Sun glare

[Steel_Tomb]

I was messing around on SHIV today and I noticed that I don't get sun glare, just a sun but with no glare...is there a way to fix this or is it a problem with the 8800's?

[Fish40]

As far as I know, (or thought) this was an ATI issue. I suffer from it myself, obviously since I use ATI. The 8800 is Nvidia, no? I've seen lots of screenies of beautiful sunsets from Nvidia users. It may be a graphics setting you need to tick on, or something simple like that. I wish I could help alittle more, but as I stated befor, I'm an ATI user, and I'm not familiar with the Nvidia control panel, or settings.

[Steel_Tomb]

Thats what I thought I thought it was just ATI cards that didn't get the sun glare... Could it be because of the AA and AF settings I've got selected in the nvidia control panel? If someone with an 8800 series card could give me some help would be great thanks :).

[Major Johnson]

Oh man, and I'm thinking of buying an ATI card to replace my piece of junk NVIDIA 7800GS! Should I stick with the NVIDIA line?? 7950GT? I have to stick with AGP, I'm not upgrading my mother board, it's less than 2 yrs old.

[Steel_Tomb]

bump...any nvidia users out there who can shed some light on the problem?

[AVGWarhawk]

I think most of the ATI cards problem is the bloom around the sun. Although I have the bloom with my ATI card there is no glare. The sun looks like a disc and there is a aura around it but it is not blended very well.

[EAGLE_01]

Oh man, and I'm thinking of buying an ATI card to replace my piece of junk NVIDIA 7800GS! Should I stick with the NVIDIA line?? 7950GT? I have to stick with AGP, I'm not upgrading my mother board, it's less than 2 yrs old.

Absolutely. AMD makes great processors, and since ATI is with them now, maybe their cards will get better in the future, but if I were you...
I know my next card will be NV. This is the first ATI card I've had since before 3DFX went out, and I won't buy another one.:down:

[BlackSpot]

I think this is all swings and round-a-bouts.:D
Wasn't there a problem with the sea spray graphics on SHIII with NVidia cards? (Which I think was resolved)

[Fish40]

The really odd thing is that in SH3, the sunglare effect/bloom is overkill. For some reason since I upgraded my 9800pro for an X1650pro, the sunglare effect in SH3 is literally blinding. Before, if you looked at the sun, you would see the "disc" shape of the sun along with the rays of sunlight emmanating from the sun. Now all I have (unless the sun is right on the horizon) is a blinding light. In SH4, all I get is a dull disc, with an aura glare effect.

[BlackSpot]

Ok, now I KNOW for sure this is a hardware issue. I've been running on an ATI X1800XT and I haven't seen any sun glare. Today I fitted a new ATI Radeon 2900XT 1024MB (nice card BTW). This was PRE 1.3 patch running on the same 7.6 drivers the X1800 was on. Low and behold, sun glare! So there you have it - it' a hardware issue.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

Ok, now I KNOW for sure this is a hardware issue. I've been running on an ATI X1800XT and I haven't seen any sun glare. Today I fitted a new ATI Radeon 2900XT 1024MB (nice card BTW). This was PRE 1.3 patch running on the same 7.6 drivers the X1800 was on. Low and behold, sun glare! So there you have it - it' a hardware issue.

seer...?see...? i said here it's hardware and not a driver issue, but would anyone listen? nooooooooo. now i can say i told ya so:p :shifty:

[BlackSpot]

Nothing worse than a gloater:p Where's you dignity, man? :o

[Capt. Shark Bait]

Nothing worse than a gloater:p Where's you dignity, man? :o

it's somewhere:smug: , just havn't found it yet:p

[DRS56]

I have a 8800GTS 640 and don't get sun glare in SH 3 or SH 4. Sky seems ok but just a pale disk for sun. To bad, really miss it a sunset. Worked ok on my ATI 850xt.

[EAGLE_01]

Ok, now I KNOW for sure this is a hardware issue. I've been running on an ATI X1800XT and I haven't seen any sun glare. Today I fitted a new ATI Radeon 2900XT 1024MB (nice card BTW). This was PRE 1.3 patch running on the same 7.6 drivers the X1800 was on. Low and behold, sun glare! So there you have it - it' a hardware issue.

