Thank you veyr much, though its all a bit ove rmy head. I'll wait for someone smart like you to do a mod :-)

Using a gradient causes the sky banding . I just deleted the bit in green and it seems much better .

pow is a power function, if you are to remove the function you should also remove this part: , g_skyBottomColor.w

power function is pow(x,y)=x^y

I see it in SH4, and not in SH3. I have no idea about anything involved with this, I'm just sayin'.

I get the banding in sh5 didn't notice it so much in 3 and 4.

I have an i7 quad core so i guess it's not something cpu related.

My cards are 2 x NVIDIA GTX 470 in SLI althought i read somewhere SLI
does not work in game ?

4gb RAM Windows 7 64 bit

Screen is a Samsung Syncmaster P2450

My res in game is 1900x1080 i think (not got it running at moment )
and have maxed most graphics options in game.

I personally think the latest nvidia cards accenctuate the banding maybe?

TDW uses a Nvidia GTX480 do you get the banding TDW?

Which enviroment MOD available at the moment best deals with this issue?

I don't really want to mess with stock files and I'm guessing i could reduce the banding by tweaking my personal settings.

Any ideas to reduce or eliminate it would be most welcome.

the best explanation is that it is the video card
just like how games designed for nvidia cards are horrible on ati cards
Ubisoft optimizes for ATI, so that is probably why

You can adapt the shader but it will still be called 992 times by SH-5 each time a screen is drawn. You would have liked that the shader is called 1984 (2 * 992) or more but therefore you need to change the code unfortunately. :down:

I can get rid of the banding completely by deleting the gradiant but it deletes the sun as well .

based on the posted shader function above, set the interpolate value in the lerp() function to a constant value. That ought to repeal the individual gradients but does not affect the pixel color for the sun.

change from:
to:

I can not say if it work and/or how it will look in the game, I have SH5 not installed on my PC.

How it looks in game . The pic was auto enhanced so the banding is easier seen . Doesnt look quite so bad ingame . Thanks seeadler .
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9718/gradl.jpg
http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/4701/gradd.jpg

If i remember right, there are more interpolations for gradients in the sky pixel shader, this was just the base gradient in a chain of 3 or more lerp() functions in that shader file. There must be in addition one for horizon haze gradients and one for around the sun gradients like in other games and perhaps some more...

I'm here at a B&B with only a notebook and no access to the SH5 files, so I can't verify this.:hmmm:

float3 g_sunDir : register(c0);
float3 g_orthogonalSunDir : register(c1);// at a 90 deg angle from sunDir
float3 g_fogColor : register(c2);
float2 g_fogParams : register(c3);
float g_sunDiskVisibility : register(c4);
float g_clipHeightOffset : register(c5);
float g_sunSize : register(c6);
float4 g_skyTopColor : register(c7);// with global sky color multiplier in "w"
float4 g_skyBottomColor : register(c8);// with height in "w"
float3 g_skyAroundSunColor : register(c9);
float3 g_skyAroundSunColor2 : register(c10);
float3 g_skyOppositeSunColor : register(c11);
float3 g_skyHazeColor : register(c12);// color
float3 g_skyHazeHeight : register(c13);// .z is the real height, clamped to max 180
float4 g_sunDisk : register(c14);// color & size
struct PS_IN
{
float4 eyeDir : TEXCOORD0;// eyeDir.w hold Y pos
float3 normal : TEXCOORD1;
};
float fastsin(float x)
{
float3 xx;
float3 coefs = float3(1, -0.1666666, 0.0083333);
float x2 = x*x;
xx.x = x;
xx.y = xx.x * x2;
xx.z = xx.y * x2;
return dot(xx, coefs);
}
float4 main( PS_IN In ) : COLOR
{
float3 color;
clip(In.eyeDir.w + g_clipHeightOffset);

float theta = dot(In.eyeDir.xyz, g_sunDir) / length(In.eyeDir.xyz);
float thetaSquared = theta * theta;

// 1. base gradient, from top to bottom
float heightRatio = pow(In.eyeDir.w / 992.0, g_skyBottomColor.w);
color = lerp(g_skyBottomColor.rgb, g_skyTopColor.rgb, heightRatio);
// 2. around sun color 1 - haze a larger radius
float aroundSunMask = pow(saturate(theta), 7);
color = lerp(color, g_skyAroundSunColor, aroundSunMask);
// 3. opposite sun color at 90 degrees
//float oppositeMask = saturate(dot(g_orthogonalSunDir, In.eyeDir.xyz));
//oppositeMask = pow(oppositeMask, 3);
//color = lerp(color, g_skyOppositeSunColor, oppositeMask);
// 4. opposite sun color at 180 degrees
//float oppositeMask = pow(-theta * 0.5 + 0.5, 3);
//color = lerp(color, g_skyOppositeSunColor, oppositeMask);
// 5. around sun color 2 - has a smaller radius
// use the vertex normal for cos(alpha) this time, because it deforms the lighting a little on the horizon
float thetaNormal = saturate(dot(In.normal, g_sunDir) / length(In.normal));
aroundSunMask = pow(thetaNormal, 80);
color = lerp(color, g_skyAroundSunColor2, aroundSunMask);

// 6. horizont haze
float hazeMask = smoothstep(1, 0, saturate(In.eyeDir.w * g_skyHazeHeight.x - g_skyHazeHeight.y));
color = lerp(color, g_skyHazeColor, hazeMask);
// 7. multiply by global sky multiplier (in g_skyTopColor.w)
color *= g_skyTopColor.w;
// 8. sun disk
// TODO - pass constants in register
if ( theta > 0.98 )
{
float dotNS = acos(theta);
float diskMask = saturate((dotNS - 0) * g_sunSize);
diskMask = saturate(0.5 - (fastsin(3.14159 *(diskMask - 0.5f)) + 1) * 0.5f);
//float diskMask = saturate((theta - g_sunDisk.w) * g_invSunSize);
float sunShadow = min(1, In.eyeDir.w / g_skyHazeHeight.z);
color = lerp(color, g_sunDisk.rgb, diskMask * g_sunDiskVisibility * sunShadow);
}
float coef = 1.0 - saturate(In.eyeDir.w * g_fogParams.x - g_fogParams.y);
color = lerp(color, g_fogColor, coef);

float shaftsMask = log(theta);
float alpha = 30 + shaftsMask;//lerp(shaftsMask, 0, coef);
return float4(color, alpha);
}