Spring RTS Engine

Hi,
i'm playing Balanced Annihilation and I have a Ati HD 5870 vapor-x. I had Catalyst 10.3, but with this version the game sometimes froze, so I have updated to Catalyst 10.5 (doing it in the right way, first disinstalled the old one, cleaned it with driver sweeper and installed the new ones). The problem is that with this Catalyst version the texture of every unit is like alluminium.
I've uploaded an image .

I didn't test it long, so I doesn't know if the freeze problem is gone.

I've tried changing setting in Spring and in the Control Catalyst, but nothing works.

Thanks in advance.

If you need more info, just ask for them.

I've tried playing with another mod, Complete annihilation instead of Balanced Annihilation, and no problem at all. So this bad texture problem is BA specific.

I've post a topic in the Balanced Annihilation forum.

Update: I've played a lit bit more with Complete Annihilation and some units have the sametexture problem of Balanced Annihilation, maybe because they are direct port of BA units, like Necro or the Doomsday.

I do not have access to any ATI cards so I cannot troubleshoot with you, but hopefully somebody will come along with more information. What are the various texture relevant settings you're trying to run with, and are the ATI drivers forcing any specific behaviours for Spring?

I would try different driver versions (also older ones)

9.2-9.7 iirc are good drivers.

Edit: Oh, nvm that was for 4xxx series.

Thanks for the answers.

I've tried the 10.3 drivers, no texture problem but sometime the game freezes. This is why i update my drivers.

I've tried setting the ati drivers to use the application (Spring) settings and to force AA and AF too, the bad texture remains, no matter what i do.
And i've changed the Spring settings from Very Low to Very high (in very high i set the Water to Basic, Dynamic gives me some problem).

I really need someone more expert than me that have Ati HD5000 series.

I've tried playing Spring 1944, no problem at all. Other games, like X3 terran conflict, doesn't give me any problem.

You have no problem in 1944? Well, the problem might be in fact the interaction between your drivers and how the 3do model format handles unit textures. I'm not sure how to deal with that, but don't lose hope.

As said try older driver versions, too.
Also try to change your driver settings, you might have enabled some "performance" settings which break stuff (how does that ATi $!~@# get called, `CCCC`?)

In Ati/Amd Faq at the begin of this forum, it is written to use Catalyst 10.2 or newer. I have tried the 10.3 and the 10.5, the only ones that remain are the 10.2 and the 10.4. I will give a try if this is the only and last solution, because i prefer to have the latest drivers, in order to evade problems in other games.

The Ati Control is CCC, Catalyst Control Center, and i tried everything from the "performance" optimization to the "quality" optimization, nothing works. The only thing i haven't tried is to put the flag on "triple buffering" and put on the V-sync, but i don't think these can change a thing.

Does anybody have the same problem? Ati HD5000 series owners?

same problem with xta and ba for me, no solution yet

"ATI Catalyst A.I." that's what I meant with ATi $!~@#

Ok, tried. I set Catalyst AI "disable", "standard" and "advanced", no difference, the problem remains.

@mcgoo: which catalyst version are you using? I'm using 10.5 right now.
And which is your videocard?

your view of software(/drivers) and versions needs a revolution.
it does not work like you imagine it. of course, we are entrained to think: "higher version -> better/less bugs"
this is especially bad thinking for GFX drivers. i do not know how exactly it works, but very basically, it is like this: they (eg. ATI) have one driver for all their cards. they always test with the latest cards, fix bugs, add features. some of these changes break stuff for older cards. -> often, newer drivers are worse.

if you find an older driver that works well for spring, it is very likely that it will also work better for other games, with your card.

I don't not completly agree. Drivers should be retrocompatible always. So if something is working well in the 10.2, it should fuction in the same way in the 10.5 or whatever higher version.
I have an Ati HD5870, so i haven't so much version to try. In the first post of this forum, the Ati/Amd faq, it is written to use 10.2 or later, i've tried 10.3 (sometimes froze) and 10.5 (bad texture), the only ones that remains to try out are the 10.2 and the 10.4.

However i'd like to underline that seems that this is problem is linked with the texture of Balanced Annihilation, because with 1944 no problem at all and with CA only problem with BA units, like doomsday.

of course it should be like you say, but that is not reality. and acting just as if it was reality, because it ought to be that way, does not make sense.

I'm not trying to make a debate, i'm trying to resolve my problem. Going backward in the driver versions isn't a solution, because i will maybe resolve the Balanced Annihilation problem, but gain others like the ones with Battlefield Bad Company 2. I'm playing this game too, and some problem were fixed with the 10.5.

So if we can stop here the drivers debate, i will really appreciate.

Happens to me too with 10.5 drivers. 10.4 was perfect. Card is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400.
Problem comes from their libraries not the kernel module. With 10.4-module and 10.5-libs I have the problem, with 10.5-module but 10.4-libs no problem.

dansan wrote:Happens to me too with 10.5 drivers. 10.4 was perfect. Card is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400.
Problem comes from their libraries not the kernel module. With 10.4-module and 10.5-libs I have the problem, with 10.5-module but 10.4-libs no problem.

Maybe this information can be useful to Balanced Annihilation Developers. Have you experieced lockups with 10.4?

Yesterday i tested enough 10.5 catalyst and no lockups, just that bad texture problem, really a pain in the ass to have difficulties in recognizing stumpys from panthers.

How to have the 10.5 module and the 10.4 libs? At the moment i have 10.5 drivers.

H2O wrote:Maybe this information can be useful to Balanced Annihilation Developers.

Oh - I thought they'd be around here too... how do I reach them?

H2O wrote:Have you experieced lockups with 10.4?

Never.

H2O wrote:Yesterday i tested enough 10.5 catalyst and no lockups, just that bad texture problem, really a pain in the ass to have difficulties in recognizing stumpys from panthers.

Exactly my case :)

H2O wrote:How to have the 10.5 module and the 10.4 libs? At the moment i have 10.5 drivers.

By accident: I did the driver-update (on Linux) while the 10.4-module was loaded. So I had 10.4-module plus 10.5-libs. Then I realized the texture problem and rebooted to load the 10.5-module. But the problem persisted. So I installed the 10.4-drivers while still having the 10.5-module loaded - resulting in 10.5-module plus 10.4-libs - texture problem gone.

Side note: I got a 2D-corruption when switching back from 3D to 2D with this last (truly ill) combination, and have now rebooted to 10.4-mod+libs which works just fine :)