Video driver problems on ATI cards

[mikey]

Hi guys, just received Universal Combat and I am just having a couple of difficulties with it at the moment relating to changing graphics settings and some graphics issues.

Graphics Problem: The terrain is not being rendered correctly. Trees are rendered okay (albeit at a very short draw distance), but the grass is only one shade of colour which actually blocks your view. I've read the trouble shooting document, and tried disabling both flocks, trees and grass.. which leads me onto my other problem...

Changing Graphics Settings: I go into config disable the options, save and then completely exit out of the game. I then reload, but the flocks, trees and grass are still there. The weird thing is the config screen shows them disabled.

I've tried restarting but that didn't work either.

Can please someone help me, thanks.

[ 06-10-2004, 07:16 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

The graphics has nothing to do with the game. Check your manufacturer's drivers.

As for those settings you mentioned, they cannot be disabled/enabled in this version. Wait for the upcoming patch.

[mikey]

Thanks SC for your quick response, I've just tried UC on my laptop which also has a ATI Radeon card, but different drivers... the trees and grass is rendered fine. I'll have a play with different driver versions.

[mikey]

Right.. I've been playing around for a while and I've fixed the problem. I thought I'd tell you because other people may also have the same problem with the ATI Radeon 9600 PRO or the ATI Radeon series in general. This is what I did to fix it:

* Install the ATI Catalyst 3.6

* Using Rage3DTweak, set 'Support 32bit Z-buffer' to 'Disabled'.

And that fixed the problem

I also reckon although I haven't tried this, that you don't even need to revert back to older drivers for the fix to work.

Regards

mikey

[Supreme Cmdr]

Are you sure that its not the 3.6 drivers that fixed the problem and that you didn't need to mess with the z-buffer? Please re-enable that and get back to me asap.

[ 02-09-2004, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[mikey]

Sorry for the late reply, too busy playing UC

Before I tried disabling the 32 bit z-buffer, the game had the same problems with the 3.6 Catalysts as I did with the previous drivers. However, I have just re-enabled the setting 'Support 32bit Z-buffer' and the graphics problem is not occuring. So it looks like the 3.6 Catalysts are the solution, not disabling the '32 bit Z-buffer'.

I'll keep playing around with the setting and see if I can recreate the problem.

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToxicFrog:

First of all, the preliminaries: I've checked both UC fora, the VCF, the FAQ, and ATI's website, and found nothing pertaining to this. I also updated my graphics drivers (again), but no dice. Turning off detail meshes fixes this, of course, but then I don't have them at all.

When I first made planetfall, I noticed that the ground detail meshes just abruptly ended, rather than extending to the view distance or fading out. At first I thought this was by design, but then I found the

Postcards Thread

, and it looks like they're smoothly blended there.

Contrast with

bridge

,

high left

,

ground level

,

near

, and

far

.

It looks fine on foot, and produces a nifty wobbling effect if I pan around the CC and the ground under it shifts, but based on the other screenshots I don't think it's meant to do this.

Fiddling with ground detail textures, bitdepth, and suchlike appears to have no effect, and nor does switching between fullscreen and windowed mode.

Has anyone else seen this effect, or knows how to fix it?

---

Those postcard shots should be a strong indication that the problem is with your video card and drivers. Nothing can be done about it.

Find the best video card + driver that works for you.

And there is already a thread for this; so yours has been deleted.

EDIT: I just came back from Centris (in fact, thats where parts of the tutorial take place) and my graphics from a 32bit desktop, no pissing around in the options screen, and using Catalyst 4.4 drivers on my 9800 Pro, look way better than yours. So, you had better start by deleting the options UCCONFIG.INI file so that the game creates a default one, set your desktop to 32bit etc etc if you want improved visuals - based on whatever driver works for you.

[ 06-10-2004, 08:10 PM: Message edited by: Supreme Cmdr ]

[ToxicFrog]

I followed your instructions - although I'm using an R9200, so there's likely to be at least some difference considering how much more powerful your card is, and cata-4.6 rather than cata-4.4. Desktop is 1280x1024x32, by the way.

Apart from the fact that it's now running 800x600, it looks identical. I'll try installing cata-4.4 next, in case they broke something in 4.5. It's good to know, at least, that it's a driver issue and not a game one; I've got a decent chance of finding one that works.

