The FFED3D Thread

[Ittiz]

Yep increasing the detail of the planets seems to have revealed a few bugs here and there that were previously unnoticeable. Most of the planet detail is actually controlled from the FFEwin.cfg. So if you have issues copy the planet details from your old file. The big fix is the fact that you get more than 1 frame per minute at these detail levels. The planet generation code (in FFED3D, probably not FFE) was extremely poorly coded. How ever I did manage to find a few things that could be stream lined that made it playable at higher graphics levels. I'd recommend playing with the higher graphics FFEwin if you can and just turning down the graphics in the game, which makes the game run smoothly for me.

Running at 3840x2048?! Wowza, and I thought running at 1920x1200 was high. What do you mean by you can't switch between windowed and full screen?

Sounds like you have issues with your graphics card/chip Styg. Switching to the old feewin.cfg didn't help?

 

[Styggron]

Yep increasing the detail of the planets seems to have revealed a few bugs here and there that were previously unnoticeable. Most of the planet detail is actually controlled from the FFEwin.cfg. So if you have issues copy the planet details from your old file. The big fix is the fact that you get more than 1 frame per minute at these detail levels. The planet generation code (in FFED3D, probably not FFE) was extremely poorly coded. How ever I did manage to find a few things that could be stream lined that made it playable at higher graphics levels. I'd recommend playing with the higher graphics FFEwin if you can and just turning down the graphics in the game, which makes the game run smoothly for me.

Running at 3840x2048?! Wowza, and I thought running at 1920x1200 was high. What do you mean by you can't switch between windowed and full screen?

Sounds like you have issues with your graphics card/chip Styg. Switching to the old feewin.cfg didn't help?

Hello Ittiz. Full screen never worked with any of your versions for me. They only worked with the original last release FFED3D, 106 and the update they released.

From what you say if I copy over an old feewin.cfg I would loose all the benefits you put in so there would not be a point in doing so. I'll have to stick to 800x600 or 900x700 because stretching it out removes ALL graphics.

Am downloading some of your beta 2 now and the rest tomorrow morning (my time), and see how that goes, it is much smaller.

Still I could never play it originally due to missing icons and you solved that perfectly as did AndyJ when he sent me his 3.5 meg update. It is great to see people working still working on this as the Russian team do not seem to be at present which is a pity.

Wish me luck with Beta 2.

Thank you so much for your work Ittiz.

 

[Ittiz]

Sorry Ittiz I'm not sure if you are replying to my post or Bouners as there were note "quotes", but when I saw the 3840 it looked like it was bounders.

Could you have a quick look at my one please ?

I was replying to everyone. My specific reply to you is the last sentence. How old is you graphics board btw? I have a four year old nvidia chip on my laptop and it works.

What happens when you try to run full screen?

 

[Bounder]

I was replying to everyone. My specific reply to you is the last sentence. How old is you graphics board btw? I have a four year old nvidia chip on my laptop and it works.

What happens when you try to run full screen?

Hi i only meant ctrl-F12 'hot-switching' doesn't work.. i can still select either from the config though.


@Styg - have you tried disabling aspect correction in the cfg? I found this often got fullscreen working correctly. With it turned on, the game looks like it's gonna load, then shows a blank screen, requiring an exit via the taskmanager... still worked in windowed mode with it enabled tho...

 

[Styggron]

I was replying to everyone. My specific reply to you is the last sentence. How old is you graphics board btw? I have a four year old nvidia chip on my laptop and it works.

What happens when you try to run full screen?

Sorry I did see that last sentence ooops.

Laptop is 1.4 years old, video card nVidia 525M 1 gig ram. i7 processor 2.4 gig.

As I mentioned if I try full screen I can hear the program running music sounds etc but zero graphics in the window, if I try fullscreen=1 then I also get "black".
The "loading textures" screen all comes up etc but I never get the text to press "y" but if I do I can hear the game starting up with the music but the screen is utterly black.

[EDIT: This is fixed by aspectfix=0 as suggested by Bounder. I thoguht I tried it but apparently now. This did cause other issues though see below]

 

[Styggron]

Hi i only meant ctrl-F12 'hot-switching' doesn't work.. i can still select either from the config though.


@Styg - have you tried disabling aspect correction in the cfg? I found this often got fullscreen working correctly. With it turned on, the game looks like it's gonna load, then shows a blank screen, requiring an exit via the taskmanager... still worked in windowed mode with it enabled tho...

Sorry I should have multiquoted this.
Yes Bounder I did try that. Fullscreen=1 gives me black screen I'm afraid. I tried your fix with aspect ratiofix set to 0 and IT WORKED

BUT the issues now are

• Menu options (eg music on, graphic deails) I can never click ON the buttons I need to be below them for them to work.
• The game is very unstable and once I return to console try to take off or click some buttons I get a complete crash.

These issues do not happen to be in windowed mode though.

 

[nanite2000]

I've applied most of the best mods, if there are any particular ones you want that aren't already applied in the game you will need to copy them over.

OK, I've been doing some testing with the latest build. Here's what I've found.

The GOOD:

• Gas giants look A LOT more colourful. They look good!
• Planet surfaces (especially barren rocks) look *MUCH* better. Love the fact they have textures now!
• The atmosphere no longer stutters when zooming in and out of planets.

The BUGS:

• Atmospheric glow overlays everything between you and the planet (Screenshot).
• Planet surfaces are always dark. The new textures no longer seem to get darker/brighter when it's night and day (Screenshot).
• The atmospheric glow on living planets obscures the visibility of light/dark sides of the planet. From space, it looks like the planet is permanently in bright daylight. Is it possible to darken/transparent the glow on the dark side of planets?
• Planetary rings now disappear behind the planetary body completely (Screenshot).
• There is still a weird clipping effect on Brown Dwarf objects (Screenshot).
• Texture still clipping at planet surfaces. You can see right through the planet in some parts (Screenshot).
• The atmosphere around Ammonia planets (e.g. Venus) looks too bright (Screenshot).

Hopefully these aren't too difficult to fix. Thanks for all your hard work as always!

 

[Styggron]

Just tried Beta 2.

I fixed the full screen issue by doing what bounder said, the aspect fix being 0 however when I do
-Option menus need to be clicked UNDER the option to select the actual option.
-Clicking on console buttons in fullscreen mode completely crashes the game for me.

Beta 1's framerate however was perfect even though the archive was a lot larger.

You're doing fantastic work there ittiz

 

[Ittiz]

Atmospheric glow overlays everything between you and the planet (Screenshot).

I'm quite surprised this wasn't pointed out earlier. In beta one it overlayed with other planets too

Planet surfaces are always dark. The new textures no longer seem to get darker/brighter when it's night and day (Screenshot).

I'll see what I can do about it. It's related to a shortcut I took to improve the frame rate, it's also the reason why planets have richer looking surfaces. I'll see if I can figure out a way to get one without the other.

The atmospheric glow on living planets obscures the visibility of light/dark sides of the planet. From space, it looks like the planet is permanently in bright daylight. Is it possible to darken/transparent the glow on the dark side of planets?

Yep, this a drawback to the technique I used to make the atmosphere. It may be fixable, but it will probably be one of the last things to fix before I'm done.

Planetary rings now disappear behind the planetary body completely (Screenshot).

Hopefully I'll get around to working on the rings soon.

There is still a weird clipping effect on Brown Dwarf objects (Screenshot).

I think this is related to the previous ring bug, it seems the planet clips the ring, or the ring clips the planet.

Texture still clipping at planet surfaces. You can see right through the planet in some parts (Screenshot).

Hmm really two bugs I think, the polygon culling problem and a bug that was revealed with the increase in detail.

The atmosphere around Ammonia planets (e.g. Venus) looks too bright (Screenshot).

Still? I thought I fixed that, are you using the new textures that came in beta2? Maybe I need to tone it down more? Have you tried going into the atmosphere of thick atmosphere planets?

 

[Ittiz]

Just tried Beta 2.

I fixed the full screen issue by doing what bounder said, the aspect fix being 0 however when I do
-Option menus need to be clicked UNDER the option to select the actual option.
-Clicking on console buttons in fullscreen mode completely crashes the game for me.

Beta 1's framerate however was perfect even though the archive was a lot larger.

You're doing fantastic work there ittiz

I'll investigate why the aspect fix code might be causing a problem. Changing your aspect ratio to something else besides what you have may fix the button clicking problem. I think the game was originally written for the PAL aspect ratio and that is the source of the aspect fix problem with buttons.

 

[Steve]

Just tried Beta 2.
-Option menus need to be clicked UNDER the option to select the actual option.

Have you tried the old "Disable Visual Themes" trick?

 

[nanite2000]

Atmospheric glow overlays everything between you and the planet

I'm quite surprised this wasn't pointed out earlier. In beta one it overlayed with other planets too

Hmm... I just tried beta 1 and it happens in that too. Guess I just never noticed it till this release.

The atmosphere around Ammonia planets (e.g. Venus) looks too bright (Screenshot).

Still? I thought I fixed that, are you using the new textures that came in beta2? Maybe I need to tone it down more? Have you tried going into the atmosphere of thick atmosphere planets?

Haha! Good point!

I think this issue has more to do with the earlier issue of the atmospheric glow always looking like it's in full daylight. Without any shadowing to indicate which is the dark side of the planet combined with only very faint surface textures, these kinds of planets look like mini suns.

If you can modify the atmospheric glow to respect the planet's shadow, then it should look fine. Actually, better than 'fine' - it'll look awesome!

 

[Ittiz]

If you can modify the atmospheric glow to respect the planet's shadow, then it should look fine. Actually, better than 'fine' - it'll look awesome!

Will be tricky to do. It'll probably be one of the last things I get around to. Unless I come up with some brilliant idea to fix it that is easy to implement that is.

Fixing bugs can be pretty complicated in this game. It's one of the reasons there are so many. In the yet to be released beta three I fixed the problem with the planets appearing out of no where when zooming in, the lights on stations not alpha blending and the giant stars not showing up in the map. Quite difficult because they were all interrelated and depended on the same function from assembly. So if you fixed one you messed up the other two. It's like trying to pin down a greased marble.

The big thing I'm trying to fix is the frame rate problem. It's not a display issue, which is probably a good thing. It's that dynamically generating complex planets using cludgy algorithms can be taxing on the CPU, so everything suffers. The culling and clipping bugs I've looked at, but I think will be some of the most time consuming to fix so I'm putting those on the back burner for now.

Also maple season is coming up in my area and I want to get out in the woods and tap some trees. So that will probably take time away from this

 

[Styggron]

Have you tried the old "Disable Visual Themes" trick?

Damn I forgot about that.

Yep that solves the button problem. Thanks Steve.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnddd

NO CRASH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOO HOO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That fixed it. Also I can now see the purple range on the map

I tried NOT disabling visual themes to check and yes I had to click under a menu, AND I could not see the purple range on the map AND it crashed but when diabling visual themes......

IT ALL WORKS

Steve FANTASTIC............ Ittiz you're a LEGEND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Styggron]

ok just an update for anyone on this thread.

Izzit's been working on updates and fixes and is up to Beta 2.

Here is the post that has a link to Beta 1, many of us are seeding so you should not have a problem getting it.

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showpost.php?p=74167&postcount=905

If you look at the FFE Russian thread, there is a link to Beta 2 in there as well although many people report framerate issues with it.

I am VERY happy to report with Beta 1, and aspectfix=0 and disabling visual themes....it ALL works ..............AND in full screen !!!!!!!!!!!!

:smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie::smilie:

 

[Styggron]

Sorry TJ but because I could never get FFED3D going and it has only been literally a week since I was able to get it going thanks to AndyJ, Ittiz, Bounder, AstroSteve and Synchromesh..........there is stacks that I am unaware of.

So....is there a file I can modify to get more credits etc ?

 

[Bounder]

Also maple season is coming up in my area and I want to get out in the woods and tap some trees. So that will probably take time away from this

I love maple syrup, me.

 

[Stan Cask]

OK, so below is a link to download my build of FFED3D. I'm doing it as a torrent since it's so freaking huge. If you don't have a torrent program search for something like utorrent. Here's the link http://daein.delectual.com/FFED3D-Ittiz-Beta1.zip.torrent If someone doesn't mind hosting a 670 meg file on their server let me know. Again I'm not done with this but it's at a point where it's playable. Let me know what you guys think.

Oh yeah once you get the file please keep seeding till everyone that wants it has it.

Could you please seed

 

[Styggron]

Could you please seed

I'm seeding both Ittiz's versions beta 1 and beta 2. Sorry my internet is very slow and unreliable though, I'll stay on as long as I can though. I am on daily just not 24 hours as this is a laptop. I know the others seed too so you should be able to get the file.

I set my upload speed to unlimited for you but the best it can do is around 14.5 - 15kB/s sorry....

 

[Bingo Brewster]

Where can I find a link to the torrent? The downloads I have tried from various sources seem to have a dll missing.