Treeburst155 Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Have you tried using Rivatuner to see if one of the settings in there can turn off the optimizations? And the 6600GT can only do supersampling in 8xS mode (I think), so enabling Aniso and multi-sample AA won't help with shimmering in the trees. Aniso only helps when the surface is at an angle to the camera and multi-sample AA can't help with texture shimmer. - Chris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Good point. Trees in CM are always drawn facing precisely the observer, at least horizontally. Anisotronic filtering only corrects the connections between lines of mipmapped textures. that are drawn at an angle to the observer. If you have artifacts on trees it will probably only acidentially be fixed by AF. We are at the edge of my 3D knowledge here, for example I don't understand this aspect about the 3D settings in the NVidia preferences: you can force mipmapping, but if you force mipmapping you have to choose either bilinear or trilinear filtering. Isn't anisotropic filtering a replacement for bilinear and trilinear filtering, i.e. it would make perfect sense to force mipmapping and have neither bilinear nor trilinear filtering. I have all filtering optimizations turned off, BTW. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Wolfe: Have you tried using Rivatuner to see if one of the settings in there can turn off the optimizations? And the 6600GT can only do supersampling in 8xS mode (I think), so enabling Aniso and multi-sample AA won't help with shimmering in the trees. Aniso only helps when the surface is at an angle to the camera and multi-sample AA can't help with texture shimmer. - Chris 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Definitely not a 3D guru, but Bilinear and Trilinear exist mostly to affect edges between mip-mapped textures to eliminate the hard edges, whereas Aniso affects the texture itself. But applying either Bi- or Tri- also affects the number of samples taken when doing Aniso (I think), so it also affects the level of Aniso applied. The NVidia cards caught a lot of flack for doing what is termed "Brilinear" where the first mip-map receives trilinear, but all the rest receive only bilinear filtering. There's supposed to be a way to use full trilinear always (and lose a bit of speed), but I'm not sure how to set it as I'm still puttering along with my old Radeon 8500LE. Maybe asking over at NVNews.net would help? - Chris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Treeburst155: I would LOVE to paint some AF testing textures! What exactly would such textures look like? My understanding of all the filtering is not broad enough to be right on target but this is a good start: Take this pattern and use it as one of the road patterns in your CM. Then start looking and moving over a map which has some roads criss-crossed which are drawn with this pattern (the colored lines should be continuous long the road, not cross it zebra-style). When you convert this to your BMP you should probably keep the 256x256 resolution if you can, otherwise watch out for unsharpening when downscaling. Let me know how it goes. [ February 20, 2005, 01:11 PM: Message edited by: Redwolf ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Wolfe: The NVidia cards caught a lot of flack for doing what is termed "Brilinear" where the first mip-map receives trilinear, but all the rest receive only bilinear filtering. There's supposed to be a way to use full trilinear always (and lose a bit of speed), but I'm not sure how to set it as I'm still puttering along with my old Radeon 8500LE. Maybe asking over at NVNews.net would help? I think you mix up NVidia and ATI here, or maybe NVidia did it, too. Here's the FlaK ATI received lately for lying about their non-functional switch to turn this optimization off: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040603/index.html In any case, if you turn off all optimizations that bring speed for supposed barely visible quality degrations, then current NVidia drivers are supposed to actually give you exactly that with no optimizations turned on against your will. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Redwolf: I think you mix up NVidia and ATI here, or maybe NVidia did it, too. Here's the FlaK ATI received lately for lying about their non-functional switch to turn this optimization off: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040603/index.html In any case, if you turn off all optimizations that bring speed for supposed barely visible quality degrations, then current NVidia drivers are supposed to actually give you exactly that with no optimizations turned on against your will.I may or may not be applying the correct terminology to one manufacturer, but both do optimizations that reduce the quality of their texture filtering. The ATI adaptive filtering has been there for quite some time, and wasn't noticed by anyone for nearly a year after it was first implemented. I've been running my Radeon for a while and it looks very good (despite Tom's overblown assessment); the adaptive Aniso is not a problem for me (though I can't do Trilinear while Aniso is enabled - a different limitation of the R200 series, unrelated to the adaptive Aniso). Unfortunately if you do find games that show the optimizations, there's no way to turn them off. I'm not exactly sure what the NVidia cards are doing, but they've had "Brilinear" filtering for quite a while. In older drivers, this feature could be turned off, but I think in newer ones, you have to use a tool like Rivatuner to eliminate the optimizations (I don't know how, though). Edit: Can you play with LOD Bias? Maybe that would help: B3D Thread And recently, ATI apparently optimized their filters yet again (as I think you and others found out in CM), much to the detriment of image quality in older games; I still use older drivers. - Chris [ February 