Short x surfaces

Ok I've searched for this and found nothing, but it's an error that occurs in-game. When walking round large areas where you can see pretty far, I get a message saying short x surfaces (x being a number) and the sky sometimes goes black and func_walls disappear. Must be a rendering error or something.

Can someone tell me what's happening and/or how I can fix it?

When you're playing in software mode, the engine will refuse to draw more than 800 world polygons. The missing surfaces, which should be visible, show up in that error.

You can fix it by:
a) Reducing r_speeds
b)Switch to OpenGL or D3D mode

Reducing your screen res also could help, as walking around a level with 1024x768 and zillions of polygons isn't a good idea

Thanks Fraggard, switching from software mode to OpenGL worked a charm, although it cuts off a bit of the map when you get too far away, it's better than being able to see if someone's hiding behind a crate for you...

Thanks again :smile:

change your max viewable distance and you should be able to see all the way if you want.

Johnny Beverage said:
change your max viewable distance and you should be able to see all the way if you want.

short surfaces warning is not an error, but is only a viable message when you are IN SOFTWARE MODE.

as fragman already said.. please slow down and read the little blue boxes.

matt said:
Reducing your screen res also could help, as walking around a level with 1024x768 and zillions of polygons isn't a good idea

depending on the specs of your vid card cpu etc... :razz: