New Release D3D9Client Development

[Frankynov]

I can not resist to post some pictures of the water rendering, that is GORGEOUS !







Although the FPS indicator shows crazy values (between 170 and even 600 FPS), I encounter a lot of micro freezes while flying above the water (using an AMD R9 280 3GB)

Also, I don't remember if I correctly had installed the Mars textures, but I get this strange bug near Mars:



DX7 immediatly crashes when I get close to Mars so I suspect a problem on my Orbiter installation

 

[fort]

I can not resist to post some pictures of the water rendering, that is GORGEOUS !

Yes and no. On the seas parts, Atlantique or elsewhere, yes ( but the waves are maybe a little bit contrasted ). On lakes ( i'm thinking to Canaveral for example or on others places like that ) the waves seems irrealist ).

 

[jarmonik]

Thanks. It partially worked, as I can see loading screen now. But scene still doesn't appear. I see some errors in log, related pretty much to hardware or wrong settings (maybe too much MSAA?).

Have you tried "a true fullscreen" mode ?

I don't really have time to start investigating a stereoscopic issues right now. So, I think it's up to you to figure out why TestCooperativeLevel() fails and what's wrong with GetRenderTargetData().

---------- Post added at 04:03 ---------- Previous post was at 03:52 ----------

Although the FPS indicator shows crazy values (between 170 and even 600 FPS), I encounter a lot of micro freezes while flying above the water (using an AMD R9 280 3GB)

That's likely due to loading of a new surface tiles. It should have nothing to do with water rendering. I am trying to find solutions to improve the loading of new tiles, but so far, my efforts have failed. The question is: what is causing the main rendering thread to stall/freeze ?

---------- Post added at 04:04 ---------- Previous post was at 04:03 ----------

Yes and no. On the seas parts, Atlantique or elsewhere, yes ( but the waves are maybe a little bit contrasted ). On lakes ( i'm thinking to Canaveral for example or on others places like that ) the waves seems irrealist ).

There's no-way to separate/identify lakes from an oceans. So, we need a solution that fits them both.

 

[Poscik]

Have you tried "a true fullscreen" mode ?

I don't really have time to start investigating a stereoscopic issues right now. So, I think it's up to you to figure out why TestCooperativeLevel() fails and what's wrong with GetRenderTargetData().

Yes, I'm running true full screen. I'll check rest of modes today, and also with 1280x720 as client is compiled with nvidia api now.

 

[Abloheet]

Good Job!

:jawdrops:
The water rendering system is too gorgeous. It is a dream come true.

One question, why can't I enable sunlight postprocessing?
What are the custom cameras? I never saw that before.
What does environment mapping(reflection mode) do, btw? The lod tile flickering occurs because of that.

In original dx7 inline orbiter, I can enable EQAA by forcing it from Catalyst Control Centre. Even if I try to force enable EQAA from the Catalyst Control Centre, dx9 orbiter still runs at 8xMSAA. Any idea how to force it?
My gpu is r9 270x 2gb

 

[DaveS]

How can I increase the power of specular reflections using a spec map? I have tried everything I can think of, and yet this remains pretty much the strongest. If needed, I can provide all the files from troubleshooting.

 

[jarmonik]

How can I increase the power of specular reflections using a spec map? I have tried everything I can think of, and yet this remains pretty much the strongest. If needed, I can provide all the files from troubleshooting.

Currently the maximum power is set to 255 (Line 100 in Vessel.fx)

There was a release a while back where the specular map was modulated with a specular material setting which allowed a power up to 1000.

---------- Post added at 08:32 ---------- Previous post was at 08:23 ----------

a) One question, why can't I enable sunlight postprocessing?
b) What are the custom cameras? I never saw that before.
c) What does environment mapping(reflection mode) do, btw? The lod tile flickering occurs because of that.

a) Not yet implemented, used for developers only.
b) Docking and payload-bay cameras, not yet used by any add-ons. (Operational in 2010-P1)
c) You can see things like the Earth reflecting from a windows and other reflective surfaces. (Operational in 2010-P1, and an add-ons need to support it in order to benefit from it)

 

[Matias Saibene]

b) Docking and payload-bay cameras, not yet used by any add-ons. (Operational in 2010-P1)

The XR5 Vanguard has cameras in the cargo bay and docking port.

 

[Marg]

It's a pity that most addons do not work properly in the new BETA. Seems to me typically there is a landing point problem, obviously something was changed in Orbiter in this area.
I launched Atlantis manually, looking down from SRB booster (like in onboard camera), water reflections down were impressive, then spent all the time until "splashdown", watching approaching water.
I think waves look very OK even in Banana river, only smallest basins look a bit odd, but overall it is a solution which fits both oceans and rivers, as Jarmonik wrote.

 

[fort]

I think waves look very OK even in Banana river, only smallest basins look a bit odd, but overall it is a solution which fits both oceans and rivers, as Jarmonik wrote.

