Celestia Screen is Blank Upon Load

[Excalibur]

Celestia loads fine, apparently, there is no crashing or anything going on. I do notice on the splash screen that the fonts are very "chunky" though readable.

When Celestia is finished loading, I get a blank viewport, though the menus are navigable and there are no issues with the UI in terms of the border, menus, titlebar, etc.

The problem is the main viewport. The software works well on a crappy machine I have at work... though I don't know the specs.

The specs for my machine and for Celestia are:
Celestia version: 1.5.1
Info from help->OpenGL Info:

Code: Select all

Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Renderer: GeForce 7300 GT/PCI/SSE2
Version: 2.1.1
GLSL version: 1.20 NVIDIA via Cg compiler
Max simultaneous textures: 4
Max texture size: 4096
Max cube map size: 4096
Point size range: 1.000000 - 63.375000
Supported Extensions:
GL_ARB_color_buffer_float, GL_ARB_depth_texture, GL_ARB_draw_buffers, GL_ARB_fragment_program, GL_ARB_fragment_program_shadow, GL_ARB_fragment_shader, GL_ARB_half_float_pixel, GL_ARB_imaging, GL_ARB_multisample, GL_ARB_multitexture, GL_ARB_occlusion_query, GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object, GL_ARB_point_parameters, GL_ARB_point_sprite, GL_ARB_shadow, GL_ARB_shader_objects, GL_ARB_shading_language_100, GL_ARB_texture_border_clamp, GL_ARB_texture_compression, GL_ARB_texture_cube_map, GL_ARB_texture_env_add, GL_ARB_texture_env_combine, GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3, GL_ARB_texture_float, GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_ARB_texture_non_power_of_two, GL_ARB_texture_rectangle, GL_ARB_transpose_matrix, GL_ARB_vertex_buffer_object, GL_ARB_vertex_program, GL_ARB_vertex_shader, GL_ARB_window_pos, GL_ATI_draw_buffers, GL_ATI_texture_float, GL_ATI_texture_mirror_once, GL_S3_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_env_add, GL_EXT_abgr, GL_EXT_bgra, GL_EXT_blend_color, GL_EXT_blend_equation_separate, GL_EXT_blend_func_separate, GL_EXT_blend_minmax, GL_EXT_blend_subtract, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array, GL_EXT_Cg_shader, GL_EXT_depth_bounds_test, GL_EXT_draw_range_elements, GL_EXT_fog_coord, GL_EXT_framebuffer_blit, GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample, GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_gpu_program_parameters, GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays, GL_EXT_packed_depth_stencil, GL_EXT_packed_pixels, GL_EXT_pixel_buffer_object, GL_EXT_point_parameters, GL_EXT_rescale_normal, GL_EXT_secondary_color, GL_EXT_separate_specular_color, GL_EXT_shadow_funcs, GL_EXT_stencil_two_side, GL_EXT_stencil_wrap, GL_EXT_texture3D, GL_EXT_texture_compression_s3tc, GL_EXT_texture_cube_map, GL_EXT_texture_edge_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_env_combine, GL_EXT_texture_env_dot3, GL_EXT_texture_filter_anisotropic, GL_EXT_texture_lod, GL_EXT_texture_lod_bias, GL_EXT_texture_mirror_clamp, GL_EXT_texture_object, GL_EXT_texture_sRGB, GL_EXT_timer_query, GL_EXT_vertex_array, GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip, GL_IBM_texture_mirrored_repeat, GL_KTX_buffer_region, GL_NV_blend_square, GL_NV_copy_depth_to_color, GL_NV_depth_clamp, GL_NV_fence, GL_NV_float_buffer, GL_NV_fog_distance, GL_NV_fragment_program, GL_NV_fragment_program_option, GL_NV_fragment_program2, GL_NV_framebuffer_multisample_coverage, GL_NV_half_float, GL_NV_light_max_exponent, GL_NV_multisample_filter_hint, GL_NV_occlusion_query, GL_NV_packed_depth_stencil, GL_NV_pixel_data_range, GL_NV_point_sprite, GL_NV_primitive_restart, GL_NV_register_combiners, GL_NV_register_combiners2, GL_NV_texgen_reflection, GL_NV_texture_compression_vtc, GL_NV_texture_env_combine4, GL_NV_texture_expand_normal, GL_NV_texture_rectangle, GL_NV_texture_shader, GL_NV_texture_shader2, GL_NV_texture_shader3, GL_NV_vertex_array_range, GL_NV_vertex_array_range2, GL_NV_vertex_program, GL_NV_vertex_program1_1, GL_NV_vertex_program2, GL_NV_vertex_program2_option, GL_NV_vertex_program3, GL_NVX_conditional_render, GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap, GL_SGIS_texture_lod, GL_SGIX_depth_texture, GL_SGIX_shadow, GL_SUN_slice_accum, GL_WIN_swap_hint, WGL_EXT_swap_control


I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Core 2 Duo @ 2.13Ghz. As can be seen above I have a 7300 GT rig, though I actually have an SLI rig if that's an issue. Each card has 512 MB of RAM. In addition, my system RAM is at 2GB. Video driver version is: 6.14.11.6218 released on 6/29/2007 (I use this because some of the applications I run die with anything higher... weird, I know...)

I've searched through the forums but have not found anything relating to what I'm experiencing on a Windows box.

Any help would be appreciated.

[selden]

At least one Celestian runs it on an SLI rig (Boux), so by itself that shouldn't be a problem. Maybe he can comment.

Unfortunately, however, Celestia does depend on the drivers being relatively bug free. It includes essentially no workarounds, unlike most gaming programs, so your only recourse is to install the very most recent drivers when bugs like this are observed. I dunno if the Windows "restore" feature could be used to switch between driver versions.

Alternatively, you might try reducing the level of 3D hardware acceleration in the display properties menu. The software OpenGL library included with Windows does work, although it runs more slowly and displays less eye-candy.

[John Van Vliet]

edit 2:48 pm

[Excalibur]

Thanks for the replies folks.

I'm going to bite the bullet and update my vid card's drivers. We'll see if the newest ones don't make my apps puke

I had checkmarks in the options I wanted. What I mean when I say the screen is blank, is not that it's a big black field but that it's like, how can I explain it... In the old days of GL quake when sexy mirror effects were hot, if you happened to put two reflective surfaces facing each other, you got a hall of mirrors effect where you couldn't see anything but glitchy graphics. Now, Celestia isn't showing anything beyond the border, title bar, and menu. The main viewport holds onto whatever was above it and the rest is the same color as the menu bar. So, if you use the menus, a reflection of the the menus "stick" to the viewport. If you have a dialog (preferences dialog) in front of the window and you close it, the dialog is still visible. If you have anything in front of it, you will have a reflected copy in the viewport... I that's enough description

My guess? bad drivers. Going to update them and see what I see.

Anybody else have these kinds of issues?

[selden]

Just being conservative: have you tried disabling hardware acceleration to see what happens?

[Excalibur]

No, I hadn't done that...

Weird. I turned off 3d acceleration then it worked. I incremented it slowly to see when it wouldn't anymore and wham! It's working fine... I closed down Celestia and opened it up again and there are 0 problems now.

Well, stranger things have happened... looks like my eventual switch to Ubuntu is going to be a happier one.

Thanks for your help, this fixed it!

[selden]

That is indeed strange.
Oh, well, all's well that ends well!
You're quite welcome for what little help I provided.