Blue "Tearing" Or "Blotches" On Screen

[Kozure]

Sometimes while flying in Aces High, I see what can only be described as a blue "tear" or blotchy streak across the screen. It appears for a half-second then disappears.

It occurs intermittently and apparently without cause in Aces High, Warbirds and Rogue Spear (unfortunate, since they're the primary games that I play). On many newer games, such as MDK2, Deus Ex, The Sims, etc., there seems to be no such problem.

My system specs:

Athlon 1.00 GHz Thunderbird CPU
256 MB PC133 RAM
Asus A7V Motherboard

Samsung SyncMaster 955DF(T) 19" Monitor
Asus V7700 GeForce 2 Deluxe 64 MB card

DirectX 8
WinME

CH F16 Fighterstick
CH Pro Throttle
CH Pro Pedals

Just bought the darn thing, so I was a little peeved to see the blotchy, tear-like blue strip appear in AH, WBs and RS/UO.

All the other games seem to be fine, so it looks to me to be some odd DX8 incompatibility thing. I've fiddled with the various settings for the graphics card and the games themselves without success. Worse, since the problem is intermittent, sometimes the problem seems to be solved after a tweak or two, then it comes back.

In AH the problem is constant, it only seems to be a problem in WBs when in the tower, and in RS it seems to mostly occur when looking through transparent objects or openings.

*shrug*

I've hacked at it for a few days without success. Perhaps the gurus here can sort it out...

Thanks in advance, maybe someone else is seeing this problem? I don't really want to have to reinstall DX7.0a...hopefully there's some other easy explanation?

Kozure

[Lephturn]

I know some of the GeForce guru's have had good luck by disabling V-synch in their video drivers and playing with the two check boxed in the video setup portion of AH.  Give that a try.

BTW, to my knowledge nVidia does not have any drivers out that support DX8 yet.  This may be causing some of these problems.  Keep on your toes and try to get the latest ones available.


------------------
Lephturn - Chief Trainer
A member of The Flying Pigs  http://www.flyingpigs.com
 
"A pig is a jolly companion, Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale, Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you, When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover, You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!" -- Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

[Skuzzy]

It might be a good time to warn folks about upgrading DX to version 8.

Unlike previous versions of DX, DX8 does require drivers to be DX8 certified.  Generally, video drivers that are not DX8 certified will usually have problems.

Before upgrading to DX8, it would be very wise to check your video card manufacturer's WEB site to see if they claim to be DX8 compatible, or send an email to the support folks at the manufacturer and ask them.

A little caution goes a long way to keeping the frustration levels down.



------------------
Roy "Skuzzy" Neese
President, AppLink Corp.
http://www.applink.net
skuzzy@applink.net

[Paxil]

If you were using the Asus V7700 drivers... you could disable something called v-sync waiting (not v-sync) in the driver setup. However... if you are using DirectX 8 I doubt you are using Asus drivers...  I switched to DirectX 8 at one point... and the only way I got it to go away with the det drivers was to use a utility called GeForce tweek. (Can't remember where I got it and I can't remember the setting I changed to get the shearing to stop) Heh... guess I am not much help really! But anyway... I know exactly what you are talking about. Right now I just went back to DirectX 7.0a and latest Asus drivers with disable v-synch waiting checked.

[Kozure]

Thanks all for the advice.

Acting on your recommendations, I tried disabling v-sync by using the Asus control panel > Advanced Direct 3D panel > More Options Initially, with the default 3 frame pre-render, it caused the graphics to be very erratic. However, when I reset the pre-render rate to 1 frame, the odd graphic behaviour basically disappeared, and I am now able to play in 1600x1200 with good frame rates and no blotchy tears.

I prefer to not disable v-sync, since I know that it can have small (almost imperceptible) effects on gunnery and bomb accuracy, but in the meantime (at least until Asus issues new DX8 compatible drivers)this seems to be a workable fix for the 'GeForce 2 Shudders'

Thanks again,

Kozure

[XPATX]

DX8 may be a Prob but the video card may be the case.  If you have an ATI card Tearing and text problems are going to be a problem.