Flickering graphic bug is back

[RussianFowl]

4 hours ago, JackieKo said:

Hi all, little update regarding this specific issue. I made a post here because there's a few things happening at the same time and the flickering textures is related. Please read the linked thread. 

Thanks! 

@JackieKo thank you for acknowledging this issue and for the update. 
 

I did update my in game ticket with this info, but I think the terrain disappearing may have something to do with some sort of cache somewhere. I don’t have any real evidence and I obviously don’t understand y’all’s backend well enough to say with any sort of authority. That said, what makes me think this is that the issue seems to crop up only after being inside for some amount of time. Sometimes it happens quickly, others after being inside for a while. 
 

That’s not much on its own, but I quit the game while the issue was occurring and the angle I was looking at I could see nothing but skybox. 
 

After relaunching, it was working fine and the issue didn’t come back until I went into a different “interior”. 
 

So while that may not point to any specific problem, it does seem to indicate that the issue isn’t tied to specific locations being screwed up. Hope that’s helpful in some way. Will continue to look for patterns. 
 

I will say, it does seem to be more prevalent around ramps/stairs. “Seem” being the key word there. 

[Isrys]

On 4/3/2023 at 12:27 PM, JackieKo said:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\star wars - the old republic\launcher.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\BioWare\star wars - the old republic\swtor\retailclient\swtor.exe

• Right click on launcher.exe and swtor.exe
• Select Properties
• Go to the Compatibility tab

Thanks! 

I haven't logged in, in about 10 days.

I sign in and the launcher timer thingy just spins, indefinitely.

Following the directions above, launcher.exe had a Compatibility tab. I clicked the check box and selected Windows 8 (the only option available). I run Windows 10.

Swtor.exe had no compatibility tab.

This resolved the timer. Got download. Clicked play. Everything else worked.

 

[Rakhol]

Hi all, I am a first time player and new subscriber using Parallels on a Mac M1 Pro. The game runs smoothly on very high/ultra settings but the refreshing textures has made most parts of the game unbearable to play (espcially the more populated, denser areas.) Even when I turn all settings to low the refreshing persists. Can the devs please look into this as I cant see myself remaining a subscriber for much longer if it stays like this. Not the best first impression for the game either... 

[RussianFowl]

On 4/27/2023 at 10:47 AM, JackieKo said:

Hi all, little update regarding this specific issue. I made a post here because there's a few things happening at the same time and the flickering textures is related. Please read the linked thread. 

Thanks! 

@JackieKo- any update on the disappearing world issue?

[OwenBrooks]

On 4/30/2023 at 11:30 PM, Rakhol said:

Hi all, I am a first time player and new subscriber using Parallels on a Mac M1 Pro. The game runs smoothly on very high/ultra settings but the refreshing textures has made most parts of the game unbearable to play (espcially the more populated, denser areas.) Even when I turn all settings to low the refreshing persists. Can the devs please look into this as I cant see myself remaining a subscriber for much longer if it stays like this. Not the best first impression for the game either... 

The game requires a minimum of 1 GB of "dedicated" VRAM that is the games minimum requirement 

see https://help.ea.com/za/help/star-wars/star-wars-the-old-republic/swtor-system-requirements/ 
Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a "minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM"

They dont make statements like this for no reason 

If you run a dxdiag per https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Guide-Posting-a-DxDiag/m-p/4832663/highlight/true#M70799

The text file will have 3 lines referencing the video card memory like mine below , the 1GB of onboard is the middle line "dedicated" , as seen below my video card has 8GB of dedicated video ram

Display Memory: 16247 MB
Dedicated Memory: 8079 MB
Shared Memory: 8168 MB

If you dont have this issues occur as the game is now designed for having 1GB of dedicated onboard vram on the video card.

swtor tried to mitigate this recently by forcing low textures when below 256mb of "dedicated" , however most intel cards use to only have 64 or 128mb Vram so even this isnt a good solution. 

So the solution here is really to play the game on a computer that meets the declared minimum game requirements.

