Wanted: A driver fix for the HORRIBLE Nvidia shadow IQ in Farcry...

[dug777]

The shadows on the gun are examples on this, but i've also noticed it on huts and other things when vegitation casts a shadow on them...these shots are all taken in the level 'Boat' (one of my personal favourites ), Farcry patched up to 1.33.

The first pic is taken on a 6800GT@ultra, 'quality' settings in Forceware drivers 77.77, all details maxed, 2xAA/8xAF at 1680x1050.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/dug777/6800GT4xAA8xAF.jpg

The second is taken on a 6600GT@570/1.10, 'high quality' settings in Forceware drivers 78.01, all details maxed, 4xAA/8xAF at 1024x768.

http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/dug777/6600GT4xAA8xAF.jpg

Screenhots are taken by using the F12 key in game (default screenshot button) and they get saved in the C>Program files>Ubisoft>Farcry folder.

If someone with an ATI card could take some similar screenshots to compare that would be great, ideally at 4xAA/8xAF for comparisons sake, and maybe at ATI's quality and highest quality settings.

I always set 'highest quality' with my 9800 pro and i could swear the shadows never looked that blocky...so i'd be really interested to see if i was right.

Cheers folks.

EDIT: 6800GT pics are actually at 2xAA.

EDIT2: there's no doubt it's an nvidia specific IQ problem, and i've collected some ATI shots that were posted through the thread so people don't have to read it all, although i suggest you do, as a few fixes were suggested and tested, none solved the issue.

here's my 1024x768, 4xAA/max AF, everything on very high, water on ultra high.
http://www.synthdude.com/dug777/farcry/FarCry0003.jpg

And the shadows looks awful (81.82 Forceware, high quality setting) I also tried the 81.84s (running them at the moment, still no improvement).

Anyway without further ado, how the shadows SHOULD look (thanks to the ATI card owners who posted these shots)
;
http://img380.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00033fc.jpg & http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00053dw.jpg & http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00012fd.jpg.

I hope that clearly sets out the problem for anyone new to the topic

Also, what are peoples thoughts on THIS:

Originally posted by: Tanclearas
Looks like it's related to nVidia's DST (Depth-Stencil Texture) "optimization". There is a way to disable it in 3DMark05 Pro, and it definitely impacts performance.

I'm not absolutely certain this is the same thing being seen in FarCry, but it sure looks like it is.

Sadly, it doesn't look like there is a way to disable this feature in the driver.

?

Anyway chip in with any thoughts, and hopefully the green monster will take heed and fix this for us

 

[Powermoloch]

Ok I'm here to post pics. Under shadowy conditions

x850xt agp (stock)
catalyst 5.7

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on high

http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00009mw.jpg

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on very high

http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00025qd.jpg


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Note that I had a 6600 running on my rig previously, and ran 1024x768 on high settings. And of course I had noticed blocky shadow images also.......

 

[SynthDude2001]

Thanks for posting the pics...it's kind of hard to tell since there aren't a lot of vegetation-like (more horizontal) shadows on the weapon, but it certainly looks like you don't have the same problem we do... Actually I hadn't played FarCry in quite a while, and then Dug brought this up and I took a few shots and sure enough, had the same issue

I wonder if it's a driver thing, or what.... (And why it seems to be Nvidia-specific, at least with the results of the three of us so far...)

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Powermoloch
Ok I'm here to post pics. Under shadowy conditions

x850xt agp (stock)
catalyst 5.7

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on high

http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00009mw.jpg

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on very high

http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00025qd.jpg


----------------
----------------

Note that I had a 6600 running on my rig previously, and ran 1024x768 on high settings. And of course I had noticed blocky shadow images also.......

Cheers mate for making the effort and helping us out, the shadows look much cleaner and less blocky from your second posted pic. Do you think you could try and get vegitation shadows playing over the gun like in the screenshots i posted for an easier comparison?

Cheers

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: dug777

Originally posted by: Powermoloch
Ok I'm here to post pics. Under shadowy conditions

x850xt agp (stock)
catalyst 5.7

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on high

http://img376.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00009mw.jpg

1280x1024 4aa/8af all on very high

http://img356.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00025qd.jpg


----------------
----------------

Note that I had a 6600 running on my rig previously, and ran 1024x768 on high settings. And of course I had noticed blocky shadow images also.......

Cheers mate for making the effort and helping us out, the shadows look much cleaner and less blocky from your second posted pic. Do you think you could try and get vegitation shadows playing over the gun like in the screenshots i posted for an easier comparison?

Cheers

Np, I'll go at it :thumbsup:

Just need to remember which lvl to go lol

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Update !
--
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what I noticed if I set it up only on "high", the sm rendering path is 1.1 :Q ?
As for the "Very high" quality, the rendering path turned to 2.x like you see below.....Pretty weird. But no loss of fps...which is awesome.

