really bad dithering....

[kv29]

Is SHIV rendered in 32bits? because the sky suffers from bad color dithering at sunrise and sunset, looks like in 16 bits or something, which reminds me of a similar problem in Operation Flashpoint that also caused flashing textures to occur here and there, which is exactly what happens with some ships. When you set OF to render in 32 bits (in the config menu), the dithering & flashing textures were gone.

[CaptainHaplo]

KV - what graphics card are you using? What graphical settings? I have yet to see this on either of the machines I have played SH4 on... Anytime there is a graphics oddity - always check to verify your running fairly current vid card drivers and such. Post some details and we will all try to help if we can.

[kv29]

Im using 6600 gt 128mb, color depth set to 32bits, and a 19" widescreen. perhaps the color rendering for this tipe of monitor is not good enough?

[Jmack]

i have a 7300 and the color transitions in really suck i get all these square and geometrical shapes instead of a soft color transition from bright to dark ...

[kv29]

thats what im getting too. the odd thing is that I don´t see such thing in other games....

[Jmack]

i have a 7300 gt 512mb its not a really good card but its not that bad also
so i guess its game related , i have seen the same in some screenshots
in my opinion SH3 is better in this

i also notices this uzing the binoculars or the uzo in the horizon line

[LukeFF]

I have always had this problem, whether it be SH3 or SH4. I run the game at 1600x1200, maximum details, yet the dithering has always been there, and it really looks bad.

[Ilpalazzo]

Is it possible for somebody to post a screenshot of what you guys are talking about?


"i have a 7300 and the color transitions in really suck i get all these square and geometrical shapes instead of a soft color transition from bright to dark ..."

Not sure if I'm thinking about the same thing but I can say that in both sh3 and 4 the sky is broken into annoying differently colored parts. Especially noticeable at night. I always thought I was just being picky, but I do wish the game would transition the color from day to night more naturally.

[Antrodemus]

I don't have access to my gaming PC right now, but I can confirm for certain that this dithering does in fact exist. It's very noticeable just before sunset/sunrise, when the graduation from zenith to horizon is most pronounced. It does give the impression of 16-bit rendering, even when colour palette is set to 32-bit.

[CaptainHaplo]

OK - first let me state I am NOT trying to start a war by saying this..... but did you notice that all of you are running Nvidia cards? I run an ATI and have never seen a screwy sunrise/sunset yet is sh4. And I run at 1024x768 (although I could go way higher). I am running a x1650 pro without a single hitch.

Now - before Nvidia only lovers/users go ballistic - both cards have issues on different games - I am just wondering if this is one that Nvidia has that ATI doesnt.

Anyone with a ATI card see this kind of thing?

[Canonicus]

Nope...not a issue or a hitch with me and I'm running a 8800 GTX.

Sunrises...sunsets....all look just fine :up:

The dither problem that has reared it's ugly head (for some),...lies elsewhere.

[panthercules]

This has always puzzled me too - I saw it in SH3 and again here in SH4 - I've seen it on several different cards over the years since SH3 came out - ATI 9800 Pro, nVidia 6800, ATI X800XL, and now on my nVidia 7950GT. Generally very good graphics, but the sky color/pattern rendering in both SH games really bites for some reason (sometimes really bad, sometimes barely noticeable, but always annoying). I've never been able to solve it despite lots of playing around with various driver settings and multitudes of driver and card updates and resolution changes.

Would be great if somebody could pin this down as to what's causing it.

[Canonicus]

Well I suspect that it's a by-product of the engine that runs both SH3 & 4

and that it is probably always present..through for some , like me, less so.

.....At least it's not so noticable to the point of being a distraction.

( I'm a little more worried about the jap tin can with the bone in her teeth bearing down on me... ready to depth charge my a** ....to be too concerned with how the frikkin sky is being rendered!)

[Jmack]

Is it possible for somebody to post a screenshot of what you guys are talking about?


"i have a 7300 and the color transitions in really suck i get all these square and geometrical shapes instead of a soft color transition from bright to dark ..."

