Ya the devs know about the bug, and it's been posted about many times before, but I haven't seen mention of the fact that changing the bg quality (even back to the original setting) fixes it.

The backgrounds have large weird colored patterns in them when I load a sector (I posted pics in an earlier post). If I change the background settings they go away. So if I have the bg on very high when I load the sector and switch it to extremely high they go away. Same thing the other way around. It happens on atleast the settings high, and up. I haven't checked the others.

Thought that might help shed light on the subject.

Mac OS 10.3.2
Dual 2mhz G5
1536MB RAM
Radeon 9800pro

Little conical things? Yeah, I posted about those.

I have them too. Umbrella shaped patterns in opposing ends of the skybox. And one sector (forgot which...maybe 9) has a cute sun symbol...maybe old coding for positions of various objects in the skybox??
Like Eldrad, all settings on high but the 'sightings' are intermittent.

Mac OS 10.3.2
1 Ghz iMac
768MB RAM
Nvidea card (64)

They'll appear regardless of your BG setting, but go away if you change it.

Mac OS 10.3.2
1.8 GHz G5
1536MB RAM
Radeon 9600pro

Exactly, SirCamps.
Another background anomoly is in s12. The moon closest to the s13 wh shimmies while I'm moving. At normal speed it looks almost as if it is rotating so I am happy to call this a 'feature' :) BUT, when I turbo, it shakes real bad. This does not go away for me when I change settings. It is most likely a ping problem as it is real bad for me in 12. Usually <10. (ADD: I have a 512 cable connection to my stats above)

The "shaking planets" happens to me whenever lag gets real bad.