I've just started playing Risen 2 and I'm on the first island (Tactaruga or something like that), and there's something strange with the graphics. It's not the "growing foliage" issue that's been mentioned before, as I put in the antiwarp fix for that.

It's the landscape polygons, mostly rock face or small hills. Sometimes they'll just "pop in" out of nowhere, and then disappear again if I back off a bit. Not all of them do this, but when it happens, it's jarring and annoying. I've got the view distance set to maximum, so I don't understand why this is happening. They aren't even that far away when it happens, maybe 20 meters or so.

Something else that I notice is the tree shadows will also sometimes reset or change angle suddenly. It's another odd effect that makes me thing I'm losing my mind. I've also seen this happen in cut scenes. It's like they changed camera angle just slightly but with no frame of animation in between.

Anyone else get this, or is it a video card/driver issue? If it's part of the game, is there a fix for it? So far I think I prefer the graphics of Risen 1 over this. It never had any issues other than the odd low-res texture.

The shadow issue turns out to be due to the way the sun moves across the sky. It's not smooth, it moves in discrete positions and then updates the shadow angles accordingly. Shame.

Turning down the gamma by just a single notch in the game's video settings goes a long way in clearing up that "washed out" over-bright look you get during the day time. Much better.