Black/dark flashes while playing
By
Back_Blast,
Posted on: 2010-05-06 13:44 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2---
DxDiag gathered at May 6, 2010 13:42 (-07:00)
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7600) (7600.win7_gdr.100226-1909)
System Manufacturer: FOXCONN
System Model: ELA01
BIOS: BIOS Date: 09/23/08 09:56:49 Ver: 08.00.15
Central Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.3GHz
Memory: 8192MB
.Net Memory Report: 6626MB out of 8191MB available
Page File: 22824MB (1749MB currently in use)
C Drive: (ST3808110AS ATA Device) 24611MB out of 76316MB (32%) free
D Drive: (ST380817AS ATA Device) 40622MB out of 76316MB (53%) free
E Drive: (WDC WD3200AAJS-65RYA0 ATA Device) 170425MB out of 305242MB (55%) free
I Drive: (ADSFAFO Q3CPMN0 SCSI CdRom Device) zero-size drive
Windows directory location: C:\Windows
DirectX: DirectX 11
DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7600.16385 (64-bit version)
Display Notes: No problems found.
Sound Notes: No problems found.
Input Notes: No problems found.
Monitor:
Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank)
Video Device Name: ATI Radeon HD 4800 Series
Manufacturer / Chip: ATI Technologies Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x9442)
Video Memory: 3569 MB
Driver Version: 8.723.0.0
Driver Date: 4/6/2010 6:22:38 PM
Driver Language: English
Sound Device Description: ATI DP Output (ATI High Definition Audio Device)
Driver File: AtiHdmi.sys
Driver Version: 7.11.0000.7704
Driver Date: 3/9/2010 3:21:42 AM
WMI Information
Motherboard Manufacturer: FOXCONN
Motherboard Model: (empty)
Motherboard Product: ELA01
Motherboard Version: 1.0
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 09/23/08 09:56:49 Ver: 08.00.15
BIOS Version: 092308 - 20080923
BIOS Release: 20080923000000.000000+000
Registry Information for Current User
Resolution: 1600x900
3D Resolution: 1600x900 (Not using renderscale)
Full Screen: Yes
Maximized: No
Screen Position: 0, 0
Refresh Rate: 60Hz
Vertical Sync Enabled: Yes
Physics Quality: High
Maximum Particles: 25050
Max Particle Fill? 10.000
Physics Card Enabled: No
Anti-aliasing: 2x
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Texture LOD Bias: Smooth
Water Effects: Ultra quality
Bloom: 1.000 (turned off)
Depth of Field Enabled: No
Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: No
Shader Detail: Medium?
World Texture Level: Very High
Character Texture Level: Very High
World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 1.000
Entity Detail Level: 1.000
Shadows Enabled: Yes
Shadow Mode: Shadow maps
Shadow Map Shader: High quality
Environmental Reflections: Ultra quality
Advanced Occlusion Settings: Yes
Ambient Occlusion: High quality
Occlusion Strength: Strong with color bleeding
Blur: Trilateral
Ambient Resolution: Quality
Gamma Correction: 1.000
Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes
Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: No
Close Suppression Range: 3.000
Show Advertisements: Yes
Audio Mode: Performance
3D Audio: No
FX Sound Volume: 1.000
Music Sound Volume: 0.605
Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes
Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500
Reverse Mouse Buttons: No
Save Login Username: Yes
Transfer Rate: 294334 bytes/second
Current Game Version: 1800.201003300904.15T4r
Installation Directory: E:\Games\City of Heroes
Mod files in the Data directory
.\fonts has 2 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file
.\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files
.\texture_library\MAPS\static has 34 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files
.\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files
Try lowering your graphics a touch and see if that has any effect. The usual culprit there I think for that sort of thing is that your card's frame buffer isn't getting cleared properly and so what you're seeing is 'leftover' frames or partial frames still in the card's memory. Lowering your graphics ought to make the card work a little less hard and stop that from happening.
It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.
Quote:
After reading your post, I remembered that in Test I never had this problem, so I decided to test a few things. One thing was that with test, I installed the client after it had already went into closed beta, so it was beginning with fresh settings; nothing leftover from I16. With this in mind, I decided to hit the Reset to Defaults button on the graphics tab. Played around for a while, going from zone to zone and no dark flashing, closing out the client didn't show any still frames from earlier in my play session (also, the game looks so plain now with no Ultra Mode options on @_@).|
Originally Posted by Back_Blast
Try lowering your graphics a touch and see if that has any effect. The usual culprit there I think for that sort of thing is that your card's frame buffer isn't getting cleared properly and so what you're seeing is 'leftover' frames or partial frames still in the card's memory. Lowering your graphics ought to make the card work a little less hard and stop that from happening.
|
After going back in-game, I started setting my options to where I had them before, did more missions, moving from zone to zone, never got any kind of flashes, and exiting the game didn't show any kind of still frames. So this has me curious if maybe it could be leftovers from I16 that was keeping my card's frame buffer from properly clearing? I'll have to play more to be sure, I was playing an old toon on Liberty for my tests since Virtue is currently down, and will report back either if the flashing returns, or later tonight if everything remains fine.
And more testing. Whenever CoH loses focus, whether I alt-tab out, or another program takes focus away, the frame the client is on when focus is lost gets stuck in memory. I tested this, alt-tabbing several times in different locations and zones. Every time, as soon as the game lost focus it would end up with the frame stuck in memory. Eventually I would begin to see the dark flashes occur. If I never alt-tab, or if focus is never taken away by something else, everything is fine, runs great. This also occurred in windowed mode back when I17 went live, eventually I would begin to get dark flashes while playing, even though I would never see a stuck frame upon exiting. But it would occur only after a while, during which I would regularly switch between coh, msn messenger and mids hero designer, so I'm pretty sure the same happens even in windowed; a frame getting stuck in memory upon loss of focus.
In the "Players experiencing issues related to Graphics cards" sticky, some people have reported experiencing occasion split-second black or dark flashes during gameplay, myself included. Well recently I've noticed that when I close out the client, I can see some sort of still image of a point earlier in my play session, rendered right underneath the actual game. This still image looks as though it was made at a very dark gamma, and it leaves me wondering if while I'm playing, the client is switching, for just a split second, to this still image.
Example: One time I had been playing a while, had zoned to Talos, ran around then quit. As soon as the game closed out, for a brief moment I could see a darkened image of back when I was still at the train station. Another time the still image was of the level-up screen choosing a new power. It's like the game is rendering these still images and placing them under the actual game world, and has me wondering if that could be causing these black/dark flashes.
For reference, I'm running on a Radeon HD 4850 with the 10.4 drivers. CoH Helper info in next post.