Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: Gregster2k on May 18, 2004, 02:32:29 pm
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Okay, this is weird.
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
768MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Driver Version: Catalyst 4.5
---> The problem: Shinemaps are not working, period. Glowmaps ARE working, but shinemaps aren't. There are no shiny surfaces at all and I can't really tell if the specular highlighting is working but the suns do cast their appropriate lighting on ships. All detail settings in the ingame options are at maximum.
Long story short, everything just looks like HTL-accelerated standard FS2 graphics with no special looks except the light casting of the suns.
I think the Catalyst 4.5's are the culprit, as I never had this problem prior to them, but I'd like to know if anyone else is having this issue.
This is occurring on ANY FS2_Open build I use.
The worst of it all: When I disable HTL, the shinemaps come back, and when I reenable HTL, the shinemaps disappear.
Anyone else got this problem? In the meantime, I'm going back to the previous Catalysts I was using, 4.4.
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You know, I spent about 5 minutes trying to think of a 3 letter word that was an expletive and went before 'The problem'.
I think shinemapping has been a known problem on Radeons for a while now :(
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Well guess what...switching back to the 4.4's fixed the problem.
Moral: If you value your FSO DO NOT UPGRADE TO CATALYST 4.5! PERIOD!
Oh, and the "***" was just a spacer before "the problem"; ill edit the post...there...replaced with "--->"
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Good to know.
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If somebody could report this to ATI they might fix it in the next version.
If not, the possibility that the following drivers will produce this problem is higher...
Well I'm using a geforce... :p (don't say anything wrong.)
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*says something wrong about geforces*
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Originally posted by Gregster2k
The worst of it all: When I disable HTL, the shinemaps come back, and when I reenable HTL, the shinemaps disappear.
Anyone else got this problem? In the meantime, I'm going back to the previous Catalysts I was using, 4.4.
That's because if you're not in HTL mode, everything is done in software mode, and everything supports software mode.
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They are tightening up on some things that games sometimes shouldn't do in Cat 4.5 although they really buggered up on Forgotten Battles and made it worse instead of fixing it....anyways this may be good to look into. We aren't going to be on Cat 4.4 or earlier forever.
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Agreed, and since I just switched to a Radeon card I'd be greatful if the problem were fixed :)
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THis is very interesting, thanks for this post.
I wonder if this is the same problem we are having with spec on R7
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Its the readoen card whats the problem. Speaking from experience. I have a laptop - amd xp2800 m & ati radeon mobilty 9000 I have the same problem. But on either of my destops both with geforce 4 they are fine and shinemaps are working.
Shaun
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no, it's the radeon drivers, I have a Radeon 9800, and I developed shine mapping
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Originally posted by Gregster2k
Okay, this is weird.
ASUS A7N8X Deluxe 2.0
AMD Athlon XP 2000+
768MB RAM
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Driver Version: Catalyst 4.5
---> The problem: Shinemaps are not working, period. Glowmaps ARE working, but shinemaps aren't. There are no shiny surfaces at all and I can't really tell if the specular highlighting is working but the suns do cast their appropriate lighting on ships. All detail settings in the ingame options are at maximum.
Long story short, everything just looks like HTL-accelerated standard FS2 graphics with no special looks except the light casting of the suns.
I think the Catalyst 4.5's are the culprit, as I never had this problem prior to them, but I'd like to know if anyone else is having this issue.
This is occurring on ANY FS2_Open build I use.
The worst of it all: When I disable HTL, the shinemaps come back, and when I reenable HTL, the shinemaps disappear.
Anyone else got this problem? In the meantime, I'm going back to the previous Catalysts I was using, 4.4.
really?.. tell me something i don't know why don't you?.. shinemaps have been pretty much feckered with my 9000 since 3.2
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do they work pre-3.2?
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Given ATI's notorious history of buggy drivers, I have to wonder if ATI will even help at all. But yeah, definitely worth a shot. Give ATI the source code to the SCP, and, well, if they don't find a feasible way to fix this problem on the Catalyst driver end, they might just tell the SCP team of a workaround, or even a better way to implement it.
That WOULD be a far better option than repeatedly "fixing" the SCP to work with 4.5+ Catalyst drivers.
Turnsky:
I've heard about numerous probs with the 9000, i'm not surprised that you're having issues with them.
Bobboau:
Feels good to know that the developer of shinemapping on the SCP has a radeon card himself. :)
madaboutgames:
That's all well and good, but if the SCP team just didn't care about getting the SCP working on all cards, well, that would kill a large portion of a potential user base when the SCP finally goes public "big time" with a fully featured, stable FSO. Granted, ATI's drivers suck, but that is no reason to give up hope immediately. Somebody's gotta try, and with bugs like this showing up, its up to the SCP to find out if its ATI's fault, or if FSO was badly implementing things the whole time.
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Hopefully, the issue can be resolved with collaboration between the SCP team and ATI. If not, I can only hope future Catalyst versions accidentally fix FSO, or that the SCP finds a fix. If this is NEVER fixed, well, I'll just stay on Catalyst 4.4 until hell freezes over, right? :)
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We do know the exact call that is failing, best to just report that.
