I've installed a 280GTX and actually had better framerate than 7800GTX in firefights. This is odd, I suppose, because I understand that BZ2 is CPU intensive and doesn't use all that much GPU power.
But then the polygons in the game start flickering, and the screen went blue (I could see minimap, and shoot/more/ hear sounds, but my view is blue. This happened half hour into game.
I'm assuming this has to do with drivers? I've got 1.3pb4a and 182 drivers.
Yep, it's a problem with the drivers. Newer Nvidia drivers seem to have dropped DX6 from their list of necessary driversets. Either roll back your drivers to one that works, (The number eludes me at the moment) or set your sky to "None" in the graphics options.
VSMIT.
Quote from: VSMIT on April 02, 2009, 08:05:56 PM
Newer Nvidia drivers seem to have dropped DX6 from their list of necessary driversets.
DX7 I thought.
How about any DX version before 9?
VSMIT.
177.35 is the oldest driver listed for GTX 280
Hope that works.
Newer video cards will require even newer drivers, so anything from this point on, driverwise, will die on BZ2 because all new drivers won't have DX6?
I doubt you will be able to get any drivers for that card that work with bz2. Not even the stock 9800 GTX drivers, for my card work with bz2.
Well, game hasn't crashed like that again. Some texture mix-ups (3D cockpit orange and recycler ground gray texture can only be seen from sat-bunker view), but sky and everything was working in the next few missions and instant maps.
Mean 60 fps though, and nothing below 46.
the orange cockpit youre refering too is because of EBPM bumpmapping. turn if off and restart, i had that same issue when i installed pb4a for the first time.
What is EBPM bumpmapping?
essentially i think it puts another texture on top of the existing one but dont quote me on that.
either way, many cards don't support it, and end up just screwing up the textures already on vehicles. theres an option to turn it off in the graphics menu.
Its a gray scale map for a slight 3Dimensional effect applied to textures. In modern games, like source engine games, multicolored normal maps are used for more control and options. A lot still uses bump mapping though.
EMBM was Matrox (a video card maker)'s attempt at bumpmapping technology. It didn't really catch on. 'DOT3' was popularized by ATI and/or nVidia, and has been far more popular before normalmaps came around.
-- GSH
So EBPM wouldn't work with any nvidia cards?
The drivers for my 260 card work just fine for BZ2, though there is issues when it comes to the water flickering in and out other than that everything is crystal.
I get orange cockpit in the sabre, and flickering in some places. Your using the new 185 drivers?
It doesn't matter what drivers you use, that issue is bumpmapping. its a simple fact of youre card doesn't support it. turn it off and you wont see the problem.
Bumpmapping is supported by all modern cards, but probably only the dot3 variant. I turned it off.
My 8800GTX at home definitely supports EMBM bumpmapping. The technology is definitely there. BZ2 also has bugs about using it well (or even properly) in all cases. I know some people think EMBM is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but I don't care for it that much.
-- GSH
ive never seen the difference myself.
although, when i first downloaded and installed pb4a, it DID make things an awful lot more alien looking. everything look solid and much more shiny.
All it ever did for me was screw up the cockpit textures.
Same, and I get the hangar (pbsbay) floor textures screwed up too.
Just was told that my drivers might be a bit old by a new game ...
Does someone know which of these drivers is roughly the latest that is safe to install without messing with BZ2 ?
Thanks :)
(http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/9135/detailsl.th.jpg) (http://img5.imageshack.us/my.php?image=detailsl.jpg)
it used to make the sky flicker if i pelted off a few at-stab rounds as well. looked awful!
Bumpmap can add pizzazz to BZII, but only at the sacrifice of lowering framerate a little bit. It's worse on older videocards with lower memory transfer rates. Example, on an old Matrox G450 card (one of the first vid cards I used on BZII), EMBM was excellent (because this is a Matrox card afterall), but it lowered framerate by ~10fps and you're already working with about a max of 1.0GB/s mem xfer and around 30fps, if I recall. Anyway, with default bump toggle in BZII, things are too shiny. The next number down on the bump blend scale was a little better (and darker). And a higher screen resolution helped thin out those bump lines better.