Shimmering brought up in the [H]ardOCP 7900 article

[Ackmed]

Myself and others have been vocal about shimmering, and the negative impact on gaming. Some NV supporters have flat out said its not there, when in fact it is for me. I have said in the past, that I notice it on my LCD, more than I do on a CRT. Ive been on this 2405FPW since the first week it came out, and it was very noticable going from my X850 to my 7800 card. Here is a quote from Hard's article; (bolded mine)

There you go, yes, I said it, ?shimmering.? Specifically ?texture crawling,? caused by either aggressing filtering or really bad LOD. I notice it using the Dell 2405FPW LCD. I believe the brighter contrast and crisper image coupled with the fact that the screen is just physically larger at a higher resolution all amplifies the problem and makes it extremely visible. I don?t notice it in all games, but there are a couple games in which it did negatively impact my overall level of gaming immersion. While this is another raging Green Vs. Red argument found many places on the Net, we have never specifically addressed it as we have never truly seen it impact our gameplay, but that is simply not the case with our 24? widescreen display.

We found in World of Warcraft there was horrible texture crawling on the ground as you walk through the game. It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams? technologies. I noticed distinctly that moving from a NVIDIA-based GPU to the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX or XL very much reduced this ?shimmering? problem in World of Warcraft as textures had less crawling. However, there was still some noticeable. Texture crawling is definitely worse on the GeForce 7800/7900 GPUs though. We were using the default driver settings for both NVIDIA and ATI.

We also noticed texture crawling in EverQuest II. Again on the ground, though this game wasn?t as bad as World of Warcraft. I didn?t really notice it or find anything distracting in games other than those mentioned above. It seems that World of Warcraft is the worst of them all when it comes to shimmering, and it was quite distracting on the large widescreen LCD.

What do we think about this texture crawling issue? We don?t like it and we hope NVIDIA makes some improvements with their filtering quality in their drivers soon. We are aware that you can force a higher mode of texture filtering by turning off some of their optimizations, but honestly we?d like the default filtering quality to simply be better without having to turn off optimizations by hand in their driver control panel. Be aware that some folks are much more alert to this shimmering issue than others, so if you have not seen it, I suggest you don?t go out and look for it.

Do understand that the reason NVIDIA leaves these harsh filtering optimizations on is two-fold. First, on smaller displays, it simply does not make a difference to the vast majority of gamers out there. Second, it gives NVIDIA based GPUs better benchmark numbers. And in the land of video card marketing, where the size of your ePenis score is king, you don?t want to give up a few benchmark points lest you have the other team waving their ePenis back at you.

If NVIDIA is going to leave these optimizations on by default in the driver, and they are well aware that these optimizations negatively impact your gaming experience on larger displays, that is the ruler we are going to judge them by. We will continue to point out filtering issues where we see them impacting our gameplay.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMSwxOCwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

Yes, this is vindication. Shimmering is real, and it is very noticable depending on your hardware. And it doest have a rather large negative impact on gaming. Which is exactly what I have said for the past several months. HardOCP said almost exactly what I have been saying for months now. That it is real, it is more noticable in some games than others, and that on a large LCD its easily seen. And that you dont have to use a magnifying glass to see it, and that it is easily seen. Many NV supporters have claimed that since no "big hardware" site has mentioned it in reviews, that it wasnt a valid complaint. Well, here you go. It happens on both ATi and NV cards, but much more on NV cards. Yes, this is in some way a 'I told you so", because I have been called about every name in the book, and put down because I "complained" about this. Even been told that I dont "deserve" a NV card, just this week. It is real, and it is an issue.

 

[ExtremePVDman]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Myself and others have been vocal about shimmering, and the negative impact on gaming. Some NV supporters have flat out said its not there, when in fact it is for me. I have said in the past, that I notice it on my LCD, more than I do on a CRT. Ive been on this 2405FPW since the first week it came out, and it was very noticable going from my X850 to my 7800 card. Here is a quote from Hard's article; (bolded mine)

There you go, yes, I said it, ?shimmering.? Specifically ?texture crawling,? caused by either aggressing filtering or really bad LOD. I notice it using the Dell 2405FPW LCD. I believe the brighter contrast and crisper image coupled with the fact that the screen is just physically larger at a higher resolution all amplifies the problem and makes it extremely visible. I don?t notice it in all games, but there are a couple games in which it did negatively impact my overall level of gaming immersion. While this is another raging Green Vs. Red argument found many places on the Net, we have never specifically addressed it as we have never truly seen it impact our gameplay, but that is simply not the case with our 24? widescreen display.

