Celestia Forums

This is an image of the earth just after the program has started. I have updated my graphics card driver. Does anyone know what could be causing this? Operating system is Vista. Planet is constantly being re-rendered. The clear band in the second picture flashes from top to bottom as it renders.

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Hello John.
I did not go to Microsoft. I went to my manufactureres (Gateway) and selected my laptop model. I downloaded the driver and installed it. From the version date, I don't think it has changed since I bought the laptop. ATI Radeon Xpress 1150. Looking at the ATI site, it looks like this componet has problems.
Dennis

oh it is an ATI built in chip on a laptop

then you might be out of luck and not be able to run ANY programs that use openGL 1.1 or greater ( 2.2 is current)

when celestia is running can you copy the

help/openGL info

Before you do anything, make sure any Celestia extras are disabled, so you have just the base package running. If the problem is still there, then continue reading below:

The ATI site probably has more up to date drivers than the vendor's site (sounds like you got your driver from the Gateway website, rather than from ATI directly). Try searching the ATI site for the latest driver.

The other issue is to make sure the correct installation procedure is followed carefully, so that old drivers are completely removed before installing any new ones. The symptoms you have look a little bit like what might happen if 2 or more drivers (or duplicates) are installed at the same time and conflicting with each other. -- Check in Device Manager.

Read these instructions (for XP): http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2291
(should be a fairly similar procedure in VISTA)

and read this: http://www.celestiaproject.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10961

Thank you all for your suggestions, but it looks like I am just out of luck. Have a good day, Dennis.

Dennis,

Did it work with the original drivers?
If so, then all you need to do is restore the system to the System Checkpoint ...which you created of course just before updating your drivers.

CC

Hi Chuft-Captain. It NEVER worked properly on this laptop. Don't worry about it. All this means is that I can not look at rendered planets. The other 99% of Celestia, looking at the stars and constellations, and looking up star names, works fine. Dennis

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Dennis_Osborn wrote:Hi Chuft-Captain. It NEVER worked properly on this laptop. Don't worry about it. All this means is that I can not look at rendered planets. The other 99% of Celestia, looking at the stars and constellations, and looking up star names, works fine. Dennis

Well the only other suggestion I can make is to try changing the various OPEN-GL settings in your driver (one at a time). This may resolve the issue if the problem is caused by one or more specific features of the driver.