1.0 Problem: Weird visual artifacting in training map

[TelMarine]

Hey guys, congratulations on 1.0, looks great. There does not appear to be a bug/tech support forum so I'll post this here. So i'm messing around in the training map and noticed strange white visual artifacting in several rooms, the most obvious being outside where the archery training is:

 

http://img508.images.../artifact1.jpg/

http://img30.imagesh.../artifact2.jpg/

 

(a couple examples)

 

My guess is something is being used which is unsupported by my video card (6800GT). It is not an overheating problem and the video card has not been damaged by overheating since no other game has this problem, including previous Dark Mod releases. Oh and console shows no errors as far as I can see.

Edited October 17, 2009 by TelMarine

[Springheel]

Huh, never seen that before. Does it happen in lots of places or only those ones?

[Tels]

How much memory does your card have? Also could you please post the contents of your DoomConfig.cfg file?

[TelMarine]

How much memory does your card have? Also could you please post the contents of your DoomConfig.cfg file?

 

256MB.

 

Also, damn. It actually might be the video card. I reloaded the game, went into the archery room and BAM! Completely screwed up with lovely giant blue bars. Restarted the computer, had a ton of visual artifacts on the POST. Luckily, I left it off for about 10 minutes and it went back to normal, so now I'm gonna test other 3D games to make sure. The card idles at 57-58C and goes to about 60 during load, so it shouldn't be crapping out like this. Dark Mod is too uber for my video card

 

 

Spring: it happened in only a few areas, same places, the archery room was completely screwed as seen above.

Edited October 17, 2009 by TelMarine

[TelMarine]

256MB.

 

Also, damn. It actually might be the video card. I reloaded the game, went into the archery room and BAM! Completely screwed up with lovely giant blue bars. Restarted the computer, had a ton of visual artifacts on the POST. Luckily, I left it off for about 10 minutes and it went back to normal, so now I'm gonna test other 3D games to make sure. The card idles at 57-58C and goes to about 60 during load, so it shouldn't be crapping out like this. Dark Mod is too uber for my video card

 

 

Spring: it happened in only a few areas, same places, the archery room was completely screwed as seen above.

 

other games seem fine, I loaded up a particularly resource heavy doom3 map (Serengrove), no artifacts. I also loaded up Thief's Den (real old build, I know), no artifacts, I even noclipped so I had the entire map being rendered.

[TelMarine]

other games seem fine, I loaded up a particularly resource heavy doom3 map (Serengrove), no artifacts. I also loaded up Thief's Den (real old build, I know), no artifacts, I even noclipped so I had the entire map being rendered.

 

ok I changed the graphics to Standard and all artifacts vanished, game runs a lot better too. So I'm assuming my initial guess was right. On High Quality, there is something that is being used that isn't supported or just too intense for my card to handle.

 

Clarification: Interaction Shader and Ambient Rendering are on Standard.

Edited October 17, 2009 by TelMarine

[Tels]

ok I changed the graphics to Standard and all artifacts vanished, game runs a lot better too. So I'm assuming my initial guess was right. On High Quality, there is something that is being used that isn't supported or just too intense for my card to handle.

 

Clarification: Interaction Shader and Ambient Rendering are on Standard.

 

"Ambient Rendering" on Standard is actually the "higher quality" version, the other is "low". However, it looks a lot better, so if it works, use it!

 

The interaction shader on high causing problems, that smells like your card is either borderline corrupt, or indeed getting a tad to high temp. Many cards are sold with half their shaders disabled (as a "low cost version") because with the small structures things get easily corrupted in production process. However, just because you get a card with all shaders enabled doesn't mean they actually all work 100% because the silicon can also detoriate due to the temp during running, aging, etc. Guess you are just unlucky with you card

[demagogue]

On High Quality, there is something that is being used that isn't supported or just too intense for my card to handle.

 

Someone might add this to the wiki entry on hardware and TDM performance, so it's part of the public record that others with the same card can refer to when they have the same problem.

[SneaksieDave]

FTR, I have a 6800 and have not seen that problem.

[demagogue]

Ok, just played the release version and I get these artifacts, exactly like the screenshots. I have Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce43.

 

It's odd because I've been playing Darkmod since March, AND I even tested the release version all this week (I'm pretty sure after lock-down), and this is the first time I've seen it. I guess maybe my graphics settings got set to HQ (and maybe I didn't notice it in testing the release package since I only tested the FMs, where they are more hidden, and not the Training Mission).

 

I'll test to confirm that changing the graphics settings gets rid of the artifacts.

 

Edit: Confirmed. "Interactive Shading" was set to "High Quality". I changed it to "Standard" and the artifacts were gone. I also confirmed that I had it set to Standard in the SVN version and probably set it to that very early, so that's why I never noticed it before. (I also got "use" re-set to "U" instead of middle-mouse button ... But I suppose I can't change it back until after I stop seeding the torrent.)

 

@SneaksieDave, have you tried playing the Training Mission with Interactive Shading set to HQ? It would be good to confirm we're really talking about the Video Card line here and not something else.

[Crispy]

(I also got "use" re-set to "U" instead of middle-mouse button ... But I suppose I can't change it back until after I stop seeding the torrent.)

If you have the disk space, I recommend duplicating your darkmod directory so you play from one and seed the other.

[Dario D.]

It almost looks like Flashbomb light. Could this be a light issue?

Edited October 18, 2009 by Dario D.

[rebb]

I think it has to do with parallel lights and doing math-based normalization in the shader - we had a similar problem quite a while ago in internal testing on GF5xxx cards, but it didn't pop up again after changing some things - strange.

 

@Telmarine and Sneaksiedave : Which NVidia Drivers are you guys using atm ?

[SneaksieDave]

I don't currently have any of it installed on my old system, but I can confirm not seeing any problem like this (other maps including SL) on a GF6800 with 93.71's (I keep an old driver on there for compatibility reasons).

 

On my newer system, I just rechecked, and have no problem (even with high quality interaction shader) with a GF7600 with driver dated 8/17/09, v. 6.14.11.9062.

[Chiron]

I "discovered" a small glitch in the training map.

When I mantle up this board

 

sometimes I can look outside the map.

 

 

But anyway:

Great work you guys, thank you for your hard work !

[TelMarine]

I think it has to do with parallel lights and doing math-based normalization in the shader - we had a similar problem quite a while ago in internal testing on GF5xxx cards, but it didn't pop up again after changing some things - strange.

 

@Telmarine and Sneaksiedave : Which NVidia Drivers are you guys using atm ?

 

I'm using 178.13. However, ever since the computer freezing on the archery room before I changed the Interaction Shader, it is pretty clear that my video card is borderline dying now. I have to turn off my computer, wait, turn on again a few times for the visual artifacts on the POST to go away.