Celestia 1.7.0 windows installer

[cartrite]

it is part of modern app development to have everything automated. it's not because it is difficult, it is rather because that local development are not reliable. One can generate a build and create an installer locally, but first your local environment could affect the output of installer. for example, Inno version, visual studio version. Also one could easily inject malicious code if they generate the installer locally.

and also it is about making sure that the .iss file works, since every commit to GitHub would go through the automated installer generation process, if the iss stops working it will show up in the build status.

This post seems to suggest that the build you are doing is done on github? With dependency libs on github, with the compiler on github? If not, doesn't everyone build "locally"? with their version of vcpkg, visual studio, cmake, etc.?

[cartrite]

I remembered something about installing with this installer and installing to anywhere one wants too. On my second attempt, it bypassed the option to choose an install directory. I finally remembered why. Before compiling an installer with Inno, a unique GUID should be generated. Tools/generate GUID. This will make this installation unique and always give the option to browse for a location to install. I forgot to do this for the installer I just uploaded. I did a git pull today and rebuilt the x64 versions. It has a unique GUID. So windows will treat this as new app and not install to a previous installation unless that what is wanted.

The installer I uploaded recently had the GUID from the last setup installer I uploaded last February. So if that was used, the option to browse will probably not be available. The installed version from last February will probably be overwritten. This is probably also true for any installer with an iss file extension that does not have a unique GUID. I added the new build from today where the installer from last week was posted. See here viewtopic.php?p=160551#p160551

[selden]

@cartrite

This new installer (dated 21-jan-2023) works fine for me under Windows 10 Pro 22H2 build 19045.2486.

The updated celestia.exe (with the native Windows user interface) seems to work fine, too.

Thanks!

Edited to add:

Now I am getting some inconsistent crashes of both the qt and native versions. I dunno why.
dmp files are available if anyone's interested.

Further info:
The crashes happen while Celestia's showing the Earth. No additions or changes have been made to what's provided by the installer: No Addons, no edits to celestia.cnf, nada.

However, I do see the crosshair cursors in both native and -qt versions when they're run in windowed mode. In full-screen mode with 1.7's Native Windows GUI, the cross-hair cursor is very briefly visible just as the the cursor is moved into the menu bar at the top of the screen. When it's lsewhere on the screen, it's not visible. FWIW, the cursor usually isn't visible in full-screen mode for me even for 1.6.1 and 1.6.2.2. That's always been the case.

I am seeing the cursor in 1.7's Qt interface when Celestia's running full-screen, though.

[cartrite]

What's happening before it crashes?

Added after 1 minute 29 seconds:
I'm at work now. I'll run them in the morning

[DaveBowman2001]

What's happening before it crashes?

I also just recently downloaded the new installer...

On the native installer, Celestia crashes on every third or fifth attempt....what happens is that it's either it stops completely at Earth or just as the Sun comes to be viewed, a CTD occurs


Also I've noticed that the customized "crosshair" is missing from the cursor


Other than the bugs above, the new installer loads much faster than the previous 2022 version

[cartrite]

I know Selden used the installer from last week and didn't have these crashes. At least he didn't mention it. So something must have changed between now and then. The only thing I can think of is a code change to globulars that was committed since. Try turning globulars off.

Added after 6 hours 26 minutes:
I can't reproduce a crash. I tried both versions numerous times. Turned on all labels, went to all planets on both versions and no crash. I'm not sure what can be going on except that maybe the upload got corrupted somehow. I'll try to download what is here and see what happens.

Added after 15 minutes 53 seconds:
I downloaded from here and installed Celestia, and still can't reproduce a crash with win32 or qt5. So I got no idea what's going on. I have cross hair cursor too. So I don't know. Maybe you can supply a cel url?

[selden]

Neither version of Celestia is crashing for me now, either. (Globulars are still enabled. I even went to 47 Tuc) I'm wondering if it's a "phase of the moon" effect: Something that was in the field of view but isn't now was being disruptive during startup. Sometimes they crashed immediately when the splash screen closed, other times they managed to pan toward the Earth before dying.

ETA: As I mentioned, Windows did store their crash dumps, which I haven't bothered to delete. I suspect they might not be very useful. I'm guessing things like symbols might not have been included in the binaries, for example.

[john71]

I managed to crash Celestia win32 1.7 with accidentally pushing the "1" key during startup.

Also when running the DEMO, the fps is only 14-15 at the start.

Sometimes I can see the software is struggling with my GeForce GTX 1050 Ti to reach 15 fps, which is insane.

Added after 12 minutes 26 seconds:
In this state the software is pretty much unusable in Windows.

[cartrite]

I was able to install the installer I downloaded this morning on my linux system via wine. They take forever to start but once they do both the win32 and qt5 versions run normally. No crashes. The FPS got as low as 3 during the star and constellation parts. During the solar system part the FPS hovered around 35.

Added after 12 minutes 44 seconds:
I tried pushing the "1" key too but no crash running on wine. Maybe I need to drink some more.

[john71]

I wasn't able to crash it again with the "1" key, so it was probably a coincidence.

[cartrite]

I booted into windows and ran the demo with the win32 version. During the star tour with the constellations on I got as low as 60 fps. During all the other parts of the demo, I averaged between 150 and 220 fps. I even got as high as 300+ at the end watching the milky way. Not sure why your fps would be so low. At startup, I tried the "1" key along with all the others around it, no crash.

[selden]

@john71

What CPU do you have? Celestia is single threaded and runs only on a single core. It's often CPU bound.
Getting only 15 fps on a GTX 1050 Ti seems *very* strange.

