G2,G3 G4 ?

[warpspasam]

Only just discovered celestia for the first time last night. It is amazing.
It was worh the dependancy shuffle to finaly get it to configure and compile.

Having hit most of the sites and scoured the forum I figure without the
right graphics card I will always be missing something.

If I really want to run the 16k textures with the 8k bumpmaps what is the
minimum/best choice. Am I right did I read G2 and G3 cards all only render
in 2k?

I did note there seemed to be a few issuses with the G4 ti4200 mostly windows.
Does it apply to linux as well.

Hope to hang around for a while and contribute where I can.

M

[Don. Edwards]

warpspasam,
Its not so much the chip as the amount of memory. If you get a GeForce2 with 64megs of VRAM you can use textures up to 8k. Where you will be limited will be the cloudmap textures. On GeForce2 and GeForce3 the card is limited due to architechture at 2k for clouds. You can plug in a 4k cloudmap but Celestia will just scale it back. The other issue with the older cards will be speed. The chips don't run as fast as the GeForce4 series so there will be some slowing down of the graphics on the older cards if you use the larer textures. As for the the GeForce4 Ti4200 I haven't heard of anything negative about it under Celestia. I had one and the only reason I moved up to the Ti4600 was for 128mb of VRAM. At the time I couldn't locate the 128mb version of the 4200 and were I did find it they were being over priced as if they were Ti 4400s. You may be making an error and thinking of the GeForce4 MX440. It has limitations of the GeForce2-3 series cards. Now I have read that there are issues with the Ti 4200 under Linux. Maybe you got the info switched around. If you can afford it I highly recomend going for the GeForce4 series cards. If you are afraid of issues with the Ti 4200 series than consider finding a Ti 4400 or 4600 series card. The prices are droping on these cards now due to the release of the GeForceFX series. Good luck.
Don.

[jim]

Welcome warpspasam,

I can say all these cards work with 16k textures. Celestia use a special procedure to divide large maps into parts that can these cards handle. But there is a limitaion this does not work with cloud maps and bump maps. Instead of bump maps you can use normal maps. Now remain only the clouds. For these is decivise the maximal texture size of the grafic card.

I think these are the values for the maximal texture size:
GF2 2048 x 2048
Gf3, GF4 4096 x 4096

My recommendation is
if low budged: Geforce2 ti 200 with 64MB DDR RAM,
medium budget: Geforce3 with 64MB,
good budget: Geforce4 with 128MB,

Don't buy a Geforce MX card !
If the problems with ATI cards are solved a newer Radeon card will be also a good choose.

Jens

ps. I have a GF2 TI200 64MB, Duron 900, 512MB Ram and Celestia works great.

[Don. Edwards]

jim,
I think we are all giving the wrong info here. Telling someone to buy any GeForce2 over a GeForce4 MX series is not a good idea. A GeForce4 MX 440 is a GeForce2 with the adition of the built-in Accuview Antialiasing engine and Lightspeed Memory Architecture II Technology. None of the GeForce2 series cards have these features, GeForce2 cards do there anti-aliasing in software mode so it slows down the card. The GeForce4 MX 440 will be clocked faster than those GeForce2 cards as well. So the real order in which anybody should consider in the purchase of a GeForce video card is this.
Starting from the lower end of products.

0. GeForce2 MX series- Pass them by. There just not really fast enough.
1. GeForce2 GTS or Ti AGP with 64mb DDR VRAM.
2. GeForce4 MX 440 AGP with 64 or 128mb DDR VRAM.
3. GeForce3 Ti AGP with 64mb DDR VRAM.
4. GeForce4 TI 4200 with 64 or 128mb DDR VRAM.
5. GeForce4 Ti 4400 with 128mb DDR VRAM.
6. GeForce4 TI 4600 with 128mb DDR VRAM.
And if you need the bleeding edge.
7. GeForceFX 5600 or 5800 with 128mb DDR VRAM.

That should some up the order of for the final time. So please everyone remember, telling someone to buy a GeForce2 of any kind over a GeForce4 MX series card is not the right thing to do.
Its all a mater of simply checking into features and functions. And hands down a GeForce4 MX 440 will beet the tar out of a GeForce2 GTS or a GeForce2 TI.
Now comparing the features with the GeForce3 things get blurry. Its true that the GeForce3 has features that the GeForce4 MX 440 doesn't have and visa-versa. I thnik as a rule we need to aim new users and users looking to upgrading toward the true GeForce4 Ti series cards and lets just leave the old GeForce2s out to pasture. There great for beginers but if someone is going out to spend money let them get there moneys worth so there card isn't 3 year old technology. At least the GeForce4 MX series is an updated GeForce2 and can be considered for the beginer.
Don.