Sparkly Video

[jhdeerslayer]

For a lack of a better word... New CMBO install with a Nvidia Ti200 and XP (2X FSAA) and the terrain has a sparkly look and sparkles real good when panning. This didn't occur on my old system. The CM 3D screens don't have the dark contrast, non-shiny, that I have with my old system. I tried various contrast and brightness adjustments but seems something else more fundamental.

Any ideas?

[Schrullenhaft]

Have you tried the Shift-G within CMBO itself to adjust the gamma ? What was your previous video card ? There can be very large differences of the default gamma between various video chips and often between the drivers for the same video chip.

When you say 'sparkles' are you talking little dots of light (white, yellow or blue-ish in color) at random places all over the screen ?

Other (non-CM) players have had this particular problem here's a post from the Guru 3D forum about this particular problem. One person says that they solved it by going back to DirectX 8.0a (which isn't an option with XP). Others mention flashing the video card BIOS to a newer version. To find your current BIOS version (if you can't catch it when you first turn on your computer) go to the Display control panel > Settings tab > Advanced... button > (and assuming that you have a newer driver than the 12.41 that comes with WinXP) GeForce3 Ti200 tab > near the top should be info about your card and it's BIOS version. Guru3D has links to BIOS updates, either Reference (which you may need to use) or select OEM's.

However the most likely cause may be that your video chip is overheating a little. Some people suggest replacing the heatsink/fans for the video cards while others will suggest possibly more case cooling to move more air over the video card. If your system is very crowded you may want to move any PCI cards that are right next to your video card to another PCI slot to give the cooling solution on your video card a little more space. However this can lead to configuration headaches depending on which PCI card you have to move (Windows will redetect it - which may cause some definite headaches loading drivers and possibly changing other settings or running into other possible problems).

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: Schrullenhaft ]</p>

[BeWary]

Are you talking about the pixel sparkling when you scroll around the map? Or some sort of corruption like Schrull was mentioning? I have a GeForce 2 card and get some sparkling when scrolling around the map, but this is not a corruption issue. If this is what you're seeing, it may just be that your last video card worked differently and didn't produce those sparkles. Did you have a Voodoo card before perhaps? I seem to remember the 3Dfx card I had handled some things like this better than the NVidia cards I've used.

I wouldn't suggest any drastic measures unless your video is actually corrupted. First try updating your video drivers (I think 23.10 is the current recommended version to use for CM. Check the Battlefront news page for specifics). Also look at the brightness and contrast settings available to you in Display->Settings->Advanced->... under Windows.

Do other games exhibit strange behavior too?

BeWary

[jhdeerslayer]

Thanks guys for the response. The Alt-G is something I totally forgot about and it contributed greatly to getting rid of my poorly described "sparkly" video. I still get sparkling when panning but I assume that is "normal" and not a major concern. No corruption in video just a different affect then my old Slealth 540 card that was choking on CM big time.

One item of confusion on the Video Driver revision numbers. I now have 2.1.8.3 (yes three decimal points) for this Dell supplied (not sure who actually makes the card - need to open the system I suppose) system. I downloaded this from the MS Windows XP update site [along with many other patches - ]. When you guys refer to a revision I assume it's the Nvidia revision? And not the card manufacturer which in theory could be different? So I don't know I suppose what actual Nvidia revision I have. If I go to Dell's download spot for this card there is another revision all together ! Hard to tell what you are getting Just curious on your experience.

Thanks again for the "sparkly" video help.

[Schrullenhaft]

Yeah, some manufacturer's futz around with the version numbers some times. In my experience it has become fairly rare nowadays for most OEM's to actually modify the drivers in any meaningful way (other than to put their name somewhere in them). Sometimes some OEM's will delete a control panel and/or tab or make some other 'presentation modification', but will rarely touch the core driver itself. Many OEM's sometimes release one driver based on either a WHQL certified or what they may consider 'stable' driver and may not update too much more beyond that.

You're drivers are most likely the 21.83's. If you look at the Display control panel tab that actually names your card you'll probably see a longer number like 4.13.01.2280 (this breaks down to a driver for Win9x that is version 22.80). A number (but definitely not all) manufacturers have converted their numbering scheme to Microsoft's numbering recommendatation 4.xx.xx.. for Windows 9x, 5.xx.xx... for Windows 2000 and 6.xx.xx... for Windows XP. Typically the driver version may be referenced as the last set of numbers in the numbering scheme, but there are variations on that too.

[jhdeerslayer]

Thanks Schrullenhaft. I'll check that tonight. I thought maybe it wasn't coincidence that the Windows XP driver update I loaded from Microsofts's XP update site was 2.1.8.3 instead of the 21.83 mentioned. Probably one in the same thing.

Side note: With XP/Nvidia I consistently have to do Alt-Tab (Esc does not work) during the save file screen of PBEM's to see anything. About 50% of the time when I enter the 3D screen to play I have to do Esc for bad graphics. Not always. This is already pretty well known just passing on my experience. New system rocks so can't complain much.