SH3 with an Nvidia card!?

[stevo33]

Hello All,

Recently installed SH3. Great game, bar a few problems. Yes I'm patched up to 1.4b And here are my system specs:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Intel Pentium 4A, 2400 MHz
(Mainboard)MSI 865PE Neo2-PS
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB)
2 gig Ram

Click on the blow links and you'll see what my problem is.

A good bad sun:

No glow, just a round disk in the sky. Looks like the sun through a dense fog, and its not even round half the time.

http://img392.imageshack.us/my.php?image=sh15jb.jpg

A bad bad sun:

It tends to flicker and disappear altogether at times! Very annoying

http://img482.imageshack.us/img482/2451/sh27nm.jpg


So is this as good as it gets with an Nvidia?!

Are others having this same problem? By the way I have the AA on my card turned off. I have the lastest foreware drivers, but have also tried rolling them back, nothing works.

I'd like to hear from others about this, and find out if there any fix suggestions that you guys have.

I really want the great looking sun in all those lovely screen shots I saw, the ones that made me ge the game to start with !

Thanks!

Merry Xmas
Steve

[VON_CAPO]

I have NVIDIA FX5700 LE 256 Megas and it works perfect.
I am very happy with it. :yep:

[Oulton]

You'll have to try the various drivers from Nvidia.
I have a 6800 and I am using the 77.77 drivers, no problem.

Regards - Oulton

[kiwi_2005]

Its a driver problem, either update to the latest or go back to a previous.

[Col.Jimbo]

I have the same problem with the sun. I'm using an NVIDIA 6800 GT OC (256 meg) with the latest drivers. I've never had a good sun with any of the previous drivers either, unless I turn off AA within my video card settings. When I do that I get a good bright shinning sun but then have to deal with the jaggies. :damn:

[ironkross]

NVIDIA 6800 GT OC (256 meg)
Yeah, that's what I want for Christmas.

[stevo33]

I don't even get a sun if I turn of the AA. I guess all I can do is try different drivers, some of the older ones perhaps?

I'm amazed there is no fix or patch for this. At least I have not been able to find one. Very sloppy work from ubisoft! I have read about lots of Nvidia uses having problems.

[CWorth]

I'm amazed there is no fix or patch for this. At least I have not been able to find one. Very sloppy work from ubisoft! I have read about lots of Nvidia uses having problems.

Hold your horses there...Get your facts straight before commenting.

The problem does not lie with Ubisoft or the game..the entire problem lies with Nvidia and their sloppiness.Ubisoft can't do anything to fix the problem only Nvidia can and so far they have not done a very good job at it.

[stevo33]

If the sun works ok in every other game I have, Including other Ubisoft games. How come Nvidia is to blame for the one single game in which it doesn't?

If as a software company developing games you know there's an issue with Nvidia (Having of course tested your game using that hardware!) you create a work around for it, because at the end of the day its your game you're trying to sell to the public. Its no use just saying, ohh we didn't know.... and anyway its there fault. The idea is to write software for the available hardware... not the other way around.

That’s like Boeings airplanes crashing into the ground and them saying its not our fault its the company that made our fuel pipes. And of course we forgot to test them out!

Now that’s not to say that Nvidia is by an means in the clear in my book, of course they need to get their act together, but Ubisoft should have tested their product with Nvidia cards PROPERLY and dealt with it PROPERLY! Because this is NOT the only bug.

Anyways... I rolled my drivers back to version 61.77 and the sun now glows, although not correctly. The occlusion is very slow... when the sun moves onto the screen, or out from behind an object it slowly starts to increase in glow, very noticeable and still irritating. And also there is no glow through the binoculars or the periscope. Anyone else having problems? Is there a way to change the occulsion settings?




Thanks!

Steve

[Drebbel]

If the sun works ok in every other game I have, Including other Ubisoft games. How come Nvidia is to blame for the one single game in which it doesn't?

Because we had many discussions about this. If only the search feature in this forum was working properly you could find that discussion and read it all back. The SHIII dev-team AND nvidia confirmed it is a video driver problem.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Fyi: These are the listed RESOLVED problems (release notes) for the 81.897 drivers in combination with SHIII:

• GeForce 6800/ 6600: Silent Hunter III characters located outside
experience random fogging effects.

