Jump to content

Mac G4 Psycedelic Display


Recommended Posts

  • Replies 102
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Yes, let me post a little update here. Completely out of the blue, a rep. from the ATI Mac driver design team contacted me to let me know that they have a new pending driver release that he says ADDRESSES the pyschodelic color issue on Mac's with Radeon 8500-9000 and 9000 mobility chips.

We are currently running tests on this new driver but early tests seem very positive.

If anyone here has this problem and would like to try this driver (which I hasten to add is still a beta) then contact me via email and I will send you the file for you to test.

This does not change the OS-X incompatability issue, this is a 9.x driver only.

As soon as we have tested this driver some more and gotten the OK from ATI I will be making an announcement here and if allowed will host the file for local download.

Madmatt

[ December 12, 2003, 03:52 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OK then

If you have a Dual Boot TiBook that is mHz 867 or newer then you might be seeing the problem caused by the ATI driver when you play CMx in OS 9. The very last Dual boot mac TiBooks had this problem due to there video cards and the poorly supported ATI video driver.....

I regret I don't have a dual boot Mac TiBook at hand to test the new driver but I do have a copy of the beta driver. (just in case one comes my way!)

Thanks Matt!!!

:)

-tom w

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Yes, let me post a little update here. Completely out of the blue, a rep. from the ATI Mac driver design team contacted me to let me know that they have a new pending driver release that he says ADDRESSES the pyschodelic color issue on Mac's with Radeon 8500-9000 and 9000 mobility chips.

We are currently running tests on this new driver but early tests seem very positive.

If anyone here has this problem and would like to try this driver (which I hasten to add is still a beta) then contact me via email and I will send you the file for you to test.

This does not change the OS-X incompatability issue, this is a 9.x driver only.

As soon as we have tested this driver some more and gotten the OK from ATI I will be making an announcement here and if allowed will host the file for local download.

Madmatt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good news that - does it also address displaying fog?

Originally posted by Madmatt:

Yes, let me post a little update here. Completely out of the blue, a rep. from the ATI Mac driver design team contacted me to let me know that they have a new pending driver release that he says ADDRESSES the pyschodelic color issue on Mac's with Radeon 8500-9000 and 9000 mobility chips.

We are currently running tests on this new driver but early tests seem very positive.

If anyone here has this problem and would like to try this driver (which I hasten to add is still a beta) then contact me via email and I will send you the file for you to test.

This does not change the OS-X incompatability issue, this is a 9.x driver only.

As soon as we have tested this driver some more and gotten the OK from ATI I will be making an announcement here and if allowed will host the file for local download.

Madmatt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good News !!

It works on my 1 Mhz G4 TiBook with Radeon 9000 card. The graphics are now normal and playable. The only downside is smoke and dust looks low res and even my G3 400Mhz Pbook with 8 Mb VRAM has much better smoke/dust graphics. I have tested it on CMAK and CMBB but not CMBO yet.

Specs

1 GHz G4 dualboot Ti PB

15" monitor

1Gb RAM

Radeon 9000 card with 64Mb VRAM

Drive Partition

40G OSX 10.2.6/OS9.2

20G OS 9.2 where CMBO/CMBB/CMAK resides

I have had some problem which may be unrelated to the game and new driver in that when I try to reboot back to OSX, myn computer has trouble mounting my OSX drive. I have to try to restart multiple times and even unplug my USB hub before succeeding. This happen with when running OS9.2 from my OSX pertition and from a seperate OS9.2 partition. I suspect that it has to do with my USB hub as it finally mounted when I disconnected it. All my hardware tests showed a okay drive. Let me know if there are any similar problems.

Otherwise, this new driver seems to have fixed the psychedelic display problem. Thanks ATI and Battlefront.

I must commend Matt in taking the trouble to email me and other ATI 9000 owners with the new fix.

Cheers

Chee-Yan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by aka_tom_w:

here's the link:

http://142.55.231.199/demo/badmojo/index.htm

http://142.55.231.199/demo/badmojo/pages/Picture%205.htm

Picture%201.jpg

Picture%205.jpg

is that what the rest of you are seeing?

-tom w

Actually Tom, I see a bunch of flat gray panels on top of a yellow map with a yellow horizon. A few lines, mainly mauve, are interspersed throughout. Most humans are all gray; heavy guns are black. The control panel appears normal.

Here is a picture of what I see (sorry, but Yahoo! doesn't allow direct linking).

Yours looks great in comparison, eh?