I wiil try others textures that i have on my hard drive that could do a better effect on rivers and little surfaces and fit oceans too. I have also to learn to make bump map. I'll see.

 

[Ripley]

It's a pity that most addons do not work properly in the new BETA...

As you wrote, the Beta is still (very) new. Just give it time.

 

[jarmonik]

I wiil try others textures that i have on my hard drive that could do a better effect on rivers and little surfaces and fit oceans too. I have also to learn to make bump map. I'll see.

It would be great to have a better water map. The current map is made quickly with a few brush strokes just to test the rendering.

 

[fort]

It would be great to have a better water map. The current map is made quickly with a few brush strokes just to test the rendering.

I've made some test last days but i need two or three real free days, maybe during the holydays in february, to look at that closer. I'll like for example to see if it will be better to work with textures showing shop or swell ( en français: clapot, houle ) rather than waves ( but for sure, your waves are really nice near the beaches ). And i know that one can't have both.

 

[Marg]

Just found that BrianJ's "Falcon Heavy" works like a charm in this new environment (new Orbiter BETA + Jarmonik's client), only barge is a bit under water, and some other small issues...
Hooorah!

 

[Marg]

Actually thinking now, the most prominent issue is flickering, looking down from booster - down below all meshes flicker from a distance (pads, VAB, buildings)
in some cases flickering planes are ~ 10 m one behind another, I mean they are not so close overlapping, but still rendering "can't choose" what to show...

 

[DaveS]

A note on the sunset/sunrise effects in the beta version of D3D9Client. There's still too much yellow. This is screenshot from D3D9Client Beta 11:

It should look more like this. Entire sunrise effect as seen from one of ETVCGs on ISS:

And the same from one of the HDEV cameras:

 

[Felix24]

I'm looking for a way to prolong the blue post-sunset light that illuminates the vessel while in orbit. The sunset light should shift from cream to pink to orange to gray to blue, which then lingers for a minute as the blue horizon shrinks and disappears.

 

[Felix24]

It would be great to have a better water map. The current map is made quickly with a few brush strokes just to test the rendering.

Here's some cross-pollination with Microsoft FSX.



Close up, the waves should look like this.



If they look like this, i.e. darker overall with light and dark spots:



Then apply a fix to Surface.fx. Make this change around line 453:

if (bSpecular) {
    float3 cNrm = tex2D(OceaTexS, frg.texUV.zw).xyz * 2.0 - 1.0f;
    //
    cNrm.z = cos(cross(cNrm.x, cNrm.y) * 1.570796);        // Fix for specular map glitch from normal map
    //
    float3 nrmW = (vTangent * cNrm.r) + (vBiTangent * cNrm.g) + (vUnitCameraPos * cNrm.b);
    float f = 1.0-saturate(dot(frg.camW, nrmW));
    float s = dot(reflect(-vSunDir, nrmW), frg.camW);
    float m = (1.0 - cMsk.a) * saturate(0.5f-frg.aux[AUX_NIGHT]*2.0f);

    cSpe = m * pow(saturate(s), vWater.a) * vWater.rgb * 3.0f;
    cTex.rgb = lerp(cTex.rgb, float3(0.8, 1.0, 1.3), m * (f*f*f));
    //cTex.rgb = 1;
}

For some reason, using a normal map on a surface will slightly corrupt the specular reflection. This fix re-calculates the z-axis based on the x and y axes, which are unaffected.

The same problem is present on vessels, too.

Don't forget to make a backup of the original wave map.

 

[xN0xM3RCYx310]

Please Help! Orbiter NG no graphics
Running in server mode (no graphics client attached)
I don't have any ideas why this is happening: am I missing a flash player, is my graphics card the problem, did I install it wrong?
I need to fix this problem to do a project for science fair and its due in less than a week, we were supposed to get to Mars but this happened.
Please help, thanks!

 

[Cras]

Seem to have found something with the latest version of the client for 2010p1, I am not at all sure what the cause of it can be, haven't really done a lot of process of elimination yet, but what I am seeing is:

I load up a scenario with Shuttle Fleet in LEO, about 430km, not sure that matters. I have a few MFDs open in the VC, Orbit MFD, Pursuit MFD, GPC MFD, Sync Orbit, and Burn Time Calc.

I set the shuttle to be in an intertial attitude hold, NOT an LVLH hold. Then I set the time acceleration to 100x. When the sim is loaded I am at something like 500 fps. And as the sim goes, and the shuttle keeps flying around the earth, I see the frame rate drop at a pretty fast rate then as time goes, a bit slower, and it then bottoms out at about 70fps or so....so there seems to be something going on that is kill the frame rates...this I dont think is linked to Ext MFD or anything...maybe it has something to do with the VC MFDs I am not sure, but I found it odd how the frame rate degrades over time, and not in just a single burst that can be linked to when a certain mfd is turned on like before.