New Ati cards. two steps forward and one step back

[swdw]

Got a good deal on an HD3870. noticed some good things immediately.

Deck crew is no longer semi translucent where you can see the horizon through them with volumetric fog turned on- step one in the right direction.

Actually get the sun bloom! step 2 in the right direction

Sun texture is rendered through the water after the sun sets- one step back

See the pics below
http://www.kickinbak.com/posts/3870-1.jpg


Here's another shot of the sun from the sail
http://www.kickinbak.com/posts/3870-2.jpg



And onther one from an external view
http://www.kickinbak.com/posts/3870-3.jpg


Need to get a shot of a crewmember

Here's the step backwards as this was not a problem on earlier cards (happens in stock and ROW)
http://www.kickinbak.com/posts/3870-4.jpg

[mrbeast]

I've noticed that the transperant crew problem seems to come and go at times. I have an Nvidia 8800GTS card and I have been in conditions where this problem usually rears its head and it hasn't. Next time I load the game, the crew look like a bunch of ghosts again!:damn:

[Reece]

Cripes that's worse than no sun bloom, does changing any of the game settings fix this?

[AVGWarhawk]

As of late, I have been noticing my ATI X1300 showing sun bloom and sun glare. It lasts for a few seconds then disappears. I also have seen this sun under the water as your picture shows. Nutty stuff for sure. Correctible in the game...who knows:roll: It is like throwing dice. But, is the picture from a unmodded version or is ROW in there somewhere?

[claybirdd]

Whats up Warhawk. I see you use the x1330, I use the x1550 and have heard reports that your card is slightly better than mine. Just wonderin, what are your in game settins and what is your AA set to? I am still tryin to deal with my jagged horizon. anyideas would be helpfull.

[AVGWarhawk]

Whats up Warhawk. I see you use the x1330, I use the x1550 and have heard reports that your card is slightly better than mine. Just wonderin, what are your in game settins and what is your AA set to? I am still tryin to deal with my jagged horizon. anyideas would be helpfull.

I use Ray Adams ATI Tray tool. My card is set to 2x AA and 2x the other setting. Forget what that is. I have all sliders to the right with exception of LOD for land objects. Gamma at half way. All other goodies I have checked are high textures, caustic effects, 3D wakes and enviroment so the water is translucent. I did have the jaggies on the horizon using ROW. Currently I have no jaggies on the horizon by using the ROW textures only. Do not use ROW ocean and sky controls until Leo fixes this part of ROW. If you take a look, using the binoculars the horizon looks great. Looking at the horizon as if it was the naked eye, it has jaggies. I noticed this with ROW before 1.4 patch. Therefore, I surmised it was how the distance is rendered in ROW. So, just using ROW textures without sun glare with the new 1.4 patch rendering the jaggies were gone.

[claybirdd]

thanks for the reply, your right about it being smooth with the binoculars only ROW i have is textures WITH sun glare. May end up removing it though after this patrol.

[AVGWarhawk]

thanks for the reply, your right about it being smooth with the binoculars only ROW i have is textures WITH sun glare. May end up removing it though after this patrol.

It may not be the sun glare part of the mod. Look to see if you still have ROW Ocean and Water Control part of the mod. This is what is affecting the horizon. The new patch rendered greater distances of vision. ROW Ocean and Water Controls rendered with the distance in patch 1.3. There is a difference there. The ROW texture file is fine by itself. The part of the ROW set up that controls it is not compatible. That part is ROW Ocean and Water Controls.

[claybirdd]

I only had ROW textures w/ glare, T.M., and Evasion. Removed Row, did clean uninstall/install, added only T.M. and Evasion, tweaked settings and now its gone. However now the left side and top of my screen have a green line. think its from AA though. (set everything to 2x with CCC)

[swdw]

3 different settings can cause the green line around the screen, which side it's on and how many sides depends on what you have selected

They are
adaptive anti-aliasing
catalyst A.I.
pixel center offset

Also seems to vary some depending on which ATi card you have on 2 and 3, but adaptive AA seems to always cause this problem.

