Earth's Bump height

PlutonianEmpire · Post #21by **PlutonianEmpire** » 28.04.2005, 05:00

Don. Edwards wrote:Well I just check the Nvidia site and found that you need custom drivers from Dell. I will see what I can find but I can no longer access the customer areas as my account there has been closed. If you are the registered owner for the notebook you can see if you can get in and find them. I will keep looking for an alternate download site.

Don. Edwards

Thanks, although my father is the one who paid the money for it. it was given to me as a gift, originally for college (which i've since flunked out of), so my parents are the registered owners of it, as far as i can tell.

Don. Edwards · Post #22by **Don. Edwards** » 28.04.2005, 05:07

Thats ok. I am in and I will get the drivers and upload them to the server for you. That way there is no guessing. I am real close to getting them.

Don

PlutonianEmpire · Post #23by **PlutonianEmpire** » 28.04.2005, 05:09

Don. Edwards wrote:Thats ok. I am in and I will get the drivers and upload them to the server for you. That way there is no guessing. I am real close to getting them.

Don

alrighty.

Don. Edwards · Post #24by **Don. Edwards** » 28.04.2005, 05:17

Here is the link to the latest driver as of Dec 2004 for your Inspiron.
http://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R88794.EXE

It is a 19mb download but I think it is well worth getting these and updating.

Don. Edwards

PlutonianEmpire · Post #25by **PlutonianEmpire** » 28.04.2005, 05:27

Don. Edwards wrote:Here is the link to the latest driver as of Dec 2004 for your Inspiron.
http://ftp.us.dell.com/video/R88794.EXE

It is a 19mb download but I think it is well worth getting these and updating.

Don. Edwards

Installed.

now i gotta restart....

PlutonianEmpire · Post #26by **PlutonianEmpire** » 28.04.2005, 05:47

Restarted, and no error messages

Don. Edwards · Post #27by **Don. Edwards** » 28.04.2005, 05:47

I will get back to you tomorrow about the files and we will see if we can get you up to speed.

Don

PlutonianEmpire · Post #28by **PlutonianEmpire** » 28.04.2005, 05:48

Don. Edwards wrote:I will get back to you tomorrow about the files and we will see if we can get you up to speed.

Don

Allrighty. See ya tomorrow! g'night

Don. Edwards · Post #29by **Don. Edwards** » 29.04.2005, 02:42

Hey PlutonianEmpire,
Here are the files.
They are all in DXT5 DDS. While this makes them larger than a standard DXT3 texture the quality will be slightly better.
Also you don't have to worry about plugging in a specmap as I integrated the specmap into the main texture, something that isn't done much by anyone anymore. It should trim the needed memory requirements a little.

Just click the title to download.

Realistic Earth 4k DDS
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_Dark.zip

Earth Pale Blue Dot 4k DDS
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth-Light.zip

Earth Normalmap 4k DDS with hieght setting at level 1
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_normap_4k1.zip

Earth Normalmap 4k DDS with hieght setting at level 2
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_normap_4k2.zip

Earth Summer Clouds 4k DDS
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_Clouds_4k.zip

Earth Summer Clouds 2k DDS Just in case the 4k don?€™t work
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_Clouds_2k.zip

Solar System SSC file with all Earth settings preset
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/solarsys.ssc

Now after downloading all the zipped textures unzip them and drop them in your Textures\Medres folder. Than move your present solarsystem.ssc out of the data folder and put it in the main Celestia folder and than place the downloaded solarsystem.ssc from me into your data folder. Now launch Celestia and see how things are running. The one thing that I can see going on is the 4k cloudmap may not draw right and look distorted. if this occurs than go in the data folder and open the solarsystem.scc and go to Earth's section and set the cloud speed to "00" and than retry Celestia. Zoom around, Grab the Earth and move it around and turn it around and see how the frame rate feels. Than you can try zooming in to see closer to the surface. Check the normalmaps performance by going to the Earth?€™s terminator and looking for surface detail. I have the normalmap 2 plugged into the solarsystem.ssc because in testing the level 1 looked a little to flat.

If everything seems to be working fairly good than you can use 4k DDS textures. If things are to slow than the first texture to replace would be the clouds. Try the 2k version of the clouds and see how things work. Clouds are the one texture that can really put your graphics card into overdrive. It is the transparency on top of the fact that they are moving.
After giving all this a try let me know how it went. If you see anything weird things happen try taking a screencap of it.

Talk to you latter.

Don. Edwards

PlutonianEmpire · Post #30by **PlutonianEmpire** » 29.04.2005, 03:38

Thanks. i downloaded all. only earth_dark.zip is corrupted. i'll now try using the textures in celestia.

fsgregs · Post #31by **fsgregs** » 30.04.2005, 19:15

Don, thanks for the excellent info. Its great as usual.

Nvidia has now updated their Win XP drivers to version 7189. Here is the link to the latest one.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_71.89.html

Frank

symaski62 · Post #32by **symaski62** » 01.05.2005, 00:29

http://www.nvidia.com/object/3dstereo_71.89

PlutonianEmpire · Post #33by **PlutonianEmpire** » 07.05.2005, 01:41

Don. Edwards wrote:Realistic Earth 4k DDS
http://216.231.48.101/~impulse/PE/Earth_Dark.zip

I noticed that this file is "invalid or corrupted"

Don. Edwards · Post #34by **Don. Edwards** » 07.05.2005, 04:30

The internet service I have does not play well with ftp uploading. I am comstantly finding that the files I upload are damaged. This is not much of an issue with small files like the one above. I will try and replace the file. But this is the very reason I haven't tried to replace the damaged files on Earth Central. There size makes retrying the upload a hit and miss affair. Until I have access to a more stable conection I am afraid that is how it has to be.
I am not even sure how I am going to upload the HD 28185 Add-on at this point. I am starting to rename and migrate all the files into a new directory structure in preperation for release.
So I am kind of limited at this time. This is one on the reasons I may start offering my textures on CD.

Don. Edwards

PlutonianEmpire · Post #35by **PlutonianEmpire** » 07.05.2005, 04:34

Don. Edwards wrote:The internet service I have does not play well with ftp uploading. I am comstantly finding that the files I upload are damaged. This is not much of an issue with small files like the one above. I will try and replace the file. But this is the very reason I haven't tried to replace the damaged files on Earth Central. There size makes retrying the upload a hit and miss affair. Until I have access to a more stable conection I am afraid that is how it has to be.
I am not even sure how I am going to upload the HD 28185 Add-on at this point. I am starting to rename and migrate all the files into a new directory structure in preperation for release.
So I am kind of limited at this time. This is one on the reasons I may start offering my textures on CD.

Don. Edwards

I see. Well, good luck with all your endeavors in that regard.