Newbie help

[Guest]

Hello everyone, computer newbie here.

I was hoping someone could answer a question about graphics cards/Celestia for me. I want to run Celestia on my comp. From what I've seen and read here it looks like an awesome program. My problem is that I'm not sure if my comp/graphics card will run it(really don't want to run the lower res ver) because I don't know what kind of card I have.

I have checked everywhere I know and right-clicked/properties many things trying to find my g/c specs with no luck. I even went to the manufactures own website(hp) and looked up my exact model but could not determine what kind of card I'm running.

I bought my comp. new about 7or 8 months ago(BestBuy). It's a:

HP pavilion 510n
1.2ghz processor(celeron)
256mb sdram
40g hd
windows xp home
graphics card(whatever came stock)

If anyone knows what type of card those usually come with or just has a recommendation/guess on whether or not I can run the full version I would really appreciate it.

THANKS
rjf

[Sum0]

I did some looking about on the web, and it seems your card is a intergrated Intel 3D chip... not great. It will run Celestia, but i'm not sure how well... Of course, the best way to find out is to simply download Celestia and run it!

[rjf]

Thanks for the response Sum0.

I am going to try the full version. Even though the main page says you need
16megs I hope my little 11meg g/card will handle it. I was just a little wary
after reading the "windows xp user beware" thread in this forum.

My comp. did not come with any manuals or instillalation/backup disks or anything. I just use system restore(don't know how to make/use backup disks) when something doesn't work right on my comp. If I fry my os I'm up s/creek with no paddle.

But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

THANKS AGAIN
rjf

[mfj]

I have a "new" Gateway with Intel integrated graphics- not great- but Celestia runs VERY well. NO problems with Windows XP.

[selden]

rjf,

After installing Celestia and before running it, you might consider simply moving the texture files that are in the textures\medres directory to someplace else. You can try adding them later. The planetary surfaces are blurry, but Celestia loads and runs much faster with just the lores textures.

[t00fri]

rjf,

After installing Celestia and before running it, you might consider simply moving the texture files that are in the textures\medres directory to someplace else. You can try adding them later. The planetary surfaces are blurry, but Celestia loads and runs much faster with just the lores textures.

I suggest you simply push the R-key which just switches to the files located in the lores directory. You may switch back to the medres by pushing SHIFT R instead.

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Hello everyone, computer newbie here.

I was hoping someone could answer a question about graphics cards/Celestia for me. I want to run Celestia on my comp. From what I've seen and read here it looks like an awesome program. My problem is that I'm not sure if my comp/graphics card will run it(really don't want to run the lower res ver) because I don't know what kind of card I have.

I have checked everywhere I know and right-clicked/properties many things trying to find my g/c specs with no luck. I even went to the manufactures own website(hp) and looked up my exact model but could not determine what kind of card I'm running.

I bought my comp. new about 7or 8 months ago(BestBuy). It's a:

HP pavilion 510n
1.2ghz processor(celeron)
256mb sdram
40g hd
windows xp home
graphics card(whatever came stock)

If anyone knows what type of card those usually come with or just has a recommendation/guess on whether or not I can run the full version I would really appreciate it.

THANKS
rjf

Why don't you just look in your systems directory (or however XP calls this now) what kind of graphics driver is installed...Should give you a good idea what graphics card was recognized by your system.

Bye Fridger

[selden]

I suggested moving the textures out of the medres directory partially because he mentioned not having much memory on the graphics card. I dunno how Celestia handles being unable to load the textures into the card at startup: whether it crashes, exits or just tries the next lower resolution.

And Celestia does start a *lot* faster with just low resolution textures even when there is plenty of memory.

[t00fri]

I suggested moving the textures out of the medres directory partially because he mentioned not having much memory on the graphics card. I dunno how Celestia handles being unable to load the textures into the card at startup: whether it crashes, exits or just tries the next lower resolution.

And Celestia does start a *lot* faster with just low resolution textures even when there is plenty of memory.

Well, I forgot about the memory issue. Sorry.

However, if one pushes the R key
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrright
after the Celestia window has appeared, the speed issue should be negligible;-)

Bye Fridger

[Guest]

Thanks for the info guys,
I installed the full version. Seems like it works great. Loads quickly(2-3secs the first time, instantly after that). There doesn't seem to be any slowdown or chopiness in it. I left the files at default(lores really sucks).

t00fri, I went to cp(control panel)--system--couldn't find anything there, tried cp--other cp options--intel graphics technology--information, it said:

Intel(R) Graphics Controller 82810E
Bios version 2438
current graphics mode 800 by 600 High color(60hz)

Is controller another term for card?

Couple more questions guys.

1. I went to one of the link sites, opened a high-res image of Europa(looked awesome)on site and saved it to my My Pictures folder. After having no problems with the medres imaging I dragged the image to the highres textures folder of Celestia. When I restarted Celestia and went to Europa it did not show the highres Europa. r and shift + R only went back and forth between lo and medres. Did I do something wrong?

