Tonci87

Hi there, as many of you are aware, the game has a problem when played on a PC with an AMD graphics card. Rivers and towns appear with big, blocky black textures. Let me start this post with two pictures to show you, that this can be changed! This is how the rivers look in my unmodded BH&H installation: (Season summer, clear skies, Marne region, above le Chatelet, looking west) And this is how they look after I made a change: Now that I have your attention, let me explain what I did to arrive at that point, where the root cause for the issue is and how it might be solved. Premise: The game has an issue with a very specific set of textures (rivers and towns/cities), while all other textures work just fine. This means that there is something present that causes this issue for those textures, but not for all others. If that something can be removed or fixed, all textures should work fine. Method: Identify the root issue by picking apart how this old engine handles textures. Polovski asked me to test if saving the DDS Texture files in a newer format would fix the issue, sadly that did not work, but it got me poking a bit deeper. I tried replacing the river affiliated DDS Texture files inside \WOFF\WOFFScenery\Seasons\Summer with renamed Wildgrass1summer.dds textures to test if the DDS texture was even responsible for the issue. I though it might have something to do with how the water is displayed, maybe a reflection effect not working. I was surprised to see this: Clearly the river DDS textures were not the issue, since the Wildgrass DDS texture, that is working fine across the whole map, is now displaying the same behavior when used instead of the river textures. But this showed me, that the game seems to builds the map out of square shaped tiles. Because you don´t want to have a map that looks like a chessboard, composed of square shaped tiles (see the image above), the DDS textures contain an alpha channel, that makes a part of the texture tile transparent. This leaves the part you want to see visible, to blend with the general seasonal texture. That is why, In the image above, where I replaced the river DDS Textures with another DDS texture that only has transparent edges, it appears square shaped. The Tutorial on how to create an airfield mod for WOFF within the WOFF Modding tools and tutorials available on this website here: https://www.thatoneplease.co/toolsWOFF.html pointed me to another set of texture files that exits in this game engine: .MOS (mosaic) files. I don´t fully understand what .mos files are and how they are used by this engine. The Tutorial doesn´t explain this well enough. I only know that the DD texture files are used to build a .MOS file for that texture. But when I replaced the river affiliated .mos files inside \WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\assets\WW1MOS with renamed 006Wildgrasssummer1.mos files, this is the result that I got: You can see that the game applies the correct tile shape/transparency, suggesting that that is taken from the DDS Texture. Only the part of the texture that otherwise would have been black is now showing the Wildgrass texture, suggesting that the actual texture on display is taken from the .mos file. Conclusion: The .mos files for rivers, towns and cities are at fault for the black texture problem. Next steps: Try to rebuild/fix/replace the affected .mos files Problem: I still don´t have a clue what .mos files are, or which program can be used to manipulate them. GIMP or other programs suggested by a google search can´t open those files. I can not find the program that is shown in the modding tutorial. Can anybody enable me to edit .mos files by pointing me to a program that can open them? Can anybody share with me what .mos files are and how the game engine is using them?

I did a bit of further testing to confirm a suspicion I had. First I made a test mod that replaces all summer river textures with renamed copies of the Wildgrass1summer.dds texture, to check if the issue is even connected to the textures themselves The result can be seen in the attached picture The river textures have been replaced by grass, but we can still see the irregular black coloring. So the issue clearly doesn´t stem from the textures themselves, but from how they are configured or used. I know little about how this game engine works, but I dug a bit deeper. In the folder \WOFF\OBDWW1 Over Flanders Fields\terrains are the files determining which textures get loaded by the engine and how they are placed on the map. At least that is my understanding of the files in that folder. I went ahead and made a testmod that replaces all the landclassmaskRiverXXXX.dds and .xml files with renamed copies of the genericlandclassmaskSomme.dds and .xml file (Screenshot 2024-10-18 223621.jpg). The result looks like this: We see that the shape and size of the tiles has changed to match the settings for the genericlandclassmaskSomme tiles. However, we still see the irregular black coloring of many of the tiles. My question now is, what determines this coloring that is applied to the textures? Or in short, what makes the river textures different from, let´s say any other ground texture? Can we somehow get the game to display the river (and then city) textures in the same way as the other ground textures?

