Found another example of incorrect shadows on the FX5950 Ultra 😢

FX 5950 Ultra:

Geforce4 Ti 4800 SE:

Are those white lines artefacts/part of the problem? 😵

I'd say that's just rain, the 2002 video game version 🤣

How do you manage to put up screenshots from both cards? Do you have two setups for the game or do you just change the graphics card the whole time?

d1stortion wrote:

I'd say that's just rain, the 2002 video game version 🤣

Yeah...I figured that out after seeing it in motion. 🤣

Yea it's just rain. And a lot of it. At the start of the level it makes it quite hard to actually see something 😀

I completed the CIA HQ level last night. That level is quite long and very hard. I had to quickload all the time and think I missed cutting out a few bits 😊

Here is the video.

Phil's Splinter Cell Retro PC Walkthrough - Part 5: CIA HQ - Geforce4 Shadow Buffers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZrts2R6TSE

The scene with the awesome shadows in front of the two dumpsters can be seen here: http://youtu.be/mZrts2R6TSE?t=39m33s

I actually stopped for a while and checked out the shadows because they look so cool.

d1stortion wrote:

I'd say that's just rain, the 2002 video game version 🤣

How do you manage to put up screenshots from both cards? Do you have two setups for the game or do you just change the graphics card the whole time?

For the video comparing shadow buffers with shadow projectors I did have two setups and was playing side by side. I took notes of the areas, created a save game. Then I did the recordings on one system with shadow buffers, then swapped the card and did the recordings with shadow projectors.

For GF4 vs. FX, yes I swap the cards each time. Having save points makes it easier though.

Really annoyed that the FX has these little bugs. Its performance would come in handy, but I simply don't want to have an imperfect game. No point building a machine for a particular game and then having bugs.

It really seems that this game only works correctly on a GeForce4 Ti card.

I doublt the 4600 / 4800 (not the SE) will improve things beyond a few frames more.

What is strange is that I find a lot of references that later drivers break the shadows. However, at least on the GeForce4, even the very latest driver work 100% fine. It may be that all these driver reports relate to the FX. But on the 5950 I can only go back so far.

The launch driver for the FX 5800 however is quite young: 42.63

And reports online state that anything before 45 works fine, but 45 and later breaks it.

For the DX 5950 the launch drivers seem to be around 52.16

Link to drivers from this era:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?cat= … 0&sort=0&page=8

Use back and forward buttons for older / newer drivers.

Found this massive video card roundup from 2003!

http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=69552

Doesn't mention what shadow mode they use, but give you an idea of scaling.

Yeah you should try getting one of the first gen FX cards and see how that runs it. Though the options aren't great there. The 5800 cooler is legendary for being obnoxiously loud. For the 5600 Ultra Anandtech said this:

For starters, the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra performs much like a GeForce4 Ti 4200 in situations where no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering is used. Enabling either or both of those features allow the 5600 Ultra to significantly outperform the GeForce4 Ti 4200, mostly thanks to the NV31's superior memory controller, compression and AA engines.

As a random thought, did you try installing the newest DirectX runtime?

Obobskivich helped me out and tested the game on a 5800 and 5900. He also saw the shadow glitches.

I don't know why the FX5500 worked fine through. I will test it again just to be sure and also try later drivers and see if they break.

The 5500 was also a very late FX card AFAIK.

DirectX is version 9.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Obobskivich helped me out and tested the game on a 5800 and 5900. He also saw the shadow glitches.

Indeed. The 5900 was the "worse" of the two; the 5800 looked almost perfect, but the shadows would cut in and out as I moved around in the game (otherwise it looked like the Ti 4800 screenshots) while on the 5900 they flickered on their own. I'm using newer drivers than 4x.xx for both, so that I can run both cards in the same setup and because that's what I have installed. 😐

I'll also say, in the 5800 Ultra's defense, the cooler is not really that bad.

I don't know why the FX5500 worked fine through. I will test it again just to be sure and also try later drivers and see if they break.

The 5500 was also a very late FX card AFAIK.

