AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - New Shields / Robes / Heads not displaying properly?

Has anyone else experienced this issue? A bunch of the content from the newer hak packs is not displaying properly for me. It shows up all in pure white, regardless of whatever color it's supposed to be, like so:

This happens only with content from the newer hak pack additions, like the new shields, some of the new heads, and some of the robes (I've noticed especially the one that looks like a toga / kilt thing is affected). Nothing that I could see properly before the addition of the new hak packs has been affected. What's the deal, yo?

Things I have tried to no success:

Reinstalling the game
Redownloading the hak packs
adjusting my in-game graphics settings higher or lower
removing all overrides from my override folder
removing all hak packs except Amia's from my hak folder

None of this has worked. Help me, tech people! You're my only hope!

EDIT: to add that I know something in my system is seeing at least the shields properly, since the thumbnail images show up in full color in my inventory.

Aha, I have stumped you all! Excellent.

Another thing I can add to the list of "things which did not solve the issue": Updating my graphics drivers.

Seriously, anyone? Obviously my gameplay is not crippled here, but it's kind of annoying.

Which version of the newest hak did you download?

Eh... there's more than one? I downloaded the one from the sidebar.

Oh, do you mean which one, the .7zip or the .rar? I got the .7zip one. I guess I could try the .rar download and see if that helps, but aren't they identical when uncompressed?

Nope, though I suppose that's worth trying too. I meant the update vs the whole hak. You said you re-downloaded it, but that doesn't specify which one, and it's obviously an issue with textures. Didn't the latest hak update get posted once or twice with fixes? Also, did you clear the hak folder when you re-downloaded it?

I redownloaded the whole hak pack, and cleared my hak folder before extracting the new download into it. Everything I have should be the newest version.

Just a guess, because I've seen a very similar effect on Linux:

Some of the newer textures are compressed with a different algorithm ("S3TC") than the official campaign files.
Some combinations of OS/graphics driver/graphics cards might not decompress those correctly.

To be specific: Your card might not be handling "S3TC" textures correctly. Even oldish versions of DirectX should give you that feature, but who knows, maybe something is wrong. Maybe you flipped some switch somewhere about texture compression recently?

Regards
Ts

See, I was really hopeful there, because it sounds like you definitely know what you're talking about.

But, I went to Microsoft's website and installed the newest versions of everything DirectX, and it didn't solve the problem. Is there some other place hidden in some sort of control panel where some hypothetical S3TC switch might be hiding?

Could you post your tech specs?
Operating System?
Graphics card?

You said you downloaded the latest DirectX ... But it seems like NWN still needs DirectX9, which is not entirely contained in current versions of DirectX. Here's the setup of DirectX9: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download ... en&id=8109 (This should not affect your shiny new DirectX installation.)

Other than that ... the usual Win7+ workarounds might help?
* try running nwmain.exe in winXp compatibility mode
* try running as admin

Regards
Ts

O jeez, now you're asking me for tech stuff. *panics*

I have Windows 7 on a Dell laptop which is probably nearly as old as NWN, and just using whatever awful graphics capability came with it.

I'm already running both in compatibility more and as an admin.

I've downloaded the executable from that link, but I get a little popup window asking me what folder I want to put the extracted files into, and I wouldn't even know how to begin to answer that. Where do DirectX files go?

Update:

A bit of expeditious Googling helped me get everything where it needs to go (I think), and the installer informs me that its components have been installed.

But, still no luck, the graphics glitch in game persists.

Okay, have the new textures ever worked for you on this laptop?

It might still be related to your graphics drivers, especially if you have an old machine. Sometimes newer graphics drivers don't bother to support (or announce that they support) all odd OpenGL features that NWN uses.

I'll try to detail how to check your OpenGL support tonight. This www.realtech-vr.com/glview/ seems to gather that information, but I havent used it yet. (It looks legit ...)

If the hardware really is that old, it might genuinely not display the newer textures, though. That's no reason to despair entirely, but it might be difficult as the haks would have to be converted or some magical renderer would have to do it on the fly ...

