ATI Catalyst drivers 7.8 released

[Misfit138]

And yet again, you can get them from that same old usual place

http://ati.amd.com/support/driver.html

Based on quick testings I did
- Sun glare is surprise surprise still missing with my X1950XT...
- Green lines when using adaptive AA...
- Improved performance compared to any previous drivers :up:

But think I'm finally done with ATI/AMD. Improved performance is a very nice thing but the failure to solve at least those two minor problems and most of all, the failure to even acknowledge these problems

[simonb1612]

Thanks for the heads up on the new drivers.
Good hunting

[Misfit138]

@aad-marine

Are you really sure that your sun looks like this

http://home.planet.nl/~hart0751/images/sunsh4.jpg

As an ATI user, all you should have is that friggin' ugly disc which they don't even want to fix

[Misfit138]

I was so bothered by the lack of AA and AF this game needed

This shouldn't be a problem after 1.2 patch anymore. Or did they bring those back in the 1.1? Anyways, the AA and AF have been in there for sometime already

EDIT: your right theres no sun glare, time to install new drivers.

Installing any known drivers won't fix that. I guess we ATI users just need to spam their customer support so badly that the only way to make us stop is to provide a fix for this :rotfl:

Anyways, more discussion about this sun glare problem
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=108789&highlight=missing+glare

[Misfit138]

that sucks, i just installed 7.8 for nothing then.. so sad ATI users lack sunglare.

Report this problem to ATI customer support. I've already done this

Maybe they'll get interested enough to fix this if people start a major complaiment about this. I'll probable send them more spam about this again. First, I was thinking about ditching the whole ATI/AMD products and buy Nvidia 8800GTS but it's kind of pointless to buy DirectX 10 card at the moment. Also, another problem is DirectX 10.1. It needs a hardware of it's own to work...

[-Pv-]

I think the sun glare is over-rated unless you spend your life looking through a camera glare filter. I've used GF and ATI and over-all, I'm satisfied I get better performance for the buck with ATI. Most of the games I play rely on frame rates so I can respond to the action properly.
-Pv-

[Misfit138]

Personally, I would like to be the judge of is that sun glare over-rated or not. If I like it I turn it on and if I don't I just turn it off. I want to make that choice

Besides, for me this isn't as much about missing sun glare as it is a question of a driver support or lack of any kind of official answer into this problem. There's so many rumours around how this is a hardware issue etc. etc. so it would be pretty cool if ATI killed those rumours...

Anyways, I harrashed ATI once again about this issue. This time I only asked a reply for this problem. The last time when I reported this problem to them, they told me to report this issue to their driver crew which is kind of pointless. This game has been out for six months already so I'm guessing they are full aware about this but for some reason won't fix it. So the question remains, bad driver support or a hardware issue?

[lba]

I have Adaptive AA on and set to quality i don't get no green lines? I also have sub glare, then again i'm on a x1900XT I have 7.7 installed btw, i'm debating if i should install 7.8 or not.
I wish I knew how you did that. I also have a 1900xt and I have 7.7 installed. It appears that no matter what driver I use I get those green borders on the edge of the screen.

I prefer to use NGO's optimized ati drivers, link (http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files), but they are still on 7.3. I hear they plan to release one that is based on 7.8. I know there isn't much hope, but hopefully they can fix the green lines, because I don't think ati ever will.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have the green lines. I simply fixed it by adjusting the display. One click wider and one click taller on the display function and it is gone. But, when I take a screenshot the line is there so I simply crop it off.

[Misfit138]

Dear Mika,

The issue seems driver related, to report a bug in the driver, please submit feedback directly to the driver team at:

http://support.ati.com/ics/survey/survey.asp?deptID=894&surveyID=486&type=web

If all other games work then the issue is not hardware related.

Regards,

Alex W

Customer Care



Can't honestly say that ATI customer support sucks when it comes to answering quicly :smug:

[SteamWake]

So much concearn over sun glare... sheese.

Personally my ATI card is working fine and I have no plans to fix it.

[Misfit138]

I'll admit, this whole sun glare thingy is something very minor but isn't it just a bit alarming that ATI have had the first reports about this problem about six months ago and it's still not fixed? And games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 are getting constant optimizations in these drivers. Yeah, I know. Those games have kind of bigger audience than Silent Hunter 4 but I wouldn't call it a valid excuse to leave things broken in cases like this

Besides, the reason for this amount of concearn over the sun glare is probable because it seems to be something relatively small so how can it be still broken

[SteamWake]

Yeah, I know. Those games have kind of bigger audience than Silent Hunter 4

Kind of ? LOL Ill bet its on the order of 1,000 to 1. Probably greater.

[Misfit138]

Kind of ? LOL Ill bet its on the order of 1,000 to 1. Probably greater.

Definately greater! More like 10,000 to one...

Isn't it just great to know that crappy repeative pieces of crap like Doom 3 and Quake 4 are multi million sellers? :shifty:

[Quagmire]

I am an ATI x1950 user as well and I have no sun glare. But, do you guys also get this:

http://img248.imageshack.us/img248/4976/crawlingnf2.jpg

See how the railings and other small objects have that "barber pole" look. Light, dark, light, dark. What is worse is that the dark stripe crawl up and down the rail when the sub rolls in the sea. VERY UGLY and VERY DISTRACTING when trying to enjoy the beauty of the simulation.

I have done a lot of research into this but I cannot make it go away. It has to do with the glare effect on those railing surfaces. The glare shading seems to not move completely when the rail moves and the effect it ruined.

I have seen this in some peoples screen shots so I know others have the issue. Do you guys have it? Do you know a solution?

THANKS!
.

[Misfit138]

Can confirm the problem mentioned in the previous post

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/466/sh4img15820072010iu6.png (http://imageshack.us)

AA 4x and AF 4x but these really won't matter. Tried pretty much everything but can't seem to make them go away

[Quagmire]

Well I guess I am not crazy then. Others do have the same problem. It appears when the rails are viewed at a distace.

I think I am gonna post this in the modders forum as well. Maybe those talented folks can help.
.

[Misfit138]

It appears when the rails are viewed at a distace.

And this is also noticeable when looking ships cables at distance. Almost looks like you're not using any AA :down:

But this raises another question, does the Nvidia users have this problem?

[SteamWake]

Yes I get the striping too occasionally.

Also Moiere patterns on the decking when the lighting is right.

[Quagmire]

Yeah. Here is another example of the problem.

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/4200/shiv1ur9.jpg

Are we all ATI users with this problem???
.

[McBeck]

Stupid question:
How do you get to the lookout platform??

[AkbarGulag]

Stupid question:
How do you get to the lookout platform??
With this nifty mod by SergButo...

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=120160

I use an ATI 9800XT and have all the same problems as other users above. I guess I know why the 'Sunmod' won't work for me ^^

[chopped50ford]

im using an ATI RAdeon 1600 vid card and would like to setup the Catalyst to give me optimum performance for the game.

comp specs are:
AMD AThlon 64x2 Dual
Core processor 5200+
2.61 GHz 2.00 GB of Ram
500 Gig HD
NEC 21" Flatscreen
Windows XP Home

I dont understand the following:
3d Quality
Anti-Aliasing
Adaptive Anti Aliasing
Anisotropic Flite
Mip Map Detail
Open GL settings - Triple Buffering?

ATI overdrive? Isnt Overclocking bad?

Thanks!

[Misfit138]

Please, could even a single Nvidia user confirm this broken lighting effect on railings?

[AkbarGulag]

im using an ATI RAdeon 1600 vid card and would like to setup the Catalyst to give me optimum performance for the game.

I dont understand the following:
3d Quality
Anti-Aliasing
Adaptive Anti Aliasing
Anisotropic Flite
Mip Map Detail
Open GL settings - Triple Buffering?

ATI overdrive? Isnt Overclocking bad?

Thanks!

Do NOT overclock is my advice... no matter how easy that GUI makes it look. As for all the settings, it may be best to learn by feel...

The 'Catalyst Control Center' has some good tooltips if you hover over each setting. Also, it has a dinky little tool for playing with the settings and seeing the results in real time. A techy explanation for each of those settings would take more than a few pages I would imagine.