Not sure if I'm thinking about the same thing but I can say that in both sh3 and 4 the sky is broken into annoying differently colored parts. Especially noticeable at night. I always thought I was just being picky, but I do wish the game would transition the color from day to night more naturally.

thats it ... but i dont have this in sh3 or if it is its not that visiblehttp://img375.imageshack.us/img375/5783/moon4ru.jpg

and in sh4 i have this ... its a random picture from in game from a couple of days back in this case if i turn the camera closer to the source of light ( sun or moon ) it gets worse

http://www.freewebs.com/jmackworks/sky.jpg
http://media.insidegamer.nl/dump/1111440354.jpg
again in sh3 ...

[Antrodemus]

OK - first let me state I am NOT trying to start a war by saying this..... but did you notice that all of you are running Nvidia cards? I run an ATI and have never seen a screwy sunrise/sunset yet is sh4. And I run at 1024x768 (although I could go way higher). I am running a x1650 pro without a single hitch.

Now - before Nvidia only lovers/users go ballistic - both cards have issues on different games - I am just wondering if this is one that Nvidia has that ATI doesnt.

Anyone with a ATI card see this kind of thing?

Funny you should say that just after my post, because I am using an ATi, X850 to be exact. :) I also suffer from the Sun = horrible disc problem, i.e., no glare.

[CaptainHaplo]

See - thats why I asked = no one had stated they used an ATI card with this issue. :D Honestly - other than the one SH4 pick where the sky looks kinda grainy - the rest looks good to me. If the grainy effect is what your talking about - it has something to do with post processing effects I believe - and there is a mod out there that removes the grainy effect while leaving the rest of the ppe eye candy. Cant remember who made the mod - but do a search in the mod forum and you guys should find it! Worth a try!

[kv29]

we are not talkin about the grainy effect. The second pic of Jmack shows EXACTLY what Im talking about.

The gradient transition is not smooth, it looks blocky as hell.

[Redwine]

I ahve similar issue, my clouds looks just very bad... they seems in 16 bits instead 32... i watch another users screenshots with very nice clouds textures, but i cant reach that level disregarding what settings i adjust.

My card is ATI.

[Antrodemus]

Here's an example of the problem - I've kept the screenie in its native non-compressed BMP format, so as to rule out JPG compression artifacting. I've RAR'd the file from 3.5MB down to 280kb.

http://www.kurgen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pix/sh4img.rar

The screenie was taken while I was looking almost directly at the zenith, and you can quite clearly see the concentric dithering bands, although it is far more obvious when panning the view around. It is nowhere near as intrusive in a static screenshot.

[AVGWarhawk]

I get much the same with my ATI X1300 and I had much the same with my GF6200. The color transition is not smooth. It is all jaggy blocks. It is quite odd.

[goldorak]

I have always had this problem, whether it be SH3 or SH4. I run the game at 1600x1200, maximum details, yet the dithering has always been there, and it really looks bad.

I'll bet you're using an nvidia 79xx or 88xx card.
ATI cards don't suffer from banding whereas Nvida post 68xx cards yes.
You can see what happened when I changed an ATI X800gto with an nvidia XFX 7900 GS XXX in dangerous waters.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=116628


Edit : I corrected the post.

[Antrodemus]

I'll bet you're using an nvidia 79xx or 88xx card.
ATI cards don't suffer from dithering whereas Nvida post 68xx cards yes.

If you read the previous 5 or 6 posts in this thread, you'll see that this is not the case! :know:

[goldorak]

If you read the previous 5 or 6 posts in this thread, you'll see that this is not the case! :know:

Yes it is.
Nivdia cards belonging to the 79xx or 88xx series don't have support for dithering.
Its a hardware issue, not a driver issue.
Thats why with 16 bit games you'll have banding.
Nvidia cards belong to generations 68xx and less have support for dithering.
If with thse cards you observe banding then its a driver issue, but the card is not at fault.
The same thing for ATI cards.
All ATI cards have dithering because many years ago they weren't capable of processing AA and 16 bit color at the same time.
Thats why they used always 24 bit internal processing and hence the abscence of banding even in 16 bit color games.
I hope this clears the issue. :know:

[Antrodemus]

But you said "ATI cards don't suffer from dithering" when mine clearly does... does that mean SHIV uses 16 bit rendering?

