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HoTS Low graphics visual effects bug

Forum Index > Tech Support
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Maluk
Profile Joined August 2011
France987 Posts
April 24 2013 15:54 GMT
#1
Hello,

I bought HoTS today, and since I "upgraded" SC2 to play HoTS, some animations don't display correctly and generate grey circles instead. I didn't play a lot, but I could see those circles when I lift a building, when a tank fires, and when a void ray fires.

Here are two pictures showing what the graphic problem looks like :
[image loading]
[image loading]

As far as I can remember, this appeared today, as I installed HoTS. I played some games yesterday (on WoL) and didn't notice anything like that ; since I played Terran, it would have been easy to spot those circles.

Do you know where this could come from ? Can you think of a way to solve it ?

Thank you !
dani`
Profile Joined January 2011
Netherlands2402 Posts
April 24 2013 16:04 GMT
#2
I would try to delete the C:\ProgramData\Blizzard Entertainment and C:\ProgramData\Battle.net folders, run the Repair Tool (from the Launcher with the orange 'Start'-button, choose Tools > Repair Tool), then try again.

The C:\ProgramData folder is hidden by default so you might have to enable showing hidden files / folders. Those folders contain some cache files.
Maluk
Profile Joined August 2011
France987 Posts
April 24 2013 16:33 GMT
#3
Thank you for your answer ; I tried to do as you said but it didn't work.
Is uninstalling and reinstalling the only option left ?
AnomalySC2
Profile Joined August 2012
United States2073 Posts
April 24 2013 16:46 GMT
#4
If that doesn't work I'd make sure your system is stable and drivers up to date. I used to get strange graphical errors in WoL not unlike what you're seeing and it ended up being a hard drive that was about to die on me. The errors went away after replacing it.
Mentalizor
Profile Joined January 2011
Denmark1596 Posts
April 24 2013 16:50 GMT
#5
Holy macro, Batman!

Just kidding Seems weird. Hope you'll get it to run correctly
(yಠ,ಠ)y - Y U NO ALL IN? - rtsAlaran: " I somehow sit inside the bus.Hot_Bit giving me a massage"
Maluk
Profile Joined August 2011
France987 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-04-24 17:07:03
April 24 2013 17:03 GMT
#6
On April 25 2013 01:46 AnomalySC2 wrote:
If that doesn't work I'd make sure your system is stable and drivers up to date. I used to get strange graphical errors in WoL not unlike what you're seeing and it ended up being a hard drive that was about to die on me. The errors went away after replacing it.


I don't even know how to check if my system is "stable", but I know my drivers are at least reasonably up to date (I updated the graphics card driver about a month ago), so I would be surprised if it came from that, or even from any system stability problem, because my computer is supposed to be good enough to handle SC2 in low graphics by a very large margin : I play SC2 (low graphics) fine on a laptop I bought something like 4 years ago at 500 euros with a terrible graphics card, and the computer on which I have this bug has a GeForce GTX560 Ti and good hardware around it.

Plus, I didn't seem to have this bug even yesterday when I was playin WoL, I can play LoL just fine even when the weirdest magical effects appear, and when I run SC2 in high/extreme graphics, the bug disappears and everything looks fine. The thing is I personally prefer low graphics, so if I could deal wiht this bug, which seems to happen specifically with low graphics, I'd be happier.

Anyway, if my computer suddenly dies I'll be less surprised now ^.^ Thank you for your answer.

As for the macro, I am pretty proud of myself indeed. The green line near the choke of the zerg is a rax wall so that my tanks are safe.
ErraticGhost
Profile Joined December 2012
2 Posts
May 31 2013 19:18 GMT
#7
Hey don't know if you're still having this problem but I'm assuming you have a NVIDIA graphics card? If so, then go to the 3D graphics settings on the NVIDIA control panel and change the setting to "let the 3D application decide." Good luck!
DcTceremony
Profile Joined May 2012
United Kingdom37 Posts
May 31 2013 20:15 GMT
#8
Hm I run the same graphics card that you do and have never encountered this problem. Looks like a texture bug to do with a corrupt file or something though, honestly just reinstall it and I bet it'll be fixed.
Follow me on twitter for sc2 / dota 2 talk @ceremonysc2
EKlipz
Profile Joined November 2010
United States8 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-02 21:01:49
June 02 2013 20:57 GMT
#9
I know exactly what this is, as I battled it for ages trying to get High Quality models in Low shaders, and thought this was caused by that.

