Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: HighFrictionZone - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Right so. Recently, I noticed that while playing some games that the graphics are kind of a mess.
Edgeless Safety Cube should not look like this.
This actually makes skyrim unplayable.

HOWEVER some games/programs seem unaffected by this:
For example, while all the Source Engine games (Portal, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2) suffer greatly, Sonic Generations does not.
Skyrim suffers, but Oblivion does not.

Initial testing using a graphics benchmarking application led me to believe that DirectX 9 was the culprit: I could run the benchmark in DirectX 10, DirectX 11, or OpenGL modes with no errors, but running it in DirectX 9 mode caused the polygon malformation I was suffering.
But this couldn't possibly be the cause: I can run Red Faction: Guerrilla with the "-nod3d10" option and it runs just fine in what I must assume is DirectX 9 mode. Additionally, the graphics plugins of my N64 and PS1 emulators both use Direct X 9 and the polygons of those games do not suffer for it.

I suppose my question then would be: why do I encounter graphical errors only in some games, but not others? I would imagine that a hardware error would be somewhat more evenly applied (IE: affects everything), or to only affect games which are graphics-intense. And if it was a problem with DirectX 9, then why would it only affect some games and not others?

Any ideas / troubleshooting options?

For the record: I have made sure I had the latest Direct X, I have made sure I have the most up-to-date graphics card drivers. Understandably, I am using integrated graphics - specifically device manager lists it as an "ATI Radeon 3100" graphics device.

My server is back online! This means you can use the normal download link again! I'm keeping the other download link in case things fuck up again.

I'm posting this on my birthday! Go me! It's my birthday present to myself! Additionally, the rest of you get to enjoy it!

Crap pictures that do the hack no justice whatsoever.






Crap youtube videos!
Part 1 shows Metal taking the mostly finished bottom route of my still-being-redesigned GHZ1. Note that at the beginning, you can hear the end of my REALLY CRAPPY level select music. Did I mention that it was one of my earliest ports?
Part 2 shows Metal taking the mostly unfinished upper route of my still-being-edited GHZ1. Note that you can see firsthand both metal's braking animations and his balancing on ledge animations. You can also see that when Metal collects a special stage ring, he gets a 1-up instead of entering the special stage, exactly as promised.
Part 3 this is Sonic in GHZ1. As you can tell, Sonic can enter the special stage. So there.


My Youtube channel has my videos.


Copy/pasted from my own personal website:

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Story:
Dr. Robotnik, in an attempt to destroy his nemesis Sonic the Hedgehog, has created his most powerful robot to date - Metal Sonic 4.0 - and has sent it into the past with the order "You are to seek out and destroy Sonic the Hedghog!"
Unfortunatley for the doc, his orders were damaged in time travel. Upon arrival in the past and his activation, Metal Sonic's memory damaged memory banks left him with the instruction "You are .. .... ... ..... Sonic the Hedgehog!"

Take control over Metal, who is convinced that he really is Sonic the Hedgehog, and put a stop to the evil Dr. Robotnik's schemes before they even start!
Or, take control over Sonic in classic Sonic gameplay and try to collect all six Chaos emeralds and stop Robotnik's evil plot!

Items:
Along the way you will encounter several items. They are:
Speed shoes: temporarly boost your maximum speed and acceleration! All right!
Invincibility: protects you from all damage! (But not from being crushed or drowning)
Shield: protects you from one hit! (But not from drowning or being crushed)
Rings: collect these for bonus points at the end of level tally. Additionally, if you get hit and have at least one ring, all your rings scatter. If you get hit without any rings, you die. I wonder if they have any other purpose.
"S" Monitor: Acts one and two of every level, except for Scrap Brain, have one of these monitors. You need to break it before the big ring will appear at the end of the level.
Big Ring: This appears at the end of acts one and two of every level except Scrap Brain, but only if you've broken the "S" monitor AND are holding at least 50 rings! If you collect this as Sonic, you enter the Special Stage.

Characters:
Metal Sonic: Metal Sonic is a robot clone of Sonic the Hedgehog. Being a robot, he does not need to breathe. As such, he cannot drown in the dreaded Labyrinth Zone. However, since he is not the real Sonic, he cannot use the Big Rings to enter the Special Stage. As such, you cannot collect the emeralds if you play as Metal Sonic. Instead, you get an extra life for collecting the big ring.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic's game is very much like Metal's game, except Sonic has to breathe. Thus, while you CAN drown as Sonic, you can also enter the Special Stages to try and collect the Chaos Emeralds. To play as Sonic, press the "B" button once on the title screen.


Features:

• Spindash.
  
• Spike bug fixed.
  
• Speed cap removed.
  
• Some custom musics!
  
• New GHZ 1 layout.
  
• "S" Monitor
  
• Play as Metal or as Sonic.
  
• Metal does not drown.
  
• Only Sonic can enter Special Stages, Metal just gets an extra life.

Note that since Metal cannot earn continues (because he cannot enter the Special Stage), he receives an extra life to help compensate for it.
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Planned features:

• New level layouts
  
• New level art!
  
• Better music!
  
• Character selection menu!

My thanks goes out to the following people for the following reasons:

• Nineko: XM3SMPS. I'm learning the tool slowly and fully intend to use it for custom music.
  
• Hivebrain: 2005 Sonic 1 Disassembly, from which I am working.
  
• Lightning: Spindash in Sonic 1 guide.
  
• Tweaker: Guide for removing ground speed cap from Sonic 1.
  
• Puto: Part two to Spindash in Sonic 1 guide, also guide for removing air speed cap from Sonic 1.
  
• FraGag: Spike bug fix guide.
  
• Sonic65: Extra characters guide.
  
• Stealth: For making SonEd2.
  
• Xenowhirl: SonMapEd.
  
• Metalkirby, Superjay, sssonic88, killer, Boinciel, Cybersonik, Calamus Blade, Gussprint, and bluegirl123: Names in the credits section of sprite sheet from which I shamelessly stole the Metal Sonic sprites.

And also to anybody else I might have forgotten.

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tl;dr
Download the most recent (and awesome) version of my hack here
BACKUP DOWNLOAD LINK IN CASE SERVER DIES AGAIN
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One thing I will note, I have started to slightly edit Metal's top speed and acceleration. As it is, I've increased one and decreased the other (can you guess which?) ever so slightly from whatever Sonic's is. I fully intend to find a happy spot wherein the two are different enough to be noticed, but not wildly so.

I will note that only Green Hill Zone act 1 has received a layout edit, because the person I've conned into doing who volunteered to do my layouts is on vacation/hasn't got back to me with those layouts. Also, there will be art edits, but they aren't quite top on my list because my art friends all have their own projects at the moment.