Official RAGE Feedback Thread

[Sean_W]

Wow only 4x AF, just shows how console optimised the engine is and why it doesn't look very sharp. Crysis looks bad with 4x AF with the POM so it just goes to show.

[crainger]

There two AF settings. vt_maxaniso screws the mega texture when set above 4. image_anisotropy can be set as high as 16.

The game looks pretty good on my PC. No texture pop ins what so ever. World textures look nice after I tweaked it and even without SLI it's running really well.

This game hurts my eyes. I'm not talking about the graphics but just playing it. Don't know what it is about it but my eyes are sore after playing it for a bit. I can play any other FPS without issues, even ones with FOV problems.

[WeReWoLf]

Patch out!

Originally Posted by id

RAGE Patch Release Notes - October 8th 2011
-------------------------------------------

RAGE defaults to lower video settings to allow the game to work on a wide variety of hardware and software configurations. Unfortunately, it is not possible to anticipate all possible graphics driver issues in combination with unique end user hardware and software
configurations. For this reason RAGE does not automatically increase video/graphics settings as this could result in negative side effects on specific hardware and software configurations. The original release of RAGE does not expose many video/graphics options for people to tweak because some of these settings, although desirable from a quality perspective, simply will not work on specific configurations either due to hardware limitations and/or driver bugs. Due to popular demand for more video and graphics options, this patch updates the video settings menu and exposes several quality and performance settings. However, not everyone may be able to increase the settings due to hardware limitations and/or driver bugs.

VSync
-----
The new "VSync" option in the video settings menu allows you to remove screen tearing. There are three options: ON, OFF and SMART.

When VSync is turned OFF you may experience screen tearing.

When VSync is turned ON you should not see screen tearing. However, any time your frame rate drops below 60 frames per second you will get a sudden more severe drop to 30 frames per second. This is how VSync inherently works. If your computer cannot maintain 60 frames per second and you miss the synchronization to the vertical retrace of your monitor then you will miss a whole frame and synchronize to the next frame instead.

Some graphics drivers now support a so called "swap-tear" extension. You can try using this extension by setting VSync to SMART. If your graphics driver supports this extension and you set VSync to SMART then RAGE will synchronize to the vertical retrace of your monitor when your computer is able to maintain 60 frames per second and the screen may tear if your frame rate drops below 60 frames per second. In other words the SMART VSync option trades a sudden drop to 30 frames per second with occasional screen tearing. Occasional screen tearing is usually considered less distracting than a more severe drop in frame rate.

If your graphics driver does not support SMART VSync and you set VSync to SMART in the video settings then RAGE will automatically fall back to turning VSync OFF and you may experience screen tearing. The "swap-tear" extension is brand new and may still present some issues on certain graphics hardware. If you experience any problems using SMART Vsync then set VSync to either ON or OFF. We are actively working with the graphics hardware vendors to improve the "swap-tear" extension.

If changing VSync in the RAGE video settings menu does not appear to make any difference then make sure you are not overriding the VSync setting in the graphics vendor control panel. You can find the graphics vendor control panel by right-clicking on the Windows desktop and selecting the " control panel" option from the pop-up menu.

If you force VSync to the 'on' setting in the graphics vendor control panel then you should not see any screen tearing in RAGE but you may get a more severe drop in frame rate if your computer cannot maintain 60 frames per second.

If you force VSync to the 'off' setting in the graphics vendor control panel then you may experience screen tearing no matter what setting you use for the VSync option in the RAGE video settings menu.

Texture Cache
-------------
The new "Texture Cache" option in the video settings menu allows you to increase the texture cache size to keep more texture data in video memory.

If the Texture Cache is set to LARGE then RAGE will keep more texture data in video memory. This may not only significantly reduce blurry textures and texture popping, it will also allow complex scenes to be rendered with more texture detail.

However, this may not work on computers that do not have enough system or video memory, or you may experience a significant drop in performance. If you experience issues due to hardware limitations you will have to set the Texture Cache back to SMALL.

If after changing the Texture Cache to LARGE you experience a crash or texture corruption (like a partially or completely blue world) then the graphics driver may have run out of memory.

We are actively working with the graphics card vendors to resolve any crashes.

