Shimmering Drivers: Preliminary Results

[ChrisRay]

Update: As most of you are unlikely aware. I have been e-mail contact with Nvidia over the issue regarding shimmering for the past few weeks.

The Problem: Shimmering is a problem that can occur between mipmap transisitions on various hardware within the G70 series. Prior on the Geforce 6 series you could set the LoD clamp and turn on High Quality and shimmering would be removed. However it turns out that these fixes did not provide adequate results on Geforce 7 hardware.

The Solution: Nvidia has provided me with an early beta sample of the drivers for testing purposes and feedback. It is very important to understand that these preliminary beta drivers and should be taken as such. There will likely be changes in the future to them.



My Quality Observations

Note: The software used in these tests is extremely sensitive to shimmering and texturing. Most applications do not exhibit behavior similar to these tests in such a similar severity. And many would not see results comparable to this in most games. I would also like to point out. These tests are not perfect. And I dont claim them to be so. But they do adequately show and describe the problem/solution.

Quality 77.77 Geforce 7800GTX: The "Shimmering" effect is fairly obvious on these tests. Multiple visible mipmap transistions can be seen.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...g70quality.avi

High Quality 77.77 Geforce 7800GTX: As has been reported. Even with High quality mode the Geforce 7800GTX would exhibit shimmering. While there is an improvement. Shimmering is not removed.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...rfix/g70hq.avi

Quality 77.77 Geforce 6800GT: The Geforce 6800GT in Quality mode exhibits slightly higher quality than the 7800GTX in Quality mode.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...v4xquality.avi

High Quality 77.77 Geforce 6800GT: The Geforce 6800GT in High Quality modes offers fairly significant quality advantages over the 7800GTX in High Quality mode reducing shimmering significantly.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...fix/nv4xhq.avi


Geforce 7800GTX Quality Beta: The filtering quality in Quality mode is still comparable to that in on the 77.77 drivers. I urge people to remember that these are still very beta and this could possibly change in the near future.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...newquality.avi

Geforce 7800GTX High Quality Beta: When looking at the Geforce 7800GTX in High Quality mode. We can see that the quality is significantly increased. I have found the new 7800GTX HQ mode to be fairly comparable to the 6800GT High Quality mode with older drivers. Many games that experience shimmering have been fixed. It should be noted that it is unlikely that shimmering will ever disapear completely as there are multiple forms of aliasing across surfaces.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...x/g70newhq.avi

Update

Geforce 7800GTX 77.77: This is an uploaded WOW comparison to help people see the shimmering reduction from another software point of view. Both tests were performed in High Quality.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...x/wowhqold.avi

Geforce 7800GTX Beta: This is an updated WoW comparison to help people see the shimmering reduction from another software point of view. Both tests were performed in High Quality.

http://www.nvnews.net/articles/chris...x/wowhqnew.avi


Performance Results

Performance Note: Finding software that was consistently fillrate limited and exhibiting texture aliasing was a daunting task. I chose to use select tests from the futuremark 3dmark series which have shown themselves to be adequately bound by fillrate.




Peformance Thoughts: The graphs pretty much speak for themselves. While it is obvious that performance will vary software to software. I have found the performance differences between the old and new drivers in high quality mode to be nothing worth splitting hairs over and can easily be explained by a different driver revision. Considering this. People who have been playing in High Quality mode will not have to worry about a significant performance impact.

Final Thoughts: I am glad that Nvidia has been fast and reactive on this issue. Early beta drivers are looking promising and I expect future drivers to continue to improve upon what we are seeing here. I would like to thank Nvidia for their fast responces and for the work they have done on this already. I would also like to thank those who have helped me investigate the issue. Including Rys of hexus.net, ailuros over at beyond3d, and of course the nvnews staff for allowing me to cooridinate my research at nvnews.

Last Note: These drivers are beta and could to be improved upon before release. The point of this post is to show people that Nvidia are indeed aware of the issue and actively working to improve it.. Keep in mind that changes could be made from the date I post this and the date the drivers go live. I will not be leaking these drivers. So do not ask.

[Kombatant]

I am certain the nV engineers will fix this almost completely when the driver is released to the public; they just need to pinpoint the cases where the filtering is not acting the way it's supposed to. And that can take some time

[ChrisRay]

Originally Posted by Kombatant

I am certain the nV engineers will fix this almost completely when the driver is released to the public; they just need to pinpoint the cases where the filtering is not acting the way it's supposed to. And that can take some time

Yup. As I've been stressing to people. These things take time. But is very important for people to know Nvidia is listening. And it's not like they want people to be experiencing issues. To be honest this is one of the quickest things they've actively fixed in sometime.

[Ninjaman09]

Can't play the videos. I have the most recent XviD and Divx installed, what gives?

[ChrisRay]

You need the fraps codec.

[Demigod]

Great news thanks for posting the info

[Ninjaman09]

Ah cool, working now.

[|MaguS|]

ChrisRay, could you do a comparison of the shimmering using WoW or another game that its more noticable. EQ1 isn't the greatest.

[ChrisRay]

Originally Posted by |MaguS|

ChrisRay, could you do a comparison of the shimmering using WoW or another game that its more noticable. EQ1 isn't the greatest.

I disagree. Everquest 1 is significantly more sensitive to shimmer with AF than WoW or EQ 2 or even Guild Wars. As it will exhibit shimmering on all hardware. Secondly EQ 1's simple texture makeup makes this an ideal software for testing filtering on simple textures. The effect will not be made transparent in any way by normal maps or specular effects across surfaces.

Besides. I played WoW for 3 hours tonight and couldnt see a single shimmer in HQ mode.

[Ninjaman09]

I'm sorry, I don't see any difference at all between the 77.77 HQ and the 78.03 HQ. Maybe due to compression?

[ChrisRay]

Originally Posted by Ninjaman09

I'm sorry, I don't see any difference at all between the 77.77 HQ and the 78.03 HQ. Maybe due to compression?

I think you may be seeing a result of the time of day the video was taken. Compared to the Nv4xhq.avi they are very similar. Like I said. This software tends to show shimmering at excessive levels on pretty much all hardware I have tested. I am probably going to retake the EQ 77.77 video at the same time setting. ((in game obviously for the scrutinizing people))

Also keep in mind that these were recorded @ 640x480 resolution which amplifies the affect.

[Ninjaman09]

Originally Posted by ChrisRay

I think you may be seeing a result of the time of day the video was taken. Compared to the Nv4xhq.avi they are very similar. Like I said. This software tends to show shimmering at excessive levels on pretty much all hardware I have tested. I am probably going to retake the EQ 77.77 video at the same time setting. ((in game obviously for the scrutinizing people))

Also keep in mind that these were recorded @ 640x480 resolution which amplifies the affect.

Yeah, that makes sense. Well cool, thanks for putting the videos up and keeping us informed! It really is good to hear that nVidia's on the ball with this issue as it's something that's been bothering me quite a bit since I got my 7800. Looking forward to playing WoW without distracting shimmering.