[stevo33]

Thanks for the info

[Kalach]

I play without AA and the sun looks fine.
There used to be that UZO water spray issue, but I think that was fixed by a SH patch.
The only other problem I've had on my NVidia card is smoke issues, I updated to a recent driver and the smoke went from 'patchy' black smoke to good looking but white smoke... I installed one of the smoke mods and it seems fine now.
Hope that helps if you've had any of those problems :know:

[stevo33]

Does the sun look fine through the periscope? Or the binoculars? What driver version are you using?

[sik1977]

I have a 7800GTX. I run SH3 on max settings on 1280x1024 resolution (through Dx9fix), with 4AA and 16x AF and high quality driver settings.

I have used 78.01, 81.85, 81.87 and 81.95 drivers with my setup. the figging bug was there with the 81.85 only. The current 81.95 run the game just fine with no noticiable issues such as missing sun glares etc. And yes SH3 looks amazingly pretty with all the Hi-rez mods i have installed.

[Crash Dive]

Nvidia is just as screwed up as anyone else. Who puts out a latest driver that messes up windows media player? Nvidia thats who. I updated my video drivers and now all my video playing programs look like the image through a thermal scope. :shifty:

[stevo33]

Oh dear, that doesn't sound like much fun. I guess you'll have to roll back the drivers. You might want to use Driver Cleaner Pro. That will help get rid of every trace of the problematic drivers.

http://www.drivercleaner.net/

You know Nvidia used to be at the top of their game, seems like they dropped the ball somewhat in the last couple of years, and now ATI are the leaders. Maybe I'm wrong about that, I've not really been following the tech in the last couple of years, just started to again more recently, and that's how it's looking from here. In fact I am starting to think that my next card should be ATI.

[jbt308]

Being a long time ATI fan, I bought a XT800 for my latest PC, and promptly returned it, as its performance was quite subpar. Wife let me have an early Christmas and I got the 7800GT, first nVidia card in like 5 years. So far, all the issues that I had with my prior ATI cards have disappeared, however, now I'm running into the nVidia problems associated with SH3.

My 9700pro ran SH3 great, when it wasn't crashing. Looked awesome. Now I've got some of the glitches that many of you talk about. Some went away with the newest nVidia drivers, but some are still there. Most irritating of all is the sidebar menu changing from hi-res to low-res depending on what station I'm at. Kinda disappointing, but what're you gonna do. At least the games stopped crashing.

In the end, I think it's 6:1/Half-dozen to the other. ATI, in my experience, has had fairly reliable drivers released on a pretty strict schedule. However, they've seemed to be pretty finicky gaming wise. Sometimes they work flawlessly, other times, not so much. Like a diva actress or an Italian sportscar.

nVidia, from what I've seen/read about, seems to rely on brute strenght of the card, but their drivers are like frickin mooch brother-in-laws, you never know when they're gonna work.

[DMarkwick]

As a result of feedback from this forum I installed 81.95 drivers, and my minor issue cleared up. It also cleared up a problem I had in Operation Flashpoint, which was nice :)

6800GT

[elite_hunter_sh3]

i have the 7800 gt and it runs perfect on 1024 x 768 8xaa 16 af i could hav went for the gtx buts it just a waste of money extra 300 just for a 10-20% performance increase? kind of adif you ask me but o well if u have it u have it and if u do have it then youwont have to buy another video card for another 2-3 yrs which is good


my comp specs

AMD Athlon 64 3700+
Bfg geforce 7800 gt
Asus A8V-E SE
300 Maxtor hdd
dvdrom , dvd burner
antec p160 w super mid tower
generic 2 gb ram pc3200

[stevo33]

After installing the very latest drivers. Those being the beta drivers 82.12 I now have no sun at all! It used to be that if I turned off the bloom effect and had no AA turned on, that I would get a nice sun glare. Now I have updated the drivers I don’t even get that.