If you do not experience a crash but you see texture corruption then you may be able to get the large Texture Cache to work by accepting the change and restarting the game. If you still experience texture corruption after restarting the game you will have to set the Texture Cache back to SMALL.

You may also be able to improve the memory situation on your computer by changing the Windows paging file management. Note that making changes to the Windows paging file management may change the performance characteristics of your computer. Any changes you make to your system configuration are at your own risk. Always make backups of your system and revert these changes if you notice undesirable side effects.

To change the paging file management on Windows Vista and Windows 7, first press the "Start" button, then right-click on "Computer" and then select "Properties" from the popup menu. Then select "Advanced system settings" on the window that appears. Select the "Advanced" tab on the "System Properties" window that is displayed and press the "Settings" button under "Performance". Select the "Advanced" tab on the "Performance Options" window that shows up next and press the "Change..." button under "Virtual memory". Now uncheck the option "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives" and make sure that the option "System managed size" is selected on the "Virtual Memory" window. Confirm the change by pressing the "OK" button on each window. After making this change you will have to restart your computer for the change to take effect.

To change the paging file management on Windows XP, first press the "Start" button, then right-click on "My Computer" and then select "Properties" from the popup menu. Select the "Advanced" tab on the "System Properties" window that is displayed and press the "Settings"
button under "Performance". Select the "Advanced" tab on the "Performance Options" window that shows up next and press the "Change" button under "Virtual memory". Make sure that the option "System managed size" is selected on the "Virtual Memory" window. Confirm the change by pressing the "OK" button on each window. After making this change you will have to restart your computer for the change to take effect.

Anisotropic Filter
------------------
The new "Anisotropic Filter" option in the video settings menu allows you to increase the anisotropic texture filtering.

Anisotropic filtering is a method to enhance the image quality of textures on surfaces that are at oblique viewing angles.

The anisotropic texture filtering in RAGE defaults to a low value to accommodate for low-end graphics hardware. However, the anisotropic filtering can be increased for high-end graphics hardware by setting the Anistropic Filter option to HIGH in the video settings menu.

Do not force anisotropic filtering to the ‘on’ setting in the graphics vendor control panel because this may cause rendering artifacts in the game.

Note that increasing the anisotropic filtering may improve the texture quality while it may also decrease the frame rate.

Patch Changes / Fixes
---------------------
- Implemented workaround for AMD driver crash right after intro cinematic on Win 7 32-bit systems.
- Disabled UBOs because they are causing animation issues with AMD drivers.
- Don't allow swap-tear to be enabled on AMD while the extension is not exposed because it may crash.
- Support for new video settings: "texture cache", "vsync" and "anisotropic filter".
- Automatically adjust vt_maxPPF based on the number of available cores.
- Improved performance for SLI cards when GPU transcode is enabled.
- Fix for GPU Transcoding option being disabled after exiting gameplay.
- Added safe mode to restore video settings to default values.
- Allow g_fov to be changed from the RAGE launch options in Steam.
- Server now forwards text chat from clients to all other clients while in-game.

Known Graphical Issues
----------------------
The following issues were found using NVIDIA graphics hardware with the GeForce R285 Driver or AMD graphics hardware with the AMD Catalyst 11.10 Version 2 Preview Driver.


- If you turn up both the screen resolution and anti-aliasing settings to high values in the video settings menu and/or you enable "GPU Transcode" then the screen may no longer update on some hardware configurations. This means your system does not have the necessary video memory to run with these high settings. You can re-enter the video
settings menu and lower your settings to restart screen updates.

- If you turn up both the screen resolution and anti-aliasing settings to high values in the video settings menu you may experience a crash if your system does not have the necessary memory to run with these high settings. To avoid this problem you will have to re-enter the
video settings menu to lower the settings. If you can no longer launch the game after changing the video settings to high values you can add the following to your RAGE launch options in Steam:

+com_safemode 1

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up. Adding this option will reset your video settings to the default values the next time the game is launched. When the game is launched in safe mode the game will show "safe mode" in the corners of the screen. Do not forget to remove the safe mode launch option after launching the game once to make sure you do not lose your video settings each time you launch the game.

