Cxbx-reloaded: Flickering graphics in certain titles

Created on 8 Jun 2018 · 9Comments · Source: Cxbx-Reloaded/Cxbx-Reloaded

As per @PatrickvL request, this issue has been created to discuss titles currently suffering from flickering/corrupted graphics:

(comment from PR #1246)

I suspect the flickering graphics are caused by a non-FVF vertex shader
being active during push-buffer rendering.

One example of a title presenting such issues is Leisure Suit Larry: MCL - when in-game, the rendered meshes completely flicker endlessly.

If anybody else finds any more titles presenting such flickering and corruption, please post here so we can compile a list of test cases to work with.

Additional Cases:

Crazy Taxi 3

graphics informational

Source

Voxel9

👍2

All 9 comments

JSRF seems to also be affected, white flickering can appear at the top of the screen or cover all of it in certain scenarios

Rally Sport Challenge Demo also has flickering

bhodg22 on 9 Jun 2018

@bhodg22 Thanks for trying, but the cases you show are not the same type of issue : all vertexes seem to be transformed correctly (all I can see is they're colourized to heavily or lack textures).

This issue is about complete garbage after vertex transformation (likely caused by an incorrect vertex attribute your conversion, or wrong stride).

PatrickvL on 9 Jun 2018

I found another test case yesterday, but didn't have time to post. The Water sample from 5XXX has some flickering UI text, which can be clearly seen when looking upwards at least.
(Mega offtopic: As you can also see, the skybox textures in this sample are positioned very wrong too)

water5849

EDIT: FuzzyTeapot 5849 also shows this test case:

And Fire 5849 as well:

fire5849

Voxel9 on 9 Jun 2018

👍1

4627 is alright though?

PatrickvL on 9 Jun 2018

Yeah, 4627 text is perfectly fine. MS changed the way they render sample text between these versions it seems.

Voxel9 on 9 Jun 2018

But File 5849 looks hooooot. 🔥 😎
😉

I wonder if the sample's source code has changed between 4627 and 5849? If nothing really has changed since then. It's possible current code base could be missing include support to revised API or Symbol relative missing a patch or is broken.

RadWolfie on 9 Jun 2018

Another possibility is vertex stream strides are not aligned correctly. At least in push buffer based drawing, vertex stride must be dword-aligned, especially when there's an odd number of shorts present.

PatrickvL on 10 Jun 2018

👍1

Caught sight of this title bumping into that non-FVF vertex shader problem. I have seen plenty of other examples before but it'd be hard to find them all.

Superman Returns: The Videogame

Searching with the words 'non-fvf' gets this list. But note that some of the listed games may already have improved emulation such as _Hot Wheels Stunt Track Challenge_. I'd be delighted to see the graphical problems in _Spyhunter 2_ be fixed by this problem being tackled with!

Edit (May 4, 2020): That search results link I put above is still relevant to finding the matched game issues. I'll add more games below here. Also don't forget the Superman game above.
I also notice that the Hot Wheels game still have a few flickering textures/shaders in small spots along some tracks in the recent test videos. And now I understand that this could be related to this issue.