Jittery video graphics.

I noticed this after updating to Ubuntu 11.10 and figured it must be OS related

After extensive study of video settings of compiz-settings-manager, Nvidia settings and game settings for 2 weeks of research regarding resolutions, refresh rates, sync to vblank for both monitor and OpenGL and GL there was no effecting these jitters

Similar to playing a game from a home movie film or strobe effect.

I installed VO latest on other computers and booted to windows on the same computer which otherwise had a good working VO when previously on Ubunut 10.10 so I figured the OS update and new latest Nvidia driver must be the cause

I resorted back to 10.10 to diagnose and booted to windows 32bit client which I have not made any changes to on the windows computer and was working smoothly for VO

Same jitters exist on the otherwise working VO on the windows box as well.

I have to conclude that some changes to VO have caused this and I cannot speculate exactly what and do not care to do any further diagnosis since these computers will play other games without problems>

All I can say is that I have 3 computers which dual boot and some triple boot for testing and use to run VO without jittery video and now they all do exactly the same thing with any OS that is booted to run VO on them.

Not sure you can do much with this for bug testing since the information I provided it only visual from various computers and OS's; and I cannot begin to express where to look but only to report the condition that exists.

A few questions:

- Can you give us examples of your hardware with the respective OSs?

- Have you tried enabling or disabling "vsync" in the Options area?

- Does the "jitter" affect everything (menus too), or only certain specific objects? For instance, is it more likely with other ships than asteroids?

Mine windows 7 64 bit Nvidia 520GT with 2 gigs Vram works fine with everything up to max

I'll describe the jitters further below but first the specs of the machine
Sorry for the long response in advance.

specs:
-----------------------
Ok one of the machines is:
-Tyan Tomcat S8265 Board
-2GB proper specified RAM
-512MB GS8400 Nvidia PCIe
-Ubuntu 11.10 64bit
However, Windows 32bit OS on this machine produces the same jitters now too
Also as stated when booting to minimum desktops such as gnome 2 classic (no effects) or LXDE same jitters
-------------------------------------
Notes:
When Ubuntu 10.10 was installed I was getting about 40fps which was low but did not have jitters and worked perfectly as far as video smoothness goes

I installed 11.10 right at about the same time as a VO update came out; and did not even consider it to be anything to do with VO. I simply expected it must be something with my new install since Unity is sort of a resource hog

YES I enabled vsync to blank for OpenGL and also have also made adjustments to the Nvidia refresh rates of the monitor and tried to coordinate that with VO settings or various combinations of settings from changing compiz-settings. compiz-settings were suggested all over the web to adjust the composite refresh rate even thought it's an LCD panel and also to make other multiple combinations of changes too so that it would effect this type of symptom for games

But not forgetting that Windows 32bit client also produces this same exact effect so I'm not convinced that it's OS related anymore

After the 4GB upgrade this did not effect anything for either OS

Now as far as the VO settings I played with and turned everything all the way down to OFF or minimum levels and the FPS which started at around 14fps to 20fps increased to about 30-32 with all VO settings turned down

If I change the resolution down to 800x600 I get better in the 40's and 1024x768 is about 20's with settings turned up or settings turned down no different either way.
However with 1024x768 the mouse does not point to the edge of the screen it stops short of the edges of the VO window / screen so I really can't use it at 1024 x 768
This is both Ubuntu 64 and Windows 32 same effect on both OS's

I've since upgraded to 4GB same chip brand and model (with no effect on game play)
-pending new video card to 1GB which might be in the mail today
-Nvidia GS8400 1GB PCIe x16 2.0 backwards compatible with DDR3 ram (still budget card but should perform fine on VO

