Bugs

[amwild]

It is the end of the month, and I have found that I had some unused bandwidth and a little free time, so I downloaded the demo...

I now have three problems with it...

1. No matter what resolution I run the game at, whether 800x600, 1024x768 or at my desktop resolution of 1280x1024, there is this annoying flicker several times per second at irregular intervals where the whole screen goes black for a fraction of a second. My monitor reports a refresh rate of 85 Hz, which is usual for my desktop, and Starshatter is the only program I have that does anything like this, so it can't be a monitor fault. This flicker seems to happen in both the pre-launch interface, and in the game proper.

2. In the first training mission, I instructed my wingman to return to base. He got landing permission, then seemed to crash and blow up in the carrier.

3. In the first mission when I requested landing permission, I recieved it, but the HUD would not change to ILS mode no matter how many times I repeated the landing request. I ended up in the wrong docking bay, and when I left it to go to the correct one, the HUD did not reappear, and there were 3D model artifacts remaining onscreen.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: amwild

2. In the first training mission, I instructed my wingman to return to base. He got landing permission, then seemed to crash and blow up in the carrier.

Nothing new. Hopefully this will get fixed for 4.0.

3. In the first mission when I requested landing permission, I recieved it, but the HUD would not change to ILS mode no matter how many times I repeated the landing request.

Press HUD mode button instead

[Tommi]

Regarding landing on the carrier, it seems like the game has trouble recognizing that you have landed/docked. It's almost every second landing I make, that nothing happens. Yes, I have landed in the correct bay, have requested landing, been cleared (not in queue) and called "final approach" (ALT+I) - still after coming to a stop inside the bay and touching down on the deck the game fails to end the mission. This is *really* frustrating!

Also, the third person perspective after entering the bay makes touching down tricky. Without any kind of instrumentation you just have to "eyeball it" and as the game is reluctant to notice that you have indeed landed/touched down, you end up pushing against the deck and eventually damaging/destroying your fighter. IMHO, entering the bay with gear down and at slow speed should be enough to qualify as a landing.

[John DiCamillo]

Don't try to "touch down". Just line up your approach before you enter the bay - the X marker should be right on your gun cross. Once the camera switches to 3rd person, take your hands off the controls and coast in along your current flight path.

There is a bug in the 3.9.0 demo if you are using the Arcade flight model that prevents the magnetic landing clamp from latching on to your ship (or rather, it latches on and slams you into the forward bulkhead). If you are flying the Arcade model, make sure you come in very slowly - you want to be 30 m/s or less when you hit the docking point. If you are coming in too hot when the camera switches to 3rd person, just use the END key to slow yourself down.

Regarding the video flicker - I was seeing that as well, but then I updated my video drivers and it seemed to go away. I haven't seen that problem in several weeks. What video card and drivers are you currently using?

[Tommi]

The damn forum ate my post! [:@] To repeat...

I'm using the "relaxed" flight mode (shame on me - being an I-War and I-War 2 "veteran"). As I enter the bay, nothing happens. No matter what I do. Granted, about 50% of the time the game notices I've docked, but the other 50% of the time I just sit there waiting for something to happen, as if the magnetic clamp fails to activate.

Also, I'm using a Sidewinder 2 joystick and the throttle is very "jumpy". It goes from 0 m/s to over 100 m/s with only a nudge. I can't seem to get a good approach speed from it. I have to "pump it" (and try to coast in on residual velocity). Keyboard is of no help. With the joy throttle at 0% even a single press on "A" brings the throttle high enough to increase velocity over 100 m/s. So it's the same as with the throttle, have to pump it - press A then immediately Z and coast in.

BTW, I'm not bitching for the sake of bitching. I *really* like Starshatter. [&o] Just want to get the kinks worked out.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Tommi- Do you get the same throttle wackiness in Realistic or Arcade modes?

Tips on docking, have your hand ready on "End", or whatever your thruster-back button is. That way you can approach at a far clip and still be able to stop fast. Go low in the bay, but don't try to "land"... At least that always works for me in Realistic. If it's getting really irritating, you generally don't have to land if there's no enemies around- just end the mission if you've done everything you need to.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: Matti Kuokkanen
Press HUD mode button instead

Been there, tried that, doesn't work.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: John DiCamillo

Don't try to "touch down". Just line up your approach before you enter the bay - the X marker should be right on your gun cross. Once the camera switches to 3rd person, take your hands off the controls and coast in along your current flight path.

