesthetics. When we first jumped in on video options, I was leaning towards preferring it on in your own screenshots. Both options are flawed. I don’t discount that. They are like different versions of impression styled art. I just like the brighter metal/ sun edged blur (my “painter’s eye” comment) over the more muted blur. Plus, I seem to have way bigger fish to fry with the halo, smoke, shading, checkers, whatever that is going on.
I wished my battle screens looked as clean as your Tomb King battle screenshot. At least it SEEMS better which is why I tried to move it to a controlled environment of the same map, angles, and faction models.
Again, I can’t say how much I appreciate this input. This is not a random forum back and forth for me. I spent more on this PC than I have on all of my PCs in the last several builds (across 20ish years??) combined. The monitor alone was more than my last PC. And I did it primarily to play TW:W(1-3). I have come a long way. Up to a few months ago I was timing 6 minute load times with really crappy graphic settings on a single battle before I gave up each session within minutes. I have played GW physical games for decades. I have built models, read novels, and played video games in their universes going back to college. I expect this to eventually be a 1000 hour game for me. I am almost there on quality, but something is still off. Thank you.
I would suggest that as long as turning SSAO off got rid of your halo effect (it did on my end), and you are happy with the way sharpening looks and having extreme shadows (which is rad) on as well as the all-important frame rate goes, I think you’re nailing it.
It could just be something you feel that isn’t real, or it could be as simple as your display being too bright and crushing your blacks or something. At this point, I’d make sure you run through the Windows Color calibrator and ensure you have a good (low) gamma set, make sure it’s not too bright, and try the Warm color temp. Not that these settings would show on my own screenshots of course, but it’s worth double-checking with a high-end monitor - they don’t always look as good as possible out of the box.
My pleasure, I like talking about stuff like this. Hardware is pretty awesome to discuss, and something I get into.
Chaplin
1799
Interesting. I didn’t know about that calibration tool. The monitor was reviewed as being good out of the box on calibration settings. I just ran the settings and things looked good. I was actually impressed by the black shirt and black coat picture. I think settings are good on the calibration. The only thing that was odd was that the type calibration thought the native resolution is lower than it is. I just confirmed and it should be 5120x1440.
Ok I was measuring turn times – ME turn times seem to be an average of around 2 mins right now. To be more accurate 1.85 minutes. That’s after turn 10.
Now I have a 150 turn ME campaign as empire --but the time hasn’t changed very much. Around 2.3 minutes.
I appreciate the idea of graphics – easily solved inmop by shadows – I care a LOT more about ME turn times. Lets see what happens Thursday.
So now we see the big patch.
Isn’t that like thirty seconds? That feels like a big difference to me.
Getting pretty excited, I’ve stayed away from campaign spoilers but I’ve read the patch notes and the new units list. Last expansion I watched too many videos about it and kinda ruined it for me.
If the turn time improvement is actually noticeable it’ll probably win out on best expansion yet in my book.
Though the one feature I doubt they’ll ever add that I’d love to see is a way for the UI to tell me how much damage a unit did in a battle, and not just how many kills they got. It would be so much easier to tell at a glance rather than having to look at the kills and think, “well, that unit did get caught up fighting super elite units and that other one was plowing through trash mobs” to figure out how well you performed with a unit. But I’m a sucker for a DPS meter.
I’ve more or less secured the eastern and northern seas off of my high elf island so I figure next to go after my natural enemy, the dark elves. But wait–my armies suffer snow attrition? Even though the climate in the cities is ideal? Not cool. Really wondering why I’m bothering, then…
Also I guess I can’t confederate Avelorn? What’s up with that? Though right now the remaining High Elf factions (them, Chrace, and Nagarythe) are doing an admirable job fending off, and even pushing back, the dark elves, but I doubt it will last. And if I can’t get trade treaties with the tomb kings then I’ll probably be hosed for income in the long term, as the puny humans look like they won’t last.
