Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: Apothess on December 08, 2001, 04:27:00 am

Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Apothess on December 08, 2001, 04:27:00 am
Everytime i play fs1 with 3d acceleration the stars disappear when i don't move the ship about and it makes the game look weird and when i install the silent threat the game won't load!! i have a

AMD Athlon 1.4GHZ-DDR Cpu(266MHZ)
256MB memory
40GB hard disk
64MB Nvidia Geforce2 MX
Windows ME
16 x DVD rom
Soundblaster 5.1
Cambridge soundworks 6.1 fivepointsurround.

------------------
"For 10,000 years we have thought the
long war and our hatred still knows no
succour. Those who have defied us shall
feel the full wrath of Chaos..."
-Abaddon the Despoiler.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Apothess on December 08, 2001, 06:47:00 am
i forgot to mention that the textures on the destroyers and installtions are all screwy in the fact that you can see right through them.

------------------
"For 10,000 years we have thought the
long war and our hatred still knows no
succour. Those who have defied us shall
feel the full wrath of Chaos..."
-Abaddon the Despoiler.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Admiral LSD on December 08, 2001, 06:53:00 am
Bumping up the texture resolution apparently fixes the problems with the stars. Setekh posted a nice tutorial on how to do that here. As for the screwy textures I don't know. I get that same problem on my Diamond Viper V550 Riva TNT, if anyone knows how to fix it I'd love to hear it.

------------------
"Don't stop, baby, dreamin'"
"Don't stop, baby, lovin'"
"Don't stop, babe, believin'"
Wasurenaide...
"Don't stop, baby, dreamin'"
"Don't stop, baby, lovin'"
"Don't stop, babe, believin'"
...Watashi ga iru koto o.

Official NMCE www.netwerkin.com ("http://www.netwerkin.com")
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: aldo_14 on December 08, 2001, 09:37:00 am
My new Pc has a GEForce 2, so I hope I don't get this prob....maybe i'll keep me Voodoo for older games, just in case  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: IceFire on December 08, 2001, 09:42:00 am
I had the stars disappearing as well.  Apparently if you change the texture resolution from 256x256 to something higher it works...right?
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Admiral LSD on December 08, 2001, 10:00:00 am
I've never had the disappearing stars problem presumably since I don't have a GeForce, I was referring to this post in that thread I pointed to:

 
Quote
Originally posted by Magneto:
Not only did the registry entries improve my graphics in the game, but they also cured the disappearing stars problem that I was having with my GeForce2GTS64.

 It's a whole new ballgame now!
Thanks guys!
Mag...

Even if you don't get the disappearing stars  and have any sort of nVidia graphics card (although late model 3dfx cards will probably work too) there really isn't any reason to not have applied the registry hacks since they improve the graphics in FS1 remarkably. The only reason the game does the texture division thing is because the original Voodoo 1 chipset had both a hard 256x256 texture limitation and only about 2Mb of texture RAM so you had to make the most of it.

------------------
"Don't stop, baby, dreamin'"
"Don't stop, baby, lovin'"
"Don't stop, babe, believin'"
Wasurenaide...
"Don't stop, baby, dreamin'"
"Don't stop, baby, lovin'"
"Don't stop, babe, believin'"
...Watashi ga iru koto o.

Official NMCE www.netwerkin.com ("http://www.netwerkin.com")
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Apothess on December 08, 2001, 12:39:00 pm
Ok that hack didn't solve the star prob but i aint to bothered about that, its the see through textures that bother me ist impossible to make out an Orion due yo fact that you can see right throught 90% of the ship so it spoild the game it did this with my Voodoo 3/3000 but the prob sorted its self out when silent threat was installed and now that i have it working again it hasn't solved the texture problem

------------------
"For 10,000 years we have thought the
long war and our hatred still knows no
succour. Those who have defied us shall
feel the full wrath of Chaos..."
-Abaddon the Despoiler.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Shadow on January 04, 2002, 05:34:00 pm
I have a word doc with all the mods to the reg u need to make. It makes FS1 run like gravy.... graphics is improved a great deal... just post here if you want me to send it to you....
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Apothess on January 05, 2002, 06:19:00 am
Yeah i'll take it thanks alot!

