Why did CDPR go with such low-resolution textures for environment?

[MonarchX]

Why did CDPR go with such low-resolution textures for environment?

NPC, character, and monster textures are fine, but environmental texture use very low resolution in Witcher 3... All 3 platforms - PC, Xbox One, and PS4 can handle much higher resolution environmental textures than those in Witcher 3 without performance cost. It has been shown again and again and high resolution textures take up more VRAM, but are very light on GPU. Xbone One and PS4 have a TON of memory for high resolution textures and on PC's, 1080p maxed out takes about 2GB of VRAM. CDPR could at least provide true Ultra-quality high resolution textures for those 3GB of VRAM or more.

Quadrupling or at least doubling current environmental texture resolution in Witcher 3 would improve quality more than adding more tessellation, lighting effects, etc.

What stopped CDPR from using better environmental textures? It could not be PC specs, Xbox One, or PS4 specs, so what was it???

 

[ColinJ89]

Only thing I can think is that they weren't finished. Given the amount of actual quest content they cut, it makes sense at a certain point to prioritize finishing the rest of the core game before focusing on higher resolution environmental textures (which can be viewed as supplemental given the game's focus on characters), especially when your existing finished textures are not unsatisfactory by any means.

Don't get me wrong though, as someone with 24GB of VRAM in my rig I'd love to see them updated. But the existing textures are sufficient in my eyes.

 

[Jollyfingers]

Consoles already suffer from low FPS... as i had to read here repeatedly.

And as i have told before (without wanting to start a console/pc war):
In any game that is developed in a single branch for multiple platform support... everyone will suffer.
You can't make it more scalable for the PC users...
You can't use the advantage of the consoles predictible and well known hardware...
You can't optimize the GUI for each platform and take it into consideration when balancing difficulty.

But doing it the other way would triple the development cost...

 

[moonknightgog]

24GB of VRAM in my rig

Wut...I don't think this even exist.

Returning IT, I would love an HD texture pack.
I mean, this is...not good.

Spoiler

I know, I was able to play this with my GTX 580 (1.5 GB VRAM), but still...

 

[Vituo]

Now when the modkid is out, it would be very nice if they would at least give modders access to higher res textures and let them do the job. Lets hope it will happen soon :look:

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

You can't make it more scalable for the PC users...

Why is that exactly?

 

[Jollyfingers]

Why is that exactly?

Because you develop the game on a "compromise" level.
It's just not optimized for PC and scaling.
Sure, you could add some HD textures... but they won't perform as good as in a game that was developed with future hardware upgrades and scaling in mind.

 

[cyberpunkforever]

i ask myself the same question, take a look at the rocks everywhere for example , low res
hd texture pack would be awesome

 

[ColinJ89]

Wut...I don't think this even exist.

Put two of these on one mobo, you have yourself 24GB.

---------- Updated at 06:20 PM ----------

I mean, this is...not good.

Spoiler

I know, I was able to play this with my GTX 580 (1.5 GB VRAM), but still...

Yeah, you're right, and I was led to believe that they'd be better on higher settings. Compare this to live gameplay and there's a definite discrepancy. Granted it's hard to say what the settings are at in live gameplay, but even from my own experience playing on Ultra the cliff face in this clip does not look as good as the trailer.

 

[Fallout_Wanderer]

Put two of these on one mobo, you have yourself 24GB.

---------- Updated at 06:20 PM ----------



Yeah, you're right, and I was led to believe that they'd be better on higher settings. Compare this to live gameplay and there's a definite discrepancy. Granted it's hard to say what the settings are at in live gameplay, but even from my own experience playing on Ultra the cliff face in this clip does not look as good as the trailer.

VRAM doesn't stack.

 

[ColinJ89]

VRAM doesn't stack.

Well then, I consider myself schooled, and 12.

 

[insomnia_jt]

My 2gb VRAM shouldn't be enough for the textures but it is. Some textures are good and some are downright ugly low-res PS2 kind of textures. But gameplay is smooth.
CDPR should do a Bethesda and release a HD texture replacement DLC.

 

[vesemas228]

Its really not that bad.. there's something called the engine that usually mixes things up..

Think about any game you buy or download. Modern games are 12-30 gigabytes in size. Of course of most of this stuff you get as part of the download is textures. There is never really "enough for textures", i'm sure that there's logic for any scene to not completely crash the program for cards that both have too little, just right, and more than needed memory for a frame. Its all managed by the engine, not just put there and doesn't run if there isn't 'enough'.

It matters if you care about fps though.. since the next best place to put any textures when there isn't enough memory is in our ram, and the travel time between the gpu and its memory vs the gpu and the system memory is an eternity longer to system memory. This effects fps as the gpu will be forced to do nothing and just wait in certain scenarios.

 

[tahirahmed]

Wut...I don't think this even exist..

I have 32 GB

The signature is old.

EDIT: Oops I thought you guys were talking about system ram

 

[MonarchX]

My 2gb VRAM shouldn't be enough for the textures but it is. Some textures are good and some are downright ugly low-res PS2 kind of textures. But gameplay is smooth.
CDPR should do a Bethesda and release a HD texture replacement DLC.

I am SO surprised that people have noy voted for HD Texture Pack to be THE MOST WANTED DLC!

 

[moonknightgog]

Put two of these on one mobo, you have yourself 24GB.

No, it doesn't work like that.
Even if you put togher a 4-way SLI of 4 GTX 980 (4GB VRAM), your VRAM will be 4 GB, not 16 GB.

---------- Updated at 01:18 AM ----------

Yeah, you're right, and I was led to believe that they'd be better on higher settings. Compare this to live gameplay and there's a definite discrepancy. Granted it's hard to say what the settings are at in live gameplay, but even from my own experience playing on Ultra the cliff face in this clip does not look as good as the trailer.

This is mine, terrain, detail and texture at ultra.
But I gave up. I will never understand what happened to this game.

 

[vader1701]

You guys that want to push your rigs to the max should check out nexus mods. Only been available 2 months now...

 

[Mezziaz]

This might not be a huge improvement, but hey it's a start.

Considering the size of the game I actually think the overall texture quality is really good, what I do miss however are the more advanced geometry and shaders that were showcased often during development.

 

[KRZYCH04650]

There are some textures that looks amazing, but there are also some that are of very low quality regardless of how high you set settings and how many tweaks you use. When you play from 3rd person camera then its not that noticeable, but during dialogues or cutscenes it can really hurt you sometimes. Game looks lovely anyway and in majority of time you have to focus on textures only instead of gameplay to see texture problems, but like I said above, sometimes you can really got hurt from low quality textures during cutscenes and dialogues.

 

[RichEdmonds]

I'm holding out for the ol' 2K/4K replacement texture packs, just like I have on Skyrim and the like.