Pixelated background

[gliderman]

Running 2.6 @ 1440x900x32 (widescreen) and the background appears pixelated when compared with my 1.1 installation, which seems a much higher resolution bitmap. Radeon 7500 - I am getting over 40fps with a 48 fps limit set, and I have no graphic issues. Is the 2.6 background lower resolution than 1.1 - or am I doing something wrong?

Love the aquarium, Jim, many thanks.

Phil

[Jim Sachs]

The resolution of the background didn't change between 1.0 and the present. V3.0 will have a much higher-resolution background.

Are you saying that when you run both versions with your current setup (and screen resolution), 1.1 is smooth and 2.6 is pixilated? 1.1 did not have a widescreen setting, so the 1024x768 background would be stretched horizontally.

[gliderman]

Hi Jim and thanks...
This is a crop from a screen grab of my 2.6 installation:


and this is my 1.1:



And here are my settings:



Which fills my monitor screen nicely like this:



...which is why I prefer not to check the widescreen box. Thanks for thinking this one over...

Phil
Cornwall UK

[Jim Sachs]

First, what happens when you click the widescreen box? The screen should be filled perfectly, and the image not stretched (like it is in both the screen captures).

Second, could you press the S key and let me know what the text at the top left of the screen says in both modes?

Thanks.

[ESHIREY]

And a nice big to the forums.

[gliderman]

Thank you Jim, and thank you ESHIREY.

Here's my desktop setting:



Here's a screen shot taken without Widescreen checked:




With Widescreen checked, depicts more background but has bands above and below:




In both cases, the background images seem lower resolution than with 1.1.

Thanks again, and don't worry too much over this issue - I'm a very happy bunny with my 2.6!

Phil
Cornwall UK

[gliderman]

I've got the hang of the Anamorphic factor now, and with Widescreen checked and a value of 1.000 I now have no band above and below - sorry, I didn't understand what effect that factor had.

However, that coral is still pixelated.

Best wishes,

Phil
Cornwall UK

[Jim Sachs]

Could you give me the settings readout from the top of the screen with v1.1?

Edgar at Prolific was looking over the old code last night, and may have found a difference between 1.1 and 2.6. Modern video drivers may prefer Anisotropic filtering when stretching images, and I had the filtering set to Linear. He has compiled a version with the switch set the other way, so we may have something for you to test within a day or so.

[gliderman]

Hi Jim

Thanks, I'll be back with that information later this evening (GMT).

Phil

[gliderman]

Here you go, Jim:




I'm glad to think this might have helped to iron out a bug, and good luck with that!

Phil
Cornwall UK

[Jim Sachs]

I see that you've got v1.1 set to 16-bit. Have you tried setting v2.6 to 16-bit? Some cards may smooth out the aliasing when dithering 16-bit color.

Edgar sent me his test version yesterday, and it did not seem to make any difference on my system, though it did on all three of his. So, I got out the old code and did some experiments myself. There are several places in the program where filtering is set, and if I replace all of them with Anisotropic filtering, and set MaxAnisotropy to 2, then it definitely smooths out the background when stretching it to a hi-res LCD monitor. Too much technical info ? We have to run some tests to make sure this didn't break anything else, then we'll let you download and try out the fix.

[gliderman]

Jim,

16-bit made no difference, but set me thinking about my Radeon 7500 settings. The PC isn't used for gaming and I must admit that although I have the Radeon drivers installed I haven't bothered to instal the Catalyst software. Therefore I suppose AGP may not be set to any thing by way of anti-aliasing, 2X, 4X whatever. However, I'll be gald to try anything you come up with in the way of a fix.

Best wishes,

Phil
Cornwall UK

[Jim Sachs]

I generally don't recommend turning on full-screen antialiasing, because it usually has a great impact on the frame rate. The internal Anisotropic fix doesn't slow down the system.

Also, don't forget that all this will become moot when MA3 comes out. The background is 3D, with a very high resolution.

[Falz]

You're kidding, aquarium looks poor without AA and any even the lowest end newer cards should be able to handle it with ease. I use 4x4 SS which looks superb.

[Jim Sachs]

On all my machines, it slows down to a slideshow with FSAA on. What card and framerate are you getting?

[Yellow Tang]

@Falz:
What looks poor? The aquarium?
You're kidding!
Never even tried to enable AA, and it looks fantastic here!

[Jim Sachs]

YT - When I first created the Aquarium, the standard resolution was 640x480 for 3D graphics. Thinking ahead , I made the native resolution for my program 1024x768, which looked fantastic on everyone's little 14" CRT monitors. Well, time marches on and now there are a lot of people running 24" LCD monitors at 1920x1200 resolutions, so the background graphics for the Aquarium can either get a little blocky if the drivers don't do interpolated stretching, or blurry if they do. That's one of the main reasons for MA3 -- to have a hi-resolution background.

[ESHIREY]

And it will be

[feldon34]

On some systems, the 1024 x 768 background appears smooth when the display is set to a resolution other than 1024 x 768. This is accomplished, I believe, by anisotropic filtering.

Other displays have noticeable pixelation.