Reflective Shader Issues [solved]

[Jet v4.3.5]

Hello there. I started playing with TDM yesterday evening and after viewing the tutorial mission and playing through Tears of Lucia, I've got to say I'm rather impressed. I won't go into any sort of glowing praise for the game here (though you guys do deserve it), but I did want to point out that I've experienced an issue on my setup in regards to the way torches, water, and other reflective surfaces (such as health potion vials) appear in the game. I'm assuming the issue is mostly on my end, but regardless here's what I'm seeing with torches while playing:

 

 

 

With water:

 

 

All of this appears to be some re-rendering of the player's view on top of the particles or surfaces involved, but they're being displayed incorrectly on my setup (thought thankfully this is the only bug I've encountered so far). If this is an effect that could have a configuration setting tied to it to toggle it on and off, that would be fine for me and anybody else who may be having this problem. Otherwise, hopefully this feedback is somewhat helpful, even if it is an uncommon bug. I've enjoyed the game tremendously so far, and I hope that making it standalone at its current state draws a lot of attention. Goodness knows the hardcore stealth genre could use a bit more attention.

 

My computer stats are:

 

-Macbook Pro

-Nvidia GeForce GT 650M

-16 GB RAM

-500 GB SSD

 

I'm running TDM through a Parallel's Windows 7 virtual machine that routes jobs to the graphics processor quite quickly from what I can tell, so performance isn't much of an issue here in light of the goofy configuration.

[Springheel]

Huh, never seen that before. Looks like it's the heat-shimmer stage that's gone strange in that first shot. It's odd, because it shouldn't have any reflective properties at all.

[Serpentine]

Yeah never seen something like this in a normal situation (you sometimes see something like it when you're looking through water at a torch). My guess would be your Parallels is doing something out of order with the drawing, quite possible its an optimization which usually works correctly.

 

Edit: could you get a console dump for me? More for interests sake, but maybe there's something telling in there

[Jet v4.3.5]

This is what I got in the console dump after loading up a save file from the very beginning of Tears of Lucia, FYI. Hope it's helpful.

 

http://pastebin.com/7mXeqdVT

[Obsttorte]

Both water and the torch fire usesthe heatHazeWithMask.vfp vertex programm to create the desired effect. As you are using a mac, there is maybe something with your current graphics driver that is causing the graphics card to render this wrong. (?)

[Serpentine]

Both water and the torch fire usesthe heatHazeWithMask.vfp vertex programm to create the desired effect. As you are using a mac, there is maybe something with your current graphics driver that is causing the graphics card to render this wrong. (?)

 

That was my thought, taking a look at the dump it looks like it is also missing a vertex shader extension. Not that I know a lot on the topic. I think it's just the guest gfx driver maybe not supporting it, not the host.

[Obsttorte]

I think it's just the guest gfx driver maybe not supporting it, not the host.

I don't understand that.

[Serpentine]

I don't understand that.

Parallels

 

He's essentially running a Windows VM, the VM contains a virtualized 'gpu', to accelerate the 3D stuff this is usually in the form of a dumb driver and an interposer which adapts some of the calls to then pass on to the actual hardware GPU. i.e it translates Windows-esque graphics calls to something that the OSX side graphics driver can deal with. Some of the stuff will require emulation, other things will just be ignored/unavailable.

[Bikerdude]

The simple solution to this is for the OP to install Bootcamp and stop giving himself/herself avoidable aggro by mucking about via parallel's.

[Jet v4.3.5]

The simple solution to this is for the OP to install Bootcamp and stop giving himself/herself avoidable aggro by mucking about via parallel's.

 

In short, you were completely correct. Parallels came free from the retailer that sold me my Macbook, so not using it as a primary way to use Windows is no real problem (I only wish it started up about as quickly as Mac OSX). TDM seems to be running fine now, and the heatHazeWithMask.vfp issue is resolved. While it was a tad bit time-consuming to get Windows set up again, it seems to be the most ideal option. Thank you for the help.

[Serpentine]

Good to hear it turned out ok.

 

I would be interested in a console dump of it under Bootcamp. So if you have a moment, please

 

(I am growing a collection to help spot problems, I really should have a little service online that TDM could post them to directly with some command)

 

Edit : now with added spelling

[Jet v4.3.5]

Sure thing: http://pastebin.com/BfrjJJKb

 

Glad to help out in any way I can.

[LordSavage]

Same here. In Parallels 8 the shaders are reflective and in Bootcamp the game crashes after 10-15 minutes or so.

 

Mac mini 2012