Graphics Bugs
from
GalCiv2 Forums
My graphics problem is that the ships have no textures at all. It's old school mat colors on polys . The funny part is, some of the higher graphical effects work like antialiasing and the metallic shine on the ships. Given I'm running a 64mb Geforce 2 GT something, I'm wondering if it's a problem with the graphical scaling engine or drivers? Now, the real Geforce 2 series is a suprisingly solid line of cards, and I have been able to run America's Army, World of Warcraft, and even the Star Wars: Empires at War demo quite well. The present problem with the Geforce 2 series is that Nvidia no longer supports it, so I'm willing to admit that drivers might be a problem. However, the worlds do have textures and everything else appears to be working, so I'm left with a question mark on what's to blame. I'm not expecting bump-mapping or specular lighting and all that, but yanno, maybe a simple texture?
A similar problem is that planets with rings have really, really ugly rings. A flat gradient color without any transparencies, which is probably another texture deal.

Another maybe graphics bug I noticed was due to a planet with the Omega Defense System. I'd cleared the defending ships from the planet, but there appeared to be a fleet of two or three ships right on top of the planet. This is the second time I've seen this, only in this instance, it caused massive slow down whenever the engine tried to render that particular planet and the fleet stacked on top of the world. Zooming out until everything was represented by icons cleared this slow down, until I zoomed back in. Of course, restarting the game fixed the problem, so I can't send you the save game file to recreate it.
Oh! There's another bug where zooming in on the minimap causes some of the civ territory blobs to not be rendered. It looks like the bounding box on what the engine should render gets calculated incorrectly.

Random question: Why do the updates/installs request a machine restart? The game appears to work without doing so and given Win XP, it's a rare process that actually requires it.
And that always asked for debug log:
A similar problem is that planets with rings have really, really ugly rings. A flat gradient color without any transparencies, which is probably another texture deal.

Another maybe graphics bug I noticed was due to a planet with the Omega Defense System. I'd cleared the defending ships from the planet, but there appeared to be a fleet of two or three ships right on top of the planet. This is the second time I've seen this, only in this instance, it caused massive slow down whenever the engine tried to render that particular planet and the fleet stacked on top of the world. Zooming out until everything was represented by icons cleared this slow down, until I zoomed back in. Of course, restarting the game fixed the problem, so I can't send you the save game file to recreate it.
Oh! There's another bug where zooming in on the minimap causes some of the civ territory blobs to not be rendered. It looks like the bounding box on what the engine should render gets calculated incorrectly.

Random question: Why do the updates/installs request a machine restart? The game appears to work without doing so and given Win XP, it's a rare process that actually requires it.
And that always asked for debug log:
Debug Message: *********DXDiag info follows.*********
System Info
Time: 2/28/2006, 22:59:56
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Machine Name: XXXX
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+, MMX, 3DNow, ~1.9GHz
Physical Memory: 1536MB RAM
Page File: 257MB used, 3177MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
Display Info
Display device 1:
Device Name: \\.\DISPLAY1
Card Name: NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
Manufacturer: NVIDIA
Chip Type: GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
DAC Type: Integrated RAMDAC
Key Device: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0150&SUBSYS_00101545&REV_A4
Display Memory: 64.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1600 x 1200 (32 bit) (65Hz)
Monitor Name: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Resolution: 1600,1200
Driver Name: nv4_disp.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.7189
Driver Date: 4/1/2005 16:16:00
DirectX Acceleration Enabled: Yes
Sound info
Sound device 1:
Description: NVIDIA(R) nForce(TM) Audio
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: NFORCE_VAD
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Driver Name: nvapu.sys
Provider: NVIDIA Corporation
Driver Version: 6.14.0442.0030
Driver Date: 5/25/2004 15:58:04
Type: WDM
Other Drivers:
Acceleration Level: 3
Cap Flags: 0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0
Debug Message: *********END dxdiag info.*********
Debug Message: Entering WinMain
Debug Message: ******* Starting Game Shell *******
Debug Message: Preparing to change display settings.
Debug Message: Using multilsample setting: D3DMULTISAMPLE_NONMASKABLE
Debug Message: Game Resolution: 1024 x 768
Debug Message: Running in windowed mode.
Debug Message: HAL (sw vp): NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS/GeForce2 Pro
Debug Message: D3DPRESENT_INTERVAL_IMMEDIATE
Debug Message: Refresh rate: 0
Debug Message: Bit Depth: 32 bit.
Debug Message: *********Checking D3DDevice Caps***********************
Debug Message: A full-color cursor is supported in hardware at high resolution modes.
Debug Message: Border size reported as 6 by 32
Debug Message: RGB in format 6:6:6, Masks reported as ff0000:ff00:ff
Debug Message: Now windowed.
Debug Message: Shell initialization complete
Debug Message: ***** Initializing Game *****
...and more if you ask for it.
Wait, those sound drivers are two years old? I so just downloaded them last week... Nvidia hates me.