Fog graphic glitches on NVidia GTX 970 (pictures)

[Amarysse]

Hello,

I recently got a new NVidia GTX 970-based card (the MSI version of the card) and have been having graphical glitches any time I look into a "foggy pit" ever since. Depending on the viewing angle, the fog sometimes disappears altogether, and sometimes appears with a "checkerboard" pattern.

It's unlikely to be a hardware problem as the card is brand new and otherwise works flawlessly in other games, and FFXIV is, for the most part, absolutely fine, too.

Here's a couple of images of the issue, seen in Copperbell Mines (Hard) and Southern Thanalan; the issue is visible anywhere there's a "bottomless pit" that has its bottom hidden by fog or darkness, so can also be seen in places like the Sylphlands in East Shroud, and in Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut.





Any suggestions for resolving this? I'm using the latest version of NVidia's drivers (344.16)

[Squa11_Leonhart]

It's unlikely to be a hardware problem as the card is brand new and otherwise works flawlessly in other games, and FFXIV is, for the most part, absolutely fine, too.

NEW =/= Working properly.

This could either be faulty ROP units ( hardware )
Bad drivers
Bad driver settings. ( reset the nvcp settings to default. )

[Amarysse]

NEW =/= Working properly.

I'm aware of that, which is why I clarified. I've tested the card thoroughly in a variety of other games and it works absolutely fine in those, which is why I'm ruling out an actual hardware fault. I'm not so sure about drivers, though, since the ones that directly support the 970 are brand new, so I've been leaning towards that being the issue with FFXIV.

Seems odd that it's only in those specific places where the graphical artifacts appear. That suggests to me an issue with how those specific effects are rendered on this specific GPU. Unfortunately there's no means of selectively turning that fog effect off!

I've tried resetting and fiddling with NVCP settings, no dice, sadly. I'm guessing I will have to live with this until either NVidia update the drivers or there's some sort of tweak to FFXIV's engine to play nice with the new card. In the meantime I may experiment with rolling back to earlier drivers; do any NVidia users know a particularly stable driver version that definitely works fine with FFXIV?

[Squa11_Leonhart]

344.11 and .16 are the only available drivers that have full support for those gpu's.

You cannot ascertain that there is no problem with the hardware just because other games are working, for example, back when i got my 275 i used to be able to push a 150mhz overclock on the shader/uncore in most games, but would get all sorts of green shader errors in Oblivion.

I do believe this is a driver issue though, seems like the Z buffer is misbehaving.

[Squa11_Leonhart]

Hi Amarysse, This has been reproduced by a 980 owner, so I can confirm this as a driver bug.

Driver feedback has been provided.

You can provide feedback as well at http://surveys.nvidia.com/index.jsp?...f07694a40f8ac6

[Franzisca]

Confirmed it by multiple people now who I know bought 900 series cards this week. This one is on nvidia, we need to wait for a workaround in the next driver releases. If it can't be done lets hope the DX11 client will work better with the new cards.

[Cheeto-]

@Amarysse, I have the same exact card and I thought it was because I overclocked it wrong, but everything is stable when I ran benchmarks. Good to know it's not the overclock or the gpu itself.

I do have a question for you Amarysse, have you done any S-ranks/Odin fights since you've gotten the card? I'm a little frustrated because my frames drop to 24-30 when my HD 7850 stayed at 40-60 but still extremely smooth. Could the drivers be affecting this or is it FFXIV sided? I would hate to think its the card itself.

[crumpetman]

Just thought I would chip in.

Got my 970 the other day and noticed the exact same thing. Im using the gigabyte G1 970 though.


Nice to know it is a driver issue and not my new card on it's way out

[Squa11_Leonhart]

@Amarysse, I have the same exact card and I thought it was because I overclocked it wrong, but everything is stable when I ran benchmarks. Good to know it's not the overclock or the gpu itself.

I do have a question for you Amarysse, have you done any S-ranks/Odin fights since you've gotten the card? I'm a little frustrated because my frames drop to 24-30 when my HD 7850 stayed at 40-60 but still extremely smooth. Could the drivers be affecting this or is it FFXIV sided? I would hate to think its the card itself.

Are you sure that the recent fights have just not had more people showing up? The more people that do, means more effects being processed by the gpu which in turn starves the GPU of data to process and results in a lower frame rate.

[Cheeto-]

Are you sure that the recent fights have just not had more people showing up? The more people that do, means more effects being processed by the gpu which in turn starves the GPU of data to process and results in a lower frame rate.

Yes, if anything hunts have died down, that still wouldn't make sense because my HD 7850 is 2gb and the 970 is 4gb. Unless FFXIV was more compatible with the HD 7850 or maybe the gpu itself is still too new? It would be upsetting thinking that I had better performance with my old 7850. Also I checked my GPU/CPU loads and both never go above 40%