Bug/Issue [FIXED...?] Constant flickering in Fullscreen Mode

Zumobatly · Sep 13, 2016

EDIT 3: Issue fixed! The following procedure helped me to get rid of this problem, it might help you as well if you're suffering the same:

Kulsius said: ↑

Disable Vsync in game, turn it on in video driver settings (like nVidia control panel) for starbound.exe
Gives you Vsync and eliminates flicker.
Click to expand...

I'll leave my original post here, in case someone needs to identify the problem, that, by the way, seems to be (probably) caused by the game's vSync.

Zumobatly said: ↑

Hello everyone,

First thing first, excuse me if I do any grammar mistakes, English is not my first language.

That been said, I've been looking around in the forums for a similar issue and its workarounds, but didn't managed to find anything useful or similar to what I've been experiencing.

Starbound runs fine on my laptop, enough to get 60 stable FPS at almost all times even if it's not a gaming rig (Will post system specs at the bottom of this post if it's necessary to check them).

Since 1.0, I've noticed that, whenever I try to play in Fullscreen, no matter if I lower the resolution (native res for my laptop is 1366x768), a weird texture flickering pops out randomly at certain intervals. The whole screen doesn't flicker, just part of the textures (of all) in an specific section of the screen (normally a few pixels above the bottom). Sometimes only foreground things such as blocks and enemies dissapear, and the background is still there. Others, only a little part of the screen flickers in black. This happens by staying idle, in the main menu, by colliding with some blocks, by getting hit by a monster, by jumping, by swinging your weapon (sometimes it doesn't), just walking into parts of the planet that didn't load yet... it's totally random. The cause of the flicker may vary from playthrough to playthrough, sometimes it's an specific action that's causing it, others I just can't seem to find the cause. But it's always there.

I've tried to film the issue, but, somehow, even if in gameplay I get the flickering, the rendered video doesn't... no matter if I capture it at 30 or 60 FPS.

I've tried disabling v-sync and it does fix the issue but generates many annoying side-effects, like unstable FPS (sudden drops to even 10 FPS), texture loading lag (whenever you use an item you haven't used before on that playthrough, it will lag for a few seconds-- presumably to load the item's animation/texture), slow-mo enemies and slow world loading. It's a huge mess, and I can't see that as a solution.

It does not happen on Windowed mode, but... I'm used to play everything I can on Fullscreen, it's just not comfortable for me and I should be able to play however I want without issues. It's the only problem I've ran into in the game so far, and even if it sounds as a minor issue, it really ruins the experience. "Whoa, what a nice landscape! I might take a screensh-*flickers for hours*."

I'd really appreciate that, if someone knows how to fix this annoying bug, could please tell me the procedure to follow. Or, if any dev reads this, I'd be immensely thankful if you could find what could be possibly causing it, and patch it soon.

As I promised, System Info is here (feel free to ask if you need any more info): http://pastebin.com/r1Hm7tWG

TL;DR: Textures or certain parts of the screen flicker on fullscreen randomly, no matter the resolution settings, with no known cause. Disabling v-sync fixes it but produces lag and annoyances. Help.

E̶d̶i̶t̶:̶ ̶S̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶L̶a̶p̶t̶o̶p̶-̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶s̶u̶e̶,̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶h̶a̶p̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶?̶

E̶d̶i̶t̶ ̶2̶:̶ ̶I̶ ̶g̶u̶e̶s̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶o̶ ̶e̶a̶r̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶ ̶d̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶a̶p̶p̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶k̶t̶o̶p̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶H̶a̶m̶u̶e̶l̶i̶n̶ ̶s̶a̶i̶d̶.̶ ̶G̶u̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶e̶i̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶t̶i̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶s̶u̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶c̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶'̶s̶ ̶s̶i̶d̶e̶.̶.̶.̶
Click to expand...

Edit 4: Starbound 1.3.3 came out and the issues with V-sync seem to have worsened... even if you use your Graphics Card's v-sync. It'd be nice to have an official fix addressing this problem.

bearffalo · Jul 26, 2016

Ive had the same issue. Im on Laptop too.

