Anti-aliasing feature

Post #1by **ElChristou** » 01.04.2006, 12:58

What a disappointment...

A year ago, I was downloading for first time Celestia; after roaming in every corners of the soft I have done some bugs report inherent to my platform...

Me: "hey guys, antialiasing don't work on my GeForce4Mx..."

Guys: "normal, your card don't support antialiasing..."

Me (resigned): "ah... ok, Tx"

Since, I'm playing, enjoying, making models and working on some improvements, a year has passed and still, every time I approach a planet or a model I cannot avoid thinking that I really should change my graphic card...

Yesterday, I've been hable to test a commercial soft also based on OpenGL (I won't tell with one), and...

... antialiasing DO work... planets are smooths... :cry:

So I won't change my card... What a disappointment...

Post #2by **selden** » 01.04.2006, 13:29

If your card supports anti-aliasing in the hardware, then you should be able to turn it on in the Display Properties menu. Have you looked for that feature since the last time you upgraded the Nvidia driver?

p.s. Of course, it's probably somewhere else in the Mac software.

Have you tried turning on the Anti-Aliasing feature in celestia.cfg recently?

p.p.s I changed the subject of the thread so people will understand the discussion.

Post #3by **t00fri** » 01.04.2006, 13:34

Chris,

What you see in terms of anti-aliasing in general depends on the settings for your card. Dependiing on the software, anti-aliasing may be switched on upon start-up or NOT. Celestia by default has AA turned OFF, since the performance drops significantly with higher AA.

celestia.cfg wrote:#-----------------------------------------------------------------------
# Set the level of multisample antialiasing. Not all 3D graphics
# hardware supports antialiasing, though most newer graphics chipsets
# do. Larger values will result in smoother edges with a cost in
# rendering speed. 4 is a sensible setting for recent, higher-end
# graphics hardware; 2 is probably better mid-range graphics. The
# default value is 1, which disables antialiasing.
# AntialiasingSamples 4

So you got to comment out the line
# AntialiasingSamples 4

Also on your computer, there should be a GUI that comes with your GeForce driver that allows you to override Celestia's default settings.

So just to make sure: Were you aware of these various possibilities and facts?

Bye Fridger

Post #4by **ElChristou** » 01.04.2006, 14:10

Selden, Fridger,

Yes, I'm aware of the setting in Celestia.cfg, by default I always have it uncomment but this don't change anything...

Now concerning Nvidia driver and settings, here things are a bit more complicated: the powerbook G4 12" is the smallest of Apple line, so apparently the card used to fit in this ultra thin and dense laptop is quite specific; there is no drivers (apparently) available at Nvidia but, the upgrade of the driver is delivered by Apple within some more general upgrade of the OS. In all case there is no GUI to do some change at the driver level...

Now, the point is that I met various small apps using OpenGL where things are smoothed; in some others apps no... I don't know what to think...

The only thing I can find in my System is the further xml; if someone see something that could help with antialiasing, please tell me...

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
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      <string>NVIDIA Inc.</string>
      <key>GL_RENDERER</key>
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      <string>1.1 NVIDIA-1.2.26</string>
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PS: I doubt changing something in this file will help, because for example the app I was testing lately support antialiasing with those same settings...

Post #5by **selden** » 01.04.2006, 14:26

Did you try the value of 4 to 2 for the antialiasing?

Post #6by **ElChristou** » 01.04.2006, 16:20

selden wrote:Did you try the value of 4 to 2 for the antialiasing?

Yep, 4 or 2 is the same... nothing...
I suppose this issue as really something to do with the driver vs Celestia... but how to find what's wrong... I really don't know...

Cham · Post #7by **Cham** » 01.04.2006, 18:11

Chris,

I'm pretty sure I understand what is the source of your frustration : The NVidia GForce4MX video card cannot do real time AA. The hardware can't do it. But some software applications can do it in some way which do not rely on the video card (software AA). It isn't real AA as defined by video card manufacturers. For example, Celestia can do software AA on orbital paths, but not on the planets themselves (because it's too heavy on the system). Maybe a software AA solution can be added to Celestia, but currently it can't do AA without the hardware. The other app you're using has some software AA features built in.

Post #8by **ElChristou** » 01.04.2006, 23:03

Cham wrote:Chris,

I'm pretty sure I understand what is the source of your frustration : The NVidia GForce4MX video card cannot do real time AA. The hardware can't do it. But some software applications can do it in some way which do not rely on the video card (software AA). It isn't real AA as defined by video card manufacturers. For example, Celestia can do software AA on orbital paths, but not on the planets themselves (because it's too heavy on the system). Maybe a software AA solution can be added to Celestia, but currently it can't do AA without the hardware. The other app you're using has some software AA features built in.

Ok, I suppose this is what happen between those apps...
So definitively I must change my card...

Tx for the explanation.
Bye