Regards
Ts

I just checked that we're actually seeing the same issues. Now that I disabled my fix, I noticed that Fort Wiltun is almost completely white without S3TC ... I think you would have mentioned if that was the case. ;) (I had only looked at L'Obsul back then, which worked pretty well except for a few textures, like on my suddenly white shield.) So, you are probably experiencing something else.

Are you really, really sure your files are okay? ;)

Can you tell me what shield that is from the crafting menu? What's the base item: small/large/tower shield and what's its model number? Maybe there is something special about its texture.
edit: A screenshot of the inventory icon would also suffice, I suppose.

Would you mind downloading glview: http://www.realtech-vr.com/glview/download.php ?
It can tell quite exactly what your graphics card/driver can do.
The installation might ask for dot.net 4.0 ... I guess you would also have to install that, but at least the download page from microsoft.com is opened automatically for you ...

Then, when you run glview, it analyses your graphics setup. You can save the result to an xml file using the far-right button in the menu item row (barrel-shaped icon or so). If you could paste the first page of that XML file here (open it in notepad), that might help.

Regards
Ts

Yeah, I'm not seeing all-white Ft Wiltun or anything like that. So far as I can tell, the issue is limited to only the some of the new hak content, mostly shields.

I'm as sure as I can be that my files are okay, since I re-installed the game and re-downloaded all the haks and started clean over. I don't know how to be surer than that.

I'm not precisely sure which shield it is I'm looking at in that screenie, because the glitch makes all the new shields look basically identical, and I don't remember the number. I can look it up in game later to be sure but I think it was one of the ones in the 60s? The problem exists across many shields and many characters though. In that screenie you're seeing a large shield, but the new tower shields all look colorless white, too.

I did that glview thing and am rewarded with a page full of nonsense I don't understand.

Here's the first page or so of it, hope it helps!

Regardless, thanks for taking the time to look into my problem, I seriously appreciate it!

glview wrote:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>



-<GLView version="4.3.6">

<System>Windows Vista S (Build 7601)</System>

<CPU>Conroe, Family 6h, Model: fh, Stepping: 6h</CPU>

<Vendor>Intel</Vendor>

<Version>1.4.0 - Build 8.14.10.1930</Version>

<DirectXVersion>9.0c - June 2010</DirectXVersion>

<DXShaderModel>vs_3_0, ps_2_0 (SW)</DXShaderModel>

<Renderer>Intel 945GM</Renderer>

<Extensions>GL_EXT_blend_minmax GL_EXT_blend_subtract GL_EXT_blend_color GL_EXT_abgr GL_EXT_texture3D GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array GL_EXT_cull_vertex GL_SGIS_texture_edge_clamp GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap GL_EXT_draw_range_elements GL_SGIS_texture_lod GL_EXT_rescale_normal GL_EXT_packed_pixels GL_EXT_separate_specular_color GL_ARB_multitexture GL_EXT_texture_env_combine GL_EXT_bgra GL_EXT_blend_func_separate GL_EXT_secondary_color GL_EXT_fog_coord GL_EXT_texture_env_add GL_ARB_texture_cube_map GL_ARB_transpose_matrix GL_ARB_texture_env_add GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays GL_NV_blend_square GL_ARB_texture_compression GL_3DFX_texture_compression_FXT1 GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp GL_ARB_point_parameters GL_ARB_texture_env_combine GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3 GL_ARB_texture_env_crossbar GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc GL_ARB_shadow GL_ARB_window_pos GL_EXT_shadow_funcs GL_EXT_stencil_wrap GL_ARB_vertex_program GL_ARB_fragment_program GL_EXT_stencil_two_side GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias GL_NV_texgen_reflection GL_ARB_depth_texture GL_WIN_swap_hint WGL_ARB_buffer_region WGL_ARB_extensions_string WGL_ARB_make_current_read WGL_ARB_pixel_format WGL_ARB_pbuffer WGL_EXT_extensions_string WGL_EXT_swap_control </Extensions>

