[karajorma]

I wonder if you can target nodes in this build. I noticed something for quite some time though. In the tech database in the ships section, no matter what campaign you are using, the only ships that are being displayed are from the Ulysses through the Hatshepsut or the Myrmidon through the Hatshepsut. The Shivan ones aren't being displayed in the tech database

Where did you get the idea that they are meant to be displayed?

If you've never played a mission where they were added to the techroom they won't be displayed unless the tables say that they should be.

[Mehrpack]

Really?  I didn't remove that, but I did change the order it's reset in when you exit the game.  I'll try to tweak that up and get it working properly again for the next build.
[...]

hi,
aha, doesnt know that, but i works, so that if i ending the game the desktop had his normal gamma.
the only time if i had the wrong gamma was, when the game crash to desktop.


another question: its possible to adding a slider or dropdownmenu for FSAA in the luncher, maybe?

Mehrpack

[Pnakotus]

I've got shield recharge problems with this build too.  It doesn't seem to stop, it's just reeeeeeallly slow.

The 'ship sticking out the back of the vortex' problem has been more or less present with different ships for a long time.  Most work fine, but some have always had their ass visible behind the vortex.  I don't know enough about how it works to suggest a solution.

[taylor]

another question: its possible to adding a slider or dropdownmenu for FSAA in the luncher, maybe?

Someday, but not soon.  I've got code for it but it's post 3.6.9 at the earliest.  And it's enough of a change that I'll probably wait until after I finish some of the newer OpenGL code before I try and merge it in.

[Darklord42]

I just got a new laptop HP pravilion dv8210 with a AMD Turion 64 processor and ATI Radeon express 200M 128mb graphics card and I have a total of 1.25Gb ram, though 128mb of it i'm sharing with the graphics card.

on my other computor I ran evreything on Open GL because Direct3D8 was ran as a silde show but on this computor I found Open GL to be slow and D3D8 to be just fine. The only problem though is that evironment lighting doesnt seem to work on Direct 3d8 mode and when i select environment maping not only does it do nothing but the clear cockpits turn white. Is this a problem with direct 3d or could it be something i could fix?

[Herra Tohtori]

Currently, there are close to nothing but problems in D3D mode, as far as I know.

What I would do is to first try OpenGL with different builds of FS_Open, and if the OpenGL mode still didn't work, I would try to install either newer or older drivers for the graphics card and try the OpenGL mode with different driver versions. If it still didn't work, I would only then turn on the D3D.

As for D3D, I don't think it has been actively supported in a while, so the latest mediavp's for example will quite likely cause bugs like the white cockpit glass and stuff. If you have to use D3D, get an older build and older media_vp's, they *should* work...

I don't understand why OpenGL shouldn't work on your laptop.

[Darklord42]

realy thats odd.  as far as models were concerned I thought D3D8 looked better, why hasnt it been supported?  Id rather not revert back to old drivers, that could posably cause trouble, but who knows.  As I said D3D is fine on 1024x768 resolution and  if i lower the ambiance it looks great. I guess i could live with out env maping.  I tried use specular alpha env mapping and that seems to have ok results. oh well.

When i say Open Gl is slow  it particularly slows down when ever a high poly model shows up. I already tryied pre-pofspewing. D3D doesnt have this problem
even on low resolutions

[Goober5000]

realy thats odd.  as far as models were concerned I thought D3D8 looked better, why hasnt it been supported?

For a very simple reason: we don't have any active D3D8 programmers.

Find us a programmer who's willing to maintain D3D8 and we'll be more than happy to support it again.

[taylor]

... as far as models were concerned I thought D3D8 looked better ...

Which often times has more to do with video drivers (especially where ATI is concerned) than you might think.  Often the drivers are optimized for speed over quality, and the quality can vary wildly even between driver versions.  Sometimes it will look really bad, other time it will look great.  Make sure that your drivers are actually setup for good quality in OpenGL before just writing it off as a basic OpenGL quality issue.

[CP5670]

I think most of the image quality differences between D3D and OGL stem from the fact that they use different default values for the ambient factor (or possibly interpret the same value differently). If you adjust that properly, it will look practically identical in both of them.

I do agree that the high poly models occasionally slow down the game too much (the Hecate model is a good example), but from what I've seen that also happens under D3D and on both green and red cards.

And the image quality differences between driver versions are very subtle unless there is a bug. I doubt you could tell without comparing screenshots side by side. There are sometimes significant speed differences, but the only IQ differences will come from bug fixes or changes in the default settings that can be easily adjusted back to the old configuration.

[Zacam]

Indeed. I make it a habit whenever ATI moves from one version number to the next (Say, 5.x to 6.x) to getting ALL of the drivers in said (5.x) series and then testing them on my card. It takes about 2-3 weeks, is often frustrating, boring and intensive as hell, but I _know_ beyond a doubt that whatever driver get's settled on is the best for my machine.

Don't forget that for driver settings (ATI COntrol Panel or Catalyst Control Centre *shudder*) some options are tied to BOTH forms of rendering. I've noticed the best results in OpenGL games with AA and AF if D3D is set to the same level as OGL, even if the game isn't even D3D capable. It's strange, but true.

[wolf]

Indeed. I make it a habit whenever ATI moves from one version number to the next (Say, 5.x to 6.x) to getting ALL of the drivers in said (5.x) series and then testing them on my card.

AFAIR the ATI drivers version is made of year and month of their release. So change from 5.x to 6.x doesn't mean that there are some revolutionary changes.

[Darklord42]

... as far as models were concerned I thought D3D8 looked better ...

Which often times has more to do with video drivers (especially where ATI is concerned) than you might think.  Often the drivers are optimized for speed over quality, and the quality can vary wildly even between driver versions.  Sometimes it will look really bad, other time it will look great.  Make sure that your drivers are actually setup for good quality in OpenGL before just writing it off as a basic OpenGL quality issue.

unfortionatly if I do that for open GL it would run slower than ever.  I think i should just wait till the next driver update and see what happens

[taylor]

unfortionatly if I do that for open GL it would run slower than ever.  I think i should just wait till the next driver update and see what happens

Exactly how slow is it?  What FPS are you getting for OpenGL and for D3D?

[Darklord42]

In open GL mode framerate is real good somewhere around 50 then as soon a  high poly herc or of ships come into view it will drop down to 5.
In Direct 3d It wil go as high as 60 frames and then drop to a reasonable 30 frames when of action is taking place.

[ARSPR]

Hey, about missions in simulator:

+ There are no "holes" in played mission list anymore.

+ Ctrl+Shif+S does work in mission list (no need for -allslev anymore).

GREAT WORK 

I have just noticed that unavailable missions are still unavailable. In pre-RC5 builds sometimes you get blank lines instead of them. Now  these lines are erased (so I thought there were no holes), but you still can't access them.

Example: Due to "Replay mission" bug, I cannot access "The Stars are Right" in my new Derelict pilot. In RC4 I got a blank line in its position, in RC5 its line doesn't appear.

Is it a bug? or is it done in this way by design?

(Nevertheless if I press Ctrl+Shift+S I get the full list even "missing" missions, as expected)

[Nuke]

is anyone else getting a hard ctd without explanation on script errors? a script i was working on for a new lead indicator, which ran fine on rc4, caused a crash under this build, and didnt give an explnation.

[neoterran]

I am having a problem where my Alt+Pause doesn't work in the Freespace 2 main campaign, not sure if this is a bug or not or if there is another reason, i dont' play the main campaign very much.

[neoterran]

Also, there is a bug with alt-tab switching to the desktop causing BSODs on windows intermittently (not every time) in the nvidia minport driver since around the last couple builds.

[Zacam]

In open GL mode framerate is real good somewhere around 50 then as soon a  high poly herc or of ships come into view it will drop down to 5.
In Direct 3d It wil go as high as 60 frames and then drop to a reasonable 30 frames when of action is taking place.

Yea godz. You _start_ at 50? And it drops to _5_? That is bad. Do you have vsync enabled or disabled?

With vsync enabled on my system I start at 85 and maintain it pretty consistantly. The lowest it's ever droped to is 45. Without vsync I start at 120 and rarely drop below 80. (40 fps is still pretty significant a drop though.)