Am I going nuts?

D

Deity

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 25, 2002
Messages
185
OK I was (and still am) a happy owner of a 128mg ATI 9800 pro. I had this card when HL2 came out and was impressed with how well it ran HL2. When I was about half way through the game I got a BFG 6800GT oc for my birthday from my girlfriend’s parents. I was ecstatic. I have lusted after this card for a while now with all of the reviews and benchmarks I had read. Well I did all of the proper driver cleaning and popped that puppy in my system (specs below) and proceeded to continue my journey into the world of HL2. So I am cruising down the coastal highway when I notice something. The mountains off in the distance don’t look as good. They seem to pop up as I get closer to them where with the 9800 pro they seemed to kind of fade into view like a fog might be there. While frame rates are marginally better, they still dip into the teens occasionally. This pop up issue is totally distracting. The whole thing about half life 2 for me was the immersive feel of the game, and with mountains just popping up in the distance it takes away from that feel. How can my 128mg 8 pipeline card look and run on par with my 256mg 16 pipeline card? Is this a driver issue? I am running the latest beta from Nvidia. This there a tweak to fix this? I read in a thread something about ATI having better draw distance or something? how can this be? Now in all other respects this card kicks the shit out of the 9800, it more than doubled my 3Dmark03 score and doom 3 just flies like its running on the quake 3 engine. Is this a result of Nvidias limited development time with the game before release? Or does HL2 simply run better on the ATI hardware? If anyone can healp me out please do.
 
You probably need to adjust your driver settings, and force the higher quality ones, and adjust the games graphics settings as well.
 
Seems like I read in a review somewhere about the mountain issue. Are you forcing High Quality Mipmap and Detail settings in the driver panel? I doubt it will help with the Mountain issue but it will make little things look a lot better.
 
I'd actually bet it's the AF optimizations (if you're using AF) when you're not on Highest Quality (in the CP).
 
Yes, try turning on force mipmaps toTrilinear, AA off, AF 2 or 4X, all optimizations off. Make sure that the in game fog settings are set to max or higher distance if they have any. I haven't played the game specifically but it sounds like a general fog distance and isotropic filtering deal.
 
thanks for the suggestions guys, I give these a shot when I get home tonight.
 
I got a BFG 6800GT oc for my birthday from my girlfriend?s parents.
Click to expand...
w00t!!!

Her parents bought you?? w00t!! Hahahaha, fucking 1337!! Worship your girl and her parents.

/sorryz 4 offtopic
 
w00t!!!

Her parents bought you?? w00t!! Hahahaha, fucking 1337!! Worship your girl and her parents.

/sorryz 4 offtopic
Click to expand...

Wow there is alot of leet speak in there^^^^

Yeah I totally shit a brick when they gave it to me. They claimed I had saved them way more than that in computer repair and tech support over the last few years.
 
I'm in the same boat as you...I completed HL2 but picked up a new 23" LCD with 1920 x 1200 rez and even though the 9800pro is hanging most of the time I picked up a 6800 Gt and have yet rto install it. Let me know everything you find out.

Mac
 
in screenshots I noticed that the mountains in HL2 are just a lot darker...so I think that's why they seem to pop into view more than on the 9800...I seem to recall seeing that in other games too...nvidia...are you listening? (nope)
 
I tried the suggestions on here, It seemed to help quite a bit, but it might just be my mind playing tricks on me. The problem is still there.

there is what Im talking about.

I linked the image becasue they are kind of large

http://groundzerographix.com/cs/screenshots/3.jpg
http://groundzerographix.com/cs/screenshots/2.jpg

Mabey someone can try a similar screenshot on ther ATI 9800 pro or similar card. I just think its BS that it has to look like that.

This weekend when I get to my other machine with the 9800 ill try the same screenshot so I can compare.
 
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