[SadbutTrue]

I downloaded SCP a few weeks ago and have played through the bulk of the FS2 campaign.  It works well it seems... I downloaded the launcher, debugger, media.vp files (the 92 meg one), and the movies,a nd all seem to work.  I enabled all the graphical additions in the launcher.  

My only issue is outside the engine flares of all the ships (which are much prettier) and different planets, I don't notice very much.  My fighters lasers look a little different, but not necessarily better, and I haven't really noticed much improvement in the models of capital ships and/or fighters.  Did I do something wrong?

[phreak]

have you checked any of the options in the scp launcher?
which exact media vp file did you get?

[WMCoolmon]

Can you post a screenshot from in-game?

[Jokke_r]

i'm encountering similiar probs, i had never played freespace2 before without the SCP but when i look at some of the screens on the site with all the awesome looking reflections and lighting on the ships i just began to wonder since my ships look awfully diffuse, i noticed i didn't have the ,v_adveffects.vp so i downloaded it, now it seem some ship have light which glow but still no specular or anything, rest of the ship is diffuse. And all the big ships still look boxy especially the shivan sathanas looks really ugly as the spikes have like three segments or similiar.  :/
I'v checked all the "use specular" "use glow" use env maps etc etc but i'm not seing them, well i think that in The babylon Project they are working to some extent, ships are properly lit being dark of the opposite side of the suns direction but i believe the reflections aaren't working properly since they are reflecting really much and just looks bad, since they look shiny like glass, even the asteroids in raider wars.

Also i downloaded the AVI versions of the cutscenes and dumped them into the Freespace2 folder, i also have latest DIVX and XVID video codecs installed yet the videos aren't played, if i try to play them from the techroom the screen just blinks but no video is shown but no error msg is given unlike when i tried to play the cutscenes from the techroom before i had the AVI versions.

I didn't want to start a new thread so i hope it's ok if i put this post here and i hope you guys can help me out a bit. Usually i'm good at this, i mod games myself (Max Payne series) but somehow this is just more confusing.  

[StratComm]

You probably don't want to start out with environment mapping on; it's still a somewhat incomplete feature as far as art goes.  I will ask both of you though; what kind of video card do you have?  There's a known and long-standing issue with shine/spec mapping and ATI cards.

[Jokke_r]

oh snap, i have an ATi Radeon 9800 clocked @ Pro.

Is there no way to get specular/shine working? in OGL/D3D?

[StratComm]

Spec should probably work for you in OGL.  If your card is old enough (and you can find) a driver older than the 4.5 Catalysts, it should work in D3D too, though that's admittedly a lot of trouble when OGL works fine.  Unfortunately AFAIK OGL doesn't have a working environment mapping implimentation right now, so it's one or the other.  Personally I'd take the softer highlights of spec over the reflectiveness of environment maps, but that may just be me.  If you switch to OGL and still have no shines, make sure you've got the textures media VP installed.

[taylor]

Originally posted by StratComm
Unfortunately AFAIK OGL doesn't have a working environment mapping implimentation right now, so it's one or the other.

Well, it does, but no one has it except me.    

I decided against using pbuffers since they are incredibly slow, cumbersome, and implementation is platform specific.  So instead of doing to same crappy thing 3 times, I waited for a better option.  NVIDIA finally has the GL_EXT_framebuffer_object extension now which is exactly what we needed.  As far as I know ATI still doesn't have drivers available with this extension yet though and it's only available on the newer NVIDIA drivers so I've held off the code for now.  I'll get it in CVS at some later point when time allows (ie. not soon), before the next official release.

[SadbutTrue]

I have an nvidea 6600 GT.  I have all the thingies checked in the launcher graphically, and I also downloaded the full 92 meg media.vp file (the one that is supposed to encompass every update to this point).  Like I said, it is working, my cutscenes are running, and it does look a little better... just not a whole lot.

[Ypoknons]

mv_zpack_3.6.6.exe is 130MB though. This one

SadbutTrue what do you mean by not a whole lot better? The improved lasers are Lightspeed's creation (we think they are great), and what fighters have you looked at? Only the Hercules I and the Perseus have really been improved. The Orion, Deimos and Sobek are more subtle. Can you compare what you have to the screenshots this site and tell us do they live up to your expectations?

[karajorma]

Take a look at the Fenris or Leviathan. The change should be pretty obvious there.

[Jokke_r]

hmm openGL didn't make shine/specular work on my Radeon9800, i tried it on Taylors 06/02  build, i got some terrible framerates though, or should i say jumpy. 20-120, i believe it might be caused by the animated glowmaps, any way to make them static?
Usually run the game at 1280x960@32bpp with 2xAA and 8xAF without problem.
Sucks that i can't get shine or specular working, all my ships just look really diffuse imo.

[StratComm]

You probably shouldn't run with the animated glowmaps (though it's a shame those come with LS's backgrounds in the current VP distros - note to WMC, maybe seperate those into their own special file?) so remove mv_adeffects and see if that improves performance.  As for the  missing shines, they really should be there in OGL.  You may try downloading the mv_textures pack from the SCP website or just make sure that you have it installed.

[Jokke_r]

I removed the adveffects.vp and updated to taylors latest build and now speculars work in OGL with top framerates. Excellent, shame about the highres backgrouns being removed though

[StratComm]

If you download VPView you can extract all of the background images and the accompanying Stars.tbl from mv_adeffects.vp, since you seem to be more than capable of advanced tweaking.

[Jokke_r]

k, awesome. Where do i dump the extracted files though?

EDIT: Nevermind, the data structure inside the vp was quite self-explanatory

[neolex]

If most of the features are selected (dont rely on default profiles) in the launcher, the difference b/w original and FSO is huge, I think. It actually looks almost like a modern game.

I also have the issue with the cutscenes. I placed AVIs in my FreeSpace2 folder, but they are not played, neither from campaign, nor techroom. The screen just blinks. Does anyone know of a solution?

[karajorma]

Using which build? Not 3.6.5 cause that particular build won't work.