Bizarre WSW Text Glitch

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:46 am

Okay, I need help with this.

Just a little while ago I decided to play through WSW again, but when I launched it, the main menu looked... interesting.

The game itself functions fine - It's just, all of the in-game text (HUD, map screen, story panels, etc.) is totally screwed like this. The other thing is (that you can't see in a static screenshot) that the text flickers back and forth like this. It's an eyestrain.

It's only happening to WSW. The other classic trilogy games are working fine, as is the Adventures trilogy.

I've tried:

reinstalling the game,
updating my video drivers,
forcing WSW into compatibility mode,
changing the video settings for WSW (both in the game's settings and my video card's settings),
and restarting my computer

... but nothing's happening. Has anyone else seen anything like this? If so, can anyone help?

Koopson44 · Post by **Koopson44** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:51 am

Something like this happened to me. There were no words but it still showed up as if i had it selected. Yknow where its like the word is shaded in? And there was no text throughout the game, except bits and pieces of it. Nowhere as bizzare as this though. Also it resolved itself a few days later.

Post by **Jutomi** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:52 am

I don't know about that, but in RTW, if I leave for too long or let a kitty sit on my computer, or something, the text in a level looks rather scrambled.

That's all I know, though, unfortunately.

Wonderland King · Post by **Wonderland King** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:54 am

Maybe try putting the game onto another computer and see if it still happens? I know that wouldn't fix the problem, but then you'd at least know whether the problem was in the game or your computer, so that might help.

HumanGamer · Post by **HumanGamer** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 12:54 am

That's really weird! :O

Have you tried installing to somewhere other than Program Files?

It might just be windows security being dumb...

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 1:04 am

I don't have it installed to Program Files in the first place, but trying to move it somewhere else and running it from there hasn't done anything.

I haven't tried it on any other computers yet.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Mon Mar 17, 2014 8:27 am

I've yet to try it on another computer, but I've even tried using an external program to force video settings (in the hopes that forcing an older DirectX mode would make it behave) without any success.

I've got another Windows 7 computer I'm going to try it on in a bit, because this is pretty irritating.

EDIT: As expected, it behaves fine on the other computer, which leads me to believe it's a compatibility issue between my graphics card and WSW, or something along those lines.

I'm not sure about the other computer, but my graphics card is a GeForce GTX670. As mentioned, only WSW is doing this - RTW and ToW are fine.

Having said that, I'm noticing a small difference in the two computers, even with the games working properly - On my main computer, the "console" text (i.e. on WSW's initial loading screen and the WA Editor screen) is much smaller and almost illegible, whereas on the other computer it's the same as... Pretty much everyone else's.

I doubt it's related, just an interesting tidbit though.

randalpik · Post by **randalpik** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 2:53 am

Yeah, I have the same problem. What are your pc specs and what version of windows do you use?

I hope there's a way to fix this because WSW is my favorite Wonderland game!

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sun Jul 20, 2014 3:36 am

I still haven't figured out a way to fix this, sadly. For what it's worth though, computer specs:

ASUS P8Z77-V PRO motherboard
16GB RAM (don't remember the brand/model right now)
Intel i5-3570K CPU (Quad-core), 3.40 GHz
ASUS GeForce GTX670 Graphics card
64-bit Windows 7 Professional

I'm all but certain that the GeForce card is to blame here.

Blazeknight · Post by **Blazeknight** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:09 am

Qloof234 wrote:I still haven't figured out a way to fix this, sadly. For what it's worth though, computer specs:

ASUS P8Z77-V PRO motherboard
16GB RAM (don't remember the brand/model right now)
Intel i5-3570K CPU (Quad-core), 3.40 GHz
ASUS GeForce GTX670 Graphics card
64-bit Windows 7 Professional
I'm all but certain that the GeForce card is to blame here.

You have a great computer! Was your previous computer 32-bit or 64-bit???
Because some WLD games like MOFI work well only on 32-bit... They either don't work or come really slow on 64-bit

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 5:19 am

It was 64-bit, if I recall. As for this computer, yeah, it was built as a gaming rig, so...

What still confuses me here is that the other Classic trilogy games get along just fine with this computer - It's only WSW that freaks out.

Patrick, if you're by chance reading this, does WSW's rendering system differ any from the rest of the classic games?

TheoX · Post by **TheoX** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 3:25 pm

This is absolutely hilarious!

Unfortunately all I can do is laugh at this - I'm not sure what's going on and have never seen anything like it in all my years of game playing and testing.

