Not seeing any of the spectacular visuals I was expecting

No ships, planets, etc.... just the icons

from Sins Forums
I just bought and loaded up this game and to my disappointment, I'm not seeing any of the fantastic visuals I saw in the screenshots.  All I get are icon representations for the ships and planets.  I have updated my video card driver (it's only a GeForce 4) and that made no difference.  For kicks, I installed it on an older PC I have in my office (has a GeForce 2 in it) and I'm seeing the same thing.

I searched the forums here but didn't find any other references to this problem (yet i'm having it on two seperate PCs)

Am I missing some obvious setting or is there something else going on?

Thanks,
GlitchBoy
technical
5,100 views 15 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
There is a cinematic mode (somewhere in the bar at the upper screen) that toggles the icons, screenshots are usually made in cinematic mode but it doesn't really work well for playing.
And ... wow, Gef4 and Gef2. That's old. Great work SD and IC for having games run on such hardware at all ;)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Did you crank up all the settings? Full multisampling? Bloom? Full texture detail?  (The default graphic levels are at roughly medium quality overall) Did you increase your resolution? Every screenshot was taken in game I assure you since I personally took a ton of them from matches I was actually playing.
CursorFX - Customize your Windows cursor
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I just bought and loaded up this game and to my disappointment, I'm not seeing any of the fantastic visuals I saw in the screenshots. All I get are icon representations for the ships and planets.
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Try zooming in. ;)

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Try zooming in.
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Ditto. Try looking at those tiny dots by the planet icons when you are zoomed out. You'll find it's not easy. So, to simplify things, when you are zoomed out, it only shows icons representing ships, planets, whatever, but when you zoom in and take a closer looks (default, mouse wheel scroll up), you can get a detailed look at bigger ships and frigates, and if you zoom in closer, you can see fighters/bombers (represented by white dots and contrails, cause they are tiny ships) as well as weapons in action on the ships, particularly the cap ships. You'll find that even with low graphical settings, those ship details will be pretty nice. Of course, it'll look better with higher settings.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
TBH I think its unreasonable to expect to see any spectacular visuals with a GeForce 4. You should seriously consider an upgrade if you want to experience this game the way it was intended.

I know that Ironclad and Stardock do their best to make sure it runs on a variety of hardware, but there is only so far you can go before you start creating a dated looking game.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I would say zooming in works.

SoSE actually has excellent graphics for a game of it's size, far better then what I expected. I'm very happy with it.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
if I'm reading the OP correctly he's not seeing *anything* but icons...
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Not DX9 compatible perhaps? The video card that is...
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Yeah, let's not focus on the graphics too much. I prefer focusing on actual gameplay fun much more, and would prefer the devs to spend most of their time on that when improving the game. :)
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
If he's got a Geforce4 MX, it's liable he's missing a lot of graphics. Which is to be expected since those are just repackaged DirectX 7 cards.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I bought a Geforce4 MX so I could see shiny water in Morrowind. I think its time to let these cards rest in peace. Stop torturing your MX Glitchboy, not to mention yourself.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Lol, right on, Szoreny. GeForce4 MX RIP. Go big Glitchboy, save up money, and bask in the beauty of amazing graphics, although I am with dakdak77. Gameplay is far more preferable to pretty graphics. Nostalgia runs deep in my veins, and I like games like the Atelier Iris series, Ar Tonelico and the various other creations by NIS America and Gust, which are new games, but feature simpler graphics, in favor of incredible stories and awesome gameplay mechanics.

I'm not so big into pure eyecandy games. They get old too quickly. Of course, it's possible to mesh them, like Final Fantasy has done with XII, and will do with XIII and it's family. But, if it came to choosing between eyecandy or gameplay, then the answer is a no brainer. Gameplay.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I bought a Geforce4 MX so I could see shiny water in Morrowind.
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I'm surprised if that worked for you. The MX cards lacked the pixel shaders that were introduced in the GeForce3 series--only the mainline GeForce4s had them, and those were a lot less popular.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
I bought a Geforce4 MX so I could see shiny water in Morrowind.I'm surprised if that worked for you. The MX cards lacked the pixel shaders that were intorduced in the GeForce3 series--only the mainline GeForce4s had them, and those were a lot less popular.
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Well, I'm not proof positive it was an MX, I bought it from a friend who'd upgraded to an ATI 9700 or something...it wasn't but six months before I upgraded in turn to a 9800, which is still like, - my all time favorite card, even though I've since gone back to Nvidia.