Yep.. cause AMD got into it! AMD ROCKS:rock:

I'm a dollar-limited person, so I'm runnin on an old ATI 1050 series card, and I get playable framerates, and decent visuals, w/o Volumetrics, but it's good to see ATI is catching up..

And yes, there was a NVIDIA issue when SH3 came out, and thats what made me opt for ATI when I got this card! Figures:roll:

[Antrodemus]

I have a 8800GTS 640 and don't get sun glare in SH 3 or SH 4. Sky seems ok but just a pale disk for sun. To bad, really miss it a sunset. Worked ok on my ATI 850xt.

Which is totally bizarre... I'm using an X850XT and I've never had the sun-glare effect. :cry:

[CaptainCox]

Running a EVGA 8800GTX latest NV drivers Vista
Did a clean install of Vista last week and behold I SEE THE LIGHT! (did not have it before, dont ask me why)

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a138/CaptainCox/Glare3.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a138/CaptainCox/glare2.jpg

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a138/CaptainCox/glare1.jpg

[Chuck B.]

Captain Cox,

Looks like Anti-Aliasing i(AA) s not active for you (at least the screenshots looks it it). For me it seems that enabling AA on my 8800GTX removes the sun glare, but I have to check when I get home. While I would love to have the sun glare, I can't live without AA ...

Chuck

[CaptainCox]

Ahhhhhh, that could very well be so! I actually did not think about that :p
I will switch on the AA and check.

[Edwannawonga]

I'm using an 8800GTS and I can confirm that when you force-enable AA you lose the glare :damn:. So now I have jaggies and nice sunsets :cry:

[CaptainCox]

Yep that was it :p I dont know what i prefer really....sun looks dam nice but without AA.

[Chuck B.]

Yeah, it's a pity that you can't have both. But while I really love the sun glare, I cannot bear the jaggies I have without AA, so it's AA for me (I think it was the same in SH3, correct?)

[Edwannawonga]

I have SHIII with GWX mod (who doesn't? :rock: ) and you can have your cake and eat it (AA + Sun glare).

[Marko_Ramius]

Edwannawonga --> which graphic card do you have and which driver ?


I use AA in SH3GWX and in SH4 and i don't have sun glare on both :cry:

[Edwannawonga]

Edwannawonga --> which graphic card do you have and which driver ?


I use AA in SH3GWX and in SH4 and i don't have sun glare on both :cry:

I'm using the 8800GTS, WinXP with the 158.22 Forceware drivers.

[CaptainCox]

Get "nHancer" here
http://www.nhancer.com/
With this little app you can switch on the AA and check what it does for you.
This was recomended to me by Canonicus:up:

[Edwannawonga]

Thanks Cap'nCox! Answer to my prayers :)

[Marko_Ramius]

Well, i'm using Wind XP , 8800GTS and 158.22 and no Sun glare :hmm:


Before that i had a X1900XT and i had no sun glare :damn:


The driver are set like this :

AA : X16
AF : X16
Texture filtering : high quality ( with all optimizations off )
Gamma AA : on ( i don't really understand this one :hmm:)
Force mipmap : None
Vertical sync : application controled


Not really a big issue to me, but i saw some beautiful sun screen that i whish to have too ..

[Canonicus]

Well, i'm using Wind XP , 8800GTS and 158.22 and no Sun glare :hmm:


Before that i had a X1900XT and i had no sun glare :damn:


The driver are set like this :

AA : X16
AF : X16
Texture filtering : high quality ( with all optimizations off )
Gamma AA : on ( i don't really understand this one :hmm:)
Force mipmap : None
Vertical sync : application controled


Not really a big issue to me, but i saw some beautiful sun screen that i whish to have too ..

I was tweaking my Nvidia settings awhile back and turned on the Gamma AA just to see what the effect would be, if any, to in-game visual quality.

Didn't really notice any improvement....but guess what?....NO SUN GLARE!...

Also... noticed that HIGH AA settings makes it go away too!...so back off the AA a little.
(I get the sun glare effect and I'm using AA )

Try this....
Turn the Gamma AA OFF and set AA to 8
(Running AA over 8 is a waste anyway unless your playing at a real low res.)

The sun halo effect should return as will the gorgeous sun rises and sunsets.

