Specularity Changes

I am not sure whether I am imagining things, but I think the last few Steam update changed the rendering appearance of the Source engine.

Even with regular non-HDR maps, the specularity on reflective textures seems more pronounced. Has anyone else noticed this?

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Stop taking the drugs you prescribe for others. Seriously, I think you have a problem, man.

Ah, no, I haven't noticed anything. Maybe you just recently turned up the reflective properties or texture quality or something?

Um, actually, do you have an AMD 64 of some sort? Cause they just did this:

SteamPowered said:
VALVE UNVEILS 64-BIT SOURCE(TM) GAMING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED IN CONJUNCTION WITH AMD
December 22, 2005, 4:30 pm %uFFFD Greg Coomer
For those of you running with a 64-bit capable AMD processor, along with the Windows%uFFFD 64-bit operating system, Half-Life 2 and Lost Coast are now available in native 64-bit versions. Steam will automatically detect your OS and run the appropriate version the next time you run these games.

We've been working with AMD to get the Source engine up and running in 64-bit mode to make sure we're taking advantage of these hardware configurations. This is just a first step for Valve into 64-bit. Going forward, we realize that more and more of our customers will be running with 64-bit processors and we will be set to take true advantage of them.

However something that is more likely and less preposterous is the updates that were released for CS:S and DOD:S recently.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Well, I'm actually with satchmo on this. Office for example, seems to have slightly shiny walls. I'm running on a 64-bit Athlon 3000+, but not using WinXP x64, so it shouldn't be using the 64-bit versions of source.

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My site

I have noticed this. I only notice a difference on water though. All the water in my source games is way too bright. It also has a yellowish tinti to it.

That's right. The water in my map looks brighter too, except that I don't see the yellowish tint in mine.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Actually, now that you mention it, I did notice the floors in a lot of the DoD:S maps are really reflective/shiny. Moreso than before and enough for me to make a comment to my friend.

You mean it looks like this?



from what I've noticed throught the game so far is that it looks like
someone went a little mad with the laminator they got for crimbo. They
even did barny and the combine.

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Tinterweb site
Deviantart

Human knowledge belongs to the world

I'm thinking it might have just changed a default value and because it wasn't like that previously now some of the materials don't look right.

Yes, things have changed.

As quoted from the article posted by French Toast:

I have just read your article concerning 64 bit HL2 and as you have stated I can confirm that the water in the 32 bit does look like your published picture. This is not a driver issue, with either detonator or catalyst but is in fact a strange side effect of the 64 bit upgrade.

It is my belief and that of some others on the steampowered forums, that some sort of update was applied to the 32 bit version when the 64 bit version was released. As a concequence of this update the water seen in the 32bit version is now as you see it.

Steam f**ked us again.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Funny this should come up. I loaded Hydro the other day to find any
bugs to fix for the final since I've FINALLY got the time to do so, and
I noticed that everything which was perfect before, namely the water
and lighting, now look like s**t. The water in particular, which was
absolutely perfect before is now a horrible green with the worst
f**king reflections I've ever seen. In fact the water all looks like
the cheap equivalent, despite being the high-quality stuff.

I sometimes really wish that Valve would stop f**king with things when
they don't need to. Obviously they haven't heard of the saying "if it
ain't broke, don't fix it", because they seem to be incessant fiddlers
and tweakers.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'

My HL2 is borked beyond usability. My 3d window in the editor is now either black, or the textures are so corrupted that I thought my card was fried. So I played Doom, Far Cry, and the FEAR demo and they all seem to be fine. Even if I try to run standard maps in DM, there are graphical glitches,missing textures, and all as of this week. Last night I installed the latest Nvidia drivers just to be sure but it does'nt help.I am one of Valves biggest fans, but they are really putting me to the test with all this nonsense. Meanwhile I get news updates about how stringing all the kb's of update info would stretch 11 miles or some such nonsense. I now have to do a complete re-install iof steam, which means backing up over a year of custom maps/files and I am not a happy camper. All this on the cusp of the next beta release of my map which is now fried. I'll have to go back two betas and re-do everything I have done since then.

Juim said:
My HL2 is borked beyond usability. My 3d window in the editor is now either black, or the textures are so corrupted that I thought my card was fried. So I played Doom, Far Cry, and the FEAR demo and they all seem to be fine. Even if I try to run standard maps in DM, there are graphical glitches,missing textures, and all as of this week. Last night I installed the latest Nvidia drivers just to be sure but it does'nt help.I am one of Valves biggest fans, but they are really putting me to the test with all this nonsense. Meanwhile I get news updates about how stringing all the kb's of update info would stretch 11 miles or some such nonsense. I now have to do a complete re-install iof steam, which means backing up over a year of custom maps/files and I am not a happy camper. All this on the cusp of the next beta release of my map which is now fried. I'll have to go back two betas and re-do everything I have done since then.

s**t happens... :rolleyes:

But it shouldn't in this case...