[goldorak]

But you said "ATI cards don't suffer from dithering" when mine clearly does... does that mean SHIV uses 16 bit rendering?

Excuse me, I meant that ATI cards don't suffer from banding. :oops:

Banding is the opposite of dithering.

ATI cards : support dithering and don't have banding
Nvidia cards : 79xx and 88xx have banding and don't support dithering
Nvidia cards: 68xx and less support dithering and don't have banding.

[Antrodemus]

Actually, it was me who confused matters initially, as I really meant that my game suffers from banding... as you can see in the screenie I posted.

[goldorak]

Actually, it was me who confused matters initially, as I really meant that my game suffers from banding... as you can see in the screenie I posted.


In fact I was asking myself why those screens were described as having dithering. ;)
Its good that we cleared the issue.
The title should be changed in really bad banding (because its this effect we're seeing not dithering).

[goldorak]

thats what im getting too. the odd thing is that I don´t see such thing in other games....

Its not dithering, its called banding.

[goldorak]

Is it possible for somebody to post a screenshot of what you guys are talking about?


"i have a 7300 and the color transitions in really suck i get all these square and geometrical shapes instead of a soft color transition from bright to dark ..."

Not sure if I'm thinking about the same thing but I can say that in both sh3 and 4 the sky is broken into annoying differently colored parts. Especially noticeable at night. I always thought I was just being picky, but I do wish the game would transition the color from day to night more naturally.


Its called banding, not dithering.

[panthercules]

Well, I don't know the difference (technically) between banding and dithering, but in both SH3 and SH4, with both ATI and nVidia cards, I have always had odd geographic/polygon artifacts and banding/dithering/color transition issues in the sky. It does look like I remember (from years and years ago) things would look when they were at very low color density (8 or 16 bit), but I haven't seen it in any game or application other than SH3/4 in years. As I mentioned in a post above, this has persisted across 4 separate cards (2 each ATI and nVidia) and innumerable driver updates, rollbacks, re-installs, settings tweaks, etc. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get a screenshot that really shows the effect nearly as pronounced as it is in the game. Tried again last night - results below (still doesn't really show the problems very well though):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH4skydefectsshot.jpg

[goldorak]

we are not talkin about the grainy effect. The second pic of Jmack shows EXACTLY what Im talking about.

The gradient transition is not smooth, it looks blocky as hell.

Exactly, this phenomenon is called banding not dithering. :know:

[goldorak]

Tried again last night - results below (still doesn't really show the problems very well though):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH4skydefectsshot.jpg

What you see is banding, there is no smooth transition in the color palette.
See you have different bands of blue, light blue, dark blue instead of having a nice smooth transition between dark blue and light blue ?

[panthercules]

Tried again last night - results below (still doesn't really show the problems very well though):

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y96/Cladean/SH4skydefectsshot.jpg

What you see is banding, there is no smooth transition in the color palette.
See you have different bands of blue, light blue, dark blue instead of having a nice smooth transition between dark blue and light blue ?

Yeah - that banding thing is discernable in the screenshot, though not as bad looking as it was in game. The polygon/artifact thing didn't really come out at all though as best I can tell.

So, now that we seem to have established that it is banding and not dithering, does anybody have a solution???

[goldorak]

So, now that we seem to have established that it is banding and not dithering, does anybody have a solution???

If you have an Nivida card 78xx, 79xx or newer you're out of luck.

[Seeadler]

SHIII/IV use for sky color a tga file like this
http://foto.arcor-online.net/palb/alben/91/3063991/1280_3230353833346233.jpg
You see one sky color tile is 128x128, and this 128x128 tile is mapped on the big sky model and stretched over the whole model surface. Small not smooth color transitions in this 128x128 tile became big while mapping this texture.

[kv29]

SHIII/IV use for sky color a tga file like this
You see one sky color tile is 128x128, and this 128x128 tile is mapped on the big sky model and stretched over the whole model surface. Small not smooth color transitions in this 128x128 tile became big while mapping this texture.

interestin. So what you are saying is that those "blocks" we are seeing come from pixels being expanded to cover the whole sky?

[kv29]

His res texture is 256x256, NOT big enough for a good quality gradient. But I suppose we cant change that.

[LukeFF]

You see one sky color tile is 128x128, and this 128x128 tile is mapped on the big sky model and stretched over the whole model surface. Small not smooth color transitions in this 128x128 tile became big while mapping this texture.

In that case, is it possible to use a larger size file? Something like 1024x1024 should help fix, or at the least, reduce this awful banding problem.

[Jmack]

ok ... so the problem is the nvidia cards ?
so why dont i have that in shIII ?

for what i understand its the same method in both games ?

[Ark]

So, now that we seem to have established that it is banding and not dithering, does anybody have a solution???
If you have an Nivida card 78xx, 79xx or newer you're out of luck.

Doesn't seem to happen in any other games. In fact, I don't notice it in SIV either. lol

Best videocard I have ever owned. :)

[kv29]

I believe resolution plays a key role here.
Using a high resolution like 1440 x 900 (my rig), and combined with a low resolution texture like 256x256 all makes a good recipe for a mediocre sky quality :down:

[Jmack]

im using that resolution ... can the original texture be of a higher resolution ? like 1024 ?

would it help ?

[LukeFF]

im using that resolution ... can the original texture be of a higher resolution ? like 1024 ?

would it help ?

I asked that back one page. ;) Hopefully the answer is "yes."

[goldorak]

im using that resolution ... can the original texture be of a higher resolution ? like 1024 ?

would it help ?

I asked that back one page. ;) Hopefully the answer is "yes."


You're right.
Since the hardware can't smooth the color palette the only way to go is to use more detailed textures.

[Seeadler]

im using that resolution ... can the original texture be of a higher resolution ? like 1024 ?
There there was a similar discussion here in the SHIII board, when we made the 16km Atmosphere Mod for SHIII. During the work on that mod I had tried to change the texture to 512x512 tiles, improve the transitions and import this texture into the environment Dat's.

The result was actually a much softer transition between the colors, but with the day/night cycle there came graphical distortions on the sky and it looked like as if the sky falls on your head. There must be more values in the Dat files and probably also hardcoded values which influences the rendering of the sky, but however in lack of time, I did not further pursued investigation on this.

[Ilpalazzo]

Wow this is all very interesting. So it's called banding. I have had this in both sh3 and 4 on a 6800gt, x800xl and x1900xt. So is there no configuration to fix this? It would have to be fixed by modding the game somehow?

I gotta say I would be very excited if somebody could fix this. It's always been such an eye sore.

[kv29]

given the fact that all sky textures are in the same tga file (I wonder why??), Im afraid we can´t change it UNLESS we find and tweak the file which uses that especific tga file to change the parameters (from 256x256 to 1024x1024). We simply cannot resize each sky texture to 1024 :88)

[Jmack]

hummm that is too bad i hope someone work this out

[kv29]

btw, using postprocessing filter makes it WORST...

[Seeadler]

We simply cannot resize each sky texture to 1024 :88)
In correction to my statement above, it is indeed possible to resize the sky environment texture because it is mapped to the skydome via pixel shader and a shader don't care about resolution size.

Just tested today a 2048x1024 sky texture without any glitches in my [WIP] environmental mod:cool:

[LukeFF]

We simply cannot resize each sky texture to 1024 :88) In correction to my statement above, it is indeed possible to resize the sky environment texture because it is mapped to the skydome via pixel shader and a shader don't care about resolution size.

Just tested today a 2048x1024 sky texture without any glitches in my [WIP] environmental mod:cool:

Good to hear that!

[tater]

I have that effect with an 8800 GTS.

[Ilpalazzo]

We simply cannot resize each sky texture to 1024 :88) In correction to my statement above, it is indeed possible to resize the sky environment texture because it is mapped to the skydome via pixel shader and a shader don't care about resolution size.

Just tested today a 2048x1024 sky texture without any glitches in my [WIP] environmental mod:cool:

LoL I just shouted ,"OH SNAP" and made myself look like an ass in front of some people. That's awesome man. I have been trying to ignore it lately, but the fact that I don't have sun glare makes the crap sky stand out more. I hope you can get some awesome stuff done.

edit. is there a thread for your wip? I see nothing.