Terrain Gitch

[DirtTwister]

I believe they are all "Maxwell" architecture.

The problem doesn't happen with the built-in Intel graphics (HD 4600), but the frame rate is 1/4 of less of the GTX 850m.  I've only had the laptop 24 hours, but so far the problem has only happened for me in Reflex in the lobby.  It doesn't happen in MX vs ATV Supercross.  I have had MX vs ATV Supercross blow up on me, but I assume that may be normal with the early release and not my setup specifically.

[HucK iT]

Good luck with finding a fix. I hope something can be done.

[mcm2boys]

Interesting to hear it doesn't happen with Supercross i was wondering about that and yes there are still some catestrophic bugs in Supercross where you will crash to desktop usually during a race both on and off line.

[St. Angers Snare]

Does the 850M use the same core technology as the 970s?

(didn't see the second page of comments, my bad)

Yup, Maxwell. Also, some people with the old Kepler stuff claim to have issues as well.

I've actually had the terrain glitch so bad that it made the terrain raise into mountains right in front of me; although when it did do that, it was after I had minimized the game while racing an arcade race and went to open dxtory and when I reopened the game it went nuts and did that. That happened only once and I'm not sure if i could replicate it, but kind of makes me think it's more than a visual bug if it can make the game do that.

[al167]

sounds like a setting too me. try turning off vertical sync or anti aliasing.l

[DirtTwister]

I have tried a bunch of different settings and resolutions and three different drivers.  None of them change it on my laptop.

[mcm2boys]

I'm wondering if it's related to terrain deformation, what happens when you do a donut over one of the tears, or anywhere come to that?

I also read there are issues with vid. memory over 4GB on some nVidia cards, what happens if you reduce the available v. mem - if you can?

[DirtTwister]

My laptop has 2 Gig of video memory.  The glitch that I see are the edges of at least two squares that surround the bike/rider.  They move with the bike.  It isn't something you can really ride over.  In the first picture in this thread you can see the corner of the square to the left of the bike.  Depending on bike rotation the corners are at different angles.  I thnk the squares are always oriented the same.

[mcm2boys]

I was thinking to do a donut to deform the terrain then move to a position where you can see the donut so that the tear is in that same area as the donut. Try viewing it from different positions and angles to see how it varies.

[DirtTwister]

If I do a donut it is hard to get the problem to happen in that area.  If I ride around, the problem becomes less and less of a problem. I tried taking a video of it, but when I do that, the frame rate goes to 30 FPS and then the problem hardly happens at all.

[mcm2boys]

Do the areas you've ridden over become normal at the joints? Do you get 'normalness' only around the track marks with distortion into the rest of the square or is the whole square normal?

Do you see deformation in the terrain - ruts actually form and you see the bike drop into them rolling over the ruts?

Is this the same for everyone with this problem - the problem gets better as you ride around?

[DirtTwister]

The edges of the square show problems, but the terrain is fine once the edge is gone.  These squares aren't visible 100% of the time.  They start out that way in the lobby.  I don't see any sign of it in the game, but I've only ridden a few tracks so far.

In my case the areas that are wrong are black.  It seems to be an artifact that hides the terrain.  If the black edges aren't there the terrain is fine.  It's almost like it's an area that no rendering takes place for whatever reason. 

Definitely less of a problem when trying to record a video of it.   The improvement could be a result of the fact that it is at 30 FPS, rather than the video. 

[HucK iT]

I'm getting the exact same issue as with Dirt Twister, the black edges of squares in the lobby.  It improves on most tracks but some tracks still have issues where it intermittently follows you around the track.


On a side note, I watched a YellowS2K vid on youtube and he has upgraded his computer with the same graphics card as myself but seems to have no issue.  He lists his spec in the details:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WditFPIHiVo

I'm not sure if any info can be gleaned from that though?

[mcm2boys]

Your gfx card is the exact same as Yellow2Ks?

That suggests it's not the GPU, if it works on one, then it should work on them all. So it can only be the bits that are different - cpu, memory, drivers - or maybe a timing issue where cpu tasks and gpu tasks in Reflex aren't finishing when they should.

Are you guys running full screen or windowed. I wonde rif you slow the GPU a little - like running windowed with a video playing in the background maybe will make the issue better or worse?

[HucK iT]

I just checked the manufacturer, mine's actually a Galax gtx 970, his is EVGA.

[St. Angers Snare]

Your gfx card is the exact same as Yellow2Ks?

That suggests it's not the GPU, if it works on one, then it should work on them all. So it can only be the bits that are different - cpu, memory, drivers - or maybe a timing issue where cpu tasks and gpu tasks in Reflex aren't finishing when they should.

Are you guys running full screen or windowed. I wonde rif you slow the GPU a little - like running windowed with a video playing in the background maybe will make the issue better or worse?

I'm going to contradict myself here, but..

Since he has a different manufacturer of his card than Yellow it makes sense. Each card brand has a completely different card to each other other than the GPU core itself, most have their in-house PCB's and VRAM and everything unless it's a reference card (970's do not have a commercially available reference card to my knowledge) so it could be certain brands and the components being used, maybe?

I had a 7950 up until about new years eve and the terrain issue was never a thing until I upgraded to the 970. My buddy and I have very similar PCs and when I got him to play Reflex with his 7950 and then his R9 290, he had no issues as I played on his rig a bunch. We both upgraded to the 970 and we both have the issue now. We both have the G1 edition from Gigabyte, and something I have noticed is I haven't heard anyone running on board Intel or AMD graphics having this issue, it's all the newer Nvidia cards from what I see, so it must be the Kepler and Maxwell architecture not getting along with the game. Any other game has no kind of issue.

[mcm2boys]

I tend to agree that this is a problem caused by the new nVidia cards - other games are also showing some artifacts after installing these cards. It's hard to tell from Y2Ks spec whether that is an nVidia card or a 3rd party manufacturer, it might be that nVidia's own implementation is good but the 3rd parties have maybe missed something on there designs.

I don't have one of these cards in any of my machines, that's why i am asking so many questions, i hope that i can narrow it down and maybe find something that can be done in the game to fix the problem - but that means understanding whats going on more than i do right now.

[LOGANYZ125]

Well guys i found if you start to record with FRAPS the glitch goes completely away and doesn't show up at all but as soon as you stop recording it comes back on !

[mcm2boys]

I guess someone has tried the Vsync option enabled to slow the render cycle down and that didn't work? I am leaning towards the possibility that the gfx card is maybe a little too fast for Reflex and not syncing with the frame update properly. My guess would be that fraps is slowing the render cycle down enough to bring it back into sync when it's recording.

I guess we'll see when fatser cards come out and the problem gets worse..

[HucK iT]

Thanks Logany, I'll try fraps, but will I need to buy the full version? I'm happy to purchase if needed. Cheers