Glitch-Tastic!

[derah]

Smiff: The horizontal band nightmare is shown in the constructed pic I sent you, of the black wall with grey struts,from HL Anomalous Materials. If the POV remains stationary, the graphics are perfect. As soon as the POV changes, even with a single tap of an arrow key, the screen divides into at least 5 horizontal bands. I selected that shot since the vertical grey struts allowed me to approximate the degree of shift in the bands. This happens at all HL levels, in all resolutions, at all refresh rates,in 16 or 32 bit colour, with or without turbogl and even in D3D. When Gordon need to dodge around, the view is downright UGLY! The "reload" method, thankfully, corrects the banding
The diagonal lines in Nylaeve Falls from Unreal and the Mesh in the doorway from HL are actual shots with no touch ups.
I routinely use HypersnapDX. Works in OGL, Glide and D3D, in all games, and I can convert the files into various formats. I just can't Snap movement. I'd like to finish HL (on Xen at the moment) before I try the 5.52 drivers. It was a good 6 weeks before I got this system stable and I'd hate to mess it up again just before I complete HL. Post traumatic stress

My apologies to those who have heard me describe this problem before.

------------------
ASUS P3BF 440BX MB,Intel PIII 500 Mhz, 128MB RAM,Fujitsu 13 GB HD, Creative 48X CDROM, Matrox G400 Max Bios 1.5.22, IRQ10, (ver 5.41), SB Live MP3+, IRQ5(ver 4.06.711) sound card with Liveware3.0, DX7.0, Linksys 16bit ISA ethernet/cable internet, Viewsonic E790 19"

[DeFrag]

what is the "reload" method, your talking about?

-DeFrag

------------------
Tekram P6B40-A4X
Intel 440BX Chipset
128 Meg 100mhz RAM
Pentium III 450mhz
Matrox Millenium G400 32m
DirectX 7.0a
SB Live! Value
Windows98 SE
230w power supply

[Smiff]

Righty then...

DeFrag
Good to see i'm not the only one having texture corruption - I was worried that it could indicate bad RAM on the card. Either it doesn't, or we've both got bad RAM (?). I think Derah's "reload method" is just to hit escape then load again.

Derah
Aha. Now i understand I get that tearing effect too. As you know, this is totally different to the tearing effect I was referring to. The fact that we can't capture it in a still must, I suppose, mean that it's v-sync related (?). Have you tried enabling v-sync? BUT it also happens on my Voodoo3. So this might well not be a Matrox problem at all (?) BTW sorry for belittling you in my last post, you obviously know a lot more 'poota stuff than I thought!

Well 'night all

(to be continued....)

[DeFrag]

I moved around my cards and finnaly got my G400 on an IRQ by itself. And I added this coolical little IRQ link to my signature!
so this message is really just a test to see if it worked or not ;p

-DeFrag

------------------
Tekram P6B40-A4X
Intel 440BX Chipset
128 Meg 100mhz RAM
Pentium III 450mhz
Matrox Millenium G400 32m
DirectX 7.0a
SB Live! Value
Windows98 SE
230w power supply
IRQ's
---------------------------------------------
cool it worked ;p



[This message has been edited by DeFrag (edited 28 February 2000).]

[DeFrag]

Hey guys,

Smiff has made a nice webpage that shows almost all the bugs we know of. Is there anyway that we could somehow get Matrox Tech to look at this page and fix these bugs? I mean maybe they didnt know about them or something. Anyone have some good contacts with Matrox Team?

-DeFrag

------------------
Tekram P6B40-A4X
Intel 440BX Chipset
128 Meg 100mhz RAM
Pentium III 450mhz
Matrox Millenium G400 32m
DirectX 7.0a
SB Live! Value
Windows98 SE
230w power supply
IRQ's



[This message has been edited by DeFrag (edited 29 February 2000).]

[vanguardian1]

IMO, Half-Life's one of if not THE buggiest game ever......

I played it for two weeks (back when I had a banshee) and I ran into so many bugs and glitches (not including crashes) in the programming I decided that if I wanted a storyline in a game I'd stick to Final Fantasy series and other rpg games...

I'll grant you, this was before several patches were released, but last I tried it, even with newer patches, it still messes up like crazy.....not as bad as originally, but still not playable (even with v2 cards).

Oh well, I'm not here to start a flame war (Even though I probably have, if so feel free to keep it off of this board and email me at vanguard@millenicom.com ) so I wish you all the best of luck with this game....

[DeFrag]

Agreed, it is buggy. yet on all other cards Ive seen it on. It showed no flagrant bugs like our Matrox cards are showing. So this is obviously an issue that needs to be fixed.

-DeFrag

------------------
Tekram P6B40-A4X
Intel 440BX Chipset
128 Meg 100mhz RAM
Pentium III 450mhz
Matrox Millenium G400 32m
DirectX 7.0a
SB Live! Value
Windows98 SE
230w power supply
IRQ's

[Smiff]

Ok

I'd like everyone to think if there are any more OpenGL game glitches they know about that I haven't covered on my page. If so please send the screenshots to me at smiff@clara.co.uk . As DeFrag says, it would make sense to get them all together for Matrox to take a look at.

BTW I've also got nVidia and 3dfx graphics cards and can assure everyone that this is a Matrox problem!

[This message has been edited by Smiff (edited 29 February 2000).]

[IceStorm]

Is there any specific reason you're all using the ICD?

I run HL with the TurboGL. About the most serious problems I've had with the TurboGL are the lack of underwater fog/light effects (can't see light diffuse through the water). I never have problems with the scorecounter. The lettering is not perfect, but it's not perfect on the V2 SLI rig, either.