We found in World of Warcraft there was horrible texture crawling on the ground as you walk through the game. It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams? technologies. I noticed distinctly that moving from a NVIDIA-based GPU to the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX or XL very much reduced this ?shimmering? problem in World of Warcraft as textures had less crawling. However, there was still some noticeable. Texture crawling is definitely worse on the GeForce 7800/7900 GPUs though. We were using the default driver settings for both NVIDIA and ATI.

We also noticed texture crawling in EverQuest II. Again on the ground, though this game wasn?t as bad as World of Warcraft. I didn?t really notice it or find anything distracting in games other than those mentioned above. It seems that World of Warcraft is the worst of them all when it comes to shimmering, and it was quite distracting on the large widescreen LCD.

What do we think about this texture crawling issue? We don?t like it and we hope NVIDIA makes some improvements with their filtering quality in their drivers soon. We are aware that you can force a higher mode of texture filtering by turning off some of their optimizations, but honestly we?d like the default filtering quality to simply be better without having to turn off optimizations by hand in their driver control panel. Be aware that some folks are much more alert to this shimmering issue than others, so if you have not seen it, I suggest you don?t go out and look for it.

Do understand that the reason NVIDIA leaves these harsh filtering optimizations on is two-fold. First, on smaller displays, it simply does not make a difference to the vast majority of gamers out there. Second, it gives NVIDIA based GPUs better benchmark numbers. And in the land of video card marketing, where the size of your ePenis score is king, you don?t want to give up a few benchmark points lest you have the other team waving their ePenis back at you.

If NVIDIA is going to leave these optimizations on by default in the driver, and they are well aware that these optimizations negatively impact your gaming experience on larger displays, that is the ruler we are going to judge them by. We will continue to point out filtering issues where we see them impacting our gameplay.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMSwxOCwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

Yes, this is vindication. Shimmering is real, and it is very noticable depending on your hardware. And it doest have a rather large negative impact on gaming. Which is exactly what I have said for the past several months. HardOCP said almost exactly what I have been saying for months now. That it is real, it is more noticable in some games than others, and that on a large LCD its easily seen. And that you dont have to use a magnifying glass to see it, and that it is easily seen. Many NV supporters have claimed that since no "big hardware" site has mentioned it in reviews, that it wasnt a valid complaint. Well, here you go. It happens on both ATi and NV cards, but much more on NV cards. Yes, this is in some way a 'I told you so", because I have been called about every name in the book, and put down because I "complained" about this. Even been told that I dont "deserve" a NV card, just this week. It is real, and it is an issue.

Aren't they forgeting Counter-Strike:Source's blood decals shimmering like boiling water too?

 

[ericeash]

in the home theater world, shimmering can be a sign of bad cables. some dvi/hdmi cables are not capable of transferring HD signals for very far, especially long runs of cable. high quality cables are a must for high resolutions. could be the cards though.

 

[Keysplayr]

Just wow Ackmed. It can't be that serious to them if in their conclusion they recommend buying the cards.


HardOCP Conclusion

Maybe it's that forgettable what they wrote about shimmering? Or once again, your spin on it makes it seem worse than it is. It must be, because they are recommending 7900GTX SLI, 7900GT.

Quote:

"What to Buy?


So with all of this video card information in mind, just what do you or don?t you purchase? Obviously, budget and associated value are always very important. If money is no concern or you throw caution to the wind, and you play a lot of games, we have a brazen suggestion. Go out and buy a GeForce 7900 GTX SLI setup as it will provide you the best overall gaming experience on the planet. If you can afford that, let us suggest you grab you one of those big ass widescreen displays too. And don?t weenie out at 24? like we did, you might as well go for the gusto!


If however money does play a part in your decision making then we think you?ll find the GeForce 7900 GT a very impressive gaming solution for the price. The 7900 GT worked great in our box and provided a better gaming experience than the aging GeForce 7800 GT and the competition?s comparable GPU.


If however you already have, lets say a GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB video card, going to a GeForce 7900 GT isn?t really going to be worth it as an upgrade. However, if you went straight to a 7900 GTX from a 7800 GTX 256MB video card that would be a fairly sizeable leap in the gaming experience. If you have a GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB card don?t bother, the 7900 GTX isn?t much of an upgrade from that. If you?ve got a GeForce 6 series card however, moving to a GeForce 7900 GT may be a great option, giving you some new features and much faster performance.


