nVidia SLI shadow flicker fixed Forceware 259.09

[JohnZS]

Hi

nVidia have finally fixed the notorious GTA IV Shadow flicker bug where SLI is enabled in the form of Forceware 259.09 BETA.

You can download these drivers from nVidia's official Developer site

Please note these drivers are considered BETA.

 

If you wish to wait for the official WHQL driver release (Forceware 260), I do not have an ETA for you, but I can confirm the shadow flicker is fixed in the next official WHQL driver release, however if you do not wish to wait and you are comfortable with downloading BETA drivers from nVidia's developer site, then you might want to give those drivers a try.

 

Tested and Confirmed Fixed on Windows 7 x64 using a GTX 295 Single PCB Graphics Card.

 

John

 

UPDATE the same link now points to Forceware 259.31 SLi works perfectly in GTA IV, however for the Retail/standalone version of EFLC you will require an updated SLi profile which I have posted on the nVidia forums here

Edited August 10, 2010 by JohnZS

[sloopy]

nope, doesn't fix it for me. I just installed these all excited, but I have the exact same flickering shadows I've always had with my 2 gtx260s

[JohnZS]

What settings are you using?

 

I did ensure that GTA IV autodetected the best graphics settings after installing the new drivers.

With the exception of disabling V-sync and upping the detail distance from 30 to 40 I left all settings as GTA IV set them.

 

Resolution is 1920*1200 and nVidia control panel settings are set to their highest settings.

 

This IS on a GTX 295 (single PCB), so those of you with dual cards, your mileage may vary.

 

BTW nVidia have confirmed that the next WHQL driver (260 series) will contain the SLi shadow fix.

 

John

[mkey82]

Don't forget to clean the GPU drivers from time to time.

[sloopy]

yep, I used driver sweeper to clear out my old driver files before installing the new ones, and I tried all different shadow settings within the game. i didn't try it with vsync off though, I'll give that a shot.

[sloopy]

Okay, this is interesting, I ran the game with vsync off, and the shadows no longer flicker! When I turn vsync on, the flickering is back. although it kinda sucks to run the game with vsync off, it's not that noticeable most of the time. I'm happy to be able to play the game with SLi on without the terrible shadow flickering. Hopefully they will eventually fix the vsync kssue too. Thanks for pointing out these new drivers.

[JohnZS]

Glad to hear you managed to get them working Sloopy

Thanks for pointing out that the issue is still broken with V-Sync enabled, I shall try and reproduce this issue and report to nVidia.

John

[JohnZS]

Just thought I would add that if you have the retail DVD version of Episodes for Liberty city, you will need to create an SLI profile for Forceware 259.09 to resolve the issue.

 

Please see mySLI PROFILE POST instructions here

 

For those of you who know how to use the nVidia advanced SLI profile tool, here is the code you need to add for your profile

 

 

Profile "Grand Theft Auto IV: Expansion - Episodes from Liberty City"ShowOn GeForceProfileType ApplicationExecutable "eflc.exe"Executable "launcheflc.exe"Setting ID_0x0095def9 = 0x00000202Setting ID_0x1033cec1 = 0x00000003Setting ID_0x1033dcd2 = 0x00000004Setting ID_0x1095def8 = 0x00400405Setting ID_0x10ecdb82 = 0x00000001EndProfile

 

 

Enjoy

 

John

[sloopy]

strange, when i attempt to import the new sli profile, I constantly get errors. I've made sure all my spacing are absolutely correct and everything is in the right place, but just get an error on import. I can re-import my original profile no problem though... just not my modified one. like i said..strange.

[Merlena]

Yup, noticed this today, when I played it for the first time in months. 259.09 is very nice on the Fermi cards and such. Heard bad feedback for those with older cards though. At least they live up better than the 10.7 ATI drivers *uck* that I installed on my other computer.

[JohnZS]

I never had any issues importing the SLi profile

Anyway, the nVidia Forceware Developer drivers have been updated to 259.31

I have included a working SLI profile in my post on the nVidia forums here

This profile works with Forceware 259.31 (Link is in the OP of this thread).

John

[sloopy]

Well, I imported your profile with no problems at all. I'm not sure why mine wouldn't work..maye it had something to do with the textpad editor i was using. Yours works great..thanks much

[JohnZS]

That is good news

Just to let you know I have been in discussions with nVidia TSD. A new driver will be released next week which has the SLi fixes for GTA IV and EFLC (so you will no longer require my amended SLi profile).

FYI nVidia are also looking into the Polygon offset/z-fighting/flashing issue which effects all cards regardless of SLi or non-SLi configuration.

 

EDIT, keep your eyes pealed on or around Wednesday....

John

Edited August 22, 2010 by JohnZS

[JohnZS]

Sadly the next nVidia driver release has been pushed back until Monday.

It will be an official BETA driver for download from nVidia's website and will include SLI fixes for GTA IV and Episodes from liberty city.

Another driver will be posted towards the middle of September 260.35 (or newer)

 

FYI 259.32 BETA has an issue whereby interior areas with v-sync disabled can suffer graphical corruption. (e.g. playing pool or using the computers or watching a stripper).

I will keep you updated on this issue. Enabling V-Sync seems to resolve it..

John

[Jimbatron]

Thanks for keeping us updated JohnZS.

 

I'm not sure if you work for NVidia (you seem to know a lot about what they are up to), but I was wondering if you can recommend and settings in the NVidia control pannel specifically for the IV application that may give a performance boost?

 

I've got a GTX 285 2GB card and an i7 processor, and the game used to run like a dream. Patch 6 to 7 have really made it struggle though, even after I reduced my settings quite a bit.

[JohnZS]

I do not work for nVidia.

