Will nvidia EVER fix the shimmering problem?

[Netrat33]

By ati users you mean x800s users right since I dont experience what you guys are talking about and i have an a64. There was that filtering effect with doom3, but i havent noticed it in the latest drivers so I'm guessing it was fixed.

No no any Ati users. I'm curious about it to see a broadspectum for both video cards (this might have to splinter off to a new thread)

I just witnessed this same flickering/shimmering in doom3 at a computer here at work with a 9800pro (but with an older catalyst)

This isn't an exact science either. Just wondering if their might be some sort of minor incompability that seems to be more pronounce on one type of system as to another.

 

[Emret]

That pretty much sums it up. Instead of going on a quest to stir stuff up and blaming Nvidia, go on a quest to fix your own rig & games

ahhhh... THE IRONY

lol..

 

[Cali3350]

I'll say again I don't see any shimmering in any of my games, and I have a 6800GT.

Do you even read the threads you make? On NVNEWS someone gave you the answer already.

- BF1942 its correctable (explanation at nvnews)
- It happens on both Nvidia and ATI cards with certain games according to ATI owners who posted there
- If it happens on everything for you there is something wrong with your card as others haven't been able to reproduce it.

That pretty much sums it up. Instead of going on a quest to stir stuff up and blaming Nvidia, go on a quest to fix your own rig & games

As has been explained in that thread, the xplanation has proven false by many other people, and many other hardware setups. It doesnt happen on everything, as i said. It only happens in some games. Its unnacceptable either way.
Why dont you go on a quest to let people try and work out a problem and get what they paid for?

 

[pandora's box]

Thank you for those who read my post and are starting to put the computer down they have

Here's what is seeming SO FAR reading back into old posts. Still would like more ocmputer submitted

A64 Shimmer GT (thread starter)
A64 Shimmer x800xt(me)
P4 Shimmer GT
P4(NW) No shimmer GT
XP2500 No Shimmer GT
A64 Shimmer 6800ultra (ops off no shimmer)
A64 Shimmer GT
XP2100 Some GT
P4(NW) None GT
A64 Shimmer GT
P4(NW) None GT (Tranz this is you Nvidia lover you

noticing a LITTLE trend there with CPUs (I'm assuming there are less ati users looking in here simply because it's talking about nvidia so ignore that) But I'm looking everywhere for answers and seeing how people are tackling this....New posters, please post your computer for either way for no shimmering or shimmering.

XP2700 Shimmer GT

 

[raz-0]

dual 2.4GHZ xeons shimmer, curable by driver settings.

 

[bboynitrous]

Damn, I noticed shimmering on my card, I hate the optimizations for my card. I turn them off. They also blur out the backround which defeates the purpose of AF even at 16X on all my games. I notice it more on half life based games like CS and stuff. It's annoying. Turning the optimizations on my x800 does work. The shimmering on this card isn't all that bad. I can get annoying though. Seems to have been reduced on these omega 2590 drivers though, with AI on low.. Hmm... it's acceptable to me, but I still turn it off anyway. lol

 

[jon_k]

so wait, the shimmering is also on the ATI cards as well?

 

[gregr]

Cali I agree with you, this is quite an annoying problem. I see many of you guys say you don't notice it. It really isnt THAT noticeable, but I just switched from a 9700pro and you can definately tell that there is a problem. I mostly play cs:source and it is quite noticable. I really hope nvidia can get it worked out soon...

 

[Netrat33]

so wait, the shimmering is also on the ATI cards as well?

Sure is seeming like it Growing list

A64 Shimmer GT (thread starter)
A64 Shimmer x800xt(me)
P4 Shimmer GT
P4(NW) No shimmer GT
XP2500 No Shimmer GT
A64 Shimmer 6800ultra (ops off no shimmer)
A64 Shimmer GT
XP2100 Some GT
P4(NW) None GT
A64 Shimmer GT
P4(NW) None GT (Tranz this is you Nvidia lover you

Newer
P4 Shimmer 9800pro120 (personal work computer not a post)
A64 no shimmer after fix 9800pro256
Dxeon Shimmer/fixed (card don't know)
XP2600 Shimmer x800

Like terra said, still this is early (like a presidental poll!) but possibly something there

 

[jon_k]

nice job on the list, I hope you keep updateing it.

 

[Cali3350]

so wait, the shimmering is also on the ATI cards as well?

Wasnt on the R3xx cores. I dont know about the X800. I know its mostly Nvidia people complaining, but i cant comment.

I was thinking - Nvidia said that the Nforce 3 would pump up a 6800 and make it faster in comparison to other chipsets.. I was wondering if that could have anything to do with this.

It cant really be a mipmaop problem as it happens when mip maps shouldnt be changing.

 

[MFZ]

so wait, the shimmering is also on the ATI cards as well?

