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My Motor Storm demo on PS3 flickers in shadow areas like mad - is my RSX totalled?

Chittagong

Gold Member
It flickers and glitches like mad. I tried to download it again, but same thing. It's fully playable, but all the shadow areas flicker with black boxes like mad.

Is there a broken pipe in my RSX? No other demos I've tried (GTHD, F1, Genji) or Resistance seems to have any problems.

Dammit. This was the demo I was waiting the most.
 
Chittagong said:
It flickers and glitches like mad. I tried to download it again, but same thing. It's fully playable, but all the shadow areas flicker with black boxes like mad.

Is there a broken pipe in my RSX? No other demos I've tried (GTHD, F1, Genji) or Resistance seems to have any problems.

Dammit. This was the demo I was waiting the most.

it happens sometime i think its just the demo not your ps3.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Chittagong said:
It flickers and glitches like mad. I tried to download it again, but same thing. It's fully playable, but all the shadow areas flicker with black boxes like mad.

Is there a broken pipe in my RSX? No other demos I've tried (GTHD, F1, Genji) or Resistance seems to have any problems.

Dammit. This was the demo I was waiting the most.

That's not normal. Try redownloading it maybe?
 

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
The shadows are flickery and 'jittery' on mine, and I assume it is normal as it's been in every video of the game I've seen online. It may be undesireable, but it's fairly common with the technique they are using, unfortunately.
 
gofreak said:
The shadows are flickery and 'jittery' on mine, and I assume it is normal as it's been in every video of the game I've seen online. It may be undesireable, but it's fairly common with the technique they are using, unfortunately.


yea same here.
 

Blimblim

The Inside Track
If these black boxes are transparent, then yeah it's perfectly normal. It's like that in the demo and the japanese version. "Low" resolution soft shadows.
 

gbovo

Member
Chittagong said:
It flickers and glitches like mad. I tried to download it again, but same thing. It's fully playable, but all the shadow areas flicker with black boxes like mad.

Is there a broken pipe in my RSX? No other demos I've tried (GTHD, F1, Genji) or Resistance seems to have any problems.

Dammit. This was the demo I was waiting the most.
It's just a rendering technique that they use for the shadows that's causing all the flickering. Same thing happens with the demo on my PS3.
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
Sorry this is slightly off-topic but why do some people believe glitches like this have anything to do with how the download went? I recall that other guy redownloading Tekken DR due to the "blurry" stages.
 

gbovo

Member
If you can take a picture of your TV with the Motrostorm demo running (and showing the flickering you're talking about) then we'll tell you if it's normal or not.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
TTP said:
Sorry this is slightly off-topic but why do some people believe glitches like this have anything to do with how the download went? I recall that other guy redownloading Tekken DR due to the "blurry" stages.

Maybe a bad install? It's worth a try.
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
Y2Kevbug11 said:
Maybe a bad install? It's worth a try.

well, to my knowladge a bad install = game not running at all or shadow not appearing at all due to some issues with the shadowing routine installation. But it's a bunch of 1s and 0s. If just one goes wrong the whole thing falls apart, not just the shadow routine.
 
TTP said:
well, to my knowladge a bad install = game not running at all or shadow not appearing at all due to some issues with the shadowing routine installation. But it's a bunch of 1s and 0s. If just one goes wrong the whole thing falls apart, not just the shadow routine.
Yeah pretty much. I don't think I've ever had graphics glitches from a bad install. I guess it's possible, but so wildly unlikelly that I don't think you can ever really attribute graphics problems to an installation issue.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Nope, this is not the "pixelated edges in shadows" thing, which results from the rendering technique.

These blocks are big and switch positions on each frame. A single frame doesn't capture it too well, but you'll get the idea if you think of those blocks changing places all the time.

kuva9bp0.png


I'm just scratching my head:

- If this is a RSX failure, how come it does not fail completely?
- Why no other game and demo has any defects at all?

Doing the warranty thing from Europe would be a huge hassle...
 
Ok, that's simply not software related IMO. I never saw the Motorstorm demo, but I've seen enough hosed GPUs to know that it's something wrong with the pixel pipeline somewhere..

Or maybe I know shit, but when graphics glitch like that in square artifacts, especially in checkerboard styles, I think it's time to panic.
 

gbovo

Member
Chittagong said:
Nope, this is not the "pixelated edges in shadows" thing, which results from the rendering technique.

These blocks are big and switch positions on each frame. A single frame doesn't capture it too well, but you'll get the idea if you think of those blocks changing places all the time.



I'm just scratching my head:

- If this is a RSX failure, how come it does not fail completely?
- Why no other game and demo has any defects at all?

Doing the warranty thing from Europe would be a huge hassle...
it's probably just a bad install, or a bug (remeber, it's just a demo)
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
tahrikmili said:
Ok, that's simply not software related IMO. I never saw the Motorstorm demo, but I've seen enough hosed GPUs to know that it's something wrong with the pixel pipeline somewhere..