I'm running dual 8800GTX's in SLI and 158.24 for Vista 32 and using the nhancer app. (A MUST for all Nvidia users...imo.)

Hope this helps...Cheers!

[Deamon]

The users of ATI 1X00 cards read this:
http://www.stevestreeting.com/index.php?s=tomfoolery&searchbutton=Go%21

[Marko_Ramius]

Thanks Canonicus for the tips.

I made a few test, and i have sunglare on both SH3 and 4. At the only condition to not make the AA no more than X4.


I was using X16 cause IMHO, the AA on Nvidia cards is a bit less good than the ati cards .. At last on SH3/4 game. To have the quality of X4 on Ati, i must use at last X8 on Nvidia. This is some kind of personal taste and view, though.

[XanderF]

The users of ATI 1X00 cards read this:
http://www.stevestreeting.com/index.php?s=tomfoolery&searchbutton=Go%21

Yeah, you did read that, right?

As he notes:

ATI will tell you that instead they support the ‘more flexible’ Render-to-vertex-buffer approach (R2VB), where you use a separate pass to render to a texture, then reinterpret this buffer area as a vertex stream.

What he doesn't mention (or, rather, mentions in passing) is that the "vertex texture fetch" he is making such a big deal about the lack of support in is optional in DX9. ATI does not, in fact, fall short of the DX9 spec with the X1K cards. It just fails to support a specific feature in the way that nVidia does. (?And then he gripes about how awful it is that ATI is supporting the alternative before DX10 - which does require the very technique ATI used?)

Which, btw, is the reason the 'higher quality' water options in IL2 work for nVidia and not ATI. And, heck, might well be why the sun effects in Sh4 act as they do for ATI cards - who knows?

[Capt. Shark Bait]

i was lookin at the sun the other day, a very quick glance, and i saw a disc and no glare on it, but there was some surrounding it but not much. :hmm: so, i'm thinkin that mayhap the no glare is the more accurate:-?

[Misfit138]

Yet again I'm borrowing a thread just a little ;)

Ok, so I reported this sun glare problem to ATI and they finally requested more info. Sent them dxdiag report and the report you'll get with atiiprxx

Has anybody else reported this same problem to ATI?

[Misfit138]

Status update

ATI/AMD customer care after a while adviced me to give direct feedback to theirs driver team which I did. They couldn't help me with this issue and suggested to do this because it might be a driver related issue. Let's just hope it is!

I guess all we can do now is to wait and hope they get this fixed althought the missing sun glare isn't such a big deal after all

[Reaves]

Oh man, and I'm thinking of buying an ATI card to replace my piece of junk NVIDIA 7800GS! Should I stick with the NVIDIA line?? 7950GT? I have to stick with AGP, I'm not upgrading my mother board, it's less than 2 yrs old.

There is very little point in upgrading your video card to another AGP, the differance will not be worth the cost.

A new motherboard is not the expensive part of your PC, it's the Processor, memory (especially the new DDR3 ram) and most importantly your Graphics card. (Easily the most expensive and important part for a gamer.) Spend the extra and your gaming experiance will benefit.

If you want to play new games you're going to have to look at getting PCI-E... You are better waiting for your new rig mate.

[cali03boss]

I'm using an 8800GTS 640 and I don't know what any of you are talking about. I see sunglare.

[Antrodemus]

nm...

[FooFighters]

I just replaced my 7600GT with an 8800 GTS, I also have no sun glare.

Did anyone already found a fix ??

:cry:

[Zepheron]

I get full sun glare in SH3 but not SH4 (X1950pro). They both use the same engine, could it be possible to use sun effects from SH3 to use in SH4.

[Capt. Shark Bait]

i've mentioned this before. i think think the glare pob has something to do with how older ATi cards handle shader models as compared to a 2900XT which uses a unified "shader model", tho it's no longer called that

[Misfit138]

i've mentioned this before. i think think the glare pob has something to do with how older ATi cards handle shader models as compared to a 2900XT which uses a unified "shader model", tho it's no longer called that

But the problem with that explanation is that many ATI users, including me actually do have that sun glare for few seconds if you alt tab into desktop and go back into the game. Another thing is that I didn't had any this kind of problems with other games...

Doesn't really matter to me that much anymore. I'm getting my GF8800 GTS tomorrow :sunny: