Originally posted by SWFPhier:

Originally posted by Ecaveira777:

I try to play but I can't because of the graphics, I set everything to maximum but they are still very bad, they look like old games. Is this just me or is it general?

Oh my sweet summer child, I spent so many hours as a child playing an Atari 2600 that I forget some people can't get past the pixels into game play. Hell look at minecraft which is one of the most popular games of all time and its graphics are 1990's level.

The graphics are sometimes quite good and sometimes meh but always serviceable in valheim.

When the children cry about updates etc...
All I can think of is E.T. for Atari 2600. Oh Lordy, what a gaffe.

I understand what the OP is saying. It's the same reason I can't play Minecraft. It's clearly an amazing game, but I just can't do it. For whatever reason, even though the graphics keep me from enjoying Minecraft, I am not bothered by the PS1/PS2 era look of Valheim. It's like a 50' paint job. This game looks fantastic from a distance but it's not pretty up close.

Tastes are subjective. If it's not enjoyable, it's not enjoyable. That's all that matters. I'd say give it another shot if you like building/survival games, but I would be a hypocrite in doing so.

the best thing you can do is to redefine your understanding of the word "bad" as relates to graphics in games. just because you don't care for the more minimalist style of Valheim, doesn't make it's graphics bad, and unfortunately there is no in game setting that can help you with that. you could do mod texture packs but if you don't like what's there already then I doubt that it'll help you.

honestly the textures dont matter and are just part of an artstyle when the lighting is this good

I think the graphics are amazing, the lighting it great. Just because you don't like the art style does not mean the graphics are bad

Originally posted by Ecaveira777:

I try to play but I can't because of the graphics, I set everything to maximum but they are still very bad, they look like old games. Is this just me or is it general?

Oh my sweet summer child, I spent so many hours as a child playing an Atari 2600 that I forget some people can't get past the pixels into game play. Hell look at minecraft which is one of the most popular games of all time and its graphics are 1990's level.

The graphics are sometimes quite good and sometimes meh but always serviceable in valheim.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2657956328

Ugly ?

Decreased resolution forces you to rely more heavily on color to interpret a scene. This causes colors to seem more vibrant.

At least, that's my guess for why low res graphics are popular just when graphics cards have never been more capable of the opposite.

Anyway, after a while, it just looks good.

I think its more a case of the original 5 devs couldn't hope to compete with the AAA graphics, so they made a more stylised look and worked on the environmental effects like lighting and weather effects... plus it keeps the game size reasonable.
Overall I think the looks are good, at times it makes me just stop and look rather than just work through the content like most games, I actually stop and just admire the effect.

A cheap effect done very well, has more impact than top level graphics that are just technically good but these days rather blase, imo.

Turn off Depth of Field and Motion Blur. That will help a lot. DOF makes things further away not render in full so the game can look extra blocky.

not all games need to look like a Bob Ross painting to be enjoyed - Sun Tzu, 2022

No offense, but don't you look at least at some screenshots BEFORE you buy a game? I mean, if graphics is that important to you?

Millions of people play minecraft despite the graphics, and this is much better than minecraft lol...... I was also not aware Sun Tzu was still active in 2022, glad to see the old guy is still kickin!

install graphics mod????

It's the intended graphics style. After playing awhile the pixelation kind of melted away. Give it some time.

Originally posted by World Eater:

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

So you refunded purely based on looks, which you could of seen prior to purchase, and then you came here vented, and are now trolling.

I see you.

The entire game is a gigabyte or so.

Originally posted by World Eater:

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

Which is exactly what the devs stated the graphics was inspired from.
Just like Terraria, Stardew valley have chosen to make pixelated games; its a style choice.

Originally posted by World Eater:

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

This tells me you didn't play games in the 90s.

Dude plays shallow sexual fantasy games, if Valheim had booba it might be different.

