Celestia now only works in 256 colors

[ozzyoscy]

Up to a year ago, Celestia worked fine. I tried it yesterday and the splash screen and the program loaded, but then there was an error sound and the window was white (I didn't see any of the screen, like planets and such). The window wasn't frozen really, just white or displaying the image of a previous window I had up. Plus, the mouse cursor would change to Celestia's cursor.

I tried different OS' in Compatibility Mode, then cleared that and ticked every box instead. That worked. Turns out it will only run when the 'Run in 256 colors' box is ticked. I tried it unticked with my display settings on medium/16 bit (as well as highest/32 bit), but the same problem occured.

In 256 colors it works, but the font and writing is iffy and moving around isn't smooth.

My computer is XP, I originally tried either 1.4 or 1.5 Celestia. I uninstalled it and reinstalled with the latest 1.6 one. I also did the whole removing-then-updating graphics drivers schtick.

Only thing that's solved it so far is the 256 colors move, but it's not perfect...

[Guckytos]

Hi ozzyoscy,

could you give some more details?

Which versions of Celestia did you use when? Did you use Celestia a year ago and then stopped using it at all and now when trying to use the same program version again got the error?

What graphics hardware do you use? What is it capable of?

And what does Celestia say about the capabilities? Celestia will give you information about that under "Help/OPENGL Info". If you copy the info from there to the forum it could make it easier to help you.

Best regards,

Guckytos

[selden]

With older graphics hardware, setting the display to a high resolution reduces the number of colors available. You might try reducing the resolution (to, e.g. 800x600) to see if that makes a difference.

[ozzyoscy]

With older graphics hardware, setting the display to a high resolution reduces the number of colors available. You might try reducing the resolution (to, e.g. 800x600) to see if that makes a difference.

I use 800 x 600 anyway, so it didn't work on that resolution. I've also tried 1024 x 768.

Which versions of Celestia did you use when? Did you use Celestia a year ago and then stopped using it at all and now when trying to use the same program version again got the error?

It was the same version that had worked last time (1.4 or 1.5). Now I'm using the 1.6 version, but it has the same issue.

What graphics hardware do you use? What is it capable of?

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS with '512.0MB approx. total memory'. It was capable of using Celestia fine, nice and smooth.

And what does Celestia say about the capabilities? Celestia will give you information about that under "Help/OPENGL Info". If you copy the info from there to the forum it could make it easier to help you.

Best regards,

Guckytos

Heh, whenever someone posts a long-ass file (especially HijackThis) on a forum, there's never a reply. But here goes!

Vendor: SciTech Software, Inc.

Renderer: GLDirect 5.0 /x86/MMX/SSE (Jul 20 2004 03:15:21)

Version: 1.4 Mesa 5.0

Max simultaneous textures: 2

Max texture size: 1024

Point size range: 1.000000 - 20.000000



Supported Extensions:

GL_ARB_depth_texture

GL_ARB_imaging

GL_ARB_multisample

GL_ARB_multitexture

GL_ARB_point_parameters

GL_ARB_shadow

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_crossbar

GL_ARB_texture_env_dot3

GL_ARB_texture_mirrored_repeat

GL_ARB_transpose_matrix

GL_ARB_window_pos

GL_EXT_abgr

GL_EXT_bgra

GL_EXT_blend_color

GL_EXT_blend_func_separate

GL_EXT_blend_logic_op

GL_EXT_blend_minmax

GL_EXT_blend_subtract

GL_EXT_clip_volume_hint

GL_EXT_convolution

GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array

GL_EXT_fog_coord

GL_EXT_histogram

GL_EXT_multi_draw_arrays

GL_EXT_packed_pixels

GL_EXT_polygon_offset

GL_EXT_rescale_normal

GL_EXT_secondary_color

GL_EXT_stencil_wrap

GL_EXT_texture_env_add

GL_EXT_texture_object

GL_EXT_vertex_array

GL_IBM_rasterpos_clip

GL_MESA_window_pos

GL_NV_texgen_reflection

GL_SGI_color_matrix

GL_SGI_color_table

GL_SGIS_generate_mipmap

[ozzyoscy]

When I try it in full screen, even when running in 256 colors, I get a 'fatal error' which says 'Could not get appropriate pixel format for OpenGL rendering'. This may be the error I hear when I open Celestia whilst not running 256 colors.

[selden]

If the date being reported is correct, then you're using an ancient graphics driver. You need to update to a current version.

[Boux]

ozzyoscy, looks like you are trying to run Celestia with a directX opengl wrapper.
This is not going to work.
Celestia rendering engine will not be able to initialize properly and will throw the pixel format error you are seeing.
I guess there is an opengl32.dll in your Celestia directory.
Please delete it and let the native Nvidia opengl driver do its job on its own.

[ozzyoscy]

ozzyoscy, looks like you are trying to run Celestia with a directX opengl wrapper.
This is not going to work.
Celestia rendering engine will not be able to initialize properly and will throw the pixel format error you are seeing.
I guess there is an opengl32.dll in your Celestia directory.
Please delete it and let the native Nvidia opengl driver do its job on its own.

There is not.

Only thing close to that is OpenAL32.dll in Celestia 160-ED, and some .dll files in normal Celestia.

If I remove the .dll files in Celestia, it won't start until intl, iconv and lua5.1 are put back. However, the original problem will still remain.

If I remove the OpenAL32.dll file in Celestia ED, Celestia ED won't run until it's put back.

I remember, though, that my computer doesn't like OpenGL and now I remember that I always had to delete or change a dll file to fix it...

However this is a new problem for Celestia, something must've changed on my computer.

If the date being reported is correct, then you're using an ancient graphics driver. You need to update to a current version.

Well Nvidia was updated yesterday or the day before, don't know about OpenGL.

[selden]

Unfortunately, you aren't actually using the Nvidia driver, so updating it won't make any difference. Celestia's OpenGL output reveals that you're using SciTech's OpenGL-to-DirectX translator. Since Nvidia's graphics driver supports both OpenGL and DirectX, the SciTech graphics driver is unnecessary. Apparently it was needed long ago, before OpenGL was available for Windows 98. It's not needed for XP, Vista or Win7.

To put it another way, you need to uninstall the SciTech graphics driver. Hopefully they provided an uninstaller with their software -- look for an entry in Start Menu --> ControlPanel --> Add or Remove Programs

[John Van Vliet]

--- edit ---

[ozzyoscy]

Unfortunately, you aren't actually using the Nvidia driver, so updating it won't make any difference. Celestia's OpenGL output reveals that you're using SciTech's OpenGL-to-DirectX translator. Since Nvidia's graphics driver supports both OpenGL and DirectX, the SciTech graphics driver is unnecessary. Apparently it was needed long ago, before OpenGL was available for Windows 98. It's not needed for XP, Vista or Win7.

To put it another way, you need to uninstall the SciTech graphics driver. Hopefully they provided an uninstaller with their software -- look for an entry in Start Menu --> ControlPanel --> Add or Remove Programs

YAYYYYY that worked. Spank you.

and to add go to the nvidia web site and use THAT driver
DO NOT use the microsoft "auto updates" wants to install
Microsoft REMOVED the opengl support in it

THIS DRIVER
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp-260. ... river.html

you will also want to install it in safe mode ( most time f2or f8 button during the first 3 sec. of boot) to insure that the Microsoft driver it NOT still in "protected programs" and auto reinstalls at the next boot . that can and dose happen .

No worries, I always download drivers from the Nvidia site. And like I said in my first post, I did all that driver cleaner, safe mode business.