6600GT has too much shimmering!

Discussion in 'Videocards - NVIDIA GeForce Drivers Section' started by raul100, Jun 18, 2005.

  1. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    I know nvidia's fx series and up use brilinear filtering which they did to increase performance. Hey some people don't care like casual gamers.
     
  2. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    I wonder if the 7800 has shimmering maybe? someone that has one should post with a pic.
     
  3. os008

    os008 Master Guru

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    i used HQ settings (nVidia Control Panel) + 8x AF in-game, and the shimmering was reduced a lot, but i got some lag cause i have 128MB i think, at 4x AF it's even less, it disappears at Tri, this is stupid from nVidia, but at least we found the cause!

    EDIT: the game i tried on is CSS using Compound map.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2005
  4. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    Yeah I heard this at a different site a long time ago with the FX series vs the radeon 9xxx the image quality was much worse beacuse of brilinear filtering but atleast they gave us the option to force trilinear on.
     

  5. raul100

    raul100 Member

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    I was forcing AF to off so I couldn't see mipmapping mode.

    Now I tested and ....great! (Thanks tomilius).

    Imagem quality with GTA mipmap + Quality is even better than nvidia AF + Ultra Quality! :D

    Why can't we change mip mapping option after loading a GTA save game?
     
  6. Question: Do you folks with shimmering problems have the LOD set to "clamp" instead of "allow"? I seem to remember something about games using texture sharpening as a form of "ersatz AF", which causes problems with AF...
     
  7. raul100

    raul100 Member

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    But why forcing trilinear (force mode) in GTA doen't reduce shimmering?
     
  8. raul100

    raul100 Member

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  9. alst

    alst Guest

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  10. vatosky

    vatosky Guest

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  11. alst

    alst Guest

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  12. tomilius

    tomilius Member

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    Interesting findings, flexmaster. Thank you. And thanks, everyone else, for the replies.

    I see you do indeed have the aliasing problem when you force AF, which is one of the main things I've been asking you and you've been replying negatively to (I think), but no biggie if you have, I don't quite remember anyway.
    It appears you left antialiasing on, or maybe shrinking the screenshot made it look that way (if you used something other than Paint and actually shrank it). Anyway, that could have an effect on your lack of visible shimmering. For me in the modes where you and others claim shimmering is completely eliminated (like trilinear), it's there for me just greatly reduced and not nearly as noticeable. Taking clip now...

    You know, with my last clip there were a bunch of "blue" frames. The clip was taken before the frame was fully rendered apparently. On closer examination of these frames, I noticed that the black spots on the ground outside of the first safe house don't exist in them. Apparently multiple textures are used or something like that which may be the cause of some flickering. There are some of these spots even on the road leading out of that circular area (like my terminology? hehe) that are not present in the blue frames. I've uploaded the blue frame difference (click) for those of you interested ("blue" frame next to fully rendered frame). Otherwise, I've removed them from the clip.

    Now here's the clip (note that area where it seems to "jump" to another angle is merely due to the rotation frames being removed since the rotation was too fast for anything to be noticeable):

    http://members.lycos.nl/nessyh/ (click auto-af.wmv--1.8mb, look out dial-up--or right-click and Save Target/Link As)

    Here's a screenshot corresponding to the same settings as used in the auto (in-game) AF clip (since it's a still, shimmering isn't noticeable, doh) (oh, except there's AA applied, but it doesn't make much of a difference texture-wise):
    http://usera.imagecave.com/tomilius/looking-better.PNG

    Here's the old video (with forced AF) for comparative purposes:
    http://members.lycos.nl/nessyh/ (click aniso-death.wmv--2.4mb, look out dial-up--or right-click and Save Target/Link As)

    Sorry, just noticed the "external referer" thing, so you'll have to go to the directory first (which the link now points to) and click auto-af.wmv (the files in the directory don't look like links, but they are). Anyway, it requires the Windows Media 9 codecs to be installed (uses Windows Media 9 Screen) which, of course, should come with WMP 10 too. Note that I chose a patch of the screen that demonstrated the shimmering particularly well but is not representative of the whole ground (in other words, it's not nearly as bad as my original aliasing problen (still) caused by forced AF).

    I'm not sure from where exactly you draw that information. From what I've skimmed (very quickly) on Google, nVidia uses bilinear filtering instead of trilinear when you have trilinear optimizations on, but other than that, err? Where did you get this info?

    It never has seemed to make an effect, ever. I've tried it on clamp even recently without realizing it since it does nothing (at least for GTA SA). I turn it off, no difference.