Not that I know of and nobody has presented any proof to support it either.

 

[tranCendenZ]

Not that I know of and nobody has presented any proof to support it either.

Plenty of people here and at NVNEWS who own ATI cards have also reported seeing shimmering.

So far this is what we know about the shimmer
A) It doesn't affect all systems nor does it affect all games - or it is so small some do not notice it
B) On some games you can fix it by disabling all opts and/or lowering AF level
C) So far it looks like users with P4 Northwood cores experience it least for some reason
D) The shimmering affects both Nvidia and ATI cards for those who experience it

 

[Cali3350]

Plenty of people here and at NVNEWS who own ATI cards have also reported seeing shimmering.

So far this is what we know about the shimmer
A) It doesn't affect all systems nor does it affect all games - or it is so small some do not notice it
B) On some games like BF1942 you can fix it by lowering AF
C) So far it looks like users with P4 Northwood cores experience it least for some reason
D) The shimmering affects both Nvidia and ATI cards for those who experience it

...yet not nearly in the same numbers, and most say not as bad as the videos show.

ATI's is almost vertainly simply their AI opts. Nvidias is something else.

 

[tranCendenZ]

...yet not nearly in the same numbers, and most say not as bad as the videos show.

ATI's is almost vertainly simply their AI opts. Nvidias is something else.

Nope, again read the thread you started at NVNEWS and you will see several ATI owners stating they saw the same type of shimmering with driversets before AI was even released. The shimmering, for those who experience it, affects both brand cards.

 

[BullseyeBob]

TranyC would beat a dead horse for hours on end if he thought it would help boost Nvidia's popularity.

 

[Netrat33]

TranyC would beat a dead horse for hours on end if he thought it would help boost Nvidia's popularity.

Yea yeah but we know he doesn't have problems posted...so what about you?
shimmer or no? I see you have an XT

And this seems more of a problem than just nvidias.

 

[poppachocks]

Nope, again read the thread you started at NVNEWS and you will see several ATI owners stating they saw the same type of shimmering with driversets before AI was even released. The shimmering, for those who experience it, affects both brand cards.

Agreed. Users of both cards are reporting issues (although the Nvidia people seem more vocal). Since people were complaining so much about BF1942, I decided to load it up and take a look. I was a little noticable on certain maps (EL-ALAMEIN for example), but not nearly as bad as the video that was posted. Currently using 65.73 drivers. (and a Northwood core....hmmmm)

Setting AA to 8X resolved the issue. Fortunately the game still ran smoothly with max AA enabled. But it is a 2 year old game.

I think both ATI and Nvidia are worrying more about speed than IQ with these drivers.

 

[BullseyeBob]

no shimmering

 

[Cali3350]

Well, if ATI does it with their opts off (as in ai not enabled) then this is a problem for them aswell. This is not acceptable, and frankly nothings been done about it shocks me. Some report nothing. This concerns me. I really would liek some answers here.

 

[MFZ]

Plenty of people here and at NVNEWS who own ATI cards have also reported seeing shimmering.

So far this is what we know about the shimmer
A) It doesn't affect all systems nor does it affect all games - or it is so small some do not notice it
B) On some games you can fix it by disabling all opts and/or lowering AF level
C) So far it looks like users with P4 Northwood cores experience it least for some reason
D) The shimmering affects both Nvidia and ATI cards for those who experience it

It doesn't exist on the ATi cards, period. The only thing remotely close to shimmer on an ATi card is when there are alpha textures on the screen. Like I said, aside from that, there is not one iota of proof to support there is a hint of shimmering with ATi cards. On the other hand there is an abundance of proof there is shimmering on nV cards as demonstrated by the videos. In fact I challenge you to find me a single video showing an ATi card with shimmer, state the settings and game and then I'll run it on my system and debunk your shimmer theory. Just remember, it musn't contain alpha textures since ATi doesn't support SSAA.

TranyC would beat a dead horse for hours on end if he thought it would help boost Nvidia's popularity.

Isn't that the truth, now he's grasping at straws trying to make it an ATi issue as well.

 

[DropTech]

It doesn't exist on the ATi cards, period. The only thing remotely close to shimmer on an ATi card is when there are alpha textures on the screen. Like I said, aside from that, there is not one iota of proof to support there is a hint of shimmering with ATi cards. On the other hand there is an abundance of proof there is shimmering on nV cards as demonstrated by the videos. In fact I challenge you to find me a single video showing an ATi card with shimmer, state the settings and game and then I'll run it on my system and debunk your shimmer theory. Just remember, it musn't contain alpha textures since ATi doesn't support SSAA.



Isn't that the truth, now he's grasping at straws trying to make it an ATi issue as well.

