Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[benitomuso]

People,
               I have two similar computers with an ATI HD5500 and ATI 3850 video cards. Some days ago I updated the drivers to the last version available: 11.6

  More or less at the same time I installed the 1.0 build of the DBW. I had many different visual problems:

  1-Water blinking, rivers dissapearing in close distance, strange shadows in the sea, etc.
  2-Some hidden meshes or transparent textures blinking ni black (in Me-109 cockpit for instance).

  At the beginning I thought that it could have been a problem related to the DBW, but I alwas suspected about the video drivers too. Yesterday after having installed the wonderful 1.1 build of the DBW I confirmed that all the visual problems still were there. So I removed the new 1.6 ATI Drivers, took the previous 11.5 version, installed it again and now everything works like a charm.

  I don't know if this problem will be with every ATI video card, but I have two different and both of them showed the same problem.

  Regards,
                           Pablo

[SAS~Storebror]

Not to be a smartass here, but I've been an ATI user for 5 months as well and since a week ago I'm back a happy Nvidia user again.
In my particular case any ATI driver past version 11.2 caused the system to enter an infinite boot->bluescreen->boot loop where you could just get out of by rolling back some recovery snapshot or system restore point, the latter just if you were lucky enough to have it do the trick. I thought I'd be too dumb to install graphics drivers, but when I got my system back working once, I figured on the ATI support boards that I'm just one of thousands of users facing the same issue.
Generally it looks like you better not touch your ATI driver unless you're facing severe issues, since you can never be sure that any current driver version runs on any non-latest card as well. That's a sad thing.

During the time being an ATI user I enjoyed superior image quality of my ATI card (even though it was just some old 4670 1GB card), for instance the Anti Aliasing looked much better than it does on my current Nvidia (GTX 550 Ti OC) card.

However I found several things pretty annoying with this ATI stuff:
- The driver issues mentioned before
- No automatically selected profiles according to the application being launched.
- 3D settings apply per system, not per window.
- Severe graphics glitches with new generation browsers like Firefox 4/5, Chrome.

In particular as an IL-2 user I always enjoyed that the 3D profile applies automatically when you launch IL-2 on an Nvidia system, whereas for an ATI system you have to select a corresponding profile manually in advance (when the application is running already, changes do not apply) and those settings don't just apply to the 3D application window like for Nvidia, but for the whole system instead. That's silly. Nvidia showes that things can be better.

Generally I'd say that for an IL-2 user Nvidia is always the better choice compared to ATI cards, even though performance vs. price is slightly worse overall.

Best regards - Mike

[Abigor]

Most of this issues can be solved with the "ATI Tray Tools", from Ray Adams. You can download it from Guru 3D. Some features:

- You can make profiles automatically applied when the application is launched. (applies per window, not per system).
- Support for overclocking and ATI overdrive (different values can be ajusted in different application profiles).
- Full control for fan RPMs, based on GPU temperature.
- Powerful OSD showing frames per second, frequencies (GPU & MEM), CPU and GPU load percentaje, temperatures, etc (very configurable)
- FPS counter and screenshots for all applications (2D & 3D).
- Access to hidden parameters that cannot be controlled from Catalyst Control Panel.
- Some optimizations for filtering, and other tweaks for advanced users.

In comparison, this little aplication is like merge in one the Fraps, RivaTunner and Nhancer tools for Nvidia. Since I discovered this tool, I've never installed the Catalyst Panel, just only the driver.

For the driver issues, follow the rule... if it's working do not touch!  It's annoying, but the driver development from ATI it's getting worse and worse in every new release, specially for older cards and aplications like IL-2.

The best you can do is install the driver that came with your card, because as Storebror said, new drivers are made only with lastest cards in mind. I'm quite happy using a HD 5850, but I remain with 10.9 driver version, and works like a charm with all games and applications I have installed. But this version has some issues with IL-2, with ATI, the newer is the driver, the badder is the OpenGL support...

So here you have the solution I've found: take from an older driver the atioglxx.dll file and put in your IL-2 folder. In that way you have an older driver version for IL, and a newer for everything else. The 9.10 version is working perfectly for me in Windows 7, runs smoother and with better performance with higher graphics settings and the best image quality.

If you want to try, I can upload somewhere the file...

Salute 

[benitomuso]

I would apprecciate that!

  If you can please upload the .dll or send it by e-mail to: plucioni@gmail.com

  Thank you for the tips.

  Pablo

[Abigor]

Uploaded two different versions:

atioglxx.dll from 9.10 (Win7 64b)
atioglxx.dll from 9.12 (Win7 64b)

Remember, this are for Windows Seven 64 bits, I think will not work properly on other systems. I'm running  two different IL-2 installations with the 9.10 file, one for 4.09 with Ultrapack 2.01, and another with 4.10.1 and Ultrapack 3 RC2.

