Game Running in Directx 8?

[Caligo Clarus]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=172314924

In the options, the game is set to Directx 8 and can not be changed. The store page seems to indicate this game is DX9 capable. It's Similar engine to other HL2 era games right?
I can force it on with -dxlevel 90 and it unlocks that last few video options, but it's weird that the default is DX8.

There is a post from someone else on this board saying a bunch of game FX are not as he remembers after reinstall. Perhaps he had it set in DX8 by default too.

[Richard Spectre]

I have Intel HD3000 and I get the same on the latest drivers.
mat_dxlevel 95 works fine for me, but I agree that it's a weird way to fix the game for beginners.

Also, this DX8 bug appears in Half-Life 2 demo.

[senseidongen]

is there much visual benefit to enabling DX9 as described above? I'm running it maxed out on my laptop currently so should be room to push things higher

[Wolfgam]

put in set launch options "-dxlevel 80" for directx 8 and "-dxlevel 90" for directx 9

[SnowmanDK]

I solved the issues by adding the following to the launch options in Steam:

-novid -dxlevel 90 -mat_dxlevel 95 -w 2560 -h 1440 -refresh 60 +mat_forceaniso "16" +r_waterforcereflectentities "1" +mat_picmip "0" +mat_antialias "8" +mat_aaquality "2" +r_shadowrendertotexture "1" +r_rootlod "0" +mat_reducefillrate "0" +pp_bloom "1" +mat_queue_mode "2"

NOTE! Make sure your max resolution is set, and not the one I used.
Also note that some of the settings SEEM to be not set in the game menu, but they ARE active.

[nuh1]

Originally posted by Snowman:

I solved the issues by adding the following to the launch options in Steam:

-novid -dxlevel 90 mat_dxlevel 95 -w 2560 -h 1440 -refresh 60 +mat_forceaniso "16" +r_waterforcereflectentities "1" +mat_picmip "0" +mat_antialias "8" +mat_aaquality "2" +r_shadowrendertotexture "1" +r_rootlod "0" +mat_reducefillrate "0" +pp_bloom "1" +mat_queue_mode "2"

NOTE! Make sure your max resolution is set, and not the one I used.
Also note that some of the settings SEEM to be not set in the game menu, but they ARE active.

Holy crap lots of start up commands, lol.
You can generally just get away with starting the game up once with "-dxlevel 90" or "+mat_level 92" then just taking it out afterwards so you can save your video settings without it defaulting back. If you leave it in every load it will keep resetting your in-game video settings. Don't wory, once you force the game back into dx9 at least once, it should stay that way; unless valve decides to mess it up through a random update again.

Yeah, one of the updates awhile back just randomly defaulted everyone's games back to directx8 for some reason. Man those dx8 portals are ugly and flat.

[SnowmanDK]

yeah well I tried that with adding just the "-dxlevel 90" once...
When I removed it again it reverted to DX8 mode :(
That's why I made a command line that did it all EVERY time :D

[Ashley]

Originally posted by Snowman:

I solved the issues by adding the following to the launch options in Steam:

-novid -dxlevel 90 -mat_dxlevel 95 -w 2560 -h 1440 -refresh 60 +mat_forceaniso "16" +r_waterforcereflectentities "1" +mat_picmip "0" +mat_antialias "8" +mat_aaquality "2" +r_shadowrendertotexture "1" +r_rootlod "0" +mat_reducefillrate "0" +pp_bloom "1" +mat_queue_mode "2"

NOTE! Make sure your max resolution is set, and not the one I used.
Also note that some of the settings SEEM to be not set in the game menu, but they ARE active.

Just run with

+mat_dxlevel 95

and it won't reset your video settigs every time.

For future reference

-mat_dxlevel 95

does nothing, console commads have to be preceded with +.

Additionally, -dxlevel 90 sets the same thing as +mat_dxlevel 90, so you would want to put -dxlevel 95. The difference between the two is the -dxlevel sets the configuration based on presets specified in dxconfig.cfg, whereas +mat_dxlevel 95 sets that console command first thing after the game starts up.