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:yes: w00t!
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I'm still using a modified Catalyst 3.9 over here. Works perfectly with everything.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
do they work pre-3.2?
dunno, my card came with 3.2 driverset
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Works for me with Catalyst 4.4...last working ones before the 4.5's screwed it up...your mileage may vary. 3.9? Ugh...
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EDIT: Oops...double post...delete plz
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Originally posted by Gregster2k
Works for me with Catalyst 4.4...last working ones before the 4.5's screwed it up...your mileage may vary. 3.9? Ugh...
strange, i have 4.4 and specular still won't work with mine.
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
*says something wrong about geforces*
You can, I've been n a Geforce something ( MX I think, one integradted to my new mobo ) for like 3 weeks, I've switched back to my good old radeon, man, what a change! I'm playing lineage2 these days, and no more clipping bugs, no more shards of death ( yeah, you read right, with the Nvidia, I had FS2 like shards of death :doubt: ), no more screen freeze for one second everytime I try and rotate the camera, and in addition, reflections in water have magicaly appeared.
As for the latest catalyst drivers, well, too late :p
But I'm doubtful, IIRC I had those on my older PC ( changed it 3 weeks ago ), and shine maps were working fine, as far as I can tell.
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Well, I have everything working fine except missile trails (see mantis) - that seems to be a card/driver related problem as well, and I've seen other people having the problem too.
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Originally posted by Nico
You can, I've been n a Geforce something ( MX I think, one integradted to my new mobo ) for like 3 weeks, I've switched back to my good old radeon, man, what a change! I'm playing lineage2 these days, and no more clipping bugs, no more shards of death ( yeah, you read right, with the Nvidia, I had FS2 like shards of death :doubt: ), no more screen freeze for one second everytime I try and rotate the camera, and in addition, reflections in water have magicaly appeared.
As for the latest catalyst drivers, well, too late :p
But I'm doubtful, IIRC I had those on my older PC ( changed it 3 weeks ago ), and shine maps were working fine, as far as I can tell.
MX is likely why. MXs are outdated tech, GF2 era.
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The GeForce4 MX series and GF2 series share the exact same chipset. While the GF4 Ti4### series went up a number in chipset from the GF3, the GF4 MX series went down back to GF2-class hardware. The GeForce4 MX series are technically not even DirectX 8.0 cards, they're just GeForce2's with some improved features/performance and the ability to actually run DirectX 8.0+ games.
That said, here comes the truth: Any card lower than a GeForce4 Ti4200 used with FreeSpace 2 Open oughta be AT THE USER'S PERIL. I can't imagine why anyone would want to run FSO with something slower than a GeForce4 Titanium Series, and if you do, hey, that's your problem, go buy at least a Ti4200, they're damn cheap these days.
I pity the fool who bought a system wit 'n' integrat'd graphics mobo 'n' no AGP slot!
Above all, remember this is a shinemap breakage thread not a video card debating thread. Let's all try to make a nice list of what cards sometimes have shinemapping broken.....
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No perils here on a standard GF3. I consistently get 60+ fps with all the settings turned up. The only things that cause problems are the hiplanets and effects vps and my modifications to the latter of those will fix the issues with that one soon.
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GeForce FX5600, Shiny like a good 'un :)
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R9600XT w/ 256Mb overclocked to 527Mhz
Oh yeah. :D If it was a PC, it's specs would blow away the box it's connected to. ;)
Now to get an environment build that doesn't die after 4 minutes in game... *stupid Duron*
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We will continue to optimise the code to make it run faster on lower end cards. Its not easy though, otherwise everyone would be a coder.
CP5670, Bob has identified some bad code in the background rendering. A fix should speed things up a little but if the textures are too big for your card it will run slow.
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Originally posted by Gregster2k
I pity the fool who bought a system wit 'n' integrat'd graphics mobo 'n' no AGP slot!
Was cheap, came with a nice athlon 2.4, and I had my radeon waiting in the corpse of my old PC ( much like Skywalker in his tawntawn -or whatever you spell it ), so I can't care less about the Nvidia now :p
My only grip about this new PC is that it doesn't have a reset switch ( I mean WTF? I know I should have checked, but WHO checks if there's a damn reset switch? :p ).
Oh, it has an AGP slot, otherwise I'd be really pissed off :p
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upgraded my drivers to 4.5, and surprise, surprise.. shinemaps still don't work.. ohwell.
definitely an issue with the 9000.
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
R9600XT w/ 256Mb overclocked to 527Mhz
Oh..... no..... *faints*
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Get this done before 3.6. x.x;
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Johnmike: dunno 'bout that, I'd rather see 3.6 out then shinemapping for a bunch of older cards (I have a Radeon 7000, so I am just as effected as the rest of you).
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I have a Radeon 7500 in my laptop and FS SCP works just fine.
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4.6 I just installed....
