I've noticed a strange sort of "banding" effect in Direct3D games' fog on my 7800 GTX-equipped system. It's most noticeable by far in San Andreas, but I can see the same problem in several other D3D games I have installed at the moment. I was somewhat surprised after installing San Andreas again to see some ugly lines on the ground and road following me around, since I didn't remember anything like that occuring the last time I had played it. At first I thought it might've just been a problem with the game, but after installing it on another computer that had a Radeon 9700 in it, I noticed that the banding was completely gone. I tested another game at that point (Soul Reaver 2), and saw the same issue in it as well. Also, just to be sure it was actually the fog causing the problem, I compiled a proxy d3d9.dll that forced fog off and dropped it in the San Andreas folder -- same result, the banding was gone. Here's a couple of screenshots:
7800 GTX in SA
9700 Pro in SA
7800 GTX without fog
If you look by the car on the 7800 shot, there's a noticeable band a few inches in front of it, and then many more beyond that. The bands always stay the same distance from each other and follow the camera as it moves, and it looks *much* worse in motion than it does in a still shot. The fog on the 9700 is completely smooth.
Soul Reaver 2 has the same problem, but it's proven much more difficult to capture in a screenshot than this was. It's distracting when running around, but pretty hard to see in a still image. The only other game I've tested so far is Oblivion (I don't have too many installed at the moment), and that doesn't seem to have quite the same problem that these two games have had. Both cards have somewhat noticeable banding, but neither one seems to have much more than the other.
So, I guess that leads me to my question. Is anyone else seeing this in any other games, or is it just me? A quick Google search turned up some complaints about fog banding in Doom 3 on nVidia cards, but not much more than that. I don't have that game though, so I can't test it. I've tested with both ForceWare 93.71 and 93.81 on my 7800, and they each exhibit the same problem. The computer with the 9700 Pro is running Catalyst 5.8s. Thanks for reading!
7800 GTX in SA
9700 Pro in SA
7800 GTX without fog
If you look by the car on the 7800 shot, there's a noticeable band a few inches in front of it, and then many more beyond that. The bands always stay the same distance from each other and follow the camera as it moves, and it looks *much* worse in motion than it does in a still shot. The fog on the 9700 is completely smooth.
Soul Reaver 2 has the same problem, but it's proven much more difficult to capture in a screenshot than this was. It's distracting when running around, but pretty hard to see in a still image. The only other game I've tested so far is Oblivion (I don't have too many installed at the moment), and that doesn't seem to have quite the same problem that these two games have had. Both cards have somewhat noticeable banding, but neither one seems to have much more than the other.
So, I guess that leads me to my question. Is anyone else seeing this in any other games, or is it just me? A quick Google search turned up some complaints about fog banding in Doom 3 on nVidia cards, but not much more than that. I don't have that game though, so I can't test it. I've tested with both ForceWare 93.71 and 93.81 on my 7800, and they each exhibit the same problem. The computer with the 9700 Pro is running Catalyst 5.8s. Thanks for reading!
Facebook
Twitter