Topic: 9800 Pro Sky Problems

[Nazareth]

Hi, I have just bought the 9800 pro and the sky in BF42 has some wierd grid like pattern when Yopu look to the horizon, if your flying, it is always just at the edge of Your view distance, also the sky looks horrible, it looks like it  is running in 16 bit color mode but I'm running 32 bit high color, the colors are all seperated by bands like it would be in very low resolution and low color.

I'm runnijng the lates Catalyst Drivers - other games sky looks fine, but just look simply terrible in BF42.

I've tried messing around with AA & AF, but that doesn't do anything to alieviate the problem

[RotteVis]

try update/reinstall directx

[Nazareth]

I do have latest Directx 9.b installed, but I did just switch from a 5900 card to the ATI 9800 pro, I dunjno if this can mess up DX or not, but I'll try th4 reinstall later tonight & report back what I find- thanks.

[RotteVis]

I do have latest Directx 9.b installed, but I did just switch from a 5900 card to the ATI 9800 pro, I dunjno if this can mess up DX or not, but I'll try th4 reinstall later tonight & report back what I find- thanks.

I think that there are some remains of your detonator drivers, use detonator destroyer to remove them, reinstall your catalyst drivers+directx9

[Nazareth]

Well I ran a utility that searches for Nvidia files and it didn't find any,I tried an older version of catalyst drivers & get the same grid sky pattern in Battlefield 1942  

[number6]

Have you tried reinstalling DirectX after installing the ATI drivers?

[Nazareth]

Trying that now in fact

[number6]

Let us know how that goes. As a general rule you should always reinstall direct X when you install a new video card even if you have already installed the latest version of DirectX. It does not hurt to rerun the install program.

[Nazareth]

K just tried it- no change =(

I'm out of options- dunno what to try next

[number6]

Please attach your dxdiag output so we can see what your settings are.

[Nazareth]

l

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Nazareth]

Anything showing up unusual in that Dxdiag text?

[Doc Nyar]

Try setting your desktop resolution to 1024x768, 75Hz

[Doc Nyar]

Or give the drivers in this thread a try.

[Nazareth]

OK I'll give the Omega Drivers a whirl, I had the Omega drivers For My FX 5900 card and really liked them- the quality was better than the Nvidia drivers- Hopefully the same will hold true for the ATI ones =)

[Doc Nyar]

Be sure to let us know how it turned out

[Nazareth]

No good- Still get Grid pattern in sky-all different Resolutions, different AA & AF settings- doesn't matter- it is still present =(

I think I';ll Keep the Omega drivers for now though, see if image quality is any better with em in other games.

Game fps is about on par with the Catalys drivers- 3dmark 2001 SE score was almost identicle-so no degredation in 2001 SE anyways- gonna run 2003 3dmark to see what effect drivers had there where that is more optimized for DX 9

Slightly higher 3dmark 2003 score but nothjing to get excited about- seems the Omega Drivers are right on par with the Catalyst drivers from what I can tell

[Jeep]

It sounds like you are seeing artifacts. This can be caused
by a bad driver or overclocked video card. I would make sure the card isn't overclocked. Some ATI vendors sent
their cards out overclocked from the factory.

[Nazareth]

Well, I'm running at 378/337 respectively and for drivers, I've tried 3 different drivers now,  done complete clean installs etc.

I don't get the problem in other games, But I also don't have any games I can fly in either, which is where I'm seeing the grid pattern off in the distance

[Doc Nyar]

You only see it while flying and not when your infantry and look at the sky ?

[Nazareth]

sorry it took Me so long to reply- Yes that is correct- the grid pattern shows up on the horizon out as far as You can see and it moves away the closer You go- like it's keeping a constant distance from You.

It's almost as though the card is only rendrering textures out to a certain distance-it happens both in Desert Combat and Battlefield

[Jeep]

Maybe you can try adjusting the view distance setting
in the options menu. You can also experiment with this
setting here:C:\Program Files\EA GAMES\Battlefield 1942\Mods\bf1942\Settings\Default\. Open this folder and
open your VideoHigh.con file. Use this if your are running your video settings on high.Scroll to: game.setMenuViewdistance. This is set to 100 by default.
You can raise it or lower it and see if it helps. Remember to
save the setting before leaving the file.

[Nazareth]

That may be it,sounds like what might be happening, I'll give it a try today see what happens- thanks man



Hmmm-nope no luck

[Doc Nyar]

You said you changed from a Nvidia 5900 to the ATi. Did you have the same problem with the Nvidia as well ? And out of curiosity, why did you change to ATi ?