 

A new driver forceware 260 series should be released later today, this should include the SLi flicker fix which was implemented into the Forceware 259 branch drivers, however if for whatever reason the drivers do not include the fix, I will upload a SLi profile to work with them...

 

What drivers are you using for your GTX 285?

 

What OS are you using?

 

What resolution are you playing at?

 

How much RAM do you have?

 

GTA IV does seem to play nicely on 4GB+ system running on a 64-Bit OS

 

I would suggest disabling night time shadows as they do require quite a bit of GPU processing power, I recall R* recommended a GTX 470/480 if people wanted to use night shadows.

Disable V-Sync if it is not already disabled.

 

For the time being as a process of elimination I would set your view distance to ~30, Detail Distance to ~40 and Vehicle density no greater than 50. Set everything else to High except Night Shadows off and Water Quality to Very High. Oh and texture filter quality to x4.

 

I have the nVidia Control Panel set to High Quality, Gamma Correct AA enabled (not that this actually does anything for GTA IV), Texture Filter Negative bias to "Clamp" and the card set to Single Display Performance Mode.

 

John

[Jimbatron]

I do not work for nVidia.

 

A new driver forceware 260 series should be released later today, this should include the SLi flicker fix which was implemented into the Forceware 259 branch drivers, however if for whatever reason the drivers do not include the fix, I will upload a SLi profile to work with them...

 

What drivers are you using for your GTX 285?

 

What OS are you using?

 

What resolution are you playing at?

 

How much RAM do you have?

 

GTA IV does seem to play nicely on 4GB+ system running on a 64-Bit OS

 

I would suggest disabling night time shadows as they do require quite a bit of GPU processing power, I recall R* recommended a GTX 470/480 if people wanted to use night shadows.

Disable V-Sync if it is not already disabled.

 

For the time being as a process of elimination I would set your view distance to ~30, Detail Distance to ~40 and Vehicle density no greater than 50. Set everything else to High except Night Shadows off and Water Quality to Very High. Oh and texture filter quality to x4.

 

I have the nVidia Control Panel set to High Quality, Gamma Correct AA enabled (not that this actually does anything for GTA IV), Texture Filter Negative bias to "Clamp" and the card set to Single Display Performance Mode.

 

John

Hi John,

 

I'm currently using driver version 8.17.11.9745 - dated from April so I will try the new one before I run the game next.

 

I've got 6GB of RAM and Win 7 Ultimate (64-bit).

 

I run a resolution of 1920 x 1080 (same as for my Windows desktop). I have all settings at their highest, except I have Night Shadows disabled, Shadows on High (not Very High), and the view and detail distances at 30. It's OK normally, but a bit sluggish in multiplayer, plus I get a lot of pop-in at fast speed. I might be happy with it if I didn't know any different, but I could run it with all the sliders on max and very smoothly before patch 6 which was a massive step backwards for me. I have v-sync on, I'll try turning that off and the other specifics you suggest. I'm pretty sure there must be some way to get more out of the hardware I've got. I've tried numerous command lines, but they don't seem to make any discernable difference.

 

Thanks for you help!

[JohnZS]

Have you tried removing the commandline.txt?

 

Are all of your sound and LAN drivers up to date too?

Multiplayer performance may vary depending on the quality of the connection of you to the server and other players.

The nVidia driver has been put back a couple of days and will most likely on nVidia's site by Wednesday this week, this was to cram in a last minute fix for "Battle Field Bad Company 2".

 

Were the release of this driver not so imminent I would suggest uninstalling your Forceware 197 driver and updating to the 259.32 BETA driver, however to save time and effort wait until Wednesday

(If the driver is posted sooner I will let you know).

 

EDIT:

 

Do you have bad performance drops in certain areas of the city?

I have found that some parts of the "third island" are more prone to performance drops than others, particularly near the Pay and Spray beneath the bridge near, not sure why...

 

John

[Jimbatron]

 

EDIT:

 

Do you have bad performance drops in certain areas of the city?

I have found that some parts of the "third island" are more prone to performance drops than others, particularly near the Pay and Spray beneath the bridge near, not sure why...

 

John

There don't seem to be specific areas of the city that are a problem for me, but flying a helicopter is when the problems become obvious. I know in an open world like IV you should expect some pop-in, but it is much worse than it was with Patch 5 and before. I just wonder if in some way the new patches are under-ultilising my hardware, because I'm using less than 50% of the available memory resources according to the menu settings.

 

In multiplayer my FPS is actually reasonable stable, I don't have lag problems so much, but pop-in gets noticably worse at times.

 

Which is odd, because I would have thought that how my own computer renders the graphics for a given situation would have little to do with whether it's an online game or sp, but I'm not familiar with how these things work in practice.

[JohnZS]

The new nVidia BETA driver has been put back a few days due to a bug found in internal testing

 

New driver is confirmed to contain the following fixes.

 

* DPC Latency Issues

* G200/GF100 GPU power usage bug where on occasions the GPU suffers power usage spikes causing dramatic decrease in performance (aka stutters and freezes).

* GTA IV and EFLC SLi Profile fixes

* BF2BC2 Stutter fixes

* Other fixes too

 

As soon as the driver is posted for public consumption I will let you all know.

 

In the meantime Jim you might want to create a commandline.txt and see if this helps?

 

 

-reservedApp 0 -memrestrict 1803550720

 

 

John

[JohnZS]

NEW drivers are out in the BETA section of nVidia's website.

Forceware 260.63

 

SLi working for both GTA IV and EFLC

John

[solow1]

i have fixed the flickering shadow issues (for myself anyways), im running dual nvidia 8800 ultra cards on a 22 inch widescreen display. anyways the shadows were flickering and i had the resolution set at 1680x1050, so i set it to 1600x1024.. problem solved.