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.

[Kwiatek]

Originally Posted by 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

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)

[crazyivan1970]

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

[IFly_1968]

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.

[Feuerfalke]

Originally Posted by IFly_1968

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.