[Raptoer]

Hi, this is the first time I post anything at HLP so here's the problem:
Recently I've changed my video card from Nvidia Geforce MX400 64MB to Nvidia Geforce FX-5500 256MB but for some reason Normal maps and other visual effects such as Anti aliasing still don't work only performance was a little improved, my computer specs are as follows:
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.82 GHz
OS: Microsoft  Windows XP Professional SP2
Memory: 640MB RAM
Video card: Nvidia Geforce FX-5500 256MB
So any help will be most appreciated and Thanks.

[General Battuta]

Do you have them enabled in the launcher?

[Jeff Vader]

I like fs2_open.log files (instructions on how to provide me with one can be found here).

[pecenipicek]

that gpu still doesnt support normal maps, iirc, the card needs to support SM3.0 shaders and the 5x00 series barely supports SM2.0 . you need a card from Geforce 7x00 range onwards. you can get used ones really cheap. however, if you're stuck on a pc with only an AGP slot for GPU's, then, good luck finding a proper GPU for it.

[Commander Zane]

Yeah, 5500 isn't going to do it, I had the same card before and didn't have normals support.

[Raptoer]

OK, but it supports Anti-Aliasing doesn't it?

[Jeff Vader]

No. The anti-aliasing option in the Launcher doesn't do a thing (or at least it didn't do anything before). If you want aa, you'll have to set it with your GPU driver control panel. Anisotropic filter is another matter and you can set it with the Launcher.

[Raptoer]

Many thanks, that totally worked, but just what I was afraid of, I had a severe performance slowdown , apparently 640 MB of RAM isn't enough!!

[castor]

It's the GPU that is the problem there. AA isn't for lightweights.

[Raptoer]

Agreed, but how comes that it worked perfectly for other games like Half-Life 2 , I used it there and the performance was well above average , the game was quick enough to play without speed problems, so why does FSO code needs so much high-end hardware?

[pecenipicek]

because valve has dozens and dozens of full-time coders who are paid to do their job.


FSO does NOT need "high-end" hardware. the only "high-end" thing that you need is a frikkin gpu, and from nvidia 6600GT onwards and ATI HD 2400 onwards. both are ancient by todays standards.


as for the 5500 series, i had a 5700. piece of crap card. horrid performance, and heavens help you if you turn on even 2xAA.

if you want decent AA, get at least a 7 series nvidia

[Zacam]

Half-Life 2 has something going for it that FSO doesn't currently have: Generic and contextually specific utilization of Vendor subsets of OpenGL API code.

See, there is an OpenGL Standard way of doing something. And then vid-card manufacturers make a card that, by proprietary extensions, does what the standard does, but on hardware that may not directly or natively actually happen to handle it, but it acts like it can because of those extensions.

So then you take that card, which handle special-extensions cases of doing something and then give it the ACTUAL standards implementation method of handling it, and it breaks. Is that the software's fault or the standards fault? No. And it's not even really the video cards hardware or drivers fault. It's the bean counters fault for saying "we need more margins on this product, so make it something that will sell, we don't care how as long as it doesn't cost us anything".

So it's not really that the FSO needs higher end hardware, it needs (currently) more hardware to be Standards Compliant because that is what is the easiest to code. If we started developing extensions and built in card profiling that can adapt to utilizing the proprietary extensions based on detected hardware, that will begin to be alleviated. And based off enumerated hardware, we can also class shader levels and maybe a control system that will only allow options like -normal or what have to be available only on certified hardware that can actually run it (maybe have an over-ride option if you really want to do it anyway, but then it's your problem if it doesn't work). But that is going to involve a lot of work and more access to hardware and/or people who can test on said hardware (and optimally understand coding to a degree) to make that possible, plus a few over-head and other issues.

In short, it _is_ possible for us to do, that's what being an open community project has for a strength. The weakness is being able to get the bodies to actually implement it in addition to everything else. That's the strength of an actual development studio.

More specifically related to the particular video card in question: The NV FX series cards, 5500 and 5700 both, to put it in vernacular terms, blow goats. Especially the 5500, which is possibly the lowest rated card even by the most rabid nVidia supporters. As pecenipicek suggest, a 6xxx series card is phenominally better and indeed, the 7xxx series is also very good. I ran FSO with quite a lot of bells and whistles during the XT-Branch testing with a 7600 GT and 7800 GS rather nicely.

[Raptoer]

Well, believe me I know that my computer is peace of crap , I made a few upgrades in the last summer, but you won't believe how it was before:64MB graphics, 128MB RAM and 40GB Hard(embarrassing I know!        ), I thought about replacing this junk with a new comp, but you see, I'm at a very important school year and changing it will only distract me- I'm very fond with computers and video games- , SO , the point is , it looks like I need to wait until this damn year is finished to get a decent, advanced and worthy computer, meanwhile I'll just turn graphics options to minimum. Thanks for those REALLY QUICK responses, Hard-Light is the best 

[Thaeris]

Damn straight, it is!

And, good luck with the rest of your school year. 

[Mongoose]

Hey, I have a 64MB video card, and I'm still hacking it in FS2. Granted, it's without some of the shinies, but it's amazing how good the engine can look even without all of its features enabled.

[Raptoer]

Yes, but it kinda doesn't feel right to play FS2 without all the enhancements that the community is working so hard to bring it to life.

By the way , what about that damage lightning and  support ships engine glow problems , I read all related posts but I got nothing, how could I fix it? !

[Zacam]

Support ships engine glows was fixed a while back in Trunk wia code correction, so any latest nightly will have it automagically.

Damage lighting issues (blindingly white flash) is a shaders issue, to which there is a shaders package fix for, but I don't recall the URL right now.

[Mongoose]

Yes, but it kinda doesn't feel right to play FS2 without all the enhancements that the community is working so hard to bring it to life.

You can still take advantage of the majority of the community's work.  Shinemaps, glowmaps, and environmental maps all work just fine on my old clunker of a card, as do the whole fleet of high-poly models, the new beam graphics, new weapons effects, and any number of other little enhancements I'm probably forgetting about.  The only things I can't handle are normal maps and shader effects, which my card just doesn't support, and the MV_Advanced content, which overwhelms my paltry video memory and corrupts the graphics something fierce; AA is right out, though that's hardly limited to just FS2.  The game still manages to look pretty damn good as a result, and most importantly, it runs at a smooth and playable framerate (though there's some sort of animated effect causing framecap hits that I need to pin down at some point).