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Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 7:33 pm
by UK_Eliter
Dear all

I see that people have had problems with some AMD graphics drivers (and, for all I know, this applies to Macs and Linux, too). The latest AMD drivers have this problem - as revealed by loads of errors in Oolite's log file. But there are the following possible solutions (at least for PC users).

(1) A fix from AMD, available here (for XP / Vista / 7): http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pa ... mance.aspx

(2) Modified drivers (for XP / Vista / 7), available here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget ... a40bdd6ef2

I'm just testing these now . .

OK: neither seems to work. Oh dear. I'm running trunk 1.75.4.4668-dev.win32 (but had the problem on an earlier trunk build too) on Win XP SP3 with a Radeon HD 5570 - on a desktop as against a laptop. And I've tried running Oolite with the 'nosplash' option.

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:06 am
by DaddyHoggy
UK_Eliter wrote:
Dear all

I see that people have had problems with some AMD graphics drivers (and, for all I know, this applies to Macs and Linux, too). The latest AMD drivers have this problem - as revealed by loads of errors in Oolite's log file. But there are the following possible solutions (at least for PC users).

(1) A fix from AMD, available here (for XP / Vista / 7): http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pa ... mance.aspx

(2) Modified drivers (for XP / Vista / 7), available here: http://downloads.guru3d.com/downloadget ... a40bdd6ef2

I'm just testing these now . .

OK: neither seems to work. Oh dear. I'm running trunk 1.75.4.4668-dev.win32 (but had the problem on an earlier trunk build too) on Win XP SP3 with a Radeon HD 5570 - on a desktop as against a laptop. And I've tried running Oolite with the 'nosplash' option.
THe first link to 11.11b - is a fix specifically for the games mentioned - not a generic fix for ATIs (in fact specific mods for the 5xxx and 6xxx series radeons - I know this because we've got 5 crappy 5970s at work that refuse to run in Crossfire mode under XP even in motherboards that specifically support Crossfire (they are Intel boards though so that could be a lie too!). I forgot how much I hate ATI - fantastic tech let down by crap drivers and crap customer support.

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:10 am
by Cody
Which ATI/AMD driver version are you using? Try rolling-back to a previous driver, maybe?

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:17 am
by UK_Eliter
Thanks DaddyHoggy.

El Viejo: I'm using the latest one, which is 11.11, but I tried 11.9 (I think I just happened to have that one) and that didn't work either. I think 11.10 worked. So I should try to dig that one out from the web or from my system backups. I don't know why I didn't think of that before (I must be tired!). Thanks for the reminder!

And to think I left Nvidia for ATI/AMD (which is the proper name?) because I got upset with Nvidia! The ATI one drops loads of garbage in the windows event log, too. That said, part of the reason for a switch was that I wanted a fanless midrange card that wasn't too expensive - and I found an ATI one that fitted that bill. I think it also boasted (i.e. claimed to provide) good OpenGL support. .

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:29 am
by DaddyHoggy
ATI have been lying about their OpenGL support since the days of Quake III and their Rage series of cards - I had one - I got 4fps on the Rage, gave up bought an Nvidia TNT Riva 128 and got 30fps - equivalent VRAM (8MB!) and GPU speed (about 150MHz or something!)

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 12:30 am
by Cody
The 11.10 beta solved a few other problems, so get 11.10.
AMD have pretty much ruined ATI since they grabbed it... I recently switched from ATI to nVidia.

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 11:56 am
by Ironfist
Happily using 11.10 on a 5750, no problems for shaders.

Ironfist

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 6:16 pm
by Thargoid
Come back etch-a-sketch, all is forgiven :twisted:

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:03 pm
by DaddyHoggy
Thargoid wrote:
Come back etch-a-sketch, all is forgiven :twisted:
From various Internet Sources:

Frequently Asked Questions for Etch-A-Sketch Technical Support

Q: My Etch-A-Sketch has all of these funny little lines all over the screen? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I turn my Etch-A-Sketch off? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What's the shortcut for Undo? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I create a New Document window? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I set the background and foreground to the same color? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: What is the proper procedure for rebooting my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I delete a document on my Etch-A-Sketch? A: Pick it up and shake it.

Q: How do I save my Etch-A-Sketch document? A: Don't shake it.

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:40 pm
by Thargoid
You missed out the classic

Image

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2011 8:56 pm
by DaddyHoggy
Thargoid wrote:
You missed out the classic

Image
I couldn't find it! But thanks for posting again. Interesting URL structure Dilbert uses...

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 3:28 pm
by CommonSenseOTB
That's awesome! Some of the electronics makers should take a lesson from the etch-a-sketch simplicity and even do away with the shaking in favor of voice control. What are they waiting for? It must be 2 or 4 years now since the capability came out on a chip and only car media systems are using it. Note that when people have problems with physical devices they tend to tap, smack, and shake them. Electronics should use these cues to reset at the very least. Bring on the Apple iSketch. :)

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 7:16 pm
by UK_Eliter
Ironfist wrote:
Happily using 11.10 on a 5750, no problems for shaders.

Ironfist
Maybe it's the version of trunk I'm using, or something else - something other than the card drivers. I'm getting errors such as these:

Code: Select all

19:04:01.671 [shader.load.failed]: ***** ERROR: Could not build shader ahruman-generic.vertex/xarik_griff_rocket.fragment.
  19:04:01.796 [shader.compile.failure]: ***** ERROR: GLSL fragment shader compilation failed for thargorn_treat.fragment:
>>>>> GLSL log:
Fragment shader failed to compile with the following errors:
ERROR: 1:92: error(#397) Illegal escape sequence. 
ERROR: 1:93: error(#132) Syntax error: '{' parse error
ERROR: error(#273) 2 compilation errors.  No code generated


19:04:01.796 [shader.load.fullModeFailed]: ----- WARNING: Could not build shader thargorn_treat.vertex/thargorn_treat.fragment in full complexity mode, trying simple mode.
  19:04:01.796 [shader.compile.failure]: ***** ERROR: GLSL fragment shader compilation failed for thargorn_treat.fragment:
>>>>> GLSL log:
Fragment shader failed to compile with the following errors:
ERROR: 1:92: error(#397) Illegal escape sequence. 
ERROR: 1:93: error(#132) Syntax error: '{' parse error
ERROR: error(#273) 2 compilation errors.  No code generated

19:03:04.921 [shader.load.fullModeFailed]: ----- WARNING: Could not build shader vortex_general.vertex/vortex_general.fragment in full complexity mode, trying simple mode.
  19:03:04.921 [shader.compile.failure]: ***** ERROR: GLSL fragment shader compilation failed for vortex_general.fragment:
>>>>> GLSL log:
Fragment shader failed to compile with the following errors:
ERROR: 1:10: error(#397) Illegal escape sequence. 
ERROR: 1:11: error(#132) Syntax error: '{' parse error
ERROR: error(#273) 2 compilation errors.  No code generated
EDIT: I went back to Oolite-1.75.3-beta, to no avail.

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:22 pm
by Ironfist
I generally use the latest Trunk version or the equivalent debug version, and have not had any problems.
I also run Oolite under Win7 on a laptop with an Intel graphics chip which has very little OpenGL support and everything runs OK on that.
Could it be that one of the shader files is corrupt. What OXPs are you running?

Ironfist

Re: Possible solutions for shader problems with AMD cards

Posted: Fri Dec 02, 2011 8:27 pm
by UK_Eliter
Ironfist

I'm running loads of OXPs, and loads of them are giving errors . .