ArcGIS CityEngine: Workaround for driver problems with AMD Navi GPUs

[ThomasFuchs]

Symptoms and Affected Systems:

We experienced rendering issues causing (amongst others)

• artefacts in the viewport
• no labels in model hierarchy
• transparent textures missing or being fully opaque

The issues seem to be related to certain newer AMD graphics cards like the Radeon RX 5XXX series and platform specific drivers. Affected systems include late 2019 MacBook Pro 16-inch models.

If you experience problems like the issues above try the following workaround (needs CityEngine 2020.0 or newer):

Workaround:

1. Make sure the latest graphics driver is installed.
   If rendering issues are still present, continue with step 2.
2. Open the configurations file CityEngine.ini  (requires admin privileges)
   1. Windows: Open the C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\CityEngine2020.0\CityEngine.ini  in a text editor.
      
   2. Mac: In the Finder, Right Click on the CityEngine2020.0 application > Show Package Contents
      then navigate to Contents > MacOS > CityEngine.ini  and open in a text editor.
      
3. Enforce blending transparent content, by adding the following line to the CityEngine.ini  file:
   

   -DforceSimpleTransparency=true‍‍‍‍‍‍

4. Start the CityEngine application