battlefield 2 water banding

gaillard

hey everyone i would appreciate it if someone could tell me why this is happening and a possible route to take

take a look at the picture..

i don't undertand why it is banding like that... perhaps compresion? i tried to uncheck the the dx1 thing but the game won't start if non of those texture formats are enabled...
thanks for the help!

gaillard · 06-23-2005, 15:24 | posts: 6 | Location: virginia tech

can anyone even give me a hint as to what this could be even if it can't be fixed... i know there are some intelligent people here =)

Sailindawg · 06-23-2005, 21:07 | posts: 236

It's your vid card drivers. If you have a Nvidia card use the 77.30 drivers that came with the game. If you are an ATI user follow the read me file.

gaillard · 06-23-2005, 21:28 | posts: 6 | Location: virginia tech

i have tried those drivers and also the most recent 77.72 ones or whatever they are. i have tried pretty much every setting in riva and everysetting in game and every setting out of game in nvidia stuff.. and its on a completely fresh copy of windows 32 bit ( i had 64 bit on befoer and it did the same thing...)

so what could it be? i don't see others with these bands...

Sailindawg · 06-26-2005, 00:20 | posts: 236

G, by your post, I take it that you do not have a 6800 series video card. I will assume that you have a 5xxx series or older vid card. Because of the advanced programmable shaders that BF2 game utilizes, your older 5xxx or later card will not render BF2 properly because those cards do not suport the newer programmable shaders. It is not as driver issue, it's a fact of the 5xxx and older cards not having the ability to render with the newer programmable shaders. It looks like time to upgrade that vid card. BTW, you will probably get more responses if you fill out the right hand area that lists your system specs.

gaillard · 06-26-2005, 00:40 | posts: 6 | Location: virginia tech

ah ok, sorry for the system specs ill have to get around to that.. i do havea 5950 ultra though,... is there not a way to fool it into doing the right shaders in some way? can't a quadro do them correctly? surely there is some way for my hardware to "do" them even if a bit slow?

thanks for the help have a good weekend!

Gaillard

xg-ei8ht · 06-26-2005, 01:02 | posts: 1,730 | Location: London Baby

Thats crap m8, Your video card does pixel shader 1.4 fine. As do most cards. except, geforce4 series(1.3 support only)

I'm guessing thats a prob with your drivers.

Also check that your desktop colour is 32bit and not 16bit, also check that when u run 3dgames its 32bit colour, looks 16bit to me.

Sailindawg · 06-26-2005, 01:36 | posts: 236

Unfortunately XG, DICE recommends a 6 series card for optimum performance and they tell you upfront to forget about about a 4xxx and older card. They made the game with the newest of technology in mind. Unfortunately, with the 7xxx series cards out now, even the 6xxx series cards will be considered old hat within about a year. BF2 graphics are very good, right up there with HL2 and Far Cry, and require newer cards in order to run the game well.

gaillard · 06-26-2005, 02:37 | posts: 6 | Location: virginia tech

i have heard from others that their 5950's do the same thing.. but the bf2 makers did say they support it and i can't imagine they would say that with the quality being so low... i mean thats why they put out the g4's right? cause if you lowered options enough it could run it if used different shaders... so why would they do that with the 5950's and not g4's? surely theres something wrong or fixable here...

is there a way to get the card to do stuff in software like a shader or something? is there ANY way to make those shaders appear correct on screen... surely there is any ideas?

xg-ei8ht · 06-26-2005, 03:02 | posts: 1,730 | Location: London Baby

Unfortunately XG, DICE recommends a 6 series card for optimum performance and they tell you upfront to forget about about a 4xxx and older card. They made the game with the newest of technology in mind. Unfortunately, with the 7xxx series cards out now, even the 6xxx series cards will be considered old hat within about a year. BF2 graphics are very good, right up there with HL2 and Far Cry, and require newer cards in order to run the game well.

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Sorry to laugh, The graphics in hl2 are not as good as farcry, And the only reason hl2 runs bad on geforcefx in ps.20 is because of the lack of enough registers to do full ps.2.0. decently.

Hl2 has very bad models, but very good skins- combined with physics. Although at last there adding true hdr.

Battlefield 2 needs a card using pixel shader 1.4 (radeon 8500 even does this)

Yes the graphics in battlefield 2 are nice, but again using 1.4pixel shaders.

If u want a game using true pixel shaders 2.0, then i suggest u try the f.e.a.r beta thats out.

As for the fx cards, there is no problem with pixel shader 1.4, never has been.

Farcry uses alot more juice then battlefield 2, Has all the range of pixel shaders going on. Plus with 6600,6800,etc also uses hdr.

As for the 6800's series not being good enough in a year or so is just plain silly.

The 7800gtx is overkill at the momment anyway, unless your running 1600x1200, with full aa, af.

Even so, processors out at the momment, cannot cope with this load anyway.

Lastly, if i had the 5950, i'd try checking for earlier drivers, as its probably a shader issue with certain drivers, i know cause i had the same thing with gf3 and farcry, before i upgraded.

Sorry to go on. But the 5950 is a capable card in all shaders exp. ps.20.

gaillard · 06-26-2005, 03:30 | posts: 6 | Location: virginia tech

thanks for teh info on the shader..

problem is battlefield 2 even shipped with new unreleased nvidia drivers because the one out and all before had problem doing its shadows.. i tried ones before 6 series came out like 40. whatever ones but the game wouldn't even load.. only with 60's and up did they load and with the shadow bug tho.. so i am forced to use over 77.30 in order to play... so i don't know how to fix it with drivers over that...
i thought maybe some directx settings but nothing has worked..

i don't guuess it could be compression or anything?

xg-ei8ht · 06-26-2005, 03:37 | posts: 1,730 | Location: London Baby

Also try without aa in control panel on, and also try earlier drivers, might need to use driver cleaner first.

Sailindawg · 06-26-2005, 15:51 | posts: 236

Quote:

i thought maybe some directx settings but nothing has worked..

Unfortunately G, the answer is no. What you are seeing is the shortcomings of your vid card. Try running with all ingame quality settings on low. What is going on with the banding, is that you are getting some type of graphical corruption because your card cannot do the necessary calculations fast enough. What stinks is that with the newest official drivers, 77.72, the people reporting the worst performance are the 5xxx card owners. All you can do is try the newer drivers. It will be hit or miss for you. The newer vid cards (both ATI and nVidia) have more pixel pipelines and vertex pixels than the 5xxx series cards. The extra pipelines and transistors allow for faster, more precise rendering. I'm not badmouthing your video card, the 5950 U was the best 5xxx series card, however, in general, the 5xxx series cards put nVidia in a rut compared to ATI. The same generation ATI cards are much better than the 5xxx cards. However, nVidia seems to have put that all behind them with the 6800 series cards.