Originally posted by vinyblaster:

Originally posted by World Eater:

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

We had some pretty awesome games in the 90s kid. I got to say, I was also taken aback by the graphic style too. That being said, I'm glad I stuck to it, because:
1) you realize quickly that the graphics and effects are actually awesome
2) the game is pretty great

i read lots of reviews i know the gameplay is great but i couldn't stand it, as a i said i would maybe we were in 2000

whatever there are lots of people who love the game and i keep it to them :)

I think the graphic design is like that, it's an artistic choice.

As for the texts, I agree, it would be nice if they required a "click" to close them.

There's a couple of higher res texture packs on the usual modding sites, they're just data files you swap in over the ones in the game folder.

it's a stylistic choice, if you want better graphics download high res mods from the nexus or something

Anything important in the text is written in your lore book.
The graphics are an artistic choice -- either you like them, mod them, or move on. Its not a photorealistic game, its a watercolor artwork like arena etc.

Except dreams memories, but they are to repeat over time, so...

Since H&H they added some dream ones that are just too long... you get them over time but it is kind of funny. Like you get a few short ones then suddenly "wait ... what?" ha ha.

I mean that's pretty much how I wake up after weird dreams irl.

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

Your choice. Might wanna try Conan Exiles. Might be more up your alley… *shrug*

Valheim‘s art is a conscious design decision. You like it or you don’t.

Originally posted by World Eater:

i refunded because the graphics are so ridiculously bad for a game in year 2022

it's like playing games back in 90s

We had some pretty awesome games in the 90s kid. I got to say, I was also taken aback by the graphic style too. That being said, I'm glad I stuck to it, because:
1) you realize quickly that the graphics and effects are actually awesome
2) the game is pretty great

Except dreams memories, but they are to repeat over time, so...

Since H&H they added some dream ones that are just too long... you get them over time but it is kind of funny. Like you get a few short ones then suddenly "wait ... what?" ha ha.

I mean that's pretty much how I wake up after weird dreams irl.

it's a stylistic choice, if you want better graphics download high res mods from the nexus or something

Anything important in the text is written in your lore book.
The graphics are an artistic choice -- either you like them, mod them, or move on. Its not a photorealistic game, its a watercolor artwork like arena etc.

I think the graphic design is like that, it's an artistic choice.

As for the texts, I agree, it would be nice if they required a "click" to close them.

There's a couple of higher res texture packs on the usual modding sites, they're just data files you swap in over the ones in the game folder.

The large voxels (3d pixels. I know; they look flat) are a consequence of the huge world. They shrink with perspective, so you only see them when objects are very close. After about 10 feet, everything is crisply rendered.

Activate your map. Looks like you've explored a bit of the world, doesn't it? Now roll the mouse wheel to zoom out. Keep rolling. The bit you know shrinks almost to a pale blue dot.

If the size of the voxels was cut in half, then the resources required would double. And you know what? Close-up voxels would still be huge.

In time, it may be possible to use a different rendering technique for close-up objects. Knowing that we are looking at a birch leaf, say, the game could draw an on-the-fly birch leaf instead of a big square. That would increase the computation requirements, however.

Valheim's worlds are procedurally generated. No two are alike. In scripted adventures, the world is designed ahead of time. Your sight-lines are often controlled, and the game takes place in one small area at a time, which can take half a minute to load from SSD. But every rivet is present and accounted for and sharply rendered.

Valheim's recommended system requirements are astonishingly modest. That seems to be by design. I hope they keep it that way so more people can play this awesome game.

Why? The graphics and lighting are beautiful as it is in this game IMO.

Originally posted by Major One:

Why? The graphics and lighting are beautiful as it is in this game IMO.

Originally posted by Major One:

Why? The graphics and lighting are beautiful as it is in this game IMO.

I agree. OP is probably talking about the textures mostly. Just download Valheim HD mod, you’ll thank me later, OP.

