Graphics Artifacts with Nvidia...

[Legacy_Guest_Yrkoon_of_Melibone_*]

               I am currently running Neverwinter Nights on an Nvidia 8600 GT video card and I keep getting these strange graphical artifacts in the game, but not in the toolset. The artifacts appear sometimes as gray polygonish shapes that go across the screen, typically emitting from one placeable or another. At other times, they appear as large black polygons. In every case, they vanish when I turn the camera  but come back when I go back to viewing where I saw them previously. The worst artifacting problem seems to be when certain placeables (the CEP's TNO cliff placeables for instance) appear to have "holes" torn into them. None of this occurs in the toolset, only in the game. Also, none of this occured when I tried an ATI card, only with Nvidia. I tried two of Nvidia's latest drivers, but the artifacts remained. I do not want to switch back to ATI though since their latest drivers do not seem to work with my ATI card, so how can I solve the graphics artifacts I am getting with Nvidia?

On a side note, I used to get this issue all the time back in the years when I had the old Nvidia 4-series cards, but it seemed to be solved until the last two Nvidia drivers. If it is a driver issue, does anyone know of a stable driver for the 8600 GT that will not cause bizarre graphical artifacts like these?

Currently, all of my Neverwinter Nights projects are on hold until I can get this problem solved.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Yrkoon_of_Melibone_*]

               I have been able to reproduce the problem every time by placing the TNO cliff placeable end 1 on the tileset and setting it to static. For some reason, the Nvidia driver reacts to this by causing the odd artifacts (in-game) I mentioned in my post. When the placeable is not set to static the artifacts and hole in the placeable do not appear. However, these placeables must be set to static to function right, so in that respect it's a bit of darned if you do, darned if you dont. This means that the way the current drivers are responding to static objects is screwy, somehow, in a very specific manner.

Again I should ask, therefore, if there are any drivers for my card that do not have this odd bug?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Yrkoon_of_Melibone, 10 juin 2011 - 02:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Guest_Yrkoon_of_Melibone_*]

               Some further testing brought about some new info on this issue. It seems the problem occurs with only the Exterior, Muggy area setting. But I have not yet figured out what it is about that setting that could be causing the artifacts to appear. They definitely do not appear on Exterior, Clear. I am going to do some more detailed experiments with the Muggy setting to figure out the exact cause of this, if possible. I'll post again with the results of the testing, once I've finished.

Update:

It is not just the Exterior, Muggy setting, but also the Interior, Barrow setting as well. Funny, both of the two settings introduced by the final 1.69 Neverwinter Nights patch! That is very strange indeed, and it seems to have nothing to do with the area colors those settings produce. I tried using their exact color numbers in Exterior, Clear and there was no artifacting whatsoever. However, like magic, just selecting Muggy or Barrow causes artifacts. I now know the cause of the problem, but I still have no idea why this problem should occur at all, and why it would only seem to affect the latest Nvidia drivers but not older ones or ATI drivers. Again, these artifacts directly affect the TNO cliff end 1 placeables in the CEP, but why they should I cannot imagine. If this is driver related, then I will need to find a driver that does not have this bug in it, since it is a rather showstopping bug in many ways, especially for a builder.

Area settings  that are causing artifacts are: Exterior, Dark... Exterior, Evil... Exterior, Overcast... Exterior, Poisoned... Exterior, Windy... Exterior, Muggy... and every Interior area setting as well.

All other area settings work. Clearly, this is not just 1.69 area settings but regular Neverwinter Nights ones too. That would indicate the fault lying with the drivers, for certain. So, that clinches the culrpit at least. Though I still have not yet been able to determine what driver would work, specifically, without causing these issues.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Yrkoon_of_Melibone, 10 juin 2011 - 04:19 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Lord Sullivan]

               What that clearly indicates is a badly modeled object(by the Author of the model) in regards to Neverwinter Nights, not a driver issue. What you're seeing is caused by shadows. I bet that if you do not see it in the toolset, it might be caused by not having "Shadows" enabled in the toolset.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Yrkoon_of_Melibone_*]

               Hmmm, I had not thought of that possibility in my tests. I am going to reinstall the latest driver and try some thorough shadow experiments. I've already tried having the shadows off, both in-game and in the toolset, and the artifacts happen. I believe I will next try seeing if there is any difference by turning them on. You are correct by the way, about it not being driver related! I tested all the Nvidia drivers I had saved on disk from January of 2009 all the way to this year... and the artifacting took place with all of them. So that proves what you said to be true: it is not driver related. Thanks very much for your resposne to my post, by the way. The shadows (or rather, the object and how it is handling them) are very likely the culprit. I'll post back once I've conducted further tests with the object and shadows. I might even take a look at the entry for it in the CEP, just to see if there is anything amiss there. I recall years ago there was a reflection problem with several placeables due to one number being off in the placeables.2da file. I think  I'll start my next tests there and see what I can find out.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Guest_Yrkoon_of_Melibone_*]

               Ok, I tried some new tests. First I turned on all the shadows, both in the toolset and in-game. I see no artifacts in the toolset, just as before. In-game, I am still getting the artifacts appearing on TNO cliff end 1. I checked out the placeables.2da and saw nothing wrong under the entry for it. This can only mean the problem lies in the model itself somehow, as you stated correctly Lord Sullivan. I think I'll let the CEP team know about this bug, so perhaps they can get it fixed as soon as possible. In the meantime, I'll either just use TNO cliff end 2, which works perfecty... or I'll take a look at the model itself and see how end 1 differs from end 2.