So now the observation of what I see in game play:
- Graphics look good at first glance but as you play and come close to objects either at station dock or close combat you cannot see things properly
-When coming close to a station and moving the ship around right at the loading dock and close to the station or close to roids, the graphics gets very jittery NOT compared to jumpy like when you see people jumping around with lag but jittery like strobe effect or home movie frames effect. (hard to describe) but hard to keep track of your movement and where you are oriented when it's doing this
-in close combat it's much worse because although the opponent is not jumping around like you see with lag sometimes, you can't get close to the opponent to see whats going on. If you do it's like driving a car with the sun in your face, when the sun is flashing behind some trees at the same time sort of strobing effect(again hard to describe it exactly but it's as close as I can express)
-when firing or being fired on it gets worse makes it look like a lot more going on then there really is when it's jittery like this.
-Consider trying to combat someone with graphics from a home movie it's sort of flashy jittery effects makes it impossible to see whats going on.
-The closer you get to objects the worse it gets Deneb it's even worse
-Everything also seems much darker then it was. I was stacking a Trident and it seemed far away but all the sudden it grew quickly and I was right on top of it which is not typical at 80m and was not a jump like with lag.
As I said it's really hard to describe other then strobe / home movie effect which makes it very hard to play anything combat like.

Although other games play fine on this box I am suspecting hardware so I bought a new video card and I'll post back once that is installed to see if there is any change
Also I'll try on 2 other machines as well and post back

I don't know why this would also be present on my Windows 32bit boot on the same machine.
I didn't change anything on that end and this subject is present on that too.

Server motherboard. Interesting!

That GS8400 isnt a very fast video card. I have one of those in my old PC at work. Have you tried cutting down the texture detail levels? Also make sure texture compression is enabled.

yes all details of both VO and/or Nvidia were trimmed down to min. with variation of each with no effect

As I said this was not the case until recently which I thought was because of my upgrade, however it could be failing hardware which is why I also have another vid card coming

Although this vid card is a the cheaper of the bunch it did not have such low fps until recent VO updates and use to work perfectly.

Thinking about that server motherboard again. You may want to update your BIOS and double check that there aren't any BIOS settings that could be limiting the PCIe link or video card performance.

Which update started this problem? The one with the texture updates from a couple months ago or the one with the higher detail backgrounds?

I've got one of those cards at work and it does run VO ok, just not as well as my Radeon HD5670 at home.

Two things
About the server board this problem I do not suspect is the server board since the graphics were working perfectly and also I'm not seeing this on 3 other separate computers and windows OS

About the updates
The updates with the texture updates from a couple months back was the one that made things work smooth and the hit registers were more accurate and hit beeps etc.

And as far as the actual video card goes I just installed a memory upgrade and video upgrade to GS8400 1GB card with DDR3 I know it's still the cheaper of the cards but this had no effect

VO is suppose to run on 32MB card but I am not convinced it's hardware related at this point.

After installing the new memory and card and also testing on 3 separate computers with various OS's including Windows I have to consider that it could be something contained in the latest updates from about the last 3 weeks

I also have the same freeze on exit problem that others are having and listing in the bug report on the forums

The freeze on exit was going on for a while now too about the same time as the updates from several weeks ago. I'm sorry I cannot be more specific about which particular updates I didn't have any idea I needed to track this to monitor symptoms I'll be more aware of this in the future

Have you tried disabling the frame limiter, by any chance? (setting it to zero)

This sounds like some kind of framerate-mismatch issue with screen tearing. Vsync should fix anything related to tearing, though. Have you tried capturing an individual screenshot that demonstrates the artifact(s)?

I assume you're enabling vsync within the game itself, and not just in a driver panel somewhere?

Just out of curiosity, have you tried it on different monitors? Some LCD panels have "overdrive" type features that can result in strange artifacts under certain circumstances (specific resolutions, etc).

I have not seen this on any of my hardware, which covers a pretty big spread of performance. But we'll continue to try and figure it out. Please keep the reports coming.

Wait vsync within the game ? is there and actual line that says vsync or does it say something else ?

Please advise thanks

On the Windows version (and I'd prefer you start with that to simplify possible test cases), you will find vsync in:

Options -> Video -> Vsync (off/on).

