Why no HDR?

from Stardock Forums

Bloom is so 2004.

Can you guys add hdr for us elite pc users?

8,395 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
What is HDR? Some sort of spelling software perhaps?
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
lol?

High Dynamic Range lighting.

If it's there, I'm not seeing it?
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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Look:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Farcryhdr.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/Hl2hdrcomparison.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a9/Lostcoasttrnsmsn.jpg
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
A performance concession, presumably. I'd think that adding it at this late date would be outside the scope of a patch.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
The funny thing about SOASE Bloom is that even though I run the game at highest detail, 75hz, 4x anti aliasing, 1440x900 resolution... Bloom lags me down like hell... and I get 40fps with all the other stuff on the highest it can go. But as soon as I add bloom... 15fps. No idea what is happening there...
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah I don't think you can just 'add' HDR without it being implemented from the beginning. Maybe for SOASE 2. :)
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Well actually you can add hdr, all of the maps, or the one universal map, would need to be changed...

But I'd at least like a reason why there's no hdr :(
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

But I’d at least like a reason why there’s no hdr
End of quote

Er, because it’s a feature looking for a purpose, eating great heaping handfulls of CPU and hefty graphics card space without actually returning much in the way of … well, anything, given the environment Sins takes place in. And I say this as a long-time devoted player of DropTeam, which is lavish in it’s use of HDR for the landscapes and battles (not to mention grognardy-hardcore ballistics for weapon modelling; what else would you expect from BattleFront?).

Really, Sins with added HDR would have added nothing and cost development time better spent on things people would actually see, regularly, and frequently. And so it came to pass. And it was good.


Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Sins is already getting enough griping from people with lower-end machines that can't see all the greebles. HDR might be something that people with very high graphic specs might wish to turn on, but the game was specifically designed so that you didn't need a three thousand dollar rig to play it, so I can see why they left it out.

Another performance killer is shadows, and Sins looks just great without them (they absolutely killed the framerate in Homeworld 2).

I think IronClad was wise to avoid giving the impression they were deliberately going for another "Crysis" type of focus on graphics in their marketing.

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