Flickering Grass and Game-Data Access Issues

[Shadowfen]

I have tried the saved games, and made new games from start - but I still got the grass and self shadow bug. Gah, this is the most irritating bug I have ever encountered.

 

So, you've tried new drivers, new graphics cards, vanilla installs, new games, and none of those options have helped.

 

Can you borrow a monitor and try it with the borrowed monitor hooked up in place of yours? You are running out of likely options...

[Tenlethar]

I have tried the saved games, and made new games from start - but I still got the grass and self shadow bug. Gah, this is the most irritating bug I have ever encountered.

 

So, you've tried new drivers, new graphics cards, vanilla installs, new games, and none of those options have helped.

 

Can you borrow a monitor and try it with the borrowed monitor hooked up in place of yours? You are running out of likely options...

 

I tried all these (including the monitor swap, also tried that from 120Hz Samsung to 60Hz LG) except for the savegames, did not have the time to do this yet. Will have to wait a few more hours. But according to TJADER it probably won't help. Even though i was so much hoping for it :)

 

Anyone think it would make sense to try in VIsta too? Cause until now i only tried Windows 7 (64) and Windows XP (32)

[Hickory]

Anyone think it would make sense to try in VIsta too? Cause until now i only tried Windows 7 (64) and Windows XP (32)

 

I certainly can't hurt -- maybe the Vista drivers (I'm on Vista 32) are different enough to make the difference? :shrug:

[Tenlethar]

Did not try Vista (yet), since i had same results with XP 32-Bit .. but i now ran some advanced tests and also tested if not using any previous savegames may help cure the issue.

 

The results are no good. Shadow flickering (when on grass) and grass flickering is as extreme as it was before. Now i tried a few more tweaks, such as disabling sound and music (just to see if that for some odd reason may help). But same here - no success.

 

I'm leaking energy. But you know, once you swim half the way, swimming back is quite as doomed as swimming onwards. I swim onwards.

 

But i need some help from you other guys out there.. :/

 

Help?

[Tenlethar]

I got something new: after many more hours of further tweaking of the INI-file, i finally found something that would make the flickering disappear. Unfortunately though, changing those settings also results in an unplayable expierience.

 

There are five settings called:

 

Code:

 

bDoTexturePass=1

bDoSpecularPass=1

bDoForceMultiPass=1

bDoAmbientPass=1

bDoDiffusePass=1

 

 

Now i found out that when i change each of them to 0, except for bDoForceMultiPass - then the flickering will not occur and the shadows will be rendered properly on the grass. However, various combinations of those settings have not brought me any results. Only when i do as just described, the flickering will go. But as i said before, the game is not playable that way (no floor, no face, no body textures, and so on).

 

However, knowing about the fact that these settings can actually somehow relate to the problem may help any potential troubleshooters (which i hereby summon most respectfully) :)

[Shadowfen]

I got something new: after many more hours of further tweaking of the INI-file, i finally found something that would make the flickering disappear. Unfortunately though, changing those settings also results in an unplayable expierience.

 

There are five settings called:

 

Code:

 

bDoTexturePass=1

bDoSpecularPass=1

bDoForceMultiPass=1

bDoAmbientPass=1

bDoDiffusePass=1

 

 

Now i found out that when i change each of them to 0, except for bDoForceMultiPass - then the flickering will not occur and the shadows will be rendered properly on the grass. However, various combinations of those settings have not brought me any results. Only when i do as just described, the flickering will go. But as i said before, the game is not playable that way (no floor, no face, no body textures, and so on).

 

However, knowing about the fact that these settings can actually somehow relate to the problem may help any potential troubleshooters (which i hereby summon most respectfully) :)

 

That is generally a symptom of a low-performance graphic card; and the ones that you mentioned are certainly not that.

 

Do you have any other devices attached to the computer - specifically, things like a joystick or game controller? If you do, try unplugging them and seeing how that affects your game.

[Smooth613]

This seems to me that Oblivion has improperly assigned you a "low performance" shader package. Go to Documents\My Games\Oblivion and look at your RenderInfo.txt. The bottom line will show what package you are currently using. Take note of that for now.** It also likely states that you don't have 3.0 Shaders, under 3.0 Shaders = no.

 

With newer graphic cards when you first start Oblivion it will default to "medium" or, in my case with a XFX 5770, "very low" This is when Oblivion assigns the shader package that your game will be using. It doesn't matter what settings you change in game it's still using this package. If the package doesn't have the ability to handle certain settings you could experience problems. The only way to fix this is to force Oblivion to assign a different shaderpackage.

 

How to do that? Simple. Start Oblivion with the OblivionLauncher.exe and manually select "VeryHigh" and this will assign a proper shader package. Now go back to the RenderInfo.txt and see if the shader package has changed**? If yes, you have likely solved the issue. If no, then you can "trick" Oblivion into using another shader package. For example Package 19 contains 3.0 shader information. What you can do is rename package 19 to whatever your card has been assigned in the above checks of RenderInfo.txt.** Just make sure you don't delete any packages and rename them or make backups.

 

The information above is centered around a user tweaking shaders for ATI cards but I imagine it would apply similarly to nVidia. Plus if I recall correctly you have both ATI and nVidia cards so you could test. The main thing to remember is to forcefully select "VeryHigh" with the OblivionLauncher.exe so you get a "high performance" shader package assigned to your card.

 

I've been reading over this thread for the past week or so and I cannot think of much else other than some core hardware conflict, which makes no sense, such as a motherboard or something similar. If I recall correctly you only swapped out video cards when the problem arose? But anyway, that's just too extreme, it has to be something simpler than hardware conflicts, and it obviously is with your last report of changing settings fixes the issue of flickering. And with Shadowfen's report of that typically happens on low end cards I'm thinking Oblivion is mistaking your card for a low end card and assigning the wrong shaderpackage. Much like it falsely recognizes my 5770 as an old GeForce FX 5xxx Series and assigns the improper shader package. If I don't manually set it to "VeryHigh" my game is horrid looking. Have you ever used the console command "tlb" ToggleLightBright? Well try it sometime, that's what the "VeryLow" shader package looks like.

 

Good luck!

[Tenlethar]

Thank you guys, for the great input. Continuing my research last night led me right there - to the shaders. I was hopeful.

 

Even though i had, prior to this, tested to set the 3.0 shaders by tricking Oblivion into using the 19 shader package, in my new hopefulness, i decided to once rename EACH and everyone of the shader packages so that Oblivion would use it. I went through all of them. Most let me enter the game normally, but sometimes with missing hair textures, and some would cause the whole screen to go violet blank). The bottomline is that with every package i tried, i had the same results.

 

I also tweaked the shader settings in the INI when i forced package 19, but i could not get any results from that.

 

It seems like a curse :(

It is a curse!

[Smooth613]

After re-assigning the shader package did you run the Oblivion Launcher? Then did you allow Oblivion to generate a new INI?

[Hickory]

Thank you guys, for the great input. Continuing my research last night led me right there - to the shaders. I was hopeful.

 

Even though i had, prior to this, tested to set the 3.0 shaders by tricking Oblivion into using the 19 shader package, in my new hopefulness, i decided to once rename EACH and everyone of the shader packages so that Oblivion would use it. I went through all of them. Most let me enter the game normally, but sometimes with missing hair textures, and some would cause the whole screen to go violet blank). The bottomline is that with every package i tried, i had the same results.

 

I also tweaked the shader settings in the INI when i forced package 19, but i could not get any results from that.

 

It seems like a curse :(

It is a curse!

 

As Smooth613 hinted towards (allowing the generation of a new ini), remember that too much 'tweaking' when troubleshooting is also a curse, and is likely to add to your problems, not mitigate them.