*sigh*

Could you please not post with what you think it isn't? I'm trying to do a little support here. I need his specs and his answers unless you have a fix to post.

There's a unique and persistent bug on my computer where I'm getting all kinds of spheres, spirals, discs of light and other strange graphical effects in the skybox.

The problem goes away if I go under settings in game and change the background quality, but as soon as I jump into a new sector the wierd spheres appear again.

I'm using an 800mHz G4 mac with a GeForce2 MX graphics card.

This bug has only been a problem since the last update.

Hmm. The MX series is not the hardiest. I found several reports of this kind of behavior with 3D games. Does your system meet these minimum requirements for Vendetta? :

Macintosh:
An Apple G3 or G4 based system (Deskside, Imac, or laptop)
256mb of system ram
A 32mb 3D-accelerating video card (or better)
MacOS X 10.1.5 or better (the game *does not run* on MacOS 9)

If so, please give specifics.

Dunno 'bout on Macs, but PC GeForce2 MX's started at 32MB. I should know, since I played Vendetta exclusively on one for more than a year. And since this bug is only since the last update, my guess would be that it is safe to rule out underpar hardware here.

This is an old bug and was reported. Not sure what the discussion entailed though. I have the same problem and for me not to bug the Devs about it indicates to me that there is a fix, maybe in the next update. I'll look for the thread and edit.

Mac
1Ghz G4 (iMac)
768mb of system RAM
nVIDIA GeForce4 MX (64MB) AGP bus - usually running at 1440x900 32-bit (no mirroring)
MacOS X 10.3.3

[edit]
Here are the last 3 threads I could find...they are in reverse order (Newest first)

http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3634&page=6
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3427&page=7
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=3319&page=8

Upon further review, there was no fix, just a work-around.
[/edit]

It's a PowerPC G4 desktop iMac; the white "half sphere" model with an adjustable flat screen display.

800 mHz G4 processor
512 MB SDRAM
32 MB Video Accelerator (GeForce2 MX)
Mac OS X 10.3

I have some pictures to show the odd swirls, they appear to fade away over the course of multiple warps.
example:
http://img36.photobucket.com/albums/v109/Xorbital/Vendetta/Nova.jpg

Well, I too have an iMac G4. I have noticed this bug throughout 3.3, oddly enough the colors appear to come out of nowhere, not just a simple mishapen texture mapping.

Sorry, FM...just trying to help. I exceed the specs and have the same problem. Exactly. And, as I said, there was no fix...just a work-around.

FM, RelayeR is exactly right. It seems to be a Mac NVidia driver issue that Ray hasn't been able to explain or work around.

It wasn't RelayeR I was frustrated with. Sorry for the frustration folks. I've been researching these things pretty hard since the devs have been busy and it's most helpful to hear from the person with the bug or somebody who knows something useful about it (as RelayeR did).

I know of a potential "fix". If you play vendetta on Jaguar (10.2.x) these "swirly things" don't appear (this is what I remember from reading the other threads on this subject). If he has another Mac at home that has Jaguar instead of Panther, he could play Vendetta on that for the time being.

That matches some of the feedback I found about the Nvidia driver problems elsewhere.

It doesn't happen with just nvidia cards. The Radeon 9800pro we have also renders the little swirly things. It seems to be a problem exclusive to 10.3.

Heh, well if that's the case, I don't think everybody with Panther is gonna be too peachy keen on downgrading till it gets fixed. (which I think wouldn't help it get fixed any faster)

I've seen screenshots of them (running Jaguar here) and I figure I could probably live with them. Give them some roleplaying aspect or summat. "Sector Zero comes to Player Sectors!"

Relayer gives FM a big hug.

It's a simple resolution switch to get rid of it and the only time I'd need to get rid of it is to take a screenshot.

It's something I can live with if other concerns are more important.

Is there a way to bind a screen resolution switch?

heh you don't even need to do a screen res switch. I think just changing background quality modes fixes it sometimes.

I looked into this a little more and noticed that the swirly patterns are using a lower mipmap level of the texture and for some reason that level was either corrupt or not done uploading to the video card. I also noticed a similar problem with the edge of the planet in sector 7.

It seems like a synchronisation bug in 10.3.

Thanks Ray, that's what I meant to say, 'a background quality switch'. Is there a way to bind a switch from "extremely high" to "high" and back?

Check in your config file. There should be a line referring to the background quality. Can't say exactly what it is though (I'm not on a computer with Vendetta on it atm). I'll check in the manual to see if there's a command sequence you can use.

EDIT: no, nothing in the manual

Yeah, it's OSX 10.3, has nothing to do with the card (my 9600 Pro does it as well).

/set rHiRezBK <number>

0 = off
1 = low
2 = medium
3 = high
4 = very high
5 = extremely high