420 Posted October 30, 2000 Share Posted October 30, 2000 I would like to hear from others out there who are using this card. I have a P2 400 w/128mb ram. I notice that the game is more jerky and I am also experiencing a bit of slowdown. I used to use a viper 550 and feel that the performance was better with the previous card. Any tips for tweaking the card settings to get the best performace? thanks! 420 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted October 30, 2000 Share Posted October 30, 2000 I have the following settings for my Radeon (but it is running on a PIII CopperMine 650) which can be accessed from the Display control panel > Settings tab > Advanced button > ATI Direct3D tab. Anti-alias is disabled (I'm not sure of Radeon's FSAA, but this could probably make a big difference in display speed). Vysnc is disabled (shouldn't make much of a difference to CM to my knowledge). Compress Textures is enabled. Z-Buffer is 16,24 (probably the default). I running the 3063 drivers which are BETA at the moment. I got them from the Rage3D site: ATI Radeon 3063 drivers for Win9x (in upper right hand corner of main page): http://www.rage3d.com/ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
420 Posted November 1, 2000 Author Share Posted November 1, 2000 thanks for the tips. i'm using the settings you recommended and things are running a bit smoother. one more thing though, do you find that the in-game text flickers, such as the kills/info box? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 1, 2000 Share Posted November 1, 2000 Actually the in-game text comes up fine for me. I haven't seen any display problems with it. I'm running at 1280 x 1024 and no FSAA (which would be the biggest culprit for text problems). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 10, 2000 Share Posted November 10, 2000 Hi fellow Radeon users, I just began to suspect that while the v3063/v7020 dvrs fix the flickering menu/text issue w/ CM, I don't seem to be getting any visual representation of fog. Have any of you seen visual fog effects (a misty veil) in using your Radeon? I haven't as yet, and I'm wondering why. I too am running a 32MB DDR Radeon w/ a PIII 650Mhz Coppermine CPU. If so, can you tell me your settings? Thanks. Old Fritz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 10, 2000 Share Posted November 10, 2000 OldFritz - unfortunately you're not going to see fog-table effects on the PC with ATI products (they seem to work on the Mac however). ATI hasn't ever supported fog-table/fog-table emulation under DirectX. They instead support vertex-based fog (which BTS didn't use in CM since a majority of the cards out there didn't support it). Until ATI decides to code in fog-table emulation into their PC drivers you will not be seeing fog in CMBO. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 11, 2000 Share Posted November 11, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: OldFritz - unfortunately you're not going to see fog-table effects on the PC with ATI products (they seem to work on the Mac however). ATI hasn't ever supported fog-table/fog-table emulation under DirectX. ... Until ATI decides to code in fog-table emulation into their PC drivers you will not be seeing fog in CMBO.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Very strange, I recently explored the "fog table" settings of the Radeon and found that in registry settings, you can enable the following settings: "ZFogEnable"="1" "WFogEnable"="1" "TableFogEnable"="1" Now, this suggests to me that "fog table effects" should work b/c the card supports and responds to them. Unless, that is, this is not what you are talking about. Can you elaborate on why these settings are invalid? They work to enable fog table effects for other titles, but still not on CM, according to my experiments w/ drivers that do it on other applications. A confused Old Fritz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 11, 2000 Share Posted November 11, 2000 OldFritz - under what subkey did you find those settings in the registry ? I'm not currently sitting at the machine that has the Radeon in it, so I can't look at them myself. It's possible that these settings pertain to OpenGL. If they do pertain to DirectX, then there is still work that ATI needs to do to the drivers. Looking at ATI's website I've seen acknowledgement that other games have problems with fog tables (under the Rage 128 series - there isn't a whole lot listed about the Radeon as of yet). If the Radeon drivers are intended to support Fog Tables (or emulation of them), then the drivers aren't perfected yet. I've been running 3063 drivers with my Radeon, which cleared up the screen that had gone completely gray with Weather effects enabled in CM. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 12, 2000 Share Posted November 12, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: OldFritz - under what subkey did you find those settings in the registry ? I'm not currently sitting at the machine that has the Radeon in it, so I can't look at them myself. It's possible that these settings pertain to OpenGL. If they do pertain to DirectX, then there is still work that ATI needs to do to the drivers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Schrullenhaft, Here is the info you requested: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ATI Technologies\Driver\0000\atidxhal] "DisableHierarchicalZ"="0" "EnableWaitUntilIdxTriList2"="1" "Vsync"="0" "AntiAlias"="0" "ZFormats"="15" "ExportCompressedTex"="1" "DisableHyperZ"="0" "FastZClearEnabled"="1" "ZFogEnable"="1" "WFogEnable"="1" "TableFogEnable"="1" Personally, I don't know if this pertains to Open GL or DirX. However, the settings were done pursuant to a 3rd party program ("RadTweak") that has successfully introduced fog table effects in other games. I'm currently running the v7020 beta drivers obtained from the Rage3D site. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 12, 2000 Share Posted November 12, 2000 Further to the point, Schrullenhaft, I just d/l'd and ran 3DMark2000. According to its DirX system info on the Radeon DDR, it says all of the following: Table Fog, Range Fog, and W-Fog are all "supported features" of the card. So. Why is it not appearing in CM? I'm not sure why 3DMark2000 can tell, but CM cannot. (Try it yourself; make sure you have them enabled, though.) Old Fritz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted November 12, 2000 Share Posted November 12, 2000 OldFritz - the subkey you put up is (according to the text in the key) related to DirectX. Are these settings there when you install the v.7020 drivers, but before you run/install RadTweak ? There may be hooks in the driver code for these registry settings (which ATI may not put in by default) to reference. But there's a good chance that there is no code to be called that will actually perform fog-table emulation. When 3DMark 2000 tells you that a driver is capable of a certain feature it usually gets the info by querying the driver itself. The driver is telling 3DMark that it supports those fog settings (in other words, the support for a feature isn't generally being verified by 3DMark). Since 3063/7020 is BETA, there is a possibility that ATI intends to support fog-table emulation at some point in the future. If the fog-table emulation code is actually there then there may be something in the way that CM uses fog-tables that the Radeon can't handle. Remember that there are two types of fog available under DirectX - table-based fog and vertex based fog. Most new games out there are utilizing vertex-based fog (since many of them are aiming for high-end cards now). You would most likely have to go back to the game design company to find out which type a game may be using. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 13, 2000 Share Posted November 13, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Schrullenhaft: OldFritz - the subkey you put up is (according to the text in the key) related to DirectX. Are these settings there when you install the v.7020 drivers, but before you run/install RadTweak ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> No. They are there afterward. They are placed there by RadTweak. Well, whatever. I just wanted to establish that ATi and Radeon do support fog table effects. If CM uses them in a way Radeon cannot understand, then I don't understand and it's beyond me. That may not be saying much , but there it is. So, while we may not be seeing fog in CM w/ a Radeon, it isn't b/c the card doesn't support both vertex and fog table fog effects (Radeon supports both). Cheers. Old Fritz [This message has been edited by OldFritz (edited 11-12-2000).] 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 15, 2000 Share Posted November 15, 2000 BTTT... Well, I suppose the inference wasn't direct enough. What my last post meant to imply was that given that Radeon (PC and Mac) are capable of fog table effects, can BTS see if there are any code modifications that can enable it on these cards (or at least explain why it isn't showing up even when the effects are enabled)? Old Fritz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted November 15, 2000 Share Posted November 15, 2000 It's not as simple as that OldFritz. Combat Mission is fully DirectX compliant and follows all the rules in regards to Fog Table display as set down in the Direct X SDK. However, many drivers do NOT do the same and cut corners for performance sake. When they do this, software that DID follow the rules suddenly doesn't work as well and that's what you are seeing, or not as the case may be. We know better than to throw a potential workaround to a driver problem that will eventually be resolved by the manufactorer. SInce we done not code for specific chipsets any potential "fix" would also have the potential of breaking other game elements and that's not good either. One last thing. Just the prescence of a registory key does not mean that the feature is yet supported or even active. Have a look at the latest Nvidia drivers and they add registry keys for a chipset that doesnt even exist yet! On the other hand, it could mean that they plan to do this in the near future. Madmatt 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldFritz Posted November 16, 2000 Share Posted November 16, 2000 Thanks Madmatt! That's pretty much what I wanted to know. That does make some sense to me now. I may have to pursue this w/ the other party... <g> 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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