Graphics problem

from GalCiv2 Forums

Hi, I've been playing Gal Civ for a long time with no problems. Howver, just in the past couple days, with no change to my drivers or game or any other computer components, the ships in my ship design window have become bugged. The 'tops' of the ship are invisible, basically I can only see the back of the ship in the ship window, whatever is facing me is invisible except for the back. For example, on a colony module, I can't see the metal on the top, or the bubble in the middle, I only see the metal base on the bottom, and if I turn it around to make the bottom face me, I only see the metal rigging that surrounds the bubble, but not the bubble or the bottom. This applies to all ships and ship components that are placed, however I can see an entire ship component normally when I have not placed it yet and it is following my cursor around. Does anyone have an idea on how to fix this? The first thing I did was update my drivers, then I rolled them back, neither worked, I have the latest version of gal civ

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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

This has all the symptoms of what i've been calling the structural directX model flaws at random when i manipulate(d) them in the shipyards, too.

It's not the card, the OS nor is it a bug related to OUR pcs... it's simply how **some** of the ship parts were saved by SD devs and integrated to fit each other's between code principles found in three different expansions.

The best example for this 'weird' graphical effect is the discarded Troop Carrier model from DL days... the side and top sides become invisible cuz the file itself & its UV mapping material & texturing slots (for those polygons) aren't in the correct format. Indirectly, it's as if you'd take a flat rectangular surface, paint the top White and paint the "underneath" black... but when you look or take a photographic picture of both sides, Black becomes completely invisible.

Even i get these artifacts at times (strangely in new games, they may or not show up!), it MIGHT be caused by a slow card or lack of memory, shaders & what else (and if you should ask, it is a NVidia GeForce 8600GS and it is absolutely enough and solid to support GC2 all the way to TA) but i can prove to anyone at SD that a few of their **old** (as in DL or DA) structures are simply flawed or incompatible enough to create these random glitches.

In every other situations you seem to describe, it's absolutely normal to get semi-transparent structures and visually incorrect (depending on your perception, btw) drag&drop split seconds of invisible stuff in a not-bugged shipyard like everyone else.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

And... if you are using the cubic Hulls and the basic model has been tampered with (or borked up somehow) every subsequent parts dropped on THAT particular element will behave such as what you are seeing.

Again, i can prove this by using some KHSM harpoints 'flips' linked together with any given flawed parts as mentioned in the above reply.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Lame :o thanks for the clarification. Oh well, it's a great game, pretty frustrating bug but it's still fun to play.