The lowest dip I see in demo.cel is about 33 fps. That was briefly at the very beginning and for a longer period of time later when it was leaving Saturn.

This is on an ancient 2nd gen 3.3 GHz Core i3 with an equally ancient Nvidia Quadro 600. The Q600 gets only 5 fps when running Furmark, an OpenGL benchmark. High-end graphics cards supposedly get about 350 fps or so when running Furmark. (Cinebench 15 refused to run its OpenGL benchmark at all on my computer.)

[cartrite]

I modified start.cel to start at about the time of the crashes. The qt version failed to start once but there was no output to show why. The little cursor was bouncing up and down but then it disappeared and nothing. The splash screen never appeared. So I tried running in a terminal. Didn't do it again. Everything ran normally. I'll try running them again tomorrow with different times.

[john71]

What CPU do you have? Celestia is single threaded and runs only on a single core. It's often CPU bound.

4x3.2 Ghz Intel Core, should be enough.

Added after 13 minutes 58 seconds:
With Celestia qt I got 14% CPU load and 35% (!!!!) GPU load, when I was just looking at Earth from a distance (after the startup).

The fps is 14 (!!!!).

After a while the GPU went back to 12%, but the fps was 13.8.

After that the GPU load went to 35% again.

WTF?

[onetwothree]

We have a bug with galaxy rendering which caused fps drop, I've made a mitigation for it not merged yet.

[cartrite]

This is version c23206e7 and is for testing the galaxy rendering committed today. I had a slight problem I found. When I first started the win32 version, all the stars were about 5+ pixel squares, the screen was frozen, and Celestia crashed. On all other attempts, the win32 version started with these same squares for a second, they disappeared, and then started and ran normally. After trying different star styles, I found that this only happens with star style set to points. The qt5 version was not affected. So be aware that I seen this, but this setup.exe should let John71 and others see if this affects the fps.

Celestia-x64-setup.zip

[selden]

I seem to have found a way to crash Celestia c23206e7 consistently:

Using a specific Celestia URL to view a Cube object in the solar system and wiggling it around slightly always crashes Celestia within a few seconds on my computer.

Detailed step-by-step instructions and the associated Addon are in this Zip file:

cube-crash.zip

Viewing this Addon crashes Celestia.

(3.63 KiB) Downloaded 782 times

Here's a screengrab of the render settings, in case they matter:

screengrab of render settings

Edited to add: I get 60fps with this; my display's refresh rate is locked to that maximum.
Edited again: FWIW, I didn't go looking for this: the crash first happened while I was viewing a more complicated mesh, so I pared it down to the minimum to see if it was consistent. It was.

[john71]

Celestia 1.7 win32 has decent fps rates (35-60), although the DEMO managed to produce only 28 fps at the constellations.

Celestia 1.7 qt is unusable.

It can produce 60 fps in the interstellar space, but at the neighborhood of planets it is only 20 fps.

Close to the planets it sinks to 6-7 fps, like close to Mars. Earth orbit can produce the same very low fps (7.3) without any movement or HD textures.

Added after 35 minutes 35 seconds:
Celestia 1.6.2.2 has 52-60 fps on the same PC.

So I have to repeat: Celestia 1.7 is currently unusable in Windows.

[selden]

@john71

It's really strange that your GTX 1050 Ti is so much slower than my ancient (and slow) Quadro 600. On my computer, Celestia-qt 1.7 gets 60fps in a maximized window while looking at the Earth with clouds and shadows enabled.

Some things that might be related (other than bugs in Celestia's OpenGL code, which certainly aren't ruled out)

In Celestia:

Do you have the hires textures installed? (I don't.)

In hardware:

What's your screen resolution? 4K, maybe? (Mine's 1080p )

What version of Nvidia's graphics drivers are installed?
(v397.93 seems to be recommended: see https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/forums/game- ... -for-gtx-1050-ti-graphic-card/ )
(Mine's only 376.84, newer ones aren't available for the Quadro 600)

When running v1.6.2.2, what Celestia Render Path is enabled? OpenGL 2.0? If not, could you try selecting it? (Type a ctrl-V several times.)

(I'm wondering if it's using another, faster, Render Path; if so, that might suggest an OpenGL performance issue. My understanding is that v1.7 uses OpenGL 2 or better exclusively.)

Could you run the Furmark graphics benchmark?
(It's supposedly based on OpenGL, so low performance there might also indicate an OpenGL issue. My computer gets only 5 fps.)

[john71]

In Celestia:

Do you have the hires textures installed? (I don't.)

In hardware:

What's your screen resolution? 4K, maybe? (Mine's 1080p )

It is a clean install from Cartrite's file, nothing more.

It runs in a window at 1080p.

I have the latest driver AND I can run almost any modern game with it.

I have to mention that if I unmark all celestial bodies in Preferences (Qt), the fps goes up to 60. Stars have no effect on the fps rate, but if I mark Planets, then it goes down like crazy, to 8-10 fps.

So it is not a video card issue in my opinion.

Added after 26 minutes 57 seconds:
OK, I have some results: it seems that Celestia 1.6.2.2 installs some OTHER files to the system, which Celestia needs.

My modest win32 fps rate were BEFORE I installed 1.6.2.2.

Now the win32 Celestia 1.7 has a constant 60 fps.

WTF??????

The Qt version is still tragic though.

Added after 10 minutes 46 seconds:
The Qt version dislikes Mars. No change, it still has a 9 fps rate there.