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DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / Terrain & Transparent Water Shader with 5.8

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BealziBob
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 07:18 Edited at: 7th Oct 2005 00:51
Just a little mod to the Advanced Terrain demo. It's simple but looks lovely. This is an effect I coundn't get working with 5.7, but 5.8 seems to be more forgiving.

I have only added 5 lines of code to the origonal demo and a slightly modified version of The Nvidea ocean.fx shader (Thanks to IdeaJuice for the explanation of how to do this).

Feel free to re-use it as you see fit.

Source, Media & Compiled Version ~5mb:
Download

Mega_Dib
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 07:47
Very nice.
Im new relivately new to 3D and making a 3d Action/Rpg.

Bye the way it worked superbly with 5.7 and I got 377 fps in the windows mode.

Just a few questions, can I freely use Pocean fx freely, where can i get more/+information on fx files for BDPro?

Thanks alot mate cheers. Again very nice

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Mega_Dib
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 07:50
Sorry one more thing, how do fx files effect system performance?

WaterCooled P4 2.8Ghz HT. M/B Asus P4P800De. Lian Li case
Ram 1Gb @ DDR pc3200 synch, 1:1 Ratio, 800 FSB.
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BealziBob
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 08:46 Edited at: 14th Apr 2005 08:56
Worked with 5.7 did it? Must have been the transparancy mode I used then. I gave up before the patch and started fiddling again after updating.

The performance hit of shaders is largley dependant on your graphics card, but it can be quite severe unless you use them sparingly.

As for the legality of using ocean.fx, NVidia distribute it freely so I see no harm in using it for personal/freeware projects. Not sure about commercial projects, but I would assume there is no problem. You could always email them and ask.

For more info on shaders, have a look at Mouse's re-compiled "Ultimate shader thread" sticky at the top of this forum

Phaelax
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 10:47
I thought the whole point of shaders was because they did effects much more quickly than if you used the cpu to calculate the effect in game. The animation of the water ran sloowww.

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BealziBob
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 18:13 Edited at: 14th Apr 2005 18:37
Depends on your card doesn't it Phaelax. I got a nice steady 150 fps on my 9600xt, wouldn't call that slow.

Raven
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 18:43
Shader speeds depends heavily on a number of factors.
Drivers, Graphics Card, Dark Basic Professional Version.

I've noticed that Shaders under 5.0-5.7 will generally run a good 10-15% quicker than 5.8.

The Oceanfx.fx Shader is *not* technically allowed for commerical purposes. (c'mon ppl read EULA)
When I converted it to work with DBP, it was simply to show what effects would work almost 'out-of-the-box' shall we say from development in FXComposer, as many people at the time didn't feel it was worth it.

Dark Basic Professional 5.9/6.0 will be 100% DxSAS. This means that Shaders from FX Composer 1.6 and above will work without having to change a thing. It'll be a good step in the right direction.

In all honestly the Oceanfx Shader is pretty early work, again was developed for FX Composer simply to show how easy it was to achieve. The end result is quite wasteful and not very optimised.
If you follow the guide in the lastest FX Composer on how to optimise your Shaders without great loss of quality, it will explain how you could alter many of the other shaders in order to be almost 3x quicker.

I believe the current example shows Bump Specular Phong mapping go from 35fps (on my FX5200) to just over 98fps. This can change the tide from not just an unplayable shader game to actually being able to add more effects.

Something that is often forgotten in games nowadays is that over-user is just as bad as under-use. Shaders are much quicker at a number of operations, but are no good if you use them to the point that only the most high-end cards can use them at a reasonable speed. Try to use them just to enhance the image quality rather than replace your everyday functionality.

When Dark Basic Professional utilises Pixel Linkers, we should again see quite a boost in speed.

My recommendations is just using a light bloom, low-quality depth-of-field and subtle bump-mapping (over intense normal mapping).

If each of these shaders use Pixel 1.1 Format, you'll retain on hell of alot of speed graphically.. but the overall enhancement is just amazing. Prince of Persia The Warrior Within for example uses this techniqué as does Guild Wars. In Guild Wars you can turn off the Bloom Effect to see what it looks like normally.
4N!ALA70R
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 20:07
doesnt even work

i extracted everything
a window pops up labelled darkbasic pro project
is black
waits a couple seconds and returns to dBPro
BealziBob
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 22:44 Edited at: 14th Apr 2005 23:19
Well, I didn't say it was efficient, or even claim to have actually done anything astounding. Just thougth it was an interesting little effect.

Obviously I was wrong, according to all these nice negative responses. I'll get my coat and be off then.

/sulk

BatVink
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 22:46 Edited at: 14th Apr 2005 22:46
4N!ALA70R, do you have a card that can handle FX shaders?


Don't panic on this one, I'm on a laptop with low-end SiS graphics card, but should the water look green?!?


BatVink

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BealziBob
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Posted: 14th Apr 2005 22:58 Edited at: 2nd Oct 2006 20:01
It's supposed to look like this.



looks like that SiS card doesn't like the cubemap on the shader.

I guess this all goes to show the inherent problems of using Shaders, and why it took Valve 6 years to make sure HL2 runs on any machine.

/endsulk


Just a casual observer.
BatVink
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 00:43
Woooah!

Looks like the texture maps got totally screwed! I got grass and mud in the water, snow on low-laying land, and...hey, I got Sky in the Sky!

BatVink
4N!ALA70R
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 03:14
@batvink

i have no idea, i got GForce4 MX, apparently not good for some ppl (no one here)
Phaelax
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 03:56
The frame rates were around 150 on my FX5900, but I'm saying the water motion itself was not very fluid

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BealziBob
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 07:09 Edited at: 15th Apr 2005 07:10
How odd Phaelax! It's lovely and smooth on my ATI 9600 XT card. Funny thing is that it's an Nvidia Shader, I would have thought I'd be the one with the problems running it! Especially wierd since the FX5900 is the pinnicle of the FX series.

If you open up the FX file there are variables in there to alter the scaling, displacement and scroll speed. But it sounds like there is something else at work here.

Either way, this whole thread has put me off using shaders. Back to the warped UV water for me.

Richard Davey
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 08:59
BealziBob - very nice indeed. Ran at a smooth 450fps regardless of camera placement, no texture problems at all and it was a lovely combination of effects. The shader somewhat lost its charm if you got right to the top of a mountain though But that's hardly your fault.

Quote: "i got GForce4 MX, apparently not good for some ppl (no one here)"


Tis a pretty lousy card.

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Cryptoman
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 09:00
Why? Shaders are cool, I really wish I had the time to learn CG, but pro doesn't use CG. Sigh, Exactly what are you using to make these with?


BatVink
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 09:00
Much better on my desktop PC

But only 33 FPS. Must be my gfx card (FX 5200 128MB)

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BealziBob
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 18:18 Edited at: 15th Apr 2005 19:00
@Richard Davey - Glad to see it worked for you. I was beginning to think I was the only one. That must be a brute of a rig you have there to maintain that fps.

@Fecal Monkey - The shader was made with NVidia FX Composer, a free download. I followed IdeaJuice's instructions on how to get it running in DBPro. Take a look at The "Ultimate Shader Thread" sticky for a wealth of info and some lovely pre-made shaders. (The parallax one by Ninja Matt will blow your mind).

Robin
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 20:11
Really nice! Only got ~25fps though on my 128MB FX5200 but my computer is pretty lame.
Robin

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Blue Icarian Wings
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Posted: 15th Apr 2005 20:22
280ish when looking at the shader, running the precompiled exe
404when not looking at it!
Rpg Cyco
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 01:27 Edited at: 16th Apr 2005 01:30
Nice work BealziBob!

I also added that Water shader (grabbed it from the U58 Examples, #24) to the sample terrain, via my WIP game's Area Editor. The transparency in your demo makes it look better, then the shots below.

http://www.rpgcyco.net/forum/attachments/AtE_WaterShader1.jpg
http://www.rpgcyco.net/forum/attachments/AtE_WaterShader2.jpg

And Rich, your right, the shader does lose it's charm when viewed from above. Looks good from ground level though.