<VRAM>256</VRAM>

-<Capabilities>

-<FrameBuffer>

<ViewportMaxWidth>2048</ViewportMaxWidth>

<ViewportMaxHeight>2048</ViewportMaxHeight>

<SubPixelBits>4</SubPixelBits>

</FrameBuffer>

-<Stack>

<AttribStackDepth>16</AttribStackDepth>

<NameStackDepth>128</NameStackDepth>

<MaxModelViewStackDepth>32</MaxModelViewStackDepth>

<MaxProjectionStackDepth>4</MaxProjectionStackDepth>

<MaxClientAttribStackDepth>16</MaxClientAttribStackDepth>

<MaxTextureStackDepth>10</MaxTextureStackDepth>

</Stack>

-<Various>

<LineSizeMin>0.5</LineSizeMin>

<LineSizeMax>7.5</LineSizeMax>

<LineSizeGran>0.5</LineSizeGran>

<PointSizeMin>0.5</PointSizeMin>

<PointSizeMax>10</PointSizeMax>

<PointSizeGran>0.125</PointSizeGran>

<AliasedLineWidthMin>1</AliasedLineWidthMin>

<AliasedLineWidthMax>255</AliasedLineWidthMax>

<AliasedPointSizeMin>1</AliasedPointSizeMin>

<AliasedPointSizeMax>255</AliasedPointSizeMax>

<NumClipPlanes>6</NumClipPlanes>

<NumLights>16</NumLights>

<PixelMapTable>65536</PixelMapTable>

<TextureSize>2048</TextureSize>

<EvalOrder>32</EvalOrder>

</Various>

-<Extensions_Specs>

<MaxTextureAnisotropy>4</MaxTextureAnisotropy>

<MaxTextureUnits>8</MaxTextureUnits>

<MaxTextureCubeSize>1024</MaxTextureCubeSize>

<NumCompressedTextureFormats>0</NumCompressedTextureFormats>

<MaxVertexBlend>0</MaxVertexBlend>

<MaxTexture3DSize>128</MaxTexture3DSize>

<MaxOcclusionQueryBits>0</MaxOcclusionQueryBits>

-<VertexProgram>

<MaxProgramInstructions>512</MaxProgramInstructions>

<MaxNativeInstructions>512</MaxNativeInstructions>

<MaxProgramTemporaries>31</MaxProgramTemporaries>

<MaxProgramNativeTemporaries>31</MaxProgramNativeTemporaries>

<MaxProgramParameters>400</MaxProgramParameters>

<MaxProgramNativeParameters>400</MaxProgramNativeParameters>

<MaxProgramAttribs>16</MaxProgramAttribs>

<MaxProgramNativeAttribs>16</MaxProgramNativeAttribs>

<MaxProgramAdressRegisters>1</MaxProgramAdressRegisters>

<MaxProgramNativeAddressRegisters>1</MaxProgramNativeAddressRegisters>

<MaxProgramLocalParameters>300</MaxProgramLocalParameters>

<MaxProgramEnvParameters>300</MaxProgramEnvParameters>

<MaxVertexAttributes>16</MaxVertexAttributes>

<MaxProgramMatrices>8</MaxProgramMatrices>

<MaxProgramMatrixStackDepth>0</MaxProgramMatrixStackDepth>

</VertexProgram>

-<VertexShader>

<MaxVertexUniformComp>512</MaxVertexUniformComp>

<MaxVaryingFloats>41</MaxVaryingFloats>

<MaxCombinedImageUnits>16</MaxCombinedImageUnits>

<MaxVertexTextureImageUnits>16</MaxVertexTextureImageUnits>

</VertexShader>

-<FragmentShader>

<MaxFragmentUniformComp>1024</MaxFragmentUniformComp>

</FragmentShader>

-<ATI>

<MaxDrawBuffers>7</MaxDrawBuffers>

</ATI>

<nVidia/>

</Extensions_Specs>

</Capabilities>

Yay, lots of stuff ... :) At least we now know that you're using the Intel 945GM integrated graphics, plus what it's supposed to do.

Anyway, could you check if you can see the Large Shield model 39 (in the crafting menu). It is round, but unlike all other large shields has very large spikes in 8 directions or so.

If this shield is white, I'll try to patch its texture in the .hak files so that you might be able to view it.

Regards
Ts

Okay, I'm learning way too much about NWN ...
NWN has two file formats for textures: tga (simple, old) and dds ("new" and actually has many internal compression formats).
The new haks only provide the dds files. The original campaign originally provided tga files and later both, dds+tga, files.

