SH4 Vanilla 1.5 - Flickering Stars

greyman808 · 01-07-12, 01:20 AM

Hi all,

I am brand new here so forgive me if I am posting something that has already been answered a million times.

Tried searching the board but could not seem to find anything specific about it so here goes:

In my plain vanilla 1.5 SH4 which I just bought in the bargin bin a few weeks ago

At night stars seem to flicker and shimmer. I am getting the impression it's a antialiasing issue (using an ATI Radeon HD 5800 and running at 1920x1080)

- but fool around as I may with the aa settings of the catalyst drivers can't seem to stop the effect. (it would also seem that with this version of catalyst you can't remove AA only set it to x2 samples or application controlled) (sh4 internal graphics settings don't seem to have AA controls)

Anyways has this happened to anyone else - workarounds? mods that fix?
I am sure there is probably some .ini or .cfg somewhere where you put a antialising=false or something....

Thanks!

WernherVonTrapp · 01-07-12, 09:53 AM

Well, I must admit, I don't ever recall this being an issue with anyone before. The stars flicker on my SHIV game too.

If it's any consolation, stars flicker in the real life sky also. It's an atmospheric phenomenon that's tantamount to visual distortions caused by heat rising from the roadway. Planets, on the other hand, don't flicker like stars, though I don't think those are modeled in SHIV.

Rockin Robbins · 01-07-12, 11:09 AM

Actually at sea scintillation is usually close to zero unless you are looking over a land mass between you and the horizon. The game does a lousy job of being a planetarium, but hey, that's not what it was designed for!

At sea in a real sub you would see a thousand times (that's very conservative) more stars, they would not flicker and you couldn't pick out the big dipper to save your life until you totally relearned the sky.

Here's a picture I took from Summerlin Key, Florida, showing the constellation Sagittarius before it was even dark. Can you pick out the stars of the constellation figure of a teapot? 20 seconds, Ektachrome, unguided. This shows what you would see naked eye except for the red nebulosity, which that film is particularly sensitive to.

Some clues: The teapot is angled spout downward at about 45º. The handle is on the left. If you're a real constellation buff you'll be bailed out by the nebulosity, telling you where the stars are. If you don't know the nebulae, good luck. There are just too many stars to pick out the right ones!

WernherVonTrapp · 01-07-12, 01:16 PM

I don't know if I'd place sea scintillation at 0, since the disturbances are caused mostly by atmospheric turbulance. You'll always notice more of a difference when the objects are low on the horizon and less as they move higher in the sky. The presence of moisture in the air will also add some degree to the refraction of light.
BTW, if anyone is interested in a cool (FREE) space simulation program that allows you to travel (seamlessly) through the universe, check out
Celestia.
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/

I did, however, forget how many stars are visible when there's no light pollution. I only saw the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in 1996, when I moved into the mountains, away from the city. Now, somehow, I'm back near the city again. Oh yeah, it's called a "wife".

Hylander_1314 · 01-07-12, 08:08 PM

Aside from the sky being full of stars, The further north toward the pole, and the same for going south, would be real cool to see the auroras.

After moving back to Michigan, from out west, I finally saw them here at my uncle's for the first time since 1973 or 74. We would get them in Denver but they were very rare comepared to the more northern reagions.

Although, at 2 to 3 am, on a clear cold winter night in the mountains, the stars litterred the sky like clouds of fireflies.

greyman808 · 01-07-12, 11:14 PM

I had wondered if the shimmer was coded in - since indeed IRL it would - but what I am noticing is rather excessive - it's almost a blinking. It's a problem since when shadowing contact at long ranges I end up having difficulty distinguishing between the semphamore lamp of the ships and those darn stars... It only happens with the very small stars that appear to be a few pixels in diameter - the larger ones do not which is also what makes me think it's an AA issue. Do any of you guys know of a setting in sh4 config files to force AA to off? poked around a bit all I found is GFXSettings.cfg that just seems to be the default settings for the min/medium/full detail levels... But if you guys say it's not a commonly reported problem - the problem might just be with me and my noobness

WernherVonTrapp · 01-08-12, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Here's a picture I took from Summerlin Key, Florida, showing the constellation Sagittarius before it was even dark. Can you pick out the stars of the constellation figure of a teapot? 20 seconds, Ektachrome, unguided. This shows what you would see naked eye except for the red nebulosity, which that film is particularly sensitive to.

Pardon me for forgetting to mention, that's an astonishing photo RR.

You set the shutter speed for 20 secs? I don't know much about photography but I presume you were using an SLR. I have a digital camera but I can set shutter speed as well. I wonder if I could take a picture like that using my tripod.

