Hello guys,

I have always flown IL2 and never had problems with it. I also like to race and I have been expecting a solution for the dreaded low performance with Need For Speed Shift when using ATI video cards.

The latest 9.11 drivers have greatly increased performance with NFS:Shift, but they have completely destroyed IL2 1946. If I enable any shaders for OpenGL the game becomes a graphic corruption mess. The only alternative is play it under DirectX and lose all nice special effects or go back to previous driver versions and not be able to play Need For Speed Shift.

Now, what has happened to these drivers for such a problem to occur? What has changed?

My hardware is as follows:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64

AMD Phenom X4 955

Radeon 4890

Is there a solution for this? Could it be that Open CL is causing this terrible texture corruption problem? Bellow you'll see the kind of problem I'm having if I enable the shaders under OpenGL.

Yes. You can copy the OpenGL driver from any previous driver supported by your GPU. You just need to copy the OpenGL driver of choice ("atioglxx.dll") to your IL-2 main directory and IL-2 will bypass your system driver and use the old driver instead.

Hello Brennus and thank you very much for the quick reply.

So what I need to do is reinstall Catalyst 9.10, find and copy this atioglxx.dll file to my IL2 main directory and the game should work as in version 9.10?

It's actually easier than that. Run the setup application for the 9.10's, but don't allow the application to install anything. While the setup application is waiting for your input, navigate to "C:\ATI\Support...". You may have several folders containing previous driver versions, so you'll need to navigate the directory which contains the 9.10's. In fact, if the folder exists already, you can skip the driver setup entirely. Search for "atioglxx.dl_", copy this file to "C:\" (Root), open a "cmd" window (Start > Run > cmd > Enter) and type this in the command prompt:

"expand C:\atioglxx.dl_ C:\atioglxx.dll" < (w/o quotes)

Press Enter, copy "atioglxx.dll" to your IL-2 root (main) directory and cancel the ATI setup application if you haven't already.

Done.

This is a great suggestion Brennus! I've had serious issues and headaches over CTD's and artifacts with many of the recent Catalyst drivers from 9.7 and forward.. So far 9.6 has worked the best for me, stable gaming and very few artifacts.
I'll backup then try copy back ATIOGLXX.DLL from 9.6 into 9.11 once it's installed and see how it goes..

Any one else have some feedback on this will be much appriciated!

I guess ATi just decided to poop on Il2 community... I've had artifacts from as long as I've been using W7... that means last year sometime, and CTDs since 9.6 Using 9.5 now, but that's not ideal of course. I'll install 9.11s and keep the atioglxx.dll for Il2, we'll see.

9.3s are supposed to work well with il2

Hello guys,

Thanks again for all the help. Unfortunately copying an pasting the dll into the IL2 folder gives a error message when the games loads up and my frame rate will plunge to 1fps!!!

Remember guys that older drivers will work just fine with IL2. However, my problem here was Need for Speed Shift which has a laughable performance with older drivers. The newer official versions will improve Need for Speed performance at the cost of making IL2 unplayable.

The fix however was to install the beta version of the 9.12 Catalyst drivers. They have the same improved performance with Need For Speed Shift and will not cause this graphical abnormalities with IL2.

Sorry henrique I can't help you, but you've warned me not to install 9.11!

While I'm here and on the topic of ATI, anyone care to share their OpenGL section of their config file for best performance unser ATI? It's often interesting to see what people have tweeked.

Unfortunately I didn't have much time to sit with the 9.11 drivers and IL2.. I did manage to get the 9.11 installed and then booted up IL2 UI1.2 and ran a blackdeath track check.
I did get the blocks just as in the examples in the first post, but it was slightly different and the behavior was strange; As the track started I pressed to bring up the console to launch "fps start show", right there and then all characters in the console were small white squares and unreadable. But I typed the command and that started the FPS display at the top of the screen.. This was also unreadable with small little red squares just as in the console.. But I let the track play on and eventually, after about 10-15 seconds, the squares were replaced by the proper characters and I could read the text/fps display. I then checked the console and those square were also now readable characters.
-> Could there be a problem with the driver and loading and displaying an ingame character set?
The track played through pretty ok though I did get some horizontal flashing lines (artifacts).. But no way near as much distortion as I've seen in some versions of the Catalyst drivers. It was so slight that I can live with it.. if the game doesn't show otherwise poor stability and CTD's when playing for an extended period of time.. We'll see, I hope I get some time this evening to do more testing.