This is what makes no sense to me either. The FX 5500 came out "later" in the line-up, but its based on the NV34 (same chip as FX 5200) which is one of the original FX cards (along with the 5600 and 5800); afaik only the 5700 and 5900 series got the big PS/VS revisions. 😕

Kind of makes me wish I still had my FX 5200 to test that out... 🤣

Direct3D 8.1 usually refers to pixel shader 1.4 support.

Possible workaround!!!

This is what I did:

- Install a GeForce4 and load drivers (went with 45.23)
- Shutdown machine and swap GPU for FX 5950 Ultra
- When "detecting new hardware" box comes up, manually force GeForce 4
- Reboot

Shadow bugs are completely gone and you can enjoy double the frame rate 😀

What do you think guys???

Looks like it's purely a driver issue with Nvidia and / or Ubisoft not being bothered to patch it...

Ahh car lights not working 😐

Crazy that it's even possible to install a card as a different one 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Obobskivich helped me out and tested the game on a 5800 and 5900. He also saw the shadow glitches. […]
Show full quote

Obobskivich helped me out and tested the game on a 5800 and 5900. He also saw the shadow glitches.

I don't know why the FX5500 worked fine through. I will test it again just to be sure and also try later drivers and see if they break.

The 5500 was also a very late FX card AFAIK.

DirectX is version 9.

As stated previously, FX5500 is part of the first generation of FX cards. I think the first gen is FX5200 non-Ultra, FX5500, FX5600 and FX5800. FX5200 Ultra, FX5700, and FX59x0 are all second generation. The glitches in this game seem to primarily be with the second generation cards.

The second generation of FX cards is 5700 and 59x0. NV36 and NV35/38.

Also, the 45.23 driver supports 5900 so it's not surprising that it would work with one. The driver file is probably the same for all supported cards and just detects what chip is present when it initializes. The GF4 identification is caused by the registry INF values being forced.

sliderider wrote:

As stated previously, FX5500 is part of the first generation of FX cards. I think the first gen is FX5200 non-Ultra, FX5500, FX5600 and FX5800. FX5200 Ultra, FX5700, and FX59x0 are all second generation. The glitches in this game seem to primarily be with the second generation cards.

Not quite. The original launch was NV30; the FX 5800 and 5800 Ultra. If memory serves nVidia had originally promised FX 5800 for fall/winter 2002, but wasn't able to deliver until January due to yield issues (I've heard rumors that there are, or at least in 2003 were, only around 100,000 NV30 cores available, and the majority of those were slated for Quadro FX 2000). That was followed (a few months later) with NV31 (FX 5600 and 5600 Ultra) and NV34 (FX 5200 and 5200 Ultra). The 5200 Ultra is just a clock-bumped 5200. Those are all "first generation" or more accurately pre-NV35. NV35 is FX 5900 in all of its various incarnations and brought about a re-working of the PS engine, an extra VS unit, and a wider memory bus with DDR memory; the 5700 series (NV36) and 5950 (NV38) came as the last major revisions to the line-up. NV38 is more or less just a clock-bumped/binned NV35, while NV36 is essentially NV35 with half of its TMUs disabled.

FX 5500 is NV34B - it came out much later, in 2004, as an entry-level/mid-range offering based on the same core as the FX 5200.

As far as the problems appearing - the FX 5800 Ultra did not run "glitch free" and it's as "first generation" as you can get. The FX 5900 displayed the same flickering, although in some cases it was more prevalent/"worse" (the furniture hallway level for example). Mau1wurf1977's most recent post about the FX 5950 leads me to believe the issues are more driver-centric than hardware-centric.

I'm not actually surprised that Windows can be manipulated into viewing the 5950 as a GeForce 4 Ti (like swaaye suggests, it can be accomplished with a registry change (you can do the same thing for CPUs as well - ever wanted a Pentium 7 or GeForce GTX 990? 🤣) or other means); it is kind of alarming that GPU-Z didn't catch the deception though - out of curiosity, will it pass validation like that? 😵

obobskivich wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I don't know why the FX5500 worked fine through. I will test it again just to be sure and also try later drivers and see if they break.

The 5500 was also a very late FX card AFAIK.

