Why is Overgrowth running so weird on my pc?

[Lubibaby]

I'm not gonna lie, I was worried that the game wouldn't run on my computer if I per-ordered it, so I downloaded one from the internet to test it out. The game looks awesome and I really want to play it based on what I've seen in the dev videos, but I needed to make sure it would run before spending $30. Everything goes smoothly until I choose a level. It starts loading all the different things, but when it gets to loading hotspots, it stops for a moment, and then an error message appears that says "Number of Fragmented Texture Units exceeds HW limits. Number of combined Texture Units exceeds HW limits." The options are 'Cancel', 'Try Again', and 'Continue'. If I press 'Cancel', the game stops working. If I press 'Try Again', the message reappears right away and keeps doing so if I keep pressing it. If I press 'Continue', the window reappears once, but the game starts if I press it a second time. This is where it gets really weird. I can see the contour of the environment, but the textures are random rainbow colors. Also, the character models have bodies that look fine, but their arms are either long, thin, and retarded looking or just really short. Sometimes, the characters become flat in one of their dimensions to the point where they look like a vertical line from behind but normal from the side. For some reason, if I jump outside the map, the outside textures look normal. I was wondering if this was an issue with my computer, an issue with the copy of the game that I downloaded, or if I just need to change some settings? Any help is appreciated! These are my system specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo ~2.2 GHz
2 GB RAM
Mobile Intel 4 Series Express Chipset Family (829 MB Memory)
Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit

Btw, I'm running alpha 128. If someone can help me get the game running fine on my computer, I'll definitely pre-order the game...I love what you guys are doing.

[Jacktheawesome]

What...what...is your pc on an acid trip?

[Endoperez]

Your graphics card can't handle the number of objects in the game. It can't render them all, so errors happen. The 2D-thing might happen because it renders that texture from one direction, and then doesn't have the resources to update it again, so it uses the old 2D image it drew.

So basically, the game won't work at least until it's been optimized, and that's probably not going to happen until there's much more gameplay (= not in a while).

Also, bad Lubibaby! Bad!

[Aaron]

The issue here is your video card; normally I'd suggest you upgrade it, but you can't do much with a laptop :/

[Lubibaby]

Ok so are there any upgrades that I can make to my laptop for it to work, like upgrading my ram significantly because that is certainly a possibility. I don't really know much about pc gaming, but why is my graphics card bad? I know it has a lot of memory, 829 mb is a lot more than is often required by modern games.

[Endoperez]

Ok so are there any upgrades that I can make to my laptop for it to work, like upgrading my ram significantly because that is certainly a possibility. I don't really know much about pc gaming, but why is my graphics card bad? I know it has a lot of memory, 829 mb is a lot more than is often required by modern games.

Better graphics cards have better features. For example, support for more shaders at one time, more complex shaders, and more different "building blocks" that are used to create shaders.

Shaders are basically mathematical formulas that tell the game how the different surfaces should be drawn. For example, how the coolors interact, how light works with it, transparency, etc. Shaders can also be used to change actual geometry - for example, Overgrowth has plant shaders that cause the plants to move slightly as if moving in a wind. The characters' movement in Overgrowth is also done through a shader.

It is possible to do shaders that work with less features (and with worse cards), but don't look as good. These are called "fallback" shaders. For example, a fallback plant shader wouldn't move the leaves, but it would also use a much more simplistic formula for coloring and lighting it. Overgrowth doesn't really have any fallback shaders yet - they are planning to add them, eventually, but only once the game mechanics themselves are pretty much done, or something along those lines.

Upgrading RAM would only increase the amount of data your laptop can handle at once, but it wouldn't help it process the advanced shaders. Updating your drivers is a better option, since newer drivers generally support more advanced shader features, but built-in laptop graphics cards are generally rather bad. Built-in PC graphics card aren't good, either, but I think it's easier and cheaper to get a decent graphics card that can be installed to a PC, than to get one that fits into a laptop.

[Lubibaby]

Thanks a load endoperez, you're awesome. It turns out, my graphics driver is from 2009, so updating it should yield some significant benefits. Just one question, although it may sound pretty stupid. Should I just go ahead and update to the latest driver, or should I update incrementally through all the available drivers, all the way to the latest one? Thanks!

[Lubibaby]

Actually I have a different problem now because it turns out that the drivers that I found on the Intel site don't work for some reason and I'm supposed to refer to the laptop manufacturer's site for specialized drivers. Now I can't find any drivers on the Toshiba site...

[Endoperez]

Thanks a load endoperez, you're awesome. It turns out, my graphics driver is from 2009, so updating it should yield some significant benefits. Just one question, although it may sound pretty stupid. Should I just go ahead and update to the latest driver, or should I update incrementally through all the available drivers, all the way to the latest one? Thanks!

To be honest, I doubt the drivers will have THAT much of an effect. The drivers can only do so much to compensate for poorer hardware.
Usually you can always upgrade straight to the latest driver version.

Have you tried this page:

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais ... =new&ct=DL

Choosing the category of "Display" seems to bring up a list of Intel drivers.