Maybe you should go read the thread yourself :-\ it does exist. My brother as a 3.2C and a GT @ Ultra, and it shimmers (65.73, HQ); but when you turn the AF and AA up a notch, it is either not noticable and or gone. My Ultra on a 3.2C doesn't shimmer at all with AA at 4 and AF at 8. Same drivers, same settings.

I dunno man...

 

[HeavenX]

I just reinstalled my 9800 pro and ran bf1942 and the game looked the way it should in motion. I was very suprised to see how well and steady the graphics looked with 9800 pro, except the lower frame rates when compared to 6800. I dont think a player know's that the game has a problem if he didnt swich from ati to nvidia like I did. Those who are playing bf1942 right now with 6800 and didnt switch from ati to nvidia will never know that the graphics are not running the way they should.
I also tried the test with no af and no aa and the game still didnt have any shimmering on ati. Those who are saying crank up the aa and af on nvidia to get ridd of the problem should not be saying that because it should not have that problem in the first place.

 

[Cali3350]

The ATI issue really is something diff. It doesnt have nearly the same effect (Just checked on my X800 machine). its simply agreesive transitions that come off as this problem.

Anyway, this is from CaptnKill of nvnews (sorry if i got name wrong):

Heres an update.
Im still using 65.73 drivers.
I realized I didnt have the "force mipmaps" setting set to anything, so I chose trilinear and it did NOTHING.
I tried running at 2048x1536 and the shimmering doesnt get any better.
I tried 2x Quincunx AA and it didnt help.

Now this one is very important: Raising the mip bias to +1.5 blurred everything pretty badly, to the point where it didnt look like I was using any AF. Distant textures were just a smudge. The "shimmering" area looked a lot less sharp, but i can STILL see shimmering! I think Subtestube is right, they are applying incorrect mipmaps at a certain distance and only that distance. It is not simply an overly sharp mip-bias as others have stated, because if it was, then raising the mipbias should both eleviate the problem and "even out" the scene so that nothing is blurry and nothing is shimmering. But this isnt the case. The rest of the scene is perfectly fine, its just this "middle area" that needs fixing.

Also, if you lower the mip-bias to -1.5 (sharpening) it does the entire scene. You get shimmering on EVERYTHING. All the way out to the horizon. It increases the shimmering that was already there, but also sharpens the whole scene. So this is more proof that whatever the problem is isnt a general mipmapping or mip bias problem, its just one section of the mipmaps that are screwed up.

Right now, my guess is that one of the options that toggles a filtering optimization in the drivers doesnt work properly and leaves it on half the time.

 

[gregr]

Have any of you guys contacted nvidia about this? I think I'll write them an e-mail, since I think it's kind of BS that i just spent 400 dollars on a video card and the image quality is worse than my 2 year old card's quality.

 

[xenogears]

If you don't have the problem then get out of the thread. You're not helping anyone so just stop.
Anyway... I have only noticed it with certain games also.
BTW: P4 Northwood 2.8. P4C800 Deluxe mobo, BFG 6800GT

Haha that's what tranny does though. If it doesn't happen on his system, then obviously it can't occur at all! However, he's the first one to post on any ATI issue even though he doesn't have an ati card.

 

[HeavenX]

Ok, I got an Idea!!!! Why dont we all compare our Nvidia Make and model. Please all post whether its a Vga-out and DVI out or "dual DVI out" and tell us if your experiance shimmering.

Ok here is mine:

Gainward 6800gt Golden Sample/ Dual DVI : Shimmers Badly in BF1942 just like in videos posted by one of the member of this forum.

 

[Terra]

Sparkle 6800GT, VGA/DVI using the VGA, no shimmering I the games I play...

 

[Elios]

i get it BAD in FFXI >.<

BFG 6800GT
A64 3000+

 

[Cali3350]

i get it BAD in FFXI >.<

BFG 6800GT
A64 3000+

THAT is simply the game. It does that with everything. Cant pin this one on NV.


Anyway, BFG 6800GTOC using dvi-crt adapter and using second monitor aswell.

 

[matmanx1]

Honestly I've never noticed the shimmering issue with my setup. I just upgraded from a 9800 Pro/P4 2.8 to the rig in my sig playing the same games so I think i would have seen a drop in IQ (especially shimmering) if it was going to happen.

That being said I tend to run at lower resolutions (depending on the game of course) with 8xs AA and 8-16AF with highest quality set in the Nvidia driver. I'm ALL about IQ in my games! I'm also using 66.81. The games I play frequently are Painkiller, Call of Duty, Halo and Doom 3.

I'll load up Painkiller and Call of Duty again tonight (since people mentioned these specifically) and look at them very closely to see if I can detect some shimmering I was missing before.

 

[MFZ]

Honestly I've never noticed the shimmering issue with my setup. I just upgraded from a 9800 Pro/P4 2.8 to the rig in my sig playing the same games so I think i would have seen a drop in IQ (especially shimmering) if it was going to happen.

