Video problems- colors, weird effects?

[madkiwi]

1) I noticed a weird artifact/anomaly on the lower left part of the screen whenever I am on the bridge or using the free camera. You can see it in both of the screen caps here.

2) But the really odd thing I have going on is if I change the camera angle just slightly the ocean colors shift dramatically. You can see it in these pictures, the viewing location does not move, I just changed the pov.

http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd310/madkiwis/Ship_sea1.jpg


http://i226.photobucket.com/albums/dd310/madkiwis/Ship_sea2.jpg


My laptop has an Nvidia GeForce GT 540 gpu with 1 GB dedicated DDR3 ram. I am using the latest Nvidia drivers- 306.30 (problems were there with the old drivers too- I upgraded from 296.10).

As you can tell I do have the widescreen mod, both of these problems were happening before I installed it.

Any ideas what the problem is?

[Troublous_Haze]

Are you running the game on some graphically weak laptop ? Intel integrated graphic accelerator or something like that ?

I've seen the same effects when once tried to see how SH3 runs on my gf laptop.

Edited:
Disregard my last about video card, should be enough for Sh3 the one you have. Weird..

[madkiwi]

Troublous- Your reply gave me the clues I needed to figure out what is happening.

My Acer 4830TG laptop has integrated Intel 3000HD graphics and an Nvidia Geforce 540M, with some lame assed software from Nvidia called "Optimus" that doesn't work very well. If at all. A search on the Geforce.com forums finds a thread started by an Nvidia employee asking for feedback on Optimus 11 months ago. It now has 10 pages of "feedback", but no response from anyone at nvidia, not surprising considering the amount of anger expressed in some of those posts.

So the short answer basically comes down to- Optimus either does not detect the gpu requests of Silent Hunter, or it just ignores them. So the system defaults to the integrated Intel graphics. Despite having a control panel setting where you can supposedly "force" the gpu preference for any program, it does not do so.

So, from everything I have learned, my fancy new Acer laptop is useless for gaming. I was ripped off by Acer, and their partner in crime, Nvidia.

Anyone considering a new laptop with dual graphics processors be warned- nearly 2 years after Optimus was released it is fatally flawed technology, and there is no indication from Nvidia that they are attempting to remedy the situation. Acer will not acknowledge there is a problem either, their tech support just said-

"the system is not compatible to play that particular game, hence, I would request you to contact any local technician to help you in this issue."

w.t.f.

[madkiwi]

Oh, further to the above, my Nvidia gpu only fails to work while running the widescreen mod. When I reverted to 1024 x 768 it started working again.

It was not working before, I had a completely broken Optimus installation from using Nvidia reference (non-Acer) drivers, so I had to fix that first.

Now my dilemna is- non-pretty widescreen, or 4:3 with all the video effects. Tough choice.

For now I am going with the 4:3 screen.