Patch 1.90 does not fix the "flashing textures"

[Mowgli 0]

Just FYI. Folks may already know this, but 1.90 does nothing to fix the flashing texture problem Radeon 9700 Pro (and other ati card users) are experiencing in OFP.

/rant on

When is BIS going to address this? Its the fastest card on the market and they've known about this for what, months now?

Arrg.

/rant off

Also, for those of you wishing to try out "RadeonTweaker" in the hopes that some setting in there will correct the problem, don't bother.

I meticulously experimented with each and every setting in the RadeonTweaker utility and nothing affects the flashing textures in OFP. I may have missed some combination of settings that may fix it, but I doubt it. (still hopeful)

Come on BIS, wake up.

[advocatexxx 0]

What do you mean flashing textures?

[azalin 0]

Well I don't know what kinda of Gfx card you have, but I've cured my ATI (retail 64MB) radeon 8500's 'flashing textures' by upgrading to the latest drivers version: 6.13.10.6200C

Maybe the flashing was caused by ATI's driver implementation, which I guess means it wasn't BIS' TL'n implementation...

[Mowgli 0]

Its most apparent on the terrain.

But the problem is basically textures tend to disappear and reappear rapidly.

For example: road textures.

So there you are, standing by a road, and several meters of road texture disappears, showing the "grass" texture underneath. Then the road texture reappears. Repeat. Frequency is quite high. "Flashing". I wouldn't want to be an epileptic looking at that, I wouldn't be surprised if it could bring on a seizure.

The same tends to happen to any applied texture, like scorch marks from blasts, "static shadows" under the M113 and jeeps wrecks, some wall textures, etc.

The last three sets of ATI drivers have not fixed it, including the latest 6200.

OFP 1.75, 1.85, and 1.90 all do it. Probably earlier versions do as well, but I was already on 1.75 when I swapped out my GeForce for the Radeon 9700 Pro.

No D3D setting options in the Radeon control panel helps. No setting in the OFP video options or those accessible in the OFP Preferences utility affects it either. W-buffer, different Z-resolutions, multitexturing, nothing affects it. Options given to you by the RadeonTweaker utility don't help either.

And the problem is exclusive to OFP. I've heard "Mafia" may exhibit some of the same problems (also a Code Masters published title), but I don't have that game to confirm. I doubt Mafia was BIS developed anyway.

[Mowgli 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (azalin @ Nov. 26 2002,14:46)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Well I don't know what kinda of Gfx card you have, but I've cured my ATI (retail 64MB) radeon 8500's 'flashing textures' by upgrading to the latest drivers version: 6.13.10.6200C  

Maybe the flashing was caused by ATI's driver implementation, which I guess means it wasn't BIS' TL'n implementation...

<span id='postcolor'>

I am running the Radeon 9700 Pro. 128meg version. I beleive its a "2nd revision" card as I bought it 2 weeks ago, so a "13".

Is there a difference in the 6200C drivers? As opposed to the 6200 drivers (no letter).  

If so, when did these come out? I just put on the 6200 drivers last week right from the ATI site and they did not fix the problem (yes I cleaned off my old drivers beforehand thoroughly).

[HK (HunterKiller) 0]

Don't use hardware T&L then...thats the only way i can get my flashing textures to stop, Radeon 8500LE

[advocatexxx 0]

Hmmm, I have GeForce 2 and explosion textures, especially the big ones from tanks etc. are always sort of flashing when up close walking over them. Well I wouldn't say flashing but it does go on and off. Although I don't think you're talking about this.

[Mowgli 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (HK (HunterKiller) @ Nov. 26 2002,14:52)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Don't use hardware T&L then...thats the only way i can get my flashing textures to stop, Radeon 8500LE<span id='postcolor'>

Not really an option for me.

I host(ed) alot of multiplayer sessions. Custom co-op missions that we create, mostly. And they are LARGE. As in company sized engagements usually. Such that even on this AthlonXP 1700+ with 1Gig DDR ram, Radeon 9700Pro, I average 7-15fps as host. (By way of example I can hit 50-60fps on CFS3 with most details cranked, so its not a poorly tuned box).

Can't take any hit that'd drop that OFP framerate. T&L is a must. For now we've hung up OFP until the problem is fixed, or I suck it up and play anyway, but I can usually only get thru one mission before I have to turn the game off.

[Mowgli 0]

An update:

Wiped HD. Re-partitioned.

Fresh install of Windows XP

Fresh install of 6200 Radeon 9700 Pro drivers

Fresh install of OFP - patched up to 1.85

--------------------------------

= Texture flash still present.

[theavonlady 2]

May the GeForce be with you!

[GeneralMortars 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">

But the problem is basically textures tend to disappear and reappear rapidly.

<span id='postcolor'>

Got the same problem since the beginning and with every driver version of my Hercules Prophet Kyro II 4500.

I've searched the forum looking for other users having the same problem, but i never thought i'll find something about it on a topic concerning the Radeon.

Well. I tried nearly all available options and driver versions. The problem is still there. Sumhow i give up the hope that it will be fixed.

Don't tell me i have to disable Hardware T&L to get rid of the problem, coz Kyro 2 doesn't even support that!

[theavonlady 2]

Mowgli, look here regarding new 9700 beta drivers. It's not the same problem but it might cover fixing this one as well.

[Mowgli 0]

Thanks for the link Avon. I had given up on that thread as it seemed to be centering on the memory map problem, which the 0.pbo, o.pbo workaround fixes for me.

I've been eyeballing those beta9 drivers and I might just go get them tonight. I wanted to try my earlier fix of a clean windows/6200/ofp install first. (didn't solve it, alas)

BTW - I have no problems with any AGP aperture size and ofp. I've tried 64m, 128m, 256m and no problems whatsoever.

As you alluded Avon, Suma was pretty circumspect about what "problem" the beta 9 drivers fixed, but its a good bet he was in fact referring to the thread's original problem (mem map), or the AGP aperture problem. (Neither are an issue for me).

So here's me keeping my fingers crossed that these beta drivers fix the texture flash as well. I'll report back if they do or don't.

[Mowgli 0]

Just installed the DX9 beta drivers.

They do nothing for the flashing textures issue.

[Mowgli 0]

padman just replied to that other thread. They were referring to the mem map issue.

Flashing textures I beleive will never be solved for the Radeon line. Six months, three driver revisions on ATI's side and four game patches on Flashpoint's side and still no fix means they probably aren't going to (or aren't able to) fix it.

Ah well. Time to see if I can turn this card back in on a GF Ti4600.

[BLuuRKo 0]

You know...

Radeon 8500-9700s use a more advanced D3D technique....

Hardware Transform *CLIPPING* and Lighting!

Yes that's right! D3D HW TCL is what these cards use!

Drivers don't fix it. You're just gonna hafta run it on normal D3D

It is backwards compatible.....but it's too new for some games.

Just wait until everything is based around pixel/vertex shaders and displacement mapping! Bye bye D3D T&L, TCL etc!

*Drools over the feature laden 9700 Pro*

[Mowgli 0]

Once again, for those waaay back in the cheap seats:

"Disabling HW T&L is not an option".

But no, buying a $399 card and turning it off is reasonable...

---------------------------------------------

*Drools over the way OFP ran on the nvidia*

[BLuuRKo 0]

*laffs at how last nvidia card ran OpF*

[Mowgli 0]

Not going to get into a pissing match about this. The Radeon is a great card.

OFP combined with the Radeon 9700 have an issue.

If anyone has found a solution, please post it.

[Mowgli 0]

This may not be news to folks that are watching this issue, but ATI just released a new CATALYST driver.

We're now on Catalyst 2.5 (driver version 6218 for Windows XP users out there).

They don't fix the problem.

[hugo2020 0]

does I understood it right? In D3D mode all runs fine with radeon 9500pro/9700pro?

The only different I know of HW T&L is the reflecting sunshine on water.

2.) Is there a big different with an radeon 9700pro and activated AA or AF?

[Mowgli 0]

Yes, Disabling Hardware T&L makes OFP run "fine". That is, there don't seem to be any rendering issues. However, kiss your frames-per-second goodbye.

By turning off the HW T&L on the video card, you might as well take your Radeon 9700 out, put it back in the box it came in, and plug your monitor into the onboard video on your motherboard, because its doing absolutely nothing for you.

Fastest GPU on the market and you just turned it off.

[DOA 20]

When flying the roads do seem to flash a lot. Geforce ti200 64MB Video card, I have tried tweaking the video setings and nothings seems to fix the flashing.

[Mister Frag 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (DOA @ Dec. 11 2002,21:08)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">When flying the roads do seem to flash a lot. Geforce ti200 64MB Video card, I have tried tweaking the video setings and nothings seems to fix the flashing. OFP is such an excellent simulation. I wish they would get bought up by a big company with enough money and experience to properly code it. If we can get the bugs out, OFP would blow every other shooter right off the shelf. <span id='postcolor'>

Make sure you use 32-bit color, because the color depth also affects the Z-Buffer depth, which in turn affects clipping.

Use Direct3D with HW T&L, enable multi-texturing, and disable the W-Buffer. Moving the Visual Quality slider all the way to the right will keep tree textures etc. from suddenly popping into view.

[PONG 1]

Mowgli,

I too have a 9700pro and have the flashing texture problem. It pretty much sucks. I had a geforce 3 TI500 and it ran okay. Got a good deal on the 9700 and said, "hey why not."

My friend has an 8500 and previously had the same problem until the last driver update from ATI which did fix the problem for him. Why can't ATI or BIS figure out what is wrong? Or does somebody know already and just doesn't want to comment?

I too tried just about every frigg'n setting to reduce the texture rendering problem. No luck. Only option right now is to either put a different card in, or send enough emails to ATI that they realize there is enough users playing Opflash that it is in their interest to fix the damn problem.

Since it was fixed for the 8500, I still have hope that the next driver release from ATI will fix the problem. Until then, it's either low detail or rediculous FPS for a 400 dollar video card.

Merry Frigg'n Christmas