[Nazareth]

I had read several articles about the FX cards and what I read was disturbing, I wasn't at all comfortable with how Nvidia has lied to the public or cheated on 3dmark 2001 benchmarks (- I got suckered by Nvidias advertising and Hyping for sure)- I'll post a really good post with a few links to online articles about the issues with Nvidia incase your interested in a bit here)



Nope, I didn't have this issue with the 5900 card, I also want to mention here that The Nvidia 5900 card that I had previous, rendered ground textures (When I'm flying chopper) MUCH cleaner & Crisper than the ATI card- with the ati card, I get alot of shimmer in the ground textures in BF42 that makes the textures more "fuzzy, less clear/crisp" looking than the Nvidia card  (Let Me stress here though, I DO NOT get the same effects with the ATI card in games like UT/UT 2003/ Trophy Hunter 2003, but I do get the same in Superbike 2001 (another EA title)).

Graphics in BF42 and Superbike 2001 are ,how shall I put this?, Fuzzy, not as sharp, blurry, etc (out about 30-60 or so game feet), in BF42, the textures "Shimmer" or wobble, whereas with the 5900, they were clear as a bell- and the textures out a dfistance that weren't yet rendered fully due to distance, did no such shimmering.

In Ways, I'm Really glad I got the ATI (for instance, I can run games with FAR more eye candy than the 5900, and at higher resolutions), But in other ways, I miss the clarity and sharpness of rendering of the FX 5900.

My hope is that ATI will work on the sharpness of their cards rendering in the future with a bit more potimized cards, but if not, I guess I can live with a bit blurrier graphics

I know this all has no bearing on the grid pattern I'm experiencing, but, I thought I'd just let Ya'll know My experiences with these 2 cards- read this thread at EA to get more insight into these 2 cards if your think9ing about upgrading- Lots of great info in this thread-it's a long thread, but most of the good info is in the second-3'rd pages-

http://boards.ea.com/messages?14@97.jcONaNaylea.0@.1de9f08a

[number6]

Nope, I didn't have this issue with the 5900 card, I also want to mention here that The radeon card is rendering ground textures (When I'm flying chopper) MUCH cleaner & Crisper than the ATI card- witrh the ati card, I get alot of shimmer in the ground textures in BF42 (Let Me stress here though, I DO NOT get the same effects in games like UT/UT 2003/ Trophy Hunter 2003, but I do get the same in Superbike 2001 (another EA title)).

I am a little confused by this last statement. I think you are complaining about ATI's performance, not NVidia's. ATI makes the 9800 Pro. Nvidia makes the 5900 FX. The problems you have been describing in this thread sound very familiar to me as far as ATI is concerned. That's why, to this day, I still buy Nvidia cards. Nvidia goes the extra mile to make sure their video drivers support all of the latest games as much as possible. ATI seems more concerned with keeping their drivers more general purpose and very rarely seem to want to optimize them.

[Nazareth]

Not according to the latest findings-It seems Nvidia went a little further than the extra mile in their drivers and went a little further as well in advertising something that wasn't true- they can Not play direct x 9 without "hedging", and even with hedging, they fall short in direct x 9 capabilities.

 My complaints about the grid with ATI card is ligit and is what My original problem has been, but I posted the FX findings here to make people aware of the problems with the FX cards-Go to any FX card amnufactorer websites forums and You'll clearly see there are problems with the FX cards.While it's mostly true about ATI generalizing their drivers, you have to unbiasedly take into account that they follow the standards needed to make the games work right. Gabe Newell of Valve has an interesting say in this matter- anandtec.com has Newells comments on their website.

Look., I'm neither pro ATI or Pro Nvidia,(I am upset at what I've learned over tha past few days about Nvidia though, but will gladly buy again if they produce a worthy card with drivers that can deliver) I simply have listed what I've found to help people make an informed descision if they're thinking of upgrading- I don't want to turn this thread into a "who's card is better  than who's". I'm not at this point advocating one card over another- both have strengths and weaknesses in todays games, but, ATI at this point has the ability to play direct x 9 the way it's meant to be played- Nvidia "claims" to be able to but simply can't and no driver updates can fix this either.I beleive they won't make the same mistake twice, but you never know.


I did make the mistake of saying radeon when I meant Nvidia in My last post though, sorry for the confusion, I've corrected it.

I apologize for the link in last post- I don't know what went wrong, but I'll try again- like I said, theres alot of good info in there and I think You'll be surprised at the findings-

Check thread out here (copy & paste- I can't figure out hyperlinking unfortunately)

http://boards.ea.com/messages?14@197.6cefa4gYlYg.0@.1de9f08a

[number6]

Thank for clearing that up. If you want to learn how to use hypertext here in the forum please look at the Forum FAQ which is also available by clicking the Icon labeled "faq" at the top of the screen.

[Doc Nyar]

The URL thing doesn't work due to the @'s that are in the address... (Already tried to put it in as URL )

[Nazareth]

Ah O.K thanks, I tried a few different ways to get it to work, but nothing worked