Celestia 1.7.0 Development Thread

[Janus]

Speaking for myself, I have never stopped tinkering.
Things here were leaning toward entropy, and I got so little feedback I stopped bothering.
So while I may not agree with all of the decisions, there at least movement to debate.


Janus.

[LukeCEL]

onetwothree, can you give us all an update on the development?

[Janus]

@selden

Okay, round something I don't want to know.

Instead of repairing over laps in a small area.
I tried fixing the problem instead of the symptom.

Here is Commit 5344 with my support libraries.
I replaced them since mine are newer and this way all are done by the same compiler.
Bundled executables are for x86 & x64 both.
Statically linked stand alone, no support libraries needed.

Looking for feedback on the alternations to view options.


Janus.

P.S. File removed, please see later post for current version, 5344 as of this writing.

[BorderShed]

for feedback on the alternations

Hi Janus,
Caveat : angels fear to tread and I dont know what I am doing but my feedback on alternations are :-
I have downloaded, from your post 19.12.2018, 19:45,
http://celestia.simulatorlabbs.com/Downloads/Commit_5338/
but although it is ? a standalone it gives an error when I run the exe :-
VCRUNTIME140.dll is missing (me = Windows7)
googling suggests Win10 should be ok ?, but I am unsure how to copy into/install this on 7.

same thing happens with your latest celestia-Win-5344.7z
sorry I cant help,
maybe if I had another glass of wine that would help ?

[Janus]

@Bordershed

I feel a deep sorrow that I must apologize for my compiler.
When I moved my libraries from VS2013, to VS2015.
I followed all the rules, I did it the right way.
However, it decided in all its wisdom to randomly change settings.
In particular, about half were reset to /MD from /MT, this means VS2015 altered my settings.
It did so with no warning, nor did it show in the logs.
It simply changed them from multi threaded static linkage, to multi threaded DLL linkage.
Which in simple terms, means VS2015 decided I was going to use its redists, despite me carefully setting everything not to.

I am recompiling everything right now.
I will try to post later, though it may be tomorrow.


Janus.

Added after 4 hours 3 minutes:
Okay, this has once again, officially been fun.

VS2015 is being quiet, though I suspect it is an act.
I think it intends to miscompile again tomorrow in revenge for figuring out this stuff.

Here are x86 & x64 versions that are as best I can tell, fully statically linked now.
I had to go through every support library by hand to get everything.
The gui was showing one thing, but compiling another.
Not the first time VS has broken stuff, which is why I am working on getting codeblocks working.

These should run just fine, they do in a bare W7 VM with nothing installed except openshell & virtualbox drivers.

Still looking for feedback on the view options menu changes.


Janus.

[BorderShed]

@Bordershed
I feel a deep sorrow that I must apologize for my compiler.
When I moved

I also must apologize,,, that I only understood about 1% of your following stuff.
The last time I did any compiling Kernighan & Ritchie were in short trousers and windows was a twinkle in you-know-who's eye

Your previous post#55 link still gives me the MSVCR error*
I have found my way to an Alexell website with a similar download, but that also gives me a MSVCR error
So, I expect someone more able than I will be along soon to give you feedback on your new "view options menu changes" (perhaps they have already by PM ?)

** I expect it is a simple matter to install, reluctantly, yet more MS stuff to overcome this dll error but, but,

I do have a liveLinuxMint, perhaps someone could do a dummyguide to installing this there ?

[Janus]

@BorderShed

Try the download in #65 instead.

download/file.php?id=4703&filename=Celestia_5344_ViewOptionCheck.7z

It is a VS2015 fully static linked version in x86 & x64 both.

However, it does require W7 or later.
It will not run on XP, something I am debating fixing.

If you are still having problems, PM or e-mail me direct.


Janus.

[onetwothree]

VCRUNTIME140.dll is missing (me = Windows7)
googling suggests Win10 should be ok ?, but I am unsure how to copy into/install this on 7.

You need to install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015

[BorderShed]

Try the download in #65 instead.
download/file.php?id=4703&filename=Celestia_5344_ViewOptionCheck.7z
It is a VS2015 fully static linked version in x86 & x64 both.
However, it does require W7 or later.

No, I needed the whole 1.7.0 thing first, hence trying your link in #55 which gave me the msvcr error,
BUT
I think I see my problem,
I had chosen the 7z download, not the .exe installer !! hehoo sorry about that
I do like portable softwares and instinctively choose zip versions if they are offered

That means that I cannot demo Celestia to friends/relations (not even the 1.6.1 version?) on a USB stick then ?

Windows 7 and 8.1 available, maybe W10 laters. I think I still have XP in the attic somewhere

You need to install Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015

That is what I had hoped to avoid, for example if I were to do that on a friends machine we are open to the old --"it was working all right until you did , , , "

[selden]

Windows Celestia v1.6.1 portable is available at https://portableapps.com/apps/education/celestia_portable
It'll run from a USB thumb drive.

[BorderShed]

portable is available

Brill.! Nice find, thanks Selden.

[OT] Now I will be able in my retirement, to demo the spacecraft that I helped fly, to my offspring (and prob. bore them to tears ! lol! ) [/OT]

[Janus]

@BorderShed

I had misunderstood the problem.

To be portable you will need

download/file.php?id=4668&filename=celestia-win32-1.7.0%7Egit20181130%2B04fa23b.7z

From #51 by onetwothree.

Then

download/file.php?id=4703&filename=Celestia_5344_ViewOptionCheck.7z

From #65 by me.

Extract the 7z from #51 onto a flash drive.
This will create a celestia directory.
Then extract the 7z file from #65 into the celestia directory.

You will then have two files, celestia_5344_???.exe that you can use.
This will run from a usb stick.