*Laughs in Minecraft*

the graphics are meant to be simple and artistic. There will not likely be a major change in style, only performance and minor cleanup (like the bonemass trophy update).

Originally posted by Lucidess:

*Laughs in Minecraft*

Still one of the most popular games on twitch lol

Originally posted by jonnin:

the graphics are meant to be simple and artistic. There will not likely be a major change in style, only performance and minor cleanup (like the bonemass trophy update).

no from what I understand it was meant to look different, not like a a dullpotato. they announced a while back that they turned the character designed and some of other graphics settings WAY down due to a lack of staff. Was just wondering if thats still the case.

Originally posted by Monolith:

Originally posted by Lucidess:

*Laughs in Minecraft*

Still one of the most popular games on twitch lol

I bought the game early (Alpha), and I like the game Just feel odd walking around as a tan gumbie.

There are a couple of texture packs that I'm eyeing. But then I play vanilla and think the game looks cool the way it does. I'll probably will give in at one point, but the PS1 aesthetic mixed with the modern effects grew on me.

The characters still look rather simplistic, but I don't know how they used to look, so I have no basis for comparison. Have you tried scrolling through the screenshots to see if it looks any different? Although most of the screenshots are from the back, and that's how I usually see my character anyway.

ive seen what it used to be, and playdough was not its origin. actually if you look around the games news and on youtube you may find remnents of what it was meant to look like

Graphics have been as they are for at least 3 years. There has been no indication that anything is going to change. It took 9 months for a few building pieces and a UI change.

Honestly, i have gotten over the graphics quality of the textures rather quickly after realizing the actual environment quality and level of detail for things like wind, scent and sound, Monsters aren't deaf in this game and the can smell you if they are down wind.

Originally posted by challitajg.12:

Thanks for all the replies. Pixelated textures is really game breaking for me, although it’s not all pixelated from what I see it’s also quite beautiful, more the stones, tree trunks, buildings etc… but like I said I’m not looking for crazy realistic graphics, and I can’t ignore all the other amazing features this game has to offer just for that.. I’ll see if I can adjust to it, or maybe try that HD mod someone mentioned. I have a i510400F, GTX 1650 GDDR6 and 16GB ram, so will have to see how it runs with that.

use texture mods, there are some good ones out there that replace 99 percent of the pixelated low res ones, makes the game look way better imo.

The game actually looks pretty nice, honestly. While the art style may be all pixelated and minecraft-ey, the lighting and weather effects are pretty nice. Forests look misty and believable, water looks good.

Originally posted by challitajg.12:

I think it all differs between cards and builds.

You're totally right :)

And if anyone is struggling with FPS I found this guide gave me massive gains particularly where I have large buildings - https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/comments/lizxq9/valheim_fps_fix_benchmark_picture_guide_gained_an/

And just for general info, the Irongate team are doing optimization passes along with the rest of the content they're still adding before final release, generally with the milestone updates (some was included in the Hearth & Home update for example). So, we have that to look forward to also

Typically with game dev in general, full optimization is not done till the final release as every time you add new stuff it can mess up previous optimization. As optimization can be a tedious and time consuming task depending on how a game is built, a lot of game studios leave the real optimization till the last phase.

Originally posted by spamrock2:

I have played about 130 hours with no graphics issues. In the past 2 days I have had extreme graphics lag to the point the game is nearly unplayable. I have no other applications running and checked that nothing is taking up CPU, RAM or graphics card memory. I reduced the quality to low for all graphics settings but the lag continues. What happened?

same thing! i have no clue what happened

So I bought the game, it looks great and runs super smooth, apart from the pixelated stones, can live with it as the rest looks really nice I like the art.

I noticed that the combination of disabling SSAO, DOF, Motion Blur, Anti-Aliasing, and Vsync on all medium settings 1080P puts me around 70fps (my monitor is 75hz) with those settings switched on I get around 45-50fps, so that’s quite a significant difference.