- Using a NVIDIA graphics card on Windows XP 32-bit or XP 64-bit, you may experience a crash or hang when changing the screen resolution in full screen mode or switching from windowed mode to full screen mode. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We have spent significant effort trying to work around this problem and were successful in reducing the frequency of occurrence but a driver update is necessary to completely fix the problem. We are actively working with NVIDIA to make a solution to this problem available as soon as possible.

- Using an AMD graphics card, you may experience black flickering artifacts on flags, banners and zip-lines if you run in full screen mode. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem.

- Using an AMD graphics card, you may experience black grid lines on some graphical user interface (GUI) elements like the in-game mini-map. This has been identified as a graphics driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem. If you find the grid lines particularly distracting, you can add the following to the RAGE launch options in Steam as a temporary workaround.

+vt_maxAniso 1

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up. However, note that adding this setting will lower the general texture quality in the game.

- If you have an AMD graphics card with a dual core CPU system you may experience severe hitching and low frame rates. This has been identified as a driver problem. We are actively working with AMD on a solution to this problem. As a temporary workaround you may add the following to the RAGE launch options in Steam:

+jobs_numThreads 0

The launch options can be found by right-clicking on RAGE in Steam and selecting "Properties". Then click on "Set Launch Options" in the dialog that pops up.

- If you are running RAGE in full-screen mode and you ALT-TAB to a different application you may lose your VSync setting. When you switch to a different application VSync stops functioning. RAGE detects that VSync is no longer working and automatically switches back to synchronizing to real-time to make sure the game time advances in a consistent manner. We are actively working with the graphics vendors on a solution to this problem.

[Sean_W]

Nice. Good to see id releasing a patch quick and it give me hope when I buy the game.

[K007]

those patch notes are kinda of a joke...basically those settings they are talking about are exactly the settings that people having been putting on forums via the cfg.....

[Muppet]

Originally Posted by mailman2

hrmm.. bethesda said Nvidia was going to release drivers...so I guess they were lying?

RAGE will be released tomorrow in Europe and both AMD and Nvidia are preparing a new set of drivers for it. Additionally, those of you with SLI systems will have to run the game in Single GPU Mode – for the time being.

Posted on October 7, 2011 by John Papadopoulos

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/rage-p...ons/#more-8627

I have to run it in SLI mode, otherwise no Surround.

[K007]

Originally Posted by Intel17

Did everyone apply the tweaks found here: http://www.geforce.com/News/articles...-simple-tweaks

Makes a WORLD of difference! Also, this game looks and runs fantastically. I'm not really sure what all the whining is about. Technically, is it as flashy as Crysis? Nope. But the artwork is superb and the game rocks.

Some shots (running on i7 860, 16GB memory, GTX 580 w/ latest drivers and the above tweaks):

it may make a world of difference...but look at the stuff close to you...the wall next to you...the desk and the paper....its just awful..looking. This is like below low settings in most games out these days on PC...maybe i am spoiled by bf3 graphics.....but this game in the graphics department is awful...

also the mouse is annoying in the menu system to use..

[Melfranks]

Originally Posted by |MaguS|

This game hurts my eyes. I'm not talking about the graphics but just playing it. Don't know what it is about it but my eyes are sore after playing it for a bit. I can play any other FPS without issues, even ones with FOV problems.

Interesting that you mention this, as my eyes have been sore the last couple of days, during which I have played a lot of RAGE.
I never get eye strain from other games, I wonder what the deal is?
I'm actually noticing it right now after playing for several hours.

[MowTin]

Originally Posted by Yaboze

I love how the camera pulls back, but I wanted to grab my USB Xbox controller for that part. Felt weird with WASD. I dunno. Good thing I like arcade racers.

Yep. I whipped out the 360 controller and this game is much better that way. I hate driving with the keyboard. This game was made for a pad.

I suspect the difficulty is calibrated for the pad. This game is 100% consolized but I don't mind since on the PC its like you're playing it on a PS4 while consolers are still playing on PS3's.

[Melfranks]

Looks like editing variables through the console is now gone in the new patch, same with launch options (although the "skip intro" part still appears to work).
I also do not have transcoding enabled or available in the menu anymore nor can I force it on.

Edit: That said, the patch, at least for me, is awesome.
The "smart" vsynch works great and the game just feels smoother yet looks as good as I had it tweaked to through the config.
Should have been released like this...

[Muppet]