Ambient Occlusion? In *my* outdated games? It's more likely than you think

[Ifafudafi]

Those of you with nVidia cards have something new to brag about. (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_ambientocclusion_home.html)

In short, Ambient Occlusion (approxmation of shadows cast by ambient light, a la Crysis or Gears 2) can now be retrofitted onto old games such as Half-Life 2 and other Source games (!), Call of Duty 4 & 5, UT3/Bioshock, World of Warcraft, and more. I'll leave the page to explain the rest.

All you need to do is download the new 185.x drivers for your fancy-shmancy nVidia card and force AO on in the nVidia control panel.

I'm testing it as we speak; I'll report back later.

E: Works like a charm in Source, but only in base games and not mods. I can't seem to get it to work in UT3; probably because it's the UT3 Black from Steam, which may be screwing with something. Wish I could tweak the intensity as well, but getting a free graphical bonus is good enough in my books that I'm still pleased.

EE: Let me also take the opportunity to point out that PC gaming is superior.

EEE: Yeah, apparently any non-Valve games that are purchased through Steam stop this from doing its thing.

[BobtheGreatII]

Cool stuff...

[Con]

I'll bet halo gets the shaft again

[itszutak]

I'll bet halo gets the shaft again
woo

[Amit]

You guys should make a list of games that are compatible and incompatible with this technology including both digital and boxed versions. This could get interesting.

[Limited]

You guys should make a list of games that are compatible and incompatible with this technology including both digital and boxed versions. This could get interesting.
From what I gather its the list on the webpage that is compatible..



Assassin's Creed (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_assassinscreed_home.html)
BioShock (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_bioshock_home.html)
Call of Duty 4 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_callofduty4_home.html)
Call of Duty 5 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_codwaw_home.html)
Call Of Juarez
Company Of Heroes (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_coh_home.html)
Counter-Strike Source
Dead Space (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_deadspace_home.html)
Devil May Cry 4 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_dmc4_home.html)
F.E.A.R. 2 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_fear2_home.html)
Fallout 3 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_fallout3_home.html)
Farcry 2 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_farcry2_home.html)
Half Life 2 series
Left 4 Dead
Lost Planet: Colonies (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_lpcolonies_home.html)
Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_lostplanet_home.html)
Mirror's Edge (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_mirrorsedge_home.html)
Portal (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_orangebox_portal.html)
Team Fortress 2 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_orangebox_tf2.html)
Unreal Tournament 3 (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_ut3_home.html)
World In Conflict (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_worldinconflict_home.html)
World of Warcraft (http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_worldofwarcraft_home.html)

[Amit]

From what I gather its the list on the webpage that is compatible..


Those are just games with specific profiles. I doubt the list is limited to those few games.

[Reaper Man]

I appear to have the latest drivers, but I don't see that option in my Nvidia Control Panel. Maybe it's just not supported for my old geforce 7800...

[BobtheGreatII]

It's not in your 3d options?

[Reaper Man]

It's not in your 3d options?
Nope.
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8242/notthere.jpg

[Varmint260]

I'm installing the new drivers now; I'll give it a shot with a couple games and edit in anything interesting.

EDIT: Only game that shows up in the list is Fallout 3, so I took a screenshot from the same time in the same save file, and to be honest, I can't really tell any difference. All other games in the list (I haven't added anything from steam yet) said Ambient Occlusion: Not supported for this application.

EDIT 2: I just added all my HL2 stuff into the NVidia Control Panel. It says AO is enabled for HL2, and HL2 Episode 2. It says it is not supported for Portal, HL2 Episode 1, and all of the mods and SDKs. But, Portal is on the list for that website, so I haven't got a clue. Maybe there's a way to create a proper profile or force AO on?

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y259/Varmint264/PortalAO.jpg

EDIT 3: I looked at another website, where they had screenshots of the difference in Crysis, and in their control panel, AO had Off, Low, Medium and High. For me, I just have On or Off. Maybe it's a difference in series of GPU.

[Limited]

I just installed the 185.85 driver and AO doesnt show in the list, I have a 7600 GT just to let you know reaper.

[Bhamid]

7 series cards don't support CUDA do they?

[Pyong Kawaguchi]

ati version nao >.>

[Ifafudafi]

A DX10-compatible card (8000 and up) is required.

Still can't get the bloody Steam-bought third-party games to work (Far Cry 2 and UT3.) I'm guessing there will be a fix or workaround, official or otherwise, coming in the near future, but I'll just have to make do with Source for the moment.

E: Got Far Cry 2 working by enabling DX10 in the video options. Still working on UT3.

EE: UT3 ain't working, no matter what I do. I've tried both enabling and disabling DX10, along with other options, with no results. I know Steam's not preventing the nVidia Control Panel from doing anything, because I'm able to force Antialiasing on, so maybe it's just that UT3 Black just doesn't support AO. Either that, or nVidia lied to us.

[Corndogman]

Any word on if it works with Halo? Not that it matters to me, as I dont have the right card, I'm just curious.

[Disaster]

Heh. Really cool on l4d.

[Choking Victim]

Any word on if it works with Halo? Not that it matters to me, as I dont have the right card, I'm just curious.
Doesn't work with halo. This driver also screwed up videos for me. Anything i watched in windows media player skipped and stuttered. I uninstalled it.

[Reaper Man]

7 series cards don't support CUDA do they?
Nope they don't, that explains it.

[ExAm]

I tried enabling it using nHancer, because it didn't show up in the nVidia control panel. It didn't do anything at all. What the heck is CUDA, anyway? Do I have to install it or something?

EDIT: FUCK YOU, NVIDIA. YOU DAMN WELL KNOW THAT AO IN GENERAL ISN'T RESTRICTED TO VISTA/7, SO DON'T TELL ME THAT I CAN'T USE YOUR GODDAMN FEATURE IN XP. DAMN YOU TO HELL, NVIDIA. DAMN YOOOOUUUUUUU.

[CN3089]

EDIT 3: I looked at another website, where they had screenshots of the difference in Crysis, and in their control panel, AO had Off, Low, Medium and High. For me, I just have On or Off. Maybe it's a difference in series of GPU.

There was an earlier (like a month ago) driver that had those settings, and you could enable them for any game.