If you?ve currently own a X1900 XT or XTX, stick with it. Those are great performing video cards and nothing here is enticing enough to move from them. If however you have an X1800 XT or XL, moving to a GeForce 7900 GTX or GT may give you a good boost in your visual gameplay quality. Or if you?ve got an older Radeon X800 series, the 7900 GT would be great improvement.



The Bottom Line



NVIDIA has worked hard to try and produce a more powerful, albeit power-efficient GPU in the 7900 GTX and GT, and they?ve succeeded. They run cooler, are smaller, have less transistors, and they don?t make you stuff cotton in your ears. The 7900 GTX and GT are just more efficient while being lightning fast."

Things that make you go, hmmmmmm.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Just wow Ackmed. It can't be that serious to them if in their conclusion they recommend buying the cards.


HardOCP Conclusion

Maybe it's that forgettable what they wrote about shimmering? Or once again, your spin on it makes it seem worse than it is. It must be, because they are recommending 7900GTX SLI, 7900GT.

Quote:

"What to Buy?


So with all of this video card information in mind, just what do you or don?t you purchase? Obviously, budget and associated value are always very important. If money is no concern or you throw caution to the wind, and you play a lot of games, we have a brazen suggestion. Go out and buy a GeForce 7900 GTX SLI setup as it will provide you the best overall gaming experience on the planet. If you can afford that, let us suggest you grab you one of those big ass widescreen displays too. And don?t weenie out at 24? like we did, you might as well go for the gusto!


If however money does play a part in your decision making then we think you?ll find the GeForce 7900 GT a very impressive gaming solution for the price. The 7900 GT worked great in our box and provided a better gaming experience than the aging GeForce 7800 GT and the competition?s comparable GPU.


If however you already have, lets say a GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB video card, going to a GeForce 7900 GT isn?t really going to be worth it as an upgrade. However, if you went straight to a 7900 GTX from a 7800 GTX 256MB video card that would be a fairly sizeable leap in the gaming experience. If you have a GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB card don?t bother, the 7900 GTX isn?t much of an upgrade from that. If you?ve got a GeForce 6 series card however, moving to a GeForce 7900 GT may be a great option, giving you some new features and much faster performance.


If you?ve currently own a X1900 XT or XTX, stick with it. Those are great performing video cards and nothing here is enticing enough to move from them. If however you have an X1800 XT or XL, moving to a GeForce 7900 GTX or GT may give you a good boost in your visual gameplay quality. Or if you?ve got an older Radeon X800 series, the 7900 GT would be great improvement.



The Bottom Line



NVIDIA has worked hard to try and produce a more powerful, albeit power-efficient GPU in the 7900 GTX and GT, and they?ve succeeded. They run cooler, are smaller, have less transistors, and they don?t make you stuff cotton in your ears. The 7900 GTX and GT are just more efficient while being lightning fast."

Things that make you go, hmmmmmm.

He wasn't talking about one card being better than the other or anything, just that the shimmering issue DOES exist, contrary to what some would have you believe.

(Or at least that's what I got out of it...)

 

[Keysplayr]

Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed. And the shimmering wasn't bad enough to stop them from recommending the cards. You don't find that a bit strange?

 

[harobikes333]

soo do you guys think its ok to buy a 7900...? Or do you think a person should wait for this shimmering thing to get fixed...?

 

[Ackmed]

Yep, its real, and a "real hardware site" said so, in a video card article. Which just proves I was right, and that can be an issue. Obviously for someone on a CRT, or probably even a smaller LCD, its not going to be such a huge issue. But for those of us who are blessed with a large LCD, its very real, and as HardOCP said, very annoying. I was told by many people on these forums that its not there, and that I shouldnt be looking at a game thru a microscope. When in facts, it can be easily seen, and one of the reasons Im leaving my SLI'd GTX's.

They didnt even try it in two of the games it happens the worst to me, BF2, and HL2. Like I (and they) said, its not such an issue in some games, or under some settings. And I sure wouldnt go look for it if I didnt see it.

 

[NYHoustonman]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed.

It happens on both ATi and NV cards, but much more on NV cards. Yes, this is in some way a 'I told you so", because I have been called about every name in the book, and put down because I "complained" about this. Even been told that I dont "deserve" a NV card, just this week. It is real, and it is an issue.

