Troubleshooting graphics artifacts: Difference between revisions

Troubleshooting graphics artifacts (view source)

Revision as of 22:36, 24 May 2014

3,172 bytes added , 24 May 2014

cleanup, added known issues (known by me, please add some), moved here ATI issue from Troubleshooting problems

Bigstones

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+'''Troubleshooting graphics artifacts''' will help you are having graphics issues, but a reasonable performance. These include:
-== Introduction ==
+* corrupted textures, colors or pictures;
-First of all, please read: http://flightgear.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=18951
+* unreadable menus;
+* seeing terrain tiles through the cockpit panel;
+* black panel instruments;
+* ...
-== Bad Performance, corrupted textures & other artifacts ==
+An alternative, more generic but synthetic version of this page is available at [http://forum.flightgear.org/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=18951 this forum post]
-To help us help you, please answer the following questions and post your answers:
-'''If you are you using a hardware accelerated window manager (Compiz/Fusion, Xgl etc), if so: disable it first or use a different window manager for testing purposes!'''
+If your problem is that FlightGear runs slowly, better looking first at [[Troubleshooting performance issues]]. However, if that doesn't solve your problems, come back here, as here we tell you also how to ask for support.
-* Have you previously run other versions of FlightGear on the same computer ?
+== Known issues ==
-* Have you recently modified your system (software/OS/hardware) ?
+[[File:ATI_point-sprites_corrupted_1.jpg|thumb|example of ATI driver texture corruption]] [[File:ATI_point-sprites_corrupted_2.jpg|thumb|Example of ATI driver texture corruption]]
-* What graphics card (GPU) and drivers (proprietary/open source, version) are you using ?
+=== Corrupt textures on ATI cards ===
-* Is the problem specific to FlightGear, i.e. are you able to run other OpenGL-based software (simulators/games like UrbanTerror for example) without seeing this ?
+The free ATI drivers are subject of intensive improvement, but can still be problematic. Try this:
-* What version of FlightGear are you using (please only report bugs after checking the latest release first!) ?
+#Start FG in the normal way.
-* How is your frame rate and frame latency (spacing) ?
+#Select 'View' drop-down menu (one from the left- you may not be able to read the labels!)
-* How about other osgviewer-based software such as fgviewer ?
+#Select 'Rendering Options' (fourth choice)
-* If this happens with other OpenGL software (simulators/games): What graphics drivers are you using, and have you considered updating or downgrading drivers ?
+#Uncheck 'Use Point Sprites for Runway Lights' (fourth check-box)
-* Did you modify any of the startup settings, or is this with the FG defaults (try the defaults first!) ?
+When you come to quit FG, do so by menu: File...Exit, rather than closing the window to save this setting.
-* Are there any messages shown in the console (warnings/errors)?
-* What is your shader detail level ?
-* Could you please check if reducing/disabling features in the rendering settings dialog has an effect here ?
-* Do all rendering artifacts go away once you disable textures (wireframe mode) ?
-And please also post a screenshot of the rendering settings dialog, and another one showing the problem.
+If you can't read the Menu titles (because of corrupted graphics) you can manually edit the config files [[$FG_HOME]]autosave.xml and/or [[$FG_ROOT]]/preferences.xml before even starting FlightGear. The file autosave.xml is created the first time FlightGear is closed and settings in it override the defaults in [[$FG_ROOT]]/preferences.xml. Use your operating system's search facilities to find the files if you don't know where to look for them. Close Flightgear and change the ''true'' to ''false'' in the line
+ <point-sprites type="bool">true</point-sprites>
+in both files (if you don't have an autosave.xml it is sufficient to make the change in preferences.xml) and start FlightGear again.
+=== Black/unreadable panel instruments ===
+If you have this problem but the world and other models (buildings, AI planes...) look ok, it is very possible that you enabled [[Project Rembrandt|Rembrandt]] and the aircraft you're using does not support it yet. You can renounce to Rembrandt, or the aircraft, or contact the aircraft developer and report the issue, but first better posting a screenshot and asking on the forum if anybody else has the same issue with that aircraft.
+=== Other issues and solutions ===
+If everything's black, or there are other artifacts, you might lack support for texture compression. You can disable it from [[FGRun]], in last page ''Advanced > Rendering'', uncheck ''Texture compression''. However, this is going to be painful for cards with little video memory, especially the integrated cards (see [[Problematic Video Cards]]).
+Also, another reason for such problems could be that you're using open drivers and dds textures. These use a proprietary compression algorithm, and will cause you problems. Either you decompress them before, or renounce to them (or move to the dark side of proprietary drivers).
+== What shoud I try? ==
+Graphics artifacts are often due to unsupported OpenGL features, and that lack of support comes from either the graphics card or the drivers. If the issues are very severe, you should really check that you can actually run any OpenGL program. See [[Graphics drivers configuration]] for information on how to check if your drivers and which card are being used by FlightGear, other programs to be used for testing and, of course, how to install the drivers.
+If however you can run FlightGear but it looks bad, still it could be a driver support problem (and so you should check them), but possibly your hardware doesn't support certain [[shader]]s or other rendering effects. If that's the case, try to disable them all, and reenable them step by step, to see if a particular shader is not supported and causes the artifacts. Note that [[Atmospheric light scattering]] ''is'' a shader!
-Overall, if this is not FG specific, try to get other programs working properly first - FG is almost certainly more complex than most other OpenGL programs, so FG is unlikely to work as long as other OpenGL programs don't work.
+If these didn't work, it's possibly a bug or a particular configuration that was not tested (you can help with that by [[Volunteer#Pre-Release Testers|testing future releases]]!). You'll need to ask support to check if it's a real bug, and possibly report the bug on the [[Bugs|bug tracker]].
-If your OpenGL setup is generally "broken" and doesn't work with other OpenGL applications rendering at 20+ frames per second, you'll basically have zero chance of running FlightGear under these circumstances.
+== Requesting support ==
+To help us help you, please answer the following questions and post your answers on the forum. The more you can answer, the better!
+* Have you recently modified your system (software/OS/hardware)?
+* What graphics card (GPU) and drivers are you using?
+* Is the problem specific to FlightGear? Does it happen with other OpenGL software (fgviewer, glxgears, UrbanTerror...)?
+* What version of FlightGear are you using (please only report bugs after checking the latest release first!)? Have you ever used other versions?
+* How is your frame rate and frame latency (spacing)?
+* How about other osgviewer-based software such as fgviewer?
+* If this happens with other OpenGL software (simulators/games): What graphics drivers are you using, and have you considered updating or downgrading drivers?
+* Did you modify any of the startup settings, or is this with the FG defaults (try the defaults first!)?
+* Are there any messages shown in the console? Have you tried raising the log level?
+* What is your shader detail level? Does anything change when reducing/disabling features in the rendering settings dialogs?
+* Do all rendering artifacts go away once you disable textures (wireframe mode)?
-So, first of all, I'd ensure that OpenGL in general works properly. glxinfo and glxgears are just the start, there are other benchmarks, and also shader tests. If on the other hand, other software like UrbanTerror works at >= 30 fps, you should also be able to customize FG a little more, so that unsupported stuff can be disabled.
+And please also post a screenshot of the rendering settings dialog, and another one showing the problem.
 [[Category:Howto|Troubleshooting Graphics Artifacts]]
-[[Category:Troubleshooting|Troubleshooting Graphics Artifacts]]
+[[Category:Troubleshooting]]

Troubleshooting graphics artifacts: Difference between revisions

Troubleshooting graphics artifacts (view source)

Revision as of 22:36, 24 May 2014

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