Sudden Drop in Image Quality and Generation Time in Sora

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The image shows a digital gallery featuring four close-up portraits of a male fantasy warrior in mecha anime style, each with glowing armor details. (Captioned by AI)
The image shows a digital gallery featuring four close-up portraits of a male fantasy warrior in mecha anime style, each with glowing armor details. (Captioned by AI)1920×1341 225 KB

Hi,
Today in the second half of the day, I was generating a lot of images in Sora and noticed something strange. At some point, the generation process suddenly became 3–4 times faster than usual. Typically, generating two images takes about 1.5 to 2 minutes, but now they started completing in just 20–40 seconds.

The problem is that the quality of these faster-generated images is significantly worse than what I usually get. This concerns me because there was no announcement from the developers about any changes, and I absolutely do not want lower-quality images. I would rather wait longer if it means getting higher-quality results.

To illustrate the issue, I’ve uploaded a screenshot. All four images were generated using the exact same prompt. The top two images were generated at the usual pace, and the bottom two were generated much faster. The difference in quality is immediately obvious.

I understand that servers may be under heavy load, but introducing such a method without notice feels disrespectful to users. I deeply respect OpenAI for providing the ability to generate high-quality images for just $20 a month—that’s amazing. But I would really prefer not to encounter these kinds of unpleasant surprises.

Is this behavior intentional or a bug? I’d appreciate any clarification.

Thanks!

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Might be related?

Are you still seeing lower quality and faster times?

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Yes, but not always—only when I’m giving prompts that aren’t very complex. Still, even when I provide simple prompts, I want to get the best result, not something low-quality.

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I have noticed that generation time is massively tied to prompt complexity, that’s nothing new.

Addendum - I don’t think that’s a lower quality thing. In the API, if you lose the quality, you don’t just get a little worse, it’s utter trash. The model can’t generate “slightly lower quality”. Medium is awful. Low is like .. blobs.

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just look closely at the screenshot I uploaded and you will understand that you are completely wrong

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I signed up for Plus and happily generated dozens of very high-quality images, and then suddenly since last night all of my images are coming out potato-quality.

No idea why this happened or when or how I can get high-quality images back. ChatGPT cannot offer any insight. Be nice if there was a way to get some answers.