Celestia Forums

selden wrote:
Bob,

Could you post a list of the problems you're having with pre-11 to the bugs forum, please?

The only problem I've seen you mention is one with the crosshair.

Selden,

The cross-hair cursor problem is the main one, since I can't SEE the new cursor. However, I think the rest of my problems are occuring because of the lack of graphical capabilties. As I believe I have mentioned before, my machine has NO graphics hardware, except for the simple Intel 82815 controller which came with the thing. I'm also limited in that my machine has only 256Meg of memory, and THAT causes me some trouble with 1.3.1 Pre11. Stars do not display correctly (Different from the nice fuzzy balls I see using 1.3.0 and YES, I'm aware that stars can be displayed differently in Pre11), and any movement is extremely frustrating since the display keeps freezing, jumping, and catching up.

The cross-hair problem I can probably solve with another cursor, but the rest of the problems I don't think I can cure unless I upgrade my machine with more memory and a good graphics card.

As requested I've post this message here.

Take Care, Bob

Bob,

My system is just a 256MB 500MHz P3, but I don't see the "freeze and catch up" problem, except when "new" objects come into the field of view. The system pauses when it loads new textures. Adding memory won't help much with that: you need a system with much higher performance CPU and disk. However, one way to improve this is to use low resolution textures for objects you don't care much about at the moment. (e.g. rename the \medres\ folder to \nomedres\.)

If the freeze you see isn't related to objects being displayed, you should consider TS Chen's recent addition to the FAQ: shut down all other programs.

Under Windows, the cursor color and shape in pre11 is controlled by your setting for Windows' "precision cursor". You can change it in Control Panel / Mouse Properties / Pointer.

I haven't added this to the FAQ because the cursor is changing again for Celestia 1.3.1 final (or pre12, whichever comes first).

Does this help?

Selden,

I have *some* of these problems on my system using 1.3.0, but they're not NEARLY as pronounced as when using Pre11. I DO shut down all other programs, and I'm running a Free-RAM program at the same time.

I *think* my problems are all related to the fact that I don't have a fancy grahics card.

Too, and just so you know, I'm using some of the relatively monstrous-sized planet resolution texture maps on 1.3.0, and again I'm not having any real problems displaying the planets. Lores images? Yech!

At any rate, I LOVE this program. Thanks for the advice.

Take care, Bob

Selden,

One other note concerning my experience with Pre11...

It seems that the main problems occur on my machine when I have the "galaxies" rendering option checked. After some experimentation, Celestia seemed to execute much more like my trusty 1.3.0 after I un-enabled the Galaxy rendering option.

Just thought you'd like to know. I realize that this feature utilizes resources, but again, it seems to be a lot worse with 1.3.1 Pre11.

Take care, Bob

Bob,

I have a laptop with a meager 16MB Savage Graphics card that seems to handle Celestia well (though I've loaded heftier texture for some items, I've been frugal in the process). Shutting down the background programs has improved performance considerably, though not perfectly.

Additionally, when installing Celestia, all other programs must be shut down. This is a MUST! Having other programs running during any installation process does ugly things to your computer and the programs themselves. These problems may not show up for some time (i.e., everything may very well appear normal at first, and there is no way to determine when the problem will manifest itself), but I assure you they will show up.
Consequently, if you've installed Celestia without shutting down other programs; shut all other programs down/uninstall and reboot. Then shut down all unnecessary programs (virus scanners included) and re-install Celestia. I know it's a pain (and I wish I would always follow my own advice).

Tech Sgt,

I'm aware of the conflicts and problems which may arise when installing a program with other systems running in the background. I installed it with absolutely NO applications running. There were a LOT of Windows (behind-the-scenes programs running though.)

I have saved a copy of the Pre11 package on my PC, and maybe I'll see if I can re-install it after examining some of the background programs.

Thanks for the advice, but keep in mind that my machine has NO special graphics cababilities.

Take care, Bob

Okay Selden,

I re-downloaded 1.3.1 and installed it using all of the advice I've received...

Some of the glitches I mentioned earlier seem now to have disappeared, but have been replaced with some new ones...

