Damned wobbling textures on Kyro 2

StixxUK

Newcomer
I've been posting this all over the place trying to get a fix so forgive me if you've already read this on another Kyro forum

Basically the problem is that textures (especially ones on the ground, for some reason) wobble around and just won't stay still! It's driving me up the wall.

I first experienced this problem in Black & White, then Serious Sam 2. That's not to say it doesn't happen in other games, but they're the ones where it's most noticeable. Nobody else seems to be having this problem any more (although they were - see http://212.227.228.93/pky/discus/messages/37/281.html? ).

I wonder if anyone's found a fix for it or if it could be a hardware problem (ie. a damaged board or conflict or something).

I've got the latest drivers, I've got DX 8.1, I've even updated my mobo BIOS.

System config:

Athlon 1.4
Gigabyte GA-7DX
Hercules 3D Prophet 4500
SBLive 5.1
256 MB Crucial DDR PC2100 RAM
3com Ethernet card

PLEASE HELP ME!!!

Thanks in advance, Stixx
 
Just my thoughts...

but if you've eliminated all the software problems (i.e. latest drivers for system components, latest DirectX version, patches for all the games, latest BIOS for the 3D Prophet 4500) then the problem probably will be a hardware one.

If it's a conflict, it would most probably show up in the Control Panel->System->Device Manager->Display Adapters-3D Prophet 4500->Resources.

A few things to try to isolate the problem. Have you tried using the Hercules Support Centre tool? That will verify that the driver versions are OK.

Next thing is the DX Diagnostics tool (DXDiag.exe), which should check that the Direct X version is OK, try using the Display diagnostics tab as well, to make sure there isn't a major problem.

Now a few questions...

How old is your Gfx card?

Another thing, does this "bug" occur only in Direct X games or in both DX and OpenGL?

Have you overclocked the card at all?

Edit: I just looked at the other thread, and I haven't noticed any problem like this on my 64MB 3D Prophet 4500. I was wondering seeing as this seems to affect a few number of people, could it be a problem that only occurs on certain Kyro2 models?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: bystander on 2002-02-10 22:09 ]</font>
 
I'm getting more and more worried that it might be a hardware problem.

My vidcard is only about 4 months old, and it's been doing this since the start. I haven't overclocked it (in fact, I've even tried underclocking it to no avail) and all the software stuff seems to be in order...
 
Do you have a 64MB Kyro2 with TV out?

Like I said, I'm curious to know this problem is isolated to one particular Kyro2 chipset (I.e Hercules Prophet 4500).

Maybe it was a faulty batch of cards..., in any case your warranty is still valid, you could try emailing Hercules to see what they say.
 
stixx,
in all your posts i didn't mention that, yes, i still get these problems


bystander,
it's nothing to do with general troubleshooting

yes, i do have a prophet 4500 w/tv-out

as yet i have not flashed my kyro board's bios - i am still waiting on hercules to verify one of the many that img-tech have released

the problem occurs predominently in d3d games

it seems to happen where small textures are stretched over large areas


mangrove,
it is nothing to do with game specific reg settings
 
OK -- I had this exact problem before, and running the reg file fixed it *shrug*. No more suggestions, sorry :-/
 
Maybe it's a fault with a particular batch of cards.

Stixx, do you have a Hercules Prophet 4500 64 MB w/TV out?

As I said I have a 4500 64MB no TV Out, and I haven't seen any problems like those you took screenshots of.

Just curious, but has anyone with a Videologic Kyro2 board have a similar problem?
 
No TV-out, I have tried underclocking, and what is registry file for? I'll try using that.

Someone in another of my many threads about this :smile: mentioned that they thought they saw it in Shenmue on the DC... Dunno if this is verified though...

Update: nope, the registry thing didn't do it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: StixxUK on 2002-02-11 14:57 ]</font>
 
i was gonna warn you stixx; if you run that reg file (and you have tweaked any games from the 3d optimisation tab in display properties) you will lose any additional settings for your games
 
It's OK, you lose those settings whenever you reinstall drivers :smile:
This means that I don't use them all that much and when I do I remember the settings for the games I'm playing at the time...

Thanx anyway m8
 
doesn't anyone with a tech background recognise anything like this from it's description?

this is a blatant bump and i kind of apologise for it
 
any advance on the determining factors?
it seems to be more prominent where low detail textures are used to cover large expanses... is truncating of integers during calculations a factor? / is it related to the order in which calculations are excecuted in a tile renderer combined with the way the api traditionally handles them?

i don't know anything about 3d graphics programming so forgive me for my wild stabs at this - i'm just an inquisitive person
 
The 1.14 K2 drivers seem to screw up a lot...

Serious Sam wouldn't run at all with them installed. Q3A would randomly lock up... and PMX2HAL.dll would BSOD semi-randomly in DragonRiders.

This is in Win2K Pro. Could be better in 9x or XP, but I don't know.
 
From what I can see it is just texture coordinate problem. Textures are usually mapped using coordinates like U = 0.0 ... 1.0, V = 0.0 ... 1.0. Now, much larger coordinates can be used like U = 100.0 ... 101.0, which is usually wrapped to 0.0 ... 1.0. Lets say that one game uses one large quad to cover whole floor (say, 1 square mile), so one texture that fits it looks bit dull, so programmer decides to make the texture to repeat itself multiple times to cover whole area. Now texture coordinates can be as high as 12345.0 for example. And thats where textures (coordinates) start to wobble and lose accuracy.
Some chips or drivers just start losing accuracy of texture coordinates when handling "too" large numbers.

Solution? If it is driver bug it can be fixed but if it is HW bug or feature... well IMO I read that it is not good practice to use too large texture coordinates because it is not written to stone how different drivers/chips handle this issue.

For more reading, find that few weeks old post about that new pro Opengl card (wildcat??!??),.. eh, can't recall what that was :oops: There was texture coordinate accuracy comparison between "it", Geforce and radeon.
 
thx jogi, [is that you, jari? - there's also a "jogi" been hanging around the pvr sites recently]
tho' some folks reckon they don't get this problem at all!?
 
On 2002-03-02 18:33, deviantchild wrote:
thx jogi, [is that you, jari? - there's also a "jogi" been hanging around the pvr sites recently]
tho' some folks reckon they don't get this problem at all!?

Yep, it's me, same Jogi :cool:

I don't play much games but I have seen this phenomena in some opengl apps.. and one or two games.
Hmm.. mayby I should wrote little test app for this wobbling thingy..

JJ
 
jogi,
it would be nice if you get around to it :smile:

on a side note - i found a link to someone hosting your excellent rrbench benchmark for rendition chips - i passed it on to fester to include on his renditionrevival site if he wanted to use it. hope that's ok with you?
 
Back
Top