Major problem with the new GE Force 9800 GX2
 

I just installed the new Nvidia GE Force 9800 GX2 graphic board from ASUS with the latest drivers 174.74.
I tested the board and it has a stellar performance.

When playing with IL2 however I got a weird effect. The shadows of the smoke columns on the ground, or of the islands or mountains in the water or in the rivers, or of the ship shadows on the water they all blink (in synchronism) and this is really annoying.
Framerate is excellent and all the rest is perfect.

I use the perfect mode with the latest 4.09 Beta DLL from march 2008.
Landgeom is set to 3, water = 3, effects=1.

I tried many changes of the conf.ini parameters but could not change this fact.

If I put water=0 there are no more reflections on the water, or shadows on the water so there is no blinking any more on water. But still the shadows of the smoke columns on the ground continue to blink.

The blinking frequency is maybe around 5 to 10 Hz so very annoying.
Before I had an Nvidia 8800 Ultra board and had no problem at all with exactly the same system. I just changed the board.

The system is:
CPU is Intel Quad Core extreme QX9650 running at 3.15 GHz
Mainboard Asus Commando
FSB 1333
Memory 4GB Patriot 9600.
Windows Vista Ultimate

Any ideas

Gold

Does this happen in OpenGL or Direct X or both?

Smoke and other effects on this game are mapped to flat polygons and have serial texture on them so I am guessing the flickering effect that you see has to do with an error in texture map loading if not how it is dealing with alpha channels blending.

What you're experiencing is due to the fact your card Runs in SLI. You're running two GPUs on a single card and it using what ever mode SLI hence the back and forth of all the shadows. I get it too because I'm running 2 8800GTs which is basically what you're doing.

It all goes away if i use a single GPU. I don't know that it can be fixed via a driver it could be a dll issue with how the game engine renders the shadows.

I get the same thing. Both on my old 6800GT and my new 8800GT. I just thought it was a fact of life. Love to find a cure for it.

ATI

(sorry,couldn't resist)

lol, thats right, I run in Crossfire mode and don't have that problem. Might be a nvidia SLI problem? Report it to them, they may fix it? If not go with ATI.

This is so funny... I have the same thing with my SLI 7900 GTX OC...

And I did not have this problem with my ATI X850XT. Should have staid with that card better visual and not that big of a difference in FPS in iL2... with other game on the other hand I can't say the same (for FPS that is)

I don't have the issue with the 2 8800GTs when I run with a single GPU its something to do with SLI

I will double check but I'm 99 percent sure.

You are not alone there mate, Visiontek 3870 X2, 8.3 Cats. All cloud shadows, edges of the forest, coasts of the rivers are solid, glossy black.. No matter what i tried, had to switch to DX. Yea, water looks like.. but at least it`s playable. I believe it`s a driver issue with Vista. Runs fine in XP64 with 8.3 cats.

I'm installing a second 8800GTX, so hopefully there will be no visual problems in IL-2 in SLI mode :\.

I have also silimilar problem with shadows or sth like these on the water - it blink in synchro

I got single 8800GT, Win XP, il2 settings: water-4, effects-2, newest dlls from beta 4.09, landgeometry-3,

Dont know how it be at standart dlls from 4.08 beacuse i recenty buy new computer and use only new dlls. With old machine i didnt try such high settings with water (water=0)

Kwiatek, newest DLLs from March 13th or DLL`s that were in the beta patch?

Go into you NVidea control panel and see if your settings for the card are set to overide any game setting that may be. If I was home I would show you the setting via screen shot. You want to make sure that your card is in fact overiding any game settings (AA, AF, VSync, Triple Buffering, Etc.) If you do not specify that the card is to manage these things, you can get conflicts from the game. Also, in the control panel you can have settings for specific games. Make sure that you import the game exe into the list. I will not be home for about 12 hours but when I get there I will try and get some screan shots going.

I have the 9600 GT and do not have this issue at all.

