Fixes for Firestorm issues
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 12:48 pm
There have been a number of issues crop up over the year(s) that seem to be fairly common that people have mentioned to me or asked and I have had no answers for. Well, now I do!
I cant promise these fixes will work for everyone, but they have worked for me in the past or for friends and acquaintances.
Please note - for most of these fixes you need the developer menu and advanced settings enabled. To enable these, go to "Preferences", "Advanced" and tick "Show advanced menu" and "Sow developer menu".
1. Blinky/flickering water
Problem - at certain camera angles, the water surrounding the sim seems to blink rapidly in and out of existence. Its a horrible effect and if you ever experienced it you know what I mean.
Solution - Go to "Developer", Rendering" and untick "object-object occlusion". This will fix the water with no noticeable side effects.
2. Lossy Textures/Textures not loading right or re-loading.
Problem - Textures do not load and get "stuck". Textures that already loaded reload randomly.
Solution - Go to "Advanced", "show Debug settings". Type "TextureDiscardLevel" and set this to 0. This is a fix I recently applied myself and really saw a difference. Default seems to be 3.
3. Terrain Texture Scale
Problem - The texture scale you see on your sim is not the same as your visitors see it. You see textures applied to terrain as larger or smaller than your visitors.
Solution - This is actually an unknown viewer setting. Go to "Preferences", "Graphics" and hit the "Rendering" submenu. The very last row in the menu allows you to set the texture scale. Keep this menu open, it relates to my next tip!
4. Shadows cause crashes/low FPS.
Problem - As above.
Solution - There is no real "solution" for this one. Shadows are a notorious hardware killer. Even my fairly modern desktop struggles in some sims. Laptops dont stand a chance really.
But you can improve performance by going to "Graphics" and hit the "Rendering" submenu. Second line from bottom is called "quality of the shadows". Set that to 1.
Previously (with this setting at 3) my FPS would half. So 60 FPS with no shadows would become 30 with shadows. 30 becomes 15 etc. With the quality set to 1, my FPS drops -5 on average. So much better.
5.Missing Suitcase Folder
Brayla Sana gave me this info. Many thanks to her for this one!
Sometimes you cant see your "my suitcase" folder in your inventory. This is where you put items you want to take with you when you travel using Hypergrid.
If the folder is missing at the top right of the inventory window, you see a dropdown that says "All Types." Click the arrow and select "custom" at the bottom. Click the checkbox that says "Always Show Folders." Then you can see the Suitcase.
So there you go, hopefully this will help you to have a less buggy, more pleasant Kitely experience!
Do you have a useful firestorm fix? Please post it here!
I cant promise these fixes will work for everyone, but they have worked for me in the past or for friends and acquaintances.
Please note - for most of these fixes you need the developer menu and advanced settings enabled. To enable these, go to "Preferences", "Advanced" and tick "Show advanced menu" and "Sow developer menu".
1. Blinky/flickering water
Problem - at certain camera angles, the water surrounding the sim seems to blink rapidly in and out of existence. Its a horrible effect and if you ever experienced it you know what I mean.
Solution - Go to "Developer", Rendering" and untick "object-object occlusion". This will fix the water with no noticeable side effects.
2. Lossy Textures/Textures not loading right or re-loading.
Problem - Textures do not load and get "stuck". Textures that already loaded reload randomly.
Solution - Go to "Advanced", "show Debug settings". Type "TextureDiscardLevel" and set this to 0. This is a fix I recently applied myself and really saw a difference. Default seems to be 3.
3. Terrain Texture Scale
Problem - The texture scale you see on your sim is not the same as your visitors see it. You see textures applied to terrain as larger or smaller than your visitors.
Solution - This is actually an unknown viewer setting. Go to "Preferences", "Graphics" and hit the "Rendering" submenu. The very last row in the menu allows you to set the texture scale. Keep this menu open, it relates to my next tip!
4. Shadows cause crashes/low FPS.
Problem - As above.
Solution - There is no real "solution" for this one. Shadows are a notorious hardware killer. Even my fairly modern desktop struggles in some sims. Laptops dont stand a chance really.
But you can improve performance by going to "Graphics" and hit the "Rendering" submenu. Second line from bottom is called "quality of the shadows". Set that to 1.
Previously (with this setting at 3) my FPS would half. So 60 FPS with no shadows would become 30 with shadows. 30 becomes 15 etc. With the quality set to 1, my FPS drops -5 on average. So much better.
5.Missing Suitcase Folder
Brayla Sana gave me this info. Many thanks to her for this one!
Sometimes you cant see your "my suitcase" folder in your inventory. This is where you put items you want to take with you when you travel using Hypergrid.
If the folder is missing at the top right of the inventory window, you see a dropdown that says "All Types." Click the arrow and select "custom" at the bottom. Click the checkbox that says "Always Show Folders." Then you can see the Suitcase.
So there you go, hopefully this will help you to have a less buggy, more pleasant Kitely experience!
Do you have a useful firestorm fix? Please post it here!