HazardGameR^ said:
s**t happens... :rolleyes:

nice.

Gah and I thought I was the only one with bright water...
What do I do to fix the water bug then...

I'm sure if someone knew, it would be out by now.

<html><head><link rel="stylesheet" href="themes/standard.css" type="text/css"></head><body topmargin=2 leftmargin=2>it will fix itsself<html><head><link rel="stylesheet" href="themes/standard.css" type="text/css"></head><body topmargin=2 leftmargin=2>

something is wrong with snarkpit, I cant see what I'm writing and its all in code...

something is wrong with snarkpit, I cant see what I'm writing and its all in code...

Did you update your FireFox to 1.5? You have to turn off script in posting from your profile preference at the Pit.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

French Toast said:
But it shouldn't in this case...

who are you to say? Valve is a company, and they have given you so much. you're like so many others, being a baby and throwing it back because its not "perfect". thats life. get over it.

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www.nysteo.com

If animals weren't meant to be eaten, then they wouldn't be so delicious and easy to catch!

Face it: if crime didn't pay, there would be very few criminals.

Ive noticed the changes as well sat, I believe that it it the cubemaps responding to HDR/64bit update.

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Posting And You

I am just hoping that Valve is working on a fix. Because the exaggerated reflection is quite disturbing.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Yeah, i relized that too, i thought my computer had a glitch or something, you could obviously find alot of that new reflection thing in de_aztec, where every floor shines white for water...
uhh...weird..

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

name one problem that valve hasn't fixed. They almost always fix problems (even ones they created)

though not always in the most timely manner...

I have faith

Agent Smith said:
I sometimes really wish that Valve would stop f**king with things when they don't need to. Obviously they haven't heard of the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", because they seem to be incessant fiddlers and tweakers.

Like the way they said HL2 would be easier for people to edit and map for? I get confused by the file system ffs, and installing custom models or using custom content is a complete ass nowadays! In fact, I'd say the annoyance of the new system is what put me off mapping.

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-[Better to be Honest than Kind]-

though not always in the most timely manner...

Yeah, hopefully it won't take them six years again.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

Decals have been screwed also me thinks, at least, I can't use them correctly in Hammer. Black/pink chess-board style plus they are white in the texture browser...coincidence?

Edit: Hmm, the white isn't the fault of the update...hammer just crashed on me sigh

Either I am lucky enough not to have all these problems or I've just never know any better system than steam.

Ahem. I am proud to announce news from here.

And I quote;

The shiny texture/yellow water bug can be fixed by putting the following command into the console:

mat_dxlevel 81

You?ll lose some shader detail but you?ll still be able to make

comics. Do it before loading a level though, less loading that way.

Myrk- said:
<DIV class=quote>
<DIV class=quotetitle>? quoting Agent Smith</DIV>
<div class="quotetext">I sometimes really wish that Valve would stop f**king with things when they don't need to. Obviously they haven't heard of the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", because they seem to be incessant fiddlers and tweakers.

Like the way they said HL2 would be easier for people to edit and map for? I get confused by the file system ffs, and installing custom models or using custom content is a complete ass nowadays! In fact, I'd say the annoyance of the new system is what put me off mapping.</div></div>

Lemme tell ya something - compared to some of the tools that are used by professionals in the industry, Hammer is a goddam caddilac. At least you don't have to wait on a programmer to code an elevator, or synchronize the work of 4 different people just so you can get your work in the engine and running. I would love to have a toolset as user friendly as Hammer where I work. I play with it in my spare time, and its like candy for the brain.
Of course things are going to break and of course Valve is constantly fiddling, tweaking, their engine/tools. This is a platform that is constantly growing to meet the needs of future games and future mods. I'm sure it will be fixed in due time.

</div>

French Toast said:
But it shouldn't in this case...

who are you to say? Valve is a company, and they have given you so much. you're like so many others, being a baby and throwing it back because its not "perfect". thats life. get over it.

I think it's just principally wrong to have people buying your game, and to keep changing it - even if it is for the good cause - after they bought it. Things just don't work that way.

