Antialising and resolutions problem?

[Gurra]

Bringing up an old topic again regarding precisely the title of this post.

I was noticing some time ago that both CMAK and CMBB looked sort of very jaggy and much uglier than usual after a vid card upgrade and installation of new nvidia drivers. I thought it to be a driver issue, but when I rolled back to an earlier version which I knew had produced good looks, it did not make a difference; still ugly graphics, although I had the AA & Aniso settings cramped up to 16 and 16 respectively.

Then I realized, I have also upgraded to a new monitor with the native resolution of 1400 x 1050. And somewhere sometime someone here stated that the games do not support resolutions above 1280 x 1024.

Question: what exactly does that mean? Because the games ask me to accept 1400 x 1050 if I delete the preference file, thus implying that they are fine with the resolution. Or may it be so, that the very resolution sort of degrades the graphics into extremely fine and detailed grainyness?

Thanks beforehand for any useful help!

Gurra

[Der Alte Fritz]

The dialogue box is simply putting in the screen resolutions (various combinations of sizes) that the screen can support, it is down to you to select the one that looks the best. My screen does 1680 x 1050 but the first preference it gives me is for the 1280 x 1024 75 Hz then 60 Hz (which is the one I use) and then a variety of smaller and smaller resolutions. I would just experiment but stick to the Hz rate that your screen can support.

[Gurra]

Yeah, you are definitely right, and I realize that the actual resolution can´t change the graphics the way I am experiencing. If I go down from 1400 x 1050 to let´s say, 1280 x 1024, I get other graphical issues that I´m not happy with but those are entirely to do with textures looking funny and blurry due to small screen rez. So at this point, my suspicion is the graphics card. Could it really be? (Geforce 8800 GTS 512.)

[Gurra]

Following up my own post:

I tried two more old drivers yesterday, 182.50 and 182.06 of which at least the oldest used to be fine with a 7300 GT card, and there is no difference - still strange.

Now I am getting really interested in the case, so for the reason of trying to pinpoint this problem I will describe it more elaborate;

what I would call 'corruption' of graphical appearance only affects objects in the distance. So from ground view, things look good, but then as I choose view 2,3 4, the messier it gets. But isn´t that exactly what anitaliasing is for? Correcting distant objects?

The reason why this is important is because I want to know if my vidcard/driver fails in applying AA, or if it´s something else. More examples of bad graphics is horizontal/ vertical/diagonal lines being distorted and messy in the distance, plus what seems to be a quite stark contrast between light and dark pixels which can only be adjusted if setting the monitors contrast to values that are unusable in other circumstances.

I will no go ahead and update the driver for my monitor, adjust it and also try a different monitor to rule out the option of that very part being the culprit.

[Gurra]

After some extensive trials with various setups, I have reached the slightly sad conclusion that the culprit definitely is the video card. After several new tests in parallell on my wife´s computer with a 6600 GT card, the drivers produce different results. I don´t know if there is anyone here that still plays the CMX1 games and doing so with any kind newer card and so could verify this, but there can be no other explanation.

The same driver on the 6600 GT card gives me a maximum AA option of 8s, whereas on the 8800 GTS 512, it gives me from 2 to 16, with two quality modes at 8 and 16. A wild guess is that the newer cards' modes just isn´t really optimized for CMX1 games grahics.

Sorry for ranting about this. Hope anyone could prove me wrong!

Best regards

Gurra

[Der Alte Fritz]

Well I have used a MSI NX 8800 GT (Geforce 8800GT) for over a year now with no problems.

Not sure what settings do whay but looking at the display menu I have about 4 tabs for the GPU which tells me I am using PCIE x16 driver nv4_disp version 6.14.11.7824.

Can send you screen shots of the other settings if you think it would help.

The only distortion I get is at level 1 when the ground looks a bit blocky and fuzzy. Distance and from height no problems, email me if you want details.

cheers

[Gurra]

Hi, thanks for replying,

well, I wouldn´t know what to do about it anymore, except from plugging in my old video card. But, sure, if it´s not too much of a hassle, please send a few screen shots where you can get a good look at a few vehicles, trees, tree bases and buildings from third and fourth height. And let me know your video card settings.

thank you very much for your help

[Gurra]

Installed the 7300GT card and yes, back in business! There is a notable difference. So that´s that, I guess.

[Der Alte Fritz]

Hi I cannot get screen shots to come up so drop me a private message with your email and I will email them to you with the pictures of my NVIDIA settings.

cheers

[Der Alte Fritz]

Since my trial with the AA settings, my machine has started to crash when ever I run CMBB or CMAK so I may have to invest in a new card anyway!!!!! Rats!