Celestia Forums

Celestia 1.4.0 has two major new features: real support for multiple star systems and improved rendering using GLSL shaders. There's more work to be done on both features, and there's been a lot of confusion in distinguishing between bugs, unimplemented functionality, and intended behavior. I hope this FAQ helps clear things up somewhat.

Can my graphics hardware use the new OpenGL 2.0 render path?
If you have a GeForce FX, a GeForce 6xxx series, a Radeon 9500 or higher, or a Radeon X series, then your hardware is capable of using the OpenGL 2.0 render path. You must also have a very recent driver--older ones don't have the necessary OpenGL extensions.

My hardware only reports supporting OpenGL 1.5. Does this mean I can't use the OpenGL 2.0 path?
No. All the graphics boards listed in the previous question can use the OpenGL 2.0 path if you've got a recent driver. The critical OpenGL feature that the drivers must support is the GLSL high level shading language. Although GLSL is part of the OpenGL 2.0 specification, it is also exposed via an extension in older versions of OpenGL.

Will I need to buy a new graphics card to run Celestia 1.4.0?
No. If Celestia 1.3.2 runs with your current graphics card, so will Celestia 1.4.0 and subsequent versions. The new OpenGL 2.0 features won't be available unless you have recent hardware, but the old render paths will work just as before.

I've turned on the OpenGL 2.0 render path, but planets are all rendered red. What's going on?
The red pixels indicate that an invalid GLSL shader was loaded; to help debug shader problems, I wanted it to be obvious that there was a problem. You probably have an ATI graphics board. I develop on NVIDIA hardware, so I miss bugs that only appear with ATI drivers and hardware. If you want to help me debug the problem, post the contents of the file shaders.log (it should be in your Celestia folder) to the bugs forum.

What binary star systems can I visit in Celestia?
No binary or other multiple systems are included in Celestia yet. We're still working on converting catalogs of star orbits to Celestia's format. For now, you'll have to make your own system or download one of the several add-ons created by a forum member.

I've placed a planet in orbit around a star in a binary system, but I only see light it lit by one of the stars. What's wrong?
It's likely that this is correct behavior. The distance between the planet and the star it orbits is probably much less than the distance from the planet to the second star. If the stars are approximately equal absolute brightness, this means that the light from the closer star will be so much more intense than the light from the more distant star that the secondary illumination will be imperceptible. Remember that the brightness of light falls off in proportion to one divided by distance squared. If the second light source is a lot further away than the primary, it must be intrinsically much brighter in order to visibly illuminate a planet.

How many simultaneous light sources can Celestia handle?
Up to two in the OpenGL vertex shader paths, and up four in the basic, multitexture, and OpenGL 2.0 paths. The light sources with the greatest apparent brightness are given priority.

Ring and eclipse shadows don't look right when there are multiple light sources.
Only the OpenGL 2.0 render path handles shadows correctly when there is more than one light source. In the other render paths, only the shadow from the brightest light source is considered. The OpenGL 2.0 path can render ring shadows and up to three eclipse shadows per light source.

What are some known problems with the current prerelease?
No orbits are shown for stars. Overlay textures don't yet work in the OpenGL 2.0 path.

When will the Mac/Linux versions be available?

kindly awaiting your reply....

Startyger wrote:When will the Mac/Linux versions be available?

There is a Mac prerelease available here http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/creators/dirkpitt/ (there is also a thread about it).

And for Linux you can always try the compiling the current CVS code. Of course that's a bit more work than just downloading a ready-made installer, and some people have been reporting problems with some versions of gcc/libraries/etc.

Harald

Hello!

Im a new user of Celestia. Ive been trying to find the link, in this forum, that would lead me to the Celestia 1.4.0 for Windows download page. Could you please tell me how can i get there?

http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... .0pre6.exe

If you have experience building software under Windows, then you might consider building the most recent version from sourcecode. For details, see the "Stickies" at the top of the Celestia Development Forum, especially Free Windows-based compiling for Celestia.

Cheers!!!

I hope I'm not posting a stupid question, but: does Celestia 1.4.0 prereleases support haze for ATI cards?

im assuming it would be safe to modify v 1.4.0 to run in low res by renaming the hi res folder etc ?

Yes, renaming the medres texture folder would work just the same as with other versions of Celestia. If it can't find the medres textures, it'll show the lores ones.

LOL will it be processor independent? 64bit? just asking.... i'm glad to see it is there a possibililty that Cheetah3D and Celestia can talk about the format?

hello!

I??m a new user of Celestia.
I want to know what is the difference between the older version and this new.
thanks!

when will the full release for v1.4.0 be? the prereleases dont work on my pc.

If the prereleases don't work, then the final release probably won't work, either. You need to describe in detail exactly what problems you're having, otherwise they won't get fixed.

when i use the pre realeses they dont respond when downloaded, it say the files dont exist

Some of the prereleases are only Celestia.exe itself and not the entire package.

v1.4.0pre6 is the one you should be using. It's a complete package. Is that the one you installed?

If so, what directory did you install it in?
Did you check the boxes to create a new desktop icon and to associate URLs? They're required except in very special circumstances.

What files does it say it can't find?

Might be useful to mention here that pre7 has been available for a few weeks and can be downloaded at:

http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... .0pre7.exe

Celestia v1.4.0pre8 for Windows is now available at
http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... .0pre8.exe

selden wrote:Celestia v1.4.0pre8 for Windows is now available at
http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... .0pre8.exe

What are there more than Celestia pre7 and FT1.2 ?

It incorporates all of FT1.2, an updated GTK interface, an updated Windows Render/ViewOptions menu, plus quite a few bug fixes.

If no new bugs are found, it probably will become the final release, except that the changelog (below) also will describe the updates that have been made to the exoplanets and solar system moons catalogs.