I have never really had any major problems with my card until now. I've just gotten used to it really, and the problems don’t mess with my gaming experience to much. It just bugs me in the back of my mind knowing that there are these glitches that I just can't sort out! And apparently neither can Nvidia!

If you have an Nvidia card, new or old, give us a report on how it runs with SH3.

Thanks

Steve

[sik1977]

This is what I wrote in another topic, alongwith a picture.

I have 7800GTX OC. 4xAA, 16XAF, running game at 1280x1024 resolution wiuth dx9fix. No problems, here's a pic (with 81.95 drivers, now using 82.12 - The sub is a hi resolution model made by FUBAR - the Crescent is from the Hi REZ MOON Mod).

http://www.thefreeimagehosting.com/Uploads/Images/2693548437500Sub2-Edited.jpg


Also had Mobility Radeon 9700 in my precious Laptop which i used to play SH3, no problems there either ofcourse, but the higher graphics offered (AA & AF with higher reloution) by 7800 GTX make this game truely awesome to look at.

[stevo33]

Well the image is expired but you're not the first to report that on a 7800 it runs just fine. Although I've heard of people still having problems with those cards too.

In general it seems the newer cards have less problems than say a card thats just a little older, like my FX55.

[sik1977]

The image is loading fine for me, not sure why you are saying its expired (uploaded yesterday anyway, and loading in bpth threads its posted).

Its a lot to do with different setups ofcourse, and an Fx5500 is a completely different card from a 7800GTX. The latest drivers are all optimized for the seven series, not even so much for the 6 series and perhaps you can forget about the 5 series. Nvidia never had things right with the Fx series anyway, the nv30 (codename for 5 series) was quite a troublesome period for nVidia, and they only really managed to resolve all their issue with the launch of the nv40 (6 series).

Maybe you can manage an upgrade in the near future. If you have an AGP card, the new 6800GS has been getting great reviews, or the X800GTO from ATI. Both and basically recycled top of the line cards of previous generation, but would run SH3 on max settings without issue.

[kholemann]

My PC runs SH3 just fine. P4 3.2 with HT, 1GB RAM, ATI 9800 AIW...

[Knotical]

Ever since the 80+ series drivers came out I have working sunglare with AA enabled. I am now running 81.98 with no problems on my BFG 6800 Ultra. I am running the -SH3 XPSP2 Res Fix for 1.4b- at 1280 x 960 Res, and the last time I removed this and went back to the default 1024x768, I lost the sunglare. If you have the latest drivers and still no sun-glare I would suggest downloading the Res Fix and increasing the resolution.

[Cpt.Thorne]

GeForce Nvidia 6600 never had a problem with the sun.

[McBeck]

Being a long time ATI fan, I bought a XT800 for my latest PC, and promptly returned it, as its performance was quite subpar. Wife let me have an early Christmas and I got the 7800GT, first nVidia card in like 5 years. So far, all the issues that I had with my prior ATI cards have disappeared, however, now I'm running into the nVidia problems associated with SH3.

My 9700pro ran SH3 great, when it wasn't crashing. Looked awesome. Now I've got some of the glitches that many of you talk about. Some went away with the newest nVidia drivers, but some are still there. Most irritating of all is the sidebar menu changing from hi-res to low-res depending on what station I'm at. Kinda disappointing, but what're you gonna do. At least the games stopped crashing.

In the end, I think it's 6:1/Half-dozen to the other. ATI, in my experience, has had fairly reliable drivers released on a pretty strict schedule. However, they've seemed to be pretty finicky gaming wise. Sometimes they work flawlessly, other times, not so much. Like a diva actress or an Italian sportscar.

nVidia, from what I've seen/read about, seems to rely on brute strenght of the card, but their drivers are like frickin mooch brother-in-laws, you never know when they're gonna work.
I agree with you that ATI and Nvidia focuses on different things.
For Nvidia is mostly about the speed.
For ATI its about speed and image quality.
It has been tested with some people in regards to SH3 and SH3 should look better with a ATI card.
I just got a ATI X850 XT PE for the same price as a 6800 GT(I got a really good deal).
The ATI has a better/same performance, but for sure better image quality.