Have a graphics bug? Post it here please

[dmpdesign]

Going to start a thread to find out what types of issues people are running into running DD or any other SOM made game.

I have limited number of PCs and configurations to test on, so obviously I won't be able to see all the different ways SOM may not work for folks first hand, but screen shots can help us figure out what might be wrong.

So far to my knowledge, no one has expressed an issue with either Trismegistus or Diadem of Maunstraut, but I have heard a few peeps about DD having some issues.

Please post your issue with a screenshot if you can, and I will see if I can make heads or tails of it.  Also please post your hardware configuration for your graphics card etc.

The picture below is a sign that you are either running RGB emulation (you can adjust this through the in-game video driver option) or that you have direct 3D disabled on your computer.

If you do find any additional issues (HolyDiver mentioned a yellowish hue to the sky where it should be gray), please first check all the available drivers in the game's system menu to see if there is any improvement, also check your direct3D settings either via dxdiag or through your graphics card's control panel.  If none of these fixes your problem, post your picture here.

[Holy_Diver]

First off, I sent this image to Todd last night because the forums as usual were unaccessible. I wanted to post it in the thread created by the poster who was having "draw distance" issues, because I thought maybe I should not have dismissed that as just Som's normal draw distance "paradigm".

This screenshot is not from RGB emulation (software device) mode. I run Som in software mode all the time so I can debug Ex against it in window mode. Neither is Direct3D disabled... if it was, DD would've refused any mode other than software.

I've never seen this prob with Dom. As a professional I'm hard pressed to guess what is going on in this screenshot. I wonder if it might be a function of DD's further than usual draw distance. I'd have to know something about the pieces/objects involved to make a definitive ruling, but it is worth observing that this weirdness only happened to certain pieces/objects.



Next up, Todd made it clear to me last night that his custom skies in DD are not working on either my new Vista machine, or my old XP machine. What seems to happen is the first layer of sky is completely opaque and no blending occurs.


I don't know about the "yellowish" fog I described in the waterfall area on the way to Thedeck's stronghold. I'd have to trek over there in the game to confirm that. But I don't recall the custom sky Todd informs me should appear in this area. I want to remind Todd that fog and sky are too different things in the map editor. Also it's very possible a white fog just appears yellow because the caves being "shrouded" by it are basically yellow. I do not recall fog in the central village/woods area. Use of fog in DD appeared to be sparing to me, I figured Todd did not think it fit in general. But he tells me most maps should have fog.



Anyway, yeah I'm disappointed in the sky thing, and am surprised about this weird behavior. The first time I played DD on that computer (while we were debugging Ex) I started from a save game in central corridor area and everything seemed fine. I wonder if that might be a lead of sorts??

[Holy_Diver]

Ah! I just had a theory that probably fits this screenshot. What's probably happening here is texture memory is thrashing, and the partway invisible pieces happen when the next level mipmap is lost in memory. The original textures are kept in memory so the mipmaps can be rebuilt if need be. It's funny it happens in software mode too, but I guess software mode is meant to simulate the hardware more than provide an alternative compatibility mode.

This gives me the idea of adding some mipmapping options to Ex. The first LOD drop off seems to happen too soon / be obvious so it would be worth pushing back probably. I don't know if disabling mipmapping altogether would look better or worse, but I think it would at least make this screenshot solid. You might have some luck manually disabling mipmapping in your advanced display options (the one provided by your graphics hardware drivers/manufacturer)


PS: Ideally you will want to override mipmapping for DD only... usually there is a "profile" framework for individual applications provided. Which reminds me, I wanted to suggest people monkeying with their advanced display settings to see if you can get better results. If anything in particular works well I can build that into Ex.

PPS: Also I'm meaning to properly inform people that I think I've reached the conclusion Device=2 (T&L) is actually the superior setting, even though Som defaults to Device=1. I think you'll get much better performance with 2 and with possibly no loss in terms of visuals (if anything the lighting might be different... possibly even better) ...Som also defaults to 16bpp, so it's not impractical to guess 1 is the middle ground. At the time "TnL" was relatively new technology. I was honestly never sure the two different devices mattered one or the other, but I can definitely tell a difference with DD I think.

