Yes, 10.13.6, on a real 2010 Mac Pro, running a 1070. Yes, I’m running the NVidia driver; checked the pref pane to verify. And yes, still getting the ground clutter flicker – but not everywhere. So far, on Zandalar and in warfronts, but not as much in Kul’Tiras.
Thanks
[GryphonMD]
I haven’t seen flicker since updating driver, and before hand I could reproduce it 100% of time in certain spots, like nazmir.
Can you verify your 10.13.6 is build 17G6030?
Actually a new security update came out today that’ll break even newest web driver, til probably tomorrow. So expect another update soon.
Yes, it’s 17G6030. And yeah, just saw the security update as well. I’ll wait until the next driver update drops, uninstall the current driver, update both the OS and the driver, and see if the problem goes away then.
Thanks
[GryphonMD]
Ok. New driver, uninstalled old, installed new. Crossed fingers, no flashing ground clutter after a few minutes of play. Will test more after work.
[GryphonMD]
? Mohave has built in drivers for nVidia cards? Or it is JUST for very old laptops that have nVidia cards…
Old laptops and iMacs that have nVidia cards only.
Nope. It’s BETTER… but not fixed. Especially in Naz’mir and Arathi Highlands, the flickering is still there. It’s better when I am stopped, but as soon as I turn, it’s often back.
[GryphonMD]
And they still refuse to allow nVidia to offer guys like me a driver for their latest OS… that sucks (well, also means I do not have to deal with the dis***er that is apfs either).
I can’t reproduce this, and I even have clutter dialed back up to 10 and ran all around these problem zones. I feel like somethings just not right in your config. Like maybe you’re still running parts of stock driver somehow.
The explanation of what causes bug, and what fix was, makes a scenario where it’s still happening actually very unlikely.
Before driver update nazmir could reproduce it 100% of time with 0 effort at all. I reproduced these test cases and reproduced problem 0% of the time. Can you post screen shot of exact spot and steps you use to reproduce? I’ll retest at that exact spot.
Argh. Battle. net is telling me I can’t include links in my posts. You’ll need to reconstruct the URL.
photos. app.goo.gl/YYQn9MhCCSP34ug59
They were taken in Arathi Highlands, on my way back to the keep, but it happens all over the zone. All I did was land and walk or turn. No special actions needed.
IMPORTANT NOTE, THOUGH: It doesn’t appear to happen if you just zone in and move around. However, if I log out and back in, then it does occur. Doesn’t matter if it’s the same character or a different one, but it looks like never the FIRST time I load a character after launching the game. This is why I initially thought the problem was fixed – I logged in, went to a trouble spot, saw nothing, and exited the game so I could go to work. In the evening, though, I switched characters a couple times and saw it again.
Thanks
[GryphonMD]
That’s good info, I can test that. that could be indicative of the bug being fixed in live shader compiling but reloading compiled shader caches bring bug back, indicating they may have fixed bug in one part of code but not in another that reads from the shader cache.
This actually makes a lot of sense considering what actually causes the bug in first place. It was explained to me that what the actual bug was, is that the nvidia driver expects all shader layers to be in proper order. if you have 1 2 3 4 and 5 nvidia driver expects them to be in that order. 1 2 3 4 5. However the wow engine sometimes might send 1 2 4 3 5. The driver SHOULD know that 3 comes before 4 and to handle it correctly, but it wasn’t and it was causing all sorts of issues and then would domino because once driver loaded things out of order, everything that came after it would be totally screwed up too. nvidia finally fixed this bug so driver will put things in order even if they are sent out of order.
But going back to my theory, they may have only, to put in metaphorical terms, put a guy at shader checkin to sort things on initial load, but forgot to hire another guy to do it when already compiled shaders go through the other line.
This would imply the Blizz can work around the bug by making sure the shaders are always sent in order.
That’s what they did, in 8.0 beta to fix the issue.
This is SAME bug from 8.0 beta. where mountains were black and blacking out was occurring everywhere. it was same issue with nvdia driver.
Blizzard actually added a work around on their end. an extra code check that actually pre sorted the order before sending it to nvidia driver to eliminate issue and that worked, until 8.1.5.
However so much multi threading code has been added in 8.1 and more in 8.1.5 that it’s possible even their own sorting code was having difficulty pre sorting stuff send to driver when stuff was sent on so many parallel threads. Even blizz isn’t entirely sure why their work around isn’t working. Believe me, they looked at it, but there are so many more moving parts now in 8.1.5.
so all the people simply saying “blizzard, fix it, it’s your fault, revert your change because your change obviously broke it” just don’t get it. To revert 8.1.5 would revert what it accomplishes. Removing significant code that isn’t broken, to try and fix an issue that IS entirely nvidia’s fault, is not a solution. Stuff is SUPPOSED be sent to driver as soon as it’s complete and the driver should know where it’s supposed to go.
if anything, people should be extra mad at nvidia because they’ve known about this bug since 8.0 was in BETA testing, and didn’t do anything about it because Wow’s work around was working, for several months. Instead, they stopped worrying about issue until it came up again when the work around broke and blizzard leaned on them again.
I love nvidia hardware, truly. It runs circles around AMD so hard, but their driver could use some love, and apple could stand to stop getting in their way as well. Both companies should work on making things right here and everyone should cut blizzard some slack since they’ve been dealing with this issue since 8.0 closed beta.
Ok, that makes sense. It wouldn’t be the first time nVidia dragged their heels on fixing a driver bug.
I assume this means the nVidia bug does not occur on Sierra? I don’t remember seeing the 8.0 beta bug there.
Thank you; as a programmer I find the details fascinating. If there’s anything else I can do to assist, feel free to ask.
[GryphonMD]
Btw I did some testing, even rapid char swaps in same area in nazmir, I cannot reproduce issue. That said, I did manage to see the issue happen on 8.2 ptr very badly, on the fixed driver, in highmountain, so I don’t disbelieve that something is still amiss, it’s just not something I haven’t found a way to reproduce.
Sigh. I had some extra time this morning so I did a complete uninstall and reinstall of the driver again. Now I get the problem on initial login/zone-in. I can port to Arathi and the ground clutter in the Alliance Keep flickers when I turn or move. I don’t know if it’s specific to the card I’m using (1070 Reference – real NVidia) or the machine (2009 CMP flashed to 2010), but for me at least the problem is easily reproducible.
My son has a similar machine (real 2010 CMP) with a 970; he’s just back from college and hasn’t updated any OS or drivers since Christmas. I should see what his does.
Thanks
[GryphonMD]
Try wiping shader cache, there is a command earlier in this thread that does that. maybe you just have some cache from the old driver that’s still bleeding through that you just need to wipe out.
EDIT it’s not in this thread it’s in the other one.
Rgh. I’m sorry but I’m having trouble finding that command. I looked through the old thread and also tried googling it without success. Unless it’s related to the KEXT cache, which I doubt.
Thanks
[GryphonMD]
Okay, got a security update in the last couple of days. Waited around and apparently there’s another OS version 17G7024 and there’s a driver update for it according to the folks at tonymacx86.
I applied the update and… nothing. The version remains for me at 17G6030.
The GREAT news is that means that the Nvidia driver xxxxxx.127 still works very, very well. I dunno if Omegal wants to weigh in, but latest update seems to be fine. Don’t rely on me, though.