Graphic problem - Flickering / Flashes in the atmosphere

[dreamweaver]

Hello,

I have installed Celestia 1.5. The problem is that I allways get a white flickering or flashes around planets with atmosphere. Look at the picture.

The flashes are flickering and are very disturbing.
My graphiccard is a ATI X1200, Cat 7.12.

I have tried almost every settings in the driver, AA on/off etc.

Any idea?

[dreamweaver]

Am I the only one with that problem?

Here is a short video. How can I get rid of that flickering. Please?

http://rapidshare.com/files/98515890/ce ... g.avi.html

[chris]

Have you modified the settings in celestia.cfg at all? I occasionally see white sparkles with 4x AA on some graphics cards, though nothing as dramatic as in your screenshot. If the problem is specific to AA, it may be solvable by using centroid sampling in Celestia's shaders. Otherwise, I suspect that a graphics driver issue may be causing the problems.

--Chris

[dreamweaver]

A few days ago I have downloaded the german version of Celestia 1.5.0 from here http://www.celestia.info/.
From the beginning I had these white flickering. After a few days I have installed some highres textures. Thats all.

A few minutes ago I uninstalled Celestia, downloaded the original version, and reinstalled it. But it was again the german version (with the flickering of course). I uninstalled it again, deleted all registry entries, reinstalled, but it was still the german version. What do I have to do, to get the original version?

I also installed the latest ATI driver 8.3. But it makes no difference. I doubt it has something to do with AA because the problem exists with or without AA.

This is really a bad thing.

[dreamweaver]

Now I tried the latest Omega driver. Again, no difference. The flickering disappears only when I disable the atmosphere.

[thomaso]

Am I the only one with that problem?

Here is a short video. How can I get rid of that flickering. Please?

...

No, your not the only one with that problem. I am having the exact same issue. I have an ATI Radeon X 1950 Series video card, Intel Classic Series DG33FB Mother board, Windows XP Pro, 3 GIG RAM, Quad core 2.6 GHz processor and a partridge in a pear tree. I have updated all drivers ( I did uninstall the old drivers, reboot, and reinstall the new drivers/updates.)

I run applications like Lightwave 9.1, Vue 6.5 Infinite, Adobe After Effects CS3, Adobe Premier CS3, Photoshop CS3, Poser 7, and Starry Night Pro Plus 6.5 and do not have any issues like this with these applications. This appears to be a Celetia issue. However I do suspect an ATI/Intel conflict.

I was running the same above, but with an ASUS Digital HOME P5W DH Deluxe mother board (before it got fried) and did not have this issue with Celetia. Since I got a new mother board, I have the issue with Celestia.

[bdm]

Does this issue go away when you use a different render path? Render paths can be changed with Ctrl-V.

I have noticed recently that the OpenGL 2.0 render path has some similar issues (some overbright pixels around the edge) although the ones I see are not as serious as this. Other render paths do not have this issue.

[thomaso]

Does this issue go away when you use a different render path? Render paths can be changed with Ctrl-V.

I have noticed recently that the OpenGL 2.0 render path has some similar issues (some overbright pixels around the edge) although the ones I see are not as serious as this. Other render paths do not have this issue.

Whoa! Excellent call! 'Ctrl V' took care of it for me! I am going to have to research this 'Ctrl V -differnt render paths' further, but it looks like 'Ctrl V' cured the problem on my end.

Thanks for the help, bdm!

Thomas

[chris]

Does this issue go away when you use a different render path? Render paths can be changed with Ctrl-V.

I have noticed recently that the OpenGL 2.0 render path has some similar issues (some overbright pixels around the edge) although the ones I see are not as serious as this. Other render paths do not have this issue.

Whoa! Excellent call! 'Ctrl V' took care of it for me! I am going to have to research this 'Ctrl V -differnt render paths' further, but it looks like 'Ctrl V' cured the problem on my end.

Thanks for the help, bdm!

Thomas

Using a render patch other than OpenGL 2.0 will generally give reduced quality visuals.

--Chris

[BobHegwood]

Using a render patch other than OpenGL 2.0 will generally give reduced quality visuals.

--Chris

Depends ENTIRELY upon the specific machine you are using. In many
cases, I get much more spectacular (and realistic) views using either
plain old multi-texture mode, or OpenGL with Vertex shader options.

Don't know why this is, but them's the facts on my machine. One
good example involves Runar's Sun add-on. If I try to view the thing
using OpenGL, I get all kinds of unwanted crap in the Sun's texture.
If I use simply multi-texture mode, the Sun is rendered beautifully.

Sorry about that, but that's how things are rendered on MY machine.
Thanks, Bob

[chris]

Using a render patch other than OpenGL 2.0 will generally give reduced quality visuals.

--Chris

Depends ENTIRELY upon the specific machine you are using. In many
cases, I get much more spectacular (and realistic) views using either
plain old multi-texture mode, or OpenGL with Vertex shader options.

I have my doubts that you're seeing more realistic views with the non-OpenGL 2.0 modes. Are you talking about the problems you're having with specular reflections?

Don't know why this is, but them's the facts on my machine. One
good example involves Runar's Sun add-on. If I try to view the thing
using OpenGL, I get all kinds of unwanted crap in the Sun's texture.
If I use simply multi-texture mode, the Sun is rendered beautifully.

Sounds like a bug . . . Could you post a couple screenshot showing the views in OpenGL 2.0 and multitexture?

--Chris

[BobHegwood]

I have my doubts that you're seeing more realistic views with the non-OpenGL 2.0 modes. Are you talking about the problems you're having with specular reflections?
Sounds like a bug . . . Could you post a couple screenshot showing the views in OpenGL 2.0 and multitexture?

--Chris

Ask and ye shall receive...

The Sun under Multitexture Mode:


Same shot under OpenGL 2.0:


Neptune under Multitexture:


Same image under Open GL 2.0 vertex.

[chris]

OK. These are familiar effects . . .

For Neptune, the problem is that the ambient light doesn't interact correctly with shadows under any render path except for OpenGL 2.0. The multitexture render path doesn't show ring shadows at all, which is why there is no problem there. The workaround is to use the OpenGL 2.0 render path, or to disable ambient light (which is not physically realistic, but provided because it can be useful for visualization.)

For the Sun image, the issue is the placement of the glare texture. For the OpenGL 2.0 path, the glare texture is placed in front of the star geometry, while in other paths, the glare is in the middle of the geometry. This has the effect of blending the increasing the apparent brilliance of the star, but it's not compatible with add-ons that use nested spheres to approximate the appearance of moving solar atmosphere.

--Chris

[BobHegwood]

OK. These are familiar effects . . .

--Chris

Well I certainly appreciate that information, Chris, but the same
problem still remains. If I use any mode other than multi-texture on
MY machine, I get crappy results. The earlier referenced specularity
is another part of all this. I tried reducing albedo values to no effect,
and NONE of the planets show up correctly while in OpenGL 2.0
mode. Venus is simply an overly bright ball of glare in 2.0, but
renders again perfectly in multi-texture.

Mind you, I'm not complaining... Just making the statement that these
modes simply do NOT work correctly on my machine. Now, in fairness,
I DO have to use the OpenGL Vertex mode to render Saturn and
its rings correctly, but that's the only planet where I have any
problems when using multi-texture. This is all just FYI...

Many thanks for the mind-bending task of even trying to make
this stuff compatible on all machines. I'm happy.