13 réponses à ce sujet

[Kaldor Silverwand]

 I have a graphics related problem that started happening a few months back and I am at a loss as to what is going on.  I'm hoping it is some strange setting in the toolset that I somehow pressed without knowing and that someone else recognizes the symptoms.

First off, this is when building using Windows XP running on a Mac Mini. This Mac mini is the version that came out last year and other than this issue I have had no problems.

In the toolset an area will look completely normal. But, when I run the game and enter the area the area turns blue and shadowy. The characters all become dark shades. Any UI elements above the area look fine. This includes the map, the toolbars, character and inventory screens, chat window, all of them.  Just the area itself is messed up. If I summon a creature into the area (like using the party editor) the character will appear normal for a second and then switch to the shady version of itself.

Even more oddly, if I reboot to Mac OS and run the game using Parallels the area looks fine.  This is only a problem when I am running natively in Windows XP.

Could this be a driver issue?  If so then Im not sure why it used to work fine.

Any thoughts?

[Eguintir Eligard]

To be honest I would chalk it up to the mac.

[dunniteowl]

That sounds a LOT like the video graphics issues that many PC using players reported when Nvidia supplied a new set of drivers. Something in the way the rendering was done, I believe that was supported by DX 10 or 11, but negated the ability of the natively designed DX9 rendering to perform as required.



I would offer that, depending on what you're doing, if you've found a way around that to mentally note it and take appropriate steps. I don't know how Macs have graphics drivers updates to remedy that and so have no clues to offer. Only when running in XP, huh? Hmm.



Check to see that Visual Themes are disabled while running in XP and see if that makes a difference.



dno

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I would think if it was a driver problem then all areas would be affected. Most are not. I just finished playing MotB and I didn't have this issue. (Although there are a couple of areas at the end that were very odd looking - I figured that was intentional.) I think it is only happening in areas I've built. Although at one time those areas were fine. And not all areas are affected.



Visual Themes in XP? I thought that was a WIndows 7 thing and tended to cause problems in the toolset. In the toolset the areas look fine. They only look bizarre when playing.



Thanks for the suggestions. I'm going to experiment. I'll see if there are any driver updates. Maybe something in the NVIDEA settings.

[casadechrisso]

If you haven't done so already, my first step would be updating the nVidia drivers. If you're using the ones included in Bootcamp, I'm pretty sure that version was one of those that didn't work well with NWN2. IIRC, my Macbook Pro had that typical graphics glitch too with the Bootcamp drivers, it plays fine with the latest WHQL drivers from nVidia.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Hopefully that is it then. I'll look for the latest drivers from nVidia. Thanks.

[casadechrisso]

One more note, if the nVidia drivers refuse to install on the Mac Mini with some "no supported grapics device" message or something like that, you might need to grab the driver from laptopvideo2go.com. nVidia's standard installer is (or was, not sure) picky with OEM graphics chips (pretty much every notebook hardware, which the Mini is too), but no reason to give up in that case, that's just marketing politics that need a minor workaround.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

No love trying to update the drivers. Tried using the one from the nVidia site (GeForce 320), the one from www.laptopvideo2go.com (266.66) and also tried updating the driver through the Windows XP control panel. All three refused to do anything.

[Kaldor Silverwand]

I also tried installing DirectX 9. That hasn't made a difference. I've tested on my older Mac mini that doesn't have the 320M graphics chips and the areas on that machine seem to be fine.



One additional thing I have noticed is that it seems to have something to do with the Sky setting. Even in the toolset when looking at the area, if I have Sky selected then the whole areas turns bright blue. If Sky is off it looks normal. This makes no difference when I run the game with the area though.



The driver version I have according to the nVidia control panel is 197.39.

[casadechrisso]

 Refused to do anything, like refused to install? Oh my, I should've gone into more detail then regarding the laptopvideo2go site... the thing with those drivers is, every nVidia driver uses a standard .inf file, basically a text file listing all compatible devices. In nVidia's standard driver from their site, this list is very limited, most OEM chips are not on that list even though the driver perfectly supports them. What the people at laptopvideo2go do is nothing else than re-releasing those drivers again with an .inf file that adds additional OEM chips the driver technicall supports. 
HOWEVER
The thing is, due to legal issues the driver and the .inf can't be released in one package, so you have to download the driver AND the modified .inf file. Then you unpack the driver folder and just drop in the modified .inf file, replacing the original one inside. 

So assuming you want the above mentioned 266.66 driver for XP 32 bit (for 64bit browse back in the forums):

Go here (Edit: oi, hold, see PS below) and first download the driver (top of the 1st post: Download driver). Unzip that archive on your desktop or wherever you like. Then click on the link right next to the driver called "INF Modified" and download that file too. Drag and drop that file into the driver folder, replacing the one inside. Then run setup.exe. 

Hope it'll work this time. I'm absolutely sure the graphics bug you have is due to the driver version, the nVidia drivers from 197.xxx to 223.xx or 233.xx or so all had that issue with NWN2. 

Edit: I just saw that the inf file for that driver above only added one additional card, the 560 ti... so if this driver refuses to install on your Mini, try this older one. I think the Mini's nVidia chip is listed in that INF. 

Modifié par casadechrisso, 01 février 2011 - 06:25 .

[Kaldor Silverwand]

Yahoo!!! (meant in the sense of exuberation, not web search engines of poo-throwing treehuggers)

Thanks so much casadechrisso for the explicit directions. I had found some directions for editing the INF file but that hadn't worked. Using the 266.66 32-bit XP driver from www.laptopvideo2go.com and their INF Modified file allowed me to install the 266.66 drivers (I only had to tell it during the install to ignore some Windows logo approval process) and now the odd blue effect issue is resolved. This also helped with the three areas toward the end of MotB that were almost unplayable because of graphics weirdness.

Thanks so much. Very glad it wasn't something more insidious like toolset corruption.

And once more dno, your instinct was spot on. I just don't understand why it wasn't happening from day one. I guess it had to break in a bit for the problem to appear.

Regards

Modifié par Kaldor Silverwand, 01 février 2011 - 04:30 .

[casadechrisso]

I just don't understand why it wasn't happening from day one. I guess it had to break in a bit for the problem to appear.

My very first guess would actually be Apple's last Bootcamp driver update, I'm pretty sure that caused the problem for me by sneaking in those nVidia 197.xx drivers. If you ran Apple Software Update during the last months, that might explain. 

[Kaldor Silverwand]

casadechrisso wrote...

I just don't understand why it wasn't happening from day one. I guess it had to break in a bit for the problem to appear.

My very first guess would actually be Apple's last Bootcamp driver update, I'm pretty sure that caused the problem for me by sneaking in those nVidia 197.xx drivers. If you ran Apple Software Update during the last months, that might explain. 

That could very well be it. I don't recall that specific update, but I generally do apply updates when they are available.

Thanks again.

[dunniteowl]

See? I know stuff. Sometimes, anyway. Once in a while, it's even useful. Go figure.

dno

And thanks for the kudos, btw.