1.1 graphics / rendering / MaterialID error

from Elemental Forums

It's a lot easier to show than to describe what the problem is here, so here's a screen shot:

Only the 3D portion of the game window is glitching out. The distortion is continuous, and "vibrates", and seems to be anchored to the terrain. It gets worse as more of the map is uncovered. It happens every time I try to run a game, whether the campaign, or a custom game, or whatever. It makes the game unplayable.

I updated my Radeon driver and DirectX, and the problem persists. The card is an on-board Mobility Radeon HD 3200, which according to System Requirements Lab is more than adequate to run this game.

This is debug.err from my most recent attempt: http://pastebin.ca/2036154 From reading it, I'm guessing the trouble starts at the line " Debug Message:  WARNING: (CXFileData) FindRegisteredMaterialIDByName could not find registered material with name 'lambert2SG' ". The file says that the game can't find a lot of resources that should be there. Maybe patch 1.1 didn't take correctly? Maybe I should uninstall, reinstall, and repatch?

I also downloaded and installed the Walmart extra (The Relic of Agrynn) after patching to 1.1, so maybe that caused a conflict?

 

I also have an unrelated bug to report, which I discovered while parsing debug.err:

"DebugMessage:  No string tables in C:\Users\Richard Rivers\Documents\My Games\Elemental\Mods/Data/*.str"

Those forward slashes at the end ought to be backslashes, yes?

 

Update: I just spent some time in the Builder's Forge (this problem also occurs in there) and it happens whenever I try to plop an object, and not on a bare canvas. It's worse depending on how many polygons the object is made of, so this is definitely a rendering problem.

4,381 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I have a 'working' elemental 1.1 and have been seeing missing materials in every debug.err that I have looked at since beta 2.

the forward slashes indicate that there is no strings in the user mods area and indicate the prefered path to a mod's strings, but it looks for ANY str file in the mods folders.

I also had a similar glitch back in the beta's on a geforce 7600gs, and also have had a similar effect with a unit that had a different skeleton to the usual for the unit race, so the glitch would be to do with the havok render engine and a flawed/damaged artifact/goodie hut.

you might be able to fix the issue by opening impulse, holding a shift key down and RIGHT mouse clicking upon your elemental, and click on 'verify installation', and download any updates it offers.

harpo

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting harpo99999, reply 1
the forward slashes indicate that there is no strings in the user mods area and indicate the prefered path to a mod's strings, but it looks for ANY str file in the mods folders.
End of harpo99999's quote

My point is that Windows only recognizes backslashes as path. C:\Path\Mods/Data/*.str isn't interpreted the same way as C:\Path\Mods\Data\*.str. Respectable OSes use forward slashes as path, but Microsoft doesn't make respectable OSes.

Verifying didn't do anything. In Impulse's opinion, my game is installed correctly. Which really just means that the checksums it looks at are right.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I wish SD would do one of two things with these missing/broken/unused material elements (and there are 4-6 of them that always show up in debugs) and the unable to generate 3d text for city names. As stated by Harpo these have been around since the begining.

1. Fix them. Place/fix the missing/broken files.

2. If not used then remove the comment generation from the debug file. Its a ton of useless clutter that makes hunting real problems that much more of a pain.

As for the rendering problem, since you have the latest and greatest drivers, have you set all of the options to off (including the ones in the Catalyst control center) and running the game? Running with AA on seems to cause some folks some level of grief too. Hopefully you can find out just what setting is doing the error. I'm not sure off the top of my head of any other Havok based games/demos to try to see if it is a Havok issue or an Elemental specific issue.

Good luck!

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Generally users have found that sort of graphical corruption to be a result of driver issues (upgrade cruft in particular). If you're already on the latest, you might try using a driver cleaner to wipe them out then reinstall them.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

People pay a lot of money to see things in real life look like that!

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks, kryo. After very thoroughly wiping all display drivers from the system, and reinstalling the latest Catalyst, the problem is gone. So this one was my fault, for not properly uninstalling display drivers before I updated them.