- Rpg Cyco

Scilynt
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 02:35 Edited at: 28th Apr 2005 07:00
Also had the idea of adding water to this demo, though I didn't think of releasing it. Doesn't have sound either. Credit to the guy who put this shader together.

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EFX
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 10:00
Looked good. Maybe a little surf would make it look even better. Ran at about 190 FPS on my comp.

-
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Raven
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 11:12
Quote: "Well, I didn't say it was efficient, or even claim to have actually done anything astounding. Just thougth it was an interesting little effect.

Obviously I was wrong, according to all these nice negative responses. I'll get my coat and be off then.

/sulk"


Said nothing about your work. Sulk if you want, but it's a valid suggestion for you to open up FX Composer and try to optimise the shader. That way you not only have something YOU can take credit for developing, but also know that it is legally now your work, and also that you'll hopefully have learn something about how Shaders work in the background.

Just for information, someone else might take credit for doing something in the new Ultimate Shader Thread. Doesn't mean it was them who did it. Quite interesting how people that Mouse doesn't like didn't get thier contributions forwarded to the new thread...

Well anyways, if you want I can explain and show you how to edit the water so it works like that from the Source Engine. Providing a better quality at further distances.
4N!ALA70R
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 15:34 Edited at: 16th Apr 2005 15:51
Quote: "[quote]Quote: "i got GForce4 MX, apparently not good for some ppl (no one here)""


Tis a pretty lousy card.[/quote]

well its one of the best down ere - AU$150

and what do u mean by lousy

[edit]
i download the compiled and got 125 and no water
must be the non FX card
[/edit]

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BealziBob
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Posted: 16th Apr 2005 19:06 Edited at: 16th Apr 2005 19:20
@Raven - Sounds like there are some political issues afoot. I really don't have much idea with fx composer & HLSL, all I did was take the ocean shader, fiddle with some settings to calm the effect down a bit, then change the couple of lines as shown in the shader thread to make it compatible with DBP. Nothing whatsoever there I would claim as my own. I'm not interested in Kudos, just getting hold of some nice tools.

However, I would be most interested to know how to make this effect more efficient. I would really like to know how to remove/modify the displacement effect too (for a river effect). If you would be so kind as to explain (an example would be fantastic) I would be most grateful, as would many others. Just remember I'm a HLSL Moron, so go easy

@ Rich & Cryo RPG - You're right about the view from above, but I only used the default cubemap for this shader "Cloudyhills.dds", I imagine that changing this might improve the effect. <hunts for DXTEX>

flibX0r
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Posted: 17th Apr 2005 02:56
Quote: "well its one of the best down ere - AU$150"


Maybe when it first came out, but now is like $40. You can get a 9800 for $150



You can't wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Mike P
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Posted: 17th Apr 2005 03:09 Edited at: 17th Apr 2005 03:17
Nice work. It ran perfectly with me and the FPS was bettween 550 and 650. Here's my graphics card information:
Caption: RADEON X800 XT
Adapter RAM: 256MB
DriverVersion: 6.14.10.6497

the program looks brilliant! I think they should replace that with the current 5.8 shader demo.

seems alot of people have lousy graphics cards so here take a look at what it should look like:

Windowed:


FullScreen:


[center]
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ironjohn
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Posted: 27th Apr 2005 06:46
That is great!
Your notes are very helpful.

Very well done.
I learned a lot from that.

Thank you.

P4 2.5 ATI 9700 pro
Drew Cameron
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Posted: 28th Apr 2005 05:59
Very good - is there any chance I could use this in my game if I give you credit?

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Raven
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Posted: 28th Apr 2005 21:31
Quote: "@Raven - Sounds like there are some political issues afoot. I really don't have much idea with fx composer & HLSL, all I did was take the ocean shader, fiddle with some settings to calm the effect down a bit, then change the couple of lines as shown in the shader thread to make it compatible with DBP. Nothing whatsoever there I would claim as my own. I'm not interested in Kudos, just getting hold of some nice tools.

However, I would be most interested to know how to make this effect more efficient. I would really like to know how to remove/modify the displacement effect too (for a river effect). If you would be so kind as to explain (an example would be fantastic) I would be most grateful, as would many others. Just remember I'm a HLSL Moron, so go easy "


Heh, when don't political issues follow me around? just seem like a magnet for them.

Well anyways, sure it's on my list of 'things to do tonite'
An exact thing of what you'd like would be cool, because I'm not sure what you mean by displacement effect...

Do you mean the Vertex waves, which require a high polygon model.. or do you mean the Pixel (Bump) waves? It's fairly simple to drop either really.

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JDforce
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 10:05
Anyone knows if the Nvidia Gforce4 MX440 AGPX has support for shaders? mine shows the lake completely white, without texture and running at 74fps.




may the 3d force B with U
DeepBlue
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Posted: 29th Apr 2005 16:54
Nvidia Gforce4 MX440
DirectX 7.1 compatible card
Does not fully support DirectX 8
Software based vertex shaders
No pixel shader support

*cough* upgrade

Deepblue

The coder formerly known as Twynklet.
David R
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 01:55 Edited at: 30th Apr 2005 01:59
Beautiful stuff! Definately gonna use this technique in my
new project ! (If you dont mind). I think (probably just me) but the water slides [moves] too quickly. A little slower, and It'd look even greater than it is now.

[url=www.lightningstudios.co.uk][/url]
The Nerd
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Posted: 30th Apr 2005 16:19
I would say the water is pretty slow.....

When i look away from the water i get 498 fps
Then i i look on the water it quickly drop to 160 fps....

Thats pretty slow i think.

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Mike P
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Posted: 1st May 2005 09:45
Lol 160fps isnt slow less than 100 is!

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Lord FireFox
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Posted: 1st May 2005 15:46
Anything over 40 isn't preceivable by the human eye.
Raven
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Posted: 1st May 2005 22:45
Quote: "Anything over 40 isn't preceivable by the human eye."


I wish people would stop talking BS.
I see the difference between 30 and 60FPS... everyone ELSE sees the difference between 30 and 60FPS.

You can take your scientific fact over what is percievable and shove it up your arse, because Scientists are full of crap on this issue. There is no ONE bodies theory on the human perception that allows us to document just how quickly the eyes or brain work.

Whether we're seeing all 60fps, or we're just noticing the subtle changes based on the differences of input from start to finish are irrelvant. The fact is it is noticable as hell when a game lags.

Also 100fps with such a small scene IS a big deal. As that scene shouldn't be your main FPS eater, the characters, AI and Collision should be. Not forgetting sound and ambients... Everything takes up processing speed, not just graphics.

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westray
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 00:38
Worked fine on my Nvidia 5900FX XT.170FPS when looking at the lake,290FPS when looking away.Looked really nice whether windowed or fullscreen.
Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 00:59
Raven Evil Zero: Although aggressively put - I agree. I dont like it when a game runs at anything less than 60fps - and even then I prefer 80-100fps.. 25-30fps might be fine for all those that like playing on their playstation (seeing as your TV can actually do anything more than 50hz interpolated, or 25 FULL fps.. Unless you have one of these new funky 100hz TV's).

I also agree that as much as it looked nice and ran at about 100-200fps on average for most people, that doesn't leave much in there to play with in terms of AI, Characters.. Even tree's!!

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Raven
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 01:28
yup.. this said the refresh rate of what the TV is outputting and what the computer is rendering are two different things.

I mean a 50Hz TV Renders 25 *FULL* Frames Per Second.
So in order for the images to appear life-like your not sending 25 Still Images, but more like 16 Still Images and 9 Blend Images.

This give the illusion of 50 Frames of Animation. Consoles do it differently by outputting the odd and even patterns as seperate frames. The TV combines the two and your eyes fill in the blanks.

