Skipped Probe Binning Message

rosvik

Was playing a space map on an old Foundry mission and while it was loading I saw a message that said 'Warning: Skipped Probe Binning Lighting may be incorrect'. I assumed it was graphics related, but I don't know exactly what it means and was not able to find anything on Google for 'Skipped Probe Binning'. The maps all look fine, despite this message.

UPDATE: I do not see this message when I play STO. It may just be a Foundry editor issue. I haven't published the mission to see if the message shows up after being published. I was advised to post some of my system information too. This is what is listed when I run dxdiag.

Win 10 Pro 64-Bit
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770k CPU @ 3.50 GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.9 GHz
Memory: 8192MB Ram
DirectX version: DirectX 12
Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT
Approx Total Memory: 4064 MB
Current Display Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (60Hz)

When I start STO I do see a message that says "Tessellation not supported. Skipping domain shader creation". I don't know if that is related. I have tried looking at my NVIDIA GeForce Experience control panel to see if I could find 'Tessellation' but I didn't see it. It doesn't seem to have any affect on the game, however. STO runs fine.

jbmonroe

Tessellation is the breaking down of a simple surface into a connected set of smaller surfaces; one benefit is that the GPU can render better-looking surfaces across the area than it would have normally because it can provide varied detail across the smaller surfaces than it would have across the full, single-shaded bland surface before tessellation. (It varies reflectivity, surface normal [angle 90 degrees to the surface], and some other factors by small amounts to provide the appearance of texture where there isn't any programmed into the surface.)

The tessellation message you see has to do with a bit of math coming back with a value less than or equal to zero, or NaN (not a number, which is a safe way of saying overflow or underflow [too large to too small for the GPU to represent], so the GPU just skips the surface that generated the error.) It's probably a geometry error in the game data. When you write "when I start STO" do you mean immediately afterward? At what stage does the message appear?

I can't find anything about probe binning either. I expect that it's probably a variation on the other theme--something about how the pre-lighting 2.0 map was generated that results in math errors under DX11/12 and causes the GPU and library to decide not to render it (or include a particular step in the rendering).