Catastrophic Explosions?

[GhostOne]

I suspect that this may be video card related but I haven't noticed catastrophic explosions like the images I've seen posted. I do have the settings on high and have double checked.

Whenever I see arty hit or a tank gets brewed up, I initially see an inverted solid white dome over the impact area or target and then as that clears I briefly see the flame of the explosion and black smoke puffs that clear. Haven't seen any large fireball type explosions or multiples.

Is that how it should look or does the Matrox G400 have problems with this?

Ghost

[Goanna]

Ghost, are you running the final game or the demo, and have you installed the patch (which adds the catastrophic explosions). The demo doesn't have them, and can't be patched.

[GhostOne]

Goanna...I'm running the final with the patch installed and the newest drivers for the Matrox card.

Ghost

[Fionn]

Make sure you have high quality smoke enabled... Otherwise you won't see catastrophic explosions.

[GhostOne]

Hi Fionn,

I have high quality on. I guess we could determine if it is a video card issue by answering another question. Should the smoke when a gun fires or an arty shell hits be a solid white spere or half sphere. That's what I see on the initial phase. It looks like the images I've seen show it being more translucent.

Ghost

Gsot

[Kevin Peltz]

Ghost- It could be the Matrox board. I had a G200, and it wouldn't do transparency effects at all, period. I never even realized what I was missing until I got a 3Dfx board to replace it. The G400 is supposed to be a couple of steps up from a 200, but...?

[Formerly Babra]

Ghost...

As much as hate you today ( http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif) I think it's a card issue. The expanding spheres that I see are almost transparent.

[Maximus]

Yes, it definately sounds like a graphics card problem. Seems like the G series has problems with this game. It's been mentioned before. Those are made by S3 right?

What kind of explosion graphics did you have with the demo?

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"I for one, am pretty damn close to Genius"--Ol' Blood & Maximus

[tanq_tonic]

thnx kev,

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kevin Peltz:
Ghost- It could be the Matrox board. I had a G200, and it wouldn't do transparency effects at all, period. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

thank you so much for answering my question I had posted twice, without anyone volunteering an answer.

[Kevin Peltz]

tanq_tonic:

Sorry, I did not read your earlier posts- too much to read as it is I guess. I had no luck with the G200 (with 16 megs SDRAM onboard). Frame rate was around 10 fps, and no amount of changing drivers helped- as a matter of fact, the newer drivers made things worse, getting artifacts and all sorts of odd things going on. My brother gave me his old Voodoo 3 2000 with 16 megs on board to replace it. I mounted a fan on it, and overclocked it by about 33% using Powerstrip. I also got the latest driver set from 3Dfx and installed them. I get all the transparencies in the game now, plus I usually run it at 1152 x 864
resolution. I am averaging 28-33 fps, but in certain situations it can be as high as 65.
This is on a home built machine with an AMD K6-2 500 mhz CPU and 160 megs of PC100 RAM. Sorry for the bad news, I was pretty choked when I found out the G200 didn't work out for me...

[GhostOne]

I had the same type of graphics with the demo also so if it's supposed to be translucent then it is definitely the G400's lack of capability. Well....time to consider a new card.

Thanks for the info all.

Ghost

[KiwiJoe]

Ghost - u have to copy the .bmp files from the "new bmp folder" (which the patch creates) into the "bmp folder". Then just delete the empty new bmp folder.

My guess from wot u have stated is u havent done this and cm cant find the right files so u see just white blocks or something.

Read the readme http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif

[GhostOne]

KiwiJoe....did that with the patch install. It just appears that the Matrox cannot not show the translucent smoke during an explosion or when a heavy gun fires. It always shows a solid white circle or inverted dome and when that clears I see what's left of the underlying explosion.

The patch was properly installed so it isn't that.

Ghost

[GhostOne]

ooops...above should read "Matrox cannot show"

Ghost

[KiwiJoe]

Bummer... Time to get a geforce 2 64 meg http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/smile.gif

[KiloIndiaAlpha]

Ghost,

I've got a G400 but I've not yet got final CM. However the demo graphics seem ok for me.( Buildings are translucent). How were your demo graphics?

[Ghost Dog]

I played the Gold demo with a G400.
Looked fine to me.High quality smoke and translucent buildings.
G-D

[Schrullenhaft]

KIA - Do you know what ROM revision and driver version you have for your G400 ? This info MAY help GhostOne and others with the G400.

I wonder if there are any Direct 3D settings that can be changed to support the transparencies any better. Most of the control panels don't offer much in the way of tuning such settings.

[GhostOne]

I have high quality smoke and translucent buildings also. The problem is that when a heavy gun is fired or arty round hits it presents as a solid white dome or inverted solid white dome in the case of arty which masks the initial explosion. When this clears, I see the remainder of the explosion and the black translucent smoke. I don't ever see translucent white smoke on the initial burst. The solid white smoke is the issue and looks incongruent with the rest of the effects and is not what I've seen on screenshots.

Could someone with a G400 check this and let me know if they notice the same?

Ghost

[Nugg]

GhostOne;

I've noticed this too. You cannot see thru the smoke or the gunblast, just a white shpere.
Let's hope Steve and company can geet a fix out real soon. The G400 is a very good card and a patch should fix it.

[Nugg]

Another thing about the the black and white translucent smoke. I am sure the effect we see even after the intial "blast" is not correct. The posted screen shots I have seen do not look like the smoke when using my G400.

Lets hope that a "fix" is coming real soon.


Nugg

[GhostOne]

I threw in a regular GEForce card that a friend had and everything was there...translucent smoke, the flame emanating from the heavy guns, multiple explosions, catastrophics, better smoke effects, buildings are more translucent, etc... more than I realized I was missing with the MatroxG400.

The G400 is a good card but I don't know if BTS would have to write a patch so these effects are there with the card, whether it is something that's missing from the current Matrox drivers or if the card can't handle this type of effect.

I may just get a GEForce as the effects are pretty cool and add a lot to the enjoyment of the sim compared to what I'm seeing with the G400.

Ghost

[grumbler]

I have the same problem with my G400. The demo was fine funnily enough but the patched [1.1] full is all white domes!
New card needed.

[Olle Petersson]

I had about the same problem initially with my new computer. The problem seems to be caused by the monitor. I used my six year old Goldstar 14" monitor while I waited for the new one. Once I switched to the new faster Sony 17", everything went smooth.
Go figure...

Cheers
Olle

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Strategy is the art of avoiding a fair fight...

[Ceebee]

I've got the G400 Max and my explosions are spot on what drivers are you using, I've just recently went from 6.04 to 6.21 and I have slight improvement in quality, plus Counterstrike is now fully functional!

The G400 is an excellent card (for one that is nearly two years old) I did have problems with translucency with earlier 5.xx drivers made comanche verses hokem horrible to look at! as the rotors were spinning solid!