UFO:Alien Invasion
Technical support => Feature Requests => Topic started by: Destructavator on November 07, 2008, 01:08:51 am
-
Thought I'd start this in a separate thread as the topic is different than where this first came up, so more people would notice this here - If you'll excuse me quoting myself:
I've had difficulty with night missions myself, as the dark areas are totally black for me, at least on Windows with my NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE video card in my desktop. I don't know if the video card or OS makes any difference, although I haven't played around with the settings in the NVIDIA control panel much. Actually, I just might try that within the next few days - If it makes any difference I'll post some feedback.
First I started with the game options, turning on and off graphics options (Shaders, Weather Effects, Lighting, etc.) which did not help with this issue. I also tried adjusting the gamma and brightness, that didn't help either.
Then I went to the NVIDIA Control panel and saw a *long* list of options, which would take quite a while to sort through and play with to see what would make a difference. I didn't experiment with them yet, but I did find out something interesting I made a note of: In the menu where it stores default graphic configurations for various games, NVIDIA apparently misidentifies UFO:AI as being the game UFO: Afterlight, and uses settings optimized for Afterlight when running UFO:AI. I'm still hunting for some option to override this, but I suspect that might potentially be an issue causing graphics problems in UFO:AI.
I experienced this on Windows XP MCE and Vista HP on my desktop with my NVIDIA 7300 LE PCI Express video card. I also have Linux installed, but have not yet set up UFO:AI on the Linux partition.
I'd encourage any others on this forum to post information here, in this thread, if they experience the same symptoms, as it seems that some people have totally black areas dominating night mission maps while others can still see most of those maps.
P.S. - I'm working with the SVN development branch, 2.3.
-
Night missions look fine for me. Here's my specs:
Windows XP Pro Corporate SP2
geForce 8800GTX, driver version 169.21
I didn't do anything special to either the UFO:AI graphics options or the nVidia control panel ones. My guess is that this is some OpenGL issue.
-
I gets the blackness
UFOAI : 2.3 Dev
OS : Ubuntu Hardy Heron
Graphics Card : GeForce 6200
Driver : NVIDIA 173.14.12
Settings wise I haven't changed anything on the X Server from the default, let me know if there's any other info you need.
-
I'd suggest to add monitor type (crt/ lcd/ glossy lcd) It might be the issue.
I'm on old crt display, I had to bump gamma to 1.3 to be able to see anything more than bunker entrances in this (http://ufoai.streetofeyes.com/screenshots/bunker_night.jpg) screenie posted by BTAxis.
IIRC there's separate 2D and 3D gamma correction (at least that's the case of ATI Catalyst drivers).
-
Using two CRTs here. Before I moved I was using two different CRTs of different brands. Never had a problem.
-
I have the blackness (as I stated) and I'm using a flat-screen. I do have an old, beat-up CRT in the closet, and I suppose I could dig it out and see if that changes anything. In fact, I think I'll try that some time today and see what happens.
-
Is it this new glosyy (with glare surface) one? Those artificially enchance contrast to get more vivid colors, but also make dark scenes pitch black and bright almost white.
-
It's not that though. I've seen screenshots from people who get black night maps, and they look black even on my screen.
In fact, we should probably come up with a benchmark screenshot so people can compare and post their screenshots.
-
In fact, we should probably come up with a benchmark screenshot so people can compare and post their screenshots.
Perhaps we should all stick to choosing one map from the "Skrimish" mode and using the night version, picking the same map every time.
Regarding my old CRT, I discovered it is so old and awful I can't even read text on it - I wouldn't even be able to tell if the dark areas were all black or not.
In the part of the United States I'm in, CRT isn't even available anymore, everyone wants a flat-screen - they are far less heavy, less bulky, and very popular for reasons that vary depending on who you ask. I actually live across the street from a major shopping mall and area with many stores, and haven't seen any old CRT monitors in any of the stores for quite some time. The local mentality is that CRT is a thing of the past, junk, and unwanted in these parts, not only for computers but also for TVs. Not that I fully agree with that mentality, as I've known some CRT screens in the past to work perfectly fine, but flat-screen is the latest rage in this area. Heck, I get laughed at because I have an older TV set that isn't totally flat, and isn't gigantic in size - mine actually fits on a small stand while I've seen so many other people around here blow huge amounts of money (more accurately, credit) on ridiculously over-sized taking-up-an-entire-wall enormous TV sets, especially the sports fanatic type who center their whole life around watching baseball/football/whatever-ball games. Flat-screens here are practically a status symbol, next to having the latest cell phone that does a zillion things. (Personally, I have a very cheap cell phone that simply dials a number, and I'm happy with it.)
-
My gripe with LCD screens is that they have a native resolution, and anything not running in that native resolution looks like crap. I tend to use various resolutions for different things.
-
My gripe with LCD screens is that they have a native resolution, and anything not running in that native resolution looks like crap. I tend to use various resolutions for different things.
Here's to CRT! :D
-
I've got the same problem on my laptop. (LCD screen)
UFOAI : 2.3 Dev self-compiled SVN REV 20060
OS : Ubuntu Hardy Heron
Graphics Card : GeForce GO! 6200
Driver: Ubuntu Repo supplied 169.12 NVIDIA Stable
Laptop: Acer TravelMate C200
Note: The LCD screen (and UFO:AI) is running in its native resolution of 1024x768.
-
I get the blackness too.
Win XP SP3
NVidia Gforce 8800 GTX, 169.21 forceware
-
I get the blackness too.
