Software Update: World of Tanks Update 1.0

World of Tanks comes from wargaming, the creator of World of Warships, World of Warplanes, Master of Orion, and Total War: Arena. World of Tanks is a free-to-play, online game in which players battle each other in teams with tanks from roughly the 1930s and 1960s. The game is free to play, but uses microtransactions to, for example, improve crews for to be able to purchase the tanks or vehicles. More information about this game can be found on our own forum. Update 1.0 has been released with the following announcement:

Update 1.0 Is Here

After years of internal work, over a month of public testing—and then even more internal iteration—the biggest update in the history of World of Tanks is nearly upon us! It elevates the game to 2018 standards in graphics and sound with the switch to a completely new graphics engine, Core, and introduces a new authentic soundtrack. The result? The world has been totally reskinned. It has all the bones of the original but a radically different face: crisper graphics, more detailed textures, higher-resolution images, and tunes that are timed and matched perfectly with what’s happening in the game. Better still, we worked a lot on performance optimization, reducing the overall memory footprint of graphics so that everyone can enjoy new visuals.

The sheer number of improvements and the level of effort that went into making Update 1.0 is comparable to the release of a completely new game. And today, we’re bringing you a deeper look into what you can expect to find when you launch the game tomorrow.

New Graphics Engine

The most significant part of Update 1.0 is the overhaul of the underlying client tech. World of Tanks was visibly constrained by the BigWorld engine that simply couldn’t keep up with advancements in graphics technology. So we replaced it with a new Core engine.

Developed by our in-house team, this solution is tailored to the game’s needs and provides a baseline mechanism for advancing the game’s visuals. Core uses the latest technology for graphical content processing and rendering, enabling photorealistic graphics, complete with highly requested Havok® Destruction Technology, Global Illumination, responsive water, volumetric terrain, and other effects. Effectively, it’s the backbone of the game’s modern looks and has enough capacity to let us advance graphics in tandem with technology, ensuring World of Tanks remains fresh and sleek further down the road.

What does this mean for the player? New technologies and effects add harmony, realism and diversity to the picture. They boost your immersion, injecting each map with a myriad of small details, regardless of the client type you use (HD or SD). From the simple moments, like watching seasons change as you switch from a summer to a winter locale or embracing how sunlight plays across lush foliage, to the full-on visual assault of crushing environments when you’re rolling over them.

Performance Optimization

With this healthy increase in detail and effects, you’re probably wondering what kind of framerates your system will be able to produce. Worry not, we put in extra hours of work to optimize code for graphics and performance, tweaking graphics sub-systems and using streaming technology to reduce the graphics footprint on your rigs.

• Virtual Texturing – The Core engine uses Virtual Texturing for memory optimization. In basic terms, we pre-calculate all the heavy blending needed to produce a realistic surface, save it as a Virtual Texture, load it in advance and only show it if necessary. Also, we no longer need material blending in the tessellation stage. So we use tessellation without a significant performance drop.
• Screen Space Reflections – We combine Screen Space Reflections with Parallax corrected reflection probes that store pre-computed reflection data. This new approach adds fidelity to the water as we now reflect exactly what we see instead of previously simplified reflections.
• Adaptive Shadows – Most of the shadows are calculated when first loading the map and re-calculated only when the level changes. That gives a great boost in performance and enables correctly illuminated objects even on low-end hardware.
• UI Optimization – 3D scenery covered by the opaque UI elements (the minimap and damage panel) is no longer rendered, which saves on GPU performance.
• Revised Tank Track Calculation – Now track movement is calculated per each track segment (~100 calculations per average tank tread). While increasing performance, this optimization does not affect visual quality. It reduces the GPU load, whilst the tracks display natural and realistic movement.
• Advanced Tree Model System – Trees are baked into billboards with all the information including depth and lighting data. Thanks to it, we can switch trees to billboards much closer to the viewer (and you won’t notice a slightest difference!).
• Level of Detail – Level of Detail (LOD) adjustment occurs as smoothly as possible over a short period of time so there’re no jarring transitions between different LODs. This seamless transition doesn’t require additional resources.
• Particle Multi-Resolution Rendering – Now, high-resolution effects are only displayed along the edges, and the interior is rendered in lower resolution. This switch is practically unnoticeable but saves a lot of performance in critical moments.

Refreshed Maps

Once we had the technology to implement our ambitious ideas, we went on to recreate much of the content from the ground up. Terrain textures, the water rendering system, skyboxes, a lighting system, shadows—we took 29 maps and went over every single element, refining and redesigning them to add greater depth, beauty and realism to battlefields.

The team fussed over the smallest details to make every location shine and provide an enjoyable experience. In addition to purely visual improvements, we revisited certain maps with extra scrutiny, fixing imbalances you brought to us over the years.

• Fisherman’s Bay: It now has a more balanced frontline and offers both teams equal chances at pushing key directions.
• Erlenberg: The middle area received a solid makeover: it’s much easier to read now, with visible lowland, denser forests, and fewer environments that have little tactical value.
• Steppes: Newly added hills and cover spots in the lowland area should make the right flank more playable for both teams.
• Ruinberg: In addition to visual enhancements, we tried to fix imbalances that made the battle easier for the team that starts off in the northern section of the map.
• Fjords: Tweaks to the terrain across the map make it possible to choose various angles of attack. These routes are viable for all classes, allowing them to move more freely.

New Map Glacier

This post-apocalyptic wasteland of Glacier with its blend of beautiful snow and ice has been in development for quite a while now. Initially, its release had been timed around the addition of Swedish tanks. However, the team agreed that BigWorld didn’t have the capacity to show the wintry landscapes in all their glory. Now that Core’s up and running, we can finally present this deserted and serene locale hot with hot springs, geysers, and elevated ridges.

Class-by-class strategy:

• If playing a heavy tank, consider the north-west with destroyed ships and a large aircraft carrier stuck in the river of ice. It offers decent protection from arty shells and ample space for maneuvering.
• Mobile light tanks will feel at home in the central area, where they can leverage multiple open spaces and use their view range to uncover enemy positions and hunt down enemy LTs.
• Support vehicles can thrive in spawning areas to the south-west and north-east. Use concealed positions and the good viewpoints they offer to wear down enemies and support a push.
• The northern area close to the aircraft carrier and the south-east part of the map are best suited for medium tanks. Secure the spot near the aircraft carrier to help friendly heavies break through or support your team in the center.

New Music Score

If dramatic graphical enhancement alone weren’t enough, Update 1.0 gives each map a signature sound with new soundtrack: over 60 unique pieces composed by Andrius Klimka and Andrey Kulik. Original loading screen tunes, rich in local musical aesthetics, reflect the atmosphere and mood of the map, amplifying your immersion in battle. Dynamic battle themes evolve and change as two teams fight for control, while closing themes for the battle results screen reflect the battle outcome.

New ambient sounds are there to further boost your immersion, creating a feeling that there’s a living, breathing world around you, disturbed by the sounds of conflict. Each shell type has its distinctive sound. Gunshots and explosions don’t sound the same in a forest, village, or urban area. Just like in real life, what you hear depends on where you are, where fire is coming from and which obstacles it encounters along the way.

What About Graphics Settings?

Graphic configurations get reset with the switch to the new engine, and we’ll help you hit that sweet spot between visuals and performance. Here are a few simple tips to help you with settings.

Run auto-detect test: There’s no need to customize the client manually by disabling some settings to improve performance. The auto-tuning system, updated ahead of the 1.0 launch, will do it for you, finding the right balance of performance and appearance for your rig. Run the test to get the preset option that best suits your PC or laptop.

Use advanced settings (if you’d really like to): Choose the preset option offered by auto-detect and work from there to adjust the game’s visuals manually in Advanced Graphics Settings: pick Standard or Improved graphics render and tailor the settings to your needs .

Some graphics settings are more important than others. Reducing the right settings may get you to comfortable FPS without severely reducing the image quality. You should start with special effects—antialiasing, texture and object quality, draw distance, lighting and post-processing. These are taxing, and toning them down can help you boost frame rate.

Looking Ahead

This is by no means everything that’s been done so far. With this foundational refresh complete, the team will continue with other big improvements including general bug fixing, enriching the roster with new maps, national lines, modes, and more. We are keenly focused on what’s in front of us—an exciting, brand-new opportunity to deliver the ultimate experience for World of Tanks fans past, present and future.

For now, check back with Info Hub for a deeper look at each feature jammed into Update 1.0 and hit the battlefield to see the remastered game with your own eyes!

List of Changes in the Current Update