[EDIT]

Playing with it a bit more...it seems that my ships are sometimes on a slope when they land, hovering in the air, and the camera behaves as though the ground level changes, even when detail mesh is off. Is there a hill mesh there that it's landing on (even with detail meshes off), that the video card isn't rendering? I assumed that the ground was flat if detailed meshes were disabled...

[EDIT]

4.4 didn't fix the terrain, and introduced a few new graphical issues. That makes it either a video card problem, or some other aspect of my system. Back on the 4.6 side of things, I've uncovered a few more peculiar graphical glitches that seem to be futzing with the ship's altitude, too.

[ 06-11-2004, 01:00 AM: Message edited by: ToxicFrog ]

[Supreme Cmdr]

I have no clue what you're talking about. The altitude is calculated from the tallest peak on the terrain. Obviously, if one part of your ship is lower than the other and it is resting on a peak that is higher, it will wobble (or similar) beause the terrain is not flat. C'mon, isn't that obvious?

And the terrain elevation has nothing to do with drivers and the fact that those pics looks *horrible* on your system. From what I can tell, that is not running at 32bit rendering. Either that, or you screwed up with the TGA file conversion.

[ToxicFrog]

Both the desktop and the game are running in 32bit, and the JPGs look identical to the original TGAs.

What I meant about the altitude is that all three of those images were taken with the ship in exactly the same place, only the camera angle changed, but the altitude is variously reported as 896333 MSL (with the ship floating in a white void), 0 AGL (with the ship appearing to be in midair), and 3611 MSL (with the ship appearing to be resting on the ground).

What I meant about the wobbling is that the ship's position only seems to be modified by the detail mesh when the mesh is rendered - so if I zoom out, the ship lies flat, but if I zoom in so that the detail mesh appears, the ship suddenly jumps up and reorients to be lying on the now-sloped terrain. As I pan the camera around the ship and the mesh vanishes and reappears to follow the camera, the ship gets tossed around as the ground shape changes underneath it.

I can't see any visible change between 32-bit and 16-bit rendering; perhaps it won't/can't enter 32-bit mode on my system regardless of what it's set up to try?

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by ToxicFrog:

What I meant about the wobbling is that the ship's position only seems to be modified by the detail mesh when the mesh is rendered - so if I zoom out, the ship lies flat, but if I zoom in so that the detail mesh appears, the ship suddenly jumps up and reorients to be lying on the now-sloped terrain. As I pan the camera around the ship and the mesh vanishes and reappears to follow the camera, the ship gets tossed around as the ground shape changes underneath it.

---

Did you read the VCF, in the part where it talks about what the F10 camera does, how it works and why you shouldn't rely on it nor play the game from it? The F10 camera - like all cameras - has to re-init the region/area it is looking at. And that means updating the mesh at that location. Thats how cameras work. And the detail mesh is just that, a detail mesh on top of the normal mesh and only used for visual quality at certain camera altitudes.

What this has to do with the fact that your shots of Centris looking nothing like mine, is lost to me.

At any rate, I can't help you with video card or driver issues. You're on your own.

[ToxicFrog]

I apologize; I thought the F10 camera issues applied only to objects on another map, not your current location as well.

In any case, if I find a solution I'll edit it in here in case someone else is having the same issues; until then, I'll cease cluttering this thread.

[Supreme Cmdr]

If you are flying around in the front view and you don't notice the map regen anomaly; then you notice it in the F10 camera view, what does that tell you? The regen takes more time and is more anomalous at long distances.

[reanor]

There is a problem with planet ground detail mesh. That freezing effect I described in other posts is caused by turning on ground detail mesh. As soon as it's off there is no freezing effect. But if mesh is off you can't see ground under you if you look from aside. It's like you standing in the air (if on a small hill for example). But performance increases dramatically on the surface in the middle of the base for example. No freezing effects if mesh turned off.. but no normal ground under your feet either...

[Supreme Cmdr]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Meras:

There is a problem with planet ground detail mesh.

---

There's nothing wrong with it. Its just a finer resolution mesh and a higher res texture. If you take a performance hit, turn it off. And please stop trolling my threads.