Trail behind objects
 

I've got a trail behind all objects when the panorama effect starts.
Fish that swim in front of the background does NOT leave this trail.

This only appears in VISTA, I have a dualboot with XP/VISTA.
In XP all is OK.
No settings is touched.
Running in windowed mode doesn't make a difference.

I have a HP Pavillion dv6000 laptop with:
CPU: Mobile AMD Sempron 3400+
RAM: 2GB
GFX: NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (128MB onboard + 271 shared= 399MB VidMem)
Resolution: 1280x800x32
OS: VISTA SP1

/Reagards
Bjarne Lindqvist - Sweden

It sounds like the video drivers for Vista are not working properly. Maybe someone here in the Forum has found the proper ones for that card.

I was thinking in that way too, but this is the only 3d app. that behaves strange. The machine comes with VISTA and there are no new drivers on HP´s site. nVidia doesn't seem to list the chip at all because it is a "OEM" chipset. Btw, the driver I use is 7.15.10.9815.

Same problems here

Acer Aspire 9810
Intel Core 2 T5500 1,66G
MS Vista SP1 Dutch 32 bits
4GB memory
nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB RAM

Using driver supplied by Acer. There is no driver supplied by nVidia.

Regards
Peter

Tjenare Bjarne!

Either what Jim said or DirectX needs a fresh installation (this actually help in a lot of cases). I am however unsure about how to re-install on Vista. Maybe someone else knows?

Hej Tiny!

I solved it by downloading modified drivers from http://www.laptopvideo2go.com
Version: 177.66 with modified .inf

Sorry for posting this as a bug, but one could think that HP should have released drivers that actually works. WHQL certified and all.

Thanks.

Drivers have been an ongoing problem in Alpha testing. In fact, some problems are actually cured by downloading OLDER drivers.

Fumes,
Very nice of you to supply the link. Might come in handy when the next guy has the same problem.

Where in Sweden are you from? (Might even want to put it in your profile).

/Tiny Nollåtta

I'm getting this same thing too - the fish leave trails of themselves when they are swimming against the background . It's like that thing they used to do on Sesame Street ( well maybe they still do it , but ... ) . The corals do it too when using automatic scrolling .The text from the title screen still shows as well . This is on an old and very basic desktop with Celeron D , 512MB of RAM and a SiS 661FX chipset with integrated graphics . I'm running XP home SP3 . If , as I suspect , this is all because MA is no longer compatible with older and very basic graphics chips , that's okay because that desktop seriously needs to be replaced with something less ante deluvian . It all runs nicely on my 1 1/2yo laptop .


P.S. Jim , Flash says ' back atcha ' :lol:

Microsoft and Laptop Manufacturers alike rarely have particularly good drivers through Windows Update or on their websites.

We can update the list of recommended drivers if people want.

Yes, it sounds like age and driver problems. There are a couple of things you might try. Switch to a fairly low resolution, like 800x600. Also switch to 16-bit color, if it's currently using 32-bit. Make sure the second line of text in the Statistics on the screen says "HAL (pure HW vp)".

Fumes,

Thanks for the link. The trails are gone.

Peter

Most of the time, things of that nature are caused by driver problems. Unfortunately; generally speaking, laptop owners can be left in the lurch allot of the time because the manufacturers seem to feel the need to make special drivers for their laptops, but keeping them updated for their customers is always low on the priority list.

The first thing anyone should do ( IMHO ) that wants to buy a laptop is find out if the thing will use standard drivers or needs custom ones. If it needs custom ones, make another choice and find one that doesn't.

I get really bad trails on multi-monitor, but if I restrict it to my main monitor it's fine.
I wonder if it's running out of something (the image is 3200x1752 with blank areas off-monitor) and not handling it okay?
This is at work with an old ATi M9000 chip with 64MB (running the last driver version that supported it).
John

3200x1752 does sound a bit much for 64 MB of video RAM. Any chance you can lower the resolution a bit and see if it works better?

It can always use some system memory. Plus it only has to render 1920x1200 and 1280x1024, the rest is off-screen. Cranking the main monitor down to 1280x600 doesn't fix it.

Well , that would be it then . The second line says HAL (sw vp) , which I'm taking to mean that the chip is incapable of processing all functions in hardware , and therefore not up to the task of running the screensaver . No big deal , and not a surprise as this machine has to be having a good day to even play a DVD properly . It runs just great on my laptop , which is where I do 90% of my graphics based stuff anyway . Thanks for your help Jim . I guess that's one vote for putting Celeron D / SiS 661FX on the not recommended hardware list .

Changing the res & 16/32 bit , or running in windowed mode didn't make a diff - just for reference .

jleslie - is the troublesome monitor using 32-bit? If so, you might try 16.

DaleArden - Thanks for the info. Yes, using software emulation is the problem. The whole reason for MA3 is to take advantage of hardware improvements over the last few years. For lesser machines, MA2.6 will live forever.

Alas I still get trails at 16-bit. Interestingly the fish leave trails on the 1920x1200 monitor but not on the 1280x800 one, where it's only the background. This is the same in 32 bit and can be seen in the above screenshot.
John

On a Medion notebook with Intel 945 Express graphics chipset it streaks like mad under Vista, beta 2 is worse than beta 1. tried 16/32 bit have not got updated drivers yet (lunch first then google) :)

Ah just noticed it is SW rendering so unlikely to ever work?