20, 2005, 01:37 PM: Message edited by: Wolfe ] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Actually that article has a lot of good stuff on filtering, one of the best short tutorials. This page is particularly interesting: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040603/ati_optimized-10.html Angle Optimization In Anisotropic Filtering Let's move to a new chapter in today's optimizations, those of adaptive, angle optimized anisotropic filtering. They have been in use for a long time in ATI cards. NVIDIA practically adopted this technology with the GeForce 6800. Here, too, it is a matter of saving computing time. A surface is thus anisotropically filtered with a varying factor depending on the angle to the viewer. I think this might be the explaination we are looking for. We observe that ATI cards and the GeForce 6x00 screw up filtering beginning at a certain distance. Distance as such makes no sense for reasons I outline above (in CM we have greater real-life distances than in other games, but on the 3D driver level it isn't). However, what we see in the greater distance is also on a different angle. In particular, looking down on a map from CM level view 4 or 5 will have the near sections at about 45 degress and the remote map areas at lower angles, and those are drawn with distortions (although no smudging as simple lack of AF should cause). Our next step might be to figure out at what angle the drivers are dropping quality. I hope my above test pattern is helpful for that. I'm in the office and can't access CM right now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazy Canuck Posted February 20, 2005 Author Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Treeburst155: .... 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.... Err, I don't see it in anything but the trees. I've got a scenario I'm playing that is covered with trees, the 'shimmering...jaggies' are evident, at all settings, even with the camera 'in the tree'. I can send anyone a turn if that will help. KC 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 This link Wolfe posted above is discussing our problem EXACLTY IMO: http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18219 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wolfe Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Originally posted by Redwolf: Actually that article has a lot of good stuff on filtering, one of the best short tutorials.It very well might be, but I gave up reading the articles at Tom's a long while ago. His "analysis" and that of his other contributors leaves a lot to be desired. After slogging through the umpteenth article where the written text had absolutely no relation to the performance numbers presented, I now just look at the pretty pictures and then move on. It saves lots of time and head-scratching BTW, a frequent and knowledgeable poster over at NVNews indicates that the NV40 series has a lot of FSAA modes that are apparently untapped in the Control Panel (I assume you use something like Rivatuner to get at them). NV40 AA Sample Patterns - Chris 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 From the bejond3d article: angle dependant AF style Yepp, sounds like it. So, in short I payed $440 to downgrade my picture quality in CM 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 20, 2005 Share Posted February 20, 2005 Did anybody try this option to see whether it fixes it: Added new Performance and Quality option—Negative LOD bias This control lets the user manually set negative LOD bias to "clamp" for applications that automatically enable anisotropic filtering. Applications sometimes use negative LOD bias to sharpen texture filtering. This sharpens the stationary image but introduces aliasing when the scene is in motion. Because anisotropic filtering provides texture sharpening without unwanted aliasing, it is desirable to clamp LOD bias when anisotropic filtering is enabled. When the user enables anisotropic filtering through the control panel, the control is automatically set to "Clamp". Should be in all drivers 67.02 and up. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Originally posted by Treeburst155: 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. Hm, no, it means this option is automatically turned on when you select any AF. Since CM looks the same with and without AF on these cards that can't be it. However, it would still be nice to see whether un-selecting this option while AF is on changes anything. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krazy Canuck Posted February 21, 2005 Author Share Posted February 21, 2005 There is no "official" 67.66 driver at Nvidia.com. :confused: KC 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Can you please check whether switching the above option to clamp negative LOD bias switches the problem on and off? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 "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. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 The shimmering always occurs at the top portion of the screen (furthest away). FSAA helps a great deal. AF in conjunction with FSAA works even better with 67.66. This was untrue with 66.93. Having said that, AF without FSAA doesn't seem to do much at all with 67.66. With these drivers I would rather have FSAA alone than AF alone; but AF definitely helps with FSAA already in action. These drivers make CM look better because AF is working. My framerate is reduced too. This is another good indicator that AF is working. Treeburst155 out. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted February 21, 2005 Share Posted February 21, 2005 Can somebody post the BMP number for street tiles in CMBB and CMAK so that I can install my test texture? (Sorry, CMMODs is down and I can't get the lists there) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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