Here's what I believe is happening:
Some of the new dds textures are in a format that your graphics card won't accept. I don't know which formats that could be, because all important ones should be supported by your card, but anyway. Maybe the dds files were created in a non-standard way.

Now, assuming that the large shield, model 39, is "white" on your machine ...
This shiels uses a texture "VikShield-tex.dds" from the amia_v3b_d.hak

First, I've added the corresponding "VikShield-tex.tga" to a modified version of the amia_v3_override.hak. You can grab that here: http://www69.zippyshare.com/v/BMcwBu5C/file.html
Extract it with 7zip, and replace the amia_v3_override.hak with this. (You might want to backup your original amia hak.)

If you're lucky, you can then see that large shield properly. This would mean that NWN is aware that your graphics card cannot handle the shield's dds texture but was missing any fallback in form of the tga file. I doubt that this will work, though, as in principal your computer handles the dds textures.

So, as the next step, I removed the "VikShield-tex.dds" from amia_v3b_d.hak. The modified hak is here: http://www69.zippyshare.com/v/4j3iG6xM/file.html
Also replace the amia version with this one.

With both hak files replaced, the only texture for the shield is the tga file. You should be able to see the shield now. (It has a green "OK" written on it. ;) If that's the case, we still don't know why the dds file is not working for you, but there would be a (tedious) workaround by replacing all troublesome textures with tga versions.

If you cannot even display the tga file, something else is causing problems. I found some references to your card not supporting 8bit transparency channels or something, but I'm not sure if that's totally reliable. This particular shield uses 8bit transparency and a lot of old content uses no transparency or maybe 1bit transparency. (This is mostly independent of the dds vs tga file thing, as both support 8bit transparency.)

Regards
Ts

PS: You might want to restore the original Amia haks after this operation. ;)

I can see Large Shield 39 correctly, but I always could see that one correctly; it's from the previous hak update. The shields which I'm not able to see correctly are as follows:

Large Shields

Looks okay: 1-39, 44
Looks all white: 45-74
??: 40-43

Tower Shields

Looks okay: 1-38, 43-49, 52
Looks all white: 50-51, 53-77
??: 39-42

Small Shields

Looks okay: 1-16
Looks all white: 17-21

The ones I've marked "??" are ones that aren't quite all white, they show up all white except with a metallic border, like so:

Is it possible that a single shield model uses two different textures?

In any case, you should get an award or something for at least persisting in trying to help me, Ts.

I seriously appreciate it!

Shields can have multiple textures, like any model. For example, the back could be a different texture (say, some standard wood texture).

Okay, I looked at the shields 43,44,45.

The 43 has a tiny TGA texture, just 37x37 pixels.
The 44 has a big TGA texture, 512x512 pixels, but works.
The 45 has an even bigger TGA texture, 500x800 pixel, and doesn't work.

I think we have a winner:
Traditionally, textures had to have sizes in powers of 2: 32x32 is okay, so ist 512x512, but 37x37 or 500x800 is not.
Newer cards don't have this limit any more.

While Intel claims that your Intel 945GM does support arbitrary texture sizes, there are a few people complaining that this doesn't work as advertised. (There are two ways to make this work ... One just works with any texture, the other one requires sending special commands to the graphics card, which NWN probably doesn't do.)

In technical terms: It looks like your card doesn't support the OpenGL extension "GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two". (It's not listed in that report up there, either, so that might just be a case of a really sleazy driver. I don't think so, though, as it's such a basic thing to support.)

So, the workarounds I can think of:
* Assuming that NWN actually checks for this extension, you could try to force the driver to announce that extension. (With the OpenGL Interceptor or some such, get help from someone ;). The actual hardware might accept those textures or maybe the graphics driver falls back to software workarounds or something ...
* All odd textures could be exported from the hak, scaled to normal sizes, and put in the override hak. Lot's of work, but doable. This is also something our designers could keep in mind for the next update, though if you're the only one complaining ...

Regards
Ts

Yay, I just disabled GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two on my driver and I had exactly the shield 43 with just the border, while 44 worked and 45 was white.

