This question was posted by me on Rage3D forums:
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I am pretty surprised I am even posting this problem; actually, I am surprised that the problem exist at all, since ATI theorhetically has the best DVD playback support around the GPU market. But anyway.
I've been noticing problems with my DVD image quality on my radeon 8500 ever since I got the card. To make the description brief: The colors look like 16 or 24-bit instead of 32-bit. The image look especially bad around dark-colored regions (i.e. a distinct border between dark-gray and black areas. Looks almost like some kind of bad contrast). Yes I have been playing around with the Overlay controls and it doesn't help. I have already tried three versions of radeon 8500 drivers (the one on the CD and the two new ones downloadable from the ATI site) and that doesn't solve the problem either.
I have reasons to believe that this problem does not apply to my Radeon 8500 alone, as a bad OEM Radeon 8500 I returned prior to this retail one possessed the same problem as well. The problem is not limited to DVD movies alone: it also happens in Quicktime movie playback and MPEG file playbacl. Simply put: Radeon 8500 have problem with its Overlay.
One interesting thing to note is that if you turn the Brightness in the Overlay all the way up, the low color-depth problem seem to disappear. But of course, who can bear to watch a whole movie through with Brightness turned all the way up?
So, does anyone else experience the same problem, or is this just me? Can anyone out there with a radeon 8500 and a different video card (i.e. Matrox or nVidia) do a comparison test for me, too? I had a Viper II before and I know how my DVDs are supposed to look like. It shouldn't look like this on the radeon.
Also, there is a funny problem with the FSAA on my Radeon 8500. The trouble seem to only appear in older games (such as X-Wing Alliance or Tresspasser). The symptom include failure to refresh frames, flickering background, or floating objects. THe graphics look completely fine when FSAA is disabled. And the FSAA does not seem to cause a problem in newer games. Anyone experiencing this as well? I am using ATI's newest certified driver.
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And I got this reply:
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The overlay is a known problem. The 8500 has an iffy gamma ramp at the low end. Some say its hardware some say its a driver issue. I think that ati have said its a driver issue but I'm not sure on that.
I think it may well be a driver problem as it has improved loads between the 3286/7206 drivers and the current beta series, 60xx and 90xx.
In these drivers you really shouldn't be able to notice it as long as you don't touch the gamma in the overlay controls (leave it at 1).
Use the overlay brightness controls over your monitor ones. I just tried it and could only notice it with my monitor at high brightness.
As for the SV in old games, I think all cards have problems with FSAA and some older games. Whenever you are forcing AA over older games that use older engines (DX5,6) you may get some problems. My geforce SDR didnt like Freespace amongst others.
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Is this true?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am pretty surprised I am even posting this problem; actually, I am surprised that the problem exist at all, since ATI theorhetically has the best DVD playback support around the GPU market. But anyway.
I've been noticing problems with my DVD image quality on my radeon 8500 ever since I got the card. To make the description brief: The colors look like 16 or 24-bit instead of 32-bit. The image look especially bad around dark-colored regions (i.e. a distinct border between dark-gray and black areas. Looks almost like some kind of bad contrast). Yes I have been playing around with the Overlay controls and it doesn't help. I have already tried three versions of radeon 8500 drivers (the one on the CD and the two new ones downloadable from the ATI site) and that doesn't solve the problem either.
I have reasons to believe that this problem does not apply to my Radeon 8500 alone, as a bad OEM Radeon 8500 I returned prior to this retail one possessed the same problem as well. The problem is not limited to DVD movies alone: it also happens in Quicktime movie playback and MPEG file playbacl. Simply put: Radeon 8500 have problem with its Overlay.
One interesting thing to note is that if you turn the Brightness in the Overlay all the way up, the low color-depth problem seem to disappear. But of course, who can bear to watch a whole movie through with Brightness turned all the way up?
So, does anyone else experience the same problem, or is this just me? Can anyone out there with a radeon 8500 and a different video card (i.e. Matrox or nVidia) do a comparison test for me, too? I had a Viper II before and I know how my DVDs are supposed to look like. It shouldn't look like this on the radeon.
Also, there is a funny problem with the FSAA on my Radeon 8500. The trouble seem to only appear in older games (such as X-Wing Alliance or Tresspasser). The symptom include failure to refresh frames, flickering background, or floating objects. THe graphics look completely fine when FSAA is disabled. And the FSAA does not seem to cause a problem in newer games. Anyone experiencing this as well? I am using ATI's newest certified driver.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And I got this reply:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The overlay is a known problem. The 8500 has an iffy gamma ramp at the low end. Some say its hardware some say its a driver issue. I think that ati have said its a driver issue but I'm not sure on that.
I think it may well be a driver problem as it has improved loads between the 3286/7206 drivers and the current beta series, 60xx and 90xx.
In these drivers you really shouldn't be able to notice it as long as you don't touch the gamma in the overlay controls (leave it at 1).
Use the overlay brightness controls over your monitor ones. I just tried it and could only notice it with my monitor at high brightness.
As for the SV in old games, I think all cards have problems with FSAA and some older games. Whenever you are forcing AA over older games that use older engines (DX5,6) you may get some problems. My geforce SDR didnt like Freespace amongst others.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is this true?
