| Author | Message | ||
     tj Rating: N/A |
After months of not using my shutter glasses, I'm doing some 3D gaming with them again. Yet now I notice a weird display problem, which wasn't there before, coming from my GeForce3. Every second or two, I get a series of "tears" or glitches in the upper part of my screen. These occupy the top 1/4, 1/3, 1/2 of the screen in quick succession, where it looks like it's out of sync (or possibly displaying the opposite eye's image in that part of the screen). It's distracting and it looks terrible! The problem is not with the glasses (H3D); I can still see it happening on-screen without the glasses or dongle connected. As for software, it happens with every 3D game I've tried (either OpenGL or DirectX), and it's the same when booting to WinME with DX8 or WinXP with DX9. I've tried older NVIDIA drivers, up to the newest 43.45 (43.03 stereo) - same problem. Even NVIDIA's animated 3D "Test Application" has the glitch. However, still-image applications like "Medical Test Image" and "Stereo Viewer" DO NOT have the glitch and are rock solid. I've tried everything hardware-wise too. Two different monitors, practically every resolution and refresh rate, swapping cables... no difference. It's got to be the graphics card! Does anyone agree or am I crazy? Has anyone had any similar problems with GeForce3 or NVIDIA cards? Are there any diagnostics I can run on the card or ways to tweak the card's timing or flash its EEPROM or something? Please, any help is appreciated! | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
This is probably related to a configuration problem about when the video cards flips the display. The nVidia cards can flip the image immediately, or with VSync. If it is set to immediate, the top part of the display will be the old image, and the bottom will be the new image. But, if synchronized to the display, the entire image will be either old or new. Note that the glasses should ONLY flip on VSync. This could explain the tearing that you describe. One thing to evaluate: Is there a gray or bluish band below the tearing, fading away further down the screen? If so, the glasses are flipping late. If not, the image is flipping at the wrong time. | ||
| tj Rating: N/A |
Hi David (it's been a long time!), Thanks for your suggestions. I've tried more things but still can't fix my problem. I know it doesn't have anything to do with the glasses, because I can see the glitch happening on the screen itself, without the glasses! (I don't see the gray/bluish band you asked about.) Usually you can look at a screen being page-flipped to (without glasses) and it looks pretty stable -- you can see both images, flickering at about half brightness, as you'd expect. Yet I can definitely see these "glitches" where at seemily random second or fraction-of-second intervals, the upper part of the screen shows either all right or all left image for just one frame (gee, which would then be two frames!). There's an easily noticeable, well-defined line where the "glitch" stops and the lower part of the screen looks normal. However, the exact position of the line (where the card FINALLY switches to the correct image), as well as whether it's right or left, is not consistent. Like you said, it looks like that on certain, somewhat random frames, for some reason the card is not able to flip on time (during the vertical retrace) and does so while the raster beam is well into drawing the current frame. Like you also said, the flipping doesn't seem to be fully adhered to the VSync. I thought that was a "given," as GeForce cards do hardware flipping. Any ideas on how I could further investigate this, to ensure the card is indeed set to hardware flip on VSync (and not software flipping, hence prone to system timing issues), or that my refresh rates aren't out of whack or something crazy? If I experimented using WINx3D, might I have better (or different) results? This must not be a very common problem. My card didn't used to do this! I'm wondering if it might have been damaged somehow... although no such incident comes to mind. THANKS again for the help! Tadd | ||
| David C. Qualman Rating: N/A |
No, the card is not damaged (or probably not). This is a feature built into the card. It has the ability to "flip now", instead of "flip on VSync". I haven't looked into the nVidia's control panel, but other companies have a setting like "Sync to VSync" or "Flip on VSync", probably under the advanced tab. Your comment on "hardware" vs "software" flipping is not on target. All flipping on the nVidia is software flipping. But, the software either waits for VSync (using "flip now"), or assumes that the hardware will wait for VSync (using "flip on VSync"). WINx3D should not do this under 9x/Me. But, under NT/2K/XP, it will be the same. If all else fails, call nVidia. :-) | ||
| romica Rating: N/A |
hi i' have the same problem but worse only from 1-2 hour of play my screen get these glitch (while im play) in vice city only solution i got is format or system restore in the las week i have 3 format ant i think 20-30 system restore and 2 night of testing and :wallbash: if you have something please let me know ps : win xp s.p.2 corporate edition geforce4 mx440 both (test) romuluspetrisor@yahoo.com same id on messenger hate nvidia for these glitch | ||
| romica Rating: N/A |
fucx me, this mesesege is from 2003 | ||
| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
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| Anonymous Rating: N/A |
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