Graphics quality issue with a 8800 GTX

[Zhou]

I've noticed some pretty weird graphical behavior by "comparing" screenshots from people on the forum with my own in-game experience. Now my problem is I have all settings on max (1680 x 1050 res, highest settings on unit texture, terrain, buildings, extreme shadows, 8xAA, 16xAF, bloom, reflections, etc...) yet my game doesn't look anywhere near as good as some of the screenshots other people have been posting.

Specifically speaking, it looks like I don't have the correct bloom effect nor do I have shadows for trees (which is weird).

As a point for comparison...

My screenshot (don't know why the game auto reduces the size...ugh):



Notice how my palm tree doesn't have a shadow and my units are crisper in the light.

Now let's look at someone else's screenshot:

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=94396

You can clearly see the shadows on the trees and how the (dead) units are portrayed more realistically.

Now I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't reproduce the same graphic quality as I know that I have the hardware capabilities...and yes, I do have the latest drivers for my video card (158.19).

I did some testing and the results are as follows (all on Windows XP Pro):

It's not a driver issue because I tested with 97.92, 97.94 drivers and had the same results.

The issue is also not restricted only to the leaked 1.2 patch as it had the same issues with a fresh install.

My only conclusion would be that it's an issue with the game somehow.

Graphics aren't the most important thing to me, but still, it's frustrating when I know I have the ability to run the game at max settings but I am unable to reproduce the same result as others. Argh. If anybody has any thoughts on the topic, please share.

[TenkiSoratoti]

I too have an 8800 GTX and have exactly the same issue.

I've tried the 101.41, 101.70 and the 158.18 drivers and I'm running Vista 32-bit.

Someone else complained of the same issue with an 8800GTS and I think this is a problem that might not get solved at all or it will get solved as Nvidia release better drivers.

[Zhou]

Well, at least it's universal to all 8800 owners...i'm still torn as to whether or not it's an nvidia issue or a CA issue though. I fear it may be a combination of the two...

[TenkiSoratoti]

Well, at least it's universal to all 8800 owners...i'm still torn as to whether or not it's an nvidia issue or a CA issue though. I fear it may be a combination of the two...

Probably.

They haven't mentioned anything about M2TW in their driver release. What make is your card? XFX? ASUS?

[Zhou]

Probably.

They haven't mentioned anything about M2TW in their driver release. What make is your card? XFX? ASUS?

It's an EVGA card that was factory overclocked.

[TenkiSoratoti]

Well I've reported the bug to Nvidia loads of times, hopefully someone will notice.

[Zhou]

I have joined in your little crusade Let's hope enough 8800 GTX users are also M2TW players and we can get nVidia to do something about this!

[Murfios]

same card, same problem.

[Kinjo]

same card, same problem.

Welcome to the club!

Make sure you complain here http://www.nvidia.com/object/support..._email=&p_sla=

[edders]

Have you tried messing about with the file that auto-sets certain hidden values for hardware config? Can't remember the file name but it's basically a long list of yes/no, low/medium/high entries for progressively better hardware configs. Perhaps the game is detecting the 8800GTX as a low-end card, so simply setting even the low settings in this file to high ones, turn most of the 'no' entries to 'yes' entries etc. (pay attention to what you're changing though) will mean that even though it thinks it's a low end card it will set hidden shadow settings to their highest level. Maybe?

[Zhou]

If you're talking about messing with the preferences.cfg file, then yeah, I've tried that already and to no avail. Almost all of the graphics-related (specifically, shadows) are covered by the advanced option in video settings in the game.

[Vimes]

I am glad that someone has reported this to NVidia, whether they act upon it is another matter mind you, as I thought, and accepted, that it was just something that was unique to my system and the 8800 card that I am using.

[edders]

Damn, that's a shame. Sorry I couldn't help out. Hope NVIDIA/CA take notice of this bug.

[TenkiSoratoti]

Nvidia have admitted that they're working on stability, but whether that means fixing current graphical hitches, I don't know.

[Vimes]

Ok I spent a little time working with this one and I have found this...

http://www.nhancer.com/?dat=home

nHancer

Take a look at the various settings that can be applied via this 'sample' here....

http://www.nhancer.com/help/AASamplesLow.htm

all I did was to create a profile of the game, pointing to the exe file medieval2.exe and then I applied the following...
16xS
AF:8x
Perf:HighQual

( I will optimise the above in time as I feel is appropriate)

Now every time that I start the game, ensuring that nHancer is running in the system tray I get fantastic graphics BUT it still will not show the shadows for things like trees etc....

Whilst I am still playing around with the application, you can create profiles for each game, I thought that I would share a partial solution with you and I hope that it will help to improve your game until Nvidia / CA can do something about this.

Good luck

[TenkiSoratoti]

Sounds good.

No-one seems to reply on the techy forums elsewhere because they're all FPS freaks who whinge about 1 frame drop.

Does anyone want to install the latest DX9 from Microsoft and see if that helps? A revised version came out the other day.

[Vimes]

File Name: dxwebsetup.exe
Version: 9.18.944
Date Published: 4/10/2007

Downloaded the above - 2.3mb for me to install and applied it.

Sadly it made no difference.

[Zhou]

Just a note...

You can also force x16AF and x8AA through the in-game settings in M2TW, although by default, AA doesn't appear to be turned on (even if you do set it in the game) unless you mess with your preferences.cfg file. Simply change "Anti Alias Mode" to be equal to "normal" as opposed to off under the Video header.

nHancer is a pretty nifty utility, but I think all the basic functions that it offers are also offered by the latest version of nVidia's control panel where you can specify performance settings per game title without having to point the application to the exe in question. Of course, the control panel does sometimes have problems identifying whether or not the game you identified is actually launched!

I've also been doing some testing with by mixing the AA and AF settings in the game, but no luck :\ It seems like we'll just have to wait until nVidia releases new drivers (which may take months since their last release was on 4/17). I think if we have more people commenting on this thread, we can help make this problem more of a priority for the next release.

[DaVinci]

Well, i'm actually running an Ati card (x1950pro), and have pretty good graphics ( and shadows ), but as former long-year nvidia-user, i'm still interested in this topic.

What are your graphic-quality-experiences with other in 2006 and/or 2007 released games? Same thing or complete another result? Btw., as you can see in the M2 loading screens (the nvidia advertisement), M2 is probable optimized on nvidia drivers, at least that is what i would think about the advertisement.

My experience with nvidia was always, that i had to search for the best driver-settings in the net (certain forums/sites), just per card to getting the best performance (while now with Ati i can let it on the default driver settings, and let the in-game settings rule the quality).

I saw already another game-picture comparison of quality with a nvidia 8800 vs. an Ati x1950xls in another hardware-expert-board, and the Ati was way better, i really wondered about that how that is possible ... hmm ...

[Zhou]

Well, to respond to your comment...

Graphics quality in terms of other games (oblivion, dark messiah, company of heroes) is really nice. Maybe that other site was using a 8800 GTS as opposed to a GTX for comparison purposes, but there's not another card that comes close to 8800s as of yet (although with the R600 launch soon, that may very well change).