On all high/very high with the settings disabled I get around 50 fps as opposed to 37fps with those settings enabled.

I would suggest tweaking those settings through trial and error I think it all differs between cards and builds.

Originally posted by challitajg.12:

Originally posted by DigitalPanhandlr:

the style of the game is pixelated.... as far as the difference between medium/high, ultimately it boils down to like...... vegetation density, sunshafts, ect..... there are 'HD' mods that increase the resolution of textures 4x (or removes the pixelated effect) .....

cool thanks, the game looks amazing and top end graphics is not really something i look for tbh, but pixelated.... idk.... guess I will give it a shot.

the mods, are they from the game itself or 3rd party like addons?

When I first started playing the graphics bothered me. That lasted about an half hour before my eyes adjusted and I don't even noticed the pixalated look anymore.

It's a bit heavy on cpu/gpu, it can get hot and low end PCs can get low FPS
More info on the second pinned post:

Valheim running CPU/GPU hot
Even though Valheim has lower polygon graphics, it uses raycasting, physical calculations, point light shadows, post processing, particle effects and many other things that other modern games also use. All of these combine into what may make you experience low FPS in a game like Valheim. In the game settings, there is a setting for Vsync. Enabling this limits the FPS to your monitors’ Hertz; this is something we would recommend high-end computers to use so the game doesn't try to produce the maximum number of FPS it can produce just for the sake of a lot of FPS, which in the end just makes your hardware run very warm when it doesn’t really need to.

Turn off field of view in the graphics settings in game. It will make the visuals much better

Prepare to be pleasantly surprised at the environmentals.

The rendering and voxel stuff seems fairly GPU intense, but the textures are smaller than photorealistic games.
The look and feel is intentional. The GPU use.. I am not in a good place to comment, my machine is too high end so it takes a lot more than this to lag the GPU.

Thanks for all the replies. Pixelated textures is really game breaking for me, although it’s not all pixelated from what I see it’s also quite beautiful, more the stones, tree trunks, buildings etc… but like I said I’m not looking for crazy realistic graphics, and I can’t ignore all the other amazing features this game has to offer just for that.. I’ll see if I can adjust to it, or maybe try that HD mod someone mentioned. I have a i510400F, GTX 1650 GDDR6 and 16GB ram, so will have to see how it runs with that.

I have played about 130 hours with no graphics issues. In the past 2 days I have had extreme graphics lag to the point the game is nearly unplayable. I have no other applications running and checked that nothing is taking up CPU, RAM or graphics card memory. I reduced the quality to low for all graphics settings but the lag continues. What happened?

the style of the game is pixelated.... as far as the difference between medium/high, ultimately it boils down to like...... vegetation density, sunshafts, ect..... there are 'HD' mods that increase the resolution of textures 4x (or removes the pixelated effect) .....

Originally posted by DigitalPanhandlr:

the style of the game is pixelated.... as far as the difference between medium/high, ultimately it boils down to like...... vegetation density, sunshafts, ect..... there are 'HD' mods that increase the resolution of textures 4x (or removes the pixelated effect) .....

cool thanks, the game looks amazing and top end graphics is not really something i look for tbh, but pixelated.... idk.... guess I will give it a shot.

the mods, are they from the game itself or 3rd party like addons?

Originally posted by challitajg.12:

So is Valheim not really a graphic heavy game?

As said, the game is not heavy on graphic files and memory usage, but apparently it is on visual effects (light sources, ray effects through foliage, shadow, etc). I guess that lowering down video settings in this case can lessen the stress on your harware.

I always thought the game looked awesome, especially the dust and light particles swirling around. Sailing a karve out on blue-green water is the shiz.

Originally posted by commerce:

If the size of the voxels was cut in half, then the resources required would double. And you know what? Close-up voxels would still be huge.

