Major problem with the new GE Force 9800 GX2

[Golden_Eagle_FM]

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

[X32Wright]

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.

[JG27CaptStubing]

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.

[Feathered_IV]

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.

[JG52Uther]

Originally Posted by Feathered_IV

Love to find a cure for it.

ATI

(sorry,couldn't resist)

[GF_Mastiff]

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.

[Zoom2136]

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)

[JG27CaptStubing]

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.

[crazyivan1970]

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.

[4./JG53_Task]

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