I am running the same rig I used for CMBB -- P4 1.8G processor, Nvidia GeForce2 32MB vid card. This is the first time I have seen this problem.

I loaded up a previously saved game, and these graphics popped up. I aborted the game and got (essentially) a black screen, with the words "main menu" at the bottom center in the same size and font as the map labels. I clicked around, but got nothing else -- couldn't even exit the game. Finally hit ALT+F4 to end it.

Steve

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for the update!!!

That's GREAT news!

anyone else test this new driver yet!

-tom w

Originally posted by Don't Panic:

Good News !!

It works on my 1 Mhz G4 TiBook with Radeon 9000 card. The graphics are now normal and playable. The only downside is smoke and dust looks low res and even my G3 400Mhz Pbook with 8 Mb VRAM has much better smoke/dust graphics. I have tested it on CMAK and CMBB but not CMBO yet.

Specs

1 GHz G4 dualboot Ti PB

15" monitor

1Gb RAM

Radeon 9000 card with 64Mb VRAM

Drive Partition

40G OSX 10.2.6/OS9.2

20G OS 9.2 where CMBO/CMBB/CMAK resides

I have had some problem which may be unrelated to the game and new driver in that when I try to reboot back to OSX, myn computer has trouble mounting my OSX drive. I have to try to restart multiple times and even unplug my USB hub before succeeding. This happen with when running OS9.2 from my OSX pertition and from a seperate OS9.2 partition. I suspect that it has to do with my USB hub as it finally mounted when I disconnected it. All my hardware tests showed a okay drive. Let me know if there are any similar problems.

Otherwise, this new driver seems to have fixed the psychedelic display problem. Thanks ATI and Battlefront.

I must commend Matt in taking the trouble to email me and other ATI 9000 owners with the new fix.

Cheers

Chee-Yan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We sent the ATI guy some more info and all of your observations. Have not heard anything new yet from them yet. We are hoping to get them to correct the opaque smoke issue that these new drivers still do not address. Even with the smoke looking like the *fast and compatable version* overall these drivers are a huge step forward and possibly indicate that ATI now considers us a company and game worth properly supporting in their drivers...On the Mac side at least.

Soon as I hear anything more I will let you know.

Anyone else that would like a copy of these beta drivers to test, email me directly and I will send them to you.

Madmatt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ugh. I lost my copy of CMBB because I never thought I would use it again. This is ok though.

What I really need is concrete info with screenshots. I could never get CMBB to work with my GF4MX on my Dual 1ghz QS tower, but if this ATI driver fixes stuff, I will RUN to the store and pick up a 9000, then run to bigtime and buy YET ANOTHER copy of CMBB, run home and repartition a HD, reinstall OS9, install CMBB, apply some Just For Men Gel®, and then do my Robert Shaw impersonation from that movie where he rides around in a Tiger until the mailman arrives with the discs. Does this work for 9800 cards also? I assume so, but once burned twice shy.

Please please make sceenshots as big as possible, because I have to make a huge investment to make this happen, like $200 and a few hours of my time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tom, Yunfat,

I've been doing some of the testing on this for Matt and Charles. I'm happy to send you copies of the screenshots and comments.

Can you confirm that the email addresses in your profiles can accept sizeable attachments? Otherwise I might try posting them to my .Mac account.

[ December 18, 2003, 07:04 PM: Message edited by: gibsonm ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

great news

Check your e-mail

smile.gif

-tom w

Originally posted by gibsonm:

Tom, Yunfat,

I've been doing some of the testing on this for Matt and Charles. I'm happy to send you copies of the screenshots and comments.

Can you confirm that the email addresses in your profiles can accept sizeable attachments? Otherwise I might try posting them to my .Mac account.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Man I'm too excited - new drivers for Christmas - ahhhrggh - gotta go run around the house a bit and wake up the neighbours - too much! :cool: :D:D:D :eek: :cool: :D:D

Sorry guys - I'd given up on this and gone and bought CMAK for PC - hell is this just a ploy to get me to buy two copies!! - I don't actually care.

What does titanium smell like when it gets really hot!!?

Thanks so much Matt (Santa)

LS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by Madmatt:

We sent the ATI guy some more info and all of your observations. Have not heard anything new yet from them yet. We are hoping to get them to correct the opaque smoke issue that these new drivers still do not address. Even with the smoke looking like the *fast and compatable version* overall these drivers are a huge step forward and possibly indicate that ATI now considers us a company and game worth properly supporting in their drivers...On the Mac side at least.

