I cannot run celestia

[Gamling]

My OS is windows Xp and I have a Voodoo 4 video card.

Yesterday I downloaded celestia 1.3.2. As I tried to open it my computer was rebooted. I looked on the FAQ page and it told to upgrade the opengl driver. I did it, but it didn't solve the problem. I then tried installing an old version of celestia (the 1.2.4 one) and it seemed to work in a window. When I tried going to the full screen mode my PC rebooted again.

I tried again by avoiding the full screen mode but when I tried going to Earth I couldn't see it.

By going nearer I saw my desktop on the surface of Earth and when I tried quitting the program my PC...well, it was rebooted again

I don't know what to do, I once used the 1.2.4 version on my PC and it gave no problem.

[selden]

Gamling,

Part of the problem is that Voodoo cards can only handle textures as large as 256 pixels on a side. Larger textures simply don't work.

Also, newer versions of Celestia make use of more OpenGL features than the older versions did, if the OpenGL library claims to support them. The "newer" features in the Voodoo OpenGL drivers are extremely buggy, however, and since 3dfx is no longer in business, there's not much hope of getting better ones.

You'll get better results if you disable hardware acceleration entirely. This will enable Microsoft's software OpenGL implementation. It's advanced features aren't so buggy, but are much slower.

I finally gave up in frustration and replaced my Voodoo 5 with an Nvidia Ti 4200 card. These days, I'd suggest upgrading to an Nvidia FX 5200. They typically cost about $50-100 depending on the features that are included. A model with a fan would be better than one without, though, which puts the price more toward the upper portion of the range.

Sorry.
You have my sympathy.

[Gamling]

Thank you Selden, your answer was wonderful!

I'll try disabling the acceleration and see if it works. I cannot change my video card, I did it two months ago! I didn't know that 3dfx cards could give this kind of problems.

Thanks again!

[Bob Hegwood]

Just adding my two cents worth...

I have absolutely *NO* graphics card or acceleration with my system,
and can still roam the universe with no problems. You absolutely do NOT
need to have a graphics card in order to use and enjoy Celestia.

What you *do* need are the latest OpenGL drivers for your graphics,
however they are set up. In my case, these are obtained from Intel.

It'd be nice to have a nice NVidia Card I suppose, but who cares? If I can
see 95% of the features used in Celestia without a graphics card, I think
I'll live.

Take care, Bob

[Gamling]

The problem is...I did it. I updated the opengl drivers but it doesn't work.

I downloaded OpenGL Generic Drivers 1.0.0.114. Is it the latest update?

Thanks!

[Bob Hegwood]

I downloaded OpenGL Generic Drivers 1.0.0.114. Is it the latest update?

Surely not...
I'm using 1.1.2 for Intel, but Intel hasn't updated their OpenGL stuff for
at least two years. Try a search for OpenGL and see what you can find
that will work on *your* machine.

Take care, Bob

[selden]

Bob,

He's using a card made by 3dfx.
They've been out of business for several years, so the OpenGL drivers are quite old.

[Bob Hegwood]

He's using a card made by 3dfx.
They've been out of business for several years, so the OpenGL drivers are quite old.

I understand that Selden, but I thought that maybe he had simply disabled
the graphics card entirely. Sorry. Was just trying to point out that I don't
have *any* graphics cabability, and I can still see the majority of features
offered via Celestia. Was thinking that maybe he could simply display
graphics via the PC's built-in graphics chip? <shrug>

Thanks, Bob

[selden]

Bob,

Actually you do get some 3D acceleration in the Intel chipset, just not as much as some other 3D chips provide

If you had no acceleration, that is, if you only had a 2D graphics display, you'd be using Microsoft's OpenGL software drivers, which are relatively bug-free, but slow and lacking some features.

Disabling all hardware acceleration, and thus using Microsoft's drivers, may be the appropriate thing for Gamling to do while running Celestia. It'll be slow but usable. Microsoft's current OpenGL routines have more features than the old 3dfx drivers have.

This same decision has to be made when running games. Some have been written to make the best use of 3dfx cards, some haven't.

[Gamling]

But how can I disable my 3D card? I tried disabling it from the direct x control pannell, but celestia still doesn't run...I'll look for later updates for opengl and see if it works

Thanks anyway!

[selden]

Gamling,

You need to disable hardware acceleration.

I'm using XP, but the procedure should be similar on other Windows systems.

+ Open the "Display Properties" window.

You can either open it from the "Control Panel" window or you can right-mouse-click on the backdrop of your screen, away from any open window, and select "Properties" at the bottom of the popup menu.

+ Select the "Settings" tab
+ Select the "Advanced" button (at the lower right of the panel -- a new popup window opens. Its title usually corresponds to the type of CRT you have.)
+ Select the "troubleshoot" tab (on the new popup window)
+ move the "Hardware Acceleration" slider all the way to the left
+ Click on OK to close the troubleshoot window
+ Click on OK to close the "Display Properties" window

Your screen may flash, or you may get a reboot prompt, depending on the "change display" settings of the Advanced/ General tab.

Does this help?

[Gamling]

Yes!

Now it works! Thanks for your patience!

[selden]

You're quite welcome.

[jshirey]

I also have a 3DFX card. The program would start in its window, but the window was completely white. Cursor over the window was an hourglass.
So I also moved the accelerator slider down and WALA! it now works. Although it starts at IO, not Earth...

[selden]

jshirey,

Unfortunately 3dfx cards are quite old designs and their OpenGL libraries are limited and buggy by today's standards. By turning hardware acceleration down or off, you've told Windows to use the Microsoft software-only OpenGL library instead. Although it's rather slow and missing many functions, they have managed to get out most of the bugs.

At some point you might want to consider upgrading your graphics card. The ones based on Nvidia's FX 5200 chipset are relatively inexpensive and can show all of Celestia's eye-candy.

[ronbarry]

I cant open celestia.

I get a note entitled "PROGRAM ERROR".

celestia.exe has generated errors and will be closed by windows. You will need to restart the program.
An error log is being created

I'm using windows 2000 professional 5.0.2195

AMD duron 1.10 gig
total system memory 522 mb
total physical 119 mb
free physical 45mb

I have downloaded and removed celestia 5 times with the same end reault
what I do to view celestia"

ronbarry2@optonline.net

[selden]

Exactly what procedure did you use to download Celestia?

1) You must left-click on the link (do [i[not[/i] use the right-click popup menu to "save link as").

2) You must not use a download accelerator.

Celestia is hosted by SourceForge's world-wide network of high-speed file servers. The link that looks like it points to celestia.exe does not in fact do so. It links to another Web page which provides a list of servers. "right-click save as" would have saved a copy of that Web page. Trying to run a Web page usually doesn't work very well.

[steffens]

ronbarry,

maybe you should have told us, which "celestia.exe" is not working.
Is it the installer you downloaded from the web, or did installing finish without errors and running celestia itself is not working?
Are you sure you downloaded the full installation (about 12MB) or is there a chance you only downloaded the celestia.exe of any pre-release?

steffens

[Rusty]

For what its worth the Mobility Radeon 9000 in my laptop also causes Celestia 1.3.2 to crash. Disabling graphics acceleration was the solution here as well.

[maxim]

total physical 119 mb

That sounds quite less. I wonder how w2k will run on that at all.

maxim