NZFF

A series of screenshots I took to see how my "new" graphics card drivers were handling AA and diagonals. That's my excuse anyway ! I have to say that with the old drivers there's no way in a million years I could have gotten anything even close to these, I'm a happy camper.

These are clickable thumbnails, clicking on them will open the original shot in a new window/tab. They've been cropped but otherwise are as untouched as flickr can deliver them.

Thanks to everyone for the help and flow of ideas on this !

Gary

Just one word ... *phew*

They look pretty damn' good to me No.4 is a beaut!

As a matter of interest, I've just spent about 10 hrs on Skype with my brother trying to sort out *his* ATI card. He's a photographer/railway modeller and is having huge problems with calibration. Basically, his ATI card is almost black in the shadow areas and no amount of tweaking gets it right.

Actually ... there's a point ... maybe your driver solution would work for him as well!

Feel free to try it :-) Even better, get him to haul the card out and have a proper look for anything written on it that could give clues about where to look for drivers.

The generic ATI drivers will put a picture on the screen, but they're rubbish compared to anything no matter how old from the people who actually built the card - and if the card manufacturer bundled their driver with a CCC then again, doesn't matter how old it is, that's the one to try.

Cheers
Happy Gary

Gary remember , nice soft landing .. or you will have those Jaggies again

Chairman wrote:

QUOTE (Chairman @ Jan 5 2010, 11:04 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A series of screenshots I took to see how my "new" graphics card drivers were handling AA and diagonals. That's my excuse anyway ! I have to say that with the old drivers there's no way in a million years I could have gotten anything even close to these, I'm a happy camper.

These are clickable thumbnails, clicking on them will open the original shot in a new window/tab. They've been cropped but otherwise are as untouched as flickr can deliver them.

Thanks to everyone for the help and flow of ideas on this !

Gary

Great pics Chairman..........wish I could get the same night effects!!!!!
You may be able to offer some input into a problem (screen I think!) I am having.
Here is the background:
I have a Samsung 'Syncmaster P2370' Monitor which features 50,000:1 contrast, HD and 2mms refresh and the colours are just great when flying in daytime.
But as soon as I try some night flying, I can barely make out the énd flight' drop down menu to get out of it - it is soooo dark/black...........
I have a Geforce Galaxy GTX 260+ Video card with 896 mb, 448 bit and DDR3 memory. Also running on the latest Nvidia driver version 195.62.
V/C is only 6 months old and Monitor 4 months old.
My PC is high end with 4mb ram, Dual core Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 M/Board, E6850@3.00HGz CPU etc etc, so don't think its my system.
Just thought you or Adamski may be able to offer some thoughts where to go from here........or anyone else who maybe having same/similar problems.
Many thanks

Barrington wrote:

QUOTE (Barrington @ Jan 4 2010, 10:47 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Great pics Chairman..........wish I could get the same night effects!!!!!
You may be able to offer some input into a problem (screen I think!) I am having.
Here is the background:
I have a Samsung 'Syncmaster P2370' Monitor which features 50,000:1 contrast, HD and 2mms refresh and the colours are just great when flying in daytime.
But as soon as I try some night flying, I can barely make out the énd flight' drop down menu to get out of it - it is soooo dark/black...........
I have a Geforce Galaxy GTX 260+ Video card with 896 mb, 448 bit and DDR3 memory. Also running on the latest Nvidia driver version 195.62.
V/C is only 6 months old and Monitor 4 months old.
My PC is high end with 4mb ram, Dual core Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 M/Board, E6850@3.00HGz CPU etc etc, so don't think its my system.
Just thought you or Adamski may be able to offer some thoughts where to go from here........or anyone else who maybe having same/similar problems.
Many thanks

Sounds to me like a gamma setting is set too low. Gamma typically affects low/shadow details only. However - I can't see why even your dialog boxes have gone dark. Does a screenshot show the same (dark) colours?

Adamski wrote:

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jan 8 2010, 11:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds to me like a gamma setting is set too low. Gamma typically affects low/shadow details only. However - I can't see why even your dialog boxes have gone dark. Does a screenshot show the same (dark) colours?

Yes, cannot make out the aircraft!

