"Flashing Neck" - Texture clipping during dialog

[obobski]

** Think I solved it. **

 

Alright, so basically what's happening is: any time any NPC speaks (and they animate the talking), their neck flashes blue-grey (like their head is clipping). Obviously searching for "fallout flashing neck" or similar yields nada, and there's not really a better way to describe it.

 

Having said that, things I have thus far tried:

 

- Playing with load order, including BOSS

- Reverting to previous load orders, masters, etc

- Full nuke and re-install of the game

 

As of right now I'm sitting on a freshly installed FONV that has zero mods and a brand new ini file, and it still happens. I've shut off AA/AF and V-Sync in the video options, no dice. So what am I missing? (This was seriously not an issue when I "put the game down" a few months ago after getting Skyrim).

 

My PC's hardware has not changed over the last few months either, but just to clarify for folks, I've got:

 

- Core 2 Quad CPU

- Radeon HD 4870X2 graphics (with latest 13.1 drivers)*

- Creative Sound Blaster (and I don't use ALchemy because I've had bad experiences in past games, so I just avoid it in all games)

 

* I know the 4870X2 or other multi-GPU graphics can cause weird flickering in Skyrim (you can find this on youtube), but this is not the same problem.

 

Some setting in video options that I'm missing? Or am I just hosed?

 

Any help is appreciated.

 

** Think I solved it. **

 

I may have solved the issue, figured I'd at least share what I found in the event someone else comes across this in the future and looks for "flashing neck" or something:

 

I went into the ATI driver control panel and checked all of the 3D settings, the following were enabled:

 

- Anti-aliasing was set to Narrow-tent 12x

- AF was set to 16x

- "Adaptive Anti-Aliasing" was enabled

 

I turned off the last one, and switched the first two to "application controlled" and started NV up - things seem to work now. Just for the sake of testing things, I re-enabled anti-aliasing and AF (to 12x/16x as before) and started it up again - still seems to be fixed. So it appears "Adaptive Anti-Aliasing" was/is the culprit here. I don't fully know what "Adaptive Anti-Aliasing" actually does, but the driver tool-tip offers the following:

 

"Substantially improves visual image quality by anti-aliasing transparent textures."

 

Seems like that might've had something to do with something... :geek: (also, is it me, or does "visual image" seem kind of redundant?)

 

I'll also add that I did not notice any dramatic image quality changes here, beyond jaggies everywhere with AA dropped. So I don't think turning off that feature will adversely effect your gaming experience (I know I won't be losing sleep over it, and the lack of "crazy flashing neck" is for the better :blush:).

 

I am guessing that this probably did not require a re-install of the game ( :facepalm: ), but for all I know that also helped. Hope this may help someone in the future.

 

 

Edited August 25, 2013 by obobski