T756 · Jul 26, 2016

Same issue also on a laptop

Hamuelin · Jul 26, 2016

It's definitley not a Laptop-only issue. I'm getting exactly what you're describing on my AMD Desktop. And, same as you, the only fixes i've found are playing in windowed or disabling v-sync. Both of which I'd rather not do. If I find a fix before it gets patched i'll post it here

Zumobatly · Jul 28, 2016

Hate to bump this but this is now in the ninth page and it seems that no one has been noticing us. I've seen similar posts and still no support on this matter from devs...

jake_elvy · Jul 29, 2016

Zumobatly said: ↑

Hello everyone,

First thing first, excuse me if I do any grammar mistakes, English is not my first language.

That been said, I've been looking around in the forums for a similar issue and its workarounds, but didn't managed to find anything useful or similar to what I've been experiencing.

Starbound runs fine on my laptop, enough to get 60 stable FPS at almost all times even if it's not a gaming rig (Will post system specs at the bottom of this post if it's necessary to check them).

Since 1.0, I've noticed that, whenever I try to play in Fullscreen, no matter if I lower the resolution (native res for my laptop is 1366x768), a weird texture flickering pops out randomly at certain intervals. The whole screen doesn't flicker, just part of the textures (of all) in an specific section of the screen (normally a few pixels above the bottom). Sometimes only foreground things such as blocks and enemies dissapear, and the background is still there. Others, only a little part of the screen flickers in black. This happens by staying idle, in the main menu, by colliding with some blocks, by getting hit by a monster, by jumping, by swinging your weapon (sometimes it doesn't), just walking into parts of the planet that didn't load yet... it's totally random. The cause of the flicker may vary from playthrough to playthrough, sometimes it's an specific action that's causing it, others I just can't seem to find the cause. But it's always there.

I've tried to film the issue, but, somehow, even if in gameplay I get the flickering, the rendered video doesn't... no matter if I capture it at 30 or 60 FPS.

I've tried disabling v-sync and it does fix the issue but generates many annoying side-effects, like unstable FPS (sudden drops to even 10 FPS), texture loading lag (whenever you use an item you haven't used before on that playthrough, it will lag for a few seconds-- presumably to load the item's animation/texture), slow-mo enemies and slow world loading. It's a huge mess, and I can't see that as a solution.

It does not happen on Windowed mode, but... I'm used to play everything I can on Fullscreen, it's just not comfortable for me and I should be able to play however I want without issues. It's the only problem I've ran into in the game so far, and even if it sounds as a minor issue, it really ruins the experience. "Whoa, what a nice landscape! I might take a screensh-*flickers for hours*."

I'd really appreciate that, if someone knows how to fix this annoying bug, could please tell me the procedure to follow. Or, if any dev reads this, I'd be immensely thankful if you could find what could be possibly causing it, and patch it soon.

As I promised, System Info is here (feel free to ask if you need any more info): http://pastebin.com/r1Hm7tWG

TL;DR: Textures or certain parts of the screen flicker on fullscreen randomly, no matter the resolution settings, with no known cause. Disabling v-sync fixes it but produces lag and annoyances. Help.

E̶d̶i̶t̶:̶ ̶S̶o̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶ ̶L̶a̶p̶t̶o̶p̶-̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶s̶s̶u̶e̶,̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶h̶a̶p̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶l̶e̶m̶?̶

Edit 2: I guessed too early, the problem does appear on desktops as well as Hamuelin said. Guess it's either an incompatibility issue with our videocards or a problem on the game's side...
Click to expand...

Hey! So I was suffering through the same problem when I updated to 1.0. I was using windows 8, but changed to windows 10 yesterday. Problem was solved.
So I'm pretty sure it's a software issue. So since you are already using windows ten i'd try windows and driver updates. Sorry i'm not much help, but that's all I can come up with.