1280x1024 same settings with \r_displayinfo 1 this time

Pic 1

pic 2

pic 3

 

[dug777]

Thankyou thats exactly what i meant. Damn, those shadows look a million bucks better than the ones we're getting *writes an email to nvidia*

Cheers for you time and effort mate :beer:

 

[SynthDude2001]

Wow...so that's what our shadows are supposed to look like

 

[Powermoloch]

Np guys anytime....Just curious with the 7800 series owners out there. Are they having the same issue or not

 

[beserker15]

hey guys, here's an image of far cry on a 9700 with medium settings and 2xaa.
http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00012fd.jpg

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: beserker15
hey guys, here's an image of far cry on a 9700 with medium settings and 2xaa.
http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00012fd.jpg

:thumbsup:

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: Powermoloch

Originally posted by: beserker15
hey guys, here's an image of far cry on a 9700 with medium settings and 2xaa.
http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=farcry00012fd.jpg

:thumbsup:

Yeah, thanks for the post.

I wonder if we can do anything to fix it...seems to be an Nvidia thing.

 

[dug777]

no 7800 owners want to help us out?

If you did it would be much appreciated,

Cheers

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: dug777
no 7800 owners want to help us out?

If you did it would be much appreciated,

Cheers

LETS DO THIS 7800 OWNERS !!!!!!! COME AWWWN !!!!!! YEE HAW

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: Powermoloch

Originally posted by: dug777
no 7800 owners want to help us out?

If you did it would be much appreciated,

Cheers

LETS DO THIS 7800 OWNERS !!!!!!! COME AWWWN !!!!!! YEE HAW

Rollo where are you?

 

[CP5670]

I have seen this issue in quite a few games with a 6800 GT (Far Cry, Splinter Cell (original), UT2004 and Unreal 2 come to mind), which never had any problems on my old Geforce 3. This issue came up in a topic here a few months ago but nothing much came out of it. If it really is an nvidia issue, I'm surprised people haven't raised all hell over it already, as it's far more noticeable than the AF shimmering thing that has gotten so much attention. For example, it's extremely obvious in the Desolation map in UT2004 (the corner area with the windows and glass roof) and also at the beginning of SC (a striped shadow pattern of some kind IIRC). I thought it was some weird driver or DX issue with my computer and just gave up after unsuccessfully trying to get rid of it. I have sort of just gotten used to it after living with it for the last year.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: CP5670
I have seen this issue in quite a few games with a 6800 GT (Far Cry, Splinter Cell (original), UT2004 and Unreal 2 come to mind), which never had any issues on my old Geforce 3. This issue came up in a topic here a few months ago but nothing much came out of it. If it really is an nvidia issue, I'm surprised people haven't raised hell over it already, as it's very noticeable. For example, it's extremely obvious in the Desolation map in UT2004 (the area with the glass windows and roof) and also at the beginning of SC (a striped shadow pattern of some kind IIRC). I have sort of just gotten used to it after living with it for the last year.

well given the screenshots posted in this thread it looks like it's a purely nvidia issue (and changing rendering paths doesn't help, i tried that)...

 

[Powermoloch]

ROLLO !!!

 

[moonboy403]

since i'm in school right now...i can't post a screenshot....but i've been playing far cry for a while now (patched to 1.32) with my 7800 gtx and 78.01....and i don't seem to have this blocky shadow problem

 

[Cooler]

Rollo wont post pics because it might make his SLI rig look bad:evil:

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: moonboy403
since i'm in school right now...i can't post a screenshot....but i've been playing far cry for a while now (patched to 1.32) with my 7800 gtx and 78.01....and i don't seem to have this blocky shadow problem

well if you can post screenshots when you get home that would be great..you or any other 7800 owners out there

Cheers mate.

 

[Keysplayr]

I'll give it a go on my 7800GTX.

Give me a few.

 

[dug777]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
I'll give it a go on my 7800GTX.

Give me a few.

Thanks, try and get the shadows playing over the sniper rifle ideally

 

[CP5670]

Here is one of those areas I was talking about; if you have this game, it can be easily reproduced here:

http://home.comcast.net/~cp5670/UT04.jpg

I would also be interested to see how this looks on a 7800 card.

 

[Powermoloch]

Originally posted by: CP5670
Here is one of those areas I was talking about; if you have this game, it can be easily reproduced here:

http://home.comcast.net/~cp5670/UT04.jpg

I would also be interested to see how this looks on a 7800 card.

Holy crap...I have the same thing too !

http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ut20046sh.jpg

1280x1024 all on the highest. No aa/af

 

[apoppin]

is there a reason the 7800 owners are ignoring this thread
:Q




:roll: