Radeon 9600 pro ez & ofp

[mr burns 131]

I don´t really know since when the problem occurs but i guess it is my Radeon Videocard. I recognized it first with the GMI Camera Tool when i zoomed very close onto a CAF_Bison and a CAF_LAV3 that were 1000-1500 m away.

When i think about it....i saw it earlier on Kegetys Winter Soldiers, through Binocs appr. 400m away.

Right at the moment i´m not completely sure if i have seen the flickering on official BIS units...have to check that later.

Generally the flickering appears on units/objects (the most on Helmets&Turrets) that are farther away than 400-500 m. With bare eyes it´s not so obvious but if looked through a scope or binoc it looks awful.

When i´m @home i will make some Fraps Video Captures and upload them so you can take a look yourself.

I have an ATI 9600 Pro ez.

I use the Catalyst 3.8

I´m running OFP v1.94.

I read Avon´s FAQ and none of the solutions (searched for: flashing textures) is good for me.

I don´t want to install DX 8 cos i have 9.0b and some games i play need it.

Changing to no HW/T&L is also not good...performance and graphics should stay as are.

Try running OFP in a lower Resulution ? nooooooo...why the hell should i

Graphics Aperture Size seems not to affect the flickering...i´ll give it another look after work.

Only thing that i´m sure of is that it has nothing to do with OC´ing my VidCard.

Please help..i´m lost  

[suma 8]

Turning w-buffering on or off (this can be done in the ingame video options) might help.

[mr burns 131]

if i remember correct the w-buffer setting isn´t available in my options. i can see it but it isn´t clickable

i´ll confirm this when @home.

[theavonlady 2]

if i remember correct the w-buffer setting isn´t available in my options. i can see it but it isn´t clickable  

Search The FAQ for "ati w-buffer" and click on the first matching FAQ item.

[mr burns 131]

LOL, is there anything i can´t find in the FAQ ?

I give this a try in about half an hour....but it sounds very promising.

[theavonlady 2]

LOL, is there anything i can´t find in the FAQ    ?

I searched The FAQ for "bf 1942" and it came up blank.

[mr burns 131]

ROFL Avon

m´kay i opened my user.cfg and set the useWBUFFER from 0 to 1.

Started OFP looked into options and there´s still W-buffer disabled. I tried editing the user.cfg 3 times now, but it seems as ofp resets the value to 0 everytime.

I noticed now that also textures on trees and houses are flickering if looked at through scopes. but it´s weird. when i hit the x key (top right of numblock) and the cam doesn´t move the textures on both trees&houses are fine.

I will now make some videos.

[mr burns 131]

I´ve made 2 Videos which show the flickering effect very good. But the bad side is that both wiegh about 110 MB together...anybody knows a good compression method ?

[mr burns 131]

[note]windows moviemaker is usefull[/note]

I´ve shrinked the two files to 2 MB each.

Both show flickering textures on a BIS M60 and CAF Coyote.

To the end of the second video i have fixed the view via x key to show that flickering on trees stops.

Here are the links:

video 1

video 2

/ed.: typo

[General Mcclintock 0]

Hmm, you don't state who assembled your video card so I can't tell about the cooling or quality of your video card.

Hmmm I think I have experienced something similar on my GF4 Ti 4600, but I have no clue what it can be at present time...

But I think I might know a way to override your video cards settings.

http://www.rage3d.com/r3dtweak/ Try that program, it will add some extra tabs in your ATi control panel for tweaking and they might hold the key, I will do some checking on your problem around my sources and tell you what I find.

[mr burns 131]

thx for the reply ...

my ATI is from Power Color and i already use Rage3d tweak.

Am i the only out of 25679 board members who has this Card and/or problems with it in OFP ?

[theavonlady 2]

Am i the only out of 25679 board members who has this Card and/or problems with it in OFP    ?

Well even if all 25679 of us had your exact same video card, the manufacturer might have a 0.0000389% manufacturing defect rate.

[General Mcclintock 0]

thx for the reply ...

my ATI is from Power Color and i already use Rage3d tweak.

Am i the only out of 25679 board members who has this Card and/or problems with it in OFP    ?

Power Color is rumored to be called Power problems.

Reason: They go cheap on cooling such as their 9800 Pro, cheapest there is but it is clocked lower than other 9800 Pro's.

Also they seem to make simple not solid quality designs...

Tried RadTweak? Also availible from the same site, Like I said this sounds like there is a small driver issue or something with the core...

Hmmm, <--- I know I have been doing this a lot lately.

Have you tried the rage 3D forums? Personally I don't own an ATi card and I am not proud of that.

But I have been around those cards for a while, I got an user ID at Rage3d.com I think they know the 9600's more than me.