Even so it doesn't change the fact that the motion at 30 Rendered FPS isn't as smooth as 60 Rendered FPS. No matter what your Display Sync is. In short it's pointless worrying about what the human eye can do according to scientists or whatever and worry more about what you can do without letting the FPS drop below the 60 mark. As that really is the cut-off for smooth gameplay.

As proof..

30 FPS


60 FPS


It's very noticable which is smoother, regardless of the monitor refresh.

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Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 02:00
Very neat code for a simple example.. Not only have you tried to optimise it by checking for escape yourself, but you've even tried to clean up after too!

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Baggers
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 04:04 Edited at: 2nd May 2005 04:05
I would haveto agree with Raven here, once youve added in other effects a larger level enemys (some AI can really eat fps) you have an unplayable game. So yeah i agree with raven other than the bit where he sounds just a bit too angry but hey thats just him.

The only thing that does bother me is that we are a bit 'spoilt' us programmers, a fair few (not all i know) of us have pretty high spec machines so when we play our creations they run fine. but we neglect the regular gamers we are meant to be making these things for and the spec they have.

So yeah beutiful effect, now lets have it faster !

[EDIT]
Bugger it I didnt see the second page...so this is in responce to raven's last post on the first page !

Drew Cameron
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 04:06 Edited at: 2nd May 2005 04:07
Yeah, Raven - can your point me in the direction of any similar effects that are faster? Free ones preferred.

I watched my game with a matrix and some cubes plummet from 400fps to 35.

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Ken
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 04:37
I can't get it to work. I have an ATI Radeo 9200 which supports up to pixel shader 1.4. What version pixel shader is the shader?

I can't stand to wait in line long, so I built a new machine.
It just measures up the distance, and the eliminates the folks between.
Nicholas Thompson
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 05:27
Quote: " I can't get it to work."


Any reason? Do you get the white water effect as previously seen? Does it just quit? Does it produce a crash log? Do you have the latest drivers?

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BealziBob
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Posted: 2nd May 2005 22:49
The effect is PS2.0 (Have a look at the last half of the FX file).

I Guess this explains why people are getting such variable results

JDforce
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Posted: 3rd May 2005 09:08 Edited at: 3rd May 2005 09:13
I upgraded my card to an Nvidia GeForce FX 5500 with 256mb ram (as suggested by deepblueand the program runs beautifuly but a little slow I would say.
The PC is a P4 at 2.26Ghz. Fps goes from 250 when looking away of the water and 40-50 when looking at the water from the startup position. It goes down to 21 fps if I enter the water and stay surrounded. However, the program seems easy to operate even at the low fps reported by the same program.

A question: where can I get this fx shaders or how do I design one?
Do I edit them with ascii or photoshop?? or just how?
where is the tech info about them? I browsed Nvidia website and found nothing but a lady elf demo (By the way, quite a babe!).

[EDIT]
Never mind. I found information here:

http://www.nvidia.com/page/search.html?keywords=fx+shaders


may the 3d force B with U
Raven
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Posted: 3rd May 2005 10:53 Edited at: 3rd May 2005 10:54
Heh Dawn.. yeah she and her sister Dusk star in an MTV video.
Well anyways technical sode of Shaders is ugly, but provided you can understand A-Level mathematics you should be able to figure out most of the basics.

The Shaders do run slower in 5.8, I'm not entirely sure why or by how much. Plan to install 5.7 at some point, or if someone has older versions installed let me know the framerate difference.

Because the shader above is being rendred across a 20x20 plane... and my original shader, ran at 80fps on this card on a 100x100 plane; yet the same shader replaced in this demo runs at 25-30fps.

Definately some huge drop in speed. Not sure what the problem might be yet though.

Quote: "I can't get it to work. I have an ATI Radeo 9200 which supports up to pixel shader 1.4. What version pixel shader is the shader?"


I've been assured a few times they support 2.0, but I still gravely question if this support is via hardware or software.

http://www.rstudio.co.uk/pub/ShaderCheck.7z.exe

god knows why it compiles to 9MB, but I compressed it to 1.2MB (thank god for 7zip)
It just pops up and lets you know if you can run shaders and what version.

1.3 will come out 1.29-something-

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