Celestia Forums

Hi Chris,

First let me thank you for a wonderful work on your part. I've been running 1.2.4 for a year now and find it a tremendous educational experience.

Recently I've downloaded both the large and small versions of 1.2.5 and can't get it to run. It starts and then, This program has performed an illegal operation, Could anyone please help me to know what I may be doing wrong?

Thanks so much, Azgard

Windows 98/openGL v 1.1.0
800 MHz
256 ram
Matrox G400(with latest drivers)

I keep getting the following:


This program has performed an illegal operation

CELESTIA caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:00000003.
Registers:
EAX=000084c0 CS=016f EIP=00000003 EFLGS=00010286
EBX=0076f384 SS=0177 ESP=0076f1e8 EBP=00000400
ECX=a01b6301 DS=0177 ESI=01631bd8 FS=3c67
EDX=01632170 ES=0177 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
00 65 04 70 00 16 00 2f 05 65 04 70 00 65 04 70
Stack dump:
004769da 000084c0 78aa030c 0076f480 00000000 0076f624 00000800 00000001 00000000 01631ba0 80000000 3f800000 c71db533 451ee83c 4765d017 c8a445f5

I am not shure wat to tell you I am using win XP and am having no problems
are you shure that you downloaded the win32 exe and not the linux ones

Yes, celestia-win32-1.2.5 is the down load I'm using. Also, MS openGL 1.1.0.

Please if anyone can help, I really like this program and would like to run it.

Thanks to all that could help.

Unfortunately, v1.2.5 does not work with OpenGL v1.1. Past reports seem to suggest it may be due to bugs in Celestia's 3ds rendering code. If at all possible, you need to find some more recent graphics drivers which include OpenGL v1.2 or later.

Matrox WHQL certified drivers can be found at http://www.matrox.com/mga/support/drivers/certified/home.cfm
Unfortunately, they don't mention which version of the OpenGL standard they support.

I hope this helps a little.

There's either a bug in Celestia 1.2.5 or in the MS OpenGL 1.1 driver. I'm inclined to believe that the problem is with Celestia.

The problem is that I don't have the MS OpenGL driver on any of my development machines. Frankly, the MS driver is a piece of crap, and the first thing I do when I set up a Windows machine is to download the latest drivers from my graphics card vendor. Everyone should do this. But since they don't, I've got to figure out how to uninstall my NVIDIA OpenGL driver long enough to figure out what's making Microsoft's &*%$ driver crash. Grrr.

Now allow me to rant:
Microsoft has actively worked to kill OpenGL in order to promote Direct3D, which they control. The latest shot they've fired is stop include hardware vendors' OpenGL drivers with WindowsXP. You can still use a non-MS OpenGL driver, but you *have* to get it from the vendor's web site. I think that OEMs are still allowed to ship other GL drivers at least (and if they don't, there are going to be a lot of pissed off Doom3 buyers next fall.) I hate Microsoft's attitude toward OpenGL. I don't mind that Direct3D exists--I know a lot of the D3D developers personally, and they're cool people--but I wish Microsoft would stop making life so difficult for OpenGL users.

--Chris

now i'll agree that microsoft does some really #$^#%* up things, but do you really think its fair to say that it is hell bent on trying to make your or anyone using opengl's life difficult?

I would have to agre with chris , MS wants the Monoply , look at the amount of direct x compared to Open GL . MS is activly pushing Direct X sdk


Eveyr time i check for software updates MS wants to instal nivida driver 40.72 I AM USING 41.09
and I LIKE 41.09

I seem to rember that there is a diferance in nVidas 40.72 and Microsofts 40.72 in that MS's did'nt have the Open GL controls ( then agian i could be confusing 41.09 with 40 .72)

In response to bb -

Yes, Microsoft would and HAS indeed used such tactics in the past to eliminate competition. The list of Microsoft's devious tactics is almost endless, but the WWW browser fiasco is the most visable case. I along with many others have watched this company, i.e. Microsoft, pull one shenanigan after another to thrawt competition over the past twenty years.

And lets not forget the very short lived dalience that Microsoft had with SGI on the Farenhiet project. Since the breakup/ takeover of the Farenhiet project and the birth of DirectX by Microsoft they have done everything they can to stop any further proliferation of OpenGL. But of course it hasn't worked. They even tried to sue SGI over a few parts of the OpenGL code base but that was thrown out of court rather quickly because of course SGI invented OpenGL to begin with, and Microsoft didn't have a leg to stand on. I have been very suprised Microsoft hasn't tried harder to block the writing of new OpenGL drivers for the windows platform. They have managed to get some 3rd tier video card manufacturers to stop writting drivers but I don't think they want to mess with the likes of NVidia and ATI and even Matrox. Not to mension the big game companies that help keep Microsofts Windows platform viable. Microsoft can't afford to step on to many toes or there could be a massive industry backlash of likes never seen before. They, Microsoft just has to relise that OpenGL is here stay and they might as well get used to it. As far as I am consered there OpenGL driver should have a wrapper built in to convert some of the driver calls to DirectX for those that have the lower end cards that don't have OpenGL support any longer.

Hi Chris,

Tried to get a better OpenGL from Matrox but most they will provide is v 1.1.0. Please advise if or when you might expect a fix on your end.

Thanks, your work is a tremendous assist to all of us.

Azgard...