Observe the following comparison of the Jupiter rings system as seen first via 1.3.0.


And now via 1.3.1


I'm using the SAME SSC values, the SAME picture files, the SAME view options, etc.

What gives?

It looks as if the image file for Jupiter's rings is missing- when this happens you get strange effects like the wrong textures appearing in different places!

Jupiter's rings aren't part of Celestia, so you have to install them yourself. solarsys.ssc has to be edited and you have to put the surface texture file in one of the textures folders. I'd guess that that either you made a typo in the name of the image file or you didn't put it in Celestia's medres texture folder.

Does this help?

Selden and Jack...

I'm aware that I have to have the PNG file in the appropriate directory, and that the SSC file has to contain the proper references.

I've spent most of the evening here looking at this problem, and I just CANNOT see the error.



The code above references the "jupiter-rings.png" file which DOES exist in the Textures/Medres directory and this file works fine using 1.3.0. This problem is ALSO occuring with the rings of Saturn. However, both the Neptune and the Uranus rings work fine under 1.3.1.

I just do NOT know what the problem is... Sheesh!

One other note for you Selden... I noticed that in the new "solarsys.ssc" file, there are many places where an object's texture is referenced in a manner which may cause problems for some of us. An example would be the reference to Jupiter's main texture map as follows:



For those of us who like to play with textures, this may cause a problem since it is possible to have a "jupiter.png" texture as well as a "jupiter.jpg" texture. Not that big a deal, of course, but I thought I'd show you how MUCH time I've spent trying to figure this ring thing out.

Take care, Bob

Bob,

Certainly your SSC code fragment looks OK.
Have you enabled Celestia's "log console" to see if any complaints are showing up there?
(Type a ~ after starting Celestia.)

With regard to your other comments...

When you type an "r" or "R" Celestia will switch to the next lower or higher resolution images respectively. (Well, actually, it just selects whatever images are in the lores, medres and hires directories. It doesn't care what their actual resolutions are.)

The intent of texture declarations of the form "name.*" is to make it possible for the textures of different resolutions to be of different types. Previously, all three resolutions of textures had to be the same type of image. In other words, you could only specify one of them in the .SSC file and that's what had to be in the lores, medres and hires directories. I.e., previously you had to have \lores\saturn-rings.png, \medres\saturn-rings.png and \hires\saturn-rings.png in order for "r" and "R" to do any good.

Now you can use "r" and "R" to toggle among \lores\saturn-rings.jpg, \medres\saturn-rings.png and \hires\saturn-rings.dds, for example. So long as the main part of the name is the same, Celestia doesn't care which of the supported formats is available. (It looks for PNG, JPG and DDS, in that order.)

Also, Celestia now has a more generic method of selecting among various surface texture image maps. It's a lot more convenient than editing solarsys.ssc, but (unlike "r" and "R") it doesn't work for clouds or rings, only for surface maps (including bumpmaps and specular reflection maps).

You first create an SSC file which lists all of the different surface texture maps that you want to look at, and then you can use Celestia's "right mouse button popup menu" to select among those surface textures for a particular body. It's more clumsy than I'd like, but it works.

I put together an example which provides access to the dozen or so surface maps of Mars that I've collected. See http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/gallery-002.html#11

Personally, I prefer to use AltSurface declarations to make the new high resolution "virtual textures" available instead of modifying solarsys.ssc.

Does this help at all or have I completely misunderstood what you're trying to say?

No, you've helped me understand some more about Celestia's capabilities and I *do* appreciate your thoughts. I did NOT know about the ~ entry in order to see the log, so I'll give it a try.

I'm also currently in the process of updating my Intel video driver and OpenGL. Just so's you know, I'm REALLY trying to make this thing work.

By the way, I have NO lores or hires textures on my machine. Everything I have is contained in the medres folders. (More than one because of Addons)

Thanks very much for your help - AGAIN.

Take care, Bob

Sorry to keep "bugging" you Selden , but there is something definitely wrong going on with Celestia and my graphics files.

I managed to get the Jupiter rings to look similar to what they were on 1.3.0 by fooling with the jupiter-rings.png image for over 3 hours using the Xnview program as someone else here on the forum said he had had luck with that program.

