Treeburst155

"Clamp negative LOD bias" is not an option with the 67.66 drivers. That option is found in the 67.02 and 67.03 drivers IIRC. The poster at NVnews is of the opinion that the 67.66 drivers "clamp" automatically when AF is enabled. Riva Tuner does not provide the "clamp" option either. I'm running with a +5 LOD bias right now. I read that a positive LOD helps with the shimmers. All I know is that CM looks better with 67.66. I'm presently trying to determine if AF is indeed the reason for this. Experimenting now. Treeburst155 out.

I like to play scenarios with replay value. This means scenarios with NO designer provided surprises. It also means unrestrictive setup situations, ample zone sizes and no locked units. There's no need to play this type of scenario blind. If you want to walk into a designer provided ambush, play blind. If you want to get ambushed due to your own mistake, play scenarios that aren't "scripted". The latter can be played over and over again. Besides, is your opponent REALLY playing blind? Treeburst155 out.

Go to www.guru3d.com They have virtually every driver; but there are two 67.66. One is "official". The other is an individual's tweaked version of the driver. Treeburst155 out.

I've got some interesting news. Looking over Wolfe's NVnews forum I came across a post which said the 67.66 drivers stopped the "shimmers". I just downloaded and installed this beta driver...and it stopped the shimmers! AF is working again. No Riva-Tuner tweaks....just a later driver fixed the problem. You can get the driver at www.guru3d.com Be careful you don't get the third party driver by the same number. Get the "official" driver. One more thing, this driver does not make CM perfect with regard to shimmers, sparklies, dotted grids, etc.. It just makes it as good as I've ever seen it before, which is much better than what I've been getting with the 66.93/6600 GT combo. Good Luck and remember to uninstall the old drivers first. Treeburst155 out.

Yeah, this is the stuff I want to try out. Notice it talks about apps that "automatically" enable AF. I'm not sure CM falls into this category. Here I go. It's me and Riva Tuner. We're going to break something tonight. Treeburst155 out.

LOL! You got it, Redwolf. Now you're a 3D pro. CM takes a hit; but you'll be good to go in Silent Hunter III. Hehe....have you seen the screenshots of the water we'll be getting with these new cards? Wolfe, It's time for me to delve deeply into Riva Tuner. I hesitate to do it because I've really messed up my stuff in the past with those driver tweaker programs, including Riva Tuner. Treeburst155 out.

This link Wolfe posted above is discussing our problem EXACLTY IMO: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18219

KC, I use the terms "shimmering" and "jaggies" to mean different things. Shimmering for lack of AF, and jaggies for lack of FSAA. This topic is very difficult to discuss on an internet forum. It would be nice if all of us could sit down at the same computer and watch these effects. Thanks for the AF diagram, Redwolf! I'll try to get to that tonight. I nominate Wolfe as our 3D guru. Treeburst155 out.

I downloaded the latest Riva Tuner. There are no AF related tweaks. As for the shimmering, it's a general shimmering, not specifically trees. Roof tops show it well...and grids too when the camera is at an angle to these features. FSAA has never helped with these shimmers....only with the jaggies. Given the choice between FSAA and AF for CM, I would take the AF. Jaggies can be taken care of with high resolutions. High res helps a bit with the no-AF related shimmers; but not as much as having a functional AF feature. Redwolf, I don't know much about bilinear, trilinear, anisotropic stuff either. I do know which settings make CM look better however...and AF in CM really makes an improvement. Anything in the 66.93 drivers that says "optimization" means "optimized for performance at the expense of quality". I turn these things OFF. Treeburst155 out.

KC, I never owned a Geforce 3. I'm unsure whether AF was available with that card. Starting with the 40.XX series of drivers, AF worked with the GF4 Ti4200. Based on your post above, I suspect you have never seen CM with AF working. AF improves CM more than FSAA. The ULTIMATE CM video card setup is a GeForce 4 card with 66.93 drivers. That combo worked perfectly for me. So what do I do? Upgrade and break CM. Treeburst155 out.

I think Schrullenhaft hit the nail on the head in the ATI thread below. Redwolf, I would LOVE to paint some AF testing textures! What exactly would such textures look like? I'll send you my CM mod if you want; but you won't like it. The BEST way to see that AF is not working is to put in a card where it DOES work, like a GF4 Ti4200. With AF on, very little sparkly effect and nice solid grid. With AF off, sparkles and dotted grid. With 6600 GT, sparkles and broken grid regardless of what AF setting is applied. It's not the 66.93 drivers either. I say this because the very same drivers work fine with a Ti4200. It's the 6600 GT itself that is breaking AF, or the way the drivers interact with the 6600 GT. Because CM works perfectly with the GF4 Ti4200, there is no way this can be blamed on BFC. It's the vid card people taking shortcuts for performance, as Schrullenhaft suggests. Treeburst155 out.

I have never figured out how to post pictures to a forum. I used to link from here to my homepage; but now I can't even access that. I also do not have an FTP thingy installed. Besides, it really doesn't prove anything. What you should do is turn on full AF, fire up CM, get into a game with a large map,then take a screenshot. Repeat this entire process with AF off. Compare the two. There will be no difference. Make sure you quit and restart CM after any AF changes. Make sure you take the screenshots from the same point on the map, looking in the same direction. I used a VL as the camera point. I've already gotten used to the non-existent AF. No big deal. I can handle a little sparklies in the distance as I scroll around. It's just a shame that spending $200 on a vid card can make things worse for some apps. It's a fact of life though. CM is an OLD game. I have other older programs that don't work as well with the 6600 GT also. Treeburst155 out.

You know, that PBEM Helper really does have a nice set of features and functions. I could see it becoming indispensable once a person gets used to it. Treeburst155 out.

If AF is working at all in CM, it's only working at very close range. I use a heavy 20m grid with CM. With the Ti4200 the grid looks good (not broken into dotted lines) until way out towards the horizon. With the 6600 GT it looks bad at about 200 meters from the camera point with AF at 16x. I get the same results with the Ti4200 when I turn AF off. For purposes of CM, there is no AF with the 6600 GT and the 66.93 drivers. It just ain't there. FSAA works fine. Treeburst155 out.

We're having the same exact problem with new Nvidia cards (6600 GT). AF is non-functional. Don't buy Nvidia simply for AF in CM. It ain't there. Treeburst155 out.

I was wrong in my post above. I put my Ti4200 back in just for fun. The game looked better. What is apparently missing with the 6600 GT is the Anisotropic Filtering. We have none. It's obvious that FSAA is working, but things don't look quite up to par because there is no AF with the 6600 GT. The feature simply does not work with the new card and CM. On small maps, I hardly notice the missing AF; but on the larger ones, it's VERY noticeable. I might try going backwards with drivers. Treeburst155 out.

My CM looks fine now, as good as with the Ti4200. I just had to turn off all the "optimizations" in the "advanced settings". Treeburst155 out.

Check the "Show Advanced Settings" box and make sure all these things are OFF where you have that choice. Choose "trilinear" with "force mipmaps". The default settings all enhance performance at the expense of quality. This explains the inferior FSAA/AF I've noticed. Treeburst155 out.

I have FSAA and AF working now; but it doesn't look quite as good as before. Before: Ti4200 with 66.93 drivers After: 6600 GT with 66.93 drivers After changing FSAA/AF settings you must quit and relaunch CM for the changes to take affect. Treeburst155 out.

I'm not doing too well with my new 6600 GT (for Silent Hunter III). FSAA and AF do not work in CM with the 66.93 drivers. I'll be working on the problem this afternoon. Treeburst155 out.

I think the answer, at least in part, is because it's slighly daunting to set up. If this is the reason, there's plenty of help available! I for one would be happy to help anyone set up PBEMH. Of course another reason is that it's not available on the Mac. Not much we can do about that. GaJ. </font>

Alrighty then, I think Group 4 has a problem in PeterK. He has sent one file to me since the tourney began. Let's go, PeterK! One file per day per game will make the time limit if you start sending now. Treeburst155 out.

You're still placing importance on the impact point of the spotting round. I've never seen a strike go blind where LOS was NOT obstructed by something visible like smoke or dust. My keyholed spotter failed to see the spotting rounds; but his strike was still good. Seanachai, Roxy gets out of prison very soon. Don't encourage her. The wrath of Pengdom might be unleashed upon you. Treeburst155 out. [ February 15, 2005, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Treeburst155 ]

I think this is incorrect. My testing indicated that the impact point of spotting rounds had zero bearing on whether or not a strike was accurate. The only thing that matters is whether or not the FIRST spotting round is FIRED. It could hit in China and the strike would still be good. I'd love to see a PBEM file or saved game file that showed differently. Treeburst155 out.

Hmmm...I'd have to see this to believe it. I seem to recall a test I made in which a spotter had a keyhole view to the target point. He could not see but a very small area around the target point. The spotting rounds went out. They hit outside the spotter's keyhole view, and the strike was still good. I think you had a brief obstruction at the critical moment which soon cleared. This made the strike a blind strike. You then got spotting round #2 to fire because the obstruction cleared. Treeburst155 out.