#$%@&*%#*^%$(*@#@
I WANT MY SHINIES!!!!
BTW, are specular shading still vertex based?
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Yes on the vert thing, at least AFAIK. Ask Bob.
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Omni, just go back to version 4.4 and you should be fine. I did, even if it meant giving up "latest game optimizations" (har har, i dont even OWN the games they're optimizing these drivers for :rolleyes: ) Like I said, any catalyst 4.5 or over will break shinemapping on a 9800 Pro card and I don't think any other card from ATI will work with 4.5+ either.
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Ok, Catalyst 4.6 has been released and guess what.... it breaks shines as well! Stick to 4.4.
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Originally posted by Viper1000
Ok, Catalyst 4.6 has been released and guess what.... it breaks shines as well! Stick to 4.4.
specular never worked with my radeon 9000, so who am i to complain ;)
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*Directs a string of expletives of unhealthy proportions at ATI-HQ*
I COMMAND my card to display shinemaps! :mad:
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These may work, or they may not... hell, they may screw your system over. Have a look at least. It's listed as an altered version of the 4.6 drivers.
Neowin.net - New Omega 4.6 Drivers (http://neowin.net/comments.php?id=21375&category=software)
[Edit]I just read through some of the comments on these, and they all praise it quite highly. Some talk like they're the greatest thing since sliced bread! I'd say that its definitely worth a look, if you're using either WinXP or 2000[/Edit]
Later!
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So what is the issue causing the shinemapping to disappear? Has it been narrowed down and sorted out? Perhaps a quick contact to ATI can help try to resolve the problem.
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I've given ATI a holler over it. Don't let it keep YOU from doing it - I couldn't see anything on their site regarding shinemaps, and I got the impression this was the first time the replying human had ever heard of a problem with shinemaps. In any case, they didn't know if the issue will be fixed in 4.7. Poot. 4.4 makes really stupid things happen to the FS2-fonts (YES, I have the GeForce font-fix applied)... but shinemaps completely 0wN! :cool:
[Edit] Never mind the font-mess - 'twas the buggerin' multisampling that did it! Grr! Still, I have to confess, FS2_Open at 1024x768 without AA looks a fair bit better than LOMAC at the same setting. Yay you/us. ;)
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The Omega drivers suck for some ppl, own for others. Use at your own risk.
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Any fixes yet? This isn't a problem thats going to go away, cataclyst drivers are going to keep going forward I think :(
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Use Catalyst 4.4.
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I'm now using Catalyst 4.7 Beta because it makes Forgotten Battles a billion times better than earlier releases and it does indeed break shinemapping on my Radeon 9700Pro.
We aren't going to be stuck at 4.4 forever. So we or they need to find a solution.
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So? As Icefire said, I'm not gonna stick with 4.4 just for SCP's pretty eyes, my PC has not been built as a FS2 SCP arcade station :doubt:
edit: btw, a question, I wanna check something I vaguely remembered, what's the complete flag for -spec? To set the intensity I mean... I kind of remember getting spec if I pumped it really high, so...
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[scp][/scp]
Browse to the command line reference. All those flags are explained there.
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guess it's spec static then?
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Re the 4.7 Cats and (still) lack of shinemapping... does anyone actually know why it doesn't work? I mean we can't ask ATI users to stick with older drivers for the entire time, just so they can use the SCP properly.
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
Re the 4.7 Cats and (still) lack of shinemapping... does anyone actually know why it doesn't work? I mean we can't ask ATI users to stick with older drivers for the entire time, just so they can use the SCP properly.
this might be related to the issue with the 8500-9200 series of radeons, as well..
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I'm not gonna let this one slip through.
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I found that using OpenGL on my Radeon 8500 lets me see shinemaps under Catalyst 4.6; for once, ATI's lack of updates to the OpenGL driver may be a good thing!
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it'll be fixed when we switch to vertex shaders
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Dont you mean pixel shaders? I thought vertex shaders are what you folks use now.
ps: Doesn't vertex shaders have something to do with animate modeling (morph targets)?
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Originally posted by MadMac_5
I found that using OpenGL on my Radeon 8500 lets me see shinemaps under Catalyst 4.6; for once, ATI's lack of updates to the OpenGL driver may be a good thing!
on my 9700, with OpenGL, I got universal shards of death :p
Omni: vertex shaders have nothing to do with animation ( tho some twisted mind could probably rig an animation sequence to variations of vertex shading :p )
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Originally posted by Bobboau
it'll be fixed when we switch to vertex shaders
oooooh :yes2::nod::yes:
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That build had better move past the loadingscreen on my machine... Other game(s) - not enough to warrant a switch from our shinemapping - I'm playing are starting to show up in the list of fixed things...
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Originally posted by Bobboau
it'll be fixed when we switch to vertex shaders
Got an ETA on any time that'll happen? Sounds like a massive undertaking to me, something that won't happen soon
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Yeah, no shines for me under 4.7. Unfortunately I really need Cat 4.7's because they are the best yet for Forgotten Battles perfect graphics mode that I run in. So no shines...