Graphics issue with any reflective/shiny surface
I haven't been able to find a thread on this exact issue, but in the past two days I've actually found 2 other Mac-users who have experienced the same issue, one of whom was the actual Apple representative that I spoke with today over the phone. So I figured I'd post the details here to see if there's anyone else who's experienced it. According to what the Apple rep told me while viewing the issue in my game and his, it's most likely a problem on EA's end that occurred with one of the latest patches. According to the reps I've spoken with over the past week, it's not an issue with my hardware or my computer's capabilities. That said, here are my mac specs:
- iMac 21.5 inch, Retina 4K, 2017
- 3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5 processor
- 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4 Memory
- Radeon Pro 560 4GB Graphics
- Built-in Retina Display, resolution 4096x2304
- 1TB Storage (Fusion Drive), 700GB available
- currently running OS Catalina, version 10.15.2
And here's a little info on the graphic issue:
The visual effect itself is hard for me to describe, but it seems to occur on any object in-game that has even a slightly reflective surface texture. Weirdly enough though, I haven't noticed the effect on mirrors. But glass tables, metal appliances, shiny stone steps, windows, shiny wallpapers or wooden floors - from what I can tell which exact objects the effect appears on varies. And for me, the effect first appeared on 3 CC television screens and a CC refrigerator, and nothing else. No other CC, no EA items (that I looked at). More recently, the effect suddenly appeared on EVERYTHING that had a slightly reflective or shiny surface, as described above. The effect can vary in its pattern, but for me it's most often a pattern of dots, as you'll see in my pictures below. However, on some objects, it appears as densely packed lines (this is how it appeared on the one CC refrigerator when I first noticed the glitch). Apparently, both of these effects are forms of artifacting, according to the Apple rep who looked at the effect in my game. Out of curiosity he checked his own game on his 2019 iMac desktop, and he gets the same exact effect on TV screens in his game. The one other person I spoke to who has seen this effect in their game on wallpapers. The visual effect shifts as you move your camera around, zoom in and out, etc.
I have tried a multitude of things to resolve this issue or gain more understand of what the exact problem is. Some of the things I've tried are listed below.
- repaired my game via Origin
- removed all mods and custom content
- completed a folder refresh and tested without any of my saves, tray files, etc.
- adjusted all graphics settings, to lowest and highest available, as well as combinations of various settings
- adjusted resolution settings, played in windowed and fullscreen modes, with and without retina-optimization on
- reset the SMC on my Mac
- rebooted in safe mode
- tested in a new user account on my computer
- ran first aid on my disk image and hard drive
- reinstalled the operating system on my Mac
The only things I have not yet tried, but will be trying tonight:
- full uninstall of TS4 and Origin
I will update here if the full uninstall/reinstall makes any difference!
I'm sure there's plenty more info that could be helpful - if there's anything, please just ask and I'll answer the best I can!
3 images (linked via Imgur, because I already had to lower the file size a lot and decreasing it further might make it difficult to see the effect)
Please do let me know if anyone else has experienced this issue! From what I'm told the only fix from EA's end, so we need to let them know it's happening in order to solve the problem.
Thanks! AJ
(Edit - edited title slightly, Bluebellflora)
@ajduckie @Hephaestion02 @Shh-speechless
I ended up replacing the cube map texture with a simple black 128x128 PNG in S4S and it fixed the issue, I'm back to a normal TV again.
I replaced this:
with this:
