6600GT has too much shimmering!

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

  1. thevoid

    thevoid Master Guru

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    I get shimmering and moire patterns in:

    - Half-Life 2
    - Unreal Tournament 2004
    - Doom 3
    - Battlefield 2
    - Colin McRae Rally 2004


    In other words, in all the games that matter for me.
    And I bet it is in all games. Only that in some games is more or less visible, due to the nature of the textures used. ( i.e. the shimmering and the moire patterns are there, only that in some games these are more visible or less visible ).

    However, latest informations indicate that it is not a hardware bug, it can be fixed by altering the inf-file in order the driver does not recognize the card in order to apply these aggressive "optimizations". I am looking forward to a driver that gives you the option to disable these optimizations from the control-panel. And if this driver will never arrive, I will have to find out how to tweak the drivers` inf-file in order to get rid of these optimizations.

    More info here:

    http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=150727

    And the page talking about that modified inf is here:

    http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2005/bericht_nvidias_g70_texturen/4/

    Unfortunately I cannot really read german, so if anyone can get a clue from the article on how to make that custom inf, plese let me know...
    :)
     
  2. fivefeet8

    fivefeet8 Ancient Guru

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    Essentially, they modified an inf file to detect the G70 as a standard 3d card. No optimizations in the drivers, or AF optimizations, or even software optimizations since it's not recognized as a G70.

    It's an invalid way to test for AF optimizations.
     
  3. Zooze

    Zooze Master Guru

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    I still dont think the nvidia 78.03 drivers will fix the shimering in GTA SA. I think its the way they use the textures. I get shimmering on radeon cards as well as nvidia ones (including ti4800) however its most apparent on my 6800 and 7800 cards.

    Zooze

    Discuss?
     
  4. thevoid

    thevoid Master Guru

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    Hi fivefeet8 !

    I just want to know how to make that modified inf that gets rid of the "optimizations" !

    And I don`t care if I loose say about 30% of the performance, because my 6600GT is way fast enough for me even with that 30% penalty. Maybe in that case I will use a lower resolution like 1024x768 and a bit of anti-aliasing. No shimmering and moire pattens mean more to me than 10 FPS more or in any game. I want to see a clear picture on my screen, not ugly moire pattens and shimmering textures...

    So fellow gurus, let`s make this inf-file to stop the driver doing those ugly "optimizations" !

    I definitely want this...

    If I only knew where to start...

    My thoughts are at the moment:
    - Erasing the entry for the card in the inf-file, but it might be that the card is not recognized at all and the driver will not install... have to check this though.
    - Changing the name of the card in the inf-file, but this seems stoopid, I bet the driver recognizes the card from it`s device ID, not it`s name string.
    - Forcing some other card-ID with RivaTuner. But I tried to force Quadro, and the shimmering and the moire patterns were still there. The card however was still recognized as a 6600GT... but the driver control-panel switched to the Quadro-specific control panel...

    Or ... can`t we just ask those guys at computerbase.de for the modified inf-file, just to see what has to be changed ?
    But for this we need a *guru* who is speaking german, because their forum is also in german language.

    And one more thing... I have a feeling that when NVIDIA will come out with a driver that fixes this shimmering+moire patterns issues they will just increase the LOD BIAS with 0.5 or 1, which ofcourse eliminates these problems, but also gives you overall uglier texures. If this happens, I would prefer the modified-inf solution.
     

  5. fivefeet8

    fivefeet8 Ancient Guru

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    Wait for the shimmering fixed drivers from Nvidia. Current testing seems to point to shimmer free or mostly gone and performance still high.
    http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=55812
     
  6. RAYS_72

    RAYS_72 New Member

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    I'm new in this site, and my english isn't so good. Sorry!!?! I've got a 6600GT and I've played Far cry. I met much graphicals problems and in Volcano(the last map)....terrible. Now, with pre-settings of last driver found in guru3D (78...)for Far-cry, it' s ok and I see muche many dettails. I think the driver of Nvidia are more "delicate" then ATI's driver. So, I'm very ignorant in thr words and terms used (example AA, FA ecc. ) Can you tell me a link were I can learn something about them? PS: playng Far Cry with a good grapich, is very better and easy then in low quality.
    Thanks
     
  7. thevoid

    thevoid Master Guru

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    You have to use version 1.1 of FarCry at least. If you have the 1.0 version, graphics might look "funny" on GeForce cards.

    and one thing... you are off-topic with this question on Far Cry...
    ... we are discussing the *shimmering* issues in this thread.

    If you have a question, just start a new thread.

    But anyway ... welcome to the guru3d.com forums :)

    :)
     
  8. kernell3200

    kernell3200 Active Member

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    i have experienced lots of shimering in UT2004, specialy in large maps.i also like the idea of new inf file.
    does the next driver release is going to fiz also series 6? or just 7800?
     
  9. SupaSiLa

    SupaSiLa Banned

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    well i hope it does fix for the 6 series.. i just bought this card
     
  10. PrinceGaz

    PrinceGaz Maha Guru

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    I was very disappointed to encounter very prominent shimmering in MS Train Simulator with my 6800GT and the 77.77 drivers at the default settings. The complex "ground" (track) detail combined with constant movement probably made it a lot worse than in most other games.

    The issue was fixed in that game with the GF6 series and 77.77 drivers by moving the quality slider from 'Quality' to 'High Quality'. I'd previously tried disabling the optimisations available when advanced settings are selected, but they had no effect.

    From what I've read on various sites, 'High Quality' on a GF6 almost sorts out the shimmering problems. It's not like there is much of a performance hit either as I only recoreded between 1-2% impact compared with 'Quality'.

    With the 77.77 drivers, GF7 series cards at High Quality setting are no better than the GF6 at just Quality setting, and are noticeably worse when GF7 cards are at so-called 'Quality'. Quality is what was used in most reviews as that is the default and nVidia's recommendation. A driver fix should sort all this out, but you really have to wonder why nVidia did this. Of course it wasn't accidental, they have to program these optimisations. But if the first driver release, the one used for all the reviews of the new cards had this flaw, it suggests to me they are delibrately making their cards look better in all reviews which don't include a thorough check on image-quality-- something very few reviews do when a new generation of cards is released, because of time reasons.

    It would be nice to think that the bad old days of the 4x.xx drivers were behind us and that nVidia had learnt their lesson, but it seems like we will have to live with sub-standard image-quality again for a while.
     

  11. raul100

    raul100 Member

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    nVidia has to improve IQ at Quality mode or performance at High Quality.
     
  12. PrinceGaz

    PrinceGaz Maha Guru

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    With my 6800GT, I recorded a performance drop of only 1-2% in 3DMark03 and 3DMark05 when going from Quality to High Quality. So small in fact that I've now decided to leave the default as High Quality.
     
  13. raul100

    raul100 Member

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    Three months have passed and?

    Better to say goodbye to nVidia cards...
     
  14. SupaSiLa

    SupaSiLa Banned

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    put high quality and its allll gone!!!
     
  15. thevoid

    thevoid Master Guru

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    No it`s *not* gone !

    It`s still there, SupaSiLa!

    You have to set High Quality *and* set +0.5 or +1.0 LOD Bias (Rivatuner), depending on the game, to get rid of the shimmering and the moire patterns.

    So it`s NOT gone with High-Quality.
     

  16. SupaSiLa

    SupaSiLa Banned

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    it may not be all gone.. but most of it.... i cant see that much shimmering now
     
  17. thevoid

    thevoid Master Guru

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    Well then check out HL2, level "City 17"... the wall textures. Outside. Try to slowly approach them, and check for the moire patterns forming. Most visible on the red brick texture. Also check the pavement in front of you as you move. It`s shimmering. It`s not OK.

    And today I played some Colin McRae Rally 2004, and there is *a lot of shimmering* in that game, even with "High Quality" and LOD Bias forced to +0.5. It`s so much shimmering it`s disturbing. Cannot enjoy that game, there is so much shimmering!

    Of course it depends on the game title. For example, in Max Payne 2 ( one of my favourite titles ) I get no shimmering, no moire patterns, everything is smooth as silk. Interesting.

    The problem is that NVIDIA is not admitting the shimmering/moire pattens problem for the 6-Series GeForce, only for the GeForce 7-Series. So if they don`t admit it, they will not fix it. How to fix a problem that doesn`t exist ? First they have to admit that the problem exists, then maybe we`ll see a fix for this.

    One thing that I am afraid of is that the problem is not fixable in the drivers, it`s a *hardware issue*.
     
  18. particleman

    particleman Active Member

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    I get a 33% drop in fps on both my 7800 GTX and 6800 GT going from quality to high quality in UT2004 ONS-Primeval, just start up fraps and walk around in ONS-Primeval a bit on your own sever, if you don't believe me. IMO nVidia needs to fix the "Quality" mode for me to consider the fix complete. 3Dmark you won't see much of a drop because 3Dmark is shader limited, but that doesn't mean you won't get a significant hit in a lot of games.
     
  19. snip3r_3

    snip3r_3 Guest

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    any1 would post hardware revisions??? ...

    mi 6600gt is rev A2
    bios : 5.43.02.16.01
    ram config 7
    chaintech pci-e

    no problems for me... = =

    tested on 76.10


    maybe i just didnt notice but a year of css hl2 cz bf2 wc3x no problem 4 me yet

    css/hl2 settings r
    -performance mode , 2Q AA, 2X/4X AF set ingame


    cz/wc3x
    -performance mode, 8X AA, 8X AF set in control panel

    bf2
    -high performance, no AA/AF application setting



    btw: yea its true that fx has better quality... but a bit slow
     
    Last edited: Oct 2, 2005
  20. maquinte

    maquinte New Member

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    En ingles la comepija de tu vieja....
     

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