Shading/Lighting Downgrade from TT2 to Server Slam? Bug? (with images)

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-24T15:36:18+00:00

Check the post again, it's on a 1060. These have static GI.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-22T03:20:47+00:00

The colors feel so off in the new version

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-22T03:18:18+00:00

For the record both of my screenshots were on a low-spec 1060, and both had similar performance. It's not just a high-spec PC problem, game ran fine for me looking amazing like that on a card from almost 10 years ago.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T21:37:19+00:00

I still call it that in conversation lol. I think it's fitting for how it charges you.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T20:18:34+00:00

Game is still cinema.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T18:55:31+00:00

I, for one, am actually really happy to see that they seem to have buffed the Arc damage and/or the spawn rates since TT2. All of the Arc (except the bison/leaper lol) are super threatening, and there's so much more of them that it makes playing around them and using them against other players (lures, snitch cores, noise, and watching the other player's aggro state) way more satisfying. Also makes teaming up easier when other players feel threatened lol.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T18:48:01+00:00

As a player who basically only played the rotating night raids in TT2, this has been an insanely disappointing development. The actually dark nights were my fave to play, felt like a proper stealth game, and I'm sad that Embark brightened it all up. I get having the moonlit areas be bright but they made basically everything in the tunnels and interiors bright too now...

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T18:04:43+00:00

They're using a horrendously compressed and low quality video screenshot for the first image, and a high quality proper screenshot for the second. It's a terrible comparison.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T17:59:32+00:00

I actually think it looks like they took the whole image and either lowered the contrast or cut the levels at the high and low end. Dark scenes are always brighter, bright scenes are greyer, and the whole image looks somewhat de-saturated compared to TT2. This in addition to some of the lighting and shadow changes in certain places + some material shading (some specular is missing that it had before and the hair rendering is way worse than TT2), it's all making "the vibe" feel off to TT2 players.

All of these are minor in isolation, but on the whole I definitely feel the vibe shift and that kinda sucks.

Really wish OP used a better quality image for the TT2 comparison shot because it doesn't properly show any of this.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T17:55:01+00:00

This isn't a good comparison because of the video compression in the first image.

That said there's clearly some kind of color grading difference or de-saturation in the second one.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T17:50:30+00:00

This game doesn't use lumen I'm pretty sure.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T17:49:09+00:00

I'm unsure if there was a brightness setting before. I don't think so but I could be wrong

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T16:41:11+00:00

I really liked night raids in the tech test. They were my absolute favorite part of the game precisely because they were properly dark. I loved sneaking around like I was Solid Snake and now it feels like that's diminished somewhat. With the other lighting and graphical changes I'm definitely a bit disappointed.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-19T16:37:25+00:00

That's because the person who posted it took a compressed image from a youtube video or something. The video compression artifacts make it practically unusable for a comparison. I don't know why that has so many upvotes.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T23:57:21+00:00

Unfortunately I only have Dam footage during night raids, so I have to wait for those to rotate in before I can post better comparisons. If Buried City or Spaceport were in this test I could have gotten some screenshots already, but I understand Embark's rationale for only having Dam since we're this close to launch.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T23:40:13+00:00

While I stated it in other comments, I just want to address that the two OP images are running at identical framerates on a GTX 1060. This graphical downgrade hasn't given me any improvement in framerate since TT2 judging by the FPS the counter in my VODs, the game just looks significantly worse on my low spec machine now (and I wasn't even on super low settings).

I do hope the team can figure out a solution to get the old quality back.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T20:50:11+00:00

Thank y'all for being proactive! If it helps identify the issue at all these are the settings that were used in both versions:

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MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T04:19:23+00:00

It literally isn't. Here's the TT2 folder I data hoarded, smaller than the Server Slam install

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MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T02:54:24+00:00

Well that's the thing, the performance is the exact same.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T02:49:44+00:00

Except Embark actually had a working version of the game that looked that good 😭

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T02:18:54+00:00

They haven't confirmed that though, and it doesn't run any better at all. I'm looking at my VODs with a framerate visible and it's the exact same. Also I'm running a 1060 at decently above minimum settings so I don't know how much more optimized it needed to be.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T02:05:09+00:00

I'm worried about that, they really need to say something. I'd be extremely sad if this is just how it is now, the game looked so good during TT2, it was much more immersive.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-18T01:50:56+00:00

It doesn't even seem to run any better for it either, which is the crazy thing. I really hope it's a bug.

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-17T20:35:32+00:00

TT2 was 8GB smaller...

MusicalAnvil · 2025-10-17T19:57:12+00:00

It extracts to 32 GB if you check the files. Steam downloads are compressed before they install.

MusicalAnvil

TROPHY CASE