T3 looks a whole lot better, but I dont really care about graphics as a 360 player, i just want the game to work. And have the ability to have more than like only 100 tourists on an island at a time.

First time poster but a long time reader of the forums, however I felt compelled to reply!

I just wanted to chime in and say that I think the graphics are much worse as well.

I deliberately didn't play T3 for a few months before the demo, to get me back in the mood, so it were! Anyway, when I installed T3 it looked gorgeous from the beginning and I didn't have to change an graphics settings.

So, I install T4 and it looks really bad in parts (the cloud looks dreadful if you pan down until you're level with the street and look up), the tress in places look blocky, the water is significantly worse and the over saturation when it's an overcast day just looks stupid (I can see the rationale behind changing- in T3 when it was raining, the whole place looked real grey and depressing, but now it has just been over compensated for). Initially I thought that maybe the game had set things to "low" but alas, that was not the case. Everything was set as high as it can go.

I feel bad having a moan as this game has been the developers life for the past couple of years, so it must be pretty annoying when a couple of internet d***heads like myself come along and start having a go, but it has taken a step backwards...

(26-08-2011 09:02 AM)Arcalis Wrote:  Everything was set as high as it can go.

They've said "ultra" isn't available in the demo.

(26-08-2011 05:25 PM)Panda_Power Wrote:  

(26-08-2011 09:02 AM)Arcalis Wrote:  Everything was set as high as it can go.

They've said "ultra" isn't available in the demo.

Doesn't make the slightest difference in graphics quality unless you zoom in completely.

Just saved some screens to compare for myself the texture setting difference for both T3 and T4.
In T3 you can see changes from Low->Med-High->Ultra, albeit only small changes on the High->Ultra setting.
In T4 on the other hand i have a hard time seeing any texture change from med->high- and high->ultra. Just a small difference in the shader texture makes some texture parts feel "deeper".
Either they completely messed up the texture settings or this is the way it had to be to make the game engine run smoother with the largers maps since the T3 game engine felt somewhat poorly optimized. There is no doubt about it though when comparing high-res screens. T4 looks much more unsharp and even more dated then T3. Will personally be hoping for a fix but i doubt it.
No money from me until an a good explanation is provided. If you are gonna release the same game over again and charge full price for it you could at least have worked on the engine instead of downgrading the graphics quality. :/

(27-08-2011 01:04 AM)mrfisse Wrote:  No money from me until an a good explanation is provided. If you are gonna release the same game over again and charge full price for it you could at least have worked on the engine instead of downgrading the graphics quality. :/

I think this is what I'm more disappointed about, TBH. It just feels exactly the same as T3. Sure, the missions are different, UI has been tweaked & some new buildings have been thrown in but it feels fundamentally the same.

Why not provide more varieties of houses/marketplaces/farms etc? There's still only one kind of mansion!! My island looks stupid with 50 of exactly the same house!

I would have spent some time changing the majority of the game that HASN'T changed from T3, so us old stalwarts would at least be tricked into thinking it had changed significantly...

This is what Eurogamer has to say (my emphasis):

"It's hard not to like Tropico 4, because it's based on a solid foundation that is naturally engaging. It was and remains an enjoyable if slight take on a dry genre. Its tragedy is that it hasn't bothered to build anything worthwhile on top of that foundation, preferring instead to coast on jaunty music that makes you feel like you're playing in Nando's and broad satire that fails to sustain the game beyond the first few days of play."

6:00 to 10:30

some comparison of tropico3...........

what the hell with those trees in tropico4

its do not seem to appear in caribbean

TBH, I don't think the actual graphics are worse per se. It's just that both T3 and T4 actually look better with the shaders turned off, and T4 actually more so or from lower shader settings. The fog and depth blur effect the farther away something is, does just that: makes it look blurred and unfocused.

That's really what I think I'm seeing in those screenshots. If you zoom out enough to take scenic pictures of the island, it starts to look blurred. (Well, and there's the water, which is I guess a matter of taste.)

I really don't get the recent obsession with turning games into myopia simulators. IRL most people can focus within a pretty wide range of distances, in fact up to infinity. Otherwise you'd see the stars at night as blurry halos. And if they can't, meh, they can get glasses. But more and more games take some kind of a view that everything must look blurred and unfocused in the distance, which, really, is only true if you have myopia. In fact, if you can see near objects clearly, but at a distance everything looks blurry, that's the very definition of myopia.

Or if they must include it, it's somewhat unfortunate that there is no option to individually turn some options on or off.

@HansMustermann;
Indeed, depth of field is a very annoying trend in the industry.
Similar thing with bloom.

This comic portrays exactly how I feel about it:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/070119.jpg

Well, bloom, now that's another complaint of its own. Though T4 thankfully isn't the worst offender there.