------------------
"For 10,000 years we have thought the
long war and our hatred still knows no
succour. Those who have defied us shall
feel the full wrath of Chaos..."
-Abaddon the Despoiler.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Fineus on January 05, 2002, 07:09:00 am
Better still - can you post it up here?
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Shadow on January 05, 2002, 07:44:00 am
Well here it is, its not my idea, i just copied a post from VBB. Cant remember the guy who posted this, but any credit should go to him.
----------------------------------------
I know this isn't new, but maybe it will help some people new to the board.
I just got a Visiontek GF3, and for the first time in FS1 I saw the disappearing stars and smeared text I've seen talked about.
Following the advice of those people who posted here in response to others with these problems, I went to the Descent-Network site with the "Registry Hacks" page, played around a bit and managed to fix the stars and the text.
Here is what I did:
To fix the text:

D3DTextureOrigin DWORD
Changes the way texture coordinates are mapped. This mostly affects text and explosions.
- 0: assumes center of texel is lowest value for uv
- 1: assumes uvs go from 0.0 to 1.0
Added this variable to the registry and set it to "1".
To fix the stars:

D3DLineOffset DWORD
Changes the coordinates used to draw a 1-pixel long line.
- 0: one way
- 1: some other way
- else: autodetect at startup (default)
Added this variable to the registry and set it to "1".
All of the "Registry Hacks" and what I set the variables to follow. Everything is cut-and-pasted from http://www.descent-freespace.com/ddn/kb/registry/ ("http://www.descent-freespace.com/ddn/kb/registry/")  except my settings, which are preceeded by three asterisks.

VideoCard String
Selects which renderer gets used
- "3Dfx Glide": Uses 3Dfx Glide if available
- "Direct3D":; (default) Uses Direct3D
- "No acceleration": Uses Software (default)
***This variable was the only one that already existed; I left it alone.

D3DUseExecuteBuffers DWORD
- 0: code uses DrawPrim commands (default)
- 1: code uses Execute buffers
- else: same as 0
***Added this variable and set it to "0".

D3DTextureOrigin DWORD
Changes the way texture coordinates are mapped. This mostly affects text and explosions.
- 0: assumes center of texel is lowest value for uv
- 1: assumes uvs go from 0.0 to 1.0
***Added this variable and set it to "1". This fixed the smeared text.

D3DLineOffset DWORD
Changes the coordinates used to draw a 1-pixel long line.
- 0: one way
- 1: some other way
- else: autodetect at startup (default)
***Added this variable and set it to "1". This fixed the disappearing stars.

D3DPreloadTextures DWORD
- 0: never tries to upload textures into VRAM during level load
- 1: always tries to upload as many textures as it can into VRAM during level load
- else: preloads as much as it can on cards with 6MB or more of texture space
***Added this variable and set it to "1".

D3DTextureDivider DWORD
Sets the rendering routines based on amount of texture RAM:
- 0: autodetect as below
- 1: optimize for > 16 MB
- 2: optimize for > 8 MB
- 3: optimize for > 4 MB
- 4: optimize for <= 4 MB
- else: same as 4
***Added this variable and set it to "1".

D3DUseLargeTextures DWORD
- 0: use 256 as max textures size (default)
- else: max size the card can use as the max
***Added this variable and set it to "1".


By default you can see that Direct3D bashes all textures down by a factor of 4 in each dimension and then if they are still larger than 256 in either dimension, it bashes them down to 256. So if you have an AGP card with lots of VRAM you can make your textures look much nicer by tweaking D3DTextureDivider and D3DUseLargeTextures.


This worked for me, hope it helps you out
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Fineus on January 06, 2002, 04:44:00 am
Great! thanks  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Apothess on January 06, 2002, 06:14:00 am
Yes that fixed the star prob but the transparent texture prob is still there and it is weird cos you can see right through a demon and see a fenris takin on a cain!  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/frown.gif)

------------------
"For 10,000 years we have thought the
long war and our hatred still knows no
succour. Those who have defied us shall
feel the full wrath of Chaos..."
-Abaddon the Despoiler.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Shadow on January 06, 2002, 10:40:00 am
Well thats strange with the transparacy and all. I've been roaming around descent network site, and havent been able to find anything about the transp. thingy.....