Zumobatly · Jul 30, 2016

jake_elvy said: ↑

Hey! So I was suffering through the same problem when I updated to 1.0. I was using windows 8, but changed to windows 10 yesterday. Problem was solved.
So I'm pretty sure it's a software issue. So since you are already using windows ten i'd try windows and driver updates. Sorry i'm not much help, but that's all I can come up with.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I might give updating drivers a shot. Also don't worry, any guidance helps!

Will update this post if it manages to fix the issue.

Update: So I decided to check if my drivers were up to date with a Driver list utility, turns out that Windows hasn't been updating them for a long time for some reason... the Intel HD Graphics driver was almost one year old now! I updated the most that I could find, even the ones not directly related to graphics such as Realtek, but the issue is still there. I no longer know what else could be causing this... perhaps a program running in the background?

Icenezz · Jul 30, 2016

Bumping this, also have the same issue. If I am playing, I can see the stars from the beginning screen appear in the flashing that is happening to me.

I have an AMD Radeon HD 8570D / AMD A8-6600K APU
64 Bit System
8GB RAM
Running it on this screen: ASUS VS228

This issue only happens on MY screen. When I went to show it off on Skype to my friends, they didn't see it. Only I did.

Zumobatly · Aug 5, 2016

Bump.

With 1.0.5 this issue even got worse. Why hasn't Chucklefish noticed this yet?

Kulsius · Aug 6, 2016

Disable Vsync in game, turn it on in video driver settings (like nVidia control panel) for starbound.exe
Gives you Vsync and eliminates flicker.

Stormchild · Aug 9, 2016

I have the same problem when I play on my desktop who has an older AMD HD6970. I'll try the tip from Kulsius later. This is a bit annoying although not gamebreaking.

Zumobatly · Aug 10, 2016

Kulsius said: ↑

Disable Vsync in game, turn it on in video driver settings (like nVidia control panel) for starbound.exe
Gives you Vsync and eliminates flicker.
Click to expand...

Clever! Don't know why I never thought of this. Normally I had that option set as "defined by app", but toggling it on on the Graphics Control Panel worked like a charm. My game is even smoother now, I can't thank you enough!

clubbavich · Aug 23, 2016

As of right now, using Radeon software version 16.8.2, disabling V-Sync in the game, and forcing it to be on in the AMD settings does NOT enable V-Sync. So, this fix didn't work for me. I hope that Chucklefish are looking into graphical glitches and performance issues while they are adding content.

Kamika · Jun 30, 2017

I have radeon 7970 and now i have the same problem. All solutions i could find are not helping It was all fine before last patch. Please help

Silent_Mango · Oct 28, 2017

PLEASE fix this!

Sean649 · Nov 6, 2017

GEEEEEE This game is f*ckin unplayable. Lag spike, screen tearing. FPS drop. What happened? UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

Got an almost high end PC!

spec
AMD FX8320 3.5Ghz
8gb of ram
HD Radeon 7950 3gb gdrr5
Windows 10 64bit

DeathQueen · Nov 15, 2017

Sean649 said: ↑

GEEEEEE This game is f*ckin unplayable. Lag spike, screen tearing. FPS drop. What happened? UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH

Got an almost high end PC!

spec
AMD FX8320 3.5Ghz
8gb of ram
HD Radeon 7950 3gb gdrr5
Windows 10 64bit
Click to expand...

on ati graphics cards try activating triple buffering from ati Catalyst Controler, i also set vertical refresh to off (don't know if that helped)

dbot · Jun 3, 2018

Had this issue with 1.3 on my standard laptop. (Dell Latitude E7440, Intel HD Graphics)

Was able to fix the issue by setting the "Vertical Sync" option to "Driver Settings" in the Intel HD Graphics Control Panel. More info below.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005552/graphics-drivers.html

Ranso · Dec 21, 2018

I am having this trouble too. I tryed with the video card vysnc.. but nothing changed. It is unplayable

Any other solution until now?

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