Also the previously-mentioned frame limiter is located in:

Options -> Graphics -> Maximum Framerate in FPS

I would start out just enabling Vsync only, and not making any other changes.

I'll try on the windows box and look for the vsync in VO I've never noticed an actual vsync setting in vo before but I mostly play on my linux box / boxes so I probably just didn't see it

Sorry for the long response but I have further descriptions of the topic.

I set Maximum framerate in FPS to 0 on Linux box and I want to say that I noticed some improvement but only slightly but that is something anyhow.
For now I'll just be hauling and Deneb and just avoiding close combat and PVP until I get some of this worked out..

I stumbled across this video which sort of mimicks what I see (but only sort of).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lEsfIWV5kM&feature=youtu.be

I'm sure this video quality is partially why it's not smooth here but I can use it to demonstrate. The vid shows the effect all the time likely due to vid quality on YouTube; but what I'm observing is only similar.Only close and fast moving objects. Or close objects in which I'm moving faster like docking etc.
Slow objects and far away seem ok from what I can tell.

If I sit at a station dock and just turn the ship to the left and to the right with (mouse look off) and observe the station and docking area, I can see this sort blurring effect.
Mouse look on makes it worse.

It's more of a pulse of focus in and out of focus and not exactly a jitter, well not exactly.

So imagine the strobe effect of an object going from blurry to clear, to blurry, to clear again. Or perhaps in and out of focuse continously.
It would sort of have a pulsing or jittery strobe effect.

I could not really see it exactly that way before until I really observed it further.

I hope this makes sense as I said it's so hard to describe, all I know is that it's so distracting that I can't see what I'm shooting at in PVP. Sort of like this video I posted, but not exactly the same but the with the same distracting effects.
Because of this effect it seems to mimick a delay or corse game play and not fine meaning a lot more wondering shots all the play. When I shoot is sort of sprays and not like a fine string of shots when strafeing as it normally should.
As if I'm missing frames, but not exactly.
Anyhow thats about all I can describe as best I can.

I wish I was a programmer I could be more specific to identify this problem and fix it myself.

As I said if I fly a moth or haul some freight things look right, but in Deneb or PVP where anything that gets close that requires faster movements and lots of shooting, or docking in a vult or something then the jitter is much more appearent and in fact it's hard to dock sometimes with this going on.

I'll try what you said about the vsync and post back, thanks

Ok I have done some more testing (please read this complete text)

This appears to be caused by low end video cards and I speculate (VO updates of some kind caused a need for increased video specs / requirements)
However, please note that these computers (10) separate computers in all for either Linux or Windows boot did not have this problem prior to some VO updates

I wish I could be more specific about this but they all run perfectly and run other games fine including VO except for the recent emergence of this jittery / blurry topic

The reason I know it's the video card and video spec related is because prior to messing with more settings and diagnosing I had to consider the fact that all computers ran VO perfectly and did not have jittery video until this recent occurance.

And instead of diagnosing the internet connections which I have already done extensivly I figured I would give one more try to increase the video card to a better quality and speed / specs

So even though VO can run on 32MB video card this should be mentioned that it will not give you full features of game play in the same way that you would get for a higher end card. Meaning stuff could be missing that might not have been missing before these VO updates.

The GS8400 card I know is the low end cards perhaps one of the lowest, however far exceeds any video cards of the past at 32MB

I did upgrade from a GS8400 512MB card DDR2 to a GS8400 DDR3 PCIe 2.0 x16 which I thought might help

Actually this GPU has no difference from the previous GS8400 512MB and some of the symptoms on low end cards including onboard Intel and other cards included with all (10) of the systems I have in the warehouse and in the office.

Anyhow to make a long story short the transfer rates, and shader clock multiplers and the pixels per clock all have a major effect on the game play action.

Some of the symptoms that emerged were jittery, blurry pulses which sort of emulate jitter but yet not quit a real jitter.

