Question regarding OpenGL and Radeon 7500
by Cody Granflaten · in Hardware Issues · 08/31/2005 (9:49 pm) · 5 replies
Hey everyone,
First off I just wanted to say that this is a very impressive engine, and I look forward to working with it in the future. One issue that has me a bit stuck however is something that I can't seem to get fixed no matter what I try. I have an issue where using the 1.3 TGE and a ATI Radeon 7500 card I am getting a flickering of the shadows and surrounding textures whenever my game character moves (this is in either the fps or racing demo). This occurs only in OpenGL mode, DirectX is not effected. I did a search and located a post from about 6 month back that describes this exact issue by searching for "shadows" and "flickering" with the site's Google engine. The fix for one of the ATI card users was to load some modified drivers packaged as "Omega" from the site www.guru3d.com, and these were used in combination with specific driver files from the modified "DNA" driver package.
I have tried various versions of the stock ATI Catalyst drivers, going back several versions from their current release, as well as a couple of the modified drivers from the guru site. For anyone who has sucessfully addressed this issue, what drives managed to get the problem fixed for you? I'm at my wit's end, and I'm considering purchasing a different video card so that I can use OpenGL. I appreciate any help anyone can offer.
Cody
First off I just wanted to say that this is a very impressive engine, and I look forward to working with it in the future. One issue that has me a bit stuck however is something that I can't seem to get fixed no matter what I try. I have an issue where using the 1.3 TGE and a ATI Radeon 7500 card I am getting a flickering of the shadows and surrounding textures whenever my game character moves (this is in either the fps or racing demo). This occurs only in OpenGL mode, DirectX is not effected. I did a search and located a post from about 6 month back that describes this exact issue by searching for "shadows" and "flickering" with the site's Google engine. The fix for one of the ATI card users was to load some modified drivers packaged as "Omega" from the site www.guru3d.com, and these were used in combination with specific driver files from the modified "DNA" driver package.
I have tried various versions of the stock ATI Catalyst drivers, going back several versions from their current release, as well as a couple of the modified drivers from the guru site. For anyone who has sucessfully addressed this issue, what drives managed to get the problem fixed for you? I'm at my wit's end, and I'm considering purchasing a different video card so that I can use OpenGL. I appreciate any help anyone can offer.
Cody
#2
You're just the guy I was hoping to hear from. Thanks for your help. I'll try this .dll when I get home this evening and post on my results.
Cody
09/01/2005 (10:42 am)
Brandon,You're just the guy I was hoping to hear from. Thanks for your help. I'll try this .dll when I get home this evening and post on my results.
Cody
#3
09/02/2005 (10:45 am)
After loading the listed .dll, I have seen a reduction in the "flickering" effect itself, but it is not completely resolved. This may not be the brightest idea, but since I want to implement stencil shading, I will be applying the code changes from that modification and see if the issue is resolved by means of handling the shadows differently. If this seems like a bad idea, let me know. Thanks again for you suggestion.
#4
B--
09/02/2005 (2:30 pm)
Too bad that didn't fix the problem on your end. It will be interesting to see what effect the stencil shadows will have. Keep us posted!B--
#5
Well, I've gone ahead and purchased a GforceFX 5500 card, which has addressed the issue. (I was meaning to upgrade my video card anyway.) Also, I have run into trouble with the stencil shadow code modification, since the code changes were applied to the version 1.2 of the head and some of the code that is supposed to be modified has changed in version 1.3. I posted on the SDK general discussion board to see if anyone has continued development on a revision of the stencil shading mods for the 1.3 version of the code, but no one has posted yet. I'm hoping that Sebastian Potter has continued his work on his version of the stencil shadows modification.
Theoretically, the stencil shadow implementation would fix the problem, since it disables the default shadow rendering when it is enabled, but that's just an assumption as of now.
Cody
09/04/2005 (1:04 pm)
Brandon,Well, I've gone ahead and purchased a GforceFX 5500 card, which has addressed the issue. (I was meaning to upgrade my video card anyway.) Also, I have run into trouble with the stencil shadow code modification, since the code changes were applied to the version 1.2 of the head and some of the code that is supposed to be modified has changed in version 1.3. I posted on the SDK general discussion board to see if anyone has continued development on a revision of the stencil shading mods for the 1.3 version of the code, but no one has posted yet. I'm hoping that Sebastian Potter has continued his work on his version of the stencil shadows modification.
Theoretically, the stencil shadow implementation would fix the problem, since it disables the default shadow rendering when it is enabled, but that's just an assumption as of now.
Cody
Torque 3D Owner Brandon Maness
I think that was my post you read. I'm running a Dell Inspiron8200 with a Radeon9000. In your windows/system32 you will find a file called atioglxx.dll. Backup that file, and replace it with the one from the link below.
Let me know if that fixes it for the 7500 Radeon.
Here is the link torque.smdlabs.com/content/atioglxx.rar
B--
EDIT: I narrowed the cause of the flickering down in my case to the 'foot poof' dust. I'm guessing the car has 'dust' from the wheels as well. The link above fixed the flickering for me, but your mileage may vary.