[REQ] Lighting (not lightning) effect fix

[sneekyzeke]

Great research, everybody! I have owned Monster3d, RivaTNT, VooDoo, ATI, Diamond Stealth, and probably a few others through the years. Currently using an ATI 'cause that was available at the time and place of purchase for the price I was willing to spend! I'm sure that i will own Nvidia again someday, too. They were all fine cards at one time, so i've never felt compelled to say, "this one sux, etc." I'm content with what i have now and wish that peace on you all! Zeke

[Misfit138]

Based on some quick testing I've done with this GF8800 GTS now, this is in fact something you can only reduce/avoid by using higher resolution. Although, the shimmering doesn't seem as bad now as it did with ATI card but it's probable just something with my AA settings

[sneekyzeke]

well, i'll just be darned. so it turns out that you pretty much can't go wrong if you spend at least $85.00 and up and you get an ATI or an NVIDIA a whatever; unless of course that you allow yourself to be sucked in by stories about how your card sux 'cause it ain't the one i bought and blah blah blahblah blahhhhhhhh

P.S. In the deep south, we call this "fishing with your money". it's how rednecks troubleshoot/fix their cars. they just keep replacing parts until the problem stops.

Happy simming!

[Misfit138]

Originally Posted by sneekyzeke

well, i'll just be darned. so it turns out that you pretty much can't go wrong if you spend at least $85.00 and up and you get an ATI or an NVIDIA a whatever; unless of course that you allow yourself to be sucked in by stories about how your card sux 'cause it ain't the one i bought and blah blah blahblah blahhhhhhhh

P.S. In the deep south, we call this "fishing with your money". it's how rednecks troubleshoot/fix their cars. they just keep replacing parts until the problem stops.

Happy simming!

Sun glare is there, texture flickering gone and image quality seems much better now. Can't honestly call this waste of money, can you?

[sneekyzeke]

yes

[Misfit138]

Originally Posted by sneekyzeke

yes

I can respect your opinion but you're simply wrong :p

Isn't buying pc components a complete waste of money anyway? Today an expensive and powerful pc is worthless and slow tomorrow

[sneekyzeke]

maybe... peace, fellow sub-simmer!:rotfl:

[Misfit138]

Originally Posted by sneekyzeke

maybe... peace, fellow sub-simmer!:rotfl:

ok, peace

But I'm going to torpedo your sub someday! :rotfl:

[Quagmire]

Misfit,

So the NVIDIA card is in, eh? Congratulations! Anyway your findings confirm that it is indeed a problem with the SHIV 3D engine if you are still seeing that shimmering problem at ANY resolution.

I played SHIII at 1024x768 for a long time and never had the shimmering issue. The devs of that sim took time to deal with the different mipmap level issues. The effort was obviously not done by the SHIV devs.

It is nice that you have the sun glare now though. Enjoy those pretty sunsets!
.

[Digital_Trucker]

[My Humble Opinion]

If I'm not mistaken the developers of SH4 were given an extrememly short timeframe to complete the project. I believe that the people we should be dissappointed in are the folks a step or two above the developers (you know, the ones with the money that don't want to part with any of it, but want to rake as much of it in as they can). I would be the first person to complain about shoddy workmanship if the developers were the entire process, but they aren't, any more than the poor soul working on the assembly line at GM is responsible for the shortcomings of the corporation as a whole.

[/My Humble Opinion]

[Misfit138]

Originally Posted by Quagmire

Misfit,

So the NVIDIA card is in, eh? Congratulations! Anyway your findings confirm that it is indeed a problem with the SHIV 3D engine if you are still seeing that shimmering problem at ANY resolution.

I only tested the 1280x1024 but it's pretty pointless to take a look hows the lower resolutions...

I'm gonna toy around with this to see if I can find anything useful. These Nvidia's different AA modes make me pretty confused What the hell happened to that "just" Anti-Aliasing?!

[Marka Ragnos]

I have a 7900 GTO Nvidia card the game runs smooth but i also have that problem mentioned in the first post.

I also have the Samsung Syncmaster 206BW no matter what type of resolution the effects remains the same.

I'm gonna try some settings on my nvidia card and i'll get back to you

[Misfit138]

Been doing some more testing and ditched Vista because I had some performance issues with it and didn't really bother to start fighting with those and was just testing it out of curiosity. Was easier to just switch back to 64bit XP which btw is the best operating system M$ has ever produced

Ok, let's cut the chase. The shimmering is greatly reduced with this Nvidia card

GF8800 GTS 320Mb 162.18 Forceware



And the same ship with ATI X1950XT 256Mb Catalyst 7.8 Drivers



Notice that I actually had to take the shot closer of the ship now with Nvidia card to make those jaggies easier to see. As you can see, there are still some of those left but not like on the second shot. Not at all

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by Digital_Trucker

If I'm not mistaken the developers of SH4 were given an extrememly short timeframe to complete the project. I believe that the people we should be dissappointed in are the folks a step or two above the developers (you know, the ones with the money that don't want to part with any of it, but want to rake as much of it in as they can). I would be the first person to complain about shoddy workmanship if the developers were the entire process, but they aren't, any more than the poor soul working on the assembly line at GM is responsible for the shortcomings of the corporation as a whole.
[/My Humble Opinion]

I respect your opinion Digital_Trucker as much as your Radio Station manager!! However the very fact that you were able to develop your tool in your spare time while the developers of this sim couldnt come up with something similar AS PART OF THEIR FULL TIME JOBS leads me to lose faith in their "devotion to a quality product".

Another example is Anvarts fix of the periscopes after patch 1.3. I work as an IT developer for a large company. My job performance rating would be in jeapordy if my team broke something in a software patch that we sent to our clients and then made a client fix it!

Its a pride of ownership thing really. If my name was on the credits of this sim then I would definately test it thouroughly before a patch went out the door. And sure I might miss some obscure bug but something as obvious as the peri animation not working would be spotted on the first try. Now if I didnt care to test it at all...

The devs did a lot of good, hard work bringing us this sim. However the "love and pride" of their creation is severely lacking. I understand the evils of a large corporate publisher/distributor but something like the peri animations not working (and leaving it to the customer to be fixed) points to a lack of devotion to those who make it possible for them to be compensated for their work at all.

Just my opinion though......
.

[Quagmire]

Originally Posted by Misfit138

Been doing some more testing and ditched Vista because I had some performance issues with it and didn't really bother to start fighting with those and was just testing it out of curiosity. Was easier to just switch back to 64bit XP which btw is the best operating system M$ has ever produced

Ok, let's cut the chase. The shimmering is greatly reduced with this Nvidia card

GF8800 GTS 320Mb 162.18 Forceware



And the same ship with ATI X1950XT 256Mb Catalyst 7.8 Drivers



Notice that I actually had to take the shot closer of the ship now with Nvidia card to make those jaggies easier to see. As you can see, there are still some of those left but not like on the second shot. Not at all

Well there we have it. If the devs would have built this game using ATI us ATI users would have it much better now. Or, as is the industry practice, built it using NVIDIA and ATI we all would be happy. Both driver sets (NVIDIA and ATI) use optimizers that must be accomodated when building a 3D environment. This was obviously not done for ATI.

Now I would understand if they printed on the box "works as advertised with NVIDIA only", but since they didnt we have been let down again...

.