Thief2/Ss2: nVidia 8500/8600/8800 - Crappy colours/textures

Sluggs on 23/6/2007 at 11:33

Does Thief 2 look worse on an 8800GTS than it does on a 6600GT then, which also has bad skies and transparency issues. (I'll be getting an 8800GTS 320mb shortly)

I'm not really bothered about it though, to be honest. I'd rather have a blistering graphics card and have crappy colours in T2, than a lower end card that displays nice colours in Thief! :D

At the moment, I'm actually using a Radeon X800 XL 512mb, and the colours are perfect. The 6600GT is shoved in a box out of the way.

smithpd on 23/6/2007 at 17:22

People say it looks worse, but I have not seen a side by side comparison between the 6xxx and 8xxx cards. I would still like to see the side by side comparison, because from what I see in this thread the images of the 8800 look about the same as my 6800 GT and 7950 GT.

DJ Riff on 23/6/2007 at 18:03

smithpd, with GF 5xxx - 7xxx and drivers not higher than 86.xx Thief-2 looks like on the second screenshot of the first post of this thread, except the sky is as on first one. I have 7600GT and it looks like that.

smithpd on 23/6/2007 at 19:05

Thanks, DJ Riff, but I think that is not quite true. It is much more than just the sky. With the 6800 GT and the 7950 GT and any drivers that will work on those cards, all dark textures are rendered with limited color palette, resulting in banding and greenish color tint. You get the same thing with the Ti 4200 (a good card) and drivers on after 56xx. You need an older driver to make the Ti 4200 look good. I have posted shots of this dark texture problem elsewhere. I have to run now, but I will come back later and post them. In short, if you turn on a light, the textures look good, but if the room is darkened, they look bad. The ATI cards and the Ti 4200 with good drivers do not have this dark texture problem. The difference is in the use of dithering to blend the colors, which seems to be disabled in recent cards / drivers.

The question that still remains (to me) is: "Is the 8800 really different?" I hear what people are saying, but I have seen no direct evidence. I would still like to see dark textures and light textures rendered with the same scene in a side-by-side comparison between the 6xxx or 7xxx cards and the 8800 series card.

smithpd on 24/6/2007 at 06:00

These first four images are from a bedroom in Lord Alan's Fortress. The difference between the dark and light textures is that in the light images I have lit a flare. The flare itself has a greenish cast. An electric light would be more white light. The results are exactly the same with a Ti 4200 and recent drivers > 56.00, a 6800 GT (any driver that works), and a 7950 GT (any driver that works). I have all three cards, and I have compared these particular images when I have changed.

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/bed_dark_texture.jpg
Bed, dark texture

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/bed_light_texture.jpg
Bed, light texture

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/window_dark_texture.jpg
Window, dark texture

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/window_light_texture.jpg
Window, light texture

The two images below were made by Nameless Voice using an ATI X300 Mobility card, the difference between them being that dithering was enabled or disabled in dromed. The "without dithering" case looks to me to be essentially the same as the dark texture problem that I have seen in the 6800 GT and the 7950 GT. This example shows that dithering is the likely cause of the problem.

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/without_dithering_enabled.jpg
ATI X300 Mobility without dithering enabled in dromed

Inline Image:

http://home.comcast.net/~smithpd1/thief/with_dithering_enabled.jpg
ATI X300 Mobility with dithering enabled in dromed

I do not have a side by side shot comparing 7950 GT or 6800 GT and the 8800 series in the same scene because I don't have an 8800 series card. I'll leave that to someone else, if they would be so kind. :)

Nameless Voice on 24/6/2007 at 11:52

Quote Posted by smithpd

The two images below were made by someone else using an 8800 series card, the difference between them being that dithering was enabled or disabled in dromed...

Er, no. Those shots just demonstrated the difference between having dithering turned on and off on card that supports it, to contrast with how the game looks in the screenshots in the original post. I took them on an ATI X300 Mobility.
I probably shouldn't have posted them at all, since Winter Cat showed basically the same thing before, but I had added them to my post to repeat his point.

smithpd on 24/6/2007 at 18:38

OK, thanks NV.:) I'll edit my post to reflect the facts.

SiO2 on 2/7/2007 at 10:52

Some info that may be of interest:

I have an 8800 and everything I have tried so far hasn't resolved the dithering issue as mentioned in this thread.

Under Vista and 158.45 drivers I tried firing up Dromed and doing Alt-G/Shift-;/toggle_dithering and there was no noticeable difference - shadows were still way dark even at max Thief2 gamma.

I removed the 8800 and installed a Radeon X1800XL with drivers "7-6_vista32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_48645.exe". Thief2 looks as it should be - nice shadows and gamma that actually make a perceptible difference. ;) I then tried firing up Dromed and did "Alt-G/Shift-;/toggle_dithering" - this disabling of dithering made things looks like it did on the 8800 (nasty dark shadows).

bikerdude on 4/8/2007 at 15:05

Admins..

Would it be at all possible to sticky this thread? As we are still getting lots of people asking the same question which I have answered in this thread.

ta.

biker

Biohazard on 5/8/2007 at 22:24

Is it possible to put an old 3DFX Voodoo card I have in one of the PCI slots as a secondary video card while my 8800 is in the PCI-e slot? I wish I had read this thread before upgrading to the 8800.....

The green tint is just not acceptable. :eww: