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FS ship rendering probs

I've had this annoying problem from the very beginning, and I'm stumped. I still haven't found a way to fix it. This problem hasn't come up as far as I've seen, so I'm hoping somebody can help me.

In FS1 the the Cap ships and intallation all appear partially see-through when D3D is on in the setup menu. Nothing cruiser-class and smaller has that problem. FS2 on the other had fortunately doesn't suffer from this glitch even though hardware acc is required.

However, both FS1&2 also seem to have a problem rendering the textures on the top-center faces of small ships. This is presumably true for all of them, but it is especially obvious on small fighters like the Herc.

Those are my two problems. I was able to turn off hardware acc on FS1; this fixes both problems, but alas the overall graphics just aren't as good. Obviously I'm not able to do this with FS2, so the Texture problem still remains.

I've tried all of the registry tweaks for FS1 and none of them affect the two problems I'm having. I updated DirectX but to no avail. Neither did updating my graphics card drivers.

Here are my specs:
-P4 1.9G
-512Mb RAM
-XP Pro SP1
-GeForce4 MX 420 64Mb
-DX8

I'm guessing it's most likely my graphics card; has anyone else had this problem with a nVidia card? It's not the models; they show up perfectly in MODELVIEW32 and w/o D3D. It seems FS@ fixed the see-through prob that my FS1 has, but not the texture one.

I have some screenshots to show but sadly I don't know how to put them up here. If anybody can help I'd greatly appreciate it. If nothing else at least how to post pictures.

To post pictures you need to get some webspace and upload the file there. Then you just link to it.

__________________
Questions about FS3? Questions about Fred? Questions about missions? Questions about adding new ships to your games?

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Supreme Overlord of The Mercury Affair Campaign.

FREDder, Modder, Story design and general busybody for [URL=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/Background.html] Mind Games[/URL]

Thanks karajorma; fortunately I have some webspace, but I wasn't uploading the images in the right directory. Anyways, these should help explain my predicament:

Cap ships suffer from this see-through glitch.



Small ships like the Herc have noticable forward shifts in the top texture face.



If anyone knows how to fix this please tell me. Thanks.

The second glitch in FreeSpace 2 is there for everyone. Nobody really cared back in 1999 if a texture was a little out of alignment. Not everyone could turn up the details to even notice

Actually, you should see that on the FS1 Herc as well, since the changes between the two were minor.

__________________
- The Babylon Project Team

Are you running FS in compatability mode? If not try it. If so try a different mode. I've heard of that solving other strange problems.

__________________
Questions about FS3? Questions about Fred? Questions about missions? Questions about adding new ships to your games?

[URL=http://homepage.ntlworld.com/karajorma/freespace/intro.html]Karajorma's Freespace FAQ [/URL] (now with added GE goodness)

Supreme Overlord of The Mercury Affair Campaign.

FREDder, Modder, Story design and general busybody for [URL=http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/mindgames/Background.html] Mind Games[/URL]

I actually first installed FS1&2 on a computer with Win98SE. The problems appeared there and I'd hoped they wouldn't turn up again when I installed them on my newer computer w/XP, but... same thing.

I took the liberty of testing every compatability oprtion for the .exe file; absolutely nothing had any effect on either issues.
At least it's good to know I'm not the only one with the texture problem. It doesn't seem to be the models or textures themselves, but more likely something with the hardware acceleration.

Here's what it should look like, rendered in MODELVIEW32 from windows.


Yep, the texture shift is also on the FS1 Herc. Not as bad as in FS2 though.


If anybody doesn't have the see-through and/or texture problems can you specify which video card, OS, etc. you're using?

No doubt has something to do with hardware acceleration...FreeSpace was developed in that twilight zone between games that required hardware 3D and games that used only software. FreeSpace's software rendering is probably one of the last and best examples of software rendering. So having used earlier rendering techniques for the hardware...its not surprising there were minor issues.

In any case, its unlikely that a simple solution will fix this problem in FreeSpace 2. However, the source code team is currently awork on many things...including a revamping of the 3D engine. We'll see what comes of that.

I never saw the see through thing on my GeForce 2 GTS which is essentially the same card as a GeForce 4 MX 420 and 440. It may be drivers...I was using much older 3.0 era Det drivers. I doubt you want to downgrade for that however.

__________________
- The Babylon Project Team

Wow, that's interesting IceFire. I assumed it was most likely true for all nVidia cards. The one on my older computer was a Diamond Viper V770D Ultra nVidia 32Mb card or something like that. Even before I updated those drivers the glitches were originally there.

Does anybody know how the nVidia Detonator FX drivers are? Have they caused or SOLVED problems for anyone who's installed them? I've downloaded v44.03 of the new drivers but haven't installed them since everything else is working fine. I somewhat doubt updating again will be the solution, but I will as a last resort.

I'm surprised no one else has had the see-though problem I'm experiencing. If the problem likely is with the hardware acceleration it should be true for other ppl I would think. How about DirectX? Have they finished polishing DX9 out of alpha or beta or whatever stage it's in? I haven't bothered to download it yet for the same reason in the last paragraph.

Once again if anyone has anymore suggestions, please don't hesitate; I continue to welcome them.

Anyone else have these problems or know how to fix them?