Barrington wrote:

QUOTE (Barrington @ Jan 4 2010, 12:24 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, cannot make out the aircraft!

If you post an unedited (other than resized) pic here then we'll be able to see if it's a card or a monitor problem.

Adamski wrote:

QUOTE (Adamski @ Jan 9 2010, 12:46 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you post an unedited (other than resized) pic here then we'll be able to see if it's a card or a monitor problem.

ok will do ASAP.........
presume you want a night shot!

Barrington wrote:

QUOTE (Barrington @ Jan 4 2010, 06:26 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ok will do ASAP.........
presume you want a night shot!

Yep ... basically my thinking is that if it appears correct here, then the colours in FSX are correct - and there's maybe something wrong with your monitor setup.

Any other environment add-ons in FS that could be doing stuff? Also, any other control panel type things installed? nHancer, etc. ?

If you look at the first shot in my sequence, is that as dark as your night time flying or can you see it properly ?

If you can see it properly then I would think the problem is not gamma because that would affect my shots viewed on your screen as well as your FS viewed on your screen.

Also have a look at this page http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and let us know what you can see on the top row of squares.

Cheers
Gary

Chairman wrote:

QUOTE (Chairman @ Jan 9 2010, 01:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you look at the first shot in my sequence, is that as dark as your night time flying or can you see it properly ?

If you can see it properly then I would think the problem is not gamma because that would affect my shots viewed on your screen as well as your FS viewed on your screen.

Also have a look at this page http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and let us know what you can see on the top row of squares.

Cheers
Gary

Hi Chairman,
I haven't tried any changes as I would not know what to do without some instruction...
The only squares that I can define are:
20/25/30/40/255

Cheers

Barrington wrote:

QUOTE (Barrington @ Jan 5 2010, 06:47 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The only squares that I can define are: 20/25/30/40/255

Ooh dear ... that's NOT good My LCD manages to display all of them ... but 1 and 2 are only *just* discernible.

I'd Google around for how to actually do the tweaks, but it will be a combination of gamma setting (in your nVidia control panel) and brightness/contrast (on your monitor itself).

That link Chairman gave is one of the best LCD calibration sites I've seen (thanks!).

Google is my friend and I had to look really hard to see square 1, but it's definitely there. Or there's definitely something not there. Or something

And now that we have a pretty good idea of what the symptoms are, we can start to think about what the problem might be - although (like mine) it does sounds like a software thing. Probably calibration.

Barrington, maybe you should run through all the monitor tests on that site and see what else it turns up ?

Gary

Chairman wrote:

QUOTE (Chairman @ Jan 10 2010, 12:02 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Google is my friend and I had to look really hard to see square 1, but it's definitely there. Or there's definitely something not there. Or something

And now that we have a pretty good idea of what the symptoms are, we can start to think about what the problem might be - although (like mine) it does sounds like a software thing. Probably calibration.

Barrington, maybe you should run through all the monitor tests on that site and see what else it turns up ?

Gary

Hi Chairman & Adamski,
Many thanks for all your help.
I am pleased to report that after running the monitor tests which appeared to be OK, I then went back into the CD that came with the monitor and discovered the following:
1) there were a number of options to run the monitor in different modes i.e text, internet, game, sport, custom, movie and dynamic contrast - I was running in dynamic contrast
which apparently has the effect of darkening the screen under certain conditions e.g.night flying.
2) I changed to 'game' mode and then I was able to check further configuration settings for the monitor itself and changed the contrast slightly (unable to do this in dynamic contrast!)
3) I then went into NZWN on runway 34 at 2230 hours and took off in a b737-800 - AND WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!!!
4) I now have much more definition all round and much closer to realism - both on the ground and in the air............

By the way, I sent a message on the problem to Samsung NZ who sent a one liner back saying - YOUR PROBLEM MUST BE A GAME ISSUE, NOT A MONITOR PROBLEM!

So, many thanks again to help resolve this for me.
This is another fine example of the advantages of being a member of NZFSF and the help that is available within the ''simming'' world.
cheers

Awesome graphics,

hopefully one day I can get the same.

Cheers

Glad it worked for you, seems to be the season for sorting out monitor problems

Gary