I love this game, but it's overreliance on UE's TAA is making this game's graphics worse than Banished or other strategy games that are 10+ years old.

[DarkDvr]

1440p max graphics, running on 7800X3D & 4080S.
I understand that UE engine is a screenshot simulator and games on it look like XBOX 360-era console trash, but you gotta implement a decent SMAA solution with proper pixel precision. The TAA/DLSS is NOT a solution, especially for strategy games with small moving objects (like peasants, cows, etc). Why even have all these good-looking assets if it all looks like a bowl of soup?

And yeah, disabling DLAA/TAA makes it SO much worse, because UE, being the absolute ♥♥♥♥ engine that it is, cannot create proper pixel precision, and is only good for cartoon games like fortnite.

Proof:
https://imgur.com/a/IXucCt4

Comparison, Banished (released in 2014 - 11 years ago):
https://imgur.com/a/JjO7Idv

Northguard, also a small-dev team title, released 2018:
https://imgur.com/a/e7FzRSi

Farthest Frontier (EA as of Jan 2025, Unity engine):
https://imgur.com/a/EFnYu9r

(btw, FF is currently running like butter and has fixed performance and stutter issues).

EU is trash, and can only be used for cartoon games and making screenshots. Should not be used for strategy games in particular.

Once again, Manor Lords as a game is really good. Its UE engine though, is an absolute garbage that nullifies developer's efforts to make a beautiful realistic game.

Trully games graphics have peaked around year 2010. It's all downhill from here.

[Jabberwocky]

This game's graphics worse than Banished?

You need to see an eye doctor.

[Clovis Sangrail]

My daddy used to always say, 'Son, if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's that you gotta implement a decent SMAA solution with proper pixel precision,' and I have always tried to live by those words in honor of him.

[jhughes]

I get it, just like there are Wine & Cheese Snobs and Craft Beer Snobs there are Video Game Snobs. They want 240 FPS at 1440P and perfect anti-aliasing. Most of the time they demand this without fake (generated) frames and no upscaling.

The thing is, this game looks beautiful. I personally play in KDE Plasma on Linux with HDR10 at 4K and I am using gamemode and even FSR 3.1 Ultra quality. This means I get a locked 60 FPS which matches my 60 HZ, 4K, 55" display. The game looks wonderful. I have a 6800XT Video Card and 5800X3D CPU.

I really couldn't ask for better graphics.

[Jabberwocky]

I'm playing on a 3070 with locked fps at 60, vertical sync and DLSS antialiasing at 1920x1080p. I'm pretty satisfied with the look and feel of the game.

[allan]

its is a lovely game to play but a bit short of things to do at the moment ..but look forward to the game growing. overcame the food shortage problem by having all the houses grow carrots on day one.would be nice to have a stone wall around the town where you can have troops defending ( like in banner lords ) and a sort of RING THE BELL to get all outlaying people to get into the town behind the walls ..but to be honest i am looking forward to the upgrades once the devs are up and running ..

[DarkDvr]

OP updated for comparison with old indie strategy games of 8-11 years ago that did not use UE. If you can't see it - you're hopeless and it's better for you if you remain oblivious.

[Lone Wolf]

I played Banished and Manor Lords and in no way looks Banished better than Manor Lords. Eben with Mods. The textures, the lighting, the animations... all superior in Manor Lords.

[DarkDvr]

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

I played Banished and Manor Lords and in no way looks Banished better than Manor Lords. Eben with Mods. The textures, the lighting, the animations... all superior in Manor Lords.

You don't get it. You're mistaking overall game looks with a technical approach to antialiasing and reliance on UE's TAA. Specifically, look at the things I've highlighted with red boxes and/or watch some youtube movies to udnerstand what the topic is about. Has nothing to do with assets/polygon count/etc.

If you own Farthest Frontier, check out the graphics in that game. Zoom out a bit and compare small objects like villagers in FF (Unity engine) with ML (Unreal engine). Unity has a ton of issues, but you cannot deny just how crisp everything looks in FF in comparison to ML's blurry mess of TAA.

And no, I'm not saying FF is better, it is not. It's just a comparison of a village builder in 2 different engines and how insanely different the gfx fidelity is. Cause it's using proper SMAA.

[Lone Wolf]

Originally posted by DarkDvr:

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

I played Banished and Manor Lords and in no way looks Banished better than Manor Lords. Eben with Mods. The textures, the lighting, the animations... all superior in Manor Lords.

You don't get it. You're mistaking overall game looks with a technical approach to antialiasing and reliance on UE's TAA. Specifically, look at the things I've highlighted with red boxes and/or watch some youtube movies to udnerstand what the topic is about. Has nothing to do with assets/polygon count/etc.

If you own Farthest Frontier, check out the graphics in that game. Zoom out a bit and compare small objects like villagers in FF (Unity engine) with ML (Unreal engine). Unity has a ton of issues, but you cannot deny just how crisp everything looks in FF in comparison to ML's blurry mess of TAA.

And no, I'm not saying FF is better, it is not. It's just a comparison of a village builder in 2 different engines and how insanely different the gfx fidelity is. Cause it's using proper SMAA.

Every engine has it's pros and cons. And every engine looks different. But none of the mentioned games look old or bad. And Manor Lords looks not worse than Banished in my opinion.
Farthest Frontier looks great, I played it, but it runs horrible. Yes, it looks more "crispy", but what does it help if it runs bad?
Manor Lords on the other hand looks very good but more importantly, runs smooth as hell.

[DarkDvr]

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

Originally posted by DarkDvr:

You don't get it. You're mistaking overall game looks with a technical approach to antialiasing and reliance on UE's TAA. Specifically, look at the things I've highlighted with red boxes and/or watch some youtube movies to udnerstand what the topic is about. Has nothing to do with assets/polygon count/etc.

If you own Farthest Frontier, check out the graphics in that game. Zoom out a bit and compare small objects like villagers in FF (Unity engine) with ML (Unreal engine). Unity has a ton of issues, but you cannot deny just how crisp everything looks in FF in comparison to ML's blurry mess of TAA.

And no, I'm not saying FF is better, it is not. It's just a comparison of a village builder in 2 different engines and how insanely different the gfx fidelity is. Cause it's using proper SMAA.

Every engine has it's pros and cons. And every engine looks different. But none of the mentioned games look old or bad. And Manor Lords looks not worse than Banished in my opinion.
Farthest Frontier looks great, I played it, but it runs horrible. Yes, it looks more "crispy", but what does it help if it runs bad?
Manor Lords on the other hand looks very good but more importantly, runs smooth as hell.

FF ran poorly with stutters earlier in early access, yes. Now it runs butter smooth, and it's crispy, I can see what the villager is carrying from max zoom out. I can see the herbs, grass leaves. It's beautiful and it runs very well, no stutters now.
That's why I'm complaining - coming back to ML it was a shock, beautiful assets destroyed by TAA.
Honestly I doubt there's much can be done by the dev. Following the discussions on UE it seems going with SMAA on it disables pretty much every other post processing effect, and is not a valid solution. I mean if you're a console gamer, you won't even understand what the fuss is all about, you'd be used to an upscaled 30fps mess.

Guess my point is mute anyways, obviously nobody's gonna switch engines at this point. And there is no solution to UE's TAA.

Damn shame.

[Ravelli]

Originally posted by Lone Wolf:

Originally posted by DarkDvr:

runs smooth as hell.

This