I think this is more about texture resolution than terrain resolution, and I'm pretty sure Valheim is an old-school heightmap world that doesn't involve voxels in any way, but actually halving voxel size multiplies the raw data of a 3d world by *eight*.

From a february IGN article:

"While Valheim is voxel-based, it's also much more limited in how much effect you can have on the terrain than something like Minecraft. You can raise and lower the terrain a certain amount, but it's not very precise.Feb 17, 2021"

Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/valheim-early-access-review

I have to admit the first time I logged into the game I thought the same. But when you get into the game it melts away. The environments are beautiful.

Originally posted by Trakehner:

I have to admit the first time I logged into the game I thought the same. But when you get into the game it melts away. The environments are beautiful.

Bingo!

@Cabbie

Whether the devs chose this resolution for performance or art-style, it doesn't matter. I'm convinced if you give the game a chance you'll be blown away by the graphics.

The only thing this game needs is higher resolution textures otherwise is fine

Originally posted by cronic0_0:

The only thing this game needs is higher resolution textures otherwise is fine

It is my opinion that "need" is a strong word here.

There are HD mods. Not necessary but still pretty. I love walking around in the storms with HD mods on seeing the grass blowing with lightning and rain falling. Very relaxing game. I've got 50 hrs in and I've only killed 2 bosses so far.

Originally posted by cronic0_0:

The only thing this game needs is higher resolution textures otherwise is fine

it doesnt need ♥♥♥♥ when it comes to textures. this is their art style and millions of buyers support it. if a major reason for you to play a game is graphics, youre damaged.

I can play on my laptop. Huge bonus for me

Originally posted by Chimi:

Originally posted by cronic0_0:

The only thing this game needs is higher resolution textures otherwise is fine

it doesnt need ♥♥♥♥ when it comes to textures. this is their art style and millions of buyers support it. if a major reason for you to play a game is graphics, youre damaged.

I have had Diablo II on my computer for 4 years. I can't get past the first act because I find the graphics too dated and ugly.

I guess that mean's i too am damaged.

The large voxels (3d pixels. I know; they look flat) are a consequence of the huge world. They shrink with perspective, so you only see them when objects are very close. After about 10 feet, everything is crisply rendered.

Activate your map. Looks like you've explored a bit of the world, doesn't it? Now roll the mouse wheel to zoom out. Keep rolling. The bit you know shrinks almost to a pale blue dot.

If the size of the voxels was cut in half, then the resources required would double. And you know what? Close-up voxels would still be huge.

In time, it may be possible to use a different rendering technique for close-up objects. Knowing that we are looking at a birch leaf, say, the game could draw an on-the-fly birch leaf instead of a big square. That would increase the computation requirements, however.

Valheim's worlds are procedurally generated. No two are alike. In scripted adventures, the world is designed ahead of time. Your sight-lines are often controlled, and the game takes place in one small area at a time, which can take half a minute to load from SSD. But every rivet is present and accounted for and sharply rendered.

Valheim's recommended system requirements are astonishingly modest. That seems to be by design. I hope they keep it that way so more people can play this awesome game.

thanks so much for all the feedback guys! like the game alot so will give it a further try!

@Rosh where would i find these HD mods? easy to install?

if there gonna be any update in the grapihcs am pretty sure is not even on the list of thing do to of the devs but there are mods you cna use to fix that

Yes. This is Viking Minecraft. It's part of the charm.

I use to play this game when it use to be called Fyre (or something like that) on itch(dot)io.

I don't remember the graphics being like this but then again that was a few years ago. All in all the graphics although low end still doesn't take away from the game play.

There are games out there which are high end for graphics, and has absolute garbage game play value, and there are games like this with low end graphics which has many hours of game play value.

Graphics do not make a game folks.

For me, the graphics are fine, and actually it suits the game world.

Can anyone point me in the direction of the higher res graphics mod?

Originally posted by Quasimojo:

Can anyone point me in the direction of the higher res graphics mod?