2. While running Celestia I opened my task manager. While Celestia wasn't using a great deal of memory the t.m. said it was using 98% cpu. Is that normal?

Thanks again guys(selden, t00fri, mfj)

Celestia is an awesome program. I'm really enjoying it.

rjf

[t00fri]

Thanks for the info guys,
I installed the full version. Seems like it works great. Loads quickly(2-3secs the first time, instantly after that). There doesn't seem to be any slowdown or chopiness in it. I left the files at default(lores really sucks).

t00fri, I went to cp(control panel)--system--couldn't find anything there, tried cp--other cp options--intel graphics technology--information, it said:

Intel(R) Graphics Controller 82810E
Bios version 2438
current graphics mode 800 by 600 High color(60hz)

Is controller another term for card?

Couple more questions guys.

1. I went to one of the link sites, opened a high-res image of Europa(looked awesome)on site and saved it to my My Pictures folder. After having no problems with the medres imaging I dragged the image to the highres textures folder of Celestia. When I restarted Celestia and went to Europa it did not show the highres Europa. r and shift + R only went back and forth between lo and medres. Did I do something wrong?

2. While running Celestia I opened my task manager. While Celestia wasn't using a great deal of memory the t.m. said it was using 98% cpu. Is that normal?

Thanks again guys(selden, t00fri, mfj)

Celestia is an awesome program. I'm really enjoying it.

rjf

OK, you have just located your graphics "card": An Intel 810E graphics chip that is integrated into your motherboard and not a separate card in a slot. This kind of chip gives a fairly poor performance. You may always add a better NVIDIA card and switch to it.

800x600 pixels is also a fairly low resolution, but the chip probably cannot do much better.

Celestia usually runs with ~100% CPU load.

When you add extra texture files to one of the 3 folders, you must make sure that its name matches that listed in solarsys.ssc!

Example: The default earth texture in medres/lores is called 'earth.png'. If you add another hires earth texture named earth.jpg, you will see no effect unless you change in solarsys.ssc:
under Earth:

Texture "earth.png" into
Texture "earth.jpg"

Bye Fridger

[rjf]

When you add extra texture files to one of the 3 folders, you must make sure that its name matches that listed in solarsys.ssc!

Example: The default earth texture in medres/lores is called 'earth.png'. If you add another hires earth texture named earth.jpg, you will see no effect unless you change in solarsys.ssc:
under Earth:

Texture "earth.png" into
Texture "earth.jpg"

I found the solarsys.ssc under Celestia--data but windows won't let me open it. I guess renaming the highres .jpg to a .png wouldn't work instead.


rjf

[t00fri]

When you add extra texture files to one of the 3 folders, you must make sure that its name matches that listed in solarsys.ssc!

Example: The default earth texture in medres/lores is called 'earth.png'. If you add another hires earth texture named earth.jpg, you will see no effect unless you change in solarsys.ssc:
under Earth:

Texture "earth.png" into
Texture "earth.jpg"

I found the solarsys.ssc under Celestia--data but windows won't let me open it. I guess renaming the highres .jpg to a .png wouldn't work instead. :D


rjf

No, don't! A .jpg image refers to an entirely different graphics format than a .png image! It's not just a matter of renaming the two...

But why should windows not allow you to open solarsys.ssc???

Are you sure you read your Windows XP handbook from page 1 to the end?

Fetch yourself the 'notepad' application and place it somewhere onto the desktop. Then you simply drag solarsys.ssc onto it and it should open and be editable.
If solarsys.ssc is to long for 'notepad' take another editor, like 'wordpad' (I think it is called).

Bye Fridger

[rjf]

Thanks t00fri, I'll try that.

Are you sure you read your Windows XP handbook from page 1 to the end?

No, that's my problem. When I bought my comp. it came with no manuals, no installation disk(os), no boot, recovery, backup or any other kind of disk. It just came with windows xp pre-loaded, nothing else. Guess they(HP) can sell them cheaper that way.

I'm basically just someone who bought a comp. a few months ago and am attempting to learn everything on the fly. Never had the need to use a text editor before. I'll know now.

THANKS AGAIN

rjf

[selden]

rjf,

You might want to consider visiting one of your local bookstores and browsing through their selection of XP manuals. You're likely to find one that's at a level that makes sense to you. Talk to a sales clerk, too. They may be able to give some advice. (I can't: I simply don't know what's currently available.)

[Saxon]

Hello there. I've upgraded to WinXP few weeks ago and although it's not Home I suppose all you have to do is right-click the solarsys.ssc then select "open with" or if not available just "open", then choose the program on your own. Select Notepad or any other text editor and that's about it... or just drag the file onto the Notepad icon like was said.