View Full Version : New 9500 Pro won't FSAA!
covermye
14-Jan-2003, 23:59
I'm hopin' somebody here can give me an idea outisde of the normal "reinstall drivers" advice:
I just installed my new Radeo 9500 Pro tonight. System was almost a clean install. I had a Radeon 8500 LE in it until this one came... I didn't uninstall the 8500LE's drivers, just swapped cards and Windows XP recognized the new card as a 9500 Pro and installed the correct drivers.
After seeing things weren't working quite right WRT FSAA, I uninstalled the drivers and reinstalled with the disk that came with the card.
I have full control over Aniso and Vsync, but no matter what I choose for FSAA, nothing works! Even in an obvious scenario (640 x 480), there is absolutely NO AA going on, regardless of whether I choose 2x, 4x, or 6x.
Any advice?
OpenGL guy
15-Jan-2003, 00:44
I have full control over Aniso and Vsync, but no matter what I choose for FSAA, nothing works! Even in an obvious scenario (640 x 480), there is absolutely NO AA going on, regardless of whether I choose 2x, 4x, or 6x.
Any advice?
Make sure you are in 32-bit mode unless you are using the latest leaked drivers. Some applications just won't work with forced AA because of memory requirements. Try something that's known to work (3D Mark for example).
Randell
15-Jan-2003, 09:37
and reboot after switching modes - unfortunately that crept in as a requirement.
covermye
15-Jan-2003, 12:17
The first game I installed (embarassingly) was Counter-Strike. It's obvious there's no AA going on at all. I took a couple of screen shots at a purposely low resolution (800x600) and all edges are stairstepped.
3DMark 2001 has no trouble enabling any form (2x, 4x, or 6x) of AA and all three are obviously different looking and performing. No problem there.
So I installed another DX game: Ghost Recon. Again, no AA even when forced in drivers and computer is rebooted.
I don't know why I can't get the pictures to post, but below are a couple of links to them:
www.fratco.com/PHOTOS/de_inferno0000.jpg
www.fratco.com/PHOTOS/de_inferno0001.jpg
Randell
15-Jan-2003, 12:30
OK
counterstrike is 16 bit colour by default and the R300 chip doesnt do 16bit AA yet. You can force Counterstriek and half-life etc mods to run in 32 bit by adding-32bpp to the command line after the .exe.
Ghost Recon - it AA's on my 9700 - check your graphic options and ensure you are running in at least a 32bit colour with at least a 24bit z buffer which I think is an configurable option. Again if either are 16bit this will turn off AA.
covermye
15-Jan-2003, 13:31
Oops... I did forget the -32bpp option after the re-install. I'll try it this afternoon when I get home. Don't I look stupid?
Re: Ghost Recon, I'm almost sure I was running 1024x768, 32 bit, 24 bit Z-buffer. I'll double check settings again tonight to be sure.
Thanks for the advice though. I appreciate it...
-Chris
Yes that should take care of the issue. I installed a 9500pro on my dads PC and thats the first thing I did as even for an older fella, he likes to play CS once in awhile. Once you make that switch you should have AA...except where you see alpha textures.
Randell
15-Jan-2003, 21:48
Oops... I did forget the -32bpp option after the re-install. I'll try it this afternoon when I get home. Don't I look stupid?
Re: Ghost Recon, I'm almost sure I was running 1024x768, 32 bit, 24 bit Z-buffer. I'll double check settings again tonight to be sure.
Thanks for the advice though. I appreciate it...
-Chris
np I've looked stupid many a time :)
I've just checked GR and I'm on 1024x768, 32 bit, 24 bit Z-buffer and I do have AA. Just up it to 32bitZ-buffer and reboot and see what happens.
OpenGL guy
15-Jan-2003, 23:43
I've just checked GR and I'm on 1024x768, 32 bit, 24 bit Z-buffer and I do have AA. Just up it to 32bitZ-buffer and reboot and see what happens.
32-bit Z buffer shouldn't make a differnce for AA, but things will look better because of the increased Z precision.
Randell
16-Jan-2003, 07:59
Well yes 24 bit buffer should allow AA but it was worth a shot if it didnt :)
Is there a performance hit going 24 to 32?
covermye
16-Jan-2003, 12:12
The problem with GR is merely that I didn't reboot. The problem with CS was that I was in too big of a hurry to remember to add the -32bpp switch.
I played CS last night for a little while at 6X AA and max Aniso at 1024x768. It's still crappy CS, but was an impressive difference...
Thanks,
Chris
Randell
16-Jan-2003, 13:54
heh np - GR foxed me as well at first as this rebooting nonsense is a new issue.
OpenGL guy
16-Jan-2003, 18:19
heh np - GR foxed me as well at first as this rebooting nonsense is a new issue.
When did this pop up? I haven't seen this problem with any of the latest drivers/control panels.
Randell
16-Jan-2003, 20:57
DX9 and Cat 3's in D3D. Several threads at Rage3d too.
I don't mean to hijack your thread but you mentioned AA/FSAA strange'ness. Well I too am seeing goofy things. In fact, I sent ATI and Mythic (game developer) logs to see what is going on.
In short, when playing Dark Age of Camelot / Shrouded Isle (exp pack) my system will freeze up when I pan the camera view around. Happens every time. I was running in 32bit color mode, 1280x1024x32 and AA set to 6x and Anisotropic Filtering set to 8x and even 16x. This is on a 9500 Pro.
If I disable AA/FSAA it will work fine. Every time. I'm running the latest Cat certified 3.0 drivers with DX9. Again, official release. Win XP, SP1. Another machine with nvidia card runs great - lol.
Error after I reboot is:
szAppName : Drivers.Display szAppVer : 10024E450000021002
szModName : ati2dvag.dll szModVer : 6.14.1.6255 Offset : B42606EA
So far, ATI says it is my comp and a driver/dll issue. My issue is it runs fine until I enable AA!!!! I can reproduce anytime. In fact, when I enable it, I still see jaggies...
and reboot after switching modes - unfortunately that crept in as a requirement.
Not for me. Never was a requirement. I've seen this in a couple of threads @ Rage 3D referenced by maybe half-a-dozen people, but I've never had to reboot to change modes. There's no requirement for it--something's wrong somewhere in your system/driver installation if it's now "required" for you.
Randell
23-Jan-2003, 13:46
There's no requirement for it--something's wrong somewhere in your system/driver installation if it's now "required" for you.
you know Walt you said the exact same thing to anyone who complained of the OGL stutter bug, yet ATI admitted it was their fault and fixed it. It may be system dependant, it even be app/game dependant, but I'll be damned if I try every D3D title in my collection to find out. Maybe it is app dependant and you dont have a D3D title affected. If you never turn AA off or change AA modes then you would never notice.
One thing is for sure - as it is reproducable by a lot of people and exhibits the same behaviour, and isnt present in the Cat 2.4's or 2.5's I know what I'm blaming.
Tagrineth
23-Jan-2003, 15:12
Hmm... well now that I have my 9500Pro I have to say the DX9 demos are absolutely stunning :shock:
But the CAT 3.0's had some odd problems... Serious Sam couldn't start, and the display went straight to hell after it pre-crashed. And after restarting, all my desktop icons turned into large solid white squares.
Also the display went somewhat haywire when the CAT3's did their 'test' on first boot...
So I'm using CAT2.5, but I have to restart for AA settings anyway. Blarg.
Randell
23-Jan-2003, 15:20
SS works for me with Cat 3.0a's. Actually I find that several reboots are required after a Cat install on my 9700Pro before everything settles dwon. Most odd. Might be Smartgart.
About rebooting after AA change:
My GF2 needs all programs using DX to be shut down before new AA settings is used. This means that webbrowser that show flash contents needs to be shut down.
Could this be something similar. Is it that some people have some background program that inadvertedly locks up DX so it can't change AA mode. And the only time that program is shut down is when rebooting.
Tagrineth
23-Jan-2003, 20:09
About rebooting after AA change:
My GF2 needs all programs using DX to be shut down before new AA settings is used. This means that webbrowser that show flash contents needs to be shut down.
Could this be something similar. Is it that some people have some background program that inadvertedly locks up DX so it can't change AA mode. And the only time that program is shut down is when rebooting.
...as of Win98, Windows itself relies on DirectDraw.
Uhmm, oops, of course. So I have to rephrase that.
All programs using <some unknown subset of DX functions> needs to be shut down for AA settings in the drivers to take effect on my GF2.
Uhm, that wasn't the full truth either. The programs doesn't need to be restarted. I've seen that if you only have one "offending" program that uses D3D, and it restarts it's D3D stuff, then that's enough. The program doesn't have to be restarted. But it's enough to have Flash running in a web browser to lock the AA level. Does flash use D3D?
So an experiment that I would recomend for those that need to restart windows to enable AA changes, is to shut down as many programs as possible, and see if it helps.
Colourless
24-Jan-2003, 07:26
It's because flash uses DirectDraw, and until Direct3D 8, DirectDraw to get access to Direct3D surfaces. DX8 just hides all the icky DirectDraw stuff, but in the background it's still there.
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