Are you running 16bit color? Z buffering precision is also 16 bit in that case and this usually causes the flickering in the distance. But if you run 32bit color the zbuffer precision increases as well and the problem almost disappears.

It's not just NV. I had this problem with G400 way back when as well. The card had a control panel option to globally force 32 bit Z precision.

Still, I would use a Glide wrapper or UTGLR instead of D3D. The old Epic D3D mode was just not very good for whatever reason even after their dozens of patches for the engine.

swaaye wrote:

Are you running 16bit color? Z buffering precision is also 16 bit in that case and this usually causes the flickering in the distance.

Still, I would use a Glide wrapper or UTGLR instead of D3D.

The point is, to install software and not dealing with tweaks. Actually, this issue can be found too, on some of them drivers, when looking at it close up.
So it is not only related to something drawn in the distance, and the errors are moving on them self, when turning from side to side.
It is like it is related to something that are rendered on the horisontal lines and not the vertical. My guess is that it is the render engine that does
not like Geforce cards from at least 4 and up. Possible GF3 too, as they are a different from GF2 and previous nVidia cards.

Patches solves it.... Patches solves it.

Edit...
On FX-5200 it can somewhat be eliminated by turning up the AA to x4. And setting AAx2 on GF4. Yet. Still problems, as older cards do not behave like this. Only nVidia stuff are doing this.

Just set 32bit color.

swaaye wrote:

Just set 32bit color.

Have been set... Same issues with both 16 and 32 bit colors. It is the first CD version of them all.

Are you running the UT CD version? You are saying it's unreasonable to get 436? I really have not tried just using the non patched game.

I had lots of problems with Wheel of Time D3D as well. The Unreal engine D3D is just poorly written and best avoided with a Glide wrapper or alternative renderer.

If you look at the old Unreal Tech Page you can see the Epic guys trying to patch their game to work with different D3D cards. It was years of buggy efforts.

Yes... It's the CD version. The first released. (I edited it)

Yes... Dont get the first UT version.
This is something that I have stated in the last numerous months. Don't run the original-non-patched-vanille-first-edition on a GF4.

Look at this site. Browse through some of the revisions of the site for more posts. The game D3D was troublesome in general and they had a few different DLLs to try for different cards. 🤣
https://web.archive.org/web/20001013033127/ht … om/Direct3D.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20001018063324/ht … .epicgames.com/

But as you may know people preferred Glide or even S3 Metal. They ran and looked best. D3D doesn't even run detail textures because the performance drops badly with them.

Hehe... Yeah. I remember D3D was kind of shit back then. Well. Generally speaking. 🤣

hmm the 5xxx geforce is pretty much universally regarded as the worst geforce series ever. ti4800 was a beast of a card tho. loved my g400max but no t&l really hurt 🙁

my hats off to you for testing so many driver versions tho! 😀 nice work

BloodyCactus wrote:

my hats off to you for testing so many driver versions tho! 😀 nice work

Thanks... Had to, somehow, back up my claims. 😉

BloodyCactus wrote:

hmm the 5xxx geforce is pretty much universally regarded as the worst geforce series ever. ti4800 was a beast of a card tho. loved my g400max but no t&l really hurt 🙁

I had the same problems with G400 as he illustrates here. The flickering decals due to depth precision problems. 16-bit z-buffer is just insufficient. It was also a problem recently in tablets because for example Tegra 2 and 3 are 16-bit Z-only! 😁

And in a weird retrospective way, I wouldn't say GeForce FX is all that bad. The 5800 and higher models are superior to GF4 Ti and older. They are faster and can get you better image quality, while still having support for old 8-bit textures too. Just think of those as super duper GF4 Ti cards. The lesser FX cards are curiosities at best though.

The jump from DX7 to DX8 was a big one for nVidia. There's a bunch of these games, like NFS Porsche Unleashed (Porsche 2000) you mentioned, that act okay even on GF4 MX series cards but developed anomalies starting with the DX8 enabled GF3.

firage wrote:

The jump from DX7 to DX8 was a big one for nVidia. There's a bunch of these games, like NFS Porsche Unleashed (Porsche 2000) you mentioned, that act okay even on GF4 MX series cards but developed anomalies starting with the DX8 enabled GF3.

Ahhh... Theres the answer to why. 😀 Thanks for clearing this up.
The thing is, that even DX8 GF cards have this issue, when running on DX7 and unpatched UT99.
Wich yet again makes me not recommend GF4 as a fast-lane Win98se card.
Old Win98se games, are best left for higher end Radeon's and Voodoo's.
This could be something like an Radeon-9600-Pro paired with Voodoo2-SLI.

Very nice investigation!

What is great about these graphics cards is the performance they deliver. 1600 x 1200 and 200+ fps in Quake 2 isn't an issue with the right CPU 😀

Is it true that some 3dfx knowledge / tech went into the FX range? I remember reading something about that...

Tried GF3 (not Ti) with 45.23 - it gives not more issues than TNT2 in UT 4.00.
GF4 has the issue on Stalwart, unfixable by changing AA mode. There are 2 windows with a car behind. If to move away from them through the corridor to another room with an armor. To stay at a wall there and look to that windows - a part of the car will be seen, which should be invisible as it's behind a wall. It's seen blinking if to go to windows from that place. If to run Stalwart after Fractal - it gives issues with wall lamps.
GF3 is also faster in some apps or DOS modes than GF4. For example, gets significantly more fps in Doom.

Quadro4 980 could not even to run that UT. Maybe it needs special driver, settings or the some hardware malfunction. Or compatibility issue.

Hmmm...
So it should be a GF3 to use with DX7 games then?
Strange, as GF4 is build on GF3.

The formula for good retro cards would then be: GF2 and 3, G400, V3-3000 + 3500 and Radeon9600.

brostenen wrote:

The formula for good retro cards would then be: GF2 and 3, G400, V3-3000 + 3500 and Radeon9600.

The formula is to use mainstream and period correct hardware, - not later and not earlier than 2-3 years from the game's release. For Windows games also time closer drivers may to be tried.
GF3 seems to be the last when Nvidia seriously cared about DOS performance and hence compatibility there, and where DX7 games work as should.
The time of Win9x is 1995-2001, so the optimum video card is from 1997-1999 years. The fastest in 1999 was GeForce 256 SDR, maybe later DDR has not worse compatibility. So for Win9x even GF2 may to be less compatible than you'd want for games of 1995-1997.
I think it may to be a good idea to have PCI card from 1998 (TNT, Voodoo 2) + AGP from 2000 (Geforce 2). You may rise the plank on step to PCI TNT2/Voodoo 3 and Geforce 3, this should not break compatibility with many games still and at least popular games to have patches.
Matrox were not mainstream and hence should to have more compatibility problems. Radeon 9600 is rather late card and is doubtful to have same compatibility as mentioned Nvidia chips.

The game itself has a z precision switch- at least the patched one: Use32BitZBuffer.