And yeah, that comic strip isn't exaggerating. In some games it goes to such ridiculous extremes as that, for example, my hair colour was bleeding into the surrounding area and forming a Jesus-like halo in Champions Online.

It's kinda funny, really. We started at blurry low-res modes and textures, and then we got nice sharp pictures, and then more billions of dollars in research and billions of transistors in GPUs later, we're finally at the exciting point of... making everything blurry and low-res looking again. That's PROGRESS

I can't say I'm opposed to having them there, though, for whoever actually likes it that way. I just wish there were some advanced option screen where I can individually select if I want bloom, depth of field, water reflections, etc. I'm probably spoiled by City Of Heroes which does expose every single such option.

I also am underwhelmed by T4

Have anyone heard anything from kalypso in regards of this? Have read here and there that their stand on this pretty much is "it is in the eye of the beholder"? Don't know if this is just hearsay or something that has been quoted from somewhere. The devs are obviously here but does not seem very interested in commenting in the larger issues/questions threads?
Im still hoping that this is a bug or something and that it will be patched but im starting to doubt it ;P
Would be nice with some answers. If this is their "new" graphical direction?

I don't see a difference in the screenshots from the OP. I really do think some of those who think Tropico 4 looks worse should check their graphics driver settings as it looks fantastic for me and I've been playing Tropico 3 just recently.

As others commented, the heavy depth of field and bloom effects have been toned down so that's good. Shadows are much improved and look very realistic and less pixelated. Water reflections look wonderful as well and as someone already found out the texture quality for the classic buildings is exactly the same from Tropico 3.

On top of that, islands are much larger and the game runs smoother. I don't know what you can possibly add. In conclusion, I'm chiming in with others who have said that Tropico 4 looks at least on par with Tropico 3 if not better in some aspects. If you're a fan of excessive depth of field, blur and bloom, Tropico 4 will be disappointing to you but then again, this game is not about graphics!

(29-08-2011 09:48 AM)RandomHouse Wrote:  I don't see a difference in the screenshots from the OP. I really do think some of those who think Tropico 4 looks worse should check their graphics driver settings as it looks fantastic for me and I've been playing Tropico 3 just recently.

As others commented, the heavy depth of field and bloom effects have been toned down so that's good. Shadows are much improved and look very realistic and less pixelated. Water reflections look wonderful as well and as someone already found out the texture quality for the classic buildings is exactly the same from Tropico 3.

On top of that, islands are much larger and the game runs smoother. I don't know what you can possibly add. In conclusion, I'm chiming in with others who have said that Tropico 4 looks at least on par with Tropico 3 if not better in some aspects. If you're a fan of excessive depth of field, blur and bloom, Tropico 4 will be disappointing to you but then again, this game is not about graphics!

I'm sorry to say it but you must have some serious eyesight issues.
To prove you need to go get glasses i took some new screens these are max quality jpgs in my full screen size. I.e no resizing done to them.
So here is to further prove the original posters point.

Both games at maximum quality with max ingame antialiasing and 8xAF forced from drivers at 1920x1200 resolution.

---

You can argue it all you want but it is facts and you are wrong.
So to sum it up just like i said before, it is now over-saturated, unsharp, ugly, blocky at distances and the textures on the houses/ground and water looks unsharp and low res.

Blimey, I thought there was a difference, didn't realise it was that much. Look at the difference in water quality on the last screenshot!

I would love to know what the devs have to say about this?

(29-08-2011 09:48 AM)RandomHouse Wrote:  Water reflections look wonderful as well [..]

Except for the obvious fact that there are barely any.

The textures in your screenshots do look blurry, I have to admit. But they look much better in my game. I will try and post screenshots, but I suspect there is some weird things going on with your graphics card and/or driver settings.

Which card are you using? How much memory does it have? Which driver version are you running?

And did you try disabling anti-aliasing in the game? The engine uses FXAA which does introduce a bit of blur. Also keep in mind you are running much larger islands in Tropico 4, so if your graphics card memory is limited, texture quality will degrade as well since they seem to be streamed. Though I do hope a dev could confirm this and shed some more light on the issue.

I won't get into a graphics quality debate with you as I feel this game does not suffer even if you think it looks worse. Tropico is about gameplay and simulation, not graphics. You can take that argument to First person shooter forums.

I can honestly say that I see no difference in those comparison screenshots. Even if there is, the differences are too marginal to have any kind of impact on the game. The fact that some of you are so obsessed with the graphics is really strange, especially for a genre like this. I'm just happy that the game runs a whole lot better on my machine, even with the larger islands and huge cities where Tropico 3 came to a crawl. If this is due to some slight and barely noticable difference in visual quality, I can happily live with that.

