Texture/shaders issue X3AP steam UPDATE: fixed!

DaChmielu · Post by **DaChmielu** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 15:41

Hey!

After installing Albion prelude on my laptop I've noticed really annoying bug.
When jumping through gate all metallic surfaces (especially stations) turns light gray like all shadows are washed out. Only restarting game helps but issue pops again when jumping.
This happens on fresh install vanilla and modded (TC plots with IEX).
it also happens on my brothers laptop (same configuration) fresh vanilla version.

X3AP latest steam version
win 10
i7 4720mq
860m 2GB vram
16GB ram

examples:
fresh after restart:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =746141789

after jump:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =746141729

does anyone else have this problem?

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 17:31

There was a known and unchanged occlusion mapping issue (especially with Terran stations) that meant the station texture brightness chopping quite radically back and forth between darker and lighter as you changed relative aspect and distance slightly. Example thread.

However, your issue seems rather different if it is 'sticky', affects all stations and becomes a permanent effect until you restart. Do you have any auto-gamma facility set on your graphics cards and their control consoles?

DaChmielu · Post by **DaChmielu** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 18:05

I use windows gamma setting but they are set in place. It also doesn't explain why its happening on second computer which doesn't use anything.
Also it turned out simply reloading savegame fixes this until next jump which causes it again. I have also noticed that on flatter surfaces (some bigger stations but suprisingly this issue is not affecting terran stations as badly - its barely noticeable) you can see "pattern" of big circles ("mirror" effect) surrounded by black texture. It also appears to be stationary.

EDIT:

I've managed to capture bugged mirror effect:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =746251147

and how it should be:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =746253702

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 18:49

Is it anything like the issue in this thread? The problem then could be some automatic (and lasting) downgrade from high to low quality textures because of some 'issue' correctly or falsely detected in-game.

I'll ask a dev to look at your screenshots tomorrow.

DaChmielu · Post by **DaChmielu** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 18:58

Not entirely ...

After jump the HUD is normal, its just all shiny metallic surfaces and they persist and do not change at all until save reload. There is no visual change except typical LOD with distance (this one is working as it should even with bug).

EDIT 2:

I thought that i found solution by disabling ship colour variations (it helped for one jump only) but issue persist ...
Now takes 2 or more jumps for bug to show again ...

I've discovered that the only way to for this to not happen again is to set shaders to low but game loses way too much ...
And on medium this bug looks even worse:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =746282102

EDIT 3:

To my surprise the supposed fix for AMD cards helped with my nVidia card. In act of desperation I ticked the box "disable vertex size optimisation" and it works for now I've tested 30+ jumps without issue.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 20:38

That's a workaround option for *very* old type ATI/AMD graphics card drivers. I think (but am unsure) that if it works for you now then it should be something that you can affect in the current Nvidia control panel options - or you could try the Nvidia GeForce Experience profiler app for additional control options.

I would perhaps start with the VSync, triple buffering, fps cap and frame stack options.

It would be great if you could find out what Nvidia option this issue is affected by and post it here to help others. It might be useful to see if anything works for your brother's laptop too.

Alternatively of course, you could just accept the good fortune in finding an unexpected workaround and enjoy the game!

DaChmielu · Post by **DaChmielu** » Wed, 17. Aug 16, 20:46

The funny part is that this issue was happening on both intel and nVidia GPU (I've played few hours not realizing that angry at fps

).

The nVidia driver has all settings at default which setting could be causing this. The geforce experience is not even detecting x3 but I dont care about it anyway.
I noticed that on rare occasions you could see bug "switching on"mirror effect at the last split second of jump (both gate and jump drive) just before the black loading screen.

I will try on weekend different nVidia control panel settings as its quite quick for me to reproduce the bug.

EDIT:
quick update!
I found that 2 things were causing this issue:
Cycrow launcher (for me) and steam overlay which I fixed by turning it off / ticking the AMD fix / using no steam.exe - each worked separately for me and my brother (he played vanilla).

instilation00 · Post by **instilation00** » Sun, 10. Dec 17, 05:20

can you explain just exacly what you did? I have been having this same issue as well and can't figure out how to fix it.

Post by **Alan Phipps** » Sun, 10. Dec 17, 13:27

@ instilation00. I doubt that DaChmielu is following this thread over a year after last posting. You could try PMing them.

egosoft.com

egosoft.com

Texture/shaders issue X3AP steam UPDATE: fixed!

Texture/shaders issue X3AP steam UPDATE: fixed!