Texture shimmer... ATI Edition

[Ratchet]

I've been analyzing NVIDIA's 78.03 drivers today, taking a very close look at this whole texture shimmer problem to see if it was fixed and, more, to satisfy my own curiosity once and for all. While I haven't come to any conclusions just yet (the texture shimmering seems to be much less noticable when using High Quality mode than it was before, at least in HL2), I did notice that on the ATI X850XT-PE equipped machine I am using for comparison, the texture shimmering is just as obvious as it is on the 7800GTX when using the "Quality" mode.

I'd like to get some other people to help me verify this. The way I tested is to load CS:S, "Create a Server" runing the cs_assaut map (no bots), start as CT, then go the the end of the street you spawn on. At the T-intersection there is a different road texture that seems to be really good at displaying the shimmer on both cards. If you setup in a position similar to the screenshot attached below, then hold ctrl+shift (crouch and walk) so you move really slow, I think you should notice at least 2 obvious mipmap transition boundaries and a 3rd if you look closely that shimmer as you move along. I used 1280x960 with 4xAA/16xAF and all other options set as high as they would go in the CS:S advanced video options. AA/AF were set to app preference in the graphics control panels.

In my testing I think that this shimmer is as bad on the X850XTPE card as it is on the 7800GTX when it is set to Quality. Disabling AI doesn't change anything.

Can anyone help me confirm whether this is accurate or not?

[tEd]

I don't see any obvious on my x800pro. Although i'm not really sure i know exactly what you suppose to see.

What i see is that some of decals shimmer i bit on the edges but that's normal.

edit: I think i know what you mean. The texture is a rather high frequency normal map which is always a ***** and hard to get absolut noise free. Although i don't see anything unnormal regrading the filtering.

To make filtering comparison it's usually best to use surfaces without any nomal maps/bumpmaps applied.

[Ray Adams]

Try to enable Aniso with full trilinear (can do it in ATI Tray Toold Direct3D section)

[the_neon_cowboy]

I played it with no AA, No AF, then with 4XAA and 16XAF
other then the Obvious difference in IQ I didn't see anything
I did not see with no AA/AF.

But intestering... 1st time i've ever played that map
strage to me considering I been playing source sence
the beta not a popular map i take it...

EDIT:

I see it now that I know I have to move like a turtle / bullet magnet to see it.

EDIT:

There seem to be some other grahical glitches in the map,
that i'd think are mapping /game issues

[Ratchet]

Originally Posted by Ray Adams

Try to enable Aniso with full trilinear (can do it in ATI Tray Toold Direct3D section)

Yeah, but I am trying to reproduce it, not get rid of it.

[Ray Adams]

Why? Some games needs it, for example HALO

[Ratchet]

Originally Posted by Ray Adams

Why? Some games needs it, for example HALO

Because I am examining the texture shimmer issue on NVIDIA's 7-series cards and I want to know how ATI cards compare.

[Apple740]

Ratchet, can you host a short movie of the situation rendered with a 7800GTX?

AA/AF were set to app preference in the graphics control panels.

I always play CSS with AA/AF forced by the CCC, not app pref.
With app pref i notice white lines in some occasions, these are completely gone when i use AA/AF by the CCC.
And btw, switching AA/AF by the application to forcing it by the CCC doesn't work instantly, you'll need to restart your pc! (bug?)

[Ratchet]

I'll try, but Fraps recorded movies are usually pretty gimormous

[spyre]

I can confirm ratchets shimmering on that particular map with my X800XT not sure if its a bad map or what at the moment.

I'll do a small fraps movie.

[**G.I.BRO**]

Interesting,
Use fraps and then i would usually use MS movie maker (cheap as its built into XP) to reduce the movie. The quality will drop, tho it should still show off any in game issues.

[Apple740]

Virtual dub icw latest Xvid codec delivers imo the best iq/smallest file size.

[spyre]

I got the movie down to 1.2mb in size, just need to make my webhost stop being a ##$#$# and let me upload it

[VW_Factor]

Originally Posted by spyre

I got the movie down to 1.2mb in size, just need to make my webhost stop being a ##$#$# and let me upload it

Want to email it to my gmail? I'll host it ..

[spyre]

Ok sure pm me your gmail addy

[Flinch]

I've seen the shimmering on my X850XT as well as my 7800GTX, it is indeed visible with both cards.

[**G.I.BRO**]

This place gives you 10mb free of movie downloads
http://www.putfile.com/

[spyre]

OK cheers GI, heres the link to the movie

Click here to watch CSSodd

In the movie pay attention to the right of the cursor, as you crouch a white gap appears in the sidewalk / pavement area, this happens at all mipmap bountries but only in this game no others as far as I've noticed so could be a game bug.

[tEd]

i can see light shimmering with ai low but with ai off , i don't see any noticable problem

[bhz9294]

Originally Posted by spyre

OK cheers GI, heres the link to the movie

Click here to watch CSSodd

In the movie pay attention to the right of the cursor, as you crouch a white gap appears in the sidewalk / pavement area, this happens at all mipmap bountries but only in this game no others as far as I've noticed so could be a game bug.

Maybe it's me but that video doesn't work half the time. Got it to work once now it's just a blank white square or only a streak of video on the left side.

