Can't see the grid...

[Gorge]

I cannot see the grid, the viewports only show a grey background, is there any fix for it. I have an ATI x800 (SM2.1) card.

[Sourpuss]

I've read a couple forum threads, both here and at Beyond Unreal, and apparently just about everyone who has one of the x800 generation ATI cards is having the same problem. Perhaps it's related to the x800's only supporting Shader Model 2.0?

I just ordered one of the MSI 8800 GT's from Dell ($208 + taxes, free shipping) so hopefully I'll be able to map soon.

It's kind of ironic because two years ago I remember debating this issue with myself and saying that the lack of Shader 3.0 on the ATI cards (compared to the nVidia 6800's) wouldn't be a big problem. Oh well. Can't complain, I bought my x800 GTO (unlocked to a full 16 pipes and overclockable to x800xt speeds) at a then bargain price.

Who would have ever guessed that something as simple as displaying 2D grid lines would be a shader model 2.0 problem?

[Deathbliss]

Is this really a shader 2.0 problem? I have an Nvidia VC and also can't see the grid! But this shouldn't be related to shader 2.0 - I man the grid for UnrealED isn't a shader is it?
- Deathbliss

[DGUnreal]

It's a limitation of the SM2 cards. These cards are not fully supported in the engine.
You lose the grid and other things like hardware instancing and DOF/Post and your color depth usually looks 16-bit.
For ATI you basically want to have an X1650Pro or better to get full functionality.

[Zaerus]

It's only because you don't have pixel shader 3+

[Deathbliss]

But how does a different shader version have anything at all to do with UnrealED's grid?
- Deathbliss

[DGUnreal]

Different Shader Model versions support different feature sets.
What do you think pixel shaders are and do that it couldn't be the problem?
I haven't looked at that section of editor code in the engine code base, but I can tell you definitively that cards like the X800 won't show the grid because they are SM2, most likely the line drawing they are doing for the grid is using a pixel shader for color/emissive or something similar. I would have to check the code to be sure.