Need help... My SHIII game looks horrible

[faamecanic]

Hi all...I have BIG problems with my Nvida card and SHIII. But there is a bit of a story behind it and I hope someone can help.

I recently upgraded my PC (this past weekend). MY OLD PC configuration was:

P4 2.4b OC'ed to 3.1 Ghz
ABIT IC7 (i875P) mobo
512 mb GeIL CAS 2
ATI 9800 Pro 256mb
SB Audigy 2
Win XP Pro

For my upgrade I went to:

P4 3.4E Prescott (not OC'ed yet)
Abit IC7 (same as above)
GeIL 512mb CAS2 (soon to have 1 GB GeIL Cas2)
eVGA 6800 GT 256mb
SB Aud2
XP Pro

With my old system and the ATI card everything looked NICE!! Waves, particles, graphics in general. Ran game with 4x AA and 8x AF.

With my NEW systems and 6800GT... the game looks HORRIBLE at ALL AA/AF settings! Im using the 71.89 WHQL cert nVIDIA drivers. And there are some wierd graphics glitches. Here is a list:

1) Waves in the distance look terrible.. hard to describe. Looks like the reflections are messed up. Small jaggies and stripes.

2) While in the Nav screen, Weapons control screen, crew managment... the LEFT half of the screen looks blocky/jaggie but the right half is ok. Example: In the crew managment section, my crewmates from the command room forward (from center to right side) look OK. The little icons representing their specialization look normal (with the exception of the lower guy in the Radio room. The upper guys symbol looks fine, lower looks blocky).

All the guys from the stern qtrs and back, thier specializaiton symbols are blocky. Also the menu that pops up from left (Command room, attack periscope..) looks blocky.

But if I am on the bridge, in command room, radio room, or attack P scope.... the graphics are fine.

3) Enemy Ships graphics look terrible...almost like NO AA is on. the Destruction special effects look better...Explosions look 10x better on this Nvidia.


Now here is what I did, and maybe this is the cause of my problems. I saved my SHIII folder from my old machine (to save my career) to a CD. Then when I upgraded my PC I RELOADED/COPIED this folder back to my PC from the CD.

Question is.... maybe there are config settings saved in the SHIII folder in My documents? If there are is it possible that SHIII still thinks Im using a ATI card and that could be the cause of my graphics corruption? Is this possible?

I know with MS FS2004, settings for what type of graphics card you have and other settings ARE in a file that is saved in My Documents.

What do you all think? I really dont want to have to return this Card (15% restock fee!!!) as I really like it for other games. But SHIII is my favorite and probably will be for years to come!!

I can try and post screenies later if that will help.

[faamecanic]

Ok all here are some screenies.... I really need help with this as the game looks bad. I knew I should have just bought that ATI X800

Ok here are four screenshots...

The first one is a shot of the command room. Room looks good, and menu at left looks good.



Second shot is the crew quarters. Notice the Machinist Petty Officers Specialization symbol.. and the Guy in the radio room. Also note the messed up tool baar on left (stations bar)



In shot 3 I moved the Sonar guy down to the Radio...now his specialization symbol is clear again (it goes bad again if I move hime up).



Again notice the messed up stations bar on left.

Final pic I have two Petty Officers in the Radio room... Note one good specialization..one bad




I was running with 2xQ AA (and have tried 4xAA and 8x AA) and 4x AF. I tried turning Bloom up and down. with it up it REALLY looked bad... these are take with NO BLOOM on and no particle effects.

I hope you guys can help. I really love this card for other games Doom3, HL2 and Americas Army (which have NO PROBLEM). And I didnt even include what the waves look like... they look bad compared to my 9800Pro that I took out.

Thanks all
Faamecanic

[BlitzPig_Rivet]

I see what you mean. Very odd.

I might not be much help here as I am still with my trusty ATI 9800xt, but here goes:

First off, stay away from any overclocking until your issues are resolved.
Second, I won't insult your intelligence by bleating on about latest drivers etc. Incidentally, the latest are not necessarily the greatest .

I see the only changes you have made to the machine are the processor and the graphic card. The extra memory won't do any harm at all. I'll put a safe bet on the fact that it's probably yet another incarnation of the obvious issues SH3 has with nvidia cards.

I hate to ask, but you did plug in the power cable to the card didn't you ?

Venge has the exact same card but his problems were mainly crashes and freezes. We had a lot of emails flying between us to try and sort it out. In the end I think the problems were greatly reduced but not eradicated completely.

What rating is the power supply? Might be worth upgrading to a 500w or above, if it isn't that already. Make sure it's a good make. Not all psu's are born equal.

About the SH3 folder in your my docs folder - the only reference I can find to video is in the main cfg file, and those settings only pertain to the in game video settings screen. It's unlikely that it will have any bearing on your problem.


Sorry I can't be much more help on this one.

[faamecanic]

Blitz...

Yep..Im using the latest drivers (but dont think thats the problem as a buddy of mine has the same card and drivers with no problems).

Not Overclocking yet...and if I can ever get two sticks of 512mb RAM I will be at 1 GB (last set I got had a bad stick....)


Right now IM using my old ThermalTake Silent power 430w PS.... the Antec I bought (430w) had a bad ATX 12v connector and was RMA'ed along with bad memory (this upgrade is the WORST one I have ever done!)

Here is what I have found out...and I think it is DEFINATELTY SHIII software and Nvidia issue.

Humm..I think UBI didnt put as much effort in supporting Nvidia as they did ATI, due to Ubi=French and ATI=Canadian....and Nvidia= American ;D



Ok...did about 2 hours of testing last night and found the problem..but dont know what to do to fix!!!

IF I use the P-scope OR Binocs (not UZO) it gives me those graphics glitches above.

UZO DOES NOT CAUSE the graphics to corrupt! AND if I use the UZO AFTER the graphics get corrupt it FIXES them (until I use P-scope or Binocs again).

I sailed around for 1 hour during two different load ups of the game (for a total of 2 hours) without using P-scope or binocs and the graphics never got corrupted. The very MINUTE I used either...BAM....graphics went corrupt.

Seems like a definate software issue to me. So how can I get a hold of the devs or UBI support?

Thanks for all your help guys!

Faamecanic