Apparently not everybody on this forum holds the same opinion as you. I do remember this stuff being argued a while back, but I never really payed attention (I know I remember Rollo defending NVidia at the time, though :x)

 

[Ackmed]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed.

Wrong. Its all about the hardware. They did not say that some of them did not see it, both of them did. They have stated before that the hardware goes thru two editors hands. If one didnt see it, they would have said so.

You still dont want to accept the fact that with certain hardware, it is a big issue. You obviously have never used a 2405FPW or the like, and a recent NV card.

 

[Matt2]

It's real, but damn, not everyone cares. Nor does everyone see it.

Whether or not it exists is not an issue, whether or not someone is going to be bothered by it is another issue. If you're worried about it, buy an ATI card.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: harobikes333
soo do you guys think its ok to buy a 7900...? Or do you think a person should wait for this shimmering thing to get fixed...?

I think pricing will be a main factor in purchasing decisions. ATI seems to have more features, but they lost their performance lead.

 

[harobikes333]

Ackmed, how did you fix the shimmering with your sli'd gtx's...? Did you? And how big of a lcd do you have. I'm planning on a 19in. Should the shimmering affect me if I buy a 7900...?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed.

Wrong. Its all about the hardware. They did not say that some of them did not see it, both of them did. They have stated before that the hardware goes thru two editors hands. If one didnt see it, they would have said so.

You still dont want to accept the fact that with certain hardware, it is a big issue. You obviously have never used a 2405FPW or the like, and a recent NV card.

And you don't want to accept the fact that the observation of shimmering is relative. I think we have been through this several thousand times.

 

[Gstanfor]

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed.

Wrong. Its all about the hardware. They did not say that some of them did not see it, both of them did. They have stated before that the hardware goes thru two editors hands. If one didnt see it, they would have said so.

You still dont want to accept the fact that with certain hardware, it is a big issue. You obviously have never used a 2405FPW or the like, and a recent NV card.

Shove the LCD in the garbage bin, where it belongs! use a CRT. Problem solved.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

Originally posted by: Ackmed

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Of course it exists, otherwise it wouldn't be a subject for discussion today. I can picture the HardOCP guys going through the exact same thing we did. A bunch of guys standing around a 7900 benchmarking computer, half of them think the shimmering is horrendous, and the other half can't see it at all. Nothing has changed.

Wrong. Its all about the hardware. They did not say that some of them did not see it, both of them did. They have stated before that the hardware goes thru two editors hands. If one didnt see it, they would have said so.

You still dont want to accept the fact that with certain hardware, it is a big issue. You obviously have never used a 2405FPW or the like, and a recent NV card.

Shove the LCD in the garbage bin, where it belongs! use a CRT. Problem solved.

Now now. There are a lot of people who paid good money for degraded LCD gaming performance. But, they spent the money willingly.

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Shove the LCD in the garbage bin, where it belongs! use a CRT. Problem solved.

Yeah, because it's the monitor's fault the G7x can't correctly filter the scene while the R52xx does it just fine on same LCD. :roll:

 

[FalllenAngell]

All cards have shimmer at the mipmap transitions in some games.

nVidia based cards seem to have more in some games at default settings. There are driver settings that greatly reduce it. Oh well.

Most people don't even notice it.

 

[harobikes333]

So to repeat myself...

Originally posted by: harobikes333
Ackmed, how did you fix the shimmering with your sli'd gtx's...? Did you? you have a 20+in screen.... hmm I'm planning on a 19in. Should the shimmering affect me if I buy a 7900...?

 

[BFG10K]

Some NV supporters have flat out said its not there, when in fact it is for me.

HardOCP also had this to say about noise:

The Radeon X1900 XTX emits an annoyingly loud whining drone; the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX and GT are quiet.

So much for for "the X1900 is quiet" statements. I guess fanboys from both sides of the fence like to gloss over limitations of their vendor of choice.

The thermal characteristics of the G71 line are impressive to say the least. They actually run even cooler than the already cool G70 line.

 

[BFG10K]

There is no question that the Radeon X1900 XTX runs hotter and is louder; sometimes to the point of being very annoying. We quite like NVIDIA?s reference cooling solution on the GeForce 7900 GTX. It does the job well with a large silent fan. Of course cooling solutions on retail add-in-board video cards can and will be different. NVIDIA?s reference board?s cooling solution shines through as a great design.

