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

Testbed

Games are checked on a PC on Pentium 4 2.4GHz (533MHz FSB), ASUS P4GE-V (i845GE) and 512MB PC2700.

The checking is performed only under Windows XP Service Pack 1 (+ tens of Windows Updates from Service Pack 2) and DirectX 9b.

The following cards were used in making of this material:

• ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9600
• ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
• NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4600
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra
• NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900

The latest changes are marked light-red.

Games are checked only with the latest reference drivers (52.16 for NVIDIA and 3.8 for ATI) coupled with the latest patches. When a bug is found, it's tested on the next reference betas. Exceptions prove the rule :-)

Attention! Some bugs that we noticed might occur only in our test configuration. If you do not have some of the mentioned bugs or, vice versa, you have one that we don't write us providing maximum details on your configuration (CPU, chipset, graphics card and drivers, OS, DirectX version, game version). Besides, you can send in a screenshot, but not more than 100Kb in size - we pay for our traffic :-)

News

• From this issue bug fixed two months ago will be removed as obsolete. For example, the focus mode bug in Enter the Matrix that had occured with NVIDIA 44.03 drivers was fixed in 45.23, so it's removed. The same for GeForce FX in GTA: Vice City.

• The following new drivers were released in October:
  ATI:
  • Catalyst 3.8 (6.14.10.6387), the new official reference drivers, mostly blamed for numerous bugs.
  NVIDIA:
  • ForceWare 52.16, the official reference drivers.

    The long-anticipated NVIDIA's 50 series. Besides, the promised pixel shaders boost, it offers a redesigned control panel and the new name - ForceWare. This seems to be right, as Detonators were initially made for TNT series, but there's nothing to blast in GeForces :-)

• In October the following updates were released for games in the gallery:
  • Patch v1.3.0 for Delta Force: Black Hawk Dawn.
  • Patch v1.02 for Halo: Combat Evolved.
  • Patch v1.1 for Silent Storm.
  • Patch v1.03r for Pirates of the Caribbean.

Games

1. AquaNox 2 Revelation v2.159
2. Battle Engine Aquila
3. BloodRayne
4. Colin McRae Rally 3 v1.1
5. Command & Conquer Generals v1.6 (w/Zero Hour v1.0)
6. Delta Force: Black Hawk Down v1.2.1
7. Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind v1.6
8. Enclave
9. Halo: Combat Evolved v1.02
10. Homeworld 2
11. Mafia v1.1
12. Midnight Club 2
13. MotoGP 2
14. Need for Speed Hot Pusuit 2 v242
15. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide v1.32
16. Return to Castle Wolfenstein v1.41
17. Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v1.07
18. Silent Hill 2
19. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell v1.2.087
20. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness v52
21. Unreal 2 v2001
22. Unreal Tournament 2003 v2225
23. IL-2 Shturmovik: Forgotten Battles v1.11
24. Silent Storm
25. Pirates of the Caribbean

AquaNox 2 Revelation v2.159

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	45.23 45.33	Submarine cockpits aren't textured.
		Fixed in 52.16.

Battle Engine Aquila

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	45.23 45.33 52.16	Advanced graphical features menu item responsible for water shaders is disabled.	-
		The same bug as on Radeons below: the game doesn't recognize the GPU. Potentially occurs on all GeForce FX solutions, except 5800 and 5900 Ultra. Solution is the same: add absent DeviceIDs into the Vendor:10DE nVidia section of cardid.txt. DeviceIDs can be found in the drivers' INF files or with the help of utilities like RivaTuner. If you don't want to mess with files, download the updated file from us (2.6KB) and replace the original (don't forget to back it up).
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.8	Antialiasing can't be enabled from the ingame menu.	-
		Force it from drivers' control panel.
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9600 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7	Earth textures are not drawn and pixel shader are disabled on the new Radeons. This is especially strange, as everything is OK on Radeon 9700 Pro.
		The game doesn't recognize new ATI GPUs. The problem can be fixed by editing Vendor:1002 ATI section in the cardid.txt file in the game folder. You must add corresponding DeviceIDs for Radeon 9600 and Radeon 9800 similar to already existing DeviceIDs. DeviceIDs can be found in driver's INF files of with the help of utilities like RivaTuner. E.g., for Radeon 9600 you must add: Device:4150 Radeon9600 Device:4170 Radeon9600 If you don't want to mess with files, download the updated file from us (2.6KB) and replace the original (don't forget to back it up). Catalyst 3.8 fixes earth textures bug, but you still have to edit cardid.txt to enable shaders.
Radeon 9000 Pro Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.7 3.8	Tree textures are surrounded by some snow, if anisotropic filtering is forced.
		The only solution for now is to disable anisotropic filtering.

BloodRayne

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 52.16	If you press Esc or any other button to stop the intro, the game often crashes to Windows with a DirectX error message.
		This doesn't occur if the ingame resolution is the same as the desktop resolution. Wait for 10 sec of the intro and press Esc. Seems to be fixed in Det. 45.23.

