Preview and Node graph windows not working

Started by Bluefinger, August 09, 2007, 06:29:42 AM

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Bluefinger

I'm having problems with TG2 as in both the preview render and the Node Graph is not working for me. I had updated to the newest graphics drivers for my ATI X1900XT on the day I came back from holiday, and it also then after I had installed the new drivers that TG2 wouldn't work anymore. I've tried reinstalling it but the problem persists, as in greyed out blank where the preview and node graph screens are.

Anyone else having this problem, or am I the only one?  ???

Oshyan

What operating system are you running? Are the drivers you have installed "beta" drivers, or final release, WHQL? I presume you have restarted after driver install of course. As an experiment you can try reducing acceleration on the Troubleshooting tab of the Advanced section of your graphics card settings.

- Oshyan

Bluefinger

#2
I have XP x64 edition, and whenever I install new graphics drivers, I do a clean install, removing the previous drivers before installing the new ones, and I only use final release, WHQL certified drivers. ATI Catalyst version 7.7 to be precise, the newest ones on the ATI website. I'll give the Acceleration thing a try, but I won't do it permenantly, as my system is also a gaming rig  :P

EDIT: Tried lowering the video acceleration, but the results the same, the windows aren't showing up.  :-\

Oshyan

TG2 uses OpenGL for several of its drawing functions, including of course the 3D preview. The only thing I can imagine then is that this newest driver changes some of the basic OGL functionality in some way. Is it possible for you to revert to the previous drivers? Did you upgrade with specific improvements in mind, or just to be using the latest? You might try looking through the control panel for OGL-specific settings and see if any have an effect. You might also try (just as a temporary test) adjusting bit depth and/or resolution.

- Oshyan

Bluefinger

I upgraded the drivers as I was in need of updating, plus to improve on the performance and stability of certain games I have (Colin McRae Dirt, along with various recent games). I tried changing the two OpenGL options in ATI Catalyst Control Centre (Triple Buffering & Force 24-bit Z-buffer depth), but both of them don't help in any way as both screens remain greyed out. Is it possible that the windows aren't initialising properly under these drivers? Either something to do with the coding or with the drivers themselves, or a bit of both that have caused these problems... I dunno what I can do to test Terragen 2 as to see what is exactly going on, but it seems to me like the windows are frozen and not updating. Well, I'm not going to use a previous driver any time soon, but I'll wait and see what the next drivers will do. I could send some feedback to ATI to see if anything can be done, but I haven't seen any other forum posts with the same problem, so I don't know if its just me or not. Would be more helpful if more people with similar hardware or OS would leave feedback really...

Oshyan

For better or worse Vista is in the minority amongst TG2 users at the moment. We are working on getting Vista systems in-house for testing but we have already had mixed reports of compatibility - many people seem to have no problems, but a few like yourself have fairly serious issues. It's probably worth reporting to ATI, though as you said if nobody else has seen it and if it's not affecting other applications, it's unlikely to get major attention on their end. We'll also be looking into general OpenGL compatibility and stability issues as we move toward the final product and this, combined with more extensive Vista testing, will hopefully lead to a solution.

It's unfortunate that the problem can't be resolved more immediately for you but I think we've exhausted most troubleshooting options at this point. I will post here again if we come up with any other possible fixes so you may want to put this topic on Notify if it's not already.

- Oshyan

Bluefinger

Oh well... I'll just have to take another hiatus on Terragen 2 for the moment. I'll put this thread on notify, so I'll be informed by any new posts. It's not like my life depends on TG2, so I'll wait for any new drivers from ATI or patches made by you. I'm also not intending to migrate to Vista any time soon, but I'll wait and see on any developments and such. Thanks for all the help though.

Oshyan

Ah my mistake, you're on XP64 not Vista. I actually have that installed in a dual boot configuration. I will see if I can test it, although I don't have the same graphics card you do unfortunately.

- Oshyan

Bluefinger

Ahh... it'll still be useful to check nonetheless. Unfortunate you don't have a similar graphics card, but thanks for checking.

Bluefinger

I tried the new drivers from ATI, but the problem persists. Could be something more fundamental within the coding in TG2 which may be conflicting with newer iterations of ATI's graphics drivers. Something isn't initialising properly, and its causing both the Preview and Node graph windows to be greyed out and frozen. That's all I can really think of, but again, since it seems to be only me getting this bug, looks like I'll just have to sit and wait this one out.

reck

Oshyan pointed me here from another thread I started on the same problem.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2134.0

From what I can tell it seems to be a problem with the new drivers not something specific to Terragen 2. Since upgrading i've got the same problem as you Bluefinger. But i've also got a problem with Blender since upgrading the drivers as well which I didn't have before. So it seems we may have to wait for ATI to fix this problem.

Bluefinger

Quote from: reck on August 25, 2007, 07:59:01 PM
Oshyan pointed me here from another thread I started on the same problem.

http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=2134.0

From what I can tell it seems to be a problem with the new drivers not something specific to Terragen 2. Since upgrading i've got the same problem as you Bluefinger. But i've also got a problem with Blender since upgrading the drivers as well which I didn't have before. So it seems we may have to wait for ATI to fix this problem.

Excellent... if it's affecting something like Blender, then it is a driver problem. With this, I can be sure to send feedback to ATI, so all that's left to do is wait for a fix.

Oshyan

Do either of you have other OpenGL applications to test with? It would be useful to know if there are additional applications affected...

- Oshyan

Bluefinger

Quote from: Oshyan on August 25, 2007, 08:22:19 PM
Do either of you have other OpenGL applications to test with? It would be useful to know if there are additional applications affected...

- Oshyan

HAHAHA! I just tried running Google Earth in OpenGL mode.... and guess what? It doesn't work either! Works just fine in DirectX mode though... so it's definitely drivers issues...

Oshyan

Well that's a relief from our end anyway! A bit poor form by ATI to have released a driver with broken OpenGL though. Granted it's not used in the majority of games these days, but lots of professional apps still rely heavily on it, as do many open source graphics-related projects.

- Oshyan