[diamondgeezer]

Forgiveness please if this is a known bug, but...

No nebulas show up in 353 or 355. They're there in retail, but what's really odd is that the planets show up fine - but the nebulas won't. I don't have any of these fancy 32 bit nebs... this is most confusing...

AMD XP1800 TB + GF4 Ti48

Oh, and they're there in FRED Open

[RandomTiger]

D3D or OGL or both?
Have you tryed recent builds?
When you say nebulas, do mean far off nebulas in a normal (non fogged/ inside nebula) mission?

[diamondgeezer]

D3D8

Do 353 and 355 not count as recent?

I mean background nebs, hence saying that the planets show up but not the nebs

[Trivial Psychic]

Are you using the latest Open VP (3.5.6.a)?  I tried that one and found that my nebulae weren't getting drawn, there was no warmup glow from beam cannons, and my primaries were invisible.

Later!

[diamondgeezer]

Says 356 on the tin

[diamondgeezer]

*smack*

You might want to look at this Goob since it's slowing up my TV mission. I need teh nebulas to show up the targets a bit better, otherwise they're a bugger to see

[StratComm]

interesting problem, since I've seen screenshots with the nebs in, even on skybox shots.  And since the planets are still there... that is odd.  Someone make sure the Media VP doesn't have a bad table in it somewhere.

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
*smack*

You might want to look at this Goob since it's slowing up my TV mission. I need teh nebulas to show up the targets a bit better, otherwise they're a bugger to see

Smack someone else; I don't do graphics. Or use 3.5.5.

[diamondgeezer]

Originally posted by Goober5000
Smack someone else; I don't do graphics. Or use 3.5.5.

I was smacking the hijackers mate. Do you think you might seperate them off in to their own thread please? And I've already stated twice that I've tried 3.5.5

[karajorma]

DG have you installed the 32 bit effects Lightspeed made? If they are there but FS2 isn't using them you'd get exactly the effect you describe. Have a look at the media vp thread in the SCP FAQ forum since someone described a similar occurance.

[diamondgeezer]

That was one of the first things I thought of. I've checked my resources though, and there are no 32 bit nebulas that I can see, anywhere. The media VP I have has no nebulas in the effects folder. I tried running the 32 bit command line anyway (by checking the 32 bit box, I assume that'd work yesno) but still nothing. I'll try and get the 32 bit nebs and see if they actually appear...

You know how FS2 goes through stuff in a certain order, and uses the first copy of what it's looking for? If I have two versions of the same background image, one 32 bit and one 8 bit, and it checks the 32 bit one first and finds it can't use it would it then go to the 8 bit one or just give up?

Oh, and I put this issue in to Buzilla since the thread got derailed

[karajorma]

Based on What WCcoolmon said it sounds like FS2 stops looking when it finds the first texture that fits the pattern it's looking for not when it finds the first usable texture.

The files might not be in the media.vp, didn't Lightspeed release them seperately first?

My advice is to look up the name of one of the nebula.pcx and then run a search for that filename. If it does exist somewhere in your FS2 folder (for instance accidently put in the data/maps or data/tables folders) that should find it.

[diamondgeezer]

Oh blimey. I found the offending files. It was indeed the media VP that was doing it - the 32 bit TGA files to be precise. But that was like the first place I thought to check the first time... this flu seems to have reduced my IQ down to double figures...

Ahem. Sorry about that lads. I'll leave the artisitc fellows to continue their discussion...

Hmm... I still can't get these new 32 bit backgrounds to show up. I have the media VP version 356b and the latest relase from the SCP site. The command line is supposed to exactly: -32bit -t32 yes?

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
I was smacking the hijackers mate. Do you think you might seperate them off in to their own thread please?

Oh, sorry.  Thread split.

The latest release thing on the SCP site is a bit out-of-date.  I'd update it, but I've misplaced the upload info. Search around the forum; I think Bobboau posted something recent you could try.

[Bobboau]

try this

[Trivial Psychic]

I've already tried that build (unless you've updated it since) and it dumps me to desktop as soon as I either enter the Techroom or commit to a mission.  Before anyone suggests it I already tried making a new pilot and it didn't make any difference.

Later!

[Bobboau]

you are useing the -htl comand line right?

[Trivial Psychic]

Actually Bob, if you check out my post in the "Launcher" poll, you'll find out what I was doing wrong.  Suffice to say, now that I know how to properly use the launcher, and subsequently the command tags, I've gotten both the _t build running and my machine, as well as all of the 32bit goodness found in the newest media vp.  Also, PhReAk's latest _r build won't work with the -t32 flag and won't render everything properly in HT&L.  No offence PhReAk, but the _t is actually rendering things properly and entirely.  I have noticed that the _t is a bit more prone to the "hang" crashes I've been encountering with Open.  Aside from that, I'd be off to the races if it weren't for my stick deciding to go on a folding spree.  Twice in a row it's konked out mid-mission.  I guess if its not one thing, its another.  In any case, now that I've got HT&L working on my system, BRING ON 3.6!!!!

Later!

[CP5670]

I just spent a hour with this and it's looking pretty good. I used the exe bobboau posted with D3D8, 1024x768x32, 2xAA and the command options -htl, -t32 and -d3dmipmap and everything worked fine for the most part. The game speed is for the most part excellent, far better than the last few versions and even faster than it was with the original 1.2, but there are some strange slowdowns every now and then. I haven't figured out exactly what is causing this, but it seems to happen when turning to face either thick backgrounds or lots of ships with engine trails. I got the inexplicable mid-mission CTD as well, but it only happened once.

I noticed a weird graphical effect in one mission; when a red sun (might happen with other colors too) shone on an Arcadia from a particular angle, some of the textures starting flickering wildly, especially the large glowmapped section just under the station's hole thing, and the colors looked a bit strange. This might be fixed by just using a proper shinemap, though.

There was also a freak thing with the beams that I could not reproduce; at one point I was watching a battle from a distance (6km) and the beams were looking very faint, almost invisible (sort of like the faintest dropoff part of a missile trail). If I changed the view to that of some ship close to the action, it looked fine. I started to get closer to the fight to see what distance they would render properly from, but they suddenly started looking fine and I couldn't get them to look strange again even if I went far again or restarted the game.

I saw another problem that probably has more to do with the media vp; the background nebulas are noticeably blurry and low-res compared to how they used to look. This only happens with the default ones however, since some custom stuff I made (which is of the old 8-bit 256x256 pcx variety) looks fine. I tried putting the old ones from sparky_fs2.vp into the effects directory but that didn't seem to do anything; did you change the file location priorities or something?

I also saw another small bug in there, but it is related to a particular sexp and wouldn't have anything to do with this executable; will post a bugzilla report later.

[diamondgeezer]

The SCP wins again. Yay!