Win XP SP3
NVidia Gforce 8800 GTX, 169.21 forceware
This looks just about the same as what BTAxis is using, except he has SP2 on a different version of Windows XP but he doesn't have the blackness problem. I think we're on to something here...
Trashman, what type of screen or display are you using?
-
I was using SP3 before though.
-
Widescreen. LG. 1440x900 res.
-
I've got the same problem on my laptop. (LCD screen)
UFOAI : 2.3 Dev self-compiled SVN REV latest
OS : Ubuntu 8.10 64bit
-
i will increase the default light values for night maps a little bit
-
I suppose it's the only thing we can do, but it doesn't address the underlying problem, namely that the renderer is behaving differently depending on the system. Too bad it can't be reliably reproduced.
-
Well considering that Trashman and BTAxis have a very similar setup with regards to OS, video card, and drivers (looking through the posts), I would bet that the actual display makes a difference, because BTAxis stated he was using CRTs, while Trashman has what sounds like a different display screen, and one has blackness while the other doesn't.
As BTAxis said:
Windows XP Pro Corporate SP2
geForce 8800GTX, driver version 169.21
And Trashman has:
Win XP SP3
NVidia Gforce 8800 GTX, 169.21 forceware
...And Trashman has blackness while BTAxis doesn't.
Exactly how the display monitor makes a difference isn't something I quite get on a technical level, but I'd bet that's it.
-
Sounds reasonable, but it's still got to be something in the renderer, seeing how increasing gamma doesn't seem to help when the maps look black, and screenshots made of the black map look black even on my CRT screen.
-
i don't see how the renderer could differ here - i would guess that the problem is located on the monitor side
-
Thing is - night maps worked fine before IIRC. Maybe it's the compiling? Could be something went wrong there...
-
i don't see how the renderer could differ here - i would guess that the problem is located on the monitor side
Then explain to me how the screenshots can get affected? Does OpenGL capture screens through the monitor driver or something? Does that even make sense?
-
Then explain to me how the screenshots can get affected? Does OpenGL capture screens through the monitor driver or something? Does that even make sense?
It makes sense to me - I've seen video cards detect what type of screen or monitor they are connected to and adjust to work with them, although I don't know the fine, picky technical details of how they do such a thing.
As a former tech, I recall servicing computers in uncommon circumstances where a monitor driver needed to be manually loaded and configured, although most modern video cards I've seen handle it automatically.
On the other hand, I don't know details of how OpenGL works, or how the screenshot feature is implemented in the code.
I've heard that many OpenGL features are handled directly by the video card and its own processor, and screen capture sometimes involves quite a bit as it often means sending data to the video card, having the video card process it, and then feeding it back into the computer, which is why screen video capture can be very CPU intensive because the computer has to do so much work, although I've also heard this varies depending on the type of screen capture.
I'd imagine that it is possible for a video card to do something with the graphic data that might vary depending on the monitor connected before sending it back to be saved as a graphic file, but I don't know that as a fact.
Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken - this is a bit outside of my main technical expertise.
-
How's progress going on this? Is there any specific information you're looking for at the moment?
(I notice you're looking at different video card monitor combo's at the moment : as stated earlier, my card is the GeForce 6200, on Ubuntu (Hardy), monitor is IBM P76 CRT (The x server autodetects this also)... my current antarctica mission, everything except snow covered trees and the ufo are almost pitch black... I can get you a screen shot if that helps, otherwise, always willing to provide information) :)
-
You have the blackness with a CRT? Interesting...
I think a screenshot would be nice, yes, if it isn't too much trouble, so the rest of us can see how it will display on our monitors.
-
Here ya go :
[img=http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5234/ufo00mz9.th.jpg] (http://img407.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ufo00mz9.jpg)
-
Hmmm, on my flat-screen I see total blackness in the dark areas of the screenshot.
OK, so the blackness issue isn't dependent on the monitor being CRT or flatscreen, or at least not exclusively.
That sure zaps that theory...
...And now, therefore, I'm stumped, I have no more ideas at the moment. :(
-
the status is, that i'm still looking for same nice default values to get the lighting right for most of the maps - but i suppose we need someone who has to look over all the maps and tweak the lighting via worldspawn settings for light color and so on. the default values won't produce the best looking results in most cases.
-
Except we really need someone who can get the darkness problem on one system and NOT on another, or the values are going to look crap for some people anyway, just like they do now.
-
OK, I've gotten some success here!
I updated from SVN, and after looking at the tweaks done to ufomap.exe (I read the SVN logs), I ran the .bat to compile maps with the /clean option, and after re-building the maps I think it worked - I went into Skirmish mode and tried several maps, the night versions, and although there were darker areas, I didn't get any squares that were completely black.
I really need to get to bed now, its late where I am, but tomorrow I'll try to remember to post a few screenshots.
-
If you can reliably compile one map to look black by doing one thing and ALSO compile it to look normal by doing another thing (on the same revision), that would help.
-
I don't know if this helps, but if I use my selfcompiled maps everything, even the soldiers and weapons in the menu, glows ratiated.
If I use Spyros version everything is almost fine, only the ground on day missions seems too bright and also soemwhat oversaturated.
I say almost, because the Firebird is lit on the night missions and doesn't cast any shadow, but thats probably an oversight in the tile itself?
Also the civilists (including cows) on night missions are uniformerly lit bright, while the soldiers and aliens are properly shaded.
-
Ok, forgot what i said, I made a fast compile of the current version and it looks perfect (except the shadows and the firebird of course).