I have never seen torn textures, oddly defined textures, bright lights under conduit, or any of the other maladys you seem to have.

I'd suggest using the TurboGL instead of the ICD. It's a relatively simple matter to install it and then set it up as another menu option under HL's video modes menu.

Just my $0.02

[derah]

Icestorm:
**I'd suggest using the TurboGL instead of the ICD. It's a relatively simple matter to install it and then set it up as another menu option under HL's video modes menu.**
On the HL Video menu screen, there are the Software, OGL, and D3D options. Do you mean that you can set up a fourth selection? I always thought one had to have either TGL opengl32.dll file OR ICD file (renamed as opengl32.dll) in the Half Life directory
and then select OGL from the HL menu.

I routinely play HL with PD5.41 and Turbogl.
After installing an Intel inf file for i440BX-P3-AGP support and one for the Viewsonic, my glitches are reduced to: heavy, flickering, black diagonal lines on distant objects,- black and white mesh in doorways - sparkles in seams - gun flashes or machine sparks appear as white square. These artifacts appear consistently in the same places in certain maps but are infrequent enough to be an interesting puzzle, not disruptive to game play..
The one pervasive problem is that on initially loading ANY save,with even a single tap of the right or left arrow key, the entire screen divides into shimmery, offset horizontal bands. Worsens as the POV turns more rapidly. This can now be totally supressed by simply reloading that save.Then the graphics are rock solid.
Right now I can get on with playing HL and enjoying it and my G400. Life is sweet


------------------
ASUS P3BF 440BX MB,Intel PIII 500 Mhz, 128MB RAM,Fujitsu 13 GB HD, Creative 48X CDROM, Matrox G400 Max Bios 1.5.22, IRQ10, (ver 5.41), SB Live MP3+, IRQ5(ver 4.06.711) sound card with Liveware3.0, DX7.0, Linksys 16bit ISA ethernet/cable internet, Viewsonic E790 19"

[Smiff]

I had a quick poke about and found how to do it
[list=1][*] Rename the turbogl driver from "opengl32.dll" to "turbogl.dll"[*] Copy turbogl.dll into the folder \Half-Life\gldrv\[*] Make the file \Half-Life\gldrv\drvmap.txt not read-only[*] Open drvmap.txt in notepad[*] Add a new line "turbogl.dll Matrox TurboGL Driver" (without the quotes)[*] Close & save drvmap.txt[*] Start Half-Life and select "Matrox TurboGL Driver" from the list[/list=a]

One problem - Half-Life doesn't seem to like changing between the ICD & TurboGL midgame. When I try it can't resume and the game just quits back to the menu. Seems you need to restart between changes.

BTW I can't see much differemce between TurboGL and ICD - which is lucky 'cos screenshots come out black! Anyone know how to take screenshots with TurboGL? Do I need HyperSnap? Further investigation needed...

That's all for now

[Targon]

Try turning on vsync, and also disable the 32 bit z-buffer. the vsync disable is a feature that clearly says that there may be visual problems. The 32 bit zbuffer may not work properly with half-life in the current drivers, but for stability, and for testing, these two options MAY be the key to the problem.

[DeFrag]

Hey Smiff!

That thing you said about renaming the TurboGL and making Half-Life go to it directly worked! I can finnaly run TurboGL! Plus I can ESC and comeback without any corruption. wtf wtf! thanks! this rocks. I will do more extensive testing now

-DeFrag

------------------
Tekram P6B40-A4X
Intel 440BX Chipset
128 Meg 100mhz RAM
Pentium III 450mhz
Matrox Millenium G400 32m
DirectX 7.0a
SB Live! Value
Windows98 SE
230w power supply
IRQ's

[Gorax]

Most of the problems you mention are there in other cards too.

Though the 'fuzzy' text problem isent there.

I actually solved the fuzzy problem. The problem is this: palette conversion in gfx.wad.

I remade the gfx.wad, the letters are smaller but the black 'fuzz' is gone. Maybe i'll make a new gfx.wad with bigger letters and in different colors but now u know what was causing it.

[Smiff]

DeFrag
Glad to be of service How are things with TurboGL?

Targon
Thanks for the suggestions Erm sorry to ask such a basic question, but how do I turn v-sync on/off in OpenGL? For Direct3D I can do it with G400Tweak or the PD5 Reghacks - it doesn't seem to have any effect on OpenGL (?!) (I mean it doesn't effect FPS at all)
About the z-buffer, I use 32bit to reduce some of the glitches - 16bit is a few FPS faster but looks worse Also, having ztrick on with a 16bit zbuffer causes horrible flickering on objects. But with ztrick off there is even less gain speed-wise, so I'm back to 32bit zbuffer, ztrick on. Seems to be the best compromise. Anyway, my point is that most of the glitches don't seem to be z-buffer related.

Gorax
Which cards? I'm not having a go at you, I would like to know. None of these glitches happen on Voodoo2/3 or TNT1/2. That's most of the gaming market. I don't know what "palette conversion in gfx.wad" is but i'm using a high visibility HUD text color replacement and you're right, that seems to have fixed it But if the problem is with Half-Life, why does it only happen on the G400? Doesn't make sense!


People seem to be getting good results by installing Intel INF (motherboard) drivers. Haven't a clue why but if that works who cares! (as you can guess it did nothing for me...)

Hmmm I wish Kruzin or Rags or someone would say something... nudge nudge, wink wink