[dmpdesign]

The fog for DD is the same setting for every map other than the waterfall area.

It a completely black 'fog' that i set to appear starting at .5 x the viewing distance.  The viewing distance for all maps is between 25meters (the lowest draw is in the west garrison) to 35meters which occurs in outdoors areas.  so that means the black fogginess should be notable at 12.5 meters - 17.5 meters from the player. 

The only difference for the waterfall map is that the fog is a lighter shade of gray to match the background texture.  It still adheres to the .5 draw distance and that particular map is set to a draw distance of 28 meters.

When the sky images are created, there is a tool that From software distributed to create the actual texture.  So i just created the backdrop bitmap and the overlay bitmap (which in the case of the starry sky the 'clouds' layer is not custom I dont think) and used the From software tool to create the .txr file.

You might be able to test the starry sky by deleting the sky04_2.txr file completely from the map/model directory.  The sky04_2.txr is the overlaid 'cloud' texture that should be transparent and let you see the starry sky behind it.  If you delete it, you won't see the moving clouds anymore and should only see the static starry sky texture that would normally be behind it.

Please let me know if you can try that and see the stars or not?  If that doesnt work, then there is something weird going on with transparency and the graphics driver, and I don't know where to begin on debugging that sort of thing.

[Holy_Diver]

In my experience these sorts of things are really not driver related, though back in the day many drivers were not very conformant, so things would look ok, even when they should not. Usually there are backwards compatibility settings available in the advanced display settings. Like "Confromant Texture Clamp = off" could probably fix your grass probs. I bet there is a reason this is not coming out right, and I bet it's the machines it works on that are actually goobered (if any)

When I set the settings to maximum quality the sky is the same.

I'm still betting this is a a file thing. You might try making a backdrop texture to test that is less sparse than a star field. It might be the little stars get blended out of existence or something. Might be the black knockout thing going on.

[Holy_Diver]

The waterfall area does look like your picture. The fog is grey too, though I swear I remember it yellow pollen coloured... I may've been playing in 16bit mode or something.

There is like a band around the waterfall area (that's also in your screenshot) ....I suppose that's the background. I'm still pretty convinced you just didn't make your starry sky texture right... or the cloud cover texture for it rather. You don't have a corresponding alpha bmp for it, which would suggest the alpha channel is not right, which is reflected in it not being transparent. Try making it again. If you IM me I will do tests for you.

Most people probably don't realize they're missing out on the sky. You should post a screenshot of what it should look like.


PS: Looking at your screenshot, those stars are so tiny I think it's easy they could get blended out of existence then knocked out somehow. I will try it again with filtering turned off.

[Holy_Diver]

Yeah, they show up for Texture Mode = "Point filtering" but disappear completely otherwise.

[dmpdesign]

I would like to know if anyone else is seeing/not seeing the stars.

Can I get a yay or nay from some folks please?

The stars are most easily seen on the western shore map.  Note, they do not go up the entire sky, only to about halfway up...so if you are in say, North Village, you wont be able to see them by looking up.

[Holy_Diver]

Yeah I see the black fog. I dunno why it never registered. I don't really expect fog to be black (unless it's smoke) ...darkness/light obviously doesn't really work that way. I guess I expected the woods to have a natural outdoor fog.

Shadow Tower has this play dynamic I think where the player's equipment and maybe the presence of the player their self pushes back the unnatural shadows of the tower. I figured DoM works in a similar way, as its land is overcome by an unnatural darkness. You told me Melanat is cast in an unnatural night by Necron but I'm not sure that's quite the same thing.

[dmpdesign]

The main reason I use pure black is so that the 'fog' mixes into the horizon as just an overall darkness.  I might toy with it a bit and see how it looks as an actual 'fog' in some areas.  I really just use it to blend the draw distance limit into the game a little more subtlely.