really bad dithering....

[CaptainHaplo]

See - thats why I asked = no one had stated they used an ATI card with this issue. Honestly - other than the one SH4 pick where the sky looks kinda grainy - the rest looks good to me. If the grainy effect is what your talking about - it has something to do with post processing effects I believe - and there is a mod out there that removes the grainy effect while leaving the rest of the ppe eye candy. Cant remember who made the mod - but do a search in the mod forum and you guys should find it! Worth a try!

[kv29]

we are not talkin about the grainy effect. The second pic of Jmack shows EXACTLY what Im talking about.

The gradient transition is not smooth, it looks blocky as hell.

[Redwine]

I ahve similar issue, my clouds looks just very bad... they seems in 16 bits instead 32... i watch another users screenshots with very nice clouds textures, but i cant reach that level disregarding what settings i adjust.

My card is ATI.

[Antrodemus]

Here's an example of the problem - I've kept the screenie in its native non-compressed BMP format, so as to rule out JPG compression artifacting. I've RAR'd the file from 3.5MB down to 280kb.

http://www.kurgen.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/pix/sh4img.rar

The screenie was taken while I was looking almost directly at the zenith, and you can quite clearly see the concentric dithering bands, although it is far more obvious when panning the view around. It is nowhere near as intrusive in a static screenshot.

[AVGWarhawk]

I get much the same with my ATI X1300 and I had much the same with my GF6200. The color transition is not smooth. It is all jaggy blocks. It is quite odd.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

I have always had this problem, whether it be SH3 or SH4. I run the game at 1600x1200, maximum details, yet the dithering has always been there, and it really looks bad.

I'll bet you're using an nvidia 79xx or 88xx card.
ATI cards don't suffer from banding whereas Nvida post 68xx cards yes.
You can see what happened when I changed an ATI X800gto with an nvidia XFX 7900 GS XXX in dangerous waters.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=116628


Edit : I corrected the post.

[Antrodemus]

Originally Posted by goldorak

I'll bet you're using an nvidia 79xx or 88xx card.
ATI cards don't suffer from dithering whereas Nvida post 68xx cards yes.

If you read the previous 5 or 6 posts in this thread, you'll see that this is not the case!

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Antrodemus

If you read the previous 5 or 6 posts in this thread, you'll see that this is not the case!

Yes it is.
Nivdia cards belonging to the 79xx or 88xx series don't have support for dithering.
Its a hardware issue, not a driver issue.
Thats why with 16 bit games you'll have banding.
Nvidia cards belong to generations 68xx and less have support for dithering.
If with thse cards you observe banding then its a driver issue, but the card is not at fault.
The same thing for ATI cards.
All ATI cards have dithering because many years ago they weren't capable of processing AA and 16 bit color at the same time.
Thats why they used always 24 bit internal processing and hence the abscence of banding even in 16 bit color games.
I hope this clears the issue.

[Antrodemus]

But you said "ATI cards don't suffer from dithering" when mine clearly does... does that mean SHIV uses 16 bit rendering?

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Antrodemus

But you said "ATI cards don't suffer from dithering" when mine clearly does... does that mean SHIV uses 16 bit rendering?

Excuse me, I meant that ATI cards don't suffer from banding.

Banding is the opposite of dithering.

ATI cards : support dithering and don't have banding
Nvidia cards : 79xx and 88xx have banding and don't support dithering
Nvidia cards: 68xx and less support dithering and don't have banding.

[Antrodemus]

Actually, it was me who confused matters initially, as I really meant that my game suffers from banding... as you can see in the screenie I posted.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Antrodemus

Actually, it was me who confused matters initially, as I really meant that my game suffers from banding... as you can see in the screenie I posted.

In fact I was asking myself why those screens were described as having dithering.
Its good that we cleared the issue.
The title should be changed in really bad banding (because its this effect we're seeing not dithering).

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by kv29

thats what im getting too. the odd thing is that I don´t see such thing in other games....

Its not dithering, its called banding.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Ilpalazzo

Is it possible for somebody to post a screenshot of what you guys are talking about?


"i have a 7300 and the color transitions in really suck i get all these square and geometrical shapes instead of a soft color transition from bright to dark ..."

Not sure if I'm thinking about the same thing but I can say that in both sh3 and 4 the sky is broken into annoying differently colored parts. Especially noticeable at night. I always thought I was just being picky, but I do wish the game would transition the color from day to night more naturally.

Its called banding, not dithering.

[panthercules]

Well, I don't know the difference (technically) between banding and dithering, but in both SH3 and SH4, with both ATI and nVidia cards, I have always had odd geographic/polygon artifacts and banding/dithering/color transition issues in the sky. It does look like I remember (from years and years ago) things would look when they were at very low color density (8 or 16 bit), but I haven't seen it in any game or application other than SH3/4 in years. As I mentioned in a post above, this has persisted across 4 separate cards (2 each ATI and nVidia) and innumerable driver updates, rollbacks, re-installs, settings tweaks, etc. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get a screenshot that really shows the effect nearly as pronounced as it is in the game. Tried again last night - results below (still doesn't really show the problems very well though):