Bit Blot Forum
Aquaria => Support => Topic started by: Quemaqua on December 14, 2008, 02:00:21 am
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I'll try to be as concise and to the point as possible.
Previous version of Aquaria ran beautifully, no issues. But I was on a 7800GT at that point. I'm now on a Radeon HD 4850. I never played the game on the 4850 until after I'd uninstalled the old version and reinstalled the new. Unfortunately, I can't find a copy of the old setup file, so until I do this is strictly related to the new version (and I'm guessing it has something to do with my new video card, not the game itself)
So I got the 1.1.1 download and was pleased as punch, loaded the game up, all seems fine. Opening cinema is fine, new game is fine, first bits play fine, then I get to Home Waters and... something seems off. I'm not sure what exactly. I go into Naija's home, things seem fine again. Go back out... again, something isn't right. I take stock of the situation and the problem, as I can determine it, is as follows:
Basically, the foreground is jumpy and seems to be tearing as it renders. It's just kind of... jerky. I turn on FRAPS to check speeds (though it doesn't appear to be strictly related to framerate), and I'm getting about 150 frames or so in Naija's home, and about 70ish in Home Waters. I bounce out of the game, and try every combination I can think of at different resolutions with vsync on/off, framebuffer effects on/off, etc. No change with any of these combinations at 1280x1024, nor 1280x920, nor 1024x768. I update my video drivers to see if that helps as a new version came out on the 10th... install, reboot, and it doesn't help. Problem persists.
Now, here's where it gets weird. I go back into the game to test again, and I notice that Naija isn't tearing or acting jerky, nor are the game's backgrounds -- only the foreground environmental features and sprites.
Any ideas?
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:o This sounds like a MAJOR problem - have you done anything weird with the Aquaria files?
Besides that, make sure that the problem isn't with widescreen (try 4:3) and post a screenshot. I have nowhere near Alec's expertise, but these are my best ideas. (Also update your drivers, and play with the graphics card and Aquaria settings)
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Drivers already updated, messed with the vsync/framebuffer options, and this is a fresh install of the game, no file modifications at all. I just realized that I hadn't tried it in a window yet, and I tried that with the same results. Also, I don't have a widescreen display at this point.
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Looks like a problem with the graphics card then. - Do you have another computer you could try it on? Besides that tidbit, my only advice would be to wait until new drivers come out, or downgrade the graphics card. It makes little sense that a better graphics card makes for a worse gaming experience. Good luck! :)
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I'm playing through the first bit of the game, just in the song cave now, and have experienced several graphical issues. I've made screenshots of them and will post them soon but saw that I have a new driver for my graphics card available and will see if that makes any difference. what sort of info would you need on your end besides screenshots Alec?
I reluctantly played w/o framebuffer effects and that made no difference. one thing I found that cleared up my graphical problems was toggling out of the program and switching to task manager, swishing that around, and going back to the game. I find that task manager is a very good screen 'brush' and can clear up screen refresh problems just by wiping it over the fritz'd area.
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Ouch I hope this issue isn't widespread - that would be awful. Right clicking has worked wonders for me as a "screen brush." Alec would definitely need the contents of your User Settings xml document (right click then select edit) and maybe all your system configuration settings.
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well, new drivers didn't work. I was able to play intermittently, toggle out of the game and return to it and resume playing until about 45 min in I got a bsod. I'll compare to see if the previous version of Aquaria did this as well and if you need any screenies or info particulars let me know Alec. I was definitly enjoying playing the new version and got a huge kick out of the new mapping system! please no advice on this unless it's constructive, it's not a calamity, it's just part of debugging.
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One thing you guys can try is setting darkfbuffer to 0....
not sure why that would be a problem though.
Its really disheartening to hear about this, because I haven't heard of anything like it before.
Quemaqua: could you try installing the original demo and seeing if it has the same problems? Thanks. :)
Also what OS are you guys running? If its Vista, it might be a settings file problem.