Funny, because I have almost the same specs on my PC:

1,2 GHz Athlon
Geforce 2 GTS

By the way, which chip is on your Geforce, not the maker of the card, the manufacturer of the chip? and what drivers do u use.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: deep_eyes on January 06, 2002, 12:50:00 pm
man i cant even use FS2 on this BS K6-2 cause the built in videocard i cant turn it off to allow my Nvidia TNT2 to run it! AGGGGGGGGH! also in FS1, when somewhat rendered, the game screens goes a bit black, and u can only see the sun.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: an0n on January 06, 2002, 01:52:00 pm
I don't think my TNT2 works either. You normally get that ****ty nVidia logo on the corner but in FS I don't. Hmmm......

But the FS setup doesn't seem to mind when I select the TNT2 as the display thingy.

Someone told me it was to do with my built in Intel 810e graphics.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: CP5670 on January 06, 2002, 01:55:00 pm
It works fine for me without any registry hacks or anything, and this is on a GeForce3 which doesn't even run FS2 perfectly.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Dark_4ce on January 06, 2002, 04:02:00 pm
Well! That just boosted up fs2!! I LOVE IT!  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Setekh on January 06, 2002, 06:06:00 pm
 
Quote
Originally posted by Shadow:
Well here it is, its not my idea, i just copied a post from VBB. Cant remember the guy who posted this, but any credit should go to him.

Those are the settings I use too. If you don't know how to put those settings into effect, go and follow my guide. Link's up there somewhere.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/wink.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Sushi mk. 2 on January 06, 2002, 06:30:00 pm
Hmmm... Anyone know what any of the other settings do? I'm looking at "D3DFast" right now and wondering what it does, for example.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)

Currently plugging in changes suggested to FS and FS2, let's see what happens.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Fafner on January 08, 2002, 07:32:00 pm
Sushi, D3DFast is the option "Fast Direct3D textures" from the video setup in the FS2 launcher. Several of the registry entries are set by the launcher setup.
 (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/smile.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Stryke 9 on January 16, 2002, 08:17:00 am
Apothess: Er... take lots of screenshots?

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 (http://community.theunderdogs.org/smiley/armed/dark2.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: deep_eyes on January 17, 2002, 05:03:00 pm
anyone got a way to hack FS2's registry and disable the need for 3d acceleration?
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: CMS on January 17, 2002, 07:09:00 pm
thanks shadow.  that helped me too.  hey apothetc., how 'bout them new 40k chaos models coming out?  pretty cool, huh?  sorry, i know this is the wrong BB for that.

anyone have problems with mods making fs2 unplayable?  i tried to install the GVI Cairo (which looks awesome, by the way), and FS2 just flopped.  wouldn't load any missions at all.  terran knossos did the same thing.

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i know how beams work.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Starwing on January 18, 2002, 03:38:00 am
Maybe you killed FS2 with a faulty table file. check the .tbl's if you broke their structure while installing them. Also look if ships/weapons.tbl of them are more than 380kb large. If so, remove some unneeded entries (GTD Galatea, Volition Bravos,...) or remove the comments from the files.
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: TheMiMiC on January 18, 2002, 08:27:00 pm
I know exactly what you mean about the dissapearing textures on the ships.  From what i've seen, it seems to only affect the capital ships.  It's like someone took a piece of glass and shoved it through the model, making large chuncks appear gone.  It almost looks like maybe a Z buffer problem, since on some ships i've seen, it almost looks like the ship is turned inside out, and when the model rotates, the skin seems to crawl on the model.  VERY weird.  Anyone have any ideas?

btw, Hiyall.  Just got the flip jewel case, has freespace and silent threat both for 10 bucks.  Worth more than that, but I'm not complaining.  (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/biggrin.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Alikchi on January 18, 2002, 09:17:00 pm
 (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/naughty.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/spineyes.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/hammer.gif)WELCOME TO THE HLPBB!![/b] (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/hammer.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/spineyes.gif) (http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~freespace/ubb/noncgi/naughty.gif)
Title: Stars are disapearing
Post by: Setekh on January 19, 2002, 01:05:00 am
 
Quote
Originally posted by deep_eyes:
anyone got a way to hack FS2's registry and disable the need for 3d acceleration?

Doubt that... the need for real 3D acceleration is there for a reason. Do you know how bad FS2 runs with minimal 3D acceleration? It'll run worse in software...