Charlie 14

I'm playing around in Jan's terrain mod in FE2 with "Solid Object Texture Material" settings; BLEND_DST_ALPHA, BLEND_SRC_ALPHA, using WIN7x64...Just out of curiosity, what other entries are available under the "BLENDOP=" setting? I ask because I've been trying to tweak the flashing building phenomena through in game and video card settings on a new rig and, well, I'm curious what is going on with the cities.

Good info...The more I monkey with this the more I learn, albiet in fits and starts, but it really is fun tweaking with it when things fall into place. There is a logic to it that is gratifying somehow...

You know, I find this code stuff almost as entertaining as the sim, in an obsessive-compulsive kinda way...Anyway, by way of explanation, here are my settings, I'm using Jan's terrain, Shrike's sky, some effects/smoke, Tailspin's worn airfield, etc., on an XP system with a Nvidea 7600GS, most everything set on "Good" or whatever just below "Unlimited is: [NormalTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=FALSE AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [WaterTextureMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=WaterEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=TRUE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 SpecularColor=1.000000,1.000000,0.900000,1.000000 SpecularPower=1.000000lol ZBufferOffset=4.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=2 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE TextureStage[02].TextureName= TextureStage[02].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[02].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[02].ReflectionMapping=TRUE TextureStage[02].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_BLEND_TEXTURE_ALPHA TextureStage[02].StageAlphaOp=DIFFUSE [backgroundMaterial] UseEffectShader=TRUE EffectShaderName=FarTerrainEffect2.fx DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=FALSE AlphaTestEnabled=FALSE CullMode=CLOCKWISE LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.0000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=ONE NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=NO_OP [solidObjectTextureMaterial] DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=TRUE RenderedInOrder=TRUE AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.000000 ZBufferOffset=0.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE [AlphaObjectTextureMaterial] DepthBufferCheck=TRUE DepthBufferWrite=FALSE RenderedInOrder=false AlphaTestEnabled=TRUE CullMode=NO_CULL LightEnabled=TRUE SpecularEnabled=FALSE EmissiveEnabled=FALSE FogEnabled=TRUE AmbientColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000 DiffuseColor=1.000000,1.000000,1.000000,1.00000 ZBufferOffset=2.000000 BlendOp=BLEND_SRC_ALPHA NumTextureStages=1 TextureStage[01].TextureName= TextureStage[01].MipMap=TRUE TextureStage[01].FilterEnabled=TRUE TextureStage[01].StageColorOp=TEXTURE_MODULATE_DIFFUSE TextureStage[01].StageAlphaOp=TEXTURE Fade=NORMAL StartFadeDistance=50.0 EndFadeDistance=50.0 OK, the above gives me good terrain, dead water, and an occasional flashy building. Although interestingly I don't get any flashy buildings in the Vosegen terrain, I also have no "[backgroundMaterial]" entry in Vosegen or in Edwards Flanders terrain, I'm not sure what that means if anything...Anyway, good terrain, dead water, occasional flashy building. Now if I do a line for line swap with Wrench's .ini I get good terrain, a different dead water, and shimmering trees...Now my .ini's do not include the "ter" prefix, but the terrain, the trees and whatnot, seem to render really nicely. Maybe the new ini's didn;t work because instead of simply cutting and pasting Wrench's ini's in place of my own I did a line for line swap checking along the way and left my entry for example, "EffectShaderName=TerrainEffect2.fx," only adding the "ter-" prefix in the beginning. I thought the "2" designated something of importance, I wasn't sure, I left it... What does it all mean? Beats me. I'm not certain what importance that "ter" prefix plays in the big scheme of things as the terrain for the most part looks good without it...In summary, swapping the old for the new gives me flashy trees and a different kind of dead water, I feel like the answer is real close here, maybe more obsessing is in order, and it really is kind of fun in a weird way...

Wrench, I was missing the ".ter" prefix and a couple other particulars. I'll give that a go and report back. Thank you!

I've been trying to get the upper hand in FE2 and actually survive a campaign flying on, "Hard," settings with stock flight models...Managed to eek out 11 missions still alive with 3rd RFC (RAF?) Flying Sopwith Camels before being withdrawn due to overwhelming casualties, 8 out of 11 missions successful, and damn near everyone dead or wounded...This may be, for me anyway, TK's roughest sim yet, and I haven't even touched Peter's flight models yet. We didn't even make it into December...Yikes...

Did anybody ever come across the fix for FE2 by chance? I can live with the dead water if need be, Jan's seasonal terrains are just outstanding, unbelievable how good they are and what it adds to the sim, the water would be cool though if anyone has an answer.

Just in case anybody has a similar problem in the future I tripped a scross a few pics showing what it looked like in another TK sim...Terrain tearing:

OK, I got lucky and did about the most counter-intuitive thing, and it worked...I took the graphics card and just set everything to application controlled in nTune, set the in-game options to, "High," and the terrain anomalies were gone...It must be a shader thing of some sort and a conflict with the graphic card trying to control some in-game deal...The only thing I tweaked with after that was just to turn "Shadow" down to low and everything was still good...It's kind of interesting that that turning all the options down didn't cure the problem but almost maxing them out (and I assume overriding graphic card settings maybe?) did...When I saw that I went to nTune and just let the game drive the card and it worked out.

Oh, I also did a number of searches and just tried anything that looked remotely similar like this: http://combatace.com/topic/62513-a-huge-problem/page__p__474069__hl__weird__fromsearch__1#entry474069 I may go back with the new drivers and try to change .ini parameters again, Do the dance with the, "UseAdvancedShaders=1 ForceDX9=FALSE," and see where that gets me...

Hmmmm...Well? Uploaded new drivers and deleted the old (EVGA 7800GS), tried a variety of settings in nTune from the lowest, or application driven, to a whole range of tweaks up the quality scale...No luck, the problem is still there. Tried a variety of in-game settings (including the sunlight glint on/off/exterior only separate from the other quality settings) from lowest settings on up, no luck there either. Tried removing environmental mods, no change, tweaking Particle System configurations, again no luck... It's odd in that the very few times I've seen this turn up it has only been in two Third Wire sims out of the half dozen I must have on the hard drive, one is the NF4 mod of WoE (1st gen edition) and the other is FE2. It always occurs in cockpit, usually when the field of view is drawn out wide view looking forward, two white triangles will appear from the left and right side of the display where there should be terrain tiles, zooming in view will eliminate it, turning the view towards the the missing terrain will eliminate it. It is most noticeable at very low altitude.

Well, no I don't...Never done a screen shot in any of TK's sims, 1 or 2...Driver related, hmmmm, I could see that. I wonder if the card settings are presenting a conflict of some sort...

Hi guys, recent convert to the prop side of things from the Wo* series and I have a question regarding what appears to be terrain tiles that are rendered as white or maybe gray on the periphery of the screen while in cockpit view. It happens in both unmodded FE2 and with modded tiles and environmental stuff. I seem to recall seeing something like this before in Nato Fighters 4 and I could swear I found a way to correct it but I can't remember what I did or whether it was environmental or terrain related or what. I searched and tried a few tweaks under the "[solidObjectTextureMaterial]" setting in the terrains like "BLEND_SRC_ALPHA" to no avail...I'm using a NVIDEA based card and XP if that matters. Anybody have any notion of what I'm running into here or what might work? It's almost like tiles are missing at the edge of the screen in wide view but they aren't if you change your view...

Eric, thank you very much, that was about to drive me nuts...I'm so used to flying USN I never paid attention to the carrier before, I was always sitting on it taking off...