Why Does Scenery Blink?

Will wrote:
"GMAN" wrote in message
...

My biggest problem with RADEON has been their strange desire to block

users

from using their installer and config tools on "unsupported" OS like

Windows

2003. That caused problems on some work computers. nVidia pursues

the

much more reasonable course of trying to work as best it can, even on
unsupported systems.

Its not the more reasonable course for ANY company when they have to eat

all

of those 10's of thousands of support calls.


If you have a cost in business, you should charge for it. I have a really
easy solution for ATI, if support is what motivates them:

1) If you want free support, you get some get some 20 year old who can't tie
his shoes who will hang up the phone on you after he burbs.

2) If you want someone who knows how to tie his shoes and is actually
trained to think, you pay $50/call. That partially offsets your cost and
greatly lowers the demand for those scarce level2 technicians.

3) If you want someone who knows how to tie his shoes and is actually
trained to think, and you also want support on an unsupported operating
system, your cost is $95/hour, and there is no guarantee that your problem
can be fixed.

Then write your software to do the least amount of active harm. And if it
works it works. And if it doesn't on an unsupported operating system, you
pay to play.

As just one data point, I needed 20 cards for PCIE machines at work, and I
wanted to order ATI RADEON, just in anticipation that bloatware like Vista
is going to push the graphic requirement. I tested the RADEON in Windows
2003, and they went out of their way to disable the thing and make it hard
to work with. I hacked it into working condition, but I was so ****ed off
by that experience I purchased the nVidia 6800, and it simply worked
immediately, full driver support. And why shouldn't it: Windows 2003 and
Windows XP are the same operating system. The differences are all in
marketing and in packaging and presentation after initial install. The
*core OS* and driver model are identical. That one negative experience
lost ATI a 20-card sale.

The ATI marketing people look at Windows 2003 and they see 5% market share
and they think those people don't play games, so we won't support them.
But that is foolish and wrong thinking. The corporate buyer uses
*checklists* to qualify a card as a "standard". If he has Windows 2003
anywhere in his environment (even 2%), he may make support for that a pre
condition for buying cards for the OS that is on 80% of his desktops.


ATI's Linux drive support is poor too.

On Tue, 3 Oct 2006 21:38:25 -0700, Will wrote:


I'm not making fun of you. I'm making fun of my situation, since
apparently I did the opposite of the right action.

OK, sorry, thought you were taking a swipe at me.

In any case, the nVidia 7900 GT had much better control options for this
effect than what appear to be available in the RADEON control panel. The
problem does appear to be game specific, but I have some partial fix with
nVidia, which for now I will live with.


My biggest problem with RADEON has been their strange desire to block users
from using their installer and config tools on "unsupported" OS like Windows
2003. That caused problems on some work computers. nVidia pursues the
much more reasonable course of trying to work as best it can, even on
unsupported systems.

I'm using Nvidia too right now (7900GT) but have a second PC with R9800pro
so am actually a user of both brands. Shimmering is more prevalent on
Nvidia cards in my experience. On ATI cards I always use Ray Adam's ATI
Tray Tools and completely bypass the ATI control panel so I don't have to
install .NET, plus you get a lot more options with ATI Tray Tools.

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 21:56:34 GMT, No One wrote:


ATI's Linux drive support is poor too.

I hear that is about to change since the AMD aquisition.

On Wed, 04 Oct 2006 14:37:45 -0400, Mr.E Solved! wrote:

DR Bottom line: nvidia texture filtering isn't perfect, and to get the
highest IQ possible, always start your testing with IQ as high as
possible, with no optimizations, and see if you are happy with the
resulting speed. Trilinear is always preferred over bilinear and should
be the very last downgrade to IQ to get more FPS, since the speed gains
versus the loss of IQ generally aren't favorable.

In FS9 I've tried bilinear and trilinear in the past and I don't see a
difference. I use trilinear, it's just that I never saw a difference. I'll
have to clean my spes and go back and try it again.

Why is FSX not done in-house this time? I haven't tried the demo but I've
heard it has poor performance. I remember FS2000 ran poorly on even the
best hardware so I traded it to someone for Apache v Havoc.

We use Windows 2003 Web Edition on many users' desktops. The ability to
login to each other machines by RDP is a must-have feature for us, and you
can't do that with Windows XP while the machine is used from the console.
Windows 2003 also has RAID 1 mirrors on boot devices, which has saved us too
many times to count.

The cost of a 6800 nVidia is next to nothing these days. I installed the
Vista early experience releases and it is obvious that with the glass
interface enabled you need a powerful GPU. At a cost of under $150/card,
I don't see a reason to not get good video.

Yes, the card is massive massive overkill for Windows 2003. I'm planning
at small additional cost to avoid possible obsolescence.


Fair enough. Somewhat special needs though, very few work environments
require cross logons between workstations (while they're being locally
used). Not sure about the RAID1 thing though, doesn't that depend on
hardware not the OS? (though I must admit I haven't really looked into
this much, but surely you can RAID xp machines aswell including booting)

"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message

DRS wrote:

[...]

You've confused me. Trilinear on or off?

Trilinear Filtering should always be enabled, if given the choice in
the application over bilinear filtering. Rationale: The performance
impact is negligible in most situations, but the IQ (Image Quality)
improves markedly, especially at texture stitch-lines and more so when
anisotropic filtering is enabled.

I should have been more clear.

I can find four references to Trilinear optimisation in nHancer:

1. Optimisation: Trilinear Optimisation On (brilenear?)/Off.
2. Optimisation: Anisotropic Filter Optimisation On/Off
3. Optimisation: Anisotropic Sample Optimisatio On/Off
4. Compatibility: Force Mip maps None/Bilinear/Trilinear

If I read the notes correctly, setting System Performance to High Quality
disables 1, 2 & 3. Can I take your comments above to mean 1, 2 & 3 should
be off?

I have created a profile for MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 and set System
Performance to High Quality and Negative LOD to Clamp. This has effectively
eliminated the shimmering in the ground textures, so I am already pleased
with the results. I also have AF set to x4.

I am using cfs3config.exe to set AA to x4. Can I assume that means the game
will use multisampling? Is it worth overriding this via the game profile to
use either AA super sampling or multi-sampling?

DRS wrote:

I should have been more clear.

I can find four references to Trilinear optimisation in nHancer:

1. Optimisation: Trilinear Optimisation On (brilenear?)/Off.
2. Optimisation: Anisotropic Filter Optimisation On/Off
3. Optimisation: Anisotropic Sample Optimisatio On/Off
4. Compatibility: Force Mip maps None/Bilinear/Trilinear

No, only number one is a trilinear optimization. 2&3 are anisotropic
filtering optimizations. 4 forces mipmaps on those applications that do
not support mipmaps. However, in all 4, trilinear filtering algorithms
are potentially used.

If I read the notes correctly, setting System Performance to High Quality
disables 1, 2 & 3. Can I take your comments above to mean 1, 2 & 3 should
be off?

Setting to HQ can force no optimizations, but overriding, by checking
the override box, can turn the feature on. (Or off).

Off is better for IQ, on is worse. In order of damage to IQ: 1,2,3.
Trilinear optimization, the most damaging.

I have created a profile for MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 and set System
Performance to High Quality and Negative LOD to Clamp. This has effectively
eliminated the shimmering in the ground textures, so I am already pleased
with the results. I also have AF set to x4.

Excellent! that's the desired result, I hope your frame rates are
acceptable as well.


I am using cfs3config.exe to set AA to x4. Can I assume that means the game
will use multisampling? Is it worth overriding this via the game profile to
use either AA super sampling or multi-sampling?

I do not believe multi-sampling is an internal FSAA option in CFS3.
However, you can force both multi-sampling and gamma correct anti
aliasing for CFS3 and get great results on the aircraft and any rendered
cockpit textures.

Definitely try super sampling plus gamma as well, even if it's not
playable. You will notice that ground textures are improved, as are
volumetric objects, such as clouds. It also reduces what's left of
shimmer at all texture distances.

One tip that is counter intuitive as pertains to anisotropic filtering
levels, the 2x, 4x. 8x refers to how far the effect extends from your
viewpoint, not how many more samples it takes scene wide. So the level
of aniso should depend on how far you want to see in detail. I'm glad
you are using nhancer, it's a great tool.

"Mr.E Solved!" wrote in message


[...]

I have created a profile for MS Combat Flight Simulator 3 and set
System Performance to High Quality and Negative LOD to Clamp. This
has effectively eliminated the shimmering in the ground textures, so
I am already pleased with the results. I also have AF set to x4.

Excellent! that's the desired result, I hope your frame rates are
acceptable as well.

CFS3 defaults to Vsync on and my overclocked 7800GT seems happy enough
providing 70fps.

[...]

One tip that is counter intuitive as pertains to anisotropic filtering
levels, the 2x, 4x. 8x refers to how far the effect extends from your
viewpoint, not how many more samples it takes scene wide. So the level
of aniso should depend on how far you want to see in detail.

What I'm wary of is the caution that having AF turned too high can result in
cartoon-like effects.

I'm glad
you are using nhancer, it's a great tool.

I love nHancer and I wish I'd known about it a long time ago. It's always
bugged me that creating or modifying application profiles whether via the
classic Nvidia Control Panel or the new interface is so damned clumsy. I
even once applied to be on Nvidia's beta testing program simply so I'd have
a formal way of telling them it badly needs fixing.

Who ants to go through all that crap just for one friggin' game? No wonder
PC sales are losing to consoles.

"Garrot" wrote in message

Who ants to go through all that crap just for one friggin' game? No
wonder PC sales are losing to consoles.

How many console games are moddable? How many console game engines can be
reused to make new games? In this case, CFS3 suffered bad press when it was
first released because it was so resource hungry (like FS it has a dynamic
flight model engine that is leagues ahead of the arcade style flight games),
but since then hardware has improved and it has a dedicated modding
community that has extended the late-war European theatre original to
include the Battle of France, Battle of Britain, Korea, WWI and the new
Mediterranean theatre mod is within weeks of release. Can you say that of
any console game?