Other symptoms include lack of seeing some graphics such as:
Levi hunt, going in toward the levi and taking on damage where there was nothing seen coming at or around you. No levi gauss but you can clearly hear and see the red flash with damage indicator going downwards.

Close combat in PVP is similar where you don't see the rockets, however you may assume you dodged and might see rockets drifting off someplace lets say to the right, and yet your getting hit by maybe other rockets I have to assume without any visual sign of other rockets being fired that a second rally was fired.

Deneb or Hive skirmishes produce many of these sort of things including lack of visual graphics for cappie gauss turrets and also PVP especially where there is more then just a couple people in the sector.

So the good news is that the new video card with 4 times the GPU power and transfer rates, and memory bandwidth, and pixels per clock, and shader processor and mulitplier taken into consideration seems to have solved this problem; and if your going to be doing these types of activities then the stated 32MB card will not be very good for any of this. Although the game will still be fun, but your going to be a handicap without the right equipment for your activity of choice.

Although VO will run on it, and yes you can do things like mine,trade, help out with hive skirmishes and maybe even run at lower settings, but the results are that your not getting the real game play that others are going to have and thus going to have a major handicap especially if you can't see things like levi gauss turret firing on you.

You may see them firing in another direction, and see some of it but if you take damages and don't know where or why then your not seeing the HUGE rally of gauss turrets firing directly on you in order to dodge etc.

Anyhow just wanted to express my findings and I hope this helps anyone else who may notice things that they might not be able to explain exactly and this could lead you in the right direction of upgrading your video card.

Of course connection has effect on game play and things like lag etc.
Regardless of lag this video topic is broad; and to conclude that a lower mega byte card with higher GPU specs as I mentioned above will likely be much better game play experience and perhaps avoid any of these symptoms that might effect your game experience.

Again all these 10 computers had no such problem prior to some sort of update; and I was surprised that it was video card/cards related since VO previously was working fine on all these systems with various video cards.

So the video card upgrades have solved this problem where there was no need for an upgrade prior to some sort of VO updates.

Anyhow hope this helps someone and happy exploring

P.S

Oh the card I used now which is still NOT really on the upper end of the spectrum of good graphics cards but perhaps the upper end of the mid range cards for games which is the nvidia GT240 not to be confused with the higher GTS240 or other cards that have SLi and require extra power supply connections

I knew this would be much better transfer rates I would suggest that you want at least these minimums below
The GS8400 only has 6.4 tranfer rate, 64bit, and 16pixels per clock (stinks!) but was working great on VO but still stinks

I would suggests for minium specs to be the following and note (the higher the better):

128bit or higher card min (not 64bit it will stink)
25/GB's or higher (not 6.4 or 8GB it will stink)
96 pixels per clock or higher (not 12-48 it will stink)

Again lower may run the game and work but your going to be missing something for sure.

First of all, we really appreciate all the testing and time that you have put into this. But, we are still somewhat mystified, as we have many low-spec machines ourselves, which are frequently used, and we have not seen this. Plus, we have a substantial number of users on older machines (especially Macs), who have not been complaining of this. My own computer at work is no speed demon anymore, dating from 2003.

I asked back on the 4th if you had tried different monitors? Or even CRTs vs LCDs? If you're testing all 10 machines on the same monitor, that could be related, if what you're seeing is actually caused by some kind of refresh rate mismatch. A CRT monitor would also be an interesting test, as that removes all the inherent latency that some LCD monitors have (post processing).

I just ran the game on an Atom N450 netbook I have, with integrated GMA3150. This is not a fast machine. Granted, I haven't run it on this machine in some time, but I'm still seeing the same ballpark framerates as I was before. This site places the GS8400 on its mid level GPU list, with a score of 160; while the GMA3150 is on the low-end GPU list with a score of 74. Using the GMA3150, I get about 12-16 fps when looking at a station in Itan J11, and in the 40s when flying through the asteroids without all the objects in view. This is in the same ballpark of the performance I recall from when I first defined the Atom Netbook configuration a few years ago.

