x800 texture shimmering: FarCry video

not getting it to work

 

You also have to download a new devmode.lua file and replace your existing one before the cheats will work, including level unlock.

I'll try and dig up a link....

 

I get similar texture shimmering on a 8500, but then again that is an older card.

 

...and it forces bilinear filtering when using aniso.

 

Oooops sorry forgot about that one.

I can´t find a link to the file myself; if you haven´t found one in the meantime I´ll just upload the one I have when I get home.

 

Well, bilinear wouldn't cause shimmering at the mipmap boundaries, just a line, right? The shimmer would more likely be caused by ATi's 5-bit filtering or an excessive LoD, no?

BTW, I can clearly see the differences in the latest videos, and it would annoy me while playing.

 

YUCK!!!

Ok, I downloaded 'em a while ago then forgot to check them out...the shimmering don't take any looking for, it jumped out at me and I'd find it annoying as hell to play with it flickering like that.

You sure it's a result of trylinear though? It looks like it ain't applying aniso to all levels, did you try forcing it to with rTool and checking it again?

 

Yah - the latter more likely by far (not even sure the R200 even had the 5-bit optimisation).

 

It's not due to brilinear (alone). The main cause of the shimmering are additional texture stage optimizazion done on stage >0 and either LOD tweaking or a less aniso samples taken.


ot: i know how fox mulder must have been feeling. The truth is out there but nobody will believe you

 

Rather LOD differences and with a rather lucky guestimate lower than default "0" in some cases.

I wonder if that´s true if it´s really done on purpose or if it´s some sort of driver bug.

 

You can get the same type of shimmering (actually looks more like texture aliasing IIRC) in Unreal Tournament if you use ingame AF and an LOD <= 0 on a 9800XT. The workaround is to force trilinear AF through Radlinker/rTool but leave the LOD = 0. That does look like a bug that ATi will need to address or just allow the (average power) user a choice.

tEd, you sure you don't want to give up that registry setting just yet? I'd love to see DaveB or Rev have at it and see what they can find and uncover. Then the truth would truly be out there and set you free.

 

I'm sure it's not only LOD. If you do LOD lower 0 you may expect less performance right? Here it's the other way around you get a more performance. I can enable/disable the optimizations on will

 

...and to be responsible of another dozen filtering/optimization articles.

 

Ah yes, forgetting it's still forced on the FX cards, just not forced on the 6800's--for the moment.

Still, I figure examination of more-solid games would give us a better look at JUST the algorithm, since with newer games and less-mature drivers we could be seeing other interaction as well. (Or else the video should look at the X800 both times, just with "optimizations on/off" if tEd is willing to take a look... )

 

what you consider more solid games?

the mp2 vids show opt. on/off
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13037&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

 

What... the... heck?

The shimmering is identical on BOTH videos, very evident in both, are you people even watching both?

I have yet to see a serious piece of evidence on this AF issue which is disappointing considering the negative momentum rumors like this are causing around the net...

 

blind? Def. not identical by far but if you don't see the difference the better for you i guess

 

Heh. Yeah there's a big difference.

I guess Grestorn should check out plain trilinear to see if it's the same issue.

 

it's probably not as the optimization only applies when doing AF. I install farcry now to take alook at it for myself

 

As I said earlier, UT2003 seems a good place to start. It's not ancient, but it's widely popular and has gotten a lot of attention from the IHV's. Perhaps a good Q3-based engine as well to take a look at how OGL/D3D may compare. In time, it might also show if there are optimizations not just in a "general" case looking at scenes, but with individual games taken into account.

FarCry gets a lot of attention as one of the better-looking games to come out, and while it's good to examine I don't think it makes a good ground state. It has other issues interacting with ATi's and nVidia's drivers right now, so it's hard to tell which results might come from the algorithm alone, and what might be a side-issue.

Max Payne 2 is a good start, though. Though I'm sure people would also be much happier knowing what driver tweaking you used so they can verify and validate the findings on their own.

But more games, more info (FPS comparisons), and more situations are the only way to sort things out properly. I'm not a big fan of over-analyzing one circumstance--and of course everyone likes a diversity of control factors as well, so the testing doesn't feel boxed in.