PSA: Frame Buffer Effects incompatibility also affects some ATI cards, poss. other makers

[ZeldaTheSwordsman 40]

It's been known for a while that the frame buffer effects Bioware used for stuff like holograms, stealth field shimmer, etc. don't play nice with later Nvidia GPUs (Graphics Processing Unit, AKA a graphics card/video card).

But, and this doesn't seem to be as widely-known, the problem is not limited to Nvidia cards.

Case in point, I have an ATI Radeon HD5700 card by AMD. But I still have to have the frame buffer effects deactivated for the games not to crash outside of the menus. Thankfully, the GOG version of TSL has them off by default. But turn them on... and crash it goes.

I can't test it myself, but I would be willing to bet that ATI isn't the only non-Nvidia maker whose cards are also affected. So, if you have either KotOR game hang on a black screen (and then crash to desktop at your next input) after character creation, or sometimes have trouble booting... I would say it's worth seeing if disabling frame buffer effects.

...Y'know, I would dearly love to know why these effects have such crippling forwards-compatibility issues. What is it about how the frame buffer effects work (vs. every other effect in the game) that doesn't get along with more modern graphics hardware, and is it something within the scope of modders to fix?