[Quagmire]

I think I have made some progress with this issue. Check the following screenies:

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/1033/shivbadgt2.jpg

http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/3663/shivgoodcc2.jpg

The problem is due to the extra layer of lighting effects that are applied to the ships. When you disable "USE SHIP NORMAL MAPS" this layer is turned off and the crawlies are gone.

THEREFORE THIS PROBLEM IS NOT DUE TO A LACK OF ANTI-ALIASING OR LOW RESOLUTION. Check the wires in the mast rigging. Anti-Aliasing is working beautifully.

So dont run out and buy new monitors folks. What we have here is a bugged game 3D engine or bugged ATI drivers.

Unfortunately there is a hitch. This "fix" or "workaround" only applies to the ships. Your own sub does not seem effected (crawlies still exist). :damn:

What we need are the talented modders out there to help us with the scene.dat file and tweak it to remove the offending lighting layer.

Thoughts?
.

[Misfit138]

@Quagmire

Sorry but I'm unable to confirm. Did testing with AA 4x, AF 4x and unchecked "Ship Normal Maps" but it did nothing

[Quagmire]

Remember you will still have the problem when viewing your sub. Its the ships that are effected.

I use 6x AA and 16x AF at 1280x960. Also Max all of your sliders (except gamma of course) in the graphics options. Maxing the sliders helped as well and I only lost a few FPS.

As you can see by the screen shots I took. It does help. Although it is not perfect. However I do feel that the results I jsut posted prove that the problem is not due to anti aliasing.

.

[Misfit138]

Did another test. AA 6x, AF 16x and everything on except "Ship Normal Maps" also every slider was set to max but the result was still the same. And yes, tested this when looking a cargo ship not my own sub

Which ATI card you're using? Might have something to do with this...

[Quagmire]

I am using an x1950Pro AGP. Here is a screenie of my settings.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/5676/shivsetnh1.jpg

I hope it works out for you. It doesnt solve the problem completely but it does help a great deal. With a little help from the expert modders here we may fix it. The lighting and shader effects need work. They are already doing this with the ocean textures. Maybe we can get them to help with this...

.

[Misfit138]

Exatly the same settings as you have. Even the resolution :lol:

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/2042/sh4img17820076461tf1.th.png (http://img475.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sh4img17820076461tf1.png)

But...

http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/1736/sh4img1782007646nq2.th.png (http://img475.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sh4img1782007646nq2.png)

It can't be because of the gfx card. 1950 Pro and XT isn't that different in the end

[Quagmire]

WOW! I am totally confused now. I dont know how we are getting such different results with almost the same ATI card.

This problem bothers me a lot though. It is a real bummer. :down:

Does anyone have any ideas??

[Misfit138]

Well, at least I can report my findings when I get that new gfx card. Too bad that I just gonna have to wait untill the next month but I guess saving a few euros is worth waiting. Or is it... :hmm:

[Misfit138]

Crap, did testing with one other game and noticed that there was similar "problems" with railings too. I believe that after all, this is something what Jhereg mentioned. A resolution problem. Those of us who are suffering about those ugly lighting effects are simply using too low resolution.

1280x1024 is considered as a low resolution. It has been just enough for me. Now I feel so damn old! :rotfl:

But I'm still going get that 8800GTS but also a new monitor :rock:

[Misfit138]

I just have my game running in window mode fullscreen is 1680x1050, but does the lightdarklightdark thing appear to be on my setup as well?

To my eyes it seems so...Are you using any AA?

[SteamWake]

if i use AA I can't go to 512TC or its to laggy

my specs are
Pentium D 940 3.2Ghz 800Mhz
2GB DDR2-533 ram in dual channel
x1900 XT 512MB PCI-E
Creative X-Fi
WinXP Pro SP2

Hrm.. you must have background tasks hogging cpu cycles. Your rig should be able to run that easly. Check two things Volumetric fog, and atmospheric effects. Both of those can have a huge impact on performance.

[SteamWake]

i always have volume fog off such a massive hit to performance, and where do i find this atmospheric effects?

o and trust me nothing is hogging the CPU but SH4.

Same place you found the fog toggle.

As to 'nothing is hogging the CPU' youll be amazed at what else is running in the background.

Hit ctrl, alt, del when the box pops up check the processes tab :O

[Misfit138]

http://home.comcast.net/~dssgmarine/surprised.JPG

Oh my, I was just trying to close that Windows Task Manager on that shot...

Might be a good idea to sleep some. Been awake for over 36 hours...

zzz zzz :dead:

[THE_MASK]

Install the latest catalyst control center didnt do a freakin thing . So i uninstalled and reinstalled SH4 after installing the latest CCC and now my sun looks like this
http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/2994/32471102dv7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/6420/61284030fs9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[SteamWake]

WOW! I am totally confused now. I dont know how we are getting such different results with almost the same ATI card.

This problem bothers me a lot though. It is a real bummer. :down:

Does anyone have any ideas??

Different monitors ?

[Bathrone]

Keep your directx middleware up to date - last one was August 2007.

Also the ati driver settings for catalyst ai should be default unless advanced doesnt artifact on your config

[-Pv-]

I think it's just the installer that gets updated to support new OSes and patch combos. Those who are already on an unbroken 9.0c will not get any new functionality by continually running the installer for 9.0c.
-Pv-

[Quagmire]

OK. I did a little research and here is what I found. The problem that we face here is called "Texture Shimmering". Read this clip from an article that explains it best:

What is texture shimmering you ask? As a quick refresher, texture shimmering can occur when the mipmap transitions from one texture resolution to the next. If the transitions are harsh, the lower quality mipmap levels can stand out pretty dramatically; this sometimes causes a shimmering or flickering effect to the eye. In some extreme cases, you’ll practically see a line ahead of you marking the spot between these transitions. Ideally the higher detail textures should blend well with the lower detail textures and the end user shouldn’t notice a thing, but unfortunately this hasn’t always been the case.

In any case, going back to our original point, what we’ve found with texture shimmering is that it can be highly variable. You may never see it in one level of a game, and then in the next it’s impossible to miss it. In general texture shimmering is harder to spot in dark areas, and easiest to spot in bright, outdoor areas with long, flat surfaces. In this scenario texture shimmering can be very easy to spot, as textures on the ground in front of you are literally flickering before your eyes.

What makes texture shimmering really tricky though is that it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to spot in a static screenshot, and static screenshots are the #1 tool used by hardware reviewers to judge image quality. It’s easier to spot when you’re up and running in motion. Because of this, we’re going to rely primarily on videos, rather than screenshots, to spot texture shimmering.

Link to the full article here: http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_nvidia_image_quality_showdown_august06/

I have spent a great deal of time the last few days playing with various MIPMAP levels and aniso filtering levels with no success. The problem is that the SHIV 3D engine itself does not do a great job hiding these "mipmap level" transition issues. This is not a shocker since the game was designed without support for anti-aliasing! :down: So it is not a stretch of the imagination to think that aniso and mipmap optimization support was not even considered! I dont know about NVIDIA, but ATI drivers perform best with 3D engines that are designed to feed their optimisation alogorithms. Do a search on how Catalyst AI works to learn about that.

Now a lot of you are going to say that ATI sucks and it is the drivers not the game engine that is at fault. Well I would be the first to believe that however the facts stand in the way. I also play Medieval II and Company of Heroes and I see no texture shimmering problems in those games. You can add Americas Army and BF2 to that list as well.

NVIDIA users seem to have it better. They dont get the dreaded "sun disk", etc. Well that is because this game was probably developed on NVIDIA cards only. Therefore the devs never saw the ATI issues and never corrected them. Normally game developers code using both cards to make sure GPU related issues do not get missed. However with as half-assed this game was on release it is easy to believe that the 3D rendering department was half-assed as well.

So with that I guess I will try my best to ignore the aftershock of the devs lack of due diligence on release. They already have my money so I better make the best of it....

:down: :down: :down: :down:.

