RivaTuner 2.03 is on the way!

Dear forum visitors!

I've came back after vacation with something new for you. New RivaTuner v2.03 has been sent to beta-testers team today. If we won't face any serious issues during beta-testing, it will take about 1 week as usual, so I expect to release new version on the next monday, 27th August. Please take a note that this release was not scheduled and I was not working in the vacation hard, so changes list is not as big as usual and it doesn't include some previously planned features like RV610/RV630 overclocking support etc. The main purpose of this immediate release is providing the protection against new unsafe client of PunkBuster causing hardware instability in multiplayer games, because the fix is still not available from Evenbalence side. Anyway, I hope that those who don't play PunkBuster protected games will find something useful in this version too.


Version 2.03:

Minor bugfixes:

- Fixed gamma correct antialiasing option for the ForceWare 1xx.xx drivers families.
- Fixed 'HDD0 temperature' ... 'HDDn temperature' graph labels in SMART.dll plugin for the systems with more than one hard drive installed.
- Minor UI and localization fixes.

What's new:

- Updated databases for Detonator and ForceWare drivers. Added databases for ForceWare 162.18, 162.22, 162.50 and 163.16.
- Added Catalyst 7.7 and 7.8 drivers detection.
- Updated Catalyst 7.7 and 7.8 certified SoftR9x00 parch script (for Windows 2000/XP drivers only).
- Updated RivaTunerStatisticsServer v2.4.0 bundled utility:
- Added OSD rendering support for Direct3D10 applications.
- Added OSD rendering support for Direct3D9 applications redefining render target in the end of frame rendering process (e.g. Overlord). Now the server is able to detect such conditions, bind render target to back buffer, render OSD then restore the previously set render target. This feature is implemented as compatibility flag and enabled by default for all applications, however power users may disable it via editing profile flags in the server's configuration file.
- Improved 3D API usage detection for applications using multiple OpenGL / Direct3D renderers (e.g. Colin McRae : DIRT). Now the server stores information about the last used renderer instead of the first one.
- Updated list of pseudo 3D applications.
- Improved hardware monitoring module:
- Added generic support for Logitech G15 keyboard LCD display. Now RivaTuner automatically maps all hardware monitoring statistics displayed in the server's On-Screen Display to the keyboard's LCD display, however power users may disable this behavior with MapOSDToLCD registry entry. Also RivaTuner provides command line switches for connecting to (LCDC/LCDCONNECT) or disconnecting from (LCDD/LCDDISCONNECT) G15 LCD, allowing you to bind these actions with hotkeys and easily reconnect to LCD (e.g. after resuming PC from suspended mode). Please take a note that these command line switches are added to the list of predefined applications available in regular launch item editor.
- Improved hardware monitoring plugins:
- Improved LCDHype plugin. Now the plugin contains LCDHype output scripts calibrated for both AlphaCool 240x128 and Logitech G15 160x43 LCD displays.
- Added protective technologies aimed to jam unsafe memory scanner of PunkBuster anticheat system and this way prevent this anticheat system from crashing graphics hardware when RivaTuner resides in memory. Unfortunately new 1.7xx versions of PunkBuster client (debuted on 04.17.2007 with Battlefield 2142 client) caused major system stability issues in conjunction with wide range of applications accessing hardware via user mode MMIO address ranges. Apart from scanning executable code new PunkBuster services also fully scan data memory ranges of each process, which is critically dangerous when it comes to applications accessing hardware registers via memory mapped I/O port user address ranges. Unauthorized access to hardware mapped memory ranges performed by anticheat system's memory scanner may cause unpredictable results including hardware failures and freezing. The problem is not specific to RivaTuner and also covers wide range of ATI and NVIDIA oriented diagnostic, overclocking and monitoring tools (e.g. ATITool, PowerStrip, HIS iTurbo etc) developed by third parties as well as by certified AIB/AIC partners. The situation had been investigated with help of Battlefield 2142 gamers community and is fully documented in RivaTuner's support forums, however, many inexperienced gamers never visit forums or read documentation and still wrongly interpret these crashes as instability of third party tools including RivaTuner, hurting software reputation in different forums this way. Unfortunately, the problem is still neither fixed nor documented by Evenbalance, furthermore, the situation got critically worse in the end on June 2007 when Evenbalance launched the same unsafe PunkBuster clients v1.7xx for America's Army, Call of duty, Call of duty 2, Enemy territory: Quake Wars, F.E.A.R etc. Due to this sad reason I cannot longer wait for response and fix from Evenbalance and risk RivaTuner software reputation because of anticheat system issues. The following features are introduced and aimed to prevent RivaTuner from being improperly accessed by PunkBuster or any similar memory scanner:
- Process protection. Now RivaTuner reduces its own access privileges after startup to prevent simple user mode memory scanners from accessing RivaTuner's process virtual memory. This protective technique is enabled by default, but it can be disabled by setting ProtectProcess registry entry to 0.
- MMIO protection. Now RivaTuner hides MMIO range into kernel mode address space instead of user mode address space to prevent any other user mode application form accessing hardware improperly. This protective technique requires each graphics hardware access operation to be transferred via RivaTuner's kernel-mode driver, so it increases CPU performance hit caused by RivaTuner's background processes (e.g. hardware monitoring) with approximate factor of 3x - 5x. This protective technique is also enabled by default, but it can be disabled by setting ProtectMMIO registry entry to 0.
- Paged MMIO access mode. Now RivaTuner is able to use paged access to MMIO range, mapping only desired MMIO pages for access instead of mapping whole registers aperture. This mode is only available when MMIO protection mode is disabled. Paged acces mode can be activated by specifying power-of-two page size with MMIOPageSize registry entry.

Note: most of these protective techniques will be enabled by default until the problem is fixed in PunkBuster. I realize that the protective techniques will cause side effects such as increased CPU load even to those who never play PunkBuster protected multiplayer games, but unfortunately I see no other ways of protecting software reputation against inexperienced gamers spreading rumors about RivaTuner instability. It you don't play multiplayer PunkBuster protected games or if you're not affected by crashing caused by it then it is strongly recommended to disable all the protections mentioned above.

- Minor UI changes and improvements.


Stay tuned!

 

No. I repeat once again that I won't be able to sign RT driver. Paying $500 for it every year is too mush for me.

 

It is documented in 2.02 thread. It was not working at all:
http://forums.guru3d.com//showpost.php?p=2331463&postcount=15

 

Gamergod

Nope yet, but that's definitively planned for future releases. Most likely, I'll add it to 2.04.

 

Are there any users with RT OSD usage experience playing Bioshock in DX10 mode? I need such tester to verify OSD in this game in DX10 mode.
I've tested DX10 OSD which will be introduced in 2.03 on 8800 on my system with various DXSDK samples, Cascades, Company of Heroes and Lost Planet, I'd like to test it with this game too (or at least demo). However, it is not yet available for sale in Russia and my traffic limitations don't alolw me to download even the demo.