Banding in full-screen

[Guest NetBoyz]

Hi, I'm running 1280x1024x16 full-screen, and recently I've started seeing color banding in the clouds, quite noticeable. I do have a new video card (nVidia 6600GT), but I haven't seen this before with a an older 5950 card in the same video config and am wondering if there's something I should reconfigure for this big new video card or if there's some other FS config I'm missing that affects full-screen color depth. I'm using the 71.20 driver.Any ideas what's causing this, ways to alleviate it? Thanks -- Dick Bixler

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Did you move your FS9.cfg file out and allow FS to re-build a new file with your new graphics card?Have you tried 32 bit color? With a mid ot high range system and that card you should be running 32 bit anyway.Hope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Good catch on the color depth Jim... Banding can be a side effect of running in 16 bit color. Even with my ancient system, I run at 32 bit color depth.-John

[Guest NetBoyz]

I know, 32 bit does the trick. But it always looked okay at 16-bits and seemed to give me headroom to avoid blurry scenery (only has to move half the bits...) guess I'll run 32 bit for a while and see if I can optimize something else to keep it sharp.Re config, I had a nasty hardware crash and, to make a long story short, this is on a new CPU, mainboard, disks, video card, and I re-installed Everything. Has taken over a month of nearly full-time effort. But it's a BIG new system! I was just surprised by the banding effect which wasn't nearly as apparent on the older system. There's enough new stuff involved on this system that I thought I must have missed one of the thousand config things I had right before.Jim, by the way, I added ActiveSky recently and am very pleased with it. Thank you for your fine product.Thanks -- Dick Bixler

[JSkorna 137]

Hi Dick,Thanks for the purchase and the positive feedback! Plenty of tips in the Tips and Tricks post to clear up the blurries.Edit: One more thing, on your rebuild you did install the latest motherboard drivers right? The order of install should be:MB driversDirectX9cVideo card driversHope this helps,JimActiveSky Supporthttp://www.hifisim.com/images/as2004proudsupporter.jpg

[Guest allcott]

>I know, 32 bit does the trick. But it always looked okay at>16-bits and seemed to give me headroom to avoid blurry scenery>(only has to move half the bits...) guess I'll run 32 bit for>a while and see if I can optimize something else to keep it>sharp.Not so, your card is DESIGNED to run at 32-bit. Running it at 16-bit requires an ADDITIONAL process to convert the the textures. Probably the same for your monitor too! All modern cards should run at 32-bit faster than 16-bit.Allcott