Less Odd than Before

[BentonGrey]

Howdy guys, I experienced a rather weird bug tonight, while doing some play testing I threw the whole line up of the JLA and Legion of Doom into the RR.  Imagine my surprise when Aquaman, Green Lantern, Captain Marvel, Toyman, The Riddler, and Brainiac were pink, while the rest of the characters were all normal.  These wayward few had that pink look stuff gets in FF2 sometime, but they are all skins and meshes that I KNOW to have worked earlier.  I've played with Aquaman in particular a good amount.  What's going on?

:EDIT: See last post.

[HumanTon]

Pink skins or pink pieces often start appearing on meshes after you've been playing for a while or during sessions with a whole lot of different characters. I think it's an indication that you're pushing the limits of your graphics card's RAM--it's your graphics card's way of saying, "I give up! I just can't handle any more!" Exiting the game usually solves the problem, though sometimes you need to reboot the computer to clear out the card's texture cache.

To minimize the chance that you'll see the pink pieces, convert the skins for the custom meshes you're using from .tga files to .dds files. The .dds files are smaller, and modern graphics cards use them more efficiently than the .tgas. They give your graphics card more room to breathe.

But be careful! If you convert one of your (for example) male_basic_effects skins from .tga to .dds, make sure you convert *all* your male_basic_effects skins to the .dds format. FFVTR gets cranky if, say, the standard skin is a .dds but one of the custom skins is a .tga--the custom skin won't display properly.

Certain meshes seem more prone to the pink pieces popping up than others. I get the problem all the time with meshes based on pulp_versatile, for example. I'm not sure whether it's just because pulp_versatile uses a whole bunch of files for each skin (and hence more of your graphics card's RAM), or for some other reason.

[BentonGrey]

Thanks HumanTon!  That makes perfect sense, and it explains why my test later still resulted in pink skins, I hadn't restarted the game.  Do you perhaps know where I can find a program to convert between the two formats?

[HumanTon]

Here's a page with links to useful .dds utilities:

http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/DDS_Tools

I've used DDS Converter to convert individual skins. NConvert, which I haven't tried, will do batch conversion but has a command line interface.

[BentonGrey]

Thanks man!  Looks like I'm going to have some converting to do.

:EDIT: Hmm, I'm having some trouble here, using the DDS converter, it refuses to convert some parts of the skin, giving me an error in the readout and generating empty (0k) files.  Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

You aren't doing anything wrong.  That's quite normal with that program.  Often times, converting what you can will be sufficient.  Keep in mind that DDS's are several times easier on the computer processor than TGA's, so even partially converting the skins should solve your problem.

[BentonGrey]

Thanks Cat, I suppose I'll just let it convert what it can then.

[BentonGrey]

Okay, here's a new one on me.  So, I've had the 'ghosting' glitch before, where a character's ghostlike outline shows up next to them, but last night I had a different glitch.  Playing a match between the Suicide Squad and the CSA, Mirrior Master cloned himself several times.  All of his clones began moving in concert, so when one ran, they all ran, even if they weren't moving.  When one drew his gun, the gun and holster on the others acted of their own accord.  It was really bizarre.  It also happened when he accidentally made a clone of Captain Boomerang, he exhibited the same behavior.  I also had Multiplex in the game, but I didn't notice him doing the same thing, although it's possible I missed it.  I have shadows turned off, any clue what's going on?

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

That's the other "ghosting" glitch, where multiple characters using the same mesh will all copy the same action.

They say you can often fix it by messing with the shadow settings.

[BatWing]

Okay, here's a new one on me.  So, I've had the 'ghosting' glitch before, where a character's ghostlike outline shows up next to them, but last night I had a different glitch.  Playing a match between the Suicide Squad and the CSA, Mirrior Master cloned himself several times.  All of his clones began moving in concert, so when one ran, they all ran, even if they weren't moving.  When one drew his gun, the gun and holster on the others acted of their own accord.  It was really bizarre.  It also happened when he accidentally made a clone of Captain Boomerang, he exhibited the same behavior.  I also had Multiplex in the game, but I didn't notice him doing the same thing, although it's possible I missed it.  I have shadows turned off, any clue what's going on?

i had that glitch ages ago
what cat said
but u've turned off shadows eh?
and it keeps doing the same glitch?

[BentonGrey]

Yep, all shadows are off.  I'm beginning to think I just need to update my video card, but I've already got 128 megs!

:EDIT: Okay, I've updated my drivers, and the issue seems to be fixed, BUT Aquaman has now developed ANOTHER bug.  He's built in, like all the others, and he is set to the aquaman_classic mesh, with the C6 Aquaman skin selected.  So, this has worked for months, but all of a sudden, the game has decided that it doesn't like C6's skin, and he shows up in RR with the standard.  In the character's window he shows up regularly.  Any ideas?

[Lunarman]

Have you tired just changing the name of C6's skin to standard and vice versa. Or do you use the same mesh for other chars too? Then you could set the template skin string to standard or just leave it and it be done with it.

