What can my Radeon 9000 do, in theory?
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Lordfly Digeridoo
Prim Orchestrator
Join date: 21 Jul 2003
Posts: 3,628
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03-28-2004 11:57
Ok, after turning on features in SL's preference window and not seeing anything happen... what CAN my radeon do, in theory, that SL supports? For instance, can it do "shadows"? I've never seen a true shadow in my life since playing SL, even with it turned on. And local lighting makes me weep for the pain my video card goes through. So what can it do? 
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BlackAdder York
Charter Member
Join date: 22 May 2003
Posts: 283
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Re: What can my Radeon 9000 do, in theory?
03-28-2004 20:09
From: someone Originally posted by Lordfly Digeridoo Ok, after turning on features in SL's preference window and not seeing anything happen...
what CAN my radeon do, in theory, that SL supports?
For instance, can it do "shadows"? I've never seen a true shadow in my life since playing SL, even with it turned on. And local lighting makes me weep for the pain my video card goes through.
So what can it do? As long as you have more than 256mb system memory, it can do anything except Ripple Water (which I think requires a card capable of DX9 hardware support). However, you're more likely to get texture corruption or crashes if you enable any of the following: Avatar Vertex, Large Texture Cache, Video Memory higher than 32mb, Avatar/Clothing Bump, or AGP Acceleration. And, it's important to keep SmoothVision and Anisotropic Filtering set to Application Preference in the ATI Control Panel. Nevertheless, enabling Anisotropic Filtering in Preferences, and Setting Video Memory as high as possible, should make a very noticeable difference in how sharp and realistic textures look. The, shadow setting doesn't produce hard, clearly defined shadows. It's more of a soft, overall effect. Subtle, but it does add a bit more visual depth. IMHO, not enough difference for the performance hit. You could just as easily turn Gamma down a few notches.
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Moleculor Satyr
Fireflies!
Join date: 5 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,650
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03-28-2004 22:27
And -that- is why everyone needs to buy a nVidia card.
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BlackAdder York
Charter Member
Join date: 22 May 2003
Posts: 283
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03-29-2004 08:40
From: someone Originally posted by Moleculor Satyr
And -that- is why everyone needs to buy a nVidia card. ROFL. You make a strong case Mole. A very strong case indeed.
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eltee Statosky
Luskie
Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 1,258
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03-30-2004 09:47
From: someone Originally posted by Moleculor Satyr
And -that- is why everyone needs to buy a nVidia card. true.. but then everyone would miss out on the best consumer available fsaa currently available (ati's 4x is roughly sample-equivalent to the quality of an imaginary nvidia '16x' setting... ati's 6x... well heh... lets just say theres a *REALLY* good reason why nvidia's next cards are going to switch to rotated grid sampling from the ordered grid mess.... 36x anyone?)
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Moleculor Satyr
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Join date: 5 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,650
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03-30-2004 16:03
From: someone Originally posted by eltee Statosky
true.. but then everyone would miss out on the best consumer available fsaa currently available
(ati's 4x is roughly sample-equivalent to the quality of an imaginary nvidia '16x' setting... ati's 6x... well heh... lets just say theres a *REALLY* good reason why nvidia's next cards are going to switch to rotated grid sampling from the ordered grid mess.... 36x anyone?) Ah, but if the card keeps crashing because their drivers suck, who CARES how 'good' the card is?
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Donovan Galatea
Cowboy Metaphysicist
Join date: 25 Mar 2004
Posts: 205
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03-31-2004 09:27
Ripple water? I'm running two different computers with 865 Intel chipsets, 3.2 CPU's, NVidia 5950 cards, and the very latest drivers. I see no way to enable ripple water in 1.3; the box is grayed out.
Am able to do it on an older third computer with an ATI 9800, but the card can't handle it very well.
Am I missing something?
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Moleculor Satyr
Fireflies!
Join date: 5 Jan 2004
Posts: 2,650
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03-31-2004 09:58
I think a card has to be DX9 compatible to ripple water, but the nVidia 5K series handles vertex manipulations differently than all other cards, so SL has to code a special case for them.
Or something like that.
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eltee Statosky
Luskie
Join date: 23 Sep 2003
Posts: 1,258
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03-31-2004 10:15
From: someone Originally posted by Moleculor Satyr
I think a card has to be DX9 compatible to ripple water, but the nVidia 5K series handles vertex manipulations differently than all other cards, so SL has to code a special case for them.
Or something like that. the water shaders are all made with nvidia's cg toolkit. They don't necessatily look right though due to some issues with draw distance so its usually better to leave them off anyway
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Catherine Omega
Geometry Ninja
Join date: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 2,053
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03-31-2004 11:10
Ripple water is kind of stupid anyway, since it's totally client-side and doesn't affect anything at all.
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Ricercar Neville
debates for fun
Join date: 31 May 2004
Posts: 36
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06-19-2004 15:39
When I have ripple water on, building foundations get periodically submerged, and my sailboats occasionally fill with water and drain. It's obvious that few people develop objects with Ripple Water turned on.
A shame, IMHO. It's a delightful effect.
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