homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Jane's F-15 & F/A-18 FAQ for graphics issues - updated 1/30/05

This thread summarizes grapical issues people have had with the sim. My hope is to summarize these issues along with their known fixes or workarounds.

Fixes solve the problem without a loss of image quality.
Workarounds alleviate the problem at the expense of image quality.


Issue #1: Gridlines in the water
CAUSE: Windows XP, Anti-aliasing, "Low Level Noise Mapping" and "Sparkling Water" enabled

FIX: Run Windows 98
FIX: For nVidia GeForce users, run Forceware 56.72 or detonators 30.xx or earlier (old drivers available at www.guru3d.com )
FIX: For ATI users, run Catalyst drivers 4.1 or higher and enable antialiasing
FIX: For ATI users, run a program called Radlinker and use it to control the sim's graphics settings. (see notes below)
WORKAROUND: For nVidia users, disable Anti-aliasing and run detonators 43.45, 44.03, or 45.23.
WORKAROUND: For ATI users, disable anti-aliasing.
WORKAROUND: Uncheck "Low Level Noise Mapping" and "Sparkling Water" in the graphics options of the sim.


Issue #2: Slowdowns in Air-to-Air Master Mode
CAUSE: Windows XP, DirectX version equal or later to 9.0, ATI 9500/9700/9800-based video cards

FIX: Run Windows 98
FIX: for nVidia users, run DirectX version 8.1 or earlier.
FIX: for nVidia users, run 30.xx or 40.xx series detonators
WORKAROUND: disable Anti-aliasing
WORKAROUND: Don't use your Air-to-Air radar
WORKAROUND: Keep your HUD off-screen
WORKAROUND: Do a snap shot missle launch (i.e. turn on radar, lock, fire, turn off radar.
WORKAROUND: Do a "heads down" missile shot.


It should be noted that if you use DirectX 8.1 (or any DirectX less than 9.0b), you have certain security vulnerabilities that need to be corrected with the appropriate MS patch, which is discussed and is available at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms03-030.mspx


INFORMATION ABOUT USING DIRECTX BUSTER:
thread


RADLINKER NOTES:
Current versions of Radlinker do not solve the gridline problem. Furthermore, Radlinker is not compatible with ATI's catalyst control center. In order to gain the benefit Radlinker provides to the sim, you must run version 0908, available for download here .


Please feel free to correct and/or add information. I will add to the top post to keep things as accurate and up to date as possible.

Joe

Joe, no offense but some the so-called "fixes" you have listed are just not possible to do for most of us.
The question is not what to turn off to get things to work, but instead why so that the problem can be isolated and corrected.
Basically F18 was built for DX7 and not until the code is cracked or obtained will TSH or anyone else for that matter be able to update the F18 code to DX9.
Most of us cant run Win98 due to large HDD sizes which means we are limited to the NTFS file system with Win2000 or WinXP.
Some of us use Radeon 9xxx series cards which require DX9 and dont have drivers for older versions of DX.
Finally most of us use 1 PC for all of our gaming so in order to allow our other newer games and sims to work we must stay updated with DX9, Current Vid drivers, etc.

This is why many, including myself, have said that the way things are looking if you are truly serious about keeping F18 alive you will need to run a seperate system with older hardware and drivers to do so. All of the "fixes" you listed suggest just that and resemble a older system.

Dont take me the wrong way because I know your intentions are good, its just that many of us have been brainstorming these very issues for months and it all boils down to getting F18 updated to run on current hardware, which means we need that code.

The only "fix" that I know for the ATI card is:

(1) Run F18 at a higher res, with NO FSAA turn on.

(2) Do a snap shot missle launch. For example turn on Radar, lock, fire, turn off radar. OR
do a "heads down" missle shot.

I've opted for number 2, because I can get just enough FPS to control my aircraft with A-A on.
Your milage may very. Option 1 might be the most prefered.


I might play around with Rage 3d Tweek, to see if they have a hot key function to turn off FSAA on the fly. If they do, I might be able to rig a key combo with the Cougar so when you turn on the Air-Air, the FSAA goes off. Then once your done with Air-Air, you turn FSAA back on. I don't know if that is even possible, but I will look into it.

Semper Fi
Tatsu

What should be added to the above-described FIX is that the new 44.03 detonators also fix the problem, as long as FSAA is turned off (see Prophet's posts in the thread at http://oldsite.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=006905 ).

I refuse to go back to W9X.

If running a older system is a neccesity to run this sim, then so be it.

Yes, I know this is a DX7 game. I know it was optimized for Win98. I know people need newer drivers and DX versions for newer games. I am not telling people what to do; I am telling them how to do it. Basically, I am attempting to reduce the number of technical questions that pop up here constantly (no offense to anyone who asks them, especially Hornit's latest questions, as I have the utmost repect for him). he fixes listed are in fact fixes - they will "fix" the problem. If you choose not to use them, for whatever reason, that is your choice.

Running a dual boot with Win98 is not that much trouble if you do it right. Take an old lower capacity hard drive and keep it for only Win98 use with FAT32, or partition part of a larger drive.

Doc, what I've gathered is that there is no gridline problem as long as FSAA is off, no matter what drivers you use. Prophet said Later in the thread he says My conclusion is that the water grid is still there regardless of the driver version as long as FSAA is enabled.