After copying the file inside IL-2 folder, you need to change this seccion in the conf.ini:

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=atioglxx.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

And this can helps too, the best conf.ini settings I've found for ATI cards running in OpenGL mode:

[Render_OpenGL]
TexQual=3
TexMipFilter=3
TexCompress=2
TexFlags.UseDither=1
TexFlags.UseAlpha=0
TexFlags.UseIndex=0
TexFlags.PolygonStipple=1
TexFlags.UseClampedSprites=0
TexFlags.DrawLandByTriangles=0
TexFlags.UseVertexArrays=1
TexFlags.DisableAPIExtensions=0
TexFlags.ARBMultitextureExt=1
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineExt=1
TexFlags.SecondaryColorExt=1
TexFlags.VertexArrayExt=1
TexFlags.ClipHintExt=1
TexFlags.UsePaletteExt=1
TexFlags.TexAnisotropicExt=1
TexFlags.TexCompressARBExt=1

TexFlags.TexEnvCombine4NV=0
TexFlags.TexEnvCombineDot3=1
TexFlags.DepthClampNV=0
TexFlags.SeparateSpecular=1
TexFlags.TextureShaderNV=0

HardwareShaders=1

Shadows=2
Specular=2
SpecularLight=2
DiffuseLight=2
DynamicalLights=1
MeshDetail=2
VisibilityDistance=3

Sky=2
Forest=2
LandShading=3
LandDetails=2

LandGeom=2
TexLarge=1
TexLandQual=3
TexLandLarge=1

VideoSetupId=8
Water=2
Effects=1
ForceShaders1x=0

PolygonOffsetFactor=-0.0625
PolygonOffsetUnits=-1.0

Good luck! 

[benitomuso]

Thank you very much for your recommendations!

  I installed the Guru 3D and it's a great application. 300% better that the stupid ATI Control Panel that used 100Mb made in .NET and other stupid contents.

  I never knew about it's existence but it really deserves to use it.

  Kind regards,
                              Pablo

[SAS~Storebror]

Great to hear that the ATI Tray Tools do the trick for you.
Back in the days when I've been an ATI user, I tried the ATI Tray Tools too, but they didn't work well for me.
There was a 50:50 chance for ATT to pick the profile right when IL-2 started, and in contrast to what ESA_Abigor told, to me the profile settings always applied system-wide, which in turn meant that when IL-2 quit, there was a 50:50 chance again for ATT to re-enable the Desktop profile. Pretty annoying. Might be related to me using Win XP back then, maybe ATT is working better with Vista/7.

Best regards - Mike

[Gerson]

Before this line in the confi.ini

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=Opengl32.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

Theres a line

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=Opengl32.dll

Do I have to change it also to

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=atioglxx.dll

So it will readlike this:

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=atioglxx.dll

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=atioglxx.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

Or should it read:

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=Opengl32.dll

[GLPROVIDERS]
Open GL=atioglxx.dll
DirectX=dx8wrap.dll

In resume: should I change to atioglxx.dll in both Open GL lines or just in the [GLPROVIDERS]

Thanks a lot
Gerson

[kleinnak]

Hmmm, well... I'm using Win 7 Ultimate x64, and every time I try and run the game in OpenGL with either of the atioglxx's in the main folder, Il-2 crashes on load.  I tried all the combinations Gerson asked about above, no dice.  Put it back to original and ran with atioglxx's still in, still crashed.  Removed atioglxx, loads fine.  So not sure what's really different about my system, but no matter what, my system and Il-2 install is not happy with these files, the 9.10 or 9.12 versions... I have a Sapphire Radeon HD6870 in my system.

[kleinnak]

That being said! ESA_Abigor, your conf.ini settings have my Il-2 looking nice and sharp in OpenGL without it, so a definite thank you for those!

[benitomuso]

Gerson,
                I have tried setting as you asked:

[GLPROVIDER]
GL=atioglxx.dll

  But with that change too the game doesn't load. I think that it's a setting that affects the basic of the program, so neither the GUI is loaded.

  And regarding the real change suggested by Abigor, it works, yes, but I think that it has some problems to recogniza the color depth, because the program loads, but all the GUI screens seem to have only 16bits colors. In game I haven't noticed other effect, neither negative nor positive, so I decided to come back to the 11.5 that was the last of the modern drivers that worked normally for me.

  Regards,
                        Pablo

[Gerson]

Hi Pablo
Thanks for your reply
I decided to come back to the original confi.ini and instsllrd driver only 10.9 and the ATI Tray Tools
from Guru 3D
The game runs fine with smooth and fast frame rates but @ CTD untill now
I think the drives are OK and better tha 11.6
The CTD mosty was caused by some changes I did in the ATI tray tool settings
Still tryinIll let you know my results
All the best
Gerson