Or maybe I know shit, but when graphics glitch like that in square artifacts, especially in checkerboard styles, I think it's time to panic.

Yeah, checkerboard artifacts indeed :(

Still wondering why it shows up only in one demo... maybe the others are not using all of the pipes omg.

Any experiences on the warranty replacement process for PS3s? I'm in Finland, and bought it from a random EB Games in Miami, so I expect it to be a huge kerfuffle :(
 

gbovo

Member
Chittagong said:
Yeah, checkerboard artifacts indeed :(

Still wondering why it shows up only in one demo... maybe the others are not using all of the pipes omg.

Any experiences on the warranty replacement process for PS3s? I'm in Finland, and bought it from a random EB Games in Miami, so I expect it to be a huge kerfuffle :(
You want to exchange your PS3 just because of a (probable) glitch in an early demo of an unreleased (in the West) game? You said it yourself that it's only the Motorstorm demo that's affected and every other game/demo you've played hasn't had this problem, so maybe, just maybe, it isn't the PS3 that's the problem, and it's just a glitch in the demo?
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
gbovo said:
You want to exchange your PS3 just because of a (probable) glitch in an early demo of an unreleased (in the West) game? You said it yourself that it's only the Motorstorm demo that's affected and every other game/demo you've played hasn't had this problem, so maybe, just maybe, it isn't the PS3 that's the problem, and it's just a glitch in the demo?


Here's a YouTubed video I created - check it out and see what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8gKRAhgSx4
 

CrapSandwich

former Navy SEAL
My 360 was having weird glitches with shadows. Three days later it died. It does look you've got a malfunctioning GPU.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Mejilan said:
Have you tried fully deleting the demo and redownloading/reinstalling it?

First thing I tried :(

I feel a bit like I did yesterday in JFK's Admiral's Club bar ordering a Bud instead of Carlsberg - the tap crapped out on me, filling the glass with watery foam and I ended up getting Carlsberg again. Well, at least I gave it a fair, honest chance.*



* with the minor difference that while beer was free, PS3 was five hundred ninety nine US dollars plus tax
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Anyone know what happened with Bish and his Motorstorm hating PS3 Jesus refused to heal because of birthday preparations?

To add to the insult this is where I got my PS3 and oh boy I am so not returning there, ever.

kuva8hd4.png


Mall of Americas near Miami International - "Mall so dodgy that even even the PS3s have STDs"
 

painey

Member
Chittagong said:
Nope, this is not the "pixelated edges in shadows" thing, which results from the rendering technique.

These blocks are big and switch positions on each frame. A single frame doesn't capture it too well, but you'll get the idea if you think of those blocks changing places all the time.

kuva9bp0.png


I'm just scratching my head:

- If this is a RSX failure, how come it does not fail completely?
- Why no other game and demo has any defects at all?

Doing the warranty thing from Europe would be a huge hassle...

My 360 flucked up and it was only aparrant in Call of Duty 3 when the trees would flicker around and the grass would flash blue and green. Everything else was fine, on every other game apart from some random freezing. I swapped the game and it still happened so I sent my console in.. it was obviously the sign of it dying and i wasnt going to run my waranty out with a dying console, my replacement arrived, I booted up CoD3 and didnt see any of the problems. It confused me at first how it was only partly messing up.. it was ONLY the trees and grass and only in CoD3.. it can happen so only some things are messed up, god knows the technical reason though.
 

Goldrusher

Member
Chittagong said:
I'm definitely ****ed :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LInRWuhlmi0

MODS: Please change title to "My PS3 died and I survived to tell the story." Thanks.

Hopefully somebody here could get it shipped to Sony from an American address and then ship it back to you through work or something.

Warranty won't be a problem as long as you have friends or relatives in the US...
It's the shipping costs that suck.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Here's a screenshot of Resistance. Just had a fun 30 minute call (+ wait) to Sony service center. They had me try out AV cable in addition to my HDMI, then they made me format the device (even though I said I had done it earlier).

picture33ai.png


I tried to explain to the lady at the outset the exact problem ("there is this graphic processor inside the PS3. The graphic processor has many pipes, one of which happens to draw shadows in Motorstorm and lighting in Resistance, and this pipe is broken, which is why the defect has very specific effects"). She didn't understand a thing. Finally, towards the end of the call she put me through to a senior service technician (thank god) who said almost instantenously "send it in".

See the PS3 replacement adventure unfold in this thread. In next episode - return box arrives to our San Francisco office and I ship my PS3 there.
 

Chittagong

Gold Member
Goldrusher said:
Hopefully somebody here could get it shipped to Sony from an American address and then ship it back to you through work or something.

Yeah, we have an office in San Francisco so should work that way...
 
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