EQ Classic Enhanced - AI Upscaled Zone Textures
 

Available now is a set of AI upscaled zone textures for all zones used on Green/Teal. This project is different because it uses the original classic textures (not the newer high-res texture pack). Visit the wiki page for more information, comparison screenshots, and a download link.
https://wiki.project1999.com/EQ_Classic_Enhanced

Let me know if you notice any texture issues and I’ll fix them for the next release. Issues could be textures that are missing transparency, textures that look bad, or possibly high-trafficked areas where you think the textures could look better. There are a few things I can do to further improve textures while still keeping them looking classic.

Here’s how I ended up working on this. Recently I was looking for a fix for the texture aliasing issues with the classic textures and realized it’s because current Nvidia drivers don’t allow you to force generation of mipmaps (as far as I know) and the classic EQ textures don’t include mipmaps. I was inspired by Psycher’s post on upscaling EQ textures and starting researching a process for improving the classic textures (as opposed to the high-res texture pack). One thing led to another and I figured I’d complete all the zone files and share them with the community. Thanks to Psycher for his inspiration, thanks to the author of EQ-Zip for making a great tool, and thanks to everyone that runs/maintains/supports P99 who contribute to making it the success that it is.

But i really like what you did and ill be using it :)

Thanks for the feedback! I'll post an update for Sol b when I get a chance. I guess I need to find a way to test higher level zones that I can't wander around in on the regular servers.

There's a version 1.01 update posted to the wiki that contains a major update to Sol B. For anyone who has version 1, there's a small update file that can be downloaded and installed over top instead of needing to download the whole thing again.

I ended up running a private server so that I can fly around the level and check out how it looks while invulnerable.

awesome. I've been using the Luclin updated world textures which very much resemble these screenshots. How would these improve the graphics? sorry i'm not very computer savy.

thanks for your work.

When you say "updated world textures" I'm guessing you're referring to what most people are calling the high-res texture pack. If the S3D files in your EQ folder are mostly dated 2005-10-17 then you're using the original textures that came with Titanium, otherwise they're probably from the high-res texture pack. The textures in the high-res texture pack are a mix of original and new, which completely changes how many zones look.

This project is aimed at people who prefer the classic look with the original textures but also want to improve the overall image quality through both AI upscaled textures and the benefits of mipmapping.

Whether these improve your graphics or not depends on what textures you're currently using and whether you value the look of the original textures. You can always make a copy of your EQ folder, try them out, and easily switch back by restoring the S3D files.

Hope this answers your question!

@Jasonz This is very awesome thank you for working on this!
AI Upscaling the textures is a really great idea.

I like these textures over other 'enhanced' texture projects because these keep the original feel of the game. Realistic and not cartoony.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on potentially doing the same for armour/weapons in the future.

ps. https://wiki.project1999.com/Talk:EQ_Classic_Enhanced
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@everyone give these textures a shot, they look great! Don't confuse them for the other 'enhanced' texture projects.

Could anyone who tried this post some screenies please?

Thanks for your feedback, Baler!

EQ Classic HD are working on updated character, armour, and weapon textures. As far as I can tell their textures are classic and look good. It's the only other texture mod that I use, but I really wish the textures all had mipmaps as the aliasing is very noticeable. In the future, I may consider a release of the global texture files that are AI upscaled and include mipmapping.

I've never tried ESRGAN, but that's a great question. I'm curious as to the quality of the texture upscaling and the performance of the upscaling.

There's another forum thread where they're upscaling the high-res texture pack. I don't use the high-res texture pack, so I'm unlikely to get involved in this.