This is what makes no sense to me either. The FX 5500 came out "later" in the line-up, but its based on the NV34 (same chip as FX 5200) which is one of the original FX cards (along with the 5600 and 5800); afaik only the 5700 and 5900 series got the big PS/VS revisions. 😕

Kind of makes me wish I still had my FX 5200 to test that out... 🤣

Perhaps NV34B had some bugs fixed. I am really surprised that there is such varying behavior within a generation for this old shadow buffer feature.

swaaye wrote:

Perhaps NV34B had some bugs fixed. I am really surprised that there is such varying behavior within a generation for this old shadow buffer feature.

Perhaps; I've never actually gotten a good bead on any internal difference between NV34, NV34 Rev 2, and NV34B beyond that they exist. 😐

Sources like GPU Review and Beyond 3D show them as being identical, excepting which SKUs they appear on. It may just be a binning thing as the 5500 has a higher core clock than the 5200. Or it may have some internals changed around. Best I've ever put together is that FX 5500 came into being to provide a more consistent delineation between 128-bit and 64-bit cards (since so many FX 5200s are cut-down 64-bit cards, as opposed to the 128-bit versions available at release).

swaaye wrote:

The second generation of FX cards is 5700 and 59x0. NV36 and NV35/38.

Also, the 45.23 driver supports 5900 so it's not surprising that it would work with one. The driver file is probably the same for all supported cards and just detects what chip is present when it initializes. The GF4 identification is caused by the registry INF values being forced.

I don't think it is. Running the driver normally results in a "no supported cards detected". In reviews the launch driver is 52.16.

Still, no driver so far has been able to fix the "shiny texture" glitch in dark areas with shiny tiles. They suddenly are bright as daylight when you pan around with the camera.

I believe I've tested this game quite extensively and you really want to play it on a GeForce4, although the frame rate will be a bit on the slow side.

sliderider wrote:

[
As stated previously, FX5500 is part of the first generation of FX cards. I think the first gen is FX5200 non-Ultra, FX5500, FX5600 and FX5800. FX5200 Ultra, FX5700, and FX59x0 are all second generation. The glitches in this game seem to primarily be with the second generation cards.

I will play around more with this card when I get some time. I now know how to force a particular driver and model so this will give me plenty of angles. Wikipedia at least mentions the FX5500 as being released very late.

@obobskivich

Thanks for all your help in testing this 😀

If you ever going to revisit this issue make sure you try the launch driver (very first one) for the FX 5800. As that card is older you can go back a little more compared to the 5950.

I will still keep an eye out for a FX5800 and other FX cards. Maybe there is a magic combination of card and driver for this game 😀

Still, there is no point in getting it working on one of the slower FX cards. The GeForce4 usually is on par, if not faster than these budget cards, even the FX5600 / FX5700. So it would really have to be one of the 5800/5900 series to make the whole trouble worthwhile.

Currently the best cards are the GeForce 4600 and 4800. They are harder to find as they are the top models. But I believe a 4800 SE isn't much behind and they are a lot easier to find.

The 4200 AGP 8x however is already a few frames behind the 4800 SE, so in a game with such low frame rates I believe every frame counts.

There are some FX 5700 cards up for grabs, but many turn out to be LE versions or with a different memory type. It's very hard to find out what is good because most sellers don't know themselves. One asian seller supplied a GPU-Z shot. I should buy one just for that service 😀 But it was an LE which is somehow slower.

In regards to playing the game and comparing releases, so far I've observed:

Retail copy 1.2b: EAX can be selected (you get an effect in large rooms with some echo basically). I tried the 1.3 patch which gives you the 3 extra levels, but couldn't get it working. I'm not sure if they unlock after completing the game or are meant to be playable from the get go by selecting levels.

GOG.com 1.3: They have somehow disabled the EAX tickbox. It remains greyed out and even editing a few EAX options in various INI files didn't get me anywhere. Might be fixable though if someone who is more versed with the unreal engine puts some time in. The 3 extra levels are there, selectable from the levels options. All the graphical bugs are also in 1.3. It only addresses some issue with Radeon cards.

Steam: I don't know yet. I will have to get Internet going on that Retro setup and see what it's like. Watch the space 😀

Ok going to try forcing various drivers one after the other.

First up driver 41.09 (recommended driver from readme supplied with the game)

Game locks up PC.