OK culling problem it seems

[Rassilon]

I dont know what driver update to use and so far I have tried ones straight off the invidia site....but I feel this is more an incompatibility problem...

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/celestia/prob.jpg

This is happening only with ringed planets with clouds...For some odd reason the other card I had never did this...so I just dont know at this point...the drivers Im currently using are the detenator drivers but I have an MSI GF Ti 4400 and well no one else is having this problem or thier not saying anything...

Like I said above this seems to happen only with planets which have rings and clouds....It might be the rings doing this maybe? Logic would conclude this...but then again my last card didnt do this so theres my options...

Intel P4
Asus P4B
MSI GF4 Ti 4400 128 meg
Windows 98 SE
384 megs RAM
Detenator Drivers 28.32

Im going to try the 30.82 driver update next...

[Rassilon]

OK the newest drivers...no change...It does go away when I turn off pixel shaders...I forgot to add that bit...

Well guess Im back on vacation from the computer till it gets figured out...I personally have no clue what drivers to use or try now...damn this really sucks

[Rassilon]

As usual Im the only one with this problem Oh well hope it gets fixed in the next version...No more ringed planets from me till it does!

[chris]

As usual Im the only one with this problem Oh well hope it gets fixed in the next version...No more ringed planets from me till it does!

I'll look into it . . . Could you post your .ssc file for the planet so I can investigate it? I don't need the textures, just the planet entry from the .ssc file.

--Chris

[Rassilon]

I ended up sending both...Thanks again chris...I hope you do have the same problem because if not then once again I have a crappy video card...

[Azagoth]

Rass,

I'm using the same card as you, although on a lower spec machine and different drivers :-

PIII 700MHz
448MB PC133 SDRAM
MSI GeForce4 Ti4400 128DDR w/ Nvidia 29.42 drivers
Creative SB PCI128

I have no problems at all with ringed planets. Give those drivers a try out, you never know.

[Rassilon]

Yeah I am using the most current detenator drivers And does your saturn have clouds? try adding it on and see if it gets all wierd on you...

btw what OS?

[D.Edwards]

I have noticed that as well and figured it was just a problem that Chris new about. I had tried to put a ring around an Earth type planet with a cloud texture and got the same problem. I have noticed it on every driver build since I started useing Celestia. At least 4 months. I thought I had mentioned this to Ras a while back but maybe I didn't. I have just learned to avoid rings and clouds together. If it could be fixed that would be great.

[Azagoth]

I haven't got clouds for Saturn, tell me where to get them Rass please.

I'm on Windoze 98SE, for now. When I get a new HD I may go the dual boot way, XP pro and Mandrake 8 ( probably what's around ), I've always wanted to try Linux.

[Rassilon]

Ok might as well try mine:

Heres the code I use for saturn:
"Saturn" "Sol"
{
Texture "saturn.png"
SpecularColor [ 0 0.4 0.45 ]
SpecularPower 20.0
Color [ 1.0 1.0 0.85 ]
HazeColor [ 0.0 0.0 0.5 ]
HazeDensity 0.75
Radius 60330
Oblateness 0.1076
Atmosphere {
# Height 1200 # Does not work well with oblateness
# Lower [ 0.5 0.5 0.65 ]
# Upper [ 0.3 0.3 0.6 ]
# Sky [ 0.3 0.6 0.9 ]
CloudHeight 200
CloudSpeed -500
CloudMap "saturn-clouds.png"
}

CustomOrbit "saturn"
EllipticalOrbit
{
Period 29.4577
SemiMajorAxis 9.5371
Eccentricity 0.0542
Inclination 2.4845
AscendingNode 113.715
LongOfPericenter 92.432
MeanLongitude 49.944
}

RotationPeriod 10.65622
Obliquity 28.052 # old value: 26.73
LongOfRotationAxis 168

Albedo 0.50

Rings {
Inner 74658
Outer 140000
Texture "saturn-rings.png"
# Bjorn Jonsson <http://www.mmedia.is/~bjj> recommends this
# color for rendering Saturn's rings. No idea if it's right,
# but it looks nice
Color [ 1.0 0.88 0.82 ]
}
}

and heres the files to load into your medres folder...Anyone else who has the same card yeah please let me know if your having this problem too...

http://cybermindtraveller.freewebspace.com/celestia/files/saturn.zip

Thanks again bud!

[Rassilon]

I have noticed that as well and figured it was just a problem that Chris new about. I had tried to put a ring around an Earth type planet with a cloud texture and got the same problem. I have noticed it on every driver build since I started useing Celestia. At least 4 months. I thought I had mentioned this to Ras a while back but maybe I didn't. I have just learned to avoid rings and clouds together. If it could be fixed that would be great.

Yeah my card before didnt do this! Thats whats wierd...so I suppose then chris will see the same thing...Thats a BIG relief to know its not my card cause I hate to have to take it back...considering it was ordered online from Florida and Im in Utah! Thanks for the reminder D!

[chris]

This is a bug in the way cloud textures are handled when vertex shaders are enabled. If you're not using vertex shaders, you won't see the problem. I'm working on a fix right now . . . I apologize for the continued delays on the 1.2.5 prerelease, but this is a pretty important issue. It turns out it's not only an problem with ringed planets, but on any planet with a cloud texture; without rings however, it's only noticeable with a narrow field of view. Thanks for catching this one Rassilon!

--Chris

[billybob884]

Speaking of rings, isnt juptier supposed to have a very tiny ring?


Mike M.

[Rassilon]

Yes it does...

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/jupiter.htm#rings

[D.Edwards]

Jupiters ring can only be seen from the terminater to night side whaen its backlit. The ring is mostly composed of sulfur dust from Io from what I understand.