Friday, June 15, 2012

Graphics in GW2 - The Good & The Bad

On the last BWE, I realized that I had been playing with the incorrect resolution settings. Not sure how long that had been going on, but I switched over to 1680 x 1050 and things looked incredibly sharp. I think I actually said in RaidCall, "How did this game manage to get prettier?"

I've mucked about with my graphics settings to get the best performance with the least lag. I can get away with high textures and shaders (I like seeing my pretty costumes), but I select low shadows, low terrain and no reflections. I also turn off anti-aliasing and vertical synch. Not completely sure how those work, but they seem to improve my FPS.
Still I am blown away by the beautiful artwork of this game. Take a look at these two screenshots from the last GW2 beta weekend.
The Jewelcrafters Station in Hoelbrak (I think). So pretty!

Just wandering around Divinity's Reach and I came across this lovely fountain. The streams of water glistened in the light, in contrast to the rough stones surrounding the pool and the coarse grain of the wooden stairs. A simple tableau, but gorgeous.
On the other hand, I have had some pretty bad graphics experiences. The first video I took of GW2 was of Spiral diving off the high dive platform at LA. It was so laggy that my toon disappeared half way down the dive and then reappeared as a wet splat on the surface of the ocean. There's a video link in the right hand column, or you can go to my YouTube channel, SpiralCee, to check it out. 
I've also had some amusing clipping problems, including X-ray vision of Spiral's head. Nice to see that she's cavity-free. Great work on the brushing & flossing!
Open up and say Ahhhh

1 comment:

  1. I may have to get GW2 just so I can see all the stuff you will talking about in your blog :)

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