Colin McRae Rally 3 v1.1

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600	44.03 45.23 52.16	FSAA can't be enabled from in-game menu. It seems it's a feature, not a bug. Maybe developers think that GF4Ti and older can't offer suitable frame rate in CMR2 with FSAA.	-
		FSAA can be easily forced in drivers.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	The same as on GF4MX/Ti: FSAA can't be enabled in-game.	-
		If you remember, FSAA can be easily forced in drivers.
All cards	All versions	A "ghost" car shadow appears on some vertical planes very close to the road. Seems like a game engine bug.
		Patch v1.1 doesn't help.	-

Command & Conquer Generals v1.6
(w/Zero Hour v1.0)

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.8	Some textures flicker and disappear.
		Rollback to 3.7.	-

Delta Force: Black Hawk Down v1.2.1

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 45.23 45.33	Messed up lighting of player's weapon that doesn't correspond to the environment and flicks on some levels.
		Fixed in 52.16
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75	Pixel shaders are corrupted (or Somalia has acid rivers).
		Fixed in ForceWare 52.16.	-
Radeon 9000 Pro Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	Impossible to enable FSAA ingame, as the menu item is diesabled. It seems the developers enabled FSAA only for cards they tested personally. I.e. GF4Ti and GFFX.	-
		AA is easily forced in drivers and works perfectly.

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

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75 52.16	Water shader bug.
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	Messed up water shader (see screenshots).
		None solutions so far. Each graphics card actually draws this long-suffering shader in its own way :-) But if the error isn't so noticeable on some cards, it immediately draws the attention on R9000Pro. (R9800Pro screenshots to the right).
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.8	Either Morrowind is flooded, or this beta periodically hides parts of the landscape on Radeon 9000 Pro.
		Rollback to the previous official reference drivers (3.7).	-

Enclave

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75	Corrupted fog (seems like a feature of this beta).
		Fixed in ForceWare 52.16.
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75 52.16	Corrupted main menu. A previously played movie frame drawn instead of the Enclave world map.
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	52.16	Pixel shaders look very strange.
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	Shader problems. The bug occasionally disappears to appear again next run. The source of it is unknown.
		It periodically disappears to occur next time the game is run. Even when this doesn't occur, it seems the water shader is "overpixelated". Hard to say whose fault it is...

Halo: Combat Evolved v1.02

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.8	Radeon's "selective" trilinear filtering shows up again. It works on all texture layers, when anisotropic filtering is selected by application. But it's disabled on some layers, when aniso is forced from the control panel. Note there's almost no difference between Perfomance and Quality AF, but MIP levels are clearly seen even when AF 16 is forced.
		None solutions so far.	-

Homeworld 2

Mafia v1.1

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75 52.16	Only 4x or even 2x are forced when trying to force 8x anisotropic filtering. New Detonator 50 "optimizations" coupled with Mafia rendering traits. New NVIDIA drivers clearly reduce the anisotropic filtering on all levels, except the first and Mafia performs main rendering on levels higher than the first, so the primary textures are filtered less then it should be.
		The only way to get normal anisotropic filtering on GeForce FX for now is to use the previous 45.23 or 45.33.
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.7 3.8	Trilinear filtering is disabled when any anisotropic filtering level is forced (be it Perfomance, or Quality). Such a trait or ATI drivers coupled with Mafia texturing peculiarities. When Quality anisotropy is forced, Catalyst enables trilinear filtering for the first level only to perform main texturing. But in Mafia primary textures are processed on the next levels disabling trilinear filtering.
		None solutions so far.	-

Midnight Club 2

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	52.16	Antialiasing can't be forced.	-
		Hasn't been fixed yet.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.8	Forcing AA: 1) distorts main menu rendering; 2) leaves the loading picture, when the race is already started.
		Just don't force antialiasing.	-
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.8	AA can't be forced, but the game slows down greatly when you try to do it.	-
		None solutions so far.

MotoGP 2

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75	Either it's a solar eclipse, or this Detonator 50 beta has gamma problems in MotoGP2.
		Fixed in ForceWare 52.16.	-

Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 v242

Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide v1.32

An FSAA ingame "feature": the slider is designed for NVIDIA offering the maximum of "Nice 4 Sample Antialiasing". On GeForce 3+ this means FSAA 4x 9 tap. As there's no such FSAA mode on Radeon 9500+, FSAA just disables. "4 Sample Antialiasing" setting provides usual 4x FSAA on Radeon.

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	52.16	Perhaps, after drivers controls had been changed, AA 4x 9-tap aka Nice 4 sample antialiasing became disabled in-game. AA is just disabled, when you try this mode.	-
		Hasn't been fixed yet.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.8	Some HUD and level textures flicker.
		Rollback to the previous drivers (3.7).	-
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	Impossible to enable FSAA ingame.	-
		Force it in the drivers.
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.6 3.7	Catalyst 3.6 provides awful banding on the background fog. Catalyst 3.7 doesn't fix it. Moreover, people say some textures become 16-bit in OpenGL with Catalyst 3.6 and higher.
		Rollback to 3.5. Fixed in Catalyst 3.8.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein v1.41

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75 52.16	Depending on camera position entire level becomes light-struck. Seems to be a lightmap bug. Seems to occur in the multiplayer part only.
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra	52.16	Already familiar AA experiments: image shakes, samples change positions in a frame. This happens, when you try to force AA 4x Performance. It still produces correct screenshots, so you have to check it on your monitor personally.	-
		Hasn't been fixed yet. Use Quality setting or rollback to the previous drivers.

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v1.07

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600	44.03 45.23 45.33 52.16	The oldest bug of Z buffer initialization: by default SSTSE asks for 32-bit Z-Buffer and sets the minimum of 16-bit. Meanwhile the game runs in 32-bit color mode.
		Fixed manually. In the console type: gap_iDepthBits=24; ApplyVideoMode()

Silent Hill 2

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 45.23 45.33 52.16	Banding naturally squares the fog. As there's much fog, it becomes annoying very fast.
		None solutions so far. Radeon 9600 Pro screenshots are to the right.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	About the same, as GeForce produces, but even worse.
		None solutions so far. Radeon 9600 Pro screenshots are to the right.

Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell v1.2b

You should remember that for NVIDIA GF3+ the game utilizes shadow mapping for increased shadow details. On GF4 MX and all RADEON cards it utilizes projected textures of considerably lower resolution. The difference is clearly seen on screenshots. . But what's the most interesting, SC's shadow mapping causes GF3+ cards to increase ingame "light amount". On the same screenshots you can see the different light meter values.

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 45.23 45.33 52.16	FSAA can't be forced. According to NVIDIA, this what game developers asked for to avoid rendering errors (see below about Radeon).	-
		Not a bug, but a feature. This feature can be bypassed by renaming SplinterCell.exe into, say, SplinterCel.exe. This enabled FSAA, but might also produce bugs similar to those observed on Radeons. For the sake of justice we must say we haven't seen any errors (just the deepest fps drop).
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75	Some lighting/gamma bugs. Some surfaces are lighted differently depending on camera position.
		Fixed in ForceWare 52.16. Screenshots from Radeon 9800 Pro are to the right.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	FSAA forcing problems again.
		Just don't force AA.
Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8	Forced FSAA causes overbrighting when enabling/disabling nightvision.
		Just don't force AA.

Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness v52

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600	45.23 45.33	Enabling Haze produces only coloured smoke.
		Fixed in ForceWare 52.16.
GeForce4 Ti 4600	45.23 45.33 52.16	Some Louvre guards lack textures.
		No sources of this have been found so far.	-
GeForce4 Ti 4600	45.23 45.33	nVidia Shadows turn into strange grids in some minutes.
		Fixed in 52.16.	-
GeForce FX 5900	45.23 45.33 51.75	Incorrect DOF (Depth-of-Field) operation: the entire frame or its parts are dithered instead of the back.
		A game bug. Fixed in v52.
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	52.16	When you try to enable PS2.0 Shadows, the game crashes with the "SYS_ERROR_ STRUCTURED_EXCEPTION_ HANDLE" message. At that NV Shadows don't work as well, so there are no shadows at all on FX cards.	-
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.7 3.8	Some Louvre guards lack textures.
		No sources of this have been found so far.	-

Unreal 2 v2001

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	51.75	Some objects are drawn through the fog.
		Fixed in 52.16.

Unreal Tournament 2003 v2225

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 45.23 45.33 52.16	High-level anisotropy is disabled on some textures. 52.16 drivers offered some novelties for their oldest "bug". Textures, on which AF level is reduced, have changed (compare screenshots obtainted with 45.23 and 52.16). And if you enable AF via INI file, 52.16 drivers provide normal AF without any optimizations. This naturally causes a considerable performance drop.
		UT2003-specific aniso optimizations. None solutions so far. GeForce4 Ti4600 screenshot is to the right.

IL-2 Shturmovik: Forgotten Battles v1.11

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce4 Ti 4600	52.16	When shaders are enabled ("Excellent" detal level) the game crashes, when you try to load a level.	-
		Rollback to 45.23 or 45.33.
Radeon 9000 Pro Radeon 9600 Radeon 9700 Pro Radeon 9800 Pro	3.4 3.6 3.7 3.8	Water shaders occasionally turn acid green. These used to turn sky blue in 1.0r version. Isn't it the progress? :-)
		Disable water shaders by reducing landscape detal level. The bug doesn't show up there's any text onscreen (e.g. fps or timer).

Silent Storm

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
Radeon 9000 Pro	3.7 3.8	Serious texturing problems.
		Doesn't occur, if you reduce the graphics quality down to "Low" or "Medium". To the right - screenshots from GeForce4 MX.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Graphics card	Drivers	Bug description and solutions	Screenshots
GeForce FX 5600 Ultra GeForce FX 5900	44.03 45.23 45.33 52.16	Messed up water shader.
		Fixed by patch v1.01 or higher (to the right - screenshots from GeForce FX 5900 from Pirates v1.02r).

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