There is a whole slew of them on Nexus mods. Everything from faithful Upscales to totally different styles. View by Endorsements to generally see which ones are considered the best.
https://www.nexusmods.com/valheim/mods/categories/8/?BH=0

I have an old gaming laptop with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M and it does okay imo. When there are more monsters/wolves (7 or more wolves it gets laggy) around or if you have a gateroom with multiple gates going active my graphics lag but otherwise the game is decent consider this laptop is like 6 or so years old. I also use GeForce experience with its auto setting to make games more playable. I cannot afford to upgrade especially now with prices being what they are. I'm not sure if this is helpful or not but the one big gripe is my friends can see NPC farther away then I can, which tends to be dangerous when you get so close to NPC's you cannot handle easily. The other major pain is the darkness. Once you get the mining light helmet it for sure helps when walking at night, That is if your brave enough to go walking in certain areas like swamp alone. lol

Originally posted by Bandy:

No Man's Sky, Fallout 4 etc..

Fact that you mentioned 2 AAA titles that were garbage at launch (Fallout4 is still garbage) and none by indie devs, including these devs own Game, Satisfactory, assures me you are talking out of your ass.

I think the style is fine and that is their intentionally artistic look. Hell, there are games that look like they came out for the PS1 and it was done purposely. My only thing if I was going to say anything that could use an improvement on the pop up. It could use better draw distance. Other than that, I think it is fine. Gameplay is key and that is the focus of the devs.

Originally posted by Tenko:

I dont buy the "Lo-fi" reasoning as the texture quality is inconsistent through out the game.

What some don't realize is that the low res goes hand-in-hand with the low poly of the game objects. Low poly because players are crafting/building settlements, and THAT is demanding and limiting especially when in coop.

Just have to think about other games that allow player crafted bases, No Man's Sky, Fallout 4 etc. and they become unstable when the player goes overboard on the base. Think about netcode and host sharing a large poly base when in live coop edits to that base = crash and other lag issues.

Higher res text packages available and do not affect the game at all, but as mentioned tend to not go well with low poly...

When I first saw someone start playing this on youtube, I was unimpressed - I thought, wow, these guys don't know it's 2021? I didn't even want to try the game because of it for a number of weeks. But after the first hour or so, you start noticing a million of tiny details that the developers tweaked to make this a very refined and nuanced visual experience, and I was impressed. The shifting colors, the constant motion, the weather patterns - the thing feels alive, unlike most other games with a cutting edge visuals that cannot deliver. I now appreciate the artistic style of Valheim and highly recommend, especially if the eye candy is important to you.

would bet my money on that they dont want the same trouble they are currently having with Satisfactory when it comes to the amount of money and effort OPTMIZATIONS take up.

I dont buy the "Lo-fi" reasoning as the texture quality is inconsistent through out the game.

Okay, but I wish they could make another option for people that got past 2004.

There are high texture mods available for those that find value.

*edit : not going to say how to find them , cuz you already know.

Originally posted by Forge:

Higher texture would require a better GPU. They did this intentionally

This isn't why.

They intentionally wanted the game to have a low-fi look.

The whole notion that the graphics are low-fi doesn't even mean the game isn't demanding ether. It is from CPU standpoint. Not so much GPU.

Like, the idea that this game looks low-fi because the Devs "wanted to reach a wider audience", because of "lower system requirements", isn't true.

Again, the game is pretty demanding on the CPU.


As for getting better texture, there are a bunch of texture mods you can use.

I personally don't mind the "blocky textures" look. I think it fits with the low poly count of the world itself. When you mix ultra realistic texture with the low poly world, it all clashes really hard aesthetically.

This is the art style they wanted. It’s what gives the games its feel.

Originally posted by Quasimojo:

Just curious...the graphics are tolerable and the game is enjoyable. My question is, why can't the textures be better?

its honestly beautiful looking once you start playing

Higher texture would require a better GPU. They did this intentionally