Janus.

[BorderShed]

Thanks @Janus I can see your Render dropdown ! yea ! but sadly not much else

EDIT later : I think I should be doing this in "Help Central" ! Mods please move so as not to clutter the Development topic !

I had previously downloaded @onetwothree 's QT but,
on click the exe there is a pause for 20 or 30 seconds when nothing seems to be happening, no splash nor rotating wheel
then a Celestia screen pops up for a moment and then crashes

so I had given up on it !

Now with your help and your 5344 alongside I at first got the same type of crash
(different icon on the task bar)

However, after a few tries, I got a popup saying Windows had applied compatibility settings to it (new to me, never seen that before)

1.jpg (18.31 KiB) Viewed 24745 times

and then running again - Lo! I can use, slowly and jerking, all the drop-down menus including the Render/view one

and it looks good
but sadly the rest of Celestia is a no-go, just a white screen

[selden]

Bordershed,

If Celestia's v1.7's main window is empty (white), that suggests that there's an OpenGL incompatibility. i.e. 3D graphics isn't working.

Please select the Help menu item "OpenGL Info" and show us what that says.

As a separate test, does Celestia v1.6.1 work OK?

[BorderShed]

an OpenGL incompatibility.
does Celestia v1.6.1 work OK?

Good call Selden, thanks.
Yes 1.6.1 was working normally but
1.7.0(portable) (as suggested by @Janus) was non-working, as reported above, on my desktop with this OpenGL Info :-

Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Intel Bear Lake B
Version: 1.4.0 - Build 8.14.10.1930
Max simultaneous textures: 8
Max texture size: 2048
Point size range: 0.500000 - 10.000000

I moved it all to a laptop with this info :-

Vendor: Intel
Renderer: Mobile Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset Family
Version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2302GLSL version: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2302
Max simultaneous textures: 8
Max texture size: 4096
Point size range: 0.500000 - 10.000000

and it is working on the laptop Yea! ,,, well sort of !
all except I have lost the stars !!
I can label them and all the labels show up but not the points, fuzzy points nor scaled discs

Horror of horrors this anomaly continued after I shut down the 1.7.0 and re-installed a 1.6.1 on the laptop(OGL2.1.0) - no star points in it

I had to do a system restore to a few days ago to recover,
a very nervous time .

[Janus]

@BorderShed

It appears your chipsets only support OpenGL 1.4 & 1.1 in hardware, though the latter has a software renderer.
There is a current push to require OpenGL 2.0 or later in current source.

However, you might be able to use mesainjector, or perhaps put a mesa based opengl32.dll in the celestia directory.
As for as I know, Mesa falls back to software rendering, so it should still run, even if slow.
Not sure, just a couple of thoughts.


Janus.

[cartrite]

I feel all of your pain. I been trying to get win 7 going as a virtual machine with VirtualBox. It was me against Microsoft and Oracle. I had the issue that Oracle could not see my graphics controller. So I was stuck with opengl 1.1 in VirtualBox. I finally got the right combo of settings and got it running 2.1. Also tried VMware but that also said there would be no 3d acceleration. But I'm sticking with Oracle with Windows 7 running out of the box. No updates. Just Oracle's guest additions. Anyhow, this is the menu I see. Nothing is cut off.

All in all,good job. A little late but..... Brings up the issue of not having support for pre opengl 2.0. It was difficult to get opengl 2 on virtual machine software. So until I did, celestia crashed and never ran.

cartrite

[Janus]

I am currently looking into a mesa3d derived opengl32.dll replacement for windows.
This takes advantage of windows oddness of local files taking priority over system files of the same name.

In particular what I am hoping for is an openswr based answer, as it is purely software rendering based.
While the performance would be a joke, it would at least run and display.


On the other hand, perhaps the devs would consider doing a survey using something like

https://github.com/SaschaWillems/glCapsViewer

Tweaked to create a simple opengl support report which can be posted in its own thread.
Strip out exact HW setup of course, only include pertinent information like capabilities.
If a particular version or call is supported, and whether it is on HW or SW.
This would give a survey of both usage numbers, and hardware spread.

That is just my own two pence though.


@cartrite
Does my relayout of the view options look okay to you?
Started off as fixing some overlaps, went a little crazy.


Janus.

[BorderShed]

It appears your chipsets only support OpenGL 1.4 & 1.1

Desktop:
Version: 1.4.0 - Build 8.14.10.1930

Laptop:
Version: 2.1.0 - Build 8.15.10.2302
GLSL version: 1.20 - Intel Build 8.15.10.2302

Thanks @Janus, I am well confused now ! Does my Laptop have OGL 2.1.0 or 1.20 ? !

Either way, the celestia1.7.0.portable? appears (so far) to run on the laptop except for the mystery of the vanishing stars ! Which error propagates thro' shutdown of 1.7.0 and re-running of 1.6.1. So despite supposedly being portable it must be writing to my C: somewhere. I thought that re-installing 1.6.1 would re-write any misdeeds in the registry but it seems not to, and I have to do a system restore to recover. [unless I am doing something dreadfully silly !, always possible]
My head hurts.

mesainjector does not run it either

Oh well, the 1.6.1 portable that @selden found for me is good for my requirements just now, the rest is curiosity

[Janus]

@BorderShed

This is all part of the fun that is OpenGL.
As odd as it sounds, OpenGL & glsl are not the same.

I still do not understand the logic of forcing the OpenGL update myself.
However, graphics stuff is not what I do normally, so there is a very good chance that the reasons go beyond newer is better.

If I can figure out how to compile mesa3d, I am going to try linking to its lib instead for a pure software render.
Annoyingly, the compile process uses python, which I hate, well hate is the wrong word, but I really strongly dislike it.


Janus.