Please send all questions and comments related to this gallery to Danil Gridasov.

Testbed

Games are tested on Pentium 4 3.4 GHz (800 MHz FSB) PC with ASUS P4C800-E (i875P) motherboard and 1024 MB PC3200 3200.

The test is run only under Windows XP Service Pack 2 and DirectX 9c.

The following cards were used in making of this material:

• ATI RADEON 9200
• ATI Radeon 9600
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• ATI Radeon X800 Pro
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra

The latest changes are marked light-red.

Games are tested with the latest reference drivers (61.77 for NVIDIA GPUs, 4.9 for ATI GPUs) coupled with the latest patches. When a bug is found, it's tested on the next reference betas. Exceptions prove the rule :-)

Some bugs may occur in our testbed only. So if you don't witness them, or witness bugs previously unwitnessed :), please email us providing most details about your PC configuration (processor, chipset, graphics card and drivers, OS, DirectX version, game version). Besides, you can send us a screenshot not more than 200KB in size ('cause we have to pay for traffic :-)

News

• Removed a number of bug descriptions fixed in July issue).

• Removed a number of irrepairable bugs.

• The small number of bugs in this issue is not a result of our lazyness :) Just during the summer stagnation both major GPU vendors had time to eliminate lots of bugs we found. But we expect more gaming titles in autumn, so we'll see how Catalyst and ForceWare perform with new engines.

• The following drivers were released in September:

  ATI:

  • Catalyst 4.9 (8.051), official reference drivers from ATI. Features new Catalyst Control Center.

  NVIDIA:

  • ForceWare 66.31, 66.32, 66.51, 66.70, etc., reference betas from NVIDIA.

• No updates were made to listed games in September.

Games

1. Command & Conquer Generals v1.7 / Zero Hour v1.02
2. Delta Force Black Hawk Dawn Team Sabre v1.50
3. Deus Ex Invisible War v1.2
4. Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind v1.6
5. Far Cry v1.2 b1325
6. Halo: Combat Evolved v1.04
7. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time v1.81
8. Thief Deadly Shadows v1.1
9. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell v1.2b
10. "IL2-Shturmovik: Aces" v2.04

Command & Conquer Generals v1.7 / Zero Hour v1.02

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce 6800 Ultra	61.77 66.70	Incorrect water shader rendering.
		None solutions so far. (GFFX5900 screenshot is to the right.)

Delta Force Black Hawk Dawn Team Sabre v1.50

Deus Ex Invisible War v1.2

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9800 Pro Radeon X800 Pro	4.5 4.6 4.7	Lighting and shadows problems.
		Fixed in Catalyst 4.8.	-

Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind v1.6
(with Tribunal and Bloodmoon)

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5200	56.64 56.72 61.77	Exteremely transparent water comparing to what other GPUs produce.
		Fixed in ForceWare 66.00.	-

Far Cry v1.2 b1325

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti4600	61.34	Incorrect water rendering at Ultra High and High detail levels.
		Fixed in 1.2, but it's hard to find, as the patch is recalled.
GeForce FX 5200 GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	61.76 61.77	Clear banding on light source reflections.
		A result of extensive game optimizations for a number of ForceWare versions. 66.xx + patch 1.2 produced normal quality. (GF6800U screenshot is to the right.)
Radeon 9200	4.7 4.8 4.9	Old problems were fixed, but new arised (with water).
		Reduce water quality to medium.	-

Halo: Combat Evolved v1.04

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5200 GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GeForce FX 5900 GeForce 6800 Ultra	All versions	Thermal camouflage effect with GeForce FX cards becomes like that on Radeons, if you make Halo think it runs on Radeon 9600 (with 3DAnalyser). It's interesting that frame rate doesn't reduce after that at all. (Screenshots obtained with GFFX5900 with Radeon 9800 Pro DeviceID are to the right.)
		It seems like very aggressive optimization for GeForce FX. We doubt it will be fixed, even despite the arrival of Geforce 6800. (Screenshots obtained with GFFX5900 with native DeviceID are to the right.)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time v1.81

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9000 Pro	4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5	When forced, AA causes artefacts, including black rectangle in the upper left corner and garbaged water. Besides, instead of AA you get a dithered whole image.
		Antialiasing stopped forcing with Catalyst 4.7. Bugs naturally vanished alongside.	-
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9800 Pro Radeon X800 Pro	4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5	Forced AA smears, and water starts to shine through walls.
		Antialiasing can't be forced in Catalyst 4.7. Catalyst 4.10 (8.064) beta with enabled Catalyst A.I. optimization management forbids AA forcing as well. However, disabling A.I. doesn't result in any rendering bugs with AA forced. So maybe Catalyst 4.10 will finally allow owners of Radeon 9500+ and X700+ to play PoPSoT with AA. (GeForce FX 5900 screenshots with FSAA forced are to the right.)

Thief Deadly Shadows v1.1

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9800 Pro Radeon X800 Pro	4.5 4.6 4.7	Lighting and shadows problems.
		Fixed in Catalyst 4.8.	-

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell v1.2b

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5700 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	56.64 56.72 61.77 66.70	Water shader bugs seen as frozen still areas.
		Use ForceWare 53.03.	-
GeForce 6800 Ultra	61.77 66.70	No shadows in shadow buffers mode.
		Mentioned in release notes of ForceWare 61.77. According to NVIDIA, it's an application bug. (GeForce FX 5900 screenshot is to the right.)

"IL2-Shturmovik: Aces" v2.04

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce 6800 Ultra	61.34 61.71	Incorrect water shader rendering.
		Fixed in Patch v2.04.	-