Serious Sam 3 Light Flickering

[Vector8k]

Never really had an issue with Serious Sam 3, until Nvidia came out with their new drivers, 320.18. Ever since, the lighting on the sand, out in wide open desert areas, would flicker like a strobe light. This would give me a headache and I am probably wondering if I should downgrade to Nvidias 314.00 drivers? Anyone else having this issue, or ever had this kind of issue?


05/25/2013
For Nvidia Drivers, revert back to 314.22. Flickerings will stop, and everything will be back to normal.

[Cunin]

Well I'm on an AMD card and noticed the same yesterday, mostly when there was lots going on, and I noticed it first time at the first fight against the ship in coop. I was busy somewhere else while the other people were fighting it, and it started flickering.
I could get some screenshots of it and i'll upload them right now and post them here.

Actually, I'm not sure if I turned off multithreading, so that might be the cause of it. I'll check and report back.

EDIT:
Yes it was still on. Do you happen to have ti enabled too? It's called ren_bMultiThreadedRendering, and you can just put that in the console and press enter to see its state.
I'm not sure if that caused it anyway, I'll check again later and see if with it disabled I still get it.

Croteam: if you still want the screenshots I can upload them.

[Vector8k]

I fixed it. I just had to downgrade the drivers.

[Arkist Guardian]

I have not got this issue with the latest nvidia driver. Maybe its a driver issue since u downgraded and it is working well with the 314

[Rasta]

:) Looks like 320.18 is bad driver for both OS, windows also.

[Vector8k]

I'll upgrade back to 320.18 again. I just want to downgrade so I can play the game without any weird problems :P

[Cunin]

Well it keeps happening even after disabling multithreading for me, and I'm on AMD. It would be pretty weird if both brands has the same driver bug lol.

Anyway I was able to take what happens on screenshots, seems like it happens always in the section right before the first ship fight, while in the rest of the level it doesn't, and it doesn't happen in the ship fight area. It also happens in later levels, but I didn't see it in earlier ones.

It only flicker when looking around or moving, but if you stand still and not move the mouse, it doesn't (though the lighting bug keeps standing there):
http://oi42.tinypic.com/e0jzfp.jpg
http://oi41.tinypic.com/2d0md7n.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/90raqa.jpg

Seems like that guy has a similar problem lol

[ARMY guy]

I also have this issue on all 320.xx drivers, running SLI 670 4gbs. Also does it when SLI is disabled.

[Vector8k]

I have one gtx 670. Idk about SLI, but all my games work fine now since redownloaded 314.22.

[DEN [CT]]

Does this issue happen on all quality options?

[Cunin]

I'm not sure, I play with default detected settings.

[Vector8k]

I honestly don't know about the all quality options since I like to put mine all the way up, but I'm sure it'll still happen just because of that particular version to the nvidia driver. So if you have a gtx 670 or above, stay with 314.22 unless there is a fix.


I can't figure out SLI, since I don't have it, and I'm no expert.

[Szoreny Klepko]

GTX 680 here, having the issue as well on 320.00 drivers. I also get a weird crescent moon shaped shader patch following sam around occasionally., and see the same effect in triangular patches near the corners of some walls.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148775312

[DEN [CT]]

Can you try this cvar, please:
sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=0
and then
shaReloadShaders()

Does this help?

[Vector8k]

Try drivers 314.22 again. I don't bother with 320.18.

Opprinnelig skrevet av Krassar_Szoreny:

GTX 680 here, having the issue as well on 320.00 drivers. I also get a weird crescent moon shaped shader patch following sam around occasionally., and see the same effect in triangular patches near the corners of some walls.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148775312

[Szoreny Klepko]

Opprinnelig skrevet av DEN CT:

Can you try this cvar, please:
sha_iParallaxMappingMethod=0
and then
shaReloadShaders()

Does this help?

DEN, those CVARS do stop the lights and shadows from flickering on my machine, so it does seem parrallax related.

Flipping parrallax back on and reloading shaders brought the flickering right back.