Of course, somewhere away from all the city lights.

@greyman808:
You can certainly try tweaking various settings to see if it helps but, like RR said, SHIV was designed for stellar simulation. I can only imagine the coding nightmare it was to get the major constellations in place. I don't recall anyone having an issue with this before, but there's always a first time.

Rockin Robbins · 01-08-12, 05:52 PM

Well, here's your answer to "where did one of the brightest constellations in the sky go?"

And that's your visual confusion at sea.

It's true that atmospheric turbulence causes stars to twinkle. This is caused by uneven heating of the ground causing bubbles of warmer air to rise up through the surrounding cooler air. Those bubbles refract light differently than the air surrounding, so when they pass between you and a star, it either moves or the light can even be directed away from your eye, causing you to see it blink off. Then when the bubble of rising warmer air passes out of your line of sight the star returns to its former position, brightness and color.

At sea, unless you are looking at stars over a land mass, there is no uneven heating of the ground. The water evens out the temperature, causing uniform surface temps everywhere around you. There are no warmer air bubbles to rise up through the surrounding cooler air, and so stars do not twinkle.

Also the higher the humidity, the less stars twinkle, as the water in the air causes it to conduct heat better, making the differences between cooler and warmer regions less. There is MUCH more atmospheric scintillation in the desert than in Florida, for instance.

True story. I was minding my own business at Summerlin Key, looking through a neighboring telescope with the owner, showing him some globular clusters. We were looking and I'd say "need some more magnification there to resolve the stars better." And he'd retrieve a shorter focal length eyepiece. Finally I asked if he had a 6 mm eyepiece and he retrieved it. The thing was so dirty we couldn't even use it. I asked him why. Turned out he was from Arizona and in the desert there is so much turbulence from the cold air and the hot desert sand spawning turbulence from hell that he could never use his higher power eyepieces! From the Florida Keys, the high power view was rock steady. We were looking out over the water.

breadcatcher101 · 01-10-12, 10:45 PM

I play vanilla as well and on occasion I see what I call "foo fighters".

A diffused faded blinking light that has the flight pattern of a firefly way off in the distance.

Never noticed that with the stars, though.

01-07-12, 01:20 AM	#1
greyman808 Nub Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Canada Posts: 2 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	SH4 Vanilla 1.5 - Flickering Stars Hi all, I am brand new here so forgive me if I am posting something that has already been answered a million times. Tried searching the board but could not seem to find anything specific about it so here goes: In my plain vanilla 1.5 SH4 which I just bought in the bargin bin a few weeks ago At night stars seem to flicker and shimmer. I am getting the impression it's a antialiasing issue (using an ATI Radeon HD 5800 and running at 1920x1080) - but fool around as I may with the aa settings of the catalyst drivers can't seem to stop the effect. (it would also seem that with this version of catalyst you can't remove AA only set it to x2 samples or application controlled) (sh4 internal graphics settings don't seem to have AA controls) Anyways has this happened to anyone else - workarounds? mods that fix? I am sure there is probably some .ini or .cfg somewhere where you put a antialising=false or something.... Thanks!

01-07-12, 09:53 AM	#2
WernherVonTrapp Admiral Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Now, alot farther from NYC. Posts: 2,228 Downloads: 105 Uploads: 0	Well, I must admit, I don't ever recall this being an issue with anyone before. The stars flicker on my SHIV game too. If it's any consolation, stars flicker in the real life sky also. It's an atmospheric phenomenon that's tantamount to visual distortions caused by heat rising from the roadway. Planets, on the other hand, don't flicker like stars, though I don't think those are modeled in SHIV. __________________ "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Miyamoto Musashi ------------------------------------------------------- "What is truth?" -Pontius Pilate

01-07-12, 11:09 AM	#3
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	Actually at sea scintillation is usually close to zero unless you are looking over a land mass between you and the horizon. The game does a lousy job of being a planetarium, but hey, that's not what it was designed for! At sea in a real sub you would see a thousand times (that's very conservative) more stars, they would not flicker and you couldn't pick out the big dipper to save your life until you totally relearned the sky. Here's a picture I took from Summerlin Key, Florida, showing the constellation Sagittarius before it was even dark. Can you pick out the stars of the constellation figure of a teapot? 20 seconds, Ektachrome, unguided. This shows what you would see naked eye except for the red nebulosity, which that film is particularly sensitive to. Some clues: The teapot is angled spout downward at about 45º. The handle is on the left. If you're a real constellation buff you'll be bailed out by the nebulosity, telling you where the stars are. If you don't know the nebulae, good luck. There are just too many stars to pick out the right ones! __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS

01-07-12, 01:16 PM	#4
WernherVonTrapp Admiral Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Now, alot farther from NYC. Posts: 2,228 Downloads: 105 Uploads: 0	I don't know if I'd place sea scintillation at 0, since the disturbances are caused mostly by atmospheric turbulance. You'll always notice more of a difference when the objects are low on the horizon and less as they move higher in the sky. The presence of moisture in the air will also add some degree to the refraction of light. BTW, if anyone is interested in a cool (FREE) space simulation program that allows you to travel (seamlessly) through the universe, check out Celestia. http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ I did, however, forget how many stars are visible when there's no light pollution. I only saw the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in 1996, when I moved into the mountains, away from the city. Now, somehow, I'm back near the city again. Oh yeah, it's called a "wife". __________________ "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Miyamoto Musashi ------------------------------------------------------- "What is truth?" -Pontius Pilate Last edited by WernherVonTrapp; 01-07-12 at 01:34 PM.

01-07-12, 08:08 PM	#5
Hylander_1314 Sea Lord Join Date: May 2006 Location: 5 Miles Inland West Of Lake Huron Posts: 1,936 Downloads: 139 Uploads: 0	Aside from the sky being full of stars, The further north toward the pole, and the same for going south, would be real cool to see the auroras. After moving back to Michigan, from out west, I finally saw them here at my uncle's for the first time since 1973 or 74. We would get them in Denver but they were very rare comepared to the more northern reagions. Although, at 2 to 3 am, on a clear cold winter night in the mountains, the stars litterred the sky like clouds of fireflies. __________________ A legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law. -John Marshall Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ---------------------

01-07-12, 11:14 PM	#6
greyman808 Nub Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Canada Posts: 2 Downloads: 14 Uploads: 0	I had wondered if the shimmer was coded in - since indeed IRL it would - but what I am noticing is rather excessive - it's almost a blinking. It's a problem since when shadowing contact at long ranges I end up having difficulty distinguishing between the semphamore lamp of the ships and those darn stars... It only happens with the very small stars that appear to be a few pixels in diameter - the larger ones do not which is also what makes me think it's an AA issue. Do any of you guys know of a setting in sh4 config files to force AA to off? poked around a bit all I found is GFXSettings.cfg that just seems to be the default settings for the min/medium/full detail levels... But if you guys say it's not a commonly reported problem - the problem might just be with me and my noobness

01-08-12, 05:52 PM	#8
Rockin Robbins Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: DeLand, FL Posts: 8,900 Downloads: 135 Uploads: 52	Well, here's your answer to "where did one of the brightest constellations in the sky go?" And that's your visual confusion at sea. It's true that atmospheric turbulence causes stars to twinkle. This is caused by uneven heating of the ground causing bubbles of warmer air to rise up through the surrounding cooler air. Those bubbles refract light differently than the air surrounding, so when they pass between you and a star, it either moves or the light can even be directed away from your eye, causing you to see it blink off. Then when the bubble of rising warmer air passes out of your line of sight the star returns to its former position, brightness and color. At sea, unless you are looking at stars over a land mass, there is no uneven heating of the ground. The water evens out the temperature, causing uniform surface temps everywhere around you. There are no warmer air bubbles to rise up through the surrounding cooler air, and so stars do not twinkle. Also the higher the humidity, the less stars twinkle, as the water in the air causes it to conduct heat better, making the differences between cooler and warmer regions less. There is MUCH more atmospheric scintillation in the desert than in Florida, for instance. True story. I was minding my own business at Summerlin Key, looking through a neighboring telescope with the owner, showing him some globular clusters. We were looking and I'd say "need some more magnification there to resolve the stars better." And he'd retrieve a shorter focal length eyepiece. Finally I asked if he had a 6 mm eyepiece and he retrieved it. The thing was so dirty we couldn't even use it. I asked him why. Turned out he was from Arizona and in the desert there is so much turbulence from the cold air and the hot desert sand spawning turbulence from hell that he could never use his higher power eyepieces! From the Florida Keys, the high power view was rock steady. We were looking out over the water. __________________ Sub Skipper's Bag of Tricks, Slightly Subnuclear Mk 14 & Cutie, Slightly Subnuclear Deck Gun, EZPlot 2.0, TMOPlot, TMOKeys, SH4CMS Last edited by Rockin Robbins; 01-08-12 at 06:15 PM.

01-10-12, 10:45 PM	#9
breadcatcher101 Captain Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Southeastern USA Posts: 546 Downloads: 1 Uploads: 0	I play vanilla as well and on occasion I see what I call "foo fighters". A diffused faded blinking light that has the flight pattern of a firefly way off in the distance. Never noticed that with the stars, though.