A graphics anomaly

[SeniorSpan]

G'day all,

I'm experiencing a graphics anomaly and wondering if this has happened to anyone else and if there is solution to correct/eliminate the problem?
System: Intel P4 3.4, 4gig Ram, GeForce 8600GT w/ 256meg on board, card at 1680x1050 resolution. SH4 v 1.5 with only a few mods.

The anomaly occurs after a torp impacts a ship. The initial explosion is spectacular, looking like the real thing. After the explosion dissipates and you are left with a burning fire is where the anomaly occurs. The burning fire is very blocky graphics, there are no flames like in the explosion just a bunch of glowing blocks where the flames should be. Every other graphic aspect is great, just the fire it self seems to be affected.

I've gone as far as reloading the game with all the updates and runing with no mods, same problem.

It's a irritant at best, seems to have no affect on game play.

Any suggestion is appreciated.

Cheers

Bob

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by SeniorSpan

at 1680x1050 resolution

Try lowering that a tad and get back to us

[kylania]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Try lowering that a tad and get back to us

Unacceptable answer. Lets see you run your games at a resolution that is drastically smaller than your monitor and think that's just OK. Any way, LCDs (he's probably got a 22" widescreen with that resolution) are designed to run at their native resolution, anything less and the quality is crap, drastically so.

[SteamWake]

Originally Posted by kylania

Unacceptable answer. Lets see you run your games at a resolution that is drastically smaller than your monitor and think that's just OK. Any way, LCDs (he's probably got a 22" widescreen with that resolution) are designed to run at their native resolution, anything less and the quality is crap, drastically so.

Wow react much? :hmm:

Was simply a suggestion on the path to troubleshooting. The artifacting he is describing is typically memory or pixel shading issues. If lowering the resolution 'cures' the anomolies it would confirm it.

[GunnersMate]

Overclocking is prolly the biggest cause of these type artifacts

Edit - What are your graphic settings?

[Nisgeis]

Originally Posted by SeniorSpan

The burning fire is very blocky graphics, there are no flames like in the explosion just a bunch of glowing blocks where the flames should be.

Do the blocks scale up and down as you move the camera towards and away from them, or are they fixed scale blocks and are they the right colour for fire - e.g. reddy orange? I'll bet they scale and they're orangey red, in which case it sounds like you have a fire effect that is without its corresponding material. When the game is told to render a particle that uses a bitmap that isn't present, it just makes it a big rectangle of colour instead of some nice fire/smoke picture.

Try either deleting your Silent Hunter directory after you uninstall it and reinstalling, or try downloading PE3 and installing the materials.dat file from that (or all of PE3).

[SeniorSpan]

G'day all,

Thanks for all the responses.

I have lowered the resolution several times with no change.

kylania is correct, it a 22" LCD by ViewSonic and every other aspect of the game appears as I believe it should.

The system and or graphics card are not overclocked.

You are correct Nisgeis, the fire blocks scale and are orangey red.

I will give PE3 a go. I had it loaded before and did not have this problem, but did not remember that fact til you mentioned it, thanks.

Further info to follow.

Cheers

Bob

[SeniorSpan]

G'day all,

Thanks much for the help; I applied the appropriate files from PE3.3 and the anomaly disappeared, not to mention a noticeable improvement in the overall graphics. All is as I believe it should be, or better.

Thanks for all the replies.

Cheers

Bob

[SteamWake]

Glad you got it worked out.

Good thing someone came along that knows more about it than I do