There is a bug in the 3.9.0 demo if you are using the Arcade flight model that prevents the magnetic landing clamp from latching on to your ship (or rather, it latches on and slams you into the forward bulkhead). If you are flying the Arcade model, make sure you come in very slowly - you want to be 30 m/s or less when you hit the docking point. If you are coming in too hot when the camera switches to 3rd person, just use the END key to slow yourself down.

Regarding the video flicker - I was seeing that as well, but then I updated my video drivers and it seemed to go away. I haven't seen that problem in several weeks. What video card and drivers are you currently using?

My video card is an Asus V9950 Ultra (GeForce FX 5900 Ultra based) using the NVIDIA v56.64 reference drivers dating from about two months ago (the Asus drivers caused intermittent OpenGL-related crashes, and Asus refused to believe that one of their add-ons to the drivers was causing it).

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Asus/NVIDIA is pretty crappy when it comes to OpenGL support. All the users of the Radeon 7500 (many performance laptops use the mobility version of this card) can't play City of Heroes because the 7500 doesn't support several important OpenGL calls, and Asus/Nvidia won't spend the resources to write software emulation of those calls.

[John DiCamillo]

Hmmn. I'm using the NVIDIA 5216 drivers from last October on my GeForce 4MX 420. I'll try to snag the latest from NVIDIA and see if the problem comes back or not.

Is anyone else seeing this problem? Is it specific to GeForce 4MX series cards?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Milo;

You might not want to be using 50-series drivers with a GeForce 4.

For all I can google, I can't find the stuff which suggests this; there's too much noise due to driver mirroring everywhere. But on the GF4, you may wnat to run the 45.33 driver instead. Similarly, older cards such as the TNT2 are recommended to use the 30 series driver. ( I believe). Despite the backwards-compatible nature of NVidia drivers, the newer ones contain a lot of baggage, and bugs in those baggage, that older cards simply can't use...

I know this resolved several issues when I was helping people with Planetside and X2 graphics problems. (Strictly amateur hour.)

I still remember the fiasco when a minor graphical bug was released in a PS patch at the same time a large graphical bug was introduced by the then-new 50-series drivers. The playerbase went ballistic at the devs, although almost invariably the question "Do you have an Nvidia card using the new 50-series drivers?" resulted in a yes....

[Keravnos]

Just one notice. Radeon 7500 is made by ATI. ATI is reknown for not supporting Open GL as well as it does D3D. Just a FYI. Ati has pretty much abandoned said core. You could check out some sites to see which drivers support it the most. With its recent market share wins, ATI must have made some drivers that cater for it.

That is probably the reason why Milo doesn't have any problems with his GF4 mx. Nvidia have stellar performance when it comes to Open GL.

Oh, and milo, We [&o] you!

[Kuokkanen]

I have ATI RAGE FURY MAXX and I haven't had any problems with it and Starshatter. Some games get funky with Direct3D though (Jedi Knight), some don't (Quake II, Hexen II).

[Tommi]

ORIGINAL: TheDeadlyShoe

Tommi- Do you get the same throttle wackiness in Realistic or Arcade modes?

Tips on docking, have your hand ready on "End", or whatever your thruster-back button is. That way you can approach at a far clip and still be able to stop fast. Go low in the bay, but don't try to "land"... At least that always works for me in Realistic. If it's getting really irritating, you generally don't have to land if there's no enemies around- just end the mission if you've done everything you need to.

Thanks for the advice!

I switched to Realistic mode. That more-or-less ended my landing problems. Now it's enough to just enter the bay and stop with gear down (no touching down) and the docking is complete and the mission ends, everytime.

Throttle is still quite jumpy, but it doesn't matter that much with Realistic mode. I can live with it. Maybe I should re-calibrate my joystick?

[Dragonlead]

I'm also using a Sidewinder 2. It really helps if you create a game specific configuration file for the controller to use. I am also curious if you have the force feedback feature turned on. I can't stand having something shake like its alive when I'm trying to get the H*** out of Dodge, so I keep it turned off. That might also (?) be a factor to a jumpy throttle. Mine works like a champ and I can get speed changes of less than 5 m/s with it.

V/R

Dragonlead

[Lambda]

But where you need landing gear if you do not touch down

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Lambda

But where you need landing gear if you do not touch down

How can you land to starport without touching down?

[TexMurphy]

I have this problem on my Gforce 3 card.. not sure what drivers I use as Im not writing this from home.

Tex

[Lambda]

Well, on starport you need gear of course, but landing on a cruiser...

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Lambda

Well, on starport you need gear of course, but landing on a cruiser...

As far as I know, CA Courageous or other cruisers don't have hangars. Only Carriers have.