Celestia Forums

I love to play about with celestia, inventing new star systems with pretty looking planets, space stations and exotic things but i find the program is too slow on my system

I have a 1.8 ghz intel celeron processor 256mb DDR memory with windows Xp running on a nearly full 40gb hard drive. The graphics card is the one that came with the PC when I bought it almost 2 years ago and is nothing special.

I'm looking for some advice on getting new card, what to look for, where to get a good deal in the UK (I'm on a budget) and whether this will solve all my 3D graphics problems

Right now, for a person on a budget, I'd recommend a card based on the Nvidia FX 5200 chipset. The FX series supports all of the features in Celestia. I'm partial to ASUS cards, but they aren't the cheapest.

After a quick Web search, it looks like a 128MB Asus V9520 can be had for less than ?50 (including VAT) in the UK. That's the model without a fan, though. I'd suggest the model that has one, just to avoid overheating problems. Celestia seriously stresses everything. That adds about ?15.

(For gaming, if one squints and lets the benchmark details get all blurry the FX 5950 is maybe about twice as fast as the 5200, and the ATI 9800 is maybe 10% faster than the 5950. ATI cards have problems showing some of Celestia's "eye candy." Preliminary indications are that Nvidia's new FX 6800 will be another 2x faster.)

p.s. (written slightly later)
Bear in mind that a faster graphics card will only speed up some of Celestia's features. A faster disk drive will speed texture loading, and so will a faster CPU.

thanks, i'll consider my funds and investigate. Something like this shouldmn't be too hard to install should it?

It depends on the system you want to put it into.

You need to find out exactly how the current graphics hardware is installed: whether it's integrated on the motherboard or a separate card.

If it's integrated, you have to find out how to disable it. See your hardware reference manual. It could be a jumper change on the motherboard or a BIOS setting.

If it's a separate card, you'll most likely just have to exchange it for the new graphics card.

in either case, the usual steps are
0. download the most recent Nvidia graphics installation program to your system
(the graphics driver installer that comes with the card is obsolete: new drivers are released every few weeks)
1. de-install the old graphics drivers.
2. shutdown and unplug your computer from A/C mains
3. disable or remove the old graphics card
4. insert the new graphics card (*)
5. plug system into AC mains
6. boot the system
7. run Nvidia graphics installer (**)

Be sure to read and follow the instructions that come with the card about grounding yourself while you're working on the system. Modern integrated circuits are extremely sensitive to getting fried by static electricity that you can't feel yourself.

(*) make sure you get the right kind of graphics card: AGP or PCI. If your system has integrated graphics, it might not have an AGP slot, for example.

(**) Windows includes a rudimentary Nvidia graphics driver, but it doesn't include all the features that Celestia can use. Celestia will run, but not very fast, and not all the eye-candy will be visible.

Unfortunatly, the only documentation that came with my computer was a big sheet telling me where to plug the monitor in !

Is there a way i can tell what my PC can and can't hack by looking at the hardware profiles on windows XP or just having a nose around the thing?

To find out what kind of graphics hardware your system has:

1) right-mouse-button-click on the desktop backdrop: this opens the "display info" menu window.
2) Select the menu item "Properties"
3) In the new popup window, select the "Settings" tab.
4) Select the "Advanced" button down near the bottom right corner.
5) In the new popup window, select the "Adapter" tab.

It'll list many of the characteristics of your graphics hardware, including the manufacturer.

Post them here.

You also can search the Web for information about the hardware.

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me but;

Chip type: SiS 650 Rev 00
DAC Type: Internal
Memory Size: 32 MB (funny feels like a lot less!)
Video Memory Clock 133MHZ
Adapter String SiS Compatable VGA
Bios Information 1.01.00

Selden my god man, can you translate?

SiS is the manufacturer.

Their 650 integrated chipset was announced
09/24/01 SiS Launches SiS650 - The Pentium® 4 Chipset with Integrated VGA

They consider it "mature." (i.e.obsolete) but not yet discontinued. See http://www.sis.com/products/mature_products.htm

Your crashes are doubtless due to bugs in their OpenGL graphics drivers.

To verify this, go into the Display Properties menu again and turn off "hardware acceleration".
This wiill force your system to use only the OpenGL software provided by Microsoft in Windows. It'll be a lot slower, but shouldn't crash.

On an XP system, you go to Settings tab, Advanced button, Troubleshoot tab and slide the "Hardware Acceleration" slider all the way to the left. Then select OK to close each of the windows. I don't know its exact location, but I suspect the equivalent Win9x control is on a similar page "near" this one.

Recent SiS 650 graphics drivers are available on various Web sites. I couldn't find any being provided by SiS.
The "safest" should be on the Web site of the manufacturer of your system, but they are available elsewhere, too. Caveat Emptor.

Does this help?

Beeblebrox ate my hamster wrote:Memory Size: 32 MB (funny feels like a lot less!)

Beeblebrox?

If you're running Windows XP on a system with only 32MB of RAM, then I'd be stunned
if you can get Celestia to run at all. Windows XP will eat up 32MB in no time, all by itself.

To make a long story short... You need more RAM too, son. I've got 256MB of RAM, and
you can rest assured that I would still like more when running Celestia.

Take care, Bob

Bob,

I'm sure he was quoting what was in the graphics information window: it's the amount of graphics memory the SiS chip supposedly has. (I haven't read the hardware specs, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it actually uses a window into main memory rather than having its own local memory.)

As you say, I don't think XP would even boot in 32MB.

A "mature" chipset....I love the euphemisms these techie folks use

But yes it is struggling and standing in the way of my 3D plans so out with the old in with the new.

I think i've found a Nvidia FX 5200 graphics card that you mentioned earlier for a very competitive price but before I click on OK to proceed i want to make sure its going to slot into my machine with no probs

I remember changing the processor on an old PC i had was simply a question of taking the old 133mhz dinosaur out and putting a pentium chip in....no worries.

Would this be a similar case of opening up my PC finding the right shaped hole and slotting it in (with the relevant drivers of course)?

Probably, but you need to find out if your system has an AGP slot or if you have to get a card that uses a PCI slot.

The SiS chipset you have includes the logic for an AGP slot, but the manufacturer might have left it out to keep costs down for your system. You need to open up your CPU box and look. The AGP slot usually is in between the PCI slots and the CPU chip and looks slightly different from the PCI slots.

(The PCI version of the FX5200 is slightly more expensive than the AGP version because they don't sell as many.)

You also need to find out how to disable the SiS graphics so that the Nvidia becomes the system's primary display -- where you'll see the boot-time messages and the initial desktop.

I hope this helps a little.

I've decided to slam some memory in whilst i ponder the card (512 mb) to be exact.

For a while it worked, Celestia was moving faster than ...erm.....a very fast thing but today it came up with this error message
"The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000005)"

Now heaven forbid windows should actually tell me why this should be so can anyone help?

Here is a pic of what i have been working on in the meantime