That being said I tend to run at lower resolutions (depending on the game of course) with 8xs AA and 8-16AF with highest quality set in the Nvidia driver. I'm ALL about IQ in my games! I'm also using 66.81. The games I play frequently are Painkiller, Call of Duty, Halo and Doom 3.

I'll load up Painkiller and Call of Duty again tonight (since people mentioned these specifically) and look at them very closely to see if I can detect some shimmering I was missing before.

It won't show up with 8xS.

 

[matmanx1]

If it doesnt show up at 8xs wouldnt that point to some sort of AA problem? Since 8xs is the only mode I know of that uses super AND multisampling and it seems to be correcting the problem.

To that end, why not use 8xs on the games that seem to be the worst offenders. Most of them are older anyway so you should have plenty of fillrate to burn. Just a suggestion!

 

[MFZ]

If it doesnt show up at 8xs wouldnt that point to some sort of AA problem? Since 8xs is the only mode I know of that uses super AND multisampling and it seems to be correcting the problem.

To that end, why not use 8xs on the games that seem to be the worst offenders. Most of them are older anyway so you should have plenty of fillrate to burn. Just a suggestion!

Yeah but what about new games that come out? Can't keep using 8xS so its better if they find a solution to this problem than to ignore it.

 

[wtburnette]

Haha that's what tranny does though. If it doesn't happen on his system, then obviously it can't occur at all! However, he's the first one to post on any ATI issue even though he doesn't have an ati card.

Yeah, but if people have 6800 cards and aren't having problems, it is helpful to know what their setup is. It may only be certain hardware combos and/or BIOS versions or something. I have a 6800U and will have to test for this problem...

Heh, sorry, meant to quote d34dly...

 

[joecuddles]

THAT is simply the game. It does that with everything. Cant pin this one on NV.


Anyway, BFG 6800GTOC using dvi-crt adapter and using second monitor aswell.

I haven't noticed anything, and I didn't notice anything on my old Radeon regarding shimmering or any sort of texture issues. With the amount of time I played, you'd think I would have noticed it (600+ hours).

 

[spyderz]

Well your lucky. Many people are complaining very loudly about it. If it WAS a hardware bug, im very curious how Nvidia will deny it.

omegas new driver claims to have removed the shimmering problems, i have not tried them yet but you might want to take a look at them, seems this is a driver issue, in my opinion i believe nvidia needs to do away with the unified drivers and just make one driver for the 6800 and future cores, and fx and below into a legacy driver, to me it seems most of there problems have been due to cramming info for other cards and messing the 6800's performance and quality

 

[Netrat33]

Honestly I've never noticed the shimmering issue with my setup. I just upgraded from a 9800 Pro/P4 2.8 to the rig in my sig playing the same games so I think i would have seen a drop in IQ (especially shimmering) if it was going to happen.

That being said I tend to run at lower resolutions (depending on the game of course) with 8xs AA and 8-16AF with highest quality set in the Nvidia driver. I'm ALL about IQ in my games! I'm also using 66.81. The games I play frequently are Painkiller, Call of Duty, Halo and Doom 3.

I'll load up Painkiller and Call of Duty again tonight (since people mentioned these specifically) and look at them very closely to see if I can detect some shimmering I was missing before.

Do you or ANYONE else notice this when playing Doom3:

http://www.teamradeon.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=825

There is a link to two pictures and one picture on display

Just because you don't notice it doesn't mean it isn't there. I'm experiencing this on an x800 and a 9800 pro. A friend didn't notice that flickering until I pointed it out.
I get this BIG time in Farcry

 

[okra]

went from a 9700 to 6800GT here, used the 61.77 drivers at first - noticed the mipmap "shimmering" right away - "solved" it by cranking everything up and using 8x AA and 16x AF.

The IQ of the 6x.xx drivers is definitely sub-par compared straight across to the Catalysts.

Game I notice it in is BF1942/DC.
Does this even with AF & AA off @ 1600x1200 resolution.

65.73 drivers make the shimmering less evident, but it's still there.
They also don't bench as fast as the 61.77 drivers do.

I grow weary of IQ for speed tradeoffs, especially when I have to use a beta driver to get better IQ, because Nvidia doesn't have an official driver out yet past 61.77.

Even running 1024x768, 8xAA, 16xAF, I get odd stuff with textures in the middle section of the screen - again leading back to the mipmap implementation argument.

Anyone have the link to the Omega drivers that supposedly fix this, mentioned a few posts ago? I'd like to try it out.

I'm also going to check whether this changes any using DC_Final instead of DC .7, but I doubt it will be any different.

And for all the folks that still persist in denigrating posters with this problem and insisting the problem doesn't exist - piss off!

 

[AutomaticErik]

I must be blind or something because I don't notice anything unusual in the videos posted. Can someone enlighten me?