Soon as I hear anything more I will let you know.

That's great. :cool: Now if we could just pry something out of nVidia before I get to be to old and decrepit to see what's on the screen...

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi,

Rather than waste bandwidth, have a look here:

Beta Driver pictures

Resolution was 1152 x 768 (millions of colours)

Note: All testing done with High Quality Smoke, Extreme Trees and show all paths / targets. I left everything else (unit size, bases, etc.) as is.

The only two issues I could find are:

1. You either get this sort of smoke / dust (using High Quality or Fast and Compatible) or none at all. Previously the smoke looked more realistic with vision blocked totally at the source but becoming less opaque towards the edges.

2. In the desert, pixelation showed up in the mid to far distance. I couldn't see it in the Italian scenarios (perhaps it is there but concealed in the more congested landscape).

As you can see its much better than where we were.

If you still want the originals (28 screenshots, between 700Kb and 1.7Mb each), email me directly.

[ December 19, 2003, 11:52 PM: Message edited by: gibsonm ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello folks,

Well thanks to Matt I have installed the beta drivers and can at last make my TiBook earn its keep.

I've run a few preliminary tests with CMBO and CMBB, and as has already been mentioned it's mostly good news :D

I've put up some pics here of a couple of issues I have come across - neither really srtops game play thankfully.

The first occurred in CMBB after an extended period of sleep. When I woke the TiBook I couldn't get any unit text etc to display, escaping to the desktop had no effect and the only solution was to quit and restart - this cured the problem.

The other issue concerned a few panels in CMBO - the keyboard panel and the aborting confirmation dialogues etc. These flicker severely (black and white), but only seemingly in snow, fog and night scenario. They are legible and again not too critical - more annoying if anything.

I'll post any other results as I carry on playing ... err testing ;)

LS

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Originally posted by gibsonm:

As you can see its much better than where we were.

Yes, that's not bad. Two things I noted; one is that your distant hills and skies are quite a bit sharper and higher rez than on my nVidia, and also your vehicles seem to look a little better close up, though we only really have the Lee to judge by.

Regarding the latter, I've been noticing something curious. The top portion of tanks, i.e., the turrets, look very sharp and clearly defined, but the further down you go the fuzzier the vehicle model gets. I was looking at a Sherman the other day from the 6 view with the close-up clicked a few times until it filled the screen and it was really striking. The top of the turret was sharply defined in all its detail but the rear deck was very fuzzy. A side view close up reveals this same tendency. The turret is well-redered, the upper hull less so and the driving and road wheels even less so. Curiously enough, the tracks though are very sharp indeed. Makes me wonder is there isn't some prioritizing designed into this downsampling.

Michael

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I have some more info from the ATI driver team. They looked over the remaining issues and see the problem with the dust and smoke rendering (alpha blending) but it looks like in order to code a fix in the drivers would break features in other shipping games.

This all stems from some changes they made between the Rage128/Radeon and the 8500/9000 class of chips as well as changes to their rendering code. They did confirm that it was the hardware that was doing something *wrong* and not CM's code. Charles did look at changing things on our end as well but changes on our end, much like on the driver side, would introduce a batch of new graphics problems.

So, what does that mean? Well basically that for all practical purposes the upcoming official Mac ATI driver extension won't fix anything in CM beyond what the beta driver(the one I have been passing around) fixes. That means no more pyschodelic colores yes but it also means the smoke and dust still look solid. Our ATI contact did say he was going to do some more testing but I wouldn't expect there to be any changes on this.

All in all, this is good news, but not the best news we were hoping for. Right now ATI is getting ready for a big Mac show so they could not give us an ETA on when the final ATI driver will be released. If anyone would like the beta driver, just email me and I will happily pass it on.

Once the driver goes official I will add a link to it and update the Troubleshooting guides.

Madmatt

[ January 05, 2004, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: Madmatt ]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Madmatt,

I have some colleagues who have gone to the 'states for the SFC Mac Expo (the show I'm assuming you are referring to).

Any point in them visiting the ATI booth and having a bleat?

Otherwise I'll think I'll play with the smoke /dust off. It is still modelled even though its not shown (right?) and then at least I can see my vehicles etc.

Thanks for your efforts anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes Mac Expo was what I think our ATI contact was referring to but since I don't think he is going I doubt the other ATI guys in attendance would have much to say (if anything) about the new driver.

As to the smoke and dust, yes turning them off in the graphics options only affects their display, the game itself and all the units are still affected by them normally.

Madmatt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...