[Weather-guesser]

Anyone with a 1300X 512mb card having problems installing 7.8? I have never had an issue updating til now. It seems to start off ok but after the restart and it runs its sel-diagnostic (desktop flashes), some desktop icons are missing as well as some buttons like on the start menu. I restart again and this tim the desktop comes up with the lowest resolution setting and I'm unable to change it to any other.
Does the same thing all 5 times I tried. Even used the cat-uninstaller to make sure no ATI software is still around. Finally put 7.7 back on and have no problems.
Any ideas or people with same issues with 7.8?:hmm:

[AVGWarhawk]

Anyone with a 1300X 512mb card having problems installing 7.8? I have never had an issue updating til now. It seems to start off ok but after the restart and it runs its sel-diagnostic (desktop flashes), some desktop icons are missing as well as some buttons like on the start menu. I restart again and this tim the desktop comes up with the lowest resolution setting and I'm unable to change it to any other.
Does the same thing all 5 times I tried. Even used the cat-uninstaller to make sure no ATI software is still around. Finally put 7.7 back on and have no problems.
Any ideas or people with same issues with 7.8?:hmm:

I have this card but did not install 7.8. I did not see the benefit on doing so. 7.7 works fine for me. Wait for the next one and install if there is something benefiting you after install. Half the time once you get a new driver in and working another one comes out.

[Weather-guesser]

Thanks AVGWarhawk, waiting seems to be the thing to do. I was putting 7.8 on since others in this thread said they got a speed kick from it. I'll just wait for the next update. Weird that its the ony time I had trouble updating this card. :shifty:

TM 1.6 seems to have given me a slight uptick in FPS anyway. Good hunting!

[-Pv-]

Like most power users on ATI, I always uninstall the current driver before updating to the new ones. However, after using the catuninstaller a few times and having some issues similar to the bad driver install mentioned above, I now go to add/remove programs and select the one item "ATI Software Uninstall Utility", reboot, click cancel to the plug and play dialog boxes and install ATI driver. Never had a problem with that. I concluded from this the catuninstaller distributed seperately is not always current whereas the uninstaller that came with your driver should work.
-Pv-

[AVGWarhawk]

http://www.tweakxp.com/article37536.aspx

This is the method I use to uninstall old driver for ATI. It works well.

[Misfit138]

I've always used Driver Cleaner (http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=745) and it has done it's job just perfect

Unless, I've missed something... :hmm:

[SteamWake]

OK. I did a little research and here is what I found. The problem that we face here is called "Texture Shimmering".

Alson know as 'moire' patterns http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern

[Weather-guesser]

Thanks again AVGWarhawk. You give better directions than the customer service at ATI. I have spent the last 2 days with them on the phone, only they dont like to use the phone so they get you off and then converse by email. yikes! I got more info from you in one post than I got from their customer srvice in 2 days.

It was only today they had me going through the registry, but you gave better directions than they did in their email. I'll try again with your directions tomorrow. I keep telling myself just to put 7.7 back on for the 100th time and be happy but I can't keep myself from tinkering when I get different info :know:

[Torps]

I am using an 1950 XTX. I have tried every driver and I get that so called "shimmering" affect always. I have tried Catalyst 7.4 to 7.8 and I find 7.4, atleast on my card, runs the best. The shimmering affect is most obvious on 7.4 however my framerates do not plummet the game to unplayable levels. Actually they are pretty good, but on any other version of catalyst my frame rates are horrible and shimmering is slightly improved, anyone have anything. Weird itsn't it 7.4 works best ? :damn:

[AVGWarhawk]

Thanks again AVGWarhawk. You give better directions than the customer service at ATI. I have spent the last 2 days with them on the phone, only they dont like to use the phone so they get you off and then converse by email. yikes! I got more info from you in one post than I got from their customer srvice in 2 days.

It was only today they had me going through the registry, but you gave better directions than they did in their email. I'll try again with your directions tomorrow. I keep telling myself just to put 7.7 back on for the 100th time and be happy but I can't keep myself from tinkering when I get different info :know:

NP. Let me know if it works. As far as tinkering....some days I spend more time doing that than play:roll:

[Dude]

Is this a problem even with the new 2900XT???

Or is it a hardware problem and being solved with the new chip???

Thanks!!

[Misfit138]

If you enable this option, a gamma distribution factor of 2.2 is assumed, which is correct for most monitors. This can improve the image quality slightly (similar to the AA modes of ATI's cards).

This is kind of interesting. When you enable this on Nvidia cards, you'll loose the sun glare effect...What does excatly that "Similar to the AA modes of ATI's cards" mean? When you enable the AA with ATI cards you also enable the Gamma Correction?