 

[Hacp]

Graphics companies have got to stop with shimmering being acceptable. I even notice it on my PSP. WTF? (btw, I notice that my staircase shimmers a little when I walk up. That might just be the paint though)

 

[dug777]

It drives me up the wall with my 6600GT

a personal issue perhaps, but damn it's annoying

 

[harobikes333]

So its the hardware's fault...?! Could a person RMA it or what could a person even do... ? Nothing?

 

[beggerking]

Originally posted by: Ackmed
Myself and others have been vocal about shimmering, and the negative impact on gaming. Some NV supporters have flat out said its not there, when in fact it is for me. I have said in the past, that I notice it on my LCD, more than I do on a CRT. Ive been on this 2405FPW since the first week it came out, and it was very noticable going from my X850 to my 7800 card. Here is a quote from Hard's article; (bolded mine)

There you go, yes, I said it, ?shimmering.? Specifically ?texture crawling,? caused by either aggressing filtering or really bad LOD. I notice it using the Dell 2405FPW LCD. I believe the brighter contrast and crisper image coupled with the fact that the screen is just physically larger at a higher resolution all amplifies the problem and makes it extremely visible. I don?t notice it in all games, but there are a couple games in which it did negatively impact my overall level of gaming immersion. While this is another raging Green Vs. Red argument found many places on the Net, we have never specifically addressed it as we have never truly seen it impact our gameplay, but that is simply not the case with our 24? widescreen display.

We found in World of Warcraft there was horrible texture crawling on the ground as you walk through the game. It is most notable on coble stone or dirt paths through forests. Comparatively, texture crawling is much worse on NVIDIA GPUs than on ATI GPUs from our experience, but rest assured this is a problem that is present in both teams? technologies. I noticed distinctly that moving from a NVIDIA-based GPU to the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX or XL very much reduced this ?shimmering? problem in World of Warcraft as textures had less crawling. However, there was still some noticeable. Texture crawling is definitely worse on the GeForce 7800/7900 GPUs though. We were using the default driver settings for both NVIDIA and ATI.

We also noticed texture crawling in EverQuest II. Again on the ground, though this game wasn?t as bad as World of Warcraft. I didn?t really notice it or find anything distracting in games other than those mentioned above. It seems that World of Warcraft is the worst of them all when it comes to shimmering, and it was quite distracting on the large widescreen LCD.

What do we think about this texture crawling issue? We don?t like it and we hope NVIDIA makes some improvements with their filtering quality in their drivers soon. We are aware that you can force a higher mode of texture filtering by turning off some of their optimizations, but honestly we?d like the default filtering quality to simply be better without having to turn off optimizations by hand in their driver control panel. Be aware that some folks are much more alert to this shimmering issue than others, so if you have not seen it, I suggest you don?t go out and look for it.

Do understand that the reason NVIDIA leaves these harsh filtering optimizations on is two-fold. First, on smaller displays, it simply does not make a difference to the vast majority of gamers out there. Second, it gives NVIDIA based GPUs better benchmark numbers. And in the land of video card marketing, where the size of your ePenis score is king, you don?t want to give up a few benchmark points lest you have the other team waving their ePenis back at you.

If NVIDIA is going to leave these optimizations on by default in the driver, and they are well aware that these optimizations negatively impact your gaming experience on larger displays, that is the ruler we are going to judge them by. We will continue to point out filtering issues where we see them impacting our gameplay.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTAwMSwxOCwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

Yes, this is vindication. Shimmering is real, and it is very noticable depending on your hardware. And it doest have a rather large negative impact on gaming. Which is exactly what I have said for the past several months. HardOCP said almost exactly what I have been saying for months now. That it is real, it is more noticable in some games than others, and that on a large LCD its easily seen. And that you dont have to use a magnifying glass to see it, and that it is easily seen. Many NV supporters have claimed that since no "big hardware" site has mentioned it in reviews, that it wasnt a valid complaint. Well, here you go. It happens on both ATi and NV cards, but much more on NV cards. Yes, this is in some way a 'I told you so", because I have been called about every name in the book, and put down because I "complained" about this. Even been told that I dont "deserve" a NV card, just this week. It is real, and it is an issue.

you completely missed the point of the review.... the review isn't about shimmering, its about 7900.

also, shimmering is well known and this is once again a repost.