Nvidia tweaks to SH3/SH4

[Rubini]

Hi folks,

After some days in tests and with the help of our mates Periscope and mikaelanderlund, I finally finish my concise guide to enhance the image quality in SH3/4 using nHancer and nVidia cards.
I tested these tweaks using a C2D E6850, Gigabyte P35, 2Gb, 8800GT 512, WinXp, Forceware 169.21 WHQL and nHancer 2.3.2
These tips probably will be also useful for owners of others Nvidia cards, and perhaps, also for others sims.
Sorry, no pics at this moment, I´m really short in time, busy RL ;(
I will try to add them later.

Let's start:

The problems:
- nVidia hardware is really good but the image quality "out of box" really don´t mach the one of the ATI cards. The main motive is that nVidia uses another type of AntiAliasing (MultiSampling - more FPS, worse AA result, more shimmering texture in general) that isn't so good as the one of the Ati cards (SuperSampling). IMHO, this is really a cheat that nVidia uses to show more FPS on the bench sites...

- nVidia drivers have some specific problems with some games and Silent Hunter 3/4 aren't an exception: the sun halo isn't visible if we use anything more than 4x Multisample AA or Gama correction, the AA isn't entirely applied to the entire scene (this is very noticiable for any game that renders objects at high distance like the flight sims, etc) and the smoke in general is also affected by the AA type.
- these issues are more or less evident through the drives, but always present in some degree. Also nVidia choose to have specific hidden adjusts for each game what frequently makes the quest for a good image quality really a problem in the player hands.

The Solution:
- nVidia stock drivers are really very limited on AA types (image quality) but others AA types and others options are hidden on the drivers.

- nHancer - www.nhancer.com (http://www.nhancer.com) - shows to player (almost) all the hidden nVidia driver settings. The SuperSampling AA (SSAA) modes 4x4, 16xS or 32xS really shows the best image quality, the same of ATI out of box...but also brings a huge FPS hit and others small problems like the long dated sun halo absence and also making the smoke too tin. So, unfortunately this isn´t a choice for nVidia; the same ATI image quality will be never a true option for nVidia owners, because it isn´t completely bug free.

- to avoid the sun halo problem no more than 4x MultiSampling (MSAA) can be used and also the Gama correction can´t be used. To avoid smoke problems we need also to not use so much AA.

To finish - nHancer best settings for good image quality without any noticeable problem in SH3/4:
-in the main page at your right check Global, then in

- Enhancements page:
check MultiSampling 4x
check Super- Transparency AA
check AF 16x or 8x
check Vertical Sync Applicaion,

- Optimizations page:
check Texture filtering High Quality
check Tril. opt. Off
check Aniso sample opt. Off
check Neg LOd Bias Clamp
leave all the others settings unchanged

- Compatibility page:
choose AA Compatibility 20000000: EA Strategy Games (this is what makes a huge difference in image quality, forcing the AA to be applyed to the entire scene. This is probably also the best solution for Flight sims)
leave all the others settings unchanged.
Then just close nHancer and you are ready to go (no "Ok" or "Apply" button on nHancer).

Last comments:
-nHancer have a very good manual on line http://www.nhancer.com/?dat=d_start which will teach you also on how to make profiles for each game. It´s very simple and powerful!

-But be warned that the last Nvidia drivers don´t allow to use profiles automatically. Anyhow nHancer provides the possibility to activate profiles manually what is also very useful and enough if you don´t want to adjust the global settings for each game each time that you play them. I hope that the next forceware driver will fix this annoying limitation.

-If you have any comment or any other tip to enhance the SH3/4 experience when using nVidia hardware please share it with us!

Good Hunting!:up:

Rubini.

[TarJak]

Great find Rubini! Thanks for this:up:

[Subject]

Excellent! :up:
Having just replaced my ATI 1950XT with an Asus 8800GTX and found the nVidea card must use far more "aggressive" settings to reach the same image quality. I'm sure this will help - and that nHancer thingy looks promising.

Thanks for the heads up! :up:

[nikbear]

Thanks for the heads-up with this Rubini;) can't wait to give this a try and see some improvements hopefully:up:

[Kpt, Otto]

I tried this out and it has been well worth it thank you Rubini for sharing it :up:

I have had trouble with nvidai drivers ever since ive had an nvidia card, bought last year, its taken them several forceware drivers to correct several issues.

With these settings now I have smoke from the ships the like ive never seen!!! Wow! And the fires!!

There has been a framerate hit but nothing serious, before I was getting average 170 now 140 depending on what was happening in game but there is no problem. I could play around with the setting slightly and improve things slightly for my particular card, a GX2 7950 superclocked, which would trade quality for better frame rates but there is no need.

