For a while, I thought this problem was solved. I was able to play all the way through Unreal 2 on my new GeForce FX without seeing the problem once.

Then I loaded up Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, and it happened really bad.

There are some scenes in the game where a tank or a gun emplacement gets destroyed. Afterward, there is a lot of smoke coming out of the wrecked tank or gun. The closer you get to the wreck (or if you view the wreck through your binoculars or sniper scope) the worse it gets.

I'm reasonably sure the free downloadable single player demo of Medal of Honor has this very thing happening pretty early on. So if anyone wants to check this on your own card, you can use the free demo level to do it (or if you have the full version of MOHAA, you can go to this level).

The single player demo can be grabbed here if you want to try it:

ftp://largedownloads.ea.com/pub/demos/mohaaspdemo.EXE

It's a big download, 183 megs, so it's only useful for those on really fast connections.

Anyway, the demo, if I recall correctly, is of the level where you're supposed to be destroying some german rocket launchers in a nearby town. This level starts off with you moving down a road toward the town and encountering resistance. There is a moment (again, if I recall correctly) where you have to shoot a half-track with the rocket launcher. After you nail the half track, it will be belching smoke. Getting close to the half track or zooming in with binocs/sniper will reveal the stuttering.

Note that I've got my all my graphics settings cranked because I've got a next-generation card/system and this is an old game. It runs perfectly smooth with all settings cranked except in this one odd instance.

Does anyone experience this slowdown on these parts of this game?

I'm asking for help because my goal here is to determine...

a) Does every Nvidia card have this bug always?
b) Does it also happen on ATI cards, or just Nvidia cards?
c) Is there a work around?
d) What exactly causes it and why? Is it something inefficient in the way they coded the game, or is it a bug in the drivers, or is it a hardware limitation?