(29-08-2011 11:35 AM)RandomHouse Wrote:  The textures in your screenshots do look blurry, I have to admit. But they look much better in my game. I will try and post screenshots, but I suspect there is some weird things going on with your graphics card and/or driver settings.

Which card are you using? How much memory does it have? Which driver version are you running?

And did you try disabling anti-aliasing in the game? The engine uses FXAA which does introduce a bit of blur. Also keep in mind you are running much larger islands in Tropico 4, so if your graphics card memory is limited, texture quality will degrade as well since they seem to be streamed. Though I do hope a dev could confirm this and shed some more light on the issue.

I won't get into a graphics quality debate with you as I feel this game does not suffer even if you think it looks worse. Tropico is about gameplay and simulation, not graphics. You can take that argument to First person shooter forums.

Feel free to post any screens you have. I am running 2 x GTX460s 1GB. Latest Nvidia drivers 280.26. I do not agree that a graphics only is important for FPS-games? It's about immersion and atmosphere. And i see no reason to make a sequel uglier than its predecessor.
But to say that the graphics have not taken a step back is ignorant imo.

(29-08-2011 11:35 AM)RandomHouse Wrote:  The textures in your screenshots do look blurry, I have to admit. But they look much better in my game. I will try and post screenshots, but I suspect there is some weird things going on with your graphics card and/or driver settings.

Which card are you using? How much memory does it have? Which driver version are you running?

And did you try disabling anti-aliasing in the game? The engine uses FXAA which does introduce a bit of blur. Also keep in mind you are running much larger islands in Tropico 4, so if your graphics card memory is limited, texture quality will degrade as well since they seem to be streamed. Though I do hope a dev could confirm this and shed some more light on the issue.

I won't get into a graphics quality debate with you as I feel this game does not suffer even if you think it looks worse. Tropico is about gameplay and simulation, not graphics. You can take that argument to First person shooter forums.

Stop trying to defend the devs.






Really, just stop.

Your last paragraph is null, since this is a step backwards and the "graphics don't matter" argument here is retarded. THEN THEY SHOULD HAVE JUST LET THEM THE WAY THEY WERE. But no, they had to ruin them and thus also a big part of the atmosphere of the game.

And of course there's no magical problem with this driver. Sheesh...

(29-08-2011 12:39 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  Really, just stop.

No, you stop. Now.

People are offering advice on how to improve graphics quality. You are just presenting an opinion as fact, while numerous other posters have disagreed with you. If you want to convice people of something, you can do without personal insults and attacks.

I am not here to decide over the issue, but enfore a civil and meaningful, productive discussion.

You have shown that you are not interested in such and almost all of your posts since registration contain insults, inflammatory remarks and trolling.

Consider this an official warning to review your behaviour if you mean to stick around and discuss the game with us.

(29-08-2011 01:06 PM)Timo Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 12:39 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  Really, just stop.

No, you stop. Now.

People are offering advice on how to improve graphics quality. You are just presenting an opinion as fact, while numerous other posters have disagreed with you. If you want to convice people of something, you can do without personal insults and attacks.

I am not here to decide over the issue, but enfore a civil and meaningful, productive discussion.

You have shown that you are not interested in such and almost all of your posts since registration contain insults, inflammatory remarks and trolling.

Consider this an official warning to review your behaviour if you mean to stick around and discuss the game with us.

Numerous posters also have agreed with me.
There is nothing wrong with anybody's graphics drivers and you know it, it's T4's style that has changed. That is not an opinion as the screenshots just posted show. One thing that is a fact and you can not deny it, T3's vegetation is much more lush and there are much more trees/bushes around. That is not an opinion, you don't even have to count the number, you can see it with the naked eye. Will you at least say that this is true ?
Also, the thing with the water is not so much about the color, but that the reflections are clearly there in T3, but not anymore in T4. Again, this is not an opinion, this is something you simply can't deny.

I never trolled, I always expressed how I felt about the game. If I wouldn't love T3 + AP so much, I wouldn't be so passionate about this issue.

(29-08-2011 01:06 PM)Timo Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 12:39 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  

People are offering advice on how to improve graphics quality.

With all due respect, they aren't.

They just asked whether his graphics settings are up as high as they go. Now, unless ap2000 is lying about his graphics cards and his settings, then I think, based upon the evidence of the screenshots, that there is a degradation in graphical quality.

On the other hand, the forum moderators/developers have shown no such empirical evidence to the contrary- we have just been told it is a matter of personal taste (or words to those effect)

Of course, we are on the internet so it's easily to lie about such settings but, I for one, am inclined to believe ap2000 because I have experience these issues myself on a well specified machine.

(29-08-2011 01:30 PM)Arcalis Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 01:06 PM)Timo Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 12:39 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  

People are offering advice on how to improve graphics quality.

With all due respect, they aren't.

