Here it is  http://www.blogcdn.com/massively.joystiq.com/media/2011/09/axolpicture151-1316969233.jpg

Really shows off what this Dreamworld engine can do if you have the hardware to push it. Age of Conan is a great looking game, not just in this screen shot but where ever you go in the vast world of Hyboria, it is stunning to look at and admire.

Sweet picture LuckyDucky!

Great pic!  I can't imagine the hardware needed to pull that off even at 30FPS.

I know my rig would croak, fall of the table and start cursing in some ancient dialect.

You'd be surprised, the engine has came a long way and can completely max out in dx11 with decent FPS on quite old rigs now. 1920x1080 with everything maxed out only takes a core2duo and an older card like a gtx 460 to get 40-60+ fps consistently, cities like OT still seem to cause fps drops to silly low numbers for a second or two here and there though.

My rig is a  i7 920 backed by 6Gb of ram. The card is a single GTX 580 3gb displaying on a Sony GDM FW900 , which is a 24 inch CRT 16 : 10. That pic was taken @ 2304 X 1440, the monitor's max res. That screen is showing DX10 everything maxed, except no AA and the Grass option off. I don't use those options because I think AA makes my game look blurry, and I don't care for the Grass option because they look more like big ugly weeds to me than grass.

I have had this comp for about a year and a half, except for the 580 which is a newer addition. Before upgrading I was playing with a HD 4850 512 mb. With that card I was playing in DX9, no AA , no grass, and no shadows. Everything else was maxed though, and even with no shadows the game looked pretty good. I played the game like that for a year happy as a clam! The point is the game doesn't have to be maxed out to look good. And as Kabaal says you don't need a super rig to crank up the visuals. The game is fairly well optimized.

Originally posted by Kabaal

You'd be surprised, the engine has came a long way and can completely max out in dx11 with decent FPS on quite old rigs now. 1920x1080 with everything maxed out only takes a core2duo and an older card like a gtx 460 to get 40-60+ fps consistently, cities like OT still seem to cause fps drops to silly low numbers for a second or two here and there though.

That is impressive.  Do you know what engine AOC uses under the hood?  Sounds like it's been well optimized.

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by Kabaal

You'd be surprised, the engine has came a long way and can completely max out in dx11 with decent FPS on quite old rigs now. 1920x1080 with everything maxed out only takes a core2duo and an older card like a gtx 460 to get 40-60+ fps consistently, cities like OT still seem to cause fps drops to silly low numbers for a second or two here and there though.

 

That is impressive.  Do you know what engine AOC uses under the hood?  Sounds like it's been well optimized.

Dreamworld, its their own creation. 

Originally posted by ActionMMORPG

Originally posted by Kabaal

You'd be surprised, the engine has came a long way and can completely max out in dx11 with decent FPS on quite old rigs now. 1920x1080 with everything maxed out only takes a core2duo and an older card like a gtx 460 to get 40-60+ fps consistently, cities like OT still seem to cause fps drops to silly low numbers for a second or two here and there though.

 

That is impressive.  Do you know what engine AOC uses under the hood?  Sounds like it's been well optimized.

Dreamworld.

It's FunCom's own proprietary tech. OP mentioned it in his initial post.

Nice picture.  Last time I played AOC the performance had massively improved, but ofcourse I was running a new rig so I'm sure that had something to do with it.  I've always thought the graphics were pretty sweet in this game.

Originally posted by Kost

 

Dreamworld.

It's FunCom's own proprietary tech. OP mentioned it in his initial post.

My bad, I missed the reference.  Having their own engine and their own engine coders is the way to go.  This way there's no blame game on why the game runs badly.  That engine is worth a fortune and then some.

I think the area that really gets it for me is the flags in Khitai outside of the great wall.  Thats really something to see.

They have always pushed the graphics envelop even with Anarchy Online for when it came out . Problem is that when both these games were released the game was not optimised and buggy and the game would rubberband and other problems so the beauty became drowned in the problems but I had an okay machine when Age of Conan was released and I was totally agog with what I saw and would just stare at some vistas with total abandon.