No wonder, as a single 9600 GT won't suffer from the problem described above. ;)

Overriding any values is not a cure, but rather a placebo IMHO. Especially for IL2, since the game does not imply any settings at all (unlike more modern games that try to set these values from ingame, which at least gives you the chance to override something ;) ).

Beyond that Tripple-Buffering only makes sense with VSynch enabled, as it renders ahead the next frames, at least AFAIK.

Nevertheless, any tip might be a way to fix problems for Multi-GPU and I'd be glad for some additional informations about your settings.

The newest. I dont know hot to describe these but thing which blick in the water are not cloud shadows but something different. These thing are large places on the water ( clouds shadows are smaller) and blick in synchro with a few hertz.

@Kwiatek, Just to verify few things...

Do you have latest IL2Setup?
In IL2Setup you have chosen an appropriate card?
You have latest nVidia drivers?
What happens if you set LandGeom=2?
What happens if you set water=2 or =3?

This is what i get in OGL under Vista Ultimate, 8.3 cats :(

ATI card try making sure the Catalyst AI is unchecked and set to standard. its under the 3D settings.

Thanks man, i wish it was that easy..

I try to reproduce these "bug" but now everything is ok. These blicking "water reflections" i got during online playing at WC server at map Kerch. My mate had the same time these problem also. I tried these map with the same settings at my own server and didnt saw anomalies.

BTW i got lates nvidia drivers, latest il2setup - when i got these bug i was at customize setting - no texture compresion and anistrophic filterning.

I run two 8800 GTX in SLI. I get the flickering water reflections in water=3, that's it. All others seems fine.

After reading this thread, I tested different Non-SLI/SLI Antialiasing Settings and SLI Performance Modes in Il2 1946 looking for the best visual quality consistent with good framerates. Framerates were measured with "The Black Death.ntrk" and FRAPS; visual quality was eyeballed in both "The Black Death" and some single-player missions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
CPU: Intel QX6800 (2.93 MHz)
Motherbaord: NForce 680i SLI
Graphics Cards: 2 NVidia 8800GTX (OC'ed to 594MHz Core, 1404MHz Shaders, 900MHz
Memory)
Graphics Card Memory: 768MB DDR3 x 2
RAM: 2GB PC8500
Monitor: 4:3 19" 2ms LCD @ 1280x1024 Resolution
OS: WinXP Pro

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
IL-2 1946 v4.09b
March 13, 2008 .dlls

In-Game Resolution Setting: 1280x900 32 Bit

Conf.Ini Open GL Settings:

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=0
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=1
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=0
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=0
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=1
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=1

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=3
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=17
Water=4
Effects=2
ForceShaders1x=0
PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.15
PolygonOffsetUnits=-3.0

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NVidia Forceware v.169.21 Control Panel Quality Settings (excluding SLI Settings)

Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Antialiasing Gamma Correction: Use Global Setting (On)
Antialiasing - Mode: Override Any Application Setting
Antialiasing - Setting: VARIABLE
Antialiasing - Transparency: Use Global Settting (Off)
Conformant Texture Clamps: Use Global Setting (Use Hardware)
Error Reporting: Use Global Setting (Off)
Extension Limit: Use Global Setting (Off)
Force Mipmaps: Trilinear
Multi-Display/Mixed GPU Acceleration: Single-Display Performance Mode
SLI PerFormance Mode: VARIABLE
Stereo - Diplay Mode: Use Global Setting
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Sample
Optimization: Automatically Disabled
Texture Filering - Negative LOD Bias: Use Global Setting (Allow)
Texture Filtering - Quality: High Quality
Texture Filtering - Trilinear
Optimization: Automatically Disabled
Triple Buffering: On
Texture Filtering - Anisotropic Mip
Filter Optimization: Automatically Set To Off
Vertical Sync: Force On

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
NVidia Forceware v.169.21 Control Panel SLI Settings (Note: SLI Antialiasing and Dual GPU SLI Rendering Modes are mutually exclusive options; you can choose one or the other but not both):