Support are fully aware of the Vram issue see https://forums.swtor.com/topic/929071-issue-with-colorblind-mode-post-721b/?do=findComment&comment=9754605  posted last Friday

Texture shift is the middle dotpoint , An issue with rapidly changing texture quality on machines that have less than the required amount of video memory

In all, we are currently tracking three different issues: 

• Restoring Colorblind Mode with a hotfix that will revert the flickering texture fix that went out with 7.2.1b.
• An issue with rapidly changing texture quality on machines that have less than the required amount of video memory. Many reports of this behavior can be found here. 
• Parts of the world are disappearing at specific locations. This can look similar to the flickering texture issue, but it is a separate issue entirely. We are doing further investigation on this.   

Edited May 4, 2023 by OwenBrooks

[DIVAvonFarstar]

On 5/4/2023 at 2:07 AM, OwenBrooks said:

The game requires a minimum of 1 GB of "dedicated" VRAM that is the games minimum requirement 

see https://help.ea.com/za/help/star-wars/star-wars-the-old-republic/swtor-system-requirements/ 
Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a "minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM"

They dont make statements like this for no reason 

 

... that statement "Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better." is from Monday, August 21, 2017, the modern cpu's with integrated graphics did not exist at that point of time.

[OwenBrooks]

On 5/9/2023 at 9:54 PM, DIVAvonFarstar said:

... that statement "Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better." is from Monday, August 21, 2017, the modern cpu's with integrated graphics did not exist at that point of time.

Thanks for flagging, Just realised the minspecs need to be updated on that EA Help article , will seek to get that updated
the requirement for 1GB dedicated VRam is required more so now even though that has been the requirement even in 2017
Integrated cards usually only had like 128 or 256mb of dedicated ram so did not meet the minspecs

If your integrated video card "has" 1GB of dedicated Vram it meets the "minimum" game requirements

The true min specs are now (not a huge change from 2017) 
windows 7 and 8 are no longer supported OSs and now requires 6GB of RAM with 75GB HDD space
 

These are the minimum specs to run SWTOR according to the developers:

• Operating System: Windows 10 or later – 64-bit
• Processor:
  • AMD: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better
  • Intel: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz or better
• Memory: 6 GB RAM
• Graphics: Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 1 GB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better. )Examples include:Intel HD 3000 or better/AMD Radeon HD 7450/Nvidia GeForce 610)
• Storage: 75 GB available space
• Internet connection: Required to play

[BodanTheMan]

@OwenBrooks I played the game before the update on an apple machine with the following specs: "Apple M1 Max CPU 10-core, GPU 32-core, Neural Engine 16-core, 64GB unified memory" with all the graphic settings on ultra and it worked flawlessly. 

I checked with dxdiag and indeed on windows trough parallels it shows 0 VRAM but that is because it has unified memory and the system gives resources when needed/required i think, not sure about this. 

I installed Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda on the same machine and i play them at max graphics. 

I think if the VRAM was such an issue it would not have worked before the update either, but it did.

[Tourmaline]

On 5/9/2023 at 6:54 AM, DIVAvonFarstar said:

... that statement "Star Wars: The Old Republic requires a video card that has a minimum of 1GB of on-board RAM as well as support for Shader 3.0 or better." is from Monday, August 21, 2017, the modern cpu's with integrated graphics did not exist at that point of time.

Have it and it flickers for me. Do not believe that is the issue as it wasn't doing it and it is back for me as well.

[klizilii]

I have started noticing the flickering textures now.  Just a weird changing or darkening, etc of stuff but it doesn't disappear, just looks different and rapidly changes between normal and bad.

This happens a lot more for me on the lower level planets and I haven't noticed it much on higher level planets or in flashpoints.

[OwenBrooks]

On 5/11/2023 at 5:55 PM, BodanTheMan said:

@OwenBrooks

I think if the VRAM was such an issue it would not have worked before the update either, but it did.

People prior had the abilty to set the compat mode to xp sp3 , to change how vram was handled/viewed by the OS to an older method see https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Guide-Texture-Flickering-High-to-Low/td-p/4867480

its why compatibility modes exist 
This is no longer available to be done and systems must conform to "current" min specs 

If your video card meets the min specs, you should not have this issue

Edited May 13, 2023 by OwenBrooks

[OwenBrooks]

for some the vram can be adjusted in the motherboards bios as mentioned in https://windowsreport.com/increase-dedicated-video-ram-windows-10/

 

[Jacksoundwave]

I am not sure if this is related, but I have said that I have also been getting an insane amount of lag since the April 25 update. It works fine for a few minutes, and then the lag starts to get so bad that gameplay proceeds at a crawl. It was perfectly fine before April 25, but has not worked since that patch. I wanted to mention it here in case it is related to this bug.

[ThanderSnB]

They need to update the system requirements to remove Intel HD 3000. It only has 64MB of onboard memory, so it's not compatible with the game anymore. This probably goes for all integrated graphics. I don't think any of them have more than 128MB if they have any at all. Most modern ones don't have any onboard memory these days, it's all shared system memory. This isn't an impossible problem -- other developers have been able to make engines that can handle this situation -- but it's something that will take more work for Bioware to maintain. If they have a small team, it might be the only thing they can do is lock to the lowest textures on integrated graphics.

Edited May 14, 2023 by ThanderSnB

[bumbumbass]

the problem still existst..for me and soooo many other users...and the problem is not our hardware or somethin, its a game-software-problem. 

the only solution is to run the game in a special compability mode(all know it is the "Windows Xp SP3" mode) but this is only an option with the 32bit client

please devs, find a solution ..i paid until now 2 months and can't play as well... this is not the way  

thanks and good luck to fix the problem fast as possible

[OwenBrooks]

On 5/14/2023 at 2:29 PM, ThanderSnB said:

They need to update the system requirements to remove Intel HD 3000. It only has 64MB of onboard memory, so it's not compatible with the game anymore. This probably goes for all integrated graphics. I don't think any of them have more than 128MB if they have any at all. Most modern ones don't have any onboard memory these days, it's all shared system memory. This isn't an impossible problem -- other developers have been able to make engines that can handle this situation -- but it's something that will take more work for Bioware to maintain. If they have a small team, it might be the only thing they can do is lock to the lowest textures on integrated graphics.

google increase intel vram , it is possible either in the motherboard or via regedit based on the amount of system memory
example https://appuals.com/how-to-increase-a-dedicated-video-ram-vram-on-windows-10/ just note the regedit method is faking vram though

Edited May 16, 2023 by OwenBrooks

[Fierene]

I can't play due to the graphic suddenly sending my character out of the room they are in and putting a view of the top of the building, sky on my screen when I try and turn my character left or right. Is this the same as 'flickering'? 

And what set up /is/ working? Not the minimum requirements but I'd like to hear from someone who is still able to play. 

Signed, 

Unhappy Subscriber!

 

PS. So it looks to me as if the graphics go from Following my character to Top view looking down from above when this happens. Please don't make me go back to the low graphics of years ago as a fix!

PS2 Oh and the new hot fix made this happen more frequently, where logging out and back in helped me be able to play for about an hour or so before it happened. Now it happens every few minutes. 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Fierene

[Noctuah]

Any news about the problem? Is there any solution? I use an Intel HD graphics 5500 5th generation, I have the same problem with the texture flickering, I saw that in the past there was a way to solve it with the compatibility mode to XP sp3, bit after 64 bit update that option has gone.

 

Anyone know any solution for this ?

[OwenBrooks]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:57 AM, Noctuah said:

Any news about the problem? Is there any solution? I use an Intel HD graphics 5500 5th generation, I have the same problem with the texture flickering, I saw that in the past there was a way to solve it with the compatibility mode to XP sp3, bit after 64 bit update that option has gone.

 

Anyone know any solution for this ?

The solution is to increase the dedicated VRAM on the video card , with intel you may be able assign more VRAM in the bios 
So check in the bios first you maybe able to set it to at east 512 whilst the minimum required is 1024 it may stop the flickering

example of someone increasing the VRAM in the bios see https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/annoying-texture-popping-issue-in-SWTOR/m-p/12606530/

[OwenBrooks]

On 5/17/2023 at 5:45 AM, Fierene said:

PS. So it looks to me as if the graphics go from Following my character to Top view looking down from above when this happens. Please don't make me go back to the low graphics of years ago as a fix!

What you are describing is a directx 9 bug , it happens in all directx9 games , in swtor it is usually seen the camera view will suddenly change to a top down look

For swtor like in wow for example at https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/14597

people with swtor find reducing the polling rate to 125hz also helps 

example thread from a few years back https://forums.swtor.com/topic/906524-camera-is-rotating-very-quick-occasionally-bug-fixed/

[MasterNick-Dural]

On 6/3/2023 at 6:29 PM, OwenBrooks said:

The solution is to increase the dedicated VRAM on the video card , with intel you may be able assign more VRAM in the bios 
So check in the bios first you maybe able to set it to at east 512 whilst the minimum required is 1024 it may stop the flickering

example of someone increasing the VRAM in the bios see https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/annoying-texture-popping-issue-in-SWTOR/m-p/12606530/

You're not helping by saying this. There are obviously plenty of people using Windows emulators like Parallels or that had VRAM workarounds that are no longer working, and are looking for a new solution. We know we can "just increase VRAM", but that's not viable for most people in this thread, so stop repeating it. We're hoping for a new solution in the game setting or a new workaround. So unless you can be constructive in that way you're helping nobody in this thread.

[ThanderSnB]

What I think the old compatibility workaround did was assign the max memory (typically 2GB) to the integrated graphics. The game just saw it as one block of let's say, 2GB of VRAM, not knowing that it was part onboard VRAM and part system memory. The game would request memory and the OS (or its compatibility code) would handle all the details of where it was a being stored.

I think a solution most players would accept would be some sort of wrapper that could do the same thing. Like the compatibility workaround, it would present to the game a block of VRAM and handle the details on its own. I think the problem with this is that creating this kind of wrapper is time consuming, and therefore, expensive. You have to consider so many different hardware configurations, I think it's a massive amount of work.

In any case, it will be interested to see what Bioware does in 7.3 or later updates.

[OwenBrooks]

5 hours ago, MasterNick-Dural said:

We're hoping for a new solution in the game setting or a new workaround. So unless you can be constructive in that way you're helping nobody in this thread.

Minimum Game requirement is 1GB dedicated Vram , the solution is to play using a system that meets the "minimum" hardware requirements, anything else is misleading the player into thinking there is going to be a solution when there isnt

hate for you to  continue having false hope is all

[Auraliel]

Quote

On 4/5/2023 at 12:38 PM, Damoneus said:

Appreciate the suggestion! Unfortunately no matter how high or low I set the resolution the flickering still appears.

 

Him Damone's. I have the same configuration of MacBook Pro that you have Studio. M1 Max 64GB unified RAM (with 32 GB applied by Parallels to Windows, and 16GB applied to Graphics memory), 32 graphics cores, etc.  Used to play without flickering. The flickering went way again due to SWTOR changes that forced textures to low, but I have not found a way to get High Quality Textures back. Everything is forced to Low Quality regardless of settings. Have you found any workaround or fix yet for the textures? Thanks in advance!

Edited July 3, 2023 by Auraliel

[OwenBrooks]

5 hours ago, Auraliel said:

Him Damone's. I have the same configuration of MacBook Pro that you have Studio. M1 Max 64GB unified RAM (with 32 GB applied by Parallels to Windows, and 16GB applied to Graphics memory), 32 graphics cores, etc.  Used to play without flickering. The flickering went way again due to SWTOR changes that forced textures to low, but I have not found a way to get High Quality Textures back. Everything is forced to Low Quality regardless of settings. Have you found any workaround or fix yet for the textures? Thanks in advance!

easiest solution is to assign more memory to the video card in the bios 

the way to remove the low textures limit on systems below 256mb dedicated vram on windows is per https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion-Technical/Really-low-quality-of-graphics-on-win-11/m-p/12711069#M102656

but increasing assigned vram is way better solution

For parallel see if this helps https://kb.parallels.com/124575

Edited July 4, 2023 by OwenBrooks