Aldrin player-built station...

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Turiko
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Aldrin player-built station...

Post by Turiko » Tue, 19. Jul 11, 23:17

I decided to try and build something in Aldrin seeing as the economy there is dooming my future weapons 8) .

I'm starting simple: basic food manufacturign from energy.

The very first building is put down and... there's no visible station :o . The station IS there, it works (haven't tested production, but i can dock) but all that can be seen is a couple of docking clamps.

screenshot:http://imageshack.us/f/202/x3tc20110719230600.png/

Just thought i'd share this on here, as this is just about the weirdest harmless bug i've seen in x3 so far... i even tried flying around it expecting to crash into the invisible building, but that doesn't happen either.

After putting some other factories, i made it into a small complex:

http://imageshack.us/f/339/x3tc20110719231612.png/

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Tue, 19. Jul 11, 23:22

It's probably one of two things. Either you have graphics issues, or your game is corrupted/incomplete. If it's a Steam install, the first thing I'd suggest is verifying the cache. If it's not a game install/corruption issue, you should ask in Tech Support where someone can take a look at your DXDiag report and hopefully spot any issues. This is not a known issue with the game itself, AFAIK.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

kurush
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Post by kurush » Tue, 19. Jul 11, 23:26

Aldrin sector overloads older GPUs, especially if you try to build something there. I was getting invisible stations on my older card in other sectors as well... Upgrade?

Turiko
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Post by Turiko » Tue, 19. Jul 11, 23:36

I've got an HD4770, Aldrin is running fine - a bit low fps but much better than my complex-cramped systems ^^.

I'm not sure what this is, but it's not a graphics glitch - if it was, then i'd crash into the building even if it is displaying incorrectly. When i'm done building i'll just leave aldrin and come back, see if it fixes it :P. If not, i'm going to check scruffin farms elsewhere.

EDIT: it seems to be a general bug, it appears like that everywhere. Checking integrity with steam now.

EDIT #2: one file missing - i can guess what that was :P.

EDIT #3: even after the steam-check and redownload of the missing file, the station isn't showing up. Odd.

EDIT #4: this time the steam check is showing clear. Still missing...

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TTD
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Post by TTD » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 00:18

I had that with an older card and low memory.

I can still get it with my now aging card if I try to put too many stations etc in a sector...notably Patriarch's Retreat.
( I still only have 2GB ddr2 memory and an Nvidia 8800 card).

If I recall, I was one of the first players
to post a similar pic here.It was an Ore Mine with only parts of the docking clamps visible.

Yes sometimes jumping OS and back IS can help, or quitting the game and reloading does the trick sometimes.

Turiko
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Post by Turiko » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 00:29

Well, i'll try and get rid of TC completely and do a fresh install with steam tomorrow. As it is though, the station works perfectly fine and can be flown through with no problems. It's only the scruffing farm L, too - M's fine.

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 00:59

It does sound like a bad/missing model file. Since you're using Steam, there's no need to do a reinstall unless you've modded the game. Steam's verify function should replace any bad or missing files without having to download the whole thing again. But if you'd rather, that's ok, too.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

kurush
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Post by kurush » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 01:22

I'm not sure what this is, but it's not a graphics glitch - if it was, then i'd crash into the building even if it is displaying incorrectly. When i'm done building i'll just leave aldrin and come back, see if it fixes it . If not, i'm going to check scruffin farms elsewhere.
You won't crash into those invisible stations. Usually, only docking ports were visible for me. And no, it is not a corrupted install. I am still running the game from the same folder after my hardware upgrade and I haven't seen this issue since then.

Nanook
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Post by Nanook » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 01:33

kurush wrote:
I'm not sure what this is, but it's not a graphics glitch - if it was, then i'd crash into the building even if it is displaying incorrectly. When i'm done building i'll just leave aldrin and come back, see if it fixes it . If not, i'm going to check scruffin farms elsewhere.
You won't crash into those invisible stations. Usually, only docking ports were visible for me. And no, it is not a corrupted install. I am still running the game from the same folder after my hardware upgrade and I haven't seen this issue since then.
It may not have been in your case, but that doesn't mean it isn't this time. He already said he had a decent graphics card and that only that one station suffered the problem. That does sound like a bad/missing file to me. As for crashing into the building, if the model isn't displayed properly, there's a good chance it doesn't have a 'physical' presence in the game, and hence no collisions. Besides, a verify/reinstall is a lot cheaper than a new graphics card, so I'd highly advise ruling that out first.
Have a great idea for the current or a future game? You can post it in the [L3+] Ideas forum.

X4 is a journey, not a destination. Have fun on your travels.

Turiko
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Joined: Tue, 28. Jul 09, 20:55

Post by Turiko » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 12:53

Before i try to reinstall, i'm going to try and delete the files containing the station models, then check with steam so it redownloads them. Can anyone tell me where they're saved?

kurush
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Post by kurush » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 21:17

Before i try to reinstall,
You can safely ignore this btw, it doesn't interfere with the gameplay. I played through the entire campaign with some stations invisible.

Turiko
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Post by Turiko » Wed, 20. Jul 11, 22:28

I know, but it's not exactly a good sign that this station is invisible and a check doesn't fix it. Makes you wonder what else is acting up behind the scenes

Turiko
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Post by Turiko » Thu, 21. Jul 11, 00:24

The problem seems to be solved now, with no action on my part... Most likely steam fixed it.

bubba_000
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Post by bubba_000 » Thu, 21. Jul 11, 09:40

I can assure you that it's NOT a corrupted install.

I play X3TC on a very old laptop and I sometimes get that too. As far as I can tell, it happens after playing for a while, especially if you've been building large complexes.

The solution is usually to quit the game and then start it again. If that fails, restart your PC.

For the record, I have 128MB of vram, and after building a 17-mine complex in Savage Spur I got the same issue with some silicon mines and the texture of the planet disappeared.

So you're not alone :)

Starlight_Corporation
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Post by Starlight_Corporation » Thu, 21. Jul 11, 10:03

The invisible station issue tends to come up in my game as well from time to time. Usually happens after a long time playing. In the current long game I'm running, some sectors (Aldrin amongst it) have it permanently. Tends to happen in all CPU/Graphic intensive sectors in my game.
Usually restarting the game helps with it, but not bothered by it, till planetgraphics start to vanish.

If I start a new game however, I won't have this issue, till I'm very far into it and have large amount of possessions. My guess the invisible station issue is your PC version of getting exhausted as it's being pushed to it's limits.

glenmcd
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Post by glenmcd » Thu, 21. Jul 11, 10:43

Sounds like a great vanilla-compatible way to increase framerate if you build massive complexes. Just make every factory invisible :)

Seriously: I had this problem at one time with a high end system, ended up being a corrupt or missing Steam file. Verify caches fixed.

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