New Orbiter Beta Released (r.13, Mar 7, 2015)

[martins]

I've committed a new Orbiter beta (revision #3 of the new era).

The main changes are elevation support for planet surfaces, higher surface and cloud texture resolutions, modified vessel-planet impact model, and lots of internal changes in the physics engine (including support for subsampling time steps.)

To get the beta, point your SVN client to

svn://orbiter-forum.com/orbiter

and check out the head revision into a new directory.

A few points to take into consideration:

• This is an early beta. Lots of things are still broken. Don't expect it to be stable or compatible with existing modules.
  
• In particular, external graphics clients will not yet be compatible with this beta. However, the D3D7 reference implementation on the "orbitervis" sourceforge project has been updated and can be used as a template by graphics client developers to implement the new features.
  
• Planetary surface bases don't yet support the new elevation model. This is known and will be addressed in future betas. There is no need yet to file bug reports regarding this.
  
• The SVN repository has been recreated as a result of the earlier orbiter-forum server update. If you have checked out a previous Orbiter beta, you cannot get the latest version with an update. You have to check out a new copy. Check out into a new directory, not one that already contains an Orbiter installation.
  
• The textures for Earth, Moon and Mars are no longer part of the SVN repository. They must be downloaded separately. Go to http://mirror.orbiter-radio.co.uk/orbiter/assets/ (Xyon's German mirror) or http://www.alteaaerospace.com/users/martins217/orbiter_texturepacks.html (dbeachy1's US mirror) to get these files. See Xyon's post below for details on downloading and unpacking.

Happy beta-testing!

 

[Xyon]

A note on the texture packs: users in the US might find you get higher bandwidth from dbeachy1's mirror: http://www.alteaaerospace.com/users/martins217/orbiter_texturepacks.html

My server, above, is physically located in Germany and is a good node for European users to download from. Additionally, the torrents are being seeded from it, with a gigabit up-stream, and i'd recommend using them if you've a poor quality connection due to their more resilient nature (and you can pause and resume them) . You'll need a torrent client for that; I recommend deluge as a cross-platform, feature-rich, advert free client.

You will need to use 7-zip to unpack the large Earth and Moon fragments; they are not zip files, but all the other files are plain zip which Windows can handle natively.

 

[Face]

• The SVN repository has been recreated as a result of the earlier orbiter-forum server update. If you have checked out a previous Orbiter beta, you cannot get the latest version with an update. You have to check out a new copy. Check out into a new directory, not one that already contains an Orbiter installation.

I've updated my Mercurial mirrors with your latest updates (both Orbiter distro and OVP sources). However, I have not duplicated the repository recreation, instead the "new" commits pick up where the "old" left. Users of the mirror just have to pull and update, no new checkout necessary.

Many thanks for your ongoing work on Orbiter, Martin!

 

[asbjos]

Nice!

Will the Earth cloud texture work on Orbiter 2010 too?

 

[martins]

Will the Earth cloud texture work on Orbiter 2010 too?

No.

 

[kamaz]

Does the texture download include terrain data, or is that separate?

 

[martins]

Does the texture download include terrain data, or is that separate?

The terrain data are included in the texture downloads. They are extracted into

<orbiter-root>\Textures\<planet-name>\Elev

 

[dgatsoulis]

Just run my first "look around" session with the default texture/elev packs. The high resolution ones are still downloading at 1 Mb/s with bittorrent (for my connection, this is the top speed).

Jaw-freaking-dropping! Earth looks beautiful, the new cloud textures look astonishing and being in LEO (120 km) with ~40° FoV is amazing.
My frame-rate was as good (if not better) as with the 2010P1 edition with the inline client, running @~35-40 fps in LEO and ~50 fps at a higher orbit.

Orbiter took a while to load the first time, (about 25 seconds) but subsequent loads have taken less than 10 seconds.

I have a very mediocre→low end PC, so I was expecting a hit on the frame rate from the terrain, but noticed nothing of the sort.

 

[Xyon]

Orbiter took a while to load the first time, (about 25 seconds) but subsequent loads have taken less than 10 seconds.

You likely filled your disk cache up the first time, so the subsequent loads were from memory instead of HDD.

 

[Hlynkacg]

Are the texture packs actually required to run the simulation?

I just tried to run it (textures are still downloading) and got a CTD. Orbiter.log reveals the following...

Finished initialising status
Finished initialising camera
Finished setting up render state
Finished initialising panels
---------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ERROR: DDraw error DDERR_SURFACELOST
>>> [OrbiterGraphics::clbkGetSurfaceDC | .\OGraphics.cpp | 1650]
---------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------
>>> ERROR: DDraw error DDERR_SURFACELOST
>>> [OrbiterGraphics::clbkGetSurfaceDC | .\OGraphics.cpp | 1650]
---------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Xyon]

You need the low res packs at least, and the cloud textures. The high-res tiles are optional.

 

[Hlynkacg]

You need the low res packs at least, and the cloud textures. The high-res tiles are optional.

Ok, no worries but that fact should probably be made a bit more clear.

 

[Face]

Interesting enough, I was able to launch orbiter.exe without Earth/Moon/Mars textures installed. Of course those gbodies were just white balls, but the simulation run.

 

[Xyon]

Ok, no worries but that fact should probably be made a bit more clear.

It's the first bullet point on http://mirror.orbiter-radio.co.uk/orbiter/assets/orbiter_texturepacks.html.

Indeed, however, your simulation should start without them - when I tried it I got 2fps, but it loaded.

 

[Ghostrider]

We're all gonna die.

Later. Gotta test the beta first.

 

[Aion]

Well then, there goes my weekend.

 

[Quick_Nick]

:hail:

 

[Ripley]

You need the low res packs at least, and the cloud textures...

...I was able to launch orbiter.exe without Earth/Moon/Mars textures installed...

Me too.

 

[Xyon]

Me too.

I believe the term "Undefined behaviour" covers this case. When I ran it without, it ran, but at 1~2 FPS. Others can't get it to run at all. Some are perfectly fine without textures but of course have untextured gbodies. YMMV. Some assembly required.

 

[Hlynkacg]

I believe the term "Undefined behaviour" covers this case. When I ran it without, it ran, but at 1~2 FPS. Others can't get it to run at all. Some are perfectly fine without textures but of course have untextured gbodies. YMMV. Some assembly required.

This ^

As an aside I have since downloaded the textures and have gotten it running.