Lighting and shadows problems on Mac

[ds01]

If you could explain a nOOb how to get that pk3

According to forum, I am more n00b than you are

[edit: hrmm you used the force, shall just leave the rest for anyone if interested...]
The pk3 is in the latest release candidate from SourceForge here:
http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/nexuiz/nexuiz151rc3.zip?download

If you want to try then feel free to - would really appreciate any other OSX user input especially an ATI card!

Well there's not much to it - you put the app from the dmg in a directory, then pull the data folder from the RC zip into directory of the app. Then fire it up with GLSL on and create a local game. Can you see the world and models, or just the sky and particles? If you can't see everything, then make a folder named glsl in the data folder and move the default.glsl file into it. Then restart and you should now be able to see things with GLSL enabled.

Another thing to try is to enable waterscroll (should be on already unless you turned it off) then create local game and switch the map to the slime pit or what's it called, i.e. type map nexdm03 at console. Walk into the room with all the green flourescent glowing tubes and if the bug shows itself - you _will_ know lol.

Last thing to try is to check map nexdm08 the glow arena and look at the stairs, They should either do or do not work depending on version of binary.

I say a lot in the rtf file in the dmg. There is also an example autoexec.cfg you can place in the data directory or in ~/.data. BTW I hate dot files in $HOME nasty sloppy dot files... in the future it would be nice to throw everything - data and config etc - right inside the .app bundle. I suck at filepath mods or would have submitted OSX specific patch to do this alreay.

Thanks

[obi_wan]

ok... i got all files needed and made what you say
Powermac G5 dual 2,7 GHz // graphic board ATI Radeon 9650 AGP 256Mo

1 - i put the dmg's .app into the game folder and simply fire it >> i can only see the sky.
2 - made a folder named glsl etc and refired the game >> now i can see everything
3 - used your autoexec to be sure and tried to go on the Slime Pit map >> you were right, i know that the bug is here ^^ i couldn't have miss it... there is like a smoky psychedelic rotating movement :

4 - in the glow arena map, i can see the stairs, no problem
And : there are dropshadows on the text in the menus :S really hard to read...



Also : i always cant see weapon's shadows on the ground for example (i can see them in some screenshots) even if every option is set to "on"

[ds01]

obi_wan, thanks for testing. It's bad all OSX video cards are affected. :(

Are you sure the stairs in glow arena look as intended? Try going into the .app bundle and renaming the nexuiz-agl.last binary to nexuiz-agl. Use that one and you should then be able to see all the dlights and shadows etc.

The r_textshadow I put in, because it makes it easier to read the text while playing the game itself. Yea guess it is just personal preference :b Changing r_waterscroll to 0 in autoexec.cfg, that should fix that psychodelia.

[artfoundry]

Well I tried all the new files. I could see everything, but no lighting/shadow effects and the game was really slow (5-10 fps).
BTW, I have the same system as obi-wan (I put the wrong info before) - dual 2.7 G5 with radeon 9650.
I think for now I'll just stick with the current release.

[obi_wan]

Are you sure the stairs in glow arena look as intended? Try going into the .app bundle and renaming the nexuiz-agl.last binary to nexuiz-agl. Use that one and you should then be able to see all the dlights and shadows etc.

ok now i can see everything, shadows too
but the game runs at 25 fps really poor

The r_textshadow I put in, because it makes it easier to read the text while playing the game itself. Yea guess it is just personal preference :b Changing r_waterscroll to 0 in autoexec.cfg, that should fix that psychodelia.

r_waterscroll set to 0 fixes that psychodelia, you are right

i knew that the macintosh isn't a gaming machine... but i didn't thought it was so poor for that

[KadaverJack]

Are you sure the stairs in glow arena look as intended?

The neon tubes on nexdm08 are still broken (so it's not a MacOS driver bug), the slime pipes on nexdm03 however are fixed by now.

[ds01]

ok now i can see everything, shadows too
but the game runs at 25 fps really poor

The binary that allows all effects to be seen was built from a snapshot just before a large amount of optimizations were done, because after that some things broke over here.

Also, if it's your first time playing with newer game data (i.e. RC pk3 or data from svn), there is a LOT more candy - effects etc. ,, even just in the maps themselves. I turned on almost everything (not shadows tho) in the autoexec for testing purposes [make it easier]. You can get a speed boost on your specific setup by doing couple little things like disable r_glsl_offsetmapping. That probably help a bit, but there's some other things too like if you don't care about bloom turn that off for speed (but you can also turn down r_bloom_resolution instead [default is 320],, i.e. try 64).

I noticed in the screenshots people always turn down texture quality and aniso for speed. This doesn't really help so much as other options I would suggest first:
r_shadow_gloss "0"
r_glsl_offsetmapping "0"
r_bloom_resolution "64"
r_shadow_bumpscale_basetexture "1"
r_shadow_bumpscale_bumpmap "0"
& if you don't care about it you could also
r_glsl_deluxemapping "0"

BTW G5 binary is built "regulated power" - try turning resolution up.

i knew that the macintosh isn't a gaming machine... but i didn't thought it was so poor for that

Just like last year when they hired GL engineers and then released updated drivers slightly faster with more features, this year they just posted positions for hire - for optimization and design. So... there is still hope obi_wan!

It is this way because of several things. The drivers on OSX are built on top of a shared GL engine, but in Windows or proprietary NVidia/ATI Linux drivers they have individual GL drivers with their own 2D drivers and can do "tricks" for speed increase. This is simplified example, so don't take it the wrong way - _of course_ OSX drivers have their own interfaces to the engine.

Further, right now the underlying Apple GL engine [shared engine] I believe to be a bottleneck for the drivers. There seem to be 'caps' on thruput, example - Quake 4 runs same speed at 1600x1200 vs. any lower resolution [no difference in FPS]. People migrating to OSX from other Unix complain about these caps when they bring their thruput benchmarks over and only get so few MegaPixels. Most people just don't realize and just think it's cool that you can even run these new games at crazy res like 1920x1200 (or whatever), but don't stop to think just why that is exactly. (It is impressive that no loss in going up in resolution so high though.)

There is also the fact that the 3D engine ,, i.e. GL engine ,, _has_ to be running 24/7. The entire user interface is composited output GL and seems Apple is naughty and UNDERclocks video cards Maybe this make less heat or more stable in some ways it's just absurd really. You have to give them mad props tho, there's no flicker or artifact - everything seamless transition completely smooth - a bazillion 3D running simultaneously.

@ KadaverJack : Thanks for clarifying that. Actually was talking about differences in the binaries from the disk image, but it's good to know this