Just purchased :)

from Sins Forums
Hey all,

I've just purchased the game after finding out about it a couple of days ago. Only played it for an hour or two so far and look forwards to more playtime to get to grips before maybe hitting the multiplayer side of things.

The gameplay is ok though I wouldn't exactly call it a 4X game in the same way that, for example, X3: Reunion demonstrates the meaning of the term. Still it plays quite nicely.

I just have a question however. Am I missing anything on the video and effects settings pages that isn't really that obvious to those not familiar with the UI people can bring to my attention?

"9) If you have a good machine

Go to the "Effects" option and turn up the graphics option. Make sure you get the full Sins experience graphically. The defaults are conservative."
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This made me expect something a little nicer on the eyes than what I am seeing at the moment. I have everything I can see on the video and effects pages put on max running on a machine that can run Crysis on 'high' and yet I can't help but feel that the graphics are simply on par with Homeworld 2. In fact Homeworld 2 may even be better as far as ship weapons impacting other ships goes from what I've seen so far. The turrets on the sides of capital ships don't rotate, the barrels of gauss defence platforms don't compress under recoil.

Please don't take this post to be a rant because it isn't meant to be, I am genuinely wondering if there is a video/effects feature I am missing or haven't turned on because at the moment this game is looking like DirectX 8 brought back from the grave on my high end PC and I'm a little...well...dissapointed I suppose considering this is a 2008 release.

I'll continue to play because the gameplay seems nice and as we always say graphics aren't anything, but a little more eye candy would be nice from my perspective if possible.

Any help appreciated!  :) 
17,821 views 16 replies
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
the best setting is HIGHEST, with BLOOM on and 4x AA.

Game is way better looking than HW2... :p

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah I think it is better than Homeworld 2. Also, I can have shadows without WTF-owning my machine. Homeworld 2 had the crappiest shadowing code i've ever played on (actually, I didn't play on it because I had to turn off all shadows to get it to run on my high-end machine!).

The star backgrounds are also higher-res than that screenshot. I think the issue is you are zooming in on one ship and expecting it to look way better than a game that focused on smaller fleet sizes.

You have have like 400 ships spread across 100+ planets, multiple stars etc. Homeworld 2 did not have that kind of scope. Each mission was constrained to a small area. This game is not meant to be like a 3rd-person space sim game (like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident whose graphics for single ships pwn Homeworld 2 and this game). This is more focused on the RTS aspect I think, having huge fleet battles. I know I have had 100vs100 ship battles run really well in this game, something that I can't recall being able to pull off in Homeworld 2. It is all about scope.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Of course I'm not running DX8, unless the game sets you to DX8 by default?

Like I say I have settings on max on everything I can see with bloom enabled, 4x antialiasing (why not 16x btw?) and everything on highest. My resolution is 1650x1080.

Is there a toggle anywhere in the UI which changes the DX setting?

I can quickly start a game up and take a screen if you like, or just take a screenshot of the capital in the first tutorial.

At the moment I have things like guns firing and the projectiles magically going in a different direction to the barrel because the ship I'm firing at is 45 degrees to the right of it.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah I think it is better than Homeworld 2. Also, I can have shadows without WTF-owning my machine. Homeworld 2 had the crappiest shadowing code i've ever played on (actually, I didn't play on it because I had to turn off all shadows to get it to run on my high-end machine!).

The star backgrounds are also higher-res than that screenshot. I think the issue is you are zooming in on one ship and expecting it to look way better than a game that focused on smaller fleet sizes.

You have have like 400 ships spread across 100+ planets, multiple stars etc. Homeworld 2 did not have that kind of scope. Each mission was constrained to a small area. This game is not meant to be like a 3rd-person space sim game (like Nexus: The Jupiter Incident whose graphics for single ships pwn Homeworld 2 and this game). This is more focused on the RTS aspect I think, having huge fleet battles. I know I have had 100vs100 ship battles run really well in this game, something that I can't recall being able to pull off in Homeworld 2. It is all about scope.
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Makes sense I suppose, still in most RTS games of 'similar size' the units are a little more detailed (take supcom for instance) with thousands on screen.

It doesn't really bother me, I'm just a little dissapointed.

I never had a problem with Homeworld 2 like you did though, then again I didn't play it until a year after it came out.

Maybe I'm just too used to eye candy, need to get back into hardcore gamer mode lol.

Thanks for the help guys/girls! :)
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Ya, I also thought that graphics were almost same as HW2. But after playing 5vs5 match with AI, I was amazed how many ships can be shown up in one screen.

Only 1 enemy AI left and my allies and I are gathering for final push after 6hours of playing time.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
:SURPRISED:
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
to the topic starter :

You say yu're running it with 4xaa yet your screenshot clearly shows AA is disabled ... my guess is that you either forgot to save the highest settings ( or reload the game ) or have AA & AF and maybe other effects diabled in your graphics card drivers.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
to the topic starter :

You say yu're running it with 4xaa yet your screenshot clearly shows AA is disabled ... my guess is that you either forgot to save the highest settings ( or reload the game ) or have AA & AF and maybe other effects diabled in your graphics card drivers.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Heh, supcom runs like crap with thousands of units on screen. Eye candy can be nice, but to not run like crap you needed to have a first gen performance graphics card. It looks nice and restricts your player base to a small fraction of the gamers that would want it.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
X3 reunion is not a 4x game, but a space simulator/trading sim.

This game is on a larger scale than HW 2, and looks the same, in terms of details, as Supreme Commander.


You say yu're running it with 4xaa yet your screenshot clearly shows AA is disabled ... my guess is that you either forgot to save the highest settings ( or reload the game ) or have AA & AF and maybe other effects diabled in your graphics card drivers.
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He posted a screenshot?
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
to the topic starter :

You say yu're running it with 4xaa yet your screenshot clearly shows AA is disabled ... my guess is that you either forgot to save the highest settings ( or reload the game ) or have AA & AF and maybe other effects diabled in your graphics card drivers.

End of quote


Erm...I didn't post a screenshot though?
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
As Heidelun said in above post!

Its a scale of the game :)

It sure isnt Crysis but its better than HW2 + the fact that we can have 10 players in one game and see 1000s of game elements at the same time...

In fact i think gfx are awesome considering :CONGRAT:


Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
Saying it was DX8 standard was a little harsh I admit though it was only a hyperbole.

I suppose all I am trying to say is that considering all the hype around how beautiful the game looked, especially in the gamespot videos when they constantly said they were running on low res in order to record at the same time I was just somewhat dissapointed to find out that the gfx were just standard, regardless of scale.

To the person who said it was the same as SupCom, that is a bit silly imo but whatever.

I've just been playing it and I think it's an awesome game anyway, like I said above gfx aren't everything, I was just a bit dissapointed.

Think there was a thread saying that the OP hated the game and thought it was rubbish a while ago, he was an idiot.