    Nope. I don't actually think AF eliminated moire patterns with my Ti4200 unfortunately (and my 6600gt certainly doesn't either). That would be supersampling, and your mileage with that depends on how much you supersample and how powerful your card is. This goes for the more recent post related to IGN's screenshot's "artifacts" as well.

    Like alst said, that's the game, sadly. Does it on the xbox, does it on all other GTA versions... Some other games do it, but I guess it's an optimization of some sort. It really, really bothered me at first but now that I know it's a game problem for sure... I wonder what influence the GeForce 7 Series' cards "transparency antialiasing" would have? Probably not much, but hmm...

    You, sir, from the looks of it, are forcing AF via the driver. :eek: Am I right? (Repeat, this SHOULD not cause a problem, but apparently it does in some 6 series cards at least.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2005
  13. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040603/ati_optimized-06.html here you go the 6800 Ultra does use Brilinear filtering by default.

    And enabling af ingame and disbling it in the control panel fixes the problem in other games use the force trilinear mippmaping in the control panel. Again I tested with my other computer that has a 9600 pro in it and compared it with the 6600 gt there is no differnence if it is enabled ingame I tried it in a couple of places. In other games like Half Life 2 when Trilinear mippmaping is forced it removes the shimmering again I compared it to my 9600 pro. I hope that this resolves it .
     
  14. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    You just have to set your control panel to high quality and force trilinear mippmaping in all other games to get no shimmering. Apperently the radeon x series suffers from this problem as well according to the website given by me above, it uses the same filtering technique as the nvidia 6 series apperently ( If someone can confirm or disprove this please do). So the only cards that do not use this are the old ones geforce 4 series etc. and the radeon 9xxx.

    Any replies to this would be welcome.
     
  15. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    So anyone have a x800 to test this with and post some screenies please. ;)
     

  16. tomilius

    tomilius Member

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    No... No. Did you read my whole long post and see the clip? That's with High Quality and forced Trilinear mipmapping. It makes no difference, though.
     
  17. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    no not for gta for other games in gta it doesnt matter since it does it ingame.
     
  18. tomilius

    tomilius Member

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    Oh, right. Well, I'm still curious because you say you get NO shimmering in GTA whereas I do. Are you admitting you get some of the same thing I do? You didn't seem to try at 640x480 though that shouldn't matter.

    I showed someone else the video and they said they could barely notice anything so I'm thinking I just notice it the most. Other games.. are better... though there's still some shimmering ... (and by other games I mean Guild Wars, lol).
     
  19. flexmaster

    flexmaster Maha Guru

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    I don't think its shimmering you see because I compared to my 9600 pro and it looked the same in all games if it is used the way I said.

    *Also did you check out the link I posted to the site that lists Brilinear filtering and shows image quality and it said that the radeon x series uses the same filtering technique as the nvidia 6 series.
     
  20. tomilius

    tomilius Member

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    Well when I say shimmering I mean as the camera moves little patches of the ground texture kind of flicker. It's noticeable in GTA: SA on the ground (as evident in the clip I took ESPECIALLY on the gray road at the end) and it's also evident on the clotted sand texture used at the area of Guild Wars I start out in. It's the same thing as in GTA: SA. It's just with these certain textures, but I didn't have this problem with my Ti4200, that's for CERTAIN, since if it did I never would have wasted the card's energy with AF. I wish I still had it.

    Anyway, looks like this is the world we're in now then. Looks like we're stuck with this quality in these newer cards, I suppose. Fortunately it's only in certain types of textures more prone to aliasing (without AF forced in GTA: SA there are of course textures that look perfectly smooth and sharp), but I repeat that I did NOT have this problem with my Ti4200, I KNOW I would have noticed it.

    I checked out the link but that's "Brilinear," not "Bilinear"... What I was confused about is how you said "by default," when mipmapping is the game's decision unless it's forced. What you meant, I assume, was that by default nVidia optimized trilinear filtering (whether forced or chosen) to a mix between trilinear and bilinear, aka "Brilinear," with Quality mode. I don't see how that's really relevant here, but anyway, the shimmering IS mostly eliminated with trilinear filtering or even bilinear filtering, though of course the "blurriness" is there. I can't seem to actually force mipmapping in GTA: SA since it always uses anisotropic filtering with mipmapping on and if I force off anisotropic filtering I think it causes all that ton of aliasing, but the driver could have confused me and I could be wrong about that (when I said trilinear for one of the shots before I think I really meant automatic anisotropic filtering--allow me to verify something right now and I'll edit this in a second). But I must reiterate all I play or have to test with is GTA: SA and Guild Wars at the moment. I'm working on buying Far Cry and/or Half-Life 2, but I'm lazy.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2005

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