2010-02-18, 08:40 PM
Ah! I just had a theory that probably fits this screenshot. What's probably happening here is texture memory is thrashing, and the partway invisible pieces happen when the next level mipmap is lost in memory. The original textures are kept in memory so the mipmaps can be rebuilt if need be. It's funny it happens in software mode too, but I guess software mode is meant to simulate the hardware more than provide an alternative compatibility mode.
This gives me the idea of adding some mipmapping options to Ex. The first LOD drop off seems to happen too soon / be obvious so it would be worth pushing back probably. I don't know if disabling mipmapping altogether would look better or worse, but I think it would at least make this screenshot solid. You might have some luck manually disabling mipmapping in your advanced display options (the one provided by your graphics hardware drivers/manufacturer)
PS: Ideally you will want to override mipmapping for DD only... usually there is a "profile" framework for individual applications provided. Which reminds me, I wanted to suggest people monkeying with their advanced display settings to see if you can get better results. If anything in particular works well I can build that into Ex.
PPS: Also I'm meaning to properly inform people that I think I've reached the conclusion Device=2 (T&L) is actually the superior setting, even though Som defaults to Device=1. I think you'll get much better performance with 2 and with possibly no loss in terms of visuals (if anything the lighting might be different... possibly even better) ...Som also defaults to 16bpp, so it's not impractical to guess 1 is the middle ground. At the time "TnL" was relatively new technology. I was honestly never sure the two different devices mattered one or the other, but I can definitely tell a difference with DD I think.
This gives me the idea of adding some mipmapping options to Ex. The first LOD drop off seems to happen too soon / be obvious so it would be worth pushing back probably. I don't know if disabling mipmapping altogether would look better or worse, but I think it would at least make this screenshot solid. You might have some luck manually disabling mipmapping in your advanced display options (the one provided by your graphics hardware drivers/manufacturer)
PS: Ideally you will want to override mipmapping for DD only... usually there is a "profile" framework for individual applications provided. Which reminds me, I wanted to suggest people monkeying with their advanced display settings to see if you can get better results. If anything in particular works well I can build that into Ex.
PPS: Also I'm meaning to properly inform people that I think I've reached the conclusion Device=2 (T&L) is actually the superior setting, even though Som defaults to Device=1. I think you'll get much better performance with 2 and with possibly no loss in terms of visuals (if anything the lighting might be different... possibly even better) ...Som also defaults to 16bpp, so it's not impractical to guess 1 is the middle ground. At the time "TnL" was relatively new technology. I was honestly never sure the two different devices mattered one or the other, but I can definitely tell a difference with DD I think.