Celestia 1.5.0 Star Rendering Bug

[extremecrew]

I don't know if this is a bug or if it's my system, but I've tried searching for this problem in this forum and I can't find a solution. I'm currently using an ATI x1300 PCI-e with the Catalyst 8.3 drivers on an Intel Pentium D 2.80Ghz on Windows x64 Professional (Windows drivers updated as of 3/24/08), 2GB of RAM, and no onboard video. I've also tried the Omega Drivers today with the same symptom, using DriveSweeper to revert back to the Catalyst drivers (so the system is clean of old drivers)

Starting from the main screen on Celestia bootup viewing Earth with a magnitude limit of 15.13, no fuzzy point and no scaled disk stars are visible. When I cycle through the Render modes, those particular style stars are visible under Basic and Multi-texture render paths. Under any of the OpenGL render paths, only the point type star style is visible.

When I change the render path to OpenGL 2.0 or OpenGL Vertex program, I can browse to a star like Rigel Kentaurus B (again using fuzzy point or scaled disk star type) and as soon as I'm within 1 ly of the star, the model is seen, but as soon as I zoom out farther than 1 ly, the star dissapears (no light ring or halo around the star, just black). I've tried also using Phoenix's latest SVN win32 binary build, but I just reproduce the same problem.

I know that there is an error with ATI cards and Macs (I've tried later builds with an updated Mac OS 10.5.2 on a 2008 MacPro at my work with the same problem as I'm having on my machine), but I thought it was more Apple/ATI related more than anything. If this problem is indeed a bug, I'll just post this on the bug tracker.

Eric

[chris]

It sounds like we may have to disable point sprites on all ATI hardware on all OSes. *sigh*

--Chris

[Reiko]

I use ATI and have those options with no problems.

[selden]

Reiko,

What ATI graphics hardware is in your computer and what version of Catalyst is installed?

[Reiko]

Reiko,

What ATI graphics hardware is in your computer and what version of Catalyst is installed?

I have an X800XL and I don't use the catalyst drivers anymore, I've been using the omega drivers. The one I have now is omega 3.8.421

But even before I switched to the omega drivers I never had any problems running celestia.

[fordag]

I also have the problem of not seeing any stars if I choose fuzzy Points or scaled discs.

Here is the relevant info:
Celestia v.1.5.0
Win XP SP2
ATI Radeon X1600/X1650 Series
Driver Date: 1/22/2008
Driver v.: 8.453.0.0
ATI CCC v. 2008.0122.1519.27310

Let me know if you need any other info.

Thanks,
David

[sanctus]

Hi i am new in this forum and forgive me for the bad english.Anyway i would like to report a bug the star vega it is like a fried egg.If anyone can take a look at the problem i would be greatful oh and i wanted to ask how can i upload a picture thank you again!

[selden]

Sanctus,

Which version of Celestia are you running?

Below the window where you write your post is the option
"If you wish to attach one or more files enter the details below."
If you attach a file which contains a picture, it will be uploaded.

p.s.
Please do not post the same question in several places.
Many of us read all new posts.

[extremecrew]

Just to post an update, on build 4241 for Mac OSX (compiled by Steven Binder), the 2008 Mac Pro with the default video card (ATI 2600XT) displays the scaled disks and point stars correctly under OpenGL 2.0. However, there are some odd geometrical shapes that seem to flicker in and out when stars and planets are zoomed in with the default go to command.
On my system, I still have the problem all the way up to build 4260 (compiled by Cartrite)

Eric

[sanctus]

that is the problem.oh and sorry for posting twice

[sanctus]

i forgot. i am running celestia 1.5.1
and this is my system spec

intel core 2 duo 3.0ghz
geforce 8800gts NVIDIA
2gb ram

i hope that will help

[chris]

that is the problem.oh and sorry for posting twice

Where is the bug in this image?

--Chris

[selden]

That's not a bug
That's the shape that Vega actually has.
It rotates at a high velocity (one rotation in about 12.5 hours), causing it to be very oblate.

A brief description is in Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vega
and details are available in
Peterson, D. M.; Hummel, C. A.; Pauls, T. A.; Armstrong, J. T.; Benson, J. A.; Gilbreath, G. C.; Hindsley, R. B.; Hutter, D. J.; Johnston, K. J.; Mozurkewich, D.; Schmitt, H. R. (1999). "Vega is a rapidly rotating star". Nature 440 (7086): 896-899.
which is available on arxiv at http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/ ... 3520v1.pdf

[sanctus]

Oh i am so sorry i didn't know about the shape of vega.Thanks for the link selden.But I'm curious why didn't you make it in other versions of celestia?
Thanks again and excuse me

[selden]

Celestia first became able to draw oblate stars in v1.4.0.
Vega was defined to be oblate in Celestia at that same time.

[Toope]

Hello!

There's an easy workaround on windows for this little problem, place a pre catalyst 8 atioglxx.dll file into the celestia directory.
A version 7.11 of the file is available here.

At least it worked for me...

-Toope

[selden]

I do hope you realize that loading random files onto your computer is not very safe. You don't know what it actually does. There are quite a few programs around which claim to do one thing and actually do something else, perhaps in addition to what it says it does.

[Toope]

I do hope you realize that loading random files onto your computer is not very safe. You don't know what it actually does. There are quite a few programs around which claim to do one thing and actually do something else, perhaps in addition to what it says it does.

That's true, so here's a bit safer way to obtain the file.
You'll need the setup files for a previous version of catalyst drivers.
The default directory for 7.11 files is C:\ATI\SUPPORT\7-11_xp32_dd_ccc_wdm_enu_54435\Driver\Driver\XP_INF\B_55190
There you should have a file called atioglxx.dl_.
Start command prompt and cd into the directory and type expand atioglxx.dl_ atioglxx.dll.
Now just move atioglxx.dll over to celestia's directory.

-Toope

[extremecrew]

I went ahead and downloaded the 7.11 Drivers from ATI's website. After expanding the package, and going into the specified directory, I expanded the DLL with no problem. After dropping this in Celestia's directory and starting Celestia, I'm still having the same issue. As of this moment, I'm using ATI Catalyst 8.4 Drivers, with Cartrite's compiled revision 4317 build, with Windows updated with today's updates.

This does give me the idea to go ahead and try to roll back to pre-8 Catalyst drivers, so I'll give it a shot.
Thanks for the tip!