AVG- you musta missed where I mentioned the sun through the ocean happens both in stock and in ROW. The screenie just happens to be with ROW on. This is a driver or rendering engine issue, not a texture issue- that would be lot's easier to fix.

Wish the devs and ATi would quit the finger pointing and work together to get the ATi card issues fixed rather than trying to blame each other.

[DrBeast]

Wish the devs and ATi would quit the finger pointing and work together to get the ATi card issues fixed rather than trying to blame each other.

That would be really great, but I'm afraid it ain't gonna happen. When I was frequenting some Sims 2 forums, there were cries of outrage at EA and nVidia from nVidia users about graphics glitches in their game. Up until a year ago, when I pretty much abandoned that game, nothing had changed :down:

[AVGWarhawk]

I only had ROW textures w/ glare, T.M., and Evasion. Removed Row, did clean uninstall/install, added only T.M. and Evasion, tweaked settings and now its gone. However now the left side and top of my screen have a green line. think its from AA though. (set everything to 2x with CCC)

I have the green line, SWDW pointed out what might cause it. I just make adjustment via my display to hide it. One notch to the left and one notch up and the line is gone. I see them in my screenshots but I just clip it off with photoshop.

SWDW, I figured it was a rendering issue. What is strange is I only had seen the sun in the water issue after the 1.4 patch.

[-Pv-]

I've never seen the sun through the water on the X1900 in stock game. I bet there would be a lot of noise if this happened to a lot of people.
-Pv-

[swdw]

I've never seen the sun through the water on the X1900 in stock game. I bet there would be a lot of noise if this happened to a lot of people.
-Pv-

That's because this is NOT a problem with earlier cards. This problem seems to appear only with the newer HD series cards- 2X00 and 38X0

Update,

The newer 7.12 drivers don't fix the issue either.

[AVGWarhawk]

I have found the solution to my problems with my ATI card, I went and purchased a Nvidia 7800 Gforce. The new drivers from ATI do not apparently support older cards. Basically I'm stuck at 7.6 for my X1300. It is a nice card but without further support via drivers I went and purchased the Nvidia card. I got the card for a song. Being my system is still AGP, this card should carry me another year before I'm faced with having to get Vista, etc.

[Panama Red]

swdw:
I do not have the problem you describe of seeing the sun through the water on my new ATI CrossFire 3870's and 7.12 drivers. The only problem that I am having with the 7.12 drivers is that the opening logo & movies for SH3 & SH4 are very psychedelic, as a result, I am using the "No logo" mod in both games.

When I had the original 7.11 drivers that came with the 3870's, I was getting black lightning and white artifacts in both SH3 & SH4, but the 7.12 drivers solved that problem.

[swdw]

swdw:
I do not have the problem you describe of seeing the sun through the water on my new ATI CrossFire 3870's and 7.12 drivers. The only problem that I am having with the 7.12 drivers is that the opening logo & movies for SH3 & SH4 are very psychedelic, as a result, I am using the "No logo" mod in both games.
Thie psychedelic movies are often caused by installing the Windows media 9 codecs that come with the game. Try reinstalling the Wm 9 codecs from the Microsoft site. The movies play fine for me under 7.12

BTW, although the 7.12 drivers stopped the sun from being rendered through the water (to an extent), there was another issue after I installed them. The texture would occasionally flash on and off like a flash bulb on a camera.

I played with the scene file and it stopped. I've uploaded the modified file if others run into this issue.

This is NOT for ROW!!! If it works well, maybe Leo can help me make a ROW version.
Get it here if you see the sun texture flashing on and off below the horizon.
http://files.filefront.com/ATi+HD+series+fixzip/;9360200;/fileinfo.html

The upside to this is that it appears ATi at least paid attention to some of the feedback they got regarding their new cards.