So thanks very much again for your good advice. :up: :rock:

[Rubini]

I tired this out and it has been well worth it thank you Rubini for sharing it :up:

I have had trouble with nvidai drivers ever since ive had an nvidia card, bought last year, its taken them several forceware drivers to correct several issues.

With these settings now I have smoke from the ships the like ive never seen!!! Wow! And the fires!!

There has a been framerate hit but nothing serious, before I was getting average 170 now 140 depending on what was happening in game but there is no problem. I could play around with the setting slightly and improve things slightly for my particular card, a GX2 7950 superclocked, which would trade quality for better frame rates but there is no need.

So thanks very much again for your good advice. :up: :rock:

Thanks for the reply mate!
I'm happy to help!:up:

[Ivan Putski]

Excellent, thanks for the heads up Rubini.:up:

[robj250]

Hmm. I have an XP2 with a GeForce 6600 card, driver version 9.1.4.7. Oh, my monitor is a Seanix slim.
I find that my night scenes are slightly too dark. Should I dare try your enhancer on my nvidia card?

I had an terrible time getting SH3 to run on my machine, until the computer technician updated it with the proper driver. (I had installed the wrong update drive) :damn:

Rob

Edit: I just took some snaps of my night attack during 15 m/s winds heavy fog and rain. You can't see a thing. I'll see if I can upload them to Image shack and put in a link to them. First one is Oct 3 - 43 0459 at 100 m, second is surfacing at 0547, third is running course 090° at 0600 and last is during the atttack, what I saw through my periscope. (Hope I can get them all in.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8913/oct3430459nd0.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oct3430459nd0.jpg)

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/4331/oct3430547xx7.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oct3430547xx7.jpg)

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/9166/oct3430600vy7.th.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oct3430600vy7.jpg)

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/4323/oct343periscopeha2.th.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oct343periscopeha2.jpg)

[fgsr1969]

thanx for the tips ive tried it and i noticed the difference right away horizon lines are much cleaner, the lines on the conning tower are clean, ship lines are clean now as well where before you could see a lot more jagged lines in all the textures,water looks better as well.

[rik007]

Rubini, thanks again for the tips and tricks.

On top of these setting with which I also experimented I can advice everybody to use the res fix to experiment with resolutions as well.
I use 1280 x 1024 and it just looks great! Besides I can adjust gamma slightly to make the night less dark (and of course for SH-III only), a complain I often read in the forums. :up:

[robj250]

Rubini, thanks again for the tips and tricks.

On top of these setting with which I also experimented I can advice everybody to use the res fix to experiment with resolutions as well.
I use 1280 x 1024 and it just looks great! Besides I can adjust gamma slightly to make the night less dark (and of course for SH-III only), a complain I often read in the forums. :up:

What GeForce card are you using?
See My note above.
Rob

[Badger Finn]

Cheers for the tweak hints mate

Super clean high res now

:up:

[nikbear]

Sadly not what I was hoping for,tried the settings you suggested rubini and the jaggies were awful,worse than before,tried different settings and removed them but the game ran like it was in slow motion so I removed nhancer,problem is now my nvidia control panel won't let me do ay changes,it keeps freezing:nope: looks like I'll have to redownload my graphics card drivers all over again to get rid of this problem,damn nhancer has screwed everything:down:

[nikbear]

AHGGGGGG:damn: Redownloaded my graphics drivers and its still freezing on me.can't make any changes to my nvidia control panel at all,not only is the game running like crap but I can't even do any changes to rectify it,now what:nope:

[robj250]

AHGGGGGG:damn: Redownloaded my graphics drivers and its still freezing on me.can't make any changes to my nvidia control panel at all,not only is the game running like crap but I can't even do any changes to rectify it,now what:nope:

Can I ask what nvidia vard you have. I have a GeForce 6600. Driver version 9.1.4.7
Did you use the enhancer on SH3 or a GWX?
Rob

[robj250]

@Rubini

I have Windows XP2 which has a nvidia card which uses a GeForce 6600, version 9.1.4.7
My night screens are not so good, will it help that?

Is this enhancer of any value to me?

If so, how do I install it and can I install it when NOT in port. I use SH3
I have no idea how to adjust the gama

Rob

[rik007]

Rubini, thanks again for the tips and tricks.

On top of these setting with which I also experimented I can advice everybody to use the res fix to experiment with resolutions as well.
I use 1280 x 1024 and it just looks great! Besides I can adjust gamma slightly to make the night less dark (and of course for SH-III only), a complain I often read in the forums. :up:

What GeForce card are you using?
See My note above.
Rob

It's an 8800 GTS 640Mb. But what is your note above? You mean the trouble with the driver or the pictures?

[robj250]

Rubini, thanks again for the tips and tricks.

