Graphical bug: Textures speckled with black dots

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               While playing on a PW I noticed some of the textures it was using weren't displayed correctly for me, they were speckled with pure black dots and stripes. At first I thought there was something wrong with the tileset but then it also showed up on loadscreens occasionally and when I played on another PW the other day I also noticed it on the texture of a house (placeable or tileset feature?) so I'm assuming something wrong with my NWN or my graphic card... I've never seen anything like it before but i don't know what could have caused the recent change if there was one. Clearing out the override folder didn't help either.

Does anyone have an idea what the problem is or can you narrow down the causes for it?

Here are some screenshots of the graphical bugs:

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Any help is appreciated, thanks! '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par olivier leroux, 29 juillet 2010 - 11:19 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

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[Legacy_Selene Moonsong]

               Please, post your system specs and include video card specs and drivers.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               I'll try, let me know if something important is still missing:



AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4000+ 2,10 GHz

1GB RAM

Windows Vista Home Premium, 32 bit, Service Pack 2

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE (Driver Version 8.16.11.9107, 09/27/2009)



               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Selene Moonsong]

               At this point, I can only speculate...



Your drivers for the 7300LE are rather old, you may want to try updating your drivers to the current version. There have been several updates for NVIDIA drivers and the current one is the 258.96 drivers.



The 7300 LE works well enough with NWN, but I don't recall what settings I had to use with mine before I replaced it with a 7600GT. The one problem with the 7300 LE is that is uses shared System RAM. It normally has 128MB on the card and uses an additional 128 MB System RAM to bring it up to 256 MB. You may want to reduce some settings (turning shiney water off, for example as it never worked well on my own 7300 LE anyway).



Also, the 7300 LE is a very dated card, about 4 years old or more, now. If you have had it that long, it may be breaking down. The card has a very small on-board cooling fan and can be prone to overheating, especially in the warmer months of Summer.



               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               Shiny water and such is already turned off (see video setting screenshots above) but I appreciate your advice. I got the video card with the computer about three years ago, I think. I really hope it isn't the card breaking down...


Updating my driver is a good idea though, IIRC that was what fixed another texture issue I had two years ago. One can always hope.

Thanks for your help! :happy:
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gorath Alpha]

               

Selene Moonsong wrote...

The 7300 LE works well enough with NWN, but I don't recall what settings I had to use with mine before I replaced it with a 7600GT. The one problem with the 7300 LE is that is uses shared System RAM. It normally has 128MB on the card and uses an additional 128 MB System RAM to bring it up to 256 MB. You may want to reduce some settings (turning shiney water off, for example as it never worked well on my own 7300 LE anyway).

Also, the 7300 LE is a very dated card, about 4 years old or more, now. If you have had it that long, it may be breaking down. The card has a very small on-board cooling fan and can be prone to overheating, especially in the warmer months of Summer.

YOU put up with an awful thing like that card for NWN2?  Did you have your character always look down?  Didn't the corrugated or checkerboarded skies get to you?   The 7800GT is now five years old, or will be next month, with the 7600 about a month younger, and the initial pair of 7300s before Thanksgiving that year, so, yes, very old for a $30 piece of hardware ($5 to an OEM brand producer). 

When SoU was still new, I was using a GF3 Ti-200 with it, and it worked just fine, but I used something like a Radeon 1900 GT when NWN2 was new, before losing interest.  I can't recall what I had for the release of SoZ. 
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Selene Moonsong]

               Before jumping to conclusions about what I may have installed on my system, I dumped the 7300 LE just after NWN 2 was released, and replaced that with a 7600GT, which worked pretty well. I participated in the NWN 2 Beta's running the 7300 LE and all of the Beta was done in the starting location (fair). And yes, one tricke we used was to turn off the sky dome. I did have some artifacting, but I knew what it was, and it wasn't as bad on my system as it was with others, and updated NVIDIA drivers actually corrected that problem at one point.

One could get fair performance from the 7300 LE, even with NWN 2. For the most part, however, I had an 8800 GT (Superclocked), which I replaced with a 9800 GTX+ in January of this year. I would go with a Fermi now, but the nearly 5 year old computer I have isn't worth the added expense. I'll ne getting a new system within the next year, on which I plan on going high-end all the way.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Selene Moonsong, 01 août 2010 - 05:04 .