I have been having this problem since beta, but i didn't reported because i thought the problem was with my old drivers. Well, after the beta closed i've updated my drivers to the most recent but the problem continues.
When my ship is in motion the shadows and some of the window decals flicker a lot, and its damn ugly.
I get the same problem. It's usually worse when loading to a new area. Also, it doesn't always do it, just sometimes. Various details and effects on the screen will flash to black. It's very distracting. The only other game I have a problem with is Dungeon Keeper 2, and that is ancient in game terms.
I am running an Geforce 8800 GTS in Win 7. And yes, I have the latest drivers and whatnot.
I hit this issue today when I took my Constitution out for a spin. The shadows were grainy and flickered across the hull randomly.
I had also noticed much earlier (Closed Beta, even) that there was some weird artifacting on the wall textures, but couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. Now I'm pretty sure the artifacting was this shadows issue.
Anyhow, I set shadows to LOW and didn't notice any significant degradation of image quality in space. We'll see what happens on the ground. Earthdock looked fine, at least.
For reference: ATI Radeon HD 4890
All features maxed except for Dynamic Lighting, which is turned off to workaround ground combat crash bug and now Shadows set to LOW.
After a little bit of rooting about I noticed something. The flickering is positional. Meaning if you are in space and remain still then you get no flicker. The moment you move...it is terrible.
I've been having this same problem since CB as well, and it is indeed an issue that only occurs when the player ship is moving. In fact, I've only noticed it on the player ship, so I have been keeping shadows on high. I have an ATI Radeon HD4650, and haven't had any other serious graphics hang-ups (none of the indoor ground problems people are mentioning).
So this is not an ATI problem, but there isn't a firestorm of whining about it, so it isn't happening to everyone; what's going on with our systems?
Theres some funny posts in this thread... the rippling shadows only occur when your moving... uh you think?... awesome detective work lol
This does look ugly, but for me (ATI 5770/10.2) its only an issue with shadows at medium or lower .. looks perfect at shadows high .. and very nice too.
You'll think I'm stupid, but have you tried turning your AA to 4x or lower? It fixed my shadow issues.
Mine's set for 4X and still does it on ATI Radeon 5870. This problem and the Dynamic Lighting crashes have been around long enough for Cryptic to know about it.
Mine's set for 4X and still does it on ATI Radeon 5870. This problem and the Dynamic Lighting crashes have been around long enough for Cryptic to know about it.
Ah well, was worth a try. I had dynamic lighting crashes too, an update from Nvidia fixed it for me. I wouldn't really blame Cryptic for either of those issues. /shrug (And yes I hate ATi with a passion, I always had driver issues with them ever since they joined with AMD, good cards, bad, bad drivers)
Also having this problem, GeForce GTX 660, 314.22 drivers
Have everything cranked up all the way except shadows to low because of this issue. With shadows on medium or high, a ship with MACO shields flickers horribly.
I've been getting flickering shadows since this game was in beta. Several hardware/computer/parts upgrades and changes later, the flickering shadows are still there. It's definitely a problem with the game.
The whole joke is that despite upgrading to a top of the range system with a 3GB GPU I'm still getting these issues. It's funny because out of all my games, this is the only one I have problems with and out of all my games this is the 1 game that runs the coolest on my GPU compared to the rest, all the other games push my GPU harder yet run flawlessly lol. It needs to be fixed.
Comments
Find your best setting.
Hmm.. i did that, obviously
Everything is on max, except bloom, which is at 170%
I am running an Geforce 8800 GTS in Win 7. And yes, I have the latest drivers and whatnot.
ATI 4870x2
So its happening with Nvidia people as well? So its actually not just my card like it has been for just about every graphical issue with this game.
I had also noticed much earlier (Closed Beta, even) that there was some weird artifacting on the wall textures, but couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. Now I'm pretty sure the artifacting was this shadows issue.
Anyhow, I set shadows to LOW and didn't notice any significant degradation of image quality in space. We'll see what happens on the ground. Earthdock looked fine, at least.
For reference: ATI Radeon HD 4890
All features maxed except for Dynamic Lighting, which is turned off to workaround ground combat crash bug and now Shadows set to LOW.
So this is not an ATI problem, but there isn't a firestorm of whining about it, so it isn't happening to everyone; what's going on with our systems?
ATI Radeon 5850
Latest drivers
Windows 7, 64-bit
Geforce 9800GTX+ w/latest driver
Athlon X2 4200+ (939)
4gb DDR400
That and blocky phasers. Those are my only two complains.
ATI Radeon 5770, 10.2 drivers
Win 7 32bit
2 X ATI 4850 in crossfire setup
10.1 drivers
windows 7 64bit
Win 7 64
Phenom II x4 955
ATI HD5870
Cat 9.12, 10.1 and 10.2
everything maxed out, exept DL which is off because of the crash issue and Bloom which I left on 100%.
Greetings
Cratherhak
This does look ugly, but for me (ATI 5770/10.2) its only an issue with shadows at medium or lower .. looks perfect at shadows high .. and very nice too.
Mine's set for 4X and still does it on ATI Radeon 5870. This problem and the Dynamic Lighting crashes have been around long enough for Cryptic to know about it.
Ah well, was worth a try. I had dynamic lighting crashes too, an update from Nvidia fixed it for me. I wouldn't really blame Cryptic for either of those issues. /shrug (And yes I hate ATi with a passion, I always had driver issues with them ever since they joined with AMD, good cards, bad, bad drivers)
Something else to try would be to update DirectX by running the redistributable from microsoft. I usually do that about once a month.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0CEF8180-E94A-4F56-B157-5AB8109CB4F5&displaylang=en
This one might be more up to date.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2DA43D38-DB71-4C1B-BC6A-9B6652CD92A3&displaylang=en
Have everything cranked up all the way except shadows to low because of this issue. With shadows on medium or high, a ship with MACO shields flickers horribly.