Graphical Error

[Pablo--]

Hi! I'm new here. I noticed in my game:
(Trackmania United Forever with the newest patch available)
that in some levels like Island and others that the water is black. But when I will drive closer the water comes back to normal! Does it's normal or do I have to turn on some options?
I have Intel GMA 4500M and I know that most of the games don't like onboard graphics and especially Intel Graphic but this
game runs very smoothly with:

1280x800

Shadows High
Shader Quality PC3 Low
Texture Quality High
Max Filtering Anisotropic 16x
Geometry Details Normal

Post Process FXs ON
Force Dynamic Colors ON
Force Bloom ON
Water Geometry ON
Stadium Water Geometry ON
Trees Always High Quality ON

And how to get Virtual Coins?

Thanks For Help

[Trackmaniack]

Hmm...a coupla questions. By black, do you mean pure flat black, like one shade, or like, the water's just turned black, and you can still see the "waves" or "ripples" or whatever moves the water around. And, 2nd question. What level do you have your shadows set at? This can sometimes be an issue with that...especially if you just bought TM. The fresh, package-issue TM isn't patched, and some cards will exhibit all kinds of weird errors when the shadows get set to "very high" or "complex". I think, anyway...I have a craptop, LOL, and so I can't set my graphics very high. But try either getting a patch or two (they're all over the forums) or just turning your shadow-level down and see what happens.

[Pablo--]

This is what I mean by black:


And when I get closer....


But I did on lowest (tried PC0 and the water was just without any reflections.)
And still the same thing with water!

The shadows I have on High and I have the latest patch (2.11.26 en)

Also I found another thing:


It happens when I turn on the motionblur and the
strange thing is that when it's on you can see the effect
but things are white and in some enviroments it's totally
white screen!

[Pablo--]

Anyone? Because I would like very much the motion blur instead
of water.

[Trackmaniack]

Hmm...I honestly don't know what to tell ya, man... this is tricky. I've never seen an issue quite like yours...I mean, when I tune things down to PC0, then the water's all white, but beyond that I dunno. It could be that you're right--onboard graphics suck. But if you have a laptop, then you're SOL as far as upgrading goes...

[Pablo--]

It's just strange because on 950GMA it works normally
with max details (PC2) and even water is normal!

[Gording]

You've answered your own problem.

Because (taking a deep breath! ) the Intel 950 chipset only supports shader 2 (PC2), and no hardware Transform and Lighting at all. If you choose either PC3 option you are attempting to force the hardware to do shader 3 effects (which also kick in special lighting effects) and it's no real surprise that your 950's knees start to wobble, and the game's graphics won't display properly!

So although you may be able to switch options on in the Launcher options, they cannot actually display for you, because your Intel chip simply doesn't have the hardware support to display them.

Basically you think you're using a Royal Flush of options, but your Intel is bluffing you with a smooth pair of 3's. Evil Intel! EVIL!

Intel's hardware spec for the 950 chipset http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/gma950/index.htm
Laptop GPU comparison chart (which useful for anyone planning to play games on laptops, to give them a better idea where they stand when they read the hardware specifications on PC game boxes) http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Gra ... 844.0.html

The Intel 950's away down there in position 231 by the way. Ouch.

[Pablo--]

Well then only change of graphic would solve the problem.
Thanks for help!