GeForce 185.20 Released - Now With Ambient Occlusion

[poohbear]

so was the ambient occlusion on by default in previous drivers? is it only available for crysis?

and im guessing this is a beta driver as nvidias driver section doesnt list these.

 

[Udgnim]

Originally posted by: poohbear
so was the ambient occlusion on by default in previous drivers? is it only available for crysis?

and im guessing this is a beta driver as nvidias driver section doesnt list these.

Ambient Occlusion is enabled by Nvidia's latest beta drivers. Ambient Occlusion needs to be supported by games such as Crysis and Left 4 Dead.

 

[instantcoffee]

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
The ambient occlusion feature gives a very noticeable increase in the visual quality in Crysis. The foliage especially looks amazing. I can't believe this game can look even better yet.

I used the Crysis GPU benchmark to test the performance because it was clear that this new feature was affecting it. The "High" ambient occlusion setting gave me a 20% performance hit. The medium and low settings gave appropriately less of a hit, BUT on medium and low settings, the grass and foliage had very noticeable shimmering issues. It was very distracting. In short, high was the only setting that worked without issues, but the resulting performance drop made the game unplayable for me.

Through the use of custom graphics configurations available online, it is possible to achieve similar results without the performance hit. Ambient occlusion on High still does look better though, IMO.

I can post some screenshots and graphs here if people express interest.

I also tried the feature briefly in CSS and COD4 but I could not notice any difference in visual quality even on high.

Would be nice if you can show some pictures of Crysis with the different settings (and performance impact would be great!).

The OP pictures is old pictures from before this feature. You can find them here:
http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.ph p?id=17733

(Take away the space between PH and P. Somehow the forum doesn't accept that link).

 

[FalseChristian]

The 185.20 betas seem good enough but I've lost the ability to add games to the SLI list.

 

[masteryoda34]

Crysis In-game Testing Mini Review

Image Quality

Graphic Settings

Image Comparison
Image Comparison 2

Ambient Occlusion gives a significant improvement to Crysis Image Quality. Even the low and medium settings are nearly as good as high in my opinion.

Performance Testing

System Specs

Same graphic settings as above. ForceWare 185.20. Crysis 1.21 64bit. GPU Benchmark.

Performance Results

Unfortunately we see a 35% performance drop from High Ambient Occlusion. Low and medium have better results and the image quality is nearly as good, however both medium and low have other issues described below.

Shimmering Issues

Unfortunately, using the Low or Medium settings for Ambient Occlusion results in a noticeable amount of shimmering on the foliage. This issue doesn't seem to appear on High. I've attached a video to demonstrate the effect, but I feel it is even more noticeable in-game.

Shimmering Video Xvid (Click "Download now!" to see it in full resolution. It's only 10MB.)

 

[taltamir]

you know what, blur is realistic, true... but why does that mean that everyone has to over blur everything? It really really bothers me seeing all that horrible artificial over blurring in video games, no it does not look real, at all!

Anyways, this looks really good. it adds shadows that were missing before. 35% is a hefty, but not unbearable performance decrease...

 

[masteryoda34]

Originally posted by: taltamir
35% is a hefty, but not unbearable performance decrease...

In Crysis, I think it is unbearable. Most people can just eek out enough FPS for it to be playable before Ambient Occlusion. Maybe when GT300 / R800 come to market it will be more feasible.

 

[taltamir]

crysis? you mean the pretty slide show generator? I meant its not unbearable in GAMES .

EDIT: although, it might be silly of me to presume that other games will have the same 35% decrease, it might very well vary by game...

 

[masteryoda34]

Originally posted by: taltamir
crysis? you mean the pretty slide show generator? I meant its not unbearable in GAMES .

EDIT: although, it might be silly of me to presume that other games will have the same 35% decrease, it might very well vary by game...

I have not seen Ambient Occlusion have any significant impact on graphics except in Crysis. What other "GAMES" does it have an effect on?

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Ocguy31

Originally posted by: zod96
That's how nvidia does things now I guess. They release 1 official driver a year, and 1 beta driver a month

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Since June, Nvidia has released 5 WHQL drivers, and 5 beta drivers. Vista 32 alone.

Ouch. That got shot down very quickly.

IIRC there was a fairly long delay for WHQL drivers for the 8800 series before May/June 08 so it isn't completely off.

 

[taltamir]

according to some guy:

I went into the drivers to see what games were supported by ambient occlusion setting and only found these:

Assassin Creed
Bioshock
COD4
COD:WAW
CS:Source
Company of heroes
crysis (warhead not suported)
devil.gif.gif may cry 4
Fallout 3
Far Cry 2
Half-life 2: Episode Two (only!!)
Left 4 Dead
Lost Planet
Mirror's Edge
The Call of Juarez
World in conflit
World Of Warcraft

 

[sticks435]

That's not to bad. Some pretty popular games. Granted about half of those are relative older ones.

 

[Qbah]

Can anyone show the difference it makes in Fallout 3 or HL2 Ep2 ? Thanks!

 

[Grinja]

Originally posted by: sticks435
That's not to bad. Some pretty popular games. Granted about half of those are relative older ones.

Nothing wrong with making older games look better ...

 

[masteryoda34]

Here's some screenshots with HL2 EP2.
Off = no ambient occlusion. High = high ambient occlusion.

In-Game Settings

Comparison 1:
Off
High

Comparison 2:
Off
High

Comparison 3:
Off
High

 

[aka1nas]

I can't see any difference in those shots. Is it more noticeable in-game? Anyone want to try this on Fallout 3?

 

[masteryoda34]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
Is it more noticeable in-game?

No.

 

[Qbah]

Originally posted by: masteryoda34
Here's some screenshots with HL2 EP2.
Off = no ambient occlusion. High = high ambient occlusion.

In-Game Settings

Comparison 1:
Off
High

Comparison 2:
Off
High

Comparison 3:
Off
High

The first one looks like different color saturation and contrast...and that's it. The other 2... I guess I'm blind, cause the difference is very minimal if any. 35% performance penalty for changing your color schemes? No thanks

Thanks for the screenshots, masteryoda34!

 

[masteryoda34]

Originally posted by: Qbah
35% performance penalty for changing your color schemes? No thanks

The 35% was for Crysis. I didn't test EP2, because performance isn't much of an issue with HL2 in general.

 

[taltamir]

these aren't really pictures where you SHOULD see any difference.
If you look at what ambiant occlusion is supposed to do...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion

Basically we need to look at pictures where you have, say, a canopy of trees ABOVE and AROUND you (with the source of light coming from outside the trees, aka sun), stand in a room, etc... ambient occlusion wouldn't really show much of a difference when standing in a wide open space. I mean, I barely even saw any shadows there...
If you look at the crysis pictures, that are taken inside the jungle, where the difference is AMAZING.