@Alexi_Alx_Anova


I have tempered a lot with my Conf.ini file. I have read posts at AAA from guys saying they had magical setups which were ATI-custom made. Others said you could maximize this or that and have plain awesomeness in your IL2. Honestly, none of them made too much of a difference. All I got most of the time was lower fps. I ended up sticking with the stock configuration and just set water to 1. I get decent fps most of time.

Just to illustrate, this is my openGL configuration. Some people say the lines ending with "NV" are nVidia-specific and should be disabled. I did that and noticed no difference whatsoever. I also tried increasing Forest and Land Geometry as some people said it would greatly increase IL2 appearance and consume very few fps. That did nicht to me either.



@F19_lacrits

If you want updated Ctalyst drivers, F19_lacrits, stick with 9.12BETA. They are pretty good and they don't give this texture corruption output you'll get with 9.11.

Best wishes!!!

Here's what i did: i expanded atiogl.dll and atioglxx.dll from the 9.3 catalyst set into the il2 directory. now il2 is glitchless, runs forever (later catalysts had a memory leak in their opengl part) and looks perfect. if only someone would manage to mod in object self-shadowing... :P

Perhaps a stupid question but how did you expand those dll files without installation.
I can find them in the package but I cannot expand them

regards

There's an instruction in the 3rd or 4th post of this thread.. by Brennus

And i have read the thread .

Have a new 4650 Saphire AGP to extend the life of my old system, IL2 4.09m ran ok with x800xt 6.8 drivers. Now unplayable in open gl.Same in call of duty error message is open gl driver will not load. 9.8 is the only one which would install on the computor. Silent hunter 3 plays fine because it is direct X. Cannot use the older 6.8 drivers with 4600 series card.
Any ideas?

Your outta luck when it comes to usin' old drivers w/ a new GPU.

That is what is so pathetic that they sell a 4000 agp series gpu with no support for open gl. The driver cd that came with the card would not install and was basically worthless. Very frustrating since I have flown IL2 from the day it was released with an Ati card and it has worked well ...till now. Maybe it is RMA time.

That's exactly the reason I'm so reluctant to upgrade my machine very often (well, there's also the $$$ factor.). If you haven't noticed, my specs aren't exactly cutting edge, but I've yet to find a game that doesn't run well, or even great, just as long as I make educated decisions when it comes to hardware upgrades. I spend alot of time considering which hardware upgrades to make, and even then I spend even more time researching the hardware I plan to buy.

Yes, I'm anal, sue me...

S!

I did post my conf.ini on the thread at AMD/ATI, works fine with 9.10 and 5870-card. The "blue hue" you get from firing guns/explosions is less than before and no garbled textures or text. Take a look there Hope it helps. Other games this card eats for snack..:D

You running a 5870 on 9.10 drivers? I tried installing those today, I got a "INF file not found" error (which is the northbridge filter), couldnt get the drivers installed.

I figured it was because 5800 cards needed 9.11. I dunno, this is my first ATI card.

Anyway, got mine running without hardware shaders, I ran il2setup exe, and disabled vertex shaders, and vertex extensions. Then set ingame video landscape to excellent instead of perfect. Perfect enables the hardware shaders, and things get funky. It sure doesn't look as good as it should, but its running, and text isnt corrupted.

Too bad, one of my favorite games, might have to shelve it and wait for SOW, it will run in dx11.

Other than that, I'm loving this 5850 card, image quality is way better than nvidia which is all I've ever had before. And its FAST.