Yes Age of Conan is indeed a very lovely looking game and I think even the death effects were well done.

sweet pic, AoC has held the crown now for awhile as the prettiest MMO, I wish I liked the game play

Originally posted by Jackdog

sweet pic, AoC has held the crown now for awhile as the prettiest MMO, I wish I liked the game play

Well,  It's a bit more than that. It does not hold the crown for being pretty still pictures. It holds the crown for the best dynamic lighting, the best shading, the best water effects, the best motion captured animations, etc etc.. and so on. Basically anything related to the graphics noone are able to match... Yet. maybe someone will identify this as a market niche sometime in the future and try and take it away from FunCom. but at the moment I'd say good luck with that.

That draw distance is F'n sweet, thanks for sharing OP. Now what's your address so I can come and "borrow" your PC? Don't worry I'll leave you mine to use, you can max out Minecraft with it.

Absolutely awesome man.  The new T3.5 raid also looks beautiful as hell too!  Here's a preview:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaaBljXuBF4

Originally posted by DaSpack

Originally posted by Jackdog

sweet pic, AoC has held the crown now for awhile as the prettiest MMO, I wish I liked the game play

Well,  It's a bit more than that. It does not hold the crown for being pretty still pictures. It holds the crown for the best dynamic lighting, the best shading, the best water effects, the best motion captured animations, etc etc.. and so on. Basically anything related to the graphics noone are able to match... Yet. maybe someone will identify this as a market niche sometime in the future and try and take it away from FunCom. but at the moment I'd say good luck with that.

when they were touting their move to DX10 I remember going back for a month to check it out and laughing at the tree and grass animations. They did the presttiest litle figure 8 animations every 2 seconds.

Nope I have to disagree,  AoC has the title for best still pics, nothing more.. LoTRO stil has the best landscape, water and lighting by far, and a couple of new upcoming games will be setting new strandards for grpahics which will put both AOC and LoTRO to shame.

But on another note I have been revisiting Diablo II recently, horrid antiquey, blocky ugly graphics but the fun factor is still immense. I always thought of AoC as the pretty but dull as dirt cheerleader game. Once you get past the (pixilated) titis there is not much there to hold ones attention.

Same engine they are going to use in The Secret World if I am not mistaken... Really good news!

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by DaSpack

Originally posted by Jackdog

sweet pic, AoC has held the crown now for awhile as the prettiest MMO, I wish I liked the game play

Well,  It's a bit more than that. It does not hold the crown for being pretty still pictures. It holds the crown for the best dynamic lighting, the best shading, the best water effects, the best motion captured animations, etc etc.. and so on. Basically anything related to the graphics noone are able to match... Yet. maybe someone will identify this as a market niche sometime in the future and try and take it away from FunCom. but at the moment I'd say good luck with that.

when they were touting their move to DX10 I remember going back for a month to check it out and laughing at the tree and grass animations. They did the presttiest litle figure 8 animations every 2 seconds.

Nope I have to disagree,  AoC has the title for best still pics, nothing more.. LoTRO stil has the best landscape, water and lighting by far, and a couple of new upcoming games will be setting new strandards for grpahics which will put both AOC and LoTRO to shame.

But on another note I have been revisiting Diablo II recently, horrid antiquey, blocky ugly graphics but the fun factor is still immense. I always thought of AoC as the pretty but dull as dirt cheerleader game. Once you get past the (pixilated) titis there is not much there to hold ones attention.

 

 

 

I remember this! But that was so long ago. I'm nitpicky about stuff like this, so during my last visit I didn't have any kind of problems with the engine. The grass didn't follow me around when I turned etc, it was simply beautiful. It does deserve its crown currently as best graphics for a Western MMORPG, in my opinion of course ;-o

If they could upgrade AO with this engine and animatons...man.. :)