I am still having problems with the Saturn rings though...

In a nutshell, why is it that a graphics file which works PERFECTLY under 1.3.0, will not work under 1.3.1Pre11?

As you suggested, I used the tilde (~) to display the log as the planets were loading, and there we absolutely NO errors. The rings files were found and were simply displayed. It's just that they are not displayed correctly for some reason. I've tried resizing them, using different sets of image resolutions, all kinds of things. As I said, I *did* get Jupiter's Rings to appear similar to the way they looked in 1.3.0, but I still don't understand why this is happening.

Alas, I'm beat now. Going to bed for a change.

Take care, Bob

Bob,

I'm sorry to say, that I'm at a loss. "It works fine for me." Below is a screen-grab of Celestia v1.3.0 on the right and 1.3.1p11 on the left, showing Saturn from essentially the same viewpoint, using just the Basic rendering path. I disabled all hardware acceleration, so it's using Microsoft's software-only v1.1 OpenGL library.

This is using Celestia with identical solarsys.ssc and lores & directories as shipped with Celestia v1.3.0. (For testing, I copied the v1.3.1pre11 Celestia executable into the root of the v1.3.0 directory, but I get exactly the same appearance when using v1.3.1p11 as it was shipped, and with Nvidia's hardware drivers.)


(this links to a larger image)

System:
256MB 500MHz p3, WinXP Pro sp1
128MB GF4 Ti4200, Renderer: GDI Generic, Version: 1.1.0

(normally I use Nvidia's Detonator v44.03, OpenGL 1.4)

Selden,

I think I'm getting closer to the answer here... Seems that the images I have trouble with are usually created with Photoshop, AND my system is using both OpenGL *and* DirectDraw. Now, I don't know beans about either OpenGl or Directdraw, but I read somewhere on the OpenGl page that problems can arise if you're trying to use both at the same time.

My next experiment will involve trying to disable directdraw and see if that helps.

Again, thanks for the help.

By the way, my system is OpenGL 1.1 (I thinK).

Take care, Bob

Bob,

Celestia has the OpenGL info in its Help menu.
The manufacturer's driver software version number is buried in the display properties' Advanced menu.

Selden,

Just a bit more information for you...

I've updated my Intel 82815 graphics controller driver to the latest version, and I'm using OpenGL as follows:

Version: 1.1.2 - Build 4.13.01.3196
Max simultaneous textures: 2
Max texture size: 1024

Now THIS might have something to do with the problem, because the Saturn rings texture I'm trying to use is 8192x2 I believe. This texture DOES work on my machine under 1.3.0 but not under 1.3.1.

Curious... Very Curious...

At any rate, thanks again for the help. I'll keep playing with it until I can give you an explanation.

Take care, Bob

Ah, your Saturn ring texture is too big - resize it to 4k, or download Jens' 4k replacement texture, and all should be well. Although there was supposed to be an upper limit of 4k on ring textures in Celestia, Jens found that 8k would also work ... until the most recent Celestia releases.
See http://www.shatters.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3403 as the relevant thread.

Grant

Bob, try this. I have no explanation why, but it worked for me in fixing the same Jupiter Rings issue.
Remove the rings from the Medres folder and simply place them in the Lores folder.

To all who have tried to help...

I have managed to FIX this darned problem after all. I simply found a saturn rings texture PNG at CVS that was sized at 1024 x 64, and the thing now looks BEAUTIFUL as it should.

Grant, I tried using ALL of Jens textures to no avail. Although these textures worked FINE in 1.3.0, they would not display properly in 1.3.1.

Tech Sgt. Chen, THANKS for the tip, but I have now FIXED the problem.

Man, that was a pain.

Selden, THANK YOU for the tips... Without your advice, I couldn't possibly have figured out what the problem was. Yer a GENIUS! I OWE ya a drink. (Come to think of it, I'M gonna have one or two now)

The stars still don't look as good as they did in 1.3.0, but I'll live with it. The cross-hair cursor still bothers me, but I'll live with it. I am NOW a proud 1.3.1 Pre11 user.

Take care, Bob