On top of these setting with which I also experimented I can advice everybody to use the res fix to experiment with resolutions as well.
I use 1280 x 1024 and it just looks great! Besides I can adjust gamma slightly to make the night less dark (and of course for SH-III only), a complain I often read in the forums. :up:

What GeForce card are you using?
See My note above.
Rob

It's an 8800 GTS 640Mb. But what is your note above? You mean the trouble with the driver or the pictures?

Item # 8 in this thread
Problem with night pictures. Click on the small ones to see the bigger one.

Rob

[Badger Finn]

Hmm. I have an XP2 with a GeForce 6600 card, driver version 9.1.4.7. Oh, my monitor is a Seanix slim.
I find that my night scenes are slightly too dark. Should I dare try your enhancer on my nvidia card?

I had an terrible time getting SH3 to run on my machine, until the computer technician updated it with the proper driver. (I had installed the wrong update drive) :damn:

Rob

Edit: I just took some snaps of my night attack during 15 m/s winds heavy fog and rain. You can't see a thing. I'll see if I can upload them to Image shack and put in a link to them. First one is Oct 3 - 43 0459 at 100 m, second is surfacing at 0547, third is running course 090° at 0600 and last is during the atttack, what I saw through my periscope. (Hope I can get them all in.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/8913/oct3430459nd0.th.jpg (http://img401.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oct3430459nd0.jpg)



I gave "Markimovs Ocean madness" V2 a go to lighten the nights.

Was a touch lighter in the nights which made a big difference

Workd on GWX 2.0 with no problems so far have tried both 8k and 16k

Great mod to lighten those too dark nights

Found that at "real uboat simulation"

Im also using a Geforce 7900 card

[johnno74]

Cheers heaps for the info Rubini, I installed nHancer and had a play.

FYI, I found you can alt-tab out of the game, alter settings on a profile, then apply the profile and alt-tab back into the game to see the difference instantly :up:

I confirmed what I had suspected for a while - SH3 doesn't like AA on my card, at all (geeforce go 7400 - laptop video card)

When I enable any sort of AA I get problems. By playing with the various AA compatibilty modes I get different results, the closest I can get is everything 100% but the sky is missing. Looks great tho!

Oh well, I should just get a better gfx card on my desktop, and go back to playing there :)

[rik007]

Rubini, thanks again for the tips and tricks.

On top of these setting with which I also experimented I can advice everybody to use the res fix to experiment with resolutions as well.
I use 1280 x 1024 and it just looks great! Besides I can adjust gamma slightly to make the night less dark (and of course for SH-III only), a complain I often read in the forums. :up:

What GeForce card are you using?
See My note above.
Rob

It's an 8800 GTS 640Mb. But what is your note above? You mean the trouble with the driver or the pictures?

Item # 8 in this thread
Problem with night pictures. Click on the small ones to see the bigger one.

Rob

I do not see too much on a 512*384 pixel picture but I suppose it is too dark? Badger Finn suggested the "Markimovs Ocean madness" mod and I added the res fix with which you can slightly improve brightness (gamma->all color 0.9)

[Subject]

Strange, but nHancer isn't a help here. And I don't understand the missing halo? Aren't we talking SH4 only?

Here's a demo:
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Compare.jpg

Another demo, showing as good an image as I could get with the old ATI x1950 Pro.
nVidea do indeed require more AA to be as effective, but performance overhead is so great with this card, I rarely get below 100 fps...
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Demo.jpg

My settings in nPanel:

AF - 8x
Gamma - Off
AA - 16xQ
Transparancy - MultiSampling
Texture clamp - off
Force mipmaps - none
Texture Filtering - High Quality
Triple buffering - off
Vertical sync - use apps' settings

I did experience nHancer screwing up nVidea's Control Panel http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/smilies/biggrin.gif Had to use System Restore to get rid of it again...

[mikaelanderlund]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .

[Subject]

Made me wonder too... unless you won't call this a halo?
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Demo2.jpg

Can you show a sample? Perhaps we can track down, why there are differences and what causes them?

Card is Asus 8800GTX, driver latest nVidea 169.21 and mod is... still... :damn: GWX 1.03 with some modification.
Not shure if scene.dat hasn't been changed too...

[Rubini]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .
Subjekt,
I second that doubt too...I will try yours settings but AFAIK also for me the sun halo isn't present with anything more than 4xMSAA. Using a 8800GT with 169.21:hmm:

What are yours specs (hardware)?

[nikbear]

I've finally managed to solve my nvidia problems and the mess that nhancer had caused:nope: by............getting an ATi card instead:up: not impressed with nvidia to be honest and should have stayed with ATi,oh well you live and learn;)

[Rubini]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .
Subjekt,
I second that doubt too...I will try yours settings but AFAIK also for me the sun halo isn't present with anything more than 4xMSAA. Using a 8800GT with 169.21:hmm:

What are yours specs (hardware)?

