Invisible map Parts

[firiban]

Hi,
i currently have some really annoying graphics bugs.
When entering a new map, i first see everything correctly, but after a less than a second, everything (houses, trees, statues, players, npcs, my char) begins to vanish. ~2 secs after entering the map i can see the ground and a few houses. i can still walk around and i can see my char’s shadow on the floor. I can also see chars and npcs which are directly in front of my camera. when looking out of the map into the next map, i can only see gfx-corruption coloured like the edge of the map i’m walking on. after relogging everything is ok again. but in the winch area and the death realm even that doesnt work and i have to navigate without seeing my environment.

I experience the bug on linux with ps version 0.4.02 (all updates from the updater) ati-fglrx 8.08.

A similar problem is described in this post:
[[http://www.happypenguin.org/show?PlaneShift&showall=1#44641|External Link]]

The bugs appear with VBO set to off on or default, 15, 16 or 32 bit color depth.

am i doing anything wrong? is there a workaround? i already posted it on the bugtracker, but the task was closed as caarrie said it isn't a bug.

thanks in advance
firiban

[Enaudni]

Its certainly an odd problem and I wish I had a decent solution for you.  What distro of linux are you using by the way?  I'd suggest the following:

1.) Try running in windowed mode.
2.) Try running at a low resolution - 800x600 or so.
3.) Disable adaptive camera. It may be mistakenly clipping things.
4.) Lower texture resolution in pssetup.
5.) Try relighting affected maps.  This requires a copy of lighter2 which you can compile if you compile your own copy of CrystalSpace.  I can help with this if you need, but I give it about a 5% chance of helping so may not be worth it as its time consuming.
6.) Compile your own version of PS from scratch for your computer and see if the issue still remains.  It could be something with the linking and your ati drivers.  Stupid ATI!

[firiban]

Thanks for your reply

i already run ps in windowed mode, perhaps i should try fullscreen

What is adaptive camera? the bug doesnt depend on whether i use first person view, third person view or anything else. Neither texture downscaling nor any other options in pssetup have any influence on it.

on http://docs.huihoo.com/crystalspace3d/cs/manual/cs_B.html i found something:

# Q: My objects are rendered incorrectly. It seems as if parts of it sometimes appear and sometimes disappear.

A: Incorrect rendering of objects can be caused by bugs but there is one common cause of this problem which is Z-buffer related. It is important to realize that Crystal Space does NOT clear the Z-buffer every frame (nor does it clear the screen). By default Crystal Space depends on the geometry itself to clear the Z-buffer. For example, if you have a room with a single object in it then you should use `ZFILL' mode for the room polygons (so that the Z-buffer will be filled but not read) and `ZUSE' for the object (so that the Z-buffer will be both updated and read).

In many cases levels are closed (meaning that there is some exterior object which blocks the view into infinity). If you have such a convex closed object at the boundary of your level you can use `ZFILL' for that. However, there are occasions when this is not possible. Either because there is no exterior object, the exterior object is not closed, or the exterior object is not convex. In that case you better use `ZUSE' for all objects and enable Z-clearing every frame. In world files you can do this by using the `settings' block and enabling the `clearzbuf' option.

Note that you should invoke the method engine->GetBeginDrawFlags() in your call to g3d->BeginDraw() to ensure that this Z-buffer clearing will actually work (in fact you should always use GetBeginDrawFlags()).

Might this have to do something with my problem? I already tried to compile ps myself just for fun a few weeks ago, perhaps i'll try again if nothin else helps.

Thanks again
Firiban

[Caarrie]

as was said in the closing of your bug on this issue that would affect all and not just one person.

[firiban]

@Caarrie
i know that a real bug would affect more people, but my thought was, that the graphics problems i have might be the result of serveral small problems in ps, crystalspace and my driver. but that's just speculation and i'm sure you're a lot familiar with that stuff than i am. that's why i trust you when you say that it's not a bug. and that's why i asked for help here. Besides that, i had linked to another post of a person having the same problems in my bug report on the bugtracker.

[Enaudni]

Its definitely a bug but I think its CS related and not anything to do with PS.  I think its in the new threading code though not certain if PS is using that yet (thought they were) but I'd heard of that issue a lot with the other CS stuff and it might already be fixed in trunk. Try compiling against a newer version of CS instead of the official build dates or wait for the next update which usually gets built against newer versions of CS and so might automatically contain fixes.

[firiban]

hm, i think i'll do the latter... i'm not that talented in compiling things from svn

thanks for your explanation

[Lanarel]

Its definitely a bug but I think its CS related and not anything to do with PS.  I think its in the new threading code though not certain if PS is using that yet (thought they were) but I'd heard of that issue a lot with the other CS stuff and it might already be fixed in trunk. Try compiling against a newer version of CS instead of the official build dates or wait for the next update which usually gets built against newer versions of CS and so might automatically contain fixes.

Enaudni: if you have information about this bug, please add it to http://hydlaa.com/flyspray_upgrade/index.php?do=details&task_id=2260. If it is just vague feelings like 'someone else with another program had thinks not working either" it does not help us much

[weltall]

as far as i know the new threading code is being added to trunk. ps uses the 1.4 branch

[feldmann_markus]

@Caarrie
i know that a real bug would affect more people, but my thought was, that the graphics problems i have might be the result of serveral small problems in ps, crystalspace and my driver. ...

Sorry this is not very useful for you, but the Driver for ATI is very bad.
Next Time buy a Nvidia Card. Your and the Problem of the most
ATI Card Owner is the Driver and nothing else.


Regards Markus

[firiban]

stop bashing ati. they finally released the specs and there's an open driver in development. when that driver has good 3d-acceleration and comes with my distro, i will use it instead of fglrx.
Besides that, Enaudni has already mentioned that it's propably a crystal-space problem. I only have that bug in planeshift, flightgear, glest and others run correctly.