I think they should release the update first to some Steam users that have applied for testing. Yeah, that should be a good system. Have some happy steam friends enroll for beta testing of new updates, so they'll know when updates screw up. Because it isn't 3 or 4 people where things bork up. Half the world's Valve SDK is broken.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

.......which is exactly why yuo cant test it in beta that way....10 million bodies playing the game, and youll get 5 million diffferent pc configurations.....personally, i think this system has actually been done fairly well, for the size and scope of it, much better than i had anticipated....//my 2 cents

Doc Brasso... :dodgy:

I do'nt know if that fix I posted works, I haven't been on HL2 in ages, so I do'nt know if mine is affected.

If someone could try it and post, would be awesome.

.......which is exactly why yuo cant test it in beta that way....10 million bodies playing the game, and youll get 5 million diffferent pc configurations.....personally, i think this system has actually been done fairly well, for the size and scope of it, much better than i had anticipated....//my 2 cents

Fairly well ? Remember the first steam release ? I have downloaded the Team Fortress Classic.gcf about a hundred of times, because steam failed to recognize its authenticity. You almost needed a secondary CPU to run the bloody thing. If it ran, that is.I know, first releases have bugs, but for the next 3 months or so, nothing was working.

And I'm not talking about tiny things, I'm talking about people not being able to play a game they bought five years ago, due to PERFORMANCE problems, whilst having almost 10 times the original system requirements in their machine. Keep in mind that they already had a 1-year beta period to test the system before that ...

Steam is working OK now, but it's my opinion that Valve should have released Steam to the public 3 months before the launch of HL2. Then they would have had enough content servers to serve everybody (hell, it's HL2, the most anticipated shooter in years, of course a lot of game sites would be honored to share a little bandwidth) and the system would have been thoroughly tested. Everything's better than bugging people one year before the launch with unstable software.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

The only problems I've ever had with steam (and I've been using it
since day 1) is that it used to be a major resource hog. It'd
slow my computer down noticeably upon startup. But I never had
any .gcf problems.

I really enjoyed steam being released so early... it allowed me to
access my entire valve catalogue at school without having to lug up the
CDs.

I've nothing against Steam. I've hadno problems with it :smile:

Sorry for the resurection, but valve put out a new update that fixes this problem with ATI cards (which is what I have):

http://steampowered.com/?area=news

/updated Jan. 9, 2006

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Posting And You

Yah I had thet problem too. The update seems to have cut my FPS in half almost in a few areas of my map. It also crashes my system now. Something which is new. I'll have to recompile and see if the fix worked.

<span style="color: white;">Trying to download update now, but its says "Steam Servers are to busy to handle ur request" Damn Steam...

I wanna play HL2DM in all its less shiny glory...

CLs
</span>

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CLs

I got this message this morning through the RSS of Valve:

Updates to the Source Engine have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The specific changes include:

Source engine

* Fixed problem users with ATI cards were experiencing with overly shiny cube maps

Apparently it was just a ATI card problem, which I can conferm since I use an ATI Radeon 9600 and experienced the same problem and explains why some people did see any noticable changes.

Edit: Sorry, didn't see omegaslayer posted this a couple replies earlier then me.

I saw all the shinyness on a Geforce 6200 and I still do.

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Tinterweb site
Deviantart

Human knowledge belongs to the world

Hmm, then i suggest you drop a line over at Valve and inform them.

Quick search around at steampowered.com's forum:

link number 1
link number 2

Well, apperently the update also fixed the shinyness for me on a GF 6600 gt.
Gimp, are you sure you have the latest driver installed ?

edit tbh I just noticed I dont have the newest one installed myself; 81.95 . Maybe this one'll fix your prob.edit

* Fixed problem users with ATI cards were experiencing with overly shiny cube maps

There you are, fixed

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I need a new sig

Juim, my framerate is also significantly lower as well - I'm on an ATI x800 XT, and it frequently dips down to the 20-30's.

In various threads on the Steam forums there are complaints about frame rates and still overly shiny cubemaps. And off course there's the occasional idiot with "OMGWTF!!!11234 MY W4t3R IS H4XXoRed"...apparently, the people that only play the game call it 'the shiny water glitch'-something....reminds me not to go to the Steam forums ever again.

Juim, my framerate is also significantly lower as well - I'm on
an ATI x800 XT, and it frequently dips down to the 20-30's.

Yes I noticed frame rate drops as well. Once where I would get 120
frames, I now get 60 or so. And in places I used to get 60 frames, I
now drop to 20-30. So I to have noticed the frame rate drops in source
games.

/goes back to playing WoW (WoW>Source)

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Posting And You

My frame rate is down too, only in CS:S, the only mod that runs smoothly in DX9. Rest of my games run in DX81, and no problems with that, of course.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer