Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: stickpig on June 02, 2012, 02:08:32 PM

Title: Shimmering
Post by: stickpig on June 02, 2012, 02:08:32 PM
What video setting would get rid of the shimmering effect?

I have a Nivida 9800GTX, latest drivers.

Thanks
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: 715 on June 02, 2012, 03:06:27 PM
If, by shimmering, you mean barns and other objects showing inappropriate textures at long range (i.e. flashing between showing the exterior and interior as you slightly change your view) then I don't think any graphics setting will fix it.  I think this is Z-axis "fighting" and I get it with an ATI HD4850 as well.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: gyrene81 on June 02, 2012, 06:34:53 PM
wouldn't be using the latest drivers on that 9800gtx, it's too old and the newest drivers are intended for the fermi and kepler chips. and that 9800gtx at this point is on the low end of capable for running ah with much detail.

what are your current in game and nvidia control panel settings? unless hitech changed something with the recent updates, everything for your aces high profile in the nvidia control panel should be set to application controlled.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 02, 2012, 10:33:11 PM
Not as true as you might think gyrene. While the latest drivers are focused upon optimizing the fermi and kepler line for *some* games the latest also provides significant advantages to any card from the Geforce 8-series and above by allowing optimum use of the FXAA technology (shader based anti-aliasing). What this means is that instead of pushing the card into the heat zone by forcing MSAA (multi-sampling anti-aliasing) anything from Geforce 8400 to Kepler can really push antialiasing without adversely affecting framerates.

Of course the images are not as crisp. Text with some aspects of AH are a little fuzzy depending on your use. However the frame rates will remain higher using this method and the card doesnt have to work as hard meaning less heat in your system and longer life of your components.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: stickpig on June 03, 2012, 01:53:09 AM
I know there are the newer (greatest) vid cards out there, but my old GTX9800 holds a rock solid 75fps with High res and all sliders full and all details on. Detail looks great; No shudders or studders. Flames, smoke, tracers,furballs etc and it holds 75 true and steady. I'd have to say that's fairly decent. The only thing is once in awhile a get a shimmering effect on the runway when I bump map buildings.

When I say shimmering its like a slight reflection along the edge of the runway. Not a big deal but was wondering if there was a way to eliminate it.

I'll try to get a screen shot to illustrate
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 03, 2012, 02:22:59 AM
Likely it wont show up. There are a few problems with the "z-axis" or z-buffering or whatever its called with shadows and other textures that are layered. You might try triple_buffering but in my experience it wont have any effect because in AH you get better performance with pre-rendered frames off or set to zero and without the latency involved with three pre-rendered frames or more.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: stickpig on June 03, 2012, 06:20:26 AM
Thanks for the info  :salute
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Skuzzy on June 03, 2012, 06:41:49 AM
HiTech has a 9800GTX in his computer and it works fine, but he is using older drivers.  I have seen a number of problems with the latest NVidia drivers and older video cards.  Stability is also a problem.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: gyrene81 on June 03, 2012, 04:00:23 PM
i dunno Chalenge, this isn't the first time i've seen someone reporting issues with the last 2 sets of nvidia drivers on older cards from 9500's to 560ti's. getting graphics artifacts with a video card after upgrading the drivers, generally points to the drivers being at the root of the issue. once in a while you can point to user error for not following best practices when changing drivers.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 03, 2012, 04:52:07 PM
I understand its a hit or miss situation with older cards. I still have a few 8800s on one system (SLI) and one with 480s that I upgraded without noticing a problem. I dont play AH on either of them but in the case of the 480 system at least FSX is very stable and improved with the latest drivers. There are some games that I think FXAA does a disservice to (like RoF) but other people like it.

The best system I have for AH uses 580s on a 32-bit Win7 OS and the latest drivers helped with temperatures a bit. On the 480 FSX system it made a bigger difference. You have to know that someone using 8800s or 9800s is going to try these drivers eventually. There will be problems and there will be success stories.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 04, 2012, 12:35:31 AM
I understand its a hit or miss situation with older cards. I still have a few 8800s on one system (SLI) and one with 480s that I upgraded without noticing a problem. I dont play AH on either of them but in the case of the 480 system at least FSX is very stable and improved with the latest drivers. There are some games that I think FXAA does a disservice to (like RoF) but other people like it.

The best system I have for AH uses 580s on a 32-bit Win7 OS and the latest drivers helped with temperatures a bit. On the 480 FSX system it made a bigger difference. You have to know that someone using 8800s or 9800s is going to try these drivers eventually. There will be problems and there will be success stories.

Say what? Are you really using the 32-bit version? That must leave you like 800 megs of usable ram :)
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 05, 2012, 01:06:38 AM
Your math is a little off but then your guessing on the memory model I chose.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 05, 2012, 06:49:35 AM
Your math is a little off but then your guessing on the memory model I chose.

What was the logic behind the 32-bit version? If you sli or tri-sli you're going to run out of ram fast.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: 715 on June 05, 2012, 01:59:33 PM
Your math is a little off but then your guessing on the memory model I chose.

You have a choice of memory model?  The reason I ask: I decided against upgrading my old 0.5G HD4850 graphics card because new ones come with a minimum 2G of video RAM and my 32bit XP would then leave me with less than 2G of CPU RAM.  Is there a way around that?
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: MrRiplEy[H] on June 05, 2012, 02:50:48 PM
You have a choice of memory model?  The reason I ask: I decided against upgrading my old 0.5G HD4850 graphics card because new ones come with a minimum 2G of video RAM and my 32bit XP would then leave me with less than 2G of CPU RAM.  Is there a way around that?

Theoretically one could use PAE but in practise that's not an option with windows. 32-bit drivers are not coded to handle memory spaces above 4gb which will make the box unstable.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 05, 2012, 05:45:02 PM
Ripley you dont understand SLI. SLI uses only the memory address space (in system ram) of the first card. The second card mirrors the memory of the first. The idea of Win7 32bit is stability for AH.

715 you can get the card (the 580 I mentioned) with 1.5GB or 3GB.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: 715 on June 05, 2012, 07:41:11 PM
715 you can get the card (the 580 I mentioned) with 1.5GB or 3GB.

Thanks.  Unfortunately, the ones I'm interested in, the GTX 670 or the HD7870 both come with 2G minimum.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: Chalenge on June 05, 2012, 09:48:48 PM
I understand your problem. I have been wondering for some time now how Nvidia can say that the minimum system requirements for the Quadro 6000 is Win7 XP SP3 (or Linux) when the memory model is 6GB per card. At the same time they say you can get by with 1GB of system ram with 2GB being recommended. I have been editing 4k video (Sony NEX FS700) on a Quadro 6000 SLI system that just smokes through editing and rendering media but my system has 16GB of ram on a 64 bit OS. So Im not exactly sure how the memory address space concerns video cards in actual fact.

I think that the actual memory address space is tied more to resolution of the system than it is the cards available memory.
Title: Re: Shimmering
Post by: stickpig on June 07, 2012, 08:00:36 PM
Just an update

Went back to the 6.14.11.7516 driver and got rid of the shimmering effect.