Some more good news:
The Linux drivers for the Intel 945GM do support such odd textures, while the Windows drivers for the same card do not. So it's probably just a really, really bad driver. (Unless the Linux drivers use a software workaround.) Who would have thunk?

So, my plan would be to try to force that feature into existence:
Get the GL intercept thingy as posted by Terra in the first post here: viewtopic.php?f=149&t=76249 and extract it in the nwn folder, exactly where nwmain.exe is. The file OpenGL32.dll should be at the same level as nwmain.exe.

It's configured to do something else, so let's change that: Edit the file gliConfig.ini (also next to nwmain.exe), scroll all the way to the end, to "Plugins", and look for the lines with "AddExtensions" and "RemoveExtensions".

We want to add something, so write:

Quote:

AddExtensions = (GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two);

before the (already) commented out

Quote:

// AddExtensions = (GL_ARB_shading_language_100,
// GL_ARB_shader_objects,
// GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_ARB_vertex_shader);

Then comment out the haxxoring from Terra:

Quote:

// RemoveExtensions = (GL_NV_vertex_array_range2, GL_NV_vertex_program);

Then try running NWN again ...

Regards
Ts

Well that sounded like a great plan! But, no luck yet. Unless I'm not editing the config thing properly?

You should see a file gliLog.txt when you now run NWN. If it doesn't appear, the interceptor is not working. If it does appear, look at it. ;)

Anyway, it might not be that simple to trick the driver into behaving properly. I doubt that going back to older drivers would help, considering that people complained about these drivers in 2009, but you can try to find better ones.

So ... can I interest you in installing Linux? ;)

There might be another option: http://titaniumgl.tk/
It's meant to provide OpenGL capabilities on systems that have no or bad OpenGL drivers (like yours), by using DirectX in the background. It explicitly says that it can add your missing feature when required. But it's not a software renderer, so it should have similar performance to your current game. Also, it's meant to be compatible with your graphics chip.

To install it, first remove any traces from the GLInterceptor. (Mostly the opengl32.dll.) Then download the "hardware-accelerated" version of titaniumGL. It contains various openGl32.dll's. Pick the Windows7 one with hardware acceleration and put it next to your nwmain.exe again.

I haven't tried this and the homepage isn't clear whether the download is just for a 5 minute demo (after which the game would probably exit) or whether that Buy Now button was just never removed when they started some ad-based model (?) ...

Besides such a clever OpenGL -> DirectX converter, I can only think of converting the troublesome textures and putting them in the override.hak. That might even be scriptable, so it's not as bad as it sounds, even for many textures all over the place.

Regards
Ts

And https://code.google.com/p/qindie-gl/ might do the same trick, translating to DirectX in the background. Though it does not seem as mature as the other project. (It's entirely free though. ;)

Regards
Ts

Okay,

I assume you had better things to do than try out strange OpenGL drivers ... ;)

Here's something better instead (hopefully): An Amia hak file that contains the troublesome textures rescaled to powers of two.

http://www13.zippyshare.com/v/jCB1Y87X/file.html

This replaces the amia_v3e_top2.hak file. (I thought, the hak files were ordered so that amia_v3_override can actually be used to override stuff, but for me that wasn't the case ... I had to put the new textures into the topmost toppy top file.)

Anyway, once you've replaced the hak file with this one, the textures should show up. This time, I promise that it could work. ;) And it doesn't require any of the OpenGL stuff from above anymore.

Let me know if this helps!

Regards
Ts

Ts, can you please come to my house so I can make out with your face?

I mean seriously, people... this guy couldn't wait for me to get my act together enough to goof around with weirdo driver hacks, so he

REBUILT THE ENTIRE HAK FILE FOR ME.

This is not normal. That's totally above and beyond, mister.

Yay!

There also were a few broken textures in older hak files, but I think I caught them all.

There might be another issue with non-square textures, though, but I hope not, as that is more common than arbitrarily sized textures. If you see white, let me know.

Also, that amia_v3e_top2.hak contained no .tga files previously. So if Amia ever gets a new hak before you get a new PC, you or someone might have to move all tga files from the current hak to whatever will be used then.

Regards
Ts

New Shields / Robes / Heads not displaying properly?

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