System requirements (running on Celeron 300, 16MB Savage4)

[ET]

My father wants to run Celestia, and his computer (running Windows 98) has a Celeron 300A CPU, 128MB of RAM and a 16MB Savage4 based graphics card. The FAQ page says that a Pentium processor with 64MB and a 8MB graphics card (optional) is enough to run Celestia. However, he gets about 2 seconds per frame on the full version about 2 frames per second on the small texture version.

So, should Celestia run on such a system? If so, do you have any guess why it runs so slowly? If not, it may be a good idea to update the FAQ.

[alphap1us]

Hi ET,
You could say that what your dad has is runing Celestia, although I understand his desire to make it work better. Make sure you are using Celestia 1.3.2, update Windows and much as possible, and then install new graphics drivers from the dealer, after you have update windows. You can also turn off a few thing in the preferences so that Celestia will be faster and less pretty.

Hope this helps.
Joe

[Don. Edwards]

Well the simplest answer is that the Savage series cards had terrible OpenGL support. So that is the main reasom Celestia is not working very good. As stated before make sure you get the newest drivers for the card from its manufacturer and not from anything from Microsoft as the drivers from them seldom have much in the way of OpenGL support. The only other thing that could be done is to upgrade to the minimum of a GeForce2 video card. Your father then would have support for more of Celestias features.
Good Luck.

Don. Edwards

[t00fri]

I agree with Joe and Don,

perhaps its worth adding that I have used Celestia during 1 year with quite smooth performance with a GeForce 2 /32MB card (+ modern NVIDIA drivers). The CPU was a PIII 1Ghz /512 MB RAM, however.

Specular reflections, Saturn shadow on the rings and eclipse shadows were working fine. Shadows of the rings on Saturn etc are of course not working at this level.
Bye Fridger

[ET]

Thanks, guys, I found a copy of GLSetup on the net, but it didn't do much good. He's willing to buy a new card. Something low end like a Radeon 9200SE should be enough, I'd imagine. However, will that give him a reasonable frame rate, considering the other limitations of his system?

[Don. Edwards]

I am sure if you look around you can find a good price on a GeForce FX 5200, 5500, 5700, or even the low end 5900. They will start at about $99.00 all the way up to $179.00 for the 5900se. If you really want to Celestia in all its glory with the most compatible cards do with NVidia instead of ATI. The ATI support has gotten better but the 9200 will not give you all the wiis-bang features that are so easily implemented on the NVidia cards.Just food for thought.
There could be another issue though. Because the system your dad is using is an older one there may be a problem with some of the newer video cards. The main thing you need to find out is if your system supports AGP 4x at the minimum. If it doesn't you may, I say may run into trouble. If you have any of the computers original manuals and paperwork look through that to see if you can find your systems AGP specs. Celestia is more insterested in a good video card than the systems CPU. Although a faster CPU will always spped things up a bit. A Celeron 300 is technicly condered very out of date at this point. We are talking of a five to six year old computer. What we in the computer repair industry have strated calling door stops. Sorry I don't want to say your computer is bad or a piece of junk it is simply were your class of computer has moved to. You don't even want to know what we call anything Pentium 2 or erlier. Finding memory and many other upgrages for a machine this old is starting to get very difficult. The memory used on these systems SDRAM, is getting expensive because they have all but quit making it for the most part in favor of DDR SDRAM. I hope this has helped some. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. As a computer profesional I am always willing to give any info I can.

Don. Edwards

[ET]

I know that my father's computer is old. It's an old computer of mine, two generations back. I know its specs as well as technical limitations well. There's not much point in a more serious upgrade, though, if Celestia can run well with that CPU, since the computer is fine for his other needs.

BTW, what features are missing on ATI cards? Celestia looks quite good on my Radeon 9800 Pro. What would an NVIDIA card provide over that?

[selden]

FWIW, I'm having no problems with a 5700LE in my ancient Asus P2B-DS motherboard with 2X AGP.

Other than it being rather slow, of course

[smbika]

Hi,

My system is a VAIO with a P4 Hyperthreadder with a half gig RAM and a
Radeon 9200 AGP (0x5961)
Internal DAC(400MHz)
128 MB
with BIOS info: BK-ATI VER008.015.051.001

and i am running celestia 1.4.0 pre5.

What i need to know is what do i need in order to access the openGL 2.0 renderpath or "make it happen"...control-v cycles thru basic, multitexture and opengl vertex program. Should there be another entry saying something like openGL 2.0? Also, is the above system adeguate for the new multi-star shadow coolness (it is as it was out of the box from around march of this year) or do i need updated openGL drivers. I know updating drivers is a good idea but in this case is it necessary? Also i do not know where to find the current version info on the openGL drivers.

Thanks,
Sean

PS - the planet/object clipping still exists (you get too close and it disappears like when you do an alt-g on a planet)...any word on its fixing?

Thanks again

[selden]

smbika,

My understanding is that you need a Radeon 9500 or better in order to see the new eclipse shadows. Radeons less than that don't have the shader language support.

Please read the thread Celestia 1.4.0 prerelease FAQ

You need to be running Celestia v1.4.0pre5
When it starts up it should be using "Render path: OpenGL vertex program"

Type one Ctrl-V.
It then should be using "Render path: OpenGL 2.0"

Type Ctrl-V several to step through the Render paths that Celestia can use with your card.

Alternatively, open the Help menu / OpenGL Info

Look for
GL_ARB_fragment_shader
and
GL_ARB_shading_language_100

Both are required in order for "Render path: OpenGL 2.0" to work.

[smbika]

Thanks!

Sean

[smbika]

And although it it quite marvelous, for me, the multishadow double star illumination features are not what made it all (sadly, perhaps, past tense) fun for me. I did so enjoy flying around on a planet or satellite's surface (like the death star trench - wacky fun!) but this is now gone. We touched on this one before, I know, and i am not harping. Just sad. So, for now, I will use 1.4.0-pre<whatever> for the fluid transitions and faster less jerky renderings, and 1.3.1 for the down on the deck fly-bys.

Sean

[Gatormac]

I agree with Joe and Don,

perhaps its worth adding that I have used Celestia during 1 year with quite smooth performance with a GeForce 2 /32MB card (+ modern NVIDIA drivers). The CPU was a PIII 1Ghz /512 MB RAM, however.

Specular reflections, Saturn shadow on the rings and eclipse shadows were working fine. Shadows of the rings on Saturn etc are of course not working at this level.
Bye Fridger

Fridger, please tell me that you run Celestia in vanilla mode. I can only run Celestia with "smooth" performance if I have the most basic of textures (2k tops) enabled. Even with the default textures going to Jupiter or Saturn is choppy when all the moons come into view. Galaxies work, but if I visit several Galaxies or Nebulae the thing will slow down or crash. Forget about virtual textures. They work, but extremely slow and unstable, almost gauranteeing a crash. Could you clarify what you are able to run "smoothly" with your setup? Do you run any add-ons?

Athlon XP 1800 (1.5Ghz)
512MB DDR Ram
Nvidia Geforce2 MX400 64MB
Forceware driver v.66.93

[ET]

I installed a GeForce 5200 in my father's computer today, and Celestia (1.3.2) now runs beautifully. I haven't tried anything apart from the demo script (which strangely enough was zoomed in too much, which wasn't the case earlier), but it's definitely usable now.