homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation Jane's F-15 & F/A-18 Calling all GF 6600/6800 owner - Banding Problem...

So I installed a brand new GeForce 6600GT yesterday but something strange happens that was not happening the GeForce3 I was using before.

Problem is with the reflection on the MPDs, has anyone seen this before?

That looks like 16-bit color banding.

My MDIs look fine (9800 Pro):

Yeah it does look like 16bits, thats really weird... but I'm set to 32 bits. It was fine until I switch video cards...


JOE , what kind of video card do you own?

Ok something something is definately not right... I'm about to re-install but I fear that wont change anything so if anyone has any suggestions, please thro them out now.

It really looks like the game is rendering in 16bits since I upgraded my vid card and I don't get it... there's no place in the game to specify color depth and my desktop is set at 32bits.

I would do a driver re-install before a sim re-install.

I have a 128MB Radeon 9800 Pro, and I'm currently using the Catalyst 4.12 drivers.

Already tried 3 sets of drivers... same thing.

Damn this is frustrating.
I'll do a complete clean up/re-insall tomorrow.

IAM, can you report back when you've done that clean up/re-install? I also got a 6600GT and I've the same problem. Drivers are the latest.

Edit: 1000 posts!!!

Done, complete clean up / re-install... tried 3 sets of drivers, same problem.

I installed the latest drivers (71.89), same issue. Left the drivers installed, put back my old GeForce3 inside the case, NO PROBLEM AT ALL !!!

Damn, how frustrating is that...


UPDATE
Just tried the very latest available, 76.50beta... same issue. this really sucks.

Possibly your monitor refresh rate is dropping to 60 Hz after you enter JF18. Download this registry key from Nvidia, install and you are supposed to be able to unlock the NVIDIA Refresh Rate Overrides in the NVIDIA Display Properties. This will add a new panel to your NVIDIA Display Properties. I found this at the main Nvidia site under the FAQ section.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidi...zb3J0PSZwX3Jvd1 9jbnQ9NzQmcF9wcm9kcz0yJnBfY2F0cz01OSZwX3B2PTEuMjsyLnUwJnBfY3Y9MS41OTsyLnUwJnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9YW5zd2Vycy5zZWFyY2hfZm5sJnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9c2V0IGN1c3RvbSByZWZyZXNoIHJhdG U*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Thanks for the suggestion but unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem.
As mentioned above, I'm not having this issue with a GeForce3, using the same driver and same settings... I've spent too much time on this now, I'll just live with it.
I guess it comes to a point where the old DX7 code starts having a hard time with the latest technology.

If anyone is using a 6600 or 6800 serie card and does not have this issue, please report.

Thanks!

I also bought 6600GT last week and checekd colors on JF18. it's exactly like yours. It must be the card. I had no problem with Ti4200.
I also noticed the game's frame rate dropped a little.
Hope someone can find a cure for this.

More than obvious its a problem with the card now that we're 3 with the same problem.

I tried each and every available drivers starting with the first one supporting the 6xxx serie, nothing will fix it.

No problem with my old GeForce3... too bad!

I haven't noticed a FPS drop though, but I haven't tested it a lot in F-18. I hope they fix the issue with future drivers.

The new cards arn't ment to play old games. Thats one thing I don't like about pcs. You buy somthing new and now your old games don't work as good.

Well it depends on which games.
Some old games run without any problems.
Depends a lot on how the game is coded.

Jane's F-18 for some reason doesn't care about speedy CPU, RAM and GPUs.
Why am I getting a little 5 to 10fps increase between my old system (P3 1ghz, 512mb RAM, GeForce3) and my new hardware (P4 3ghz, 1gb RAM, GeForce 6600gt).
This comes from the code.

Anyways, back to our issue... Can you guys specify if you use the AGP or PCIe version of the 6600gt?
I'm AGP here.

Also, what is this effect called (the reflection on the MPD and the glow from the sun?). Is it dynamic lighting? Texture Blending? Color Blending? Something else...?

I'll email Nvidia and their forum but I need the right term to describe the problem.

Thanks.

EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT

Nevermind, I'll just refer to the problem as color banding.
BTW, it seems to be a VERY common problem with the GF6600 cards even with newer DX9 games. I sure hope they fix that soon.

P4 2.6
XP(sp2)
AGP 8X from the MSI.

Here's a thing I noticed.
The 6600GT always want to use 256 colors mode under JF18 even though I unchecked the forced 256 color mode form the properties menu.
So I start to look at the performance & quality setting under dilsplay setting, hoped maybe I can set the desired color mode. There is a aplication profile you can make for specific title. After I made a profile for the JF18, I found out that there is a color profile option, BUT it says "Not available."
So it might be a driver issue, can be cured hopefully.

I'm sure its driver related... why?

First of all, until recent driver release, the card was producing banding in the latest games (Half Life 2, Doom 3). This was "fixed" with a recent driver release.

Second, I have the same issue in Jane's F-15 in D3D mode.
If I switch to Glide mode using Zack's Glide Wrapper, everything is nice and shiny, no banding at all.

For now, I've put back my old GF3 in my system because Jane's F-18 is the only game I play right now. But its pretty frustrating to have a 200$ video card sitting on the top of my computer case so it wont stay that way for long.

And F4AF is released soon so I'll need it...

Not JF18, but I add another game that has same problem.
Note the sky.

I've found the nVidia 71.84 drivers to be better than the 71.89.