1. Antialiasing Setting: 4x (Non-SLI)
SLI Performance Mode: Single GPU (NVidia Recommendation)
Benchmark: Frames: 8867 - Time: 162737ms - Avg: 54.487 - Min: 22 - Max: 64

2. Antialiasing Setting: 8xQ (Non-SLI)
SLI Performance Mode: Single GPU (NVidia Recommendation)
Benchmark: Frames: 8808 - Time: 163178ms - Avg: 53.978 - Min: 22 - Max: 64

3. Antialiasing Setting: SLI8x
SLI Performance Mode: Single GPU (NVidia Recommendation)
Benchmark: Frames: 8586 - Time: 163772ms - Avg: 52.427 - Min: 22 - Max: 63
COMMENT: Very, very slight visual improvement over 4x & 8xQ (Non-SLI); not noticeably inferior to SLI16x.

4. Antialiasing Setting: SLI16x
SLI Performance Mode: Single GPU (NVidia Recommendation)
Benchmark: Frames: 7589 - Time: 162316ms - Avg: 46.754 - Min: 20 - Max: 63

5. Antialiasing Setting: 4x (Non-SLI)
SLI Performance Mode: Dual GPUs - Force Split Frame Rendering
Benchmark: Frames: 8904 - Time: 162574ms - Avg: 54.769 - Min: 23 - Max: 64

6. Antialiasing Setting: 4x (Non-SLI)
SLI Performance Mode: Dual GPUs - Force Alternate Frame Rendering 1
Benchark: Frames: 8917 - Time: 162827ms - Avg: 54.764 - Min: 22 - Max: 65
COMMENT: Some H20 reflections flicker unacceptably.

7. Antialiasing Setting: 4x (Non-SLI)
SLI Performance Mode: Dual GPUs - Force Alternate Frame Rendering 2
Benchmark: Frames: 8943 - Time: 163377ms - Avg: 54.738 - Min: 22 - Max: 65
COMMENT: Some H20 reflections flicker unacceptably.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSIONS:

At a monitor resolution of 1280x1024, with otherwise max'ed out in-game and NVidia Control Panel quality settings, most SLI antialiasing and frame rendering settings make little diference in IL2's framerates. (However, SLI16x antialiasing causes an 8fps drop.)

SLI8x antialiasing looks a little better to me than non-SLI 4x and 8xQ antialiasing settings (especially in cockpit views).

Using SLI Perfromance Mode/dual GPUs to force Split Frame Rendering yields good framerates and visual quality -- but not appreciably better than a using a single GPU coupled with 8xSLI or 4x/8xQ non-SLI antialiasing.

Using SLI Perfromance Mode/dual GPUs to force either Alternate Frame Rendering 1 or Alternate Frame Rendering 2 causes unacceptable flickering.

Using the same in-game conf.ini settings but my old, single-card Contol Panel settings of 8x anisotropic filtering, 4x antialiasing, force mipmaps - trilinear, texture quality - high quality, triple buffering off, and force vsync off, my "Black Death" framerate was, predictably, 73fps (vsync off) with more "jaggies" degrading visual quality (8x instead of 16x anisotropic filtering).

At higher monitor resolutions, an SLI setup *may* improve visual quality while preserving playable framerates. It would be interesting to compare these results with 22"-24" monitor resolutions.

Vista 32bit users try this....

With ATI Crossfire, use one Crossfore bridge only... that being the Crossfire bridge closest to the output end of the cards and reboot. The BIOS may or may not redetect, depending on mobo. (on my DX38BT it did)

Go to MSconfig/ Boot and then click the Advanced button and at the top of the screen that pops up, there are two checkboxes... one for Boot Number of Processors (tick this and select the number of processors you have) and the other is Boot RAM Amount... (tick this also and select the total amount of RAM you have), then reboot.

This may or may not help il2 but it does help with regard to the system in general

Obviously to have Il2 running in Vista... Folder Permissions had already been set to Full