Actually, it turns out that the reason for this is because you are forcing Anti-Aliasing in your NVidia control panel. Unfortunately, sc2 no longer supports anti-aliasing in Low Graphics (in WoL you could force it with no issues on Low graphics whatsoever, but now in HotS, this happens). Stop forcing AA (or manually edit the program specific settings for Sc2, and disable forced AA there, and leave it forced elsewhere). Problem solved, although unfortunately you have to suffer no AA if you want Low settings to function.

You dont need to set Nvidia to "let the 3D application decide", and in fact if you forced AA in Sc2's settings that wont even fix it, since the AA will still be forced.

Enjoy all those pixelly edges on Kerrigans body if you're forcing High models on Low graphics in your variables file (so she moves and isnt a creepily still screenshot like she normally is on Low graphics with Low models).
There is literally no combination of changes that I have found in the variables file to allow AA to not cause these problems on Low shaders. Nothing.
So either go Medium shaders with hacks in variables to do blob shadows / disable HDR / Make creep look like Low settings creep / whatever other reasons you have for playing on Low while forcing AA (clearly you have a card that can handle medium if you're forcing AA).
Or deal with no AA on Low. Your choice :p


PM me if that fixes it, or if it turns out I was wrong in your case, or for variables.txt hacks to make Medium look more like Low.
I narrowed everything down and it turns out that for whatever reason, Sc2's low shader rendering cannot AA. I have no idea why this is, even as a computer programmer, since logically AA forced by a graphics card that already has all the vectors and stuff to render AA on ought not to affect what actually appears visually BESIDES the aliasing, but apparently it does somehow in Sc2.

Prepare for a rant, if interested, stop reading here if not interested, none of the following is actually necessary ;P

I blame blizzards shoddy CPU to Graphics programming.
At least it appears that way to me at my level of programming (senior year student), I mean really? 36 fps during battles no matter the graphics settings on a 660ti which can run MUCH more graphically intense games at 150 fps, simply because despite the CPU being able to keep up with the game, apparently the framerate is CPU limited in a game that only really uses 2 threads? (yes some stuff on a 3'rd thread, but clearly nothing important since 3rd core is p much unused and framerate still tanks) Come on, really blizzard? I understand the game is CPU intensive, but 2 threads in an age when even LAPTOPS come standard with 4 cores, 8 threads? And then designing the graphics such that they're CPU limited even on Lowest settings? What have you been doing all this time?
Jellicent
Profile Joined November 2012
Germany23 Posts
June 04 2013 11:30 GMT
#10
You could try going with FXAA from nVidia. That actually didn't wake any bugs for me and it smoothed things.
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-06-04 13:01:35
June 04 2013 12:58 GMT
#11
I mean really? 36 fps during battles no matter the graphics settings on a 660ti which can run MUCH more graphically intense games at 150 fps, simply because despite the CPU being able to keep up with the game, apparently the framerate is CPU limited in a game that only really uses 2 threads?


The 660ti and what it can do is irrelevant here. CPU cant keep up with the game, as you say when you say it's CPU limited, and it uses more than 2 threads, it's just that so much work is done on 1 thread that the others do not really matter

And then designing the graphics such that they're CPU limited even on Lowest settings?


I don't understand where you are coming from here, if you have a good enough GPU for X settings to keep up with it and reach cpu bound limits (which are much much much lower in an endgame fight) then the GPU will just have a lot of idle times, nothing special there. If max graphics is 5x harder to render than lowest, it'll be idle 50% of the time instead of 90%. doesn't change your framerates if you are CPU bound.

In blizzard's defense, they probably designed around core 2 or coming into the first generation i3/i5/i7. Have you seen mobile cpu's from that gen? The i7 720qm ran at 1.6ghz. Mobile CPU's now, i would go flat out and say they have doubled in effective power compared to 2.5 years ago. Maybe a little bit of an overstatement, but they shit all over anything available in the past. They routinely approach 3ghz and clock for clock are something in the leagues of 30% faster. Quad core used to mean more than it does now, but i agree that it was really silly of them to make such a poor engine, even 5 years from now we will have extremely poor framerates in large team games, and if they could split everything up onto 4 cores then we could see as much as 1.5-3x those framerates maybe, or a lot more perhaps on a CPU like fx-8k, but i don't even know if it's technically possible
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Maluk
Profile Joined August 2011
France987 Posts
June 06 2013 16:17 GMT
#12
For those who are interested and thsoe who could run into the same problem, although I could not explain why, my problem was not solved by playing atround with the Nvidia Panel controls, reinstalling the game or updating drives (I tried all of these and none worked), but by replacing my hard drive...

Thank you to everyone who tried to help !
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