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I tried the darkbuffer zero setting and no luck. I'm on winxp sp2 with all updates except sp3. the graphics card is nvidia quadro fx 540 and box is amd athalon 3000+ w/1.5 gb ram. I'll try running the prev vs. of Aquaria tomorrow to see if it's showing up there, but I've never seen this particular sort of graphical glitching. it seemed to be happening every 5 minutes or something, gameplay was fine and then too much activity on the screen would set it off, bsod happens pretty soon after energy temple boss. I tried 800x600, 1152x864 & 1280 x 960 resolutions, with the 1280 running the smoothest and 800 running like porridge. I havn't tried running any of these windowed. it's the same puter since the last time I played although it's been formatted since, but can't think of why that would make things worse, things have only been updated. early in the new year I have a new graphic card scheduled to come down the pipe so hopefully that will fix the issue, but it would be useful probably to know what's going on and why it's happening.
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Chiming in to say I'm having the exact same problem. Using a radeon 4850, there seems to be some minor screen tearing when in certain places. I can't really pin it down, except to say that it happens in Naija's home but only in areas where a beam of light is visible in the background. Haven't moved passed home waters at this point, but it happens at odd times, and usually briefly. It's minor for the most part and I ignore it.
However I get MAJOR slowdown whenever a piece of the environment moves, like when a stone slab slides aside after activating an energy pearl. I'll drop to 8 fps until the movement finishes then everything is normal again.
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Can confirm that the issue is present in the demo. If anything, the stuttering might have been a little worse. Had an old save from the demo in the song cave. First time I launched it, game would get jerky whenever one of the electric jellys would discharge. Second time u launched it, this didn't happen. No rhyme or reason. Don't get disheartened, Alec, it's ATI's fault.
Also, noticed that the pearl/moving wall thing only happens on pearls that stay activated permanently. It doesn't happen with the one in Naija's home that you have to open every time you enter, but it does with the one that blocks the passage to the krotite armor.
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Sounds like weird graphic cards / driver problems!
Glad its not my fault, at least. 8)
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As a reply to Quemaqua, check your card temperatures. If you are like me and bought the 4850 when it first came out, then you have one of ATI's reference cards. They wanted to be able to say that the fan was super quite, so they cheated and set the drivers to max the fan speed at 24% and only when the card is already cooking. If you haven't monkeyed with the overdrive settings, then your card may be running hot. I have mine set up so I can manually control the can speed through CCC, and I noticed the problem got a lot worse when I forgot to kick the fan speed up for 40% and my card got up to 108 degrees. Still happens when the card is cool, so not entirely heat related.
Guide to creating the fan speed profiles http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14111 (http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14111)
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Yeah, I read about that problem and unfortunately, my card is no stranger to the fan speed issue. However, the card runs very cool thus far (few months in) and doesn't seem to have any troubles handling games for long periods of time. Long periods with The Witcher and 90+ hours with Fallout 3 and not a single hitch. So that definitely isn't the problem. I haven't felt the need to do the manual control thing because it's a pain in the ass and if I haven't had the card overheat yet, why bother? If at some point in the future heat becomes an issue, I'll probably mess with it. Though it still pisses me off to no end that ATI haven't resolved this. It should have been addressed in an update, plain and simple.
Anyway, I guess there's no point worrying about the demo now. This definitely appears to be an ATI issue.
*sigh*
So much for replaying the game just yet, I guess. But if I waited a year, I can wait a little longer. I just hope it gets addressed at some point. If it doesn't, I hate to think I'll have to reinstall my 7800 just to get at it again. The prospect makes me very sad.
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I've actually noticed the same problem with the screen tearing. It's not major, but I never had the problem with the old version of Aquaria. It's actually almost like a small screen flicker that happens intermittently, every few seconds, and that same jerkiness that was described by the original poster. I know it's not my graphics card (and I do have all the latest drivers), plus I'm running Win Xp SP2 as well, shouldn't be a problem their either. I'm pretty familiar with my system and settings and I've tried the game in several resolutions. I'll play around a bit more with the Aquaria settings because I haven't tried everything yet, but almost. I have tried it in standard (4:3) and widescreen as well but with no difference in the issue. I'm using a standard 60 hz refresh rate as well so that shouldn't have an affect but I'll play around with the refresh rates as well (in different resolutions and screen modes, just to be sure). I'll update if I discover anything.