Tatsu, does the slowdown only happen when your radar is operating (i.e. not on standby)? For example, can you launch an MSI-guided AMRAAM without the slowdown? Or does the problem occur whenever your radar is displayed on the MDI?

Definitely look into that. It sounds like something that might be very beneficial at a number of times.

Joe, I interpret Prophet's posts differently. I interpret them to mean that with detonators 30.xx or earlier, even with FSAA turned on, there is no water grid problem, and with 40 series drivers with FSAA turned on or turned off, the water grid problem is present, except, with the 44.03 drivers, the water grid problem is present if FSAA is not turned off but is not present if FSAA is turned off. Otherwise, your FIX that consists of "For nVidia GeForce users, run detonators 30.xx or earlier" doesn't make sense if, as you concluded, "the water grid is still there regardless of the driver version as long as FSAA is enabled," because if that's true, the water grid problem would still be there with the detonators 30.xx or earlier if FSAA is not turned off, so the FIX would not be to use detonators 30.xx or earlier, but would instead be to turn off FSAA.

Perhaps we need Prophet to clear this up.

The 30.xx series of Detonator drivers allowed the game to be run with FSAA (Full Scene Anti Aliasing) on without the grid problem on the ocean. The newer drivers, however, cause the ocean grid problem in Windows 2000 and XP.

If you want to use FSAA in the sim while using XP or 2000 do the following:

1-Set the sim to run in Win9x compatibility mode. This will solve part of the A to A slowdown, laggy cursors, etc.

2-Install a 30.xx version of the nVidia Detonators.

3-Adjust Anisotropic Filtering and FSAA to your liking and enjoy.

4-Optional: Use RivaTuner to further tweak the video

Now this works for my system which is based on a GeForce 3 Ti200, DirectX 9, and a 30.xx Series driver from http://www.guru3d.com/

I also use RivaTuner to tweak the video as it is a very powerful program. This "solution" is not ideal if you want to play more recent games unfortunately. It will run jf18, f4sp3, cfs2, cfs3, flanker2.5, eeah/eech, subcommand, silent hunter 2, opflash point, and several others. There may be some problems with DirectX 9 based games like enter the matrix. Mostly visual anomallies that you may be able to live with. Hope this helps.

A side note: Setting the Detonator 4x.xx series of drivers to application controlled FSAA actually sets the driver to 2X antialiasing. So some geforce cards exhibit the grid lines with FSAA appearing to be totally off when it actually is not. RivaTuner can shut off FSAA entirely and the newer drivers allow you to shut FSAA of entirely.

Another interesting point made is that the grid line anamoly is from the upper left corner of the screen where the screen text appears. The grids might be a LOD or mipmap issue with the overlay texture used to show the text on the screen. A graphics person might want to try and hunt down that texture and try to tweak it to essentially remove the grid. A discussion about this is in its infancy at the frug world board.

Later,
karaba

My mistake on the wording. I meant to say the water grid is still there regardless of what 40.xx series detonator you run. You are correct in thinking that the 30.xx drivers do not result in a grid.

It was my understanding that any 40.xx series driver only caused the grid if FSAA was enabled. If the grid is there regardless of FSAA setting, then I am mistaken. If the latter is the case, then of course the 44.03 drivers are very beneficial.

Joe,

I had grid issues with every 40.XX series driver that I tried until the new 44.03's. I believe that you are right though, that regardless of the detonator version used, once you were using anything beyond 31.40, you were going to get the grid, whether you were running FSAA or not.

Some of the drivers subsequent to 40.72, and prior to 44.03 may have not had the grid issue with FSAA turned off, but I wouldn't know as I gave up and settled on 31.40 after that point.

Can someone else confirm this?

So, from Prophet's last post, it sounds to me that up to and including 31.40, there is no grid problem whether FSAA is on or off, but beyond 31.40 up to and including 40.72, the grid problem is present whether FSAA is on or off. With 44.03, there is no grid problem when FSAA is off, but the grid problem is present when FSAA is on. Between 40.72 and 44.03 (not including 40.72 and 44.03), Prophet didn't do any testing, so he doesn't know whether or not the grid problem is present when FSAA is on with these drivers (although the grid problem is probably present when FSAA is on with these drivers, because the grid probem is present with 40.72 and with 44.03 when FSAA is on, so it would be reasonable to expect that the grid problem would also be present with the drivers between 40.72 and 44.03 when FSAA is on) or when FSAA is off with the drivers between 40.72 and 44.03 (it is not known whether the grid problem is present when FSAA is off with the drivers between 40.72 and 44.03, because although there is no grid problem with 44.03 when FSAA is off, the grid problem is present with 40.72 when FSAA is off, and Prophet didn't do any testing on the drivers between 40.72 and 44.03).

Edit (additional info): Apparently, according to Hornit's post below (from the thread at http://oldsite.simhq.com/simhq3/sims/boards/bbs/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=32;t=006905 ), 43.45, like 44.03, works fine when FSAA is off:

what about all us ati radeon pro 9700 users?

Ummmmm...I guess you guys are fu@cked.

No...seriously though, how do the Radeon's work if you have FSAA off? Do you still get the A2A slowdown and the water grid issue?

yes on the water grid, no on the aa slowdown. but man, with fsaaon, this games just looks soooo sweet.

For Radeon users, I believe the water grid pattern exists regardless of whether FSAA is on or not.

LM

Ok, good info guys. Top post updated with the latest.

well, theres always LOMAC. lol

Gonna miss carrier ops though