Humm...after some tests....yes you are right, is possible to have sun halo with 16xQ...but only with clear sky! If you have some clouds...then to really have sun halo only using 4xMSAA at maximum.:-?

[Rubini]

I've finally managed to solve my nvidia problems and the mess that nhancer had caused:nope: by............getting an ATi card instead:up: not impressed with nvidia to be honest and should have stayed with ATi,oh well you live and learn;)
I will revert again to ATI ASAP. I just need to sold my new 8800GT first. Oh my god!:nope:

[nikbear]

Don't blame you Rubini,it wasn't the performance of the card as such(nvidia7600GT)it was the options to adjust it that left me feeling a bit:damn: nhancer gave me more options but just seemed to make matters worse and it was a total pain to get rid of after freezing my nvidia control panel,so tonight its back to ATi with a 1950Pro and hopefully more joy and better results:up:

[Subject]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .
Subjekt,
I second that doubt too...I will try yours settings but AFAIK also for me the sun halo isn't present with anything more than 4xMSAA. Using a 8800GT with 169.21:hmm:

What are yours specs (hardware)?

Humm...after some tests....yes you are right, is possible to have sun halo with 16xQ...but only with clear sky! If you have some clouds...then to really have sun halo only using 4xMSAA at maximum.:-?:hmm: really? Looked through my scrapbook and found some shots:
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Sunny.jpg

Specs:
MSI K8-Neo-something
AMD Athlon64 3700
Asus 8800 GTX

nhancer gave me more options but just seemed to make matters worse and it was a total pain to get rid of after freezing my nvidia control panel, so tonight its back to ATi with a 1950Pro and hopefully more joy and better results :up:yes, nHancer will do that to your nVidea CP and it is a pain! :huh: I dumped my 1950pro because of slowdowns when in action. Could end in a crawling 15-20 fps... haven't experienced that (yet) with the new nVidea.

[Rubini]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .
Subjekt,
I second that doubt too...I will try yours settings but AFAIK also for me the sun halo isn't present with anything more than 4xMSAA. Using a 8800GT with 169.21:hmm:

What are yours specs (hardware)?

Humm...after some tests....yes you are right, is possible to have sun halo with 16xQ...but only with clear sky! If you have some clouds...then to really have sun halo only using 4xMSAA at maximum.:-?:hmm: really? Looked through my scrapbook and found some shots:
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Sunny.jpg

Specs:
MSI K8-Neo-something
AMD Athlon64 3700
Asus 8800 GTX

nhancer gave me more options but just seemed to make matters worse and it was a total pain to get rid of after freezing my nvidia control panel, so tonight its back to ATi with a 1950Pro and hopefully more joy and better results :up:yes, nHancer will do that to your nVidea CP and it is a pain! :huh: I dumped my 1950pro because of slowdowns when in action. Could end in a crawling 15-20 fps... haven't experienced that (yet) with the new nVidea.
These pics are very beautiful mate!:up:
Now, as we use the same XP and nvidia 169.21 drivers...
So, if the 16xQ works to you (sun halo at any situation) then probaly could be something with your MOBO chipset (it´s nvidia, no?) or even with your AMD cpu?
Any clue? Your scene.dat perhaps? Can you send it to me?
The smoke is normal too? (it normally start to be more tin as long you raise your AA quality with nvidia):hmm: :hmm: :hmm:

[Subject]

Some smoking snapshots...
http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z15/subject_rod/Silent%20Hunter%20III/Smoking.jpg

I've uploaded a file with my scene.dat, particles.dat and camera.dat (don't know if that one is relevant at all?) to http://www.mediafire.com/?3xty2ktwx2r

Motherboard's correct name btw. is MSI K8N Neo4 with nForce 4 chipset, but I can't imagine that should matter :hmm:
In a couple of months mb and cpu will be replaced with Asus P5B and Intels Core 2 6850... if that change anything, I will report back here.

[mikaelanderlund]

Hi Subjekt,

You don't experience any sun halo problems when you using AA 16xQ? I have sun halo problems when I'm using AA above 4x:hmm: .
Subjekt,
I second that doubt too...I will try yours settings but AFAIK also for me the sun halo isn't present with anything more than 4xMSAA. Using a 8800GT with 169.21:hmm:

What are yours specs (hardware)?

Humm...after some tests....yes you are right, is possible to have sun halo with 16xQ...but only with clear sky! If you have some clouds...then to really have sun halo only using 4xMSAA at maximum.:-?

I don't have any sun halo when skyclear:hmm: . What is your new settings?

[Commander Gizmo]

Can we make this a sticky as it is in the SH4 forums? This is a very handy thread. Thanks!