Weird Smoke

[Wolf52]

I seem to be having some trouble with smoke effects in my game. I have 6 merchant ships set up heading 180 at noon into a minefield. Now, if i look perpindicular to the bows of the ships facing west and turn to my right, the smoke effects stay. But, if i turn even one degree to my left (towards the south and the sun) the smoke disappears. The only mods i have running that would (possibly) affect this are the ail sky mod v2 and the camera mod user edition. This problem actually seemed worse when i was running the improved smoke 1.1 mod, but i have uninstalled it and it seems a bit better. Any help would be appreciated.

[Duncan Idaho]

I seem to be having some trouble with smoke effects in my game. I have 6 merchant ships set up heading 180 at noon into a minefield. Now, if i look perpindicular to the bows of the ships facing west and turn to my right, the smoke effects stay. But, if i turn even one degree to my left (towards the south and the sun) the smoke disappears. The only mods i have running that would (possibly) affect this are the ail sky mod v2 and the camera mod user edition. This problem actually seemed worse when i was running the improved smoke 1.1 mod, but i have uninstalled it and it seems a bit better. Any help would be appreciated.

It's an Nvidia bug, (or a bug with how the game handles Nvidia cards). Happens for me regardless of what drivers I use.

I've had some luck with a trick: Look at the sun with smoke in view, alt-tab out and right back into the game, usually gives me smoke. Doesn't always last long though, sometimes after going into the command room, then returning to exterior view will give you the weak white smoke again.

Do you have Antialiasing enabled for your video card? If so, you may not even be getting sun glare, (if the sun is just a weird yellow/pink disk, you're not getting sun glare).

From all I've heard, there will be no further patches for this game, and Nvidia does not have this problem listed as an issue to be addressed for their video cards, so looks like we'll just have to live with it. I've decided my next vid card upgrade will be to an ATI, though. Nvidia's problems with games like Half Life 2, and this game have helped me make that choice.

[Wolf52]

Thing is i'm using a radeon 9800pro at the moment...

[Duncan Idaho]

Strange, never saw anyone with ATI saying they have this issue. Guess there's a first for everything. :o

[Mouseketeer]

It's an Nvidia bug, (or a bug with how the game handles Nvidia cards). Happens for me regardless of what drivers I use. Well, it looks strange as you are speaking about the game with "nVIdia: The way it's meant to be played" sign :nope: The commercials are indeed powerfull weapon. SH3 is a great game but the amount of bugs is horrible. I'm using Radeon 9600Pro and I had no problems with smoke at all (apart from FPS deacrese), the only bug I've spotted is that I see black squares in water instead of reflection of sun during sunrises and sunsets. I had just downloaded omega drivers for radeon and have to try them to see if it helps.

[Kresge]

nVidia 6800: no problems with Half-Life 2 and only the washout problem with the UZO (fixed). Smoke looks perfect for me.
:up:

[Wolf52]

I have actually been using the latest omega drivers, they could cause it. Also, it seems the latest version of omega causes big errors in my computer. With installing no new drivers, programs or hardware, these crashes have come out of nowhere. A couple blue screens of death, a few recovered fatal errors, and crashed programs after graphical abnormalities made me roll back to the previous omega version which gave me no problem. Sent the guy an email about it but no response in 10 days.

[tycho102]

I'm not sure, but I think the smoke problem is caused by the drivers.

Go to http://www.guru3d.com, and download the "DirectX Tweaker". Then set it on "Shader Precision F" and run the game. This overrides ALL of Nvidia's optimizations, regardless of the performance hit, and gives you the absolute full graphic fidelity.