I have observed that any computer so far with an Intel Atom CPU and an Intel GMA 945 chipset has serious issues with vendetta when using shaders 2.0 this chipset ( http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/chipsets/945g/945g-overview.htm ) is very capable of running vendetta with shaders 2.0 turned on however I have experienced very bad artifacting with the some models asteroids station parts and ships

http://vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/2/20947
I tested this extensively on netbooks at work when i decrapped PC's before they went out (uninstalling norton trial stuff and replacing with AVG free 8.5) i tested on the MSI wind U100, U110 the Asus Eee PC 900HA, 901, 904HA and some toshiba netbook that runs with the atom and a gma 945.

This is probably the driver causing this, however i doubt intel feels like doing anything about this since its only one game, this isn't worth fixing because its probably a shitload of debugging and stuff, but a workaround like just making the game detect the hardware and selecting shaders 1.0 by default.

And btw the GMA945/950 is extremely popular granted its not mean for gamers its still in every single popular netbook out there cept for the discontinued Eee 700 series.

and i've been testing with the latest drivers...
Pictures taken with the eee pc 901 looking at a valk: http://www.outerlimitsgfx.com/Pics/Bugs/

wrong forum, spidey

[Edit]I sorta see your point, but this still feels very bug like to me. Might be the "Fix bugs" in the title.[/Edit]

this is a suggestion! not a report.
I would move it if i was a mod though but I ain't.

[edit]Its a suggestion in the sense that I'm suggesting a workaround so people will avoid the bug when they first load vo on a netbook.

I'm going with Bug. Moved!

1) We don't have an example of this hardware, for testing.

2) It is almost certainly a driver issue, we could try to work around it, except for #1.

3) Chances are, there is some configuration that works properly. Perhaps try reduced texture sizes, or turning off certain features? If it does work properly with an older shader model, we could detect the chipset and force it to default to shader 1.1 or some such. Or, if another working configuration can be found, we can set up other special-case defaults.

1: I can ask my workplace a "favor" and send you any netbook you want as long as its returned relatively fast and still in good condition, if that doesn't work I'll send you my eee.
/me hopes it ain't too expensive cause hes gonna pay for the shipping

2: read "1"

3: read my whole thread damnit i pretty much suggested this! (maybe its because of bad english too)

4: no the only way to eliminate the bug is by turning shaders down to 1.1 / off

Thanks for the offer, Kiith. We'll have to discuss it at this end, but we may take you up on that.

Please be aware, that even if we get an Atom-based netbook, we may not be able to work around the issue (beyond, say, disabling 2.0 shaders). Driver bugs are messy, and.. suck.

I'll also look at getting in touch with Intel.

One thing, could you each confirm for me what platform you're using? Ie, Linux/Windows/whatever?

For those of you on Windows, are you using the latest drivers:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=3045〈=eng

(Note, there are BIOS updates on there as well, I would NOT recommend applying BIOS updates that didn't come from the actual final manufacturer of your netbook, that are for your specific model).

The link the spidey posted earlier is not to the same chipset. The Intel Atom may presently only be used with the 945 GSE Express embedded chipset, which is not to be confused with the 945G, or the various other "945" video and CPU chipsets. Intel may bundle their video drivers, so getting the general "GMA" driver may install specific ones for yours, but it still should not be confused with the other hardware.. our game has been run extensively on prior GMA-series hardware with no issues.

The 945 GSE Express integrates video. So, if you have an Atom-based system, this is what you are using:

http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=35553

Anyway, please let me know on the platform/driver thing.

Also: for people running VO in Windows, try OpenGL instead of DirectX. Let us know how that works too (as well as the above).

Btw the bug is limited to windows since drazed has the S101 and hes running Arch linux , now lemme recheck if OpenGL works.
Apparently It doesn't happen in OLG however i'm getting 3 fps right now looking at the K-13 station. where i get 17 FPS with DX9 and shaders 2.0

sorry i should have specified more about the chipset since I knew the ATOM chip was special and didn't run on the same socket as P4's and celerons... /me facepalms

btw kiith is me :P

huh... Seems it was caused by the MSI/Asus overclocking Utility...

Wait, you were *overclocking* something? Spidey, is this fixed now? I've been spending a lot of time trying to raise the right person at Intel..

VO runs great on my s101 :D arch-linux installed.

Well, maybe great is an overstatement... it runs great on my amd-dual-core+9800gtx++4gbram... it runs sufficiently on my s101 with no major issues :D

"Wait, you were *overclocking* something? Spidey, is this fixed now? I've been spending a lot of time trying to raise the right person at Intel.." - inc

The MSI winds and ASUS EeePC's come with overclocking utilities with factory presets the Winds go up to 1.8 and the Eee's go to 1.67 I suppose they would give some kind of warning that those clockspeed are unstable before letting the user switch to them with the "fn" keys on the keyboard. I'm going to do more testing and stuff since i have my hand on a few netbooks at work at the moment (MSI U110, U100 and an Eee 1000HE). When I posted that i was honestly fucked up (two sleepless nights) and I "though" I made a connection between the artifacting and the overclocking...

I clocked my chip to 1.8 and left it running CPUburn: http://users.bigpond.net.au/CPUburn/
for two days with the fan speed at 60% Didn't report any errors or anything so my eee is stable at 1.8Ghz.

/me runs prime95 overnight just to be sure...

Ok so i've had prime95 running on the eee 901 clocked at 1.8 ghz for a little over 26 hours I'm gonna say its stable.

Ok well here are some more pics from testing today with the MSI WIND U100, fresh load of windows,

All pictures: http://outerlimitsgfx.com/Pics/Bugs/wind/

The more interesting pictures,
http://outerlimitsgfx.com/Pics/Bugs/wind/dump0036.png
http://outerlimitsgfx.com/Pics/Bugs/wind/dump0016.png
http://outerlimitsgfx.com/Pics/Bugs/wind/dump0001.png

These were taken at factory settings with the atom clocked at 1.6Ghz with Intel speedstep enabled.

Those are pretty gum-drop asteroids. I'm at a loss of what we should do about it other than forcing shaders off for that that particular video chipset.

Woot I figured it out, It seems to bug when the shaders are set to "Automatic".

The game works fine when they're at 2.0, 1.4 or 1.1 but the "Automatic" option seems to mess everything up...

Huh, that's strange. Maybe it doesn't like certain combinations of the different versions of shaders.