question about the graphics engine

[Smiff]

hi, was just comparing ltktbm with q2ice (while trying to hunt down another problem) and noticed the latter using 24bit z and 8bit stencil (vs 16bit and nothing afaik). then i realised this is what makes the shadows look so much nicer compared to normal (uniform shading). this is not important but i wondered. have you any plans or is there any way to get these opengl specs in ltktmb currently? many thanks btw.

[Smiff]

after reading another thread i think i might have commited a faux pas. please dont take offense at the comparison with another client. im pretty new to all this :blink: just a newbie technical q

[mSparks]

dont worry about it, compare it to other clients as much as you want, in fact its worth bringin it up , yeah, Ill have a look at the shadows, + see what I can do

[Smiff]

thanks, and i think 24bit z might fix long distance poly glitches, especially while zooming the sniper rifle that would be cool aswell.

[slacker]

a little trick some people have taught me..

sky stars 999999999999999999999999999999999999
gl_clear 1

i actually never play online without using this, so its binded in my autoexec.cfg

this should give you a black or pink sky (depending on the quake2 engine you're using, its black under no-cheat in axion), but you have no limit on the distance you can see.

[Smiff]

wow, interesting tip. sky stars makes the sky box spin faster and faster unti it apparently dissappears (and in my case goes pink - funky!) and as you say.. seems to be no distance limit any more. perfect for actcity3! if i could make the sky black in ltktbm that would be perfect, not sure i can cope with prolonged exposure to fluro pink

not sure what gl_clear does, need to look that up. thanks for the tips, never knew them.
edit: ok gl_clear stops it becoming a blurry mess. not sure if it's a performance hit though?

edit2: sorry, i'm stupid