That is out of the question considering the current prices and that the next generation of Nvidia GPUs is incoming. Also you can´t ensure that whatever AMD did with their drivers, isn´t something that NVIDIA will do as well at some point. And what then? I still don´t understand in what way river and city textures are treated differently in this engine from the other textures. Especially when it comes to the city textures, I just don´t see a pattern. The ruined cities for example look just fine, smaller villages as well. If there is anything else I can try or test, please let me know

The first thing I noticed today is that the new Expansion was released (congratulations for that). The second thing I noticed is that I missed your answer to this thread (really sorry for that!!!!) I downloaded the DTX Editor you linked and the River Mod to test if I could get the rivers to work in BHH. I´d really love to get rid of the black textures problem before I buy the DLC and tarnish the amazing looking 150km horizon view with the black textures. Here is what I did: Remove all mods Create a test copy of the river mod Make a testflight on the Marne Map in summer to confirm that rivers have black textures Close the game Open the DTX Editor and load one of the river textures for summer. Save as DDS DXT3 Repeat for all summer textures Activate the test mod Check in the game -> Still black textures What else can I try? (I´ll have notifications for replies activated this time) Thank you.

Hi, I just wanted to ask if there is any chance that a future update (such as the upcoming Expansion) will fix the black ground textures in cities and on rivers, that AMD GPU owners are currently experiencing? I have to admit that having those issues did affect my enjoyment of the sim a bit and I can imagine that other AMD GPU owners would not buy the game because of them, and I´ll have a hard time convincing those of my viewers with AMD GPUs to give this otherwise incredible game a shot . A few additional questions: 1. What makes the own/city and river textures different from the other ground textures present in the game? Why don´t we have, for example black airfields? 2. Following from that question: Is it at all possible to replace the affected town and river textures with other, maybe simpler, textures? Or is it possible to somehow disable the graphical feature affecting those textures? I would be more than happy to have town and river textures that look worse than envisioned if they at least aren´t black. Maybe an optional patch/mod for AMD users could be made that contains alternative textures or a modified renderer? 3. I didn´t see this issue mentioned regarding Wings over the Reich. Is it present there as well? If not, why? What is different? Aren´t both games based on the same graphics engine? Thank you for your time and dedication.

They claim to be working on the AI since RoF.... Always the same empty promises.

Hi, can the issue be replicated, or is more information required?

Hi, I noticed that frequently some patrol waypoints are missing from the mission. I started to notice this when I transferred to fighter aircraft in KEK Avillers (never had this happen while flying recon). Please have a look at the attached screenshot with the mission briefing. We are to: fly to the circle up Waypoint, then to Waypoint 1, then to the Front Lines Sector, and then we are to patrol between the Front lines sector and Waypoint 2, for 23 minutes However, when I go into the mission, the waypoint 2 is gone from the map, and if I follow the AI, we will simply circle the Front lines Sector for 23 minutes. Since this is happening frequently, I decided to investigate. By looking into the OFF_Camp_Mission.xml file (attached) I am able to confirm that somewhere between the briefing and the creation of the mission, the waypoint type has been changed to loiter. With the help of the mission editor I am able to confirm that waypoint 2 has indeed completely vanished from the mission, and instead we are to loiter above the frontline sector for 23 minutes. (Screenshot attached). Needless to say, I would much rather fly a patrol pattern above the frontlines, than just circle a position for almost half an hour. Why is this happening? Can I contribute anything else that might help to solve this mystery? OFF_Camp_Mission.xml

Thank you! I understand the challenge in developing a project of such a tremendous scale. And I know you can only fix what you know about, that´s why I reported it :)

These are the sorry remains of Bölcke, who has just plowed headfirst into the trees that can be seen through my windscreen (The Airfield is in the valley behind the smoke). Dutifully followed by every other member of the squadron. Can anybody else please confirm the issue? It would be nice to see a fix for this, either by raising the AIs flight-path for this airfield, or by lowering the hill a bit, or removing the trees on top of it. Thank you.

I´m currently playing in March 1916 with KEK Sivry (Jasta 6) and we have just been stationed in Sivry-sur-Meuse. I noticed that the AI will frequently crash when trying to land at our airfield (in undamaged aircraft), wich makes playing as this squadron basically impossible. To me it looks like they clip a stand of trees just before they are about to make the final turn towards the field. Attached are two pictures showing where I just witnessed a flight of Aviatiks commit suicide by tree. The Airfield is visible in the background. In the second picture the trees that they clipped are visible in my windscreen

Thank you both :)

So from what I do know, all inline engines should have a throttle to regulate the engine speed. Rotary Engines on the other hand often do not have a proper throttle, but can be temporarily switched off by using the Blip Switch. The inertia keeps the engine turning fro some time, while the switch is pressed. Now how do I know if a plane with a rotary engine has a throttle that can be used to regulate engine speed? I´m looking at the Fokker Eindecker, and I see a lever on the right side that is moving when I move my throttle. So does that means the Eindecker has a usable throttle? Meanwhile I don´t see anything moving when I adjust the mixture. Where would that control be on the Eindecker?

Thank you, that might just be what I was looking for. I managed to find a solution for question 3 by using the mission editor together with BuckeyeBobs clouds mod. The Weather manager inside the mission editor then contains a checkbox to increase the horizon drawdistance according to the weather.

That is damn cool looking plane.