I have a nasty bug with my GTX 460 on the beta forceware 260.63. When I turn off anisotropic filtering, every surface more than two meters away from your character becomes horribly pixelated. Turn on AF, and it looks ok.

A second bug I noticed with these drivers (and the 258 drivers): Some posters/textures on walls disappear when you approach them. Anyone else knows of driver-settings to fix this?

Why would you turn off AF anyway? Performance? The GTX460 can handle any modern game.

And I also hate you for having one. Payed the same price a few months ago for a 260, then nvidia pulls a sly one by releasing the 460...

No, I turned off AF to see if that would fix the second bug. It did not. In fact it got only worse, because then I discovered bug 1, squares in the textures all over the place.

Pics?

Im still using 258.96

I rolled back to 258.96 and it has the same bugs. I will try to upload some pics.

Ok here are the pics.

The No AF texture bug. The gun and road become pixelated:
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_WithAF.jpg
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_NoAF.jpg

Here I zoomed in on the problem:
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_NoAF_cutout.jpg

The disappearing texture bug:
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_Posters_Far_Visible.jpg
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_Posters_Close_Gone.jpg

Same thing with wallpaper in the Pitt:
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_Wallpaper_Far_Visible.jpg
http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_Wallpaper_Close_Gone.jpg

I put my Radeon back in, and the Poster/wallpaper disappearing bug is still there, so that must be an engine bug. The noAF/blocky textures are gone however.

Isn't that pretty much what Anisotropic Filtering does? Makes textures sharper?

Yes, but the AF works fine. The trouble begins when you turn AF off. On the Radeon, the textures far away become blurry, like it should be. On the GTX460 they become blocky, almost like a checkerboard pattern. Look at the gun, see the lines? That's not normal.

Here I've zoomed in on the problem with the sniper rifle:

http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_NoAF_trash_Zoom.jpg

http://i609.photobucket.com/albums/tt172/owalles/Fallout3/FO3_GTX460_NoAF_Zoom.jpg

You've not got Nvidia control panel installed have you? That looks like the kind of crap the "performance" options in there does.

No, Texture Filtering is set to 'Quality', the default. And "High quality" doesn't change a thing.

But that IS what AF does. that is no bug, it is normal.

http://common.ziffdavisinternet.com/util_get_image/16/0,1425,sz=1&i=161084,00.jpg

Yes, it IS a bug. Without AF, you can see the bi/tri-linear filtering should make the textures blurry, not blocky. I'll say it again, on my Radeon it looks completely normal, just like the bilinear filtering in that picture of yours.

Regarding the blocky distant textures, that is one of the differences between nvidia and ati's implementation. There isn't anything you can do about it.

The poster/wallpaper issue can be solved with the geck. Basically the posters (and wallpaper and blood decals and tons of other stuff), when placed too close to the surface of an object, will tend to dissapear as you get close to the object. So if someone wanted to, they could go into the geck and move every poster/wallpaper in the game a little farther off of the surface. However, it's a lot of work and I don't think anyone has done so yet.

Are you absolutely sure about that, or are you just guessing? Because in Oblivion, Morrowind and every other game I looked at, the textures behave exactly the same on the Radeon and GTX460; they become blurry without AF, as it should be. And Oblivion even uses the same engine as Fallout 3!!! I think nVidia's drivers have some sort of texture-filtering optimization for the Fallout3 application that goes horribly wrong when AF is turned off.
Can someone with an older nVidia card confirm this blockyness was also present on other nVidia cards/drivers? I can test it on my 8600GT, but then I will have to swap out my card again. :brokencomputer:


Weird. Noone's made a mod for this?

Tested it with:

Geforce 8600GT, Forceware 258.96: Same results.
Geforce 8600GT, Forceware 163.75: Same results.

Looks like all nvidia cards/drivers have this bug in Fallout 3. I wouldn't call it a different implementation though. :nope:

I just upgraded to a GTX 470 yesterday from a GTX 260 (Black Edition) and have had the same thing on both cards, However, I haven't done too much fiddling with the control panel on the new card yet to see what kind of results I get with it.

I just turn on AF. The GTX460 is more than fast enough for that, so I guess the GTX470 is as well. Wouldn't play without AF anyway, but I hate these type of bugs.
For example, in Myst V this card totally ruins a couple of textures when Texture Filtering is set to High Quality, but not on 'Quality'. I really hope FO: New Vegas works ok...

Seriously? How can you honestly say this is a bug when it is evident that it is in every version of drivers? Thats like saying the taskbar is a bug in Windows because its in every version of Windows since 95 or earlier. You logic here is a complete fallacy.

It being in every version of the drivers does not mean it's an intended 'feature'. It's not in any other game. It makes Fallout look like a game from 1995. And ATI cards behave normally. This probably means it's not the "way it was meant to be played". Call it what you want, but I call that a bug.