They just asked whether his graphics settings are up as high as they go. Now, unless ap2000 is lying about his graphics cards and his settings, then I think, based upon the evidence of the screenshots, that there is a degradation in graphical quality.

On the other hand, the forum moderators/developers have shown no such empirical evidence to the contrary- we have just been told it is a matter of personal taste (or words to those effect)

Of course, we are on the internet so it's easily to lie about such settings but, I for one, am inclined to believe ap2000 because I have experience these issues myself on a well specified machine.

I didn't post the screenshots. haha

(29-08-2011 01:40 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 01:30 PM)Arcalis Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 01:06 PM)Timo Wrote:  

(29-08-2011 12:39 PM)Ap2000 Wrote:  

People are offering advice on how to improve graphics quality.

With all due respect, they aren't.

They just asked whether his graphics settings are up as high as they go. Now, unless ap2000 is lying about his graphics cards and his settings, then I think, based upon the evidence of the screenshots, that there is a degradation in graphical quality.

On the other hand, the forum moderators/developers have shown no such empirical evidence to the contrary- we have just been told it is a matter of personal taste (or words to those effect)

Of course, we are on the internet so it's easily to lie about such settings but, I for one, am inclined to believe ap2000 because I have experience these issues myself on a well specified machine.

I didn't post the screenshots. haha

Haha indeed you didn't, but my point still stands

I can only agree with the things Ap2000 said. Frustrating to see how the devs keep denying these obvious facts.

I run a HD5850 and have all graficoptions maxed out; game runs as hell but looks like developed in 2004. For example the water seems to imitate BF-Vietnam grafics... not to mention the textures. I think those screenshots show everything, there's nothing to say about anymore.

Furthermore the AA-effects are a complete and utter failure. Back in T3 they worked fine. In order to fix that i tried overwriting app-settings via driver-settings (4xAA) but all i get is a FPS-slowdown with no particular advancement.

There seems to be a general issue with illustrating and rendering objects in far distances. As somebody already said, palmtrees and other natural stuff turn into ugly squares.

And... what happened to the shadows during cloudy weather or a thunderstorm? They disappear completly. Never had that problem in T3. Following video's supposed to show what i mean. Have a look starting it at 03:20 min running it with 720p. In contrast to T3 it's an impertinence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb_PF2I6d64

So finally... All i got to say (and repeat) is: For what reason did this happen?

You are going by the false pretense that moderators/devs are here to prove or deny anything while I have stated repeatedly that we're not interested in that.

Feel free to judge and compare the game's graphics quality, but don't expect an "official" statement on an issue that seems to differ from person to person. We are not siding with anyone, but I can't help but notice that this one camp needs to stop being overly aggressive towards the other who don't share their opinion. That is merely all I wanted to add to this, though I'm giving most of you the benefit of doubt since the overwhelming majority participating in this argument seem to be newcomers to the series or at least not long-term members of this otherwise very peaceful and civil community.

Still, if the hostility in this thread continues, I will have to close it.

(29-08-2011 02:54 PM)Timo Wrote:  You are going by the false pretense that moderators/devs are here to prove or deny anything while I have stated repeatedly that we're not interested in that.

Feel free to judge and compare the game's graphics quality, but don't expect an "official" statement on an issue that seems to differ from person to person. We are not siding with anyone, but I can't help but notice that this one camp needs to stop being overly aggressive towards the other who don't share their opinion. That is merely all I wanted to add to this, though I'm giving most of you the benefit of doubt since the overwhelming majority participating in this argument seem to be newcomers to the series or at least not long-term members of this otherwise very peaceful and civil community.

Still, if the hostility in this thread continues, I will have to close it.

Well that's depressing. The game graphics obviously has been downgraded but you are basically saying that it is our personal taste that's the problem? I was hoping this was a bug Well well, nothing lasts forever.
I personally was not intending to be rude to anyone, but people in denial get on the nerves eventually. Was actually hoping on an official comment on the "issue".
Most probably wont care about this, i do however and like i said earlier it's a total game-breaker for me.

(29-08-2011 02:54 PM)Timo Wrote:  You are going by the false pretense that moderators/devs are here to prove or deny anything while I have stated repeatedly that we're not interested in that.

Well, that's just sad.

All I can say is that in that case I have lost all interest in T4 and am never going to buy it. Hopefully the sales will reflect this "we don't care about our buyers" behaviour. Meaning, I honestly hope the game will tank and you will realize what you did wrong.

I'm not going to visit this forum anymore, since the reason why I joined was to sound my opinion about how bad some of the deicisions for T4 were after having played the demo. I was hoping to get some statement or reaction, but all we get is this "deal with it" reaction, which is, sorry but I have to say this, very asshole-ish.

This pains me to say, after having put in over 50h into T3 + AP and it was such a great game all-around.

Because it seems that this this is going to be an endless discussion, this thread is closed.