Odd graphics problem

[Kruzer]

Greetings fellow FO3'ers,

 

Problem: Textures suddenly shift from high-res to what appears to be lower res, and reduced AA. Clumps of grass are the most obvious, taking on a kind of cartoonish appearance, but (especially straight) edges, thin lines (chain link fence, street light bulb cages, etc.) close and far, also gain jaggies and are clearly lower detail than normal. This tends to happen inobviously (i.e. I don't notice a "trigger event") within 15 minutes of playing. I've had one instance where firing a gun (for the first time in a session) caused it, and suspiciously, the sound of the gunfire was glitched on the first shot. This occurred within a few minutes of a fresh game start.

 

The issue does not correct on an in-game reload (of either kind), nor has it ever self-corrected during play. Only thing that works is an exit/restart.

 

This has been going on for a couple weeks, if I recall the first time I saw it. Yesterday I found one repeatable cause that makes this problem occur on demand, even immediately after a fresh game restart.

 

I have a mod in place that expands the Fairfax Ruins area. In one particular spot it adds a gas valve on a building's wall. This is conveniently right near some open terrain with lots of grass clumps. When I turn the gas on, the gas distortion effect occurs, and if I turn back toward the clumps, they're all downgraded. I would note also that if I keep the clumps in view while doing this, they don't change before my eyes. Rather, they change when I turn and lose sight of all of them. Turn back, and voila. Again, this isn't just the clumps, but they're the most obvious at a glance.

 

Whatever the case, it's bugging me, since it isn't something I've experienced until recently, and I've had no graphics issues with any other game, nor with FO3 prior to this.

 

I tested by resuming a vanilla save game after having removed all my normal mods and other data overrides, replaced my working ini with a stock one, etc. I.e. total vanilla. Well, it happened even with that one after about 15 minutes. Again, this was never an issue when I was actually playing that vanilla character early on, and obviously isn't an issue derived from mods or overriding textures, etc. since they were removed as a factor.

 

While I've taken time to gather some "evidence" I have no idea what to make of it. Hopefully, someone here has some familiarity with what might cause something like this. I'll provide more info on request--not sure what might be needed. Some basics, though: No DLCs, WinXP SP2, Core2Duo E8500, 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 4800/512MB, etc. Bear in mind I've changed no hardware or drivers since I started playing FO3, when this problem wasn't occurring. The machine can handle the game just fine on max settings, large textures, etc. So I don't really suspect a hardware or driver issue, at least not directly. I've also had no cause to change any in-game graphics settings or fiddle with the ini in between the time things were fine, and now.

 

Here's an example pic. It shows the problem with the grass clumps very clearly, and if you look at the fence near the upper right, you can see the jagginess and breaking of the thinner lines. The denuded trees show the starkness of the edges, though it's hard to tell from this cap. All of these issues are absent--it looks great--under normal circumstances.

 

http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/3733/textureproblem.th.jpg

 

Oh, and although I'm sure no one's really going to be interested in it, I made a Fraps vid (about 30 secs, or so) to document the "gas valve" trigger method mentioned above. It shows the clean graphics, me turning on the gas, spinning around, and voila, screwedville. All that, and less, for a mere 44mb (and a request for it) in case anyone's really curious. ;-)

 

Sorry for the length, but I've found that providing more detail than necessary works better than not providing enough.

 

Now I'll go hope someone recognizes this and knows what it is, and maybe even has a magic bullet for me.

 

TIA

 

Kru

[Kruzer]

Kinda surprised no one around here's had this issue. I've now Googled up several references to it (several on the Bethsoft forums), and it appears to be a fairly well known problem from early on. It is, indeed, related to Anti-Aliasing. I've yet to play around with things, and am not sure what's suddenly caused my game to go from perfect for three months to crap in two weeks, but at least I have lead. Just for future reference on behalf of others, I'll post back on the assumption I fix my issue (especially if I can find out just what the hell caused it out of nowhere), and note what I did to correct it.