[BentonGrey]

Good idea Lunarman, it still weirds me out how the game can just pick and chose what instructions it wants to follow! :P

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Aquaman's skin is a tga isn't it?  That's another random effect of using a tga skin, especially when the standard is a dds.  (although I'm not sure if it has to be)

[HumanTon]

Yeah, I usually get that problem when one of the skins is a .dds and the other is a .tga.

[BentonGrey]

You know, I think I actually did convert that standard skin, that makes sense.

[BentonGrey]

Hey guys, another bit of weirdness.  I've discovered that some of the built-in FX have stopped working, at least partially.  The thug_grenade shows up in the start and end phases, but it's core, the actual grenade flying through the air, doesn't show up.  Neither do a few others, but I must say I'm baffled.

[HumanTon]

That's a stumper. Is this in your mod, or in the main game?

[Previsionary]

make sure all the tgas are in place and that it is still set up correctly in ffedit.

[HumanTon]

OK, now *I'm* having that exact same problem with the grenade, both in the main game and in the FFX mod.  :unsure:

[BentonGrey]

Yeah, it's in both HT, and I've reloaded the game, copied the files, and I haven't a clue what's going on.

[HumanTon]

I haven't figured out how to fix the problem, but I have at least managed to figure out what kind of problem we're dealing with.

If you pause the game while a thug grenade is in mid-air and move the camera around you'll notice you can see the grenade if the grenade is in front of a building, or an object, or a character. But you can't see the grenade if it's in front of the ground, which is most of the time if you're using a top-down perspective.

So the problem is that the video card isn't drawing things in the proper order--it's rendering the terrain in front of the grenade instead of vice versa.

What I can't figure out is why this suddenly started happening. It's not because anything changed the thug grenade .nif or textures or the terrain .nif or textures--those files haven't changed. So it's something else.

It could be a DirectX update automatically installed by Windows Update, but according to dxdiag the DirectX files on my machine haven't changed since November of 2006. I'm stumped.

Edit: Of the built-in grenades carried over from FF1, the Smoke, Acid and Thug grenades don't appear, and neither does the Darkness Bomb. However the Energy Grenade and Proximity Grenade do appear ... so it's some difference between 'em.

[Symon]

It sounds as though it could be the alpha blending on some of the Nifs. Are you using EZFX for FF3R? If so it could be that some of the Nifs from FF need their alpha properties changing for use with FF3R. (I hoped the work I did trying to solve the FF alpha problem might come in useful). Not sure what though and don't have time for anything helpful ATM.

[HumanTon]

It sounds as though it could be the alpha blending on some of the Nifs. Are you using EZFX for FF3R? If so it could be that some of the Nifs from FF need their alpha properties changing for use with FF3R. (I hoped the work I did trying to solve the FF alpha problem might come in useful). Not sure what though and don't have time for anything helpful ATM.

I am indeed using EZFX for FFVTR. What confuses me, though, is that an effect that used to display properly six week ago has suddenly stopped working right.

The thug grenade effect is an Irrational-made effect that shipped with FFVTR, based on the thug grenade that appeared in FF1. If I start up FFVTR on my system "straight"--without using FFX or any other mod--the game is using the thug_grenade core.nif that comes straight out of the art.ff files. For some reason, though, the thug grenade core.nif now either vanishes (if I have shadows disabled) in the game or else shows up as almost transparent and barely visible (if I have shadows on.)

The grenade showed up fine a few weeks ago. Then it stopped appearing. It's true I have installed a bunch of mods in the meantime--FFX 3.2, Joemama's Patriot World, etc. But those mods shouldn't be loaded when I run FFVTR directly.  So why did the grenade stop working? :banghead:

[Symon]

That is odd. The only explanations I have are a change in graphics card or driver or driver setting or DirectX; or a change of the core.nif. Perhaps from a mod or experiment with Nifskope. Other than that, I'm stumped.

[HumanTon]

Welcome to the stumped club!  ;)

I just did a full re-install so I could start from scratch. I still get the problem.

So the good news that I'm now certain it's not a mod or data issue. The bad news is that means it's a video card/driver/DirectX issue, and I'm not sure how to fix it. I've tried updating my DirectX and video card dirvers, but that doesn't fix the problem either.

(The best solution I can think of is to Nifscope the energy grenade's core.nif...which works fine...to create new versions of the core.nifs for the other grenades. But that still doesn't explain where the problem came from.)

[BentonGrey]

Well HT, I'll join that club! :huh:

I've ran all the same tests you have, more or less, and come the same conclussions.  I also updated my card, and had an improvement in the pink skins, but no change in this.  I've got a Radeon 9600, what are you using?

[HumanTon]

I'm using a Radeon 9800, so it definitely seems to be an issue with that line of ATI cards.

I checked the other grenades and did a spot check of some other Irrational projectiles, and the projectiles that have the problem seem to be: thug grenade, smoke grenade, acid grenade, darkness bomb.

The energy grenade does not have the problem, and neither do the projectiles introduced in FFVTR (e.g. Sky King's grenade launcher grenade.)

[Lunarman]

I've not got the problem, but I've got a Radeon X1300.

If that's useful in any way

[BentonGrey]

Is there any method in place to let a company know of a problem with a game caused by their hardware?  If so, perhaps we could contact ATI....