You can get the framerate with "/fps" entered into chat or the game console (without quotes).

If there's something we did to severely degrade the performance of older hardware, or some default setting that we changed, I'm certainly open to exploring that. But I am not yet seeing evidence to support it, and we will need more information to try and pursue this.

The game is slow on older hardware, but it was slow before. I wouldn't have seriously played a Deneb Warfare skirmish three years ago on a netbook, and I wouldn't do it now either. Heavy battles have always been well beyond the limits of slower hardware, and there has always been a differential benefit to having a faster computer or better network connection, going all the way back to alpha in 2002.

I welcome further feedback and data on this. Thanks again.

New information
While online and being warned about the update message and restart of the vo server I was automatically logged out which I knew about.
Prior to this I noticed what I though may be this slightly jittery effect emerging but only slightly and I figured it was just because I was in the foggie station or something at Pelatus C-12

When I logged back in after the vo server restart which is the recent one that mentioned about scaling. I noticed right away that the jittery / sort of blurry movements was back again and this time even worse then before.
It was quit noticeable.

Also something new which has never happened was the mouse now has dead spots or sort of delayed movement. The type that you might see on a mouse where the mouse ball gets dirty before the optical mouses came out.
But i'm using optical mouse so it's just mimicking this effect.

This occurs now both in station and while piloting.
NW war today was a real pain in the neck regardless of our side winning today.
Frequently moving the mouse to turn would result in start to turn but then the ship just stops while your trying to move the mouse more. Mouse look on/off same effect, so I resorted to mostly joystick movements since I use both at the same time but can resort to joystick only if I need to.

On linux you can switch desktops to see if this mouse topic is hardware related by simply switching to another desktop or the browser. This effect only occurs in game and started right after the vo server updates.
I thought perhaps my mouse battery was going dead or something but it's working perfectly in all other programs.

As far as my various systems running with different monitors.
Yes they all have their own monitor and these are systems I use for my business and in different locations on the property. All are LCD monitors of various brands and types.
And yes I am always inspecting the /fps and the /ping. ping is always good in the 30's to 45 range and /fps was around 22 to 30tops with my GS8400 card and always over 50's with the GT240.
In station is higher and in space up to 80's-140's for fps I would say on average in sectors with combat or skirmishes etc. it runs in the 60's-68's right in that range even in central hive missions etc.

I'm down to 6 systems now. I sold off some that I didn't use as much and consolidated a few workspaces.
Anyhow they each have their own monitor and the specs all vary from P4's to AMD 64bit dual cores, but nothing higher then that is really needed around here.

I'm still considering the internet connection topic; and if I noticed some problems with other games or graphics I would be looking in that direction even harder since the main 2 subjects all these systems have in common is the internet connection and VO.

However, these systems are not all running at the same time only 4 are running at any given time at the most.
But it's always been that way since I started playing and these problems emerged on these systems that did not have any of this before.

I'm not really sure how to diagnose this subject any further at this point.
I got rid of my config.ini and wga file just to see if that was doing something.
No change reloaded a fresh download of VO.

I wish I knew more about studying connections or at least if I could confirm what really is causing this. I have no reason to think it's connection related because everything else is running sooooo smoothly. But that doesn't mean something related to the connection can't still be causing this topic for this particular game.

I really can't say other then what I'm observing. I know how to work on computers and fix issues but this topic seems to be deeper then what I can diagnose. Currently I can't really say what the problem is, but only that there is one. And I can't really say where the problem is but only that something exists.
And i can't really say if it's hardware,connection,server or game related but only that there is some problem being observed.
I wish I could get more details.

For now I'll likely stick with manufacturing since combat is only fun when these problems are not present.

I'll post back.
Sorry for the long posts; and I would not even bother posting if the game was not fun to play.