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Well, that's disheartening. But do let us know if you find anything out, I'm all eagerness to get to the bottom of it.
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Couple things you guys could try..
for duo core cpus: while the game is running, go to the task manager and find Aquaria.exe in the processes list. Then right click and choose "Set Affinity..." and uncheck all but one of the CPU cores.
for everyone: edit usersettings.xml and change
<FpsSmoothing v="30" />
to
<FpsSmoothing v="0" />
Alternatively, try higher values (60, 90, 120)
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Hmm... I busted out my ancient ATI machine today, and noticed some tearing. I changed one thing in the code and now the tearing is gone. (!)
Are you guys down for testing a patch? Please say yes. :)
Thanks a lot for your patience!
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Absolutely. I've been waiting for 1.1.1 to finish the game anyway, and I'm sick of studying for finals. Give me an excuse to stop reading about interface design for a few hours, PLEASE.
What did you change?
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Absolutely. I've been waiting for 1.1.1 to finish the game anyway, and I'm sick of studying for finals. Give me an excuse to stop reading about interface design for a few hours, PLEASE.
What did you change?
This thread is about screen tearing (i.e. effectively looking like vsync is off) Do you have that problem in a noticable way?
If anyone is noticing this problem with 1.1.1 please let me know so we can test a potential fix. Thanks.
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Hi Alec,
I'm definitely up to testing the patch out. If it works I'll let you know ASAP. Hopefully whatever you did to fix it on your older machine will be the cure for the rest of us (probably the few of us) that are experiencing the tearing problem.
So please let me know when the patch is available and where to find it (which thread it'll be located in) and I'll test it out immediately and let you know the results.
Also, just wanted to say, thanks for the quick response! Another reason why I appreciate indie games and the developers, they care! ;D
Cheers.
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This thread is about screen tearing (i.e. effectively looking like vsync is off) Do you have that problem in a noticable way?
If anyone is noticing this problem with 1.1.1 please let me know so we can test a potential fix. Thanks.
um...ya, check first page of the thread. I'm using the same video card as the OP and was having the same issue. ???
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Hmm... I busted out my ancient ATI machine today, and noticed some tearing. I changed one thing in the code and now the tearing is gone. (!)
Are you guys down for testing a patch? Please say yes. :)
Thanks a lot for your patience!
I should have mentioned that my Graphics card is an ATI as well. It's an older card (9200 Series) but it's still sufficient and has suited my gaming needs well. Just let me know when the fix is ready and I'll try it out and leave feedback for you as well (fingers crossed). Thanks again.
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Hmm... I busted out my ancient ATI machine today, and noticed some tearing. I changed one thing in the code and now the tearing is gone. (!)
Are you guys down for testing a patch? Please say yes. :)
Thanks a lot for your patience!
I should have mentioned that my Graphics card is an ATI as well. It's an older card (9200 Series) but it's still sufficient and has suited my gaming needs well. Just let me know when the fix is ready and I'll try it out and leave feedback for you as well (fingers crossed). Thanks again.
You have the screen tearing problem right now?
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Hmm... I busted out my ancient ATI machine today, and noticed some tearing. I changed one thing in the code and now the tearing is gone. (!)
Are you guys down for testing a patch? Please say yes. :)
Thanks a lot for your patience!
I should have mentioned that my Graphics card is an ATI as well. It's an older card (9200 Series) but it's still sufficient and has suited my gaming needs well. Just let me know when the fix is ready and I'll try it out and leave feedback for you as well (fingers crossed). Thanks again.
You have the screen tearing problem right now?
Yes, it's noticeable as soon as the Title Screen kicks in and continued while I played the game. Didn't notice it during the Bit Blot logo screen though and I tried running the game using multiple settings even manually editing the usersettings file but to no avail.
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Check your pms, I sent you a link. :)
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Looks like we've got it fixed.
If anyone else has this problem and wants to test the fix, let me know.
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Is this fix worth downloading just in case? I haven't experienced any problems yet, but should I play it safe, so to speak?
