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Low resolution textures getting you down in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Well, it's time to man up and face the music as BioWare explains why higher resolution textures were not included in the game's release and why they may never be released at all.
The short of it lies in the fact that as The Old Republic is an MMO, it is impossible to say just how many players and characters will be on screen at once for a player. If it's only a handful then higher resolution textures aren't an issue. However, the moment an area becomes crowded, the high resolution textures will begin to bog down due to the number of unique textures in a scene.
Stephen Reid addresses the issue by calling it a "UI issue." He states that in reality there should only be two texture options: Low and High, calling the Medium setting a bug and that it should never have been included as the old "Medium" is the new "High."
The lengthy explanation goes on to say that the team is exploring other options to "improve the fidelity of the game, particularly for those of you with high-spec PCs." They also say that it will require a significant amount of work and may take quite some time.
The lack of high resolution textures has been an ongoing concern with members of The Old Republic player base, spanning multiple threads, thousands of posts, and hundreds of pages of discussion and concern.
The short of it lies in the fact that as The Old Republic is an MMO, it is impossible to say just how many players and characters will be on screen at once for a player. If it's only a handful then higher resolution textures aren't an issue. However, the moment an area becomes crowded, the high resolution textures will begin to bog down due to the number of unique textures in a scene.
Stephen Reid addresses the issue by calling it a "UI issue." He states that in reality there should only be two texture options: Low and High, calling the Medium setting a bug and that it should never have been included as the old "Medium" is the new "High."
During development and testing of The Old Republic, our priorities were to ensure the game looked great and performed well. In testing, we discovered that using our 'maximum resolution' textures on in-game characters during normal gameplay could cause severe performance issues, even on powerful PCs. There were a variety of possible options to help improve performance, but one that was explored and ultimately implemented used what is known as a 'texture atlas'.(...)
In summary; yes, we had a small UI bug that unfortunately caused confusion over how the game is intended to work. The textures you're seeing in the course of normal gameplay are optimized for that mode of play. The textures you're seeing during cinematics are also optimized for that mode of play. They are higher resolution, but that's because we're able to control cinematic scenes to ensure good performance in a way we can't during normal gameplay.
In summary; yes, we had a small UI bug that unfortunately caused confusion over how the game is intended to work. The textures you're seeing in the course of normal gameplay are optimized for that mode of play. The textures you're seeing during cinematics are also optimized for that mode of play. They are higher resolution, but that's because we're able to control cinematic scenes to ensure good performance in a way we can't during normal gameplay.
The lengthy explanation goes on to say that the team is exploring other options to "improve the fidelity of the game, particularly for those of you with high-spec PCs." They also say that it will require a significant amount of work and may take quite some time.
The lack of high resolution textures has been an ongoing concern with members of The Old Republic player base, spanning multiple threads, thousands of posts, and hundreds of pages of discussion and concern.