I will check with a few local hardware sites, where we "Vikings" Talk.

[bonko the sane 2]

I own a GFx5600 and ive also had these sad flickering textures...since a few nvidia drivers back...and it seems to be getting worse

[livsy 0]

I can exactly explain what IS that problem of distant flickering but there is no solution EXCEPT rewriting game engine code.

The reason is DISABLED W-BUFFER!!!

The reason of flickering on ATI radeon 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800 and those PRO, LITE, SE and other mods is that they DO NOT SUPPORT W-BUFFER AT ALL.

The reason of flickering on ANY nVidia videocard is that W-BUFFER is NOT SUPPORTED BY DRIVERS starting from Detonator 45.23.

Damn I hate hardware developers.  

In any other case just enable w-buffer and have a nice day with binocular or SVD.

If you need details -- welcome: slava (at) livsy.kiev.ua

And if anyone can tell about w-buffer to flashpoint developers they might solve this problem.

--

Real Flashpoint Fan.

[Kuja- 0]

It occurs because the buffer (w or z) that stores depth values relative to the observer is of too low a resolution, and hence calculation errors occur in the depth placement of objects, which means close objects "z-fight" and flicker through each other. OFP was developed with a W-buffer in mind (on 8500s and Nvidia cards), and using a W-buffer solves the problem, however none of the 9x00 cards support a W-buffer.

They are capable of a 24bit z-buffer + 8bit stencil buffering, however it seems that either that is insufficient (ATi getting that wrong wouldn't surprise me) or OFP is only using a 16bit zbuffer. If you look closely, you'll see z-fighting in more or less every game on an ATi card - it looks terrible, and the large distances involved in OFP only exacerbate the problem.

In any case, there's nothing "wrong" and nothing you can do.

[mr burns 131]

Cool

Now i´m really unhappy with ATI.

However thx for your replies, especially livsy & Kuja-, finally i can stop searching for a fix

[livsy 0]

Hey!  Mr Burns!

You can switch from "Direct3D T&L HAL" to "Direct3D HAL" and it will reduce flickering to minimum in cost of FPS (I had 20-30% FPS dropdown), but it's better not to do this.

And you should SEND BUG REPORT to ati. If they get enough bureports they'll fix problem.

I think that reason of flickering without w-buffer is that developers wanted to use full depth 32-bits z-buffer, but modern videos support 16 and 24-bits only... And while 24 is enugh for most games it is not enough for "long range" games like Flashpoint.

[mr burns 131]

I think that reason of flickering without w-buffer is that developers wanted to use full depth 32-bits z-buffer, but modern videos support 16 and 24-bits only... And while 24 is enugh for most games it is not enough for "long range" games like Flashpoint.

mmh...another proof that OFP is ahead of it´s time ?

i highly doubt i will play ofp w/o HW T&L ...

so i will take some time this weekend and [evilgrin]produce hundreds of bug reports for ATI[/evilgrin]

thx again for clearing things up

btw: your knowledge of video cards and their features impresses me. seems like you are you the guru of 3d ... are you

[livsy 0]

OFP is just on time game but ATi reduced z-buffer bit depth. Their 8500 and ealier cards have full 32-bit z-buffer support.

P.S. I'm not a 3d guru I'm just a FP fan who wants NO FLICKERING!

[Gollum1 0]

Uuuh...I have always had this problem, but it would never cross my mind to complain to the forum about it.

Big deal, it's just helmets and turrets at long ranges anyway. You can't handle a little bit of flickering!?

I have a Herc Radeon 8500 LE.

[mr burns 131]

Uuuh...I have always had this problem, but it would never cross my mind to complain to the forum about it.

Big deal, it's just helmets and turrets at long ranges anyway. You can't handle a little bit of flickering!?

i reasoned the flickering on a possible computer mis-administration made by me. so why shouldn´t i ask ?

be honest, it looks awful. But i already got familiarized to it & don´t recognize it that often anymore. I no more care about it at all. My posting here wasn´t meant as a comlaint but to help me understand why my new Vid.Card displays such a mess.

[Gollum1 0]

Hehe, just messin' with ya, I've sometimes wondered about it too.

[Heatseeker 0]

I have it too on my ti4200, over big distances throu binos or scopes, helmets and other stuff like the BMP flicker but i never thought of it has a big problem really. I run OPF at 1240x1024x32 HT&L, will mess with the W-buffer thingy .

[toadlife 3]

I used to have some occasional flicker with my Geforce4 ti48000, but lately it doesn't happen. New drivers must have fixed it. W-Buffer is available for me, though it doesn't seem to make any difference in regards to framerate. If I ever see any flickering though, I know what to try out.