It appears that the font in the game is drawn in "vector" form where the letters are strung together by points and lines - and some of those points decided to take a walk.

Blast!10 · Post by **Blast!10** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 5:44 am

TheoX wrote:It appears that the font in the game is drawn in "vector" form where the letters are strung together by points and lines - and some of those points decided to take a walk.

It isn't. Look in the resource files of any of the six games – the letters are all bitmaps. The only explanation I can think of is that perhaps the letters are drawn on the surface of another object in some sort of "orthographic projection", and said object somehow got translated or rotated. But that's probably not it.

I haven't seen this actually happening, so I have to ask – do the letters move, or do they just stay deformed the same way all the time?

Also, am I the only one who finds this really scary?

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 7:32 am

Blast!10 wrote:
TheoX wrote:It appears that the font in the game is drawn in "vector" form where the letters are strung together by points and lines - and some of those points decided to take a walk.
It isn't. Look in the resource files of any of the six games – the letters are all bitmaps. The only explanation I can think of is that perhaps the letters are drawn on the surface of another object in some sort of "orthographic projection", and said object somehow got translated or rotated. But that's probably not it.

I figure, if anything, the letters are rendered the same way as particles - 2D sprites facing towards the screen. I recall quite a while ago (like, when Windows 7 first came out) seeing the same thing happen to the wooden box "shard" in-game, but not to anywhere near this level (it was slightly stretched along one corner). I think that was in RTW, can't remember.

Blast!10 wrote:I haven't seen this actually happening, so I have to ask – do the letters move, or do they just stay deformed the same way all the time?

Also, am I the only one who finds this really scary?

It's kind of weird. They flicker about pretty constantly to begin with, but if I use Shift to move the camera around, they "stretch" along with the camera movement, like an after-image or motion blur kind of thing. I have no idea how to explain it better than that.

Nah, I just about had a heart attack when it first happened

EDIT: In case you want to see what my suffering looks like

Fun fact: That video's at 30FPS, while WSW runs at 60FPS on this computer. Meaning you're missing every other single-frame distortion. It's a lot harder on the eyes than it might look in that video.

Blazeknight · Post by **Blazeknight** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 8:45 am

Have you tried copying your old files into the new one? Maybe if the glitch wasn't there last time, you can copy that

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Mon Jul 28, 2014 9:28 am

I full-on reinstalled the game at one point - It's definitely not one of the files being corrupt. Additionally, the same WSW install works fine on another computer.

Muzozavr · Post by **Muzozavr** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 1:17 pm

changing the video settings for WSW

Do you mean just resolution and stuff or do you mean the "quality" setting? The quality setting affects particles, so I'd be interested in knowing if a lower quality setting at least changes the way the text flickers, even if it doesn't fix the bug.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 1:44 pm

By "Quality", do you mean the Detail Level option or the 32/16-bit option? I've tried changing both, and neither of them seem to make a difference.

Wonderman109 · Post by **Wonderman109** » Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:42 pm

I think this glitch happened to TOW when I had it. I believe re-installing worked for me, but I assume you already tried that and it didn't work.

Website · Post by **jdl** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 2:19 pm

Bumping this thread since a solution seems to have been found.
A friend on Skype said this:

I used my CPU's integrated graphics
I'm guessing it's either a driver or graphics card problem
since WSW is old

This person was using a Geforce GTX 760 graphics card, and the Wonderland games have had issues with Nvidia before. So if you're having graphical issues try using a different graphics card, or use integrated graphics instead.

garirry · Post by **garirry** » Sat Mar 07, 2015 3:04 pm

Yeah, I heard that older Wonderland games have trouble running with Nvidia graphic cards. I don't know why though.

Qloof234 · Post by **Qloof234** » Sat Jun 06, 2015 6:50 pm

Bump! In part due to CATASTROPHIC COMPUTER FAILURE (which is to say my Windows install seems to have been corrupted somehow), I ended up reinstalling all of my drivers and whatnot. Something of interest - even though I'm still using the same Nvidia card as before (and I'm definitely using it as opposed to the integrated graphics), both WSW's text bug and the incredibly small "console text" in the WAE seem to have fixed themselves.

If you've got an Nvidia card and have either of those, try updating the drivers - I don't know for sure but I suspect that's what fixed it.

garirry · Post by **garirry** » Sat Jun 06, 2015 6:56 pm

To think that the only reason that I chose an ATI card over NVIDIA is because of this game's graphics problems.

Good to know that it fixed itself for you.