Two questions about windowed mode.

[pete.dakota]

I always have Orbiter running in windowed mode. Mainly so I can still chat to people, read stuff and change music etc. whilst running the sim. However, two things annoy me about this. I can't have vertical sync, and there is no sound then Orbiter is in the background. The second one is less annoying, but I thought I would ask anyway.

I understand that, as the 3D rendering is NOT full screen, v-sync may be impossible. I have an ATI X1950 Pro, with the latest catalyst drivers. The only options in Catalyst Control Center regarding v-sync, apply to full screen only. There doesn't seem to be any way to influence frame syncing in windowed mode. This gives me VERY excessive screen tearing. Which, although isn't the end of the World, is quite annoying. Is there any way around this?

The sound isn't a huge problem. I've been playing around with AMSO a lot recently, and it's sound packs. It would be nice to still be able to hear the ATC calls even whilst doing something else. I'm guessing this is embedded, though.

Thanks for any help.

 

[reverend]

I always have Orbiter running in windowed mode. Mainly so I can still chat to people, read stuff and change music etc. whilst running the sim. However, two things annoy me about this. I can't have vertical sync, and there is no sound then Orbiter is in the background. The second one is less annoying, but I thought I would ask anyway.

I understand that, as the 3D rendering is NOT full screen, v-sync may be impossible. I have an ATI X1950 Pro, with the latest catalyst drivers. The only options in Catalyst Control Center regarding v-sync, apply to full screen only. There doesn't seem to be any way to influence frame syncing in windowed mode. This gives me VERY excessive screen tearing. Which, although isn't the end of the World, is quite annoying. Is there any way around this?

The sound isn't a huge problem. I've been playing around with AMSO a lot recently, and it's sound packs. It would be nice to still be able to hear the ATC calls even whilst doing something else. I'm guessing this is embedded, though.

Thanks for any help.

The sound thing would require a re-write on OrbiterSound to play the audio when the app is not focused...

V-sync wouldn't be applicable to windowed mode, but you shouldn't see tearing... Maybe something to do with ATI or drivers, i've got nvidia and it works great.

You may have better luck in future orbiter versions where the graphics subsystem is detached from the rest of the engine. I know atleast on a performance basis, I notice a huge performance boost when using an external graphics client... fullscreen or windowed.

 

[pete.dakota]

The sound thing would require a re-write on OrbiterSound to play the audio when the app is not focused...

V-sync wouldn't be applicable to windowed mode, but you shouldn't see tearing... Maybe something to do with ATI or drivers, i've got nvidia and it works great.

You may have better luck in future orbiter versions where the graphics subsystem is detached from the rest of the engine. I know atleast on a performance basis, I notice a huge performance boost when using an external graphics client... fullscreen or windowed.

ATI driver implementation is STUPID. It drives me mad. Their cards are excellent, but their software and support is always a huge let down. For instance. I can't run Orbiter in full screen and get AA when both the frame rate and colour depth are the SAME as the desktop. I actually have to run it at 16bpp depth in order to see AA. ATI's implementation really gets me banging my head sometimes. I've always had problems with 3D application's settings conflicting with CCC and causing problems.

I doubt that the separation of the graphics core in future versions will fix anything. I can sense already that this is an ATI compatibility problem.

 

[TSPenguin]

There was an addon for making videos easier by limiting the framerate. I forgot the name but I'll look for it. If you could limit it to your refresh rate you should eliminate your tearing problems. This will only work if your card can generate enough FPS but that shouldn't be a problem for you.

EDIT: I couldn't find it on OH. I hope someone will recognize it and post it's name.

 

[pete.dakota]

There was an addon for making videos easier by limiting the framerate. I forgot the name but I'll look for it. If you could limit it to your refresh rate you should eliminate your tearing problems. This will only work if your card can generate enough FPS but that shouldn't be a problem for you.

EDIT: I couldn't find it on OH. I hope someone will recognize it and post it's name.

That sounds great! I could easily limit Orbiter to 40 FPS or so. I hope someone remembers it

 

[James.Denholm]

The sound thing would require a re-write on OrbiterSound to play the audio when the app is not focused...

V-sync wouldn't be applicable to windowed mode, but you shouldn't see tearing... Maybe something to do with ATI or drivers, i've got nvidia and it works great.

You may have better luck in future orbiter versions where the graphics subsystem is detached from the rest of the engine. I know at least on a performance basis, I notice a huge performance boost when using an external graphics client... fullscreen or windowed.

Ummm... OrbiterSound does continue to play music when not focused... not that I use it to play music (go iTunes!)...

I should just say that I always run Orbiter in windowed mode (for the same reasons) and I have no tearing... at least, no noticeable tearing. I think I have an Intel chipset or whatever (that's what you get when you purchase laptops through the school you attend...)

NOTE: After checking, I found that the accelerator is as follows (or so it says):

Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family

Not sure what that means.

 

[pete.dakota]

Ummm... OrbiterSound does continue to play music when not focused... not that I use it to play music (go iTunes!)...

That's odd :S Mine certainly doesn't.

*EDIT* Sorry I didn't realise you said music. I use WMP for music, not Orbiter.

 

[DaveS]

NOTE: After checking, I found that the accelerator is as follows (or so it says):

Mobile Intel(R) 965 Express Chipset Family

Not sure what that means.

It means that you have an integrated graphics chipset that shares it's video memory with the main system memory. It's integrated with the motherboard and not a stand-alone graphics card.

 

[James.Denholm]

It means that you have an integrated graphics chipset that shares it's video memory with the main system memory. It's integrated with the motherboard and not a stand-alone graphics card.

Oh. Thanks.

Wait, does that mean I can upgrade it to a stand-alone?

 

[TSPenguin]

Oh. Thanks.

Wait, does that mean I can upgrade it to a stand-alone?

Very Very Very unlikely. So unlikely I'd bet on it!
Laptops with exchangeable graphics cards are so rare. If you had one you would already have a non integrated graphics card.

 

[NukeET]

Ummm... OrbiterSound does continue to play music when not focused... not that I use it to play music (go iTunes!)...

I've seen this behavior too.

But it only finishes playing the current song...then stops. If I switch focus back to Orbiter, it then starts playing where it left off.

 

[martins]

There was an addon for making videos easier by limiting the framerate. I forgot the name but I'll look for it. If you could limit it to your refresh rate you should eliminate your tearing problems. This will only work if your card can generate enough FPS but that shouldn't be a problem for you.

EDIT: I couldn't find it on OH. I hope someone will recognize it and post it's name.

I don't know how video capture software works, but it strikes me that it would be very useful if the frame grabber could be triggered by the application rather than by an external clock. Is that possible with popular video editing software? If so, all that would be necessary to produce smooth orbiter videos is a tiny plugin that hooks into the PostStep callback function to send a trigger signal to the video capture software and to wait until the frame capture is confirmed. Use this in conjunction with "fixed frame interval" option under the debug option in the Extra tab, and you can record a video at any arbitrary constant frame rate. Tearing and dropped frames shouldn't be a problem since orbiter would automatically wait until the frame grabber has finished its job before rendering the next frame.