New Version 99H Released - BANDING BUG

[hooters]

staelight listing menue and a ton of neat options
pause realtime tv record set record a wekk whatever in advance - and so on and so on
i have the driver set gemstar dload thingy on one of my storages ill have to finde it for u - what media centre are u using 6.3 7.0 or 7.1 ??

[ajlaban]

hooters,

Media Center 7.1. Now that you mention it I think I did see something like that in the manual that comes with the card and noticed it while quickly playing with the ATI bundled drivers setup before I downloaded the newest drivers. For some reason the newest drivers don't include the TV listing -- wonder why? Also didn't include the DVD player but I saw on ATI's site that is to be released later.

[ajlaban]

hooters,

Forgot to add that until I add a another harddrive (mine is pretty well maxed out) I can't make much use of the digital VCR feature. Also, since the Pro version of the card alone(only available in AGP which my computer will not accept) uses the time shifting feature, I don't have that either. I think we might also attribute the disparity in our frame rate results in Aquarium to AGP (yours) versus PCI (mine).

[feldon34]

Well folks,

Jim has been able to build a copy of the DirectX 8 demo version of the Aquarium with a Powder Blue Tang transplanted into it on a system that was exhibiting banding issues.

Folks! The BANDING ISSUE is GONE! OUTTA HERE!

The Powder Blue Tang looks just as good on a TnT Riva 16MB as it does on a $200 GeForce 2 card.

I thought I'd share the news with those of you who have been patiently waiting more information on this issue.

The final version of the DirectX 8 will be available shortly. Please don't ask for the Demo version. There's a reason it's a demo version, it only has 3 fish done which is a bit of a downgrade for registered users who have all 15 fish right now. As soon as Jim has rebuilt all 16 fish in the next version (a beautiful Picasso Trigger* is now confirmed as an addition to the DX8 version) Jim will put it out, not a minute sooner.

Thanks for your patience!


*Picasso Trigger will likely be a Windows-exclusive fish and not appear on the Macintosh version.

[ajlaban]

Morton,

WOW! Picasso Trigger! Can't Wait. Had one in my tank when I had it years ago, then it was my favorite (couldn't afford the Clown Trigger, at that time [early 80's] they were going for $125.00 for a 3" one, I see now the prices have dropped -- and here it costs only a fraction of $20.00 thanks to Jim).

The news about the banding and the early release of the DX8 version is most welcome.

I don't understand:
How come though my frame rate increases, the screensaver seems to run very very slowly. So I'm sticking with V. 99G. And this is even more perculiar:
At ALL other resolutions besides 1600x 1200, my frame rates drop to 2! Only at 1600X 1200, my frame rates increase to 80! Why is that so?
System Specs:

P-III 933 Mhz
Geforce DDR 32 MB

[feldon34]

If you are seeing 2fps, then the Aquarium is switching into emulation mode and not using the 3D capabilities of your 3D card at all. Try installing the Aquarium as a screen saver (copying it to \Windows\System32\) and executing it from there. (Or, if you have it installed this way right now, try moving it OUT from that directory).

I don't understand what you mean about .99H. Can you explain in more detail the problem you are having?

The next version of the Aquarium (available this week) will probably solve your problems. If you have not already done so, you will want to upgrade to DirectX 8.0a and recent drivers for your GeForce DDR so you can use this version.

And I highly recommend upgrading to the 6.47 or 6.54 nVidia drivers from www.reactorcritical.com/

The 6.50 drivers at www.nVidia.com are terrible.

Thanks, but then again, I still can't solve the problem, so I'll have to run it in 1600X 1200 resolution forever. (which is actually very good) then again, in 1600x 1200 resolution, I have to press "s" to show fps before the frame rates shoot up to 80 fps! Or else they'll still remain at 2! can the screensaver have a feature to enable "show framerates on startup" so that I can solve the problem without having to press "s" every time?

[feldon34]

In the next version, available this week, pressing Ctrl-S will turn on the text display of the framerate, but it is invisible. So you get all the benefits, without the numbers up there all the time.

AND, the next time you run the Aquarium, it will remember to do the Ctrl-S again (it saves your preference).