[weeds]

Originally Posted by bhz9294

Maybe it's me but that video doesn't work half the time. Got it to work once now it's just a blank white square or only a streak of video on the left side.

Same here, doesnt work right. Its not where Ratchet's screeshot is either.
Anyway Ratchet here is one I made x850xt cat 5.8 with the settings you asked for. I see shimmering on every map in CS:S in one place or another so I included another one thats particulary nasty, Aztec.

http://rapidshare.de/files/4734827/A...sualt.avi.html
http://rapidshare.de/files/4735917/A...Aztec.avi.html

Some other links. (thanks tertsi)

http://www.skenegroup.net/tertsi/ATI...CS_Assualt.avi
http://www.skenegroup.net/tertsi/ATI...y_CS_Aztec.avi

[Dwarden]

links dont work ...

anyway over later Catalyst 5.8 i have noticed "increased" visibility of shimmer too ...

especially visible in HL2/CSS and some other hitec games ...

[Ratchet]

yep, when I look closely I can see a slight shimmer in just about every game I've tried. Some games it's easier to detect than others.

[kyleb]

If you are going to compare, it would be nice to see full trillinar forced with ATI Tray Tools inlcuded in any benchmarks or such. That gets rid of most problems and is what I tend to use, though some optimizations are built into the hardware starting with the 9600s and newer designs and you can't completely get rid of the issue on these newer cards.

[Dwarden]

Originally Posted by kyleb

If you are going to compare, it would be nice to see full trillinar forced with ATI Tray Tools inlcuded in any benchmarks or such. That gets rid of most problems and is what I tend to use, though some optimizations are built into the hardware starting with the 9600s and newer designs and you can't completely get rid of the issue on these newer cards.

to get full forced trilinear working You need also application supporting it right?

[Ratchet]

you need to disable Cat AI too

[kyleb]

Yeah, you have to dissable Cat AI and force it though ATI Tray Tools; but it doesn't require any application support so it works the same on everything.

[Sharkfood]

Hi Ratchet,
AIW X800 XT with 5.7 Catalyst drivers. I wont test/condone the 5.8's as I have a number of issues with them (IQ wise). If I had it my way, website benchmarks should NOT be using the 5.8's... but that's neither here nor there.

Using your test steps, I can see a distinct occurance when squatting... but only when squatting. Is this a cheat or game bug?

Using your example, I'd say prefer the main street where the buy zone is.. run to the end and flip a 180 degree turn. Squat and walk... best illustrated here.

When you "squat"- suddenly the mipmap line off into Z jumps forward quite a bit. You can visibly see (only once squatting) where that mipmap line comes "forward" quite a bit!

The manhole cover and paper debris/textures on the CT "Buy Zone" street are very, very apparent here and best used for noting your expressed behavior. Standing and running up and down the street- no problems. Squatting, the mipmap boundry "jumps" several percentage towards the viewpoint. You can see the defined yellow line suddenly "blur up" closer to you by simply squatting.

What is this? Well, we all know both NV and ATI use "angle dependent" anisotropic filtering. The degree of anisotropic filtering varies based on angle. To see this in action, fire up Serious Sam on the level with the rotating floor. As it tilts 360 degrees, the brick texture goes from sharp to blurry, then back again. This happens on both NV and ATI hardware.

My theory is something (perhaps isolated to HL2?) about this "squat" angle seems to be tripping ATI's anisotropic "angle dependent" filtering optimizations, but the angle isn't changing! The mipmap angle to viewpoint is the *same* (slightly more perturbed perspective... but no "rotation" of mipmap angle), so something most obviously is amiss somewhere.

Good find. I'll look for other examples in DirectX. But I can definately reproduce your findings in the 5.7's... App Pref/App Pref, Cat AI Disabled -OR- Standard, all other settings at installation defaults. AIW X800 XT.

[bandit55]

Well, I just downloaded CS:S ... (heh … got quite a bit with my HL2 coupon that I haven’t even downloaded yet ).

I tested the map on my 9600XT with Cat 4.11 (using old CP).

There are a couple small bands of texture aliasing but they really don’t amount to much. If you want to see bad texture aliasing, try Delta Force - BHD. With no AF in that game the desert ground textures shimmer like crazy -- running 8AF cleans things up almost completely.

I tried 16AF (Performance and Quality) set in CP. There is a slight band of shimmering right in front of the guy, a ~ 2ft wide shimmering band about 10ft out (not really that bad), and a very slight shimmering band about 20ft out. Switching between Q (Trilinear) and P (Bilinear) really didn’t change things much.

Running 16AF set in game. The farthest shimmering band (20ft) seems to be virtually nonexistent, but it was very hard to pick out with AF set in the CP anyway. The band 10ft in front is reduced a little. And right in front of the guy is maybe a slight bit of shimmering.

This really is just a minor case texture aliasing IMO. Surprisingly, the other road (bottom of the T intersection) has similar textures and doesn’t alias at all.

[MonarchX]

"CS:S is set to LOD -1 by default. Create autoexec.cfg file in Steam\SteamApps\*login name*\counter-strike source\cstrike\

Open with Wordpad, and add this *r_lod "0"* without * then save, and launch the game. The shimmering should be gone."

Do the same thing for HL2 itself...