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Thanks for the quick fix Alec! Now I get to dive into Aquaria all over again! ;D
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I'd certainly be happy to give it a test. Sorry I didn't respond earlier. At work all day and such. PM me a link and I'll let you know post haste.
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By screeen tearing, do you mean a visible line of difference in frames at a horizontal location on the screen? Because I'm not seeing that anywhere... just noticable fps drops in large areas with my newew laptop. Could be that I'm running it a the native resolution for the laptop and it's only an onboard intel gpu. *shrug* but it's definitely easily playable. it's not to a point of stuttering video or audio.
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By screeen tearing, do you mean a visible line of difference in frames at a horizontal location on the screen? Because I'm not seeing that anywhere... just noticable fps drops in large areas with my newew laptop. Could be that I'm running it a the native resolution for the laptop and it's only an onboard intel gpu. *shrug* but it's definitely easily playable. it's not to a point of stuttering video or audio.
It's probably a problem with slightly older video cards, I'm not certain, but the quick fix that Alec made remedied the problem.
If all you're suffering from is a drop in fps then you aren't having the same problem. It's not the same subject but I did notice another thread related to Laptops and video card driver updates, perhaps that will help cure your drop in fps (hopefully), or at least improve it. Here's the related thread I mentioned:
http://www.bit-blot.com/forum/index.php?topic=430.0
Hope it helps.
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Thanks, but I've been on the forums forever and remember the thread quite well. However this is a new laptop, not an older one. My old laptop in fact [Dell Inspiron] ran the game flawlessly before v1.1.1. I haven't tried v1.1.1 on it though. *shrug* It really isn't even that bad though, I think it's just the fact that I have the resolution set at the highest supported by the laptop. Still very playable though. I just wanted to get a better insight on what was meant by the screen tearing since I haven't experienced it. Thanks for the feedback though, much appreciated. :)
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Well, it's *like* screen tearing but it only affects the foreground elements, not Naija herself or the background. So yes, visible horizontal line, but only on certain elements. Makes it look like the game is slowing down, but in fact, it isn't. I was getting around 70FPS at the time.
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Well, it's *like* screen tearing but it only affects the foreground elements, not Naija herself or the background. So yes, visible horizontal line, but only on certain elements. Makes it look like the game is slowing down, but in fact, it isn't. I was getting around 70FPS at the time.
Check your PMs, Mr. Q. 8)
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Bless you, Alec. Smooth as silk now with vsync and framebuffer effects at 1280x1024. Not a hint of a hitch.
Also, I apologize for not issuing my system specs at the start of the thread. For some reason I thought I had and realize now that this wasn't the case. I have facepalmed myself adequately, I assure you. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this so quickly. I have lauded your devotion to your customers before, but seriously... you work amazingly fast.
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He's my hero too *swooooon* ;)
But the quote "All you get from killing monkeys is a deep sense of shame" may now be a false statement, because I think you get a side-dish of Steam achievement with that shame.
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Oh, the irony! :) Just consider it consolation for the "accidental" death of the monkey.
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I am going to be severely emotionally conflicted from here on out.
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Hello, I seem to be having the same issue - As if the background is using slightly too big steps in its gradient makeing each step noticable (especially with the higher resolutions I suppose)
I made a screenshot, its a bit hard to see since it is not moving but it is still visible:
http://i42.tinypic.com/2q355qd.png
(tinypic downscaled the image from 1920x1200 to 1600x1000)
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That's just the way the gradient works, that's not "screen tearing". :)
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I don't see anything wrong at all with that picture.... (ok now I'm really confused.)
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That's because there is nothing wrong with the picture - the guy probably saw a little lag and overreacted. :)
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I think he's talking abou the slight "banding" effect on the gradient.
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Double check that it's 32bit color depth?
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Xidus, I would have recommended the same thing.. but to me the screenshot looks good.
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I report the same issue as mentioned at the beginning of the thread - to me it looks like if the double buffering (in openGL) was disabled in code, and background would be redrawn on-screen while being updated.
I'm an indie game coder too, just without any stunning achievements :).
My conf:
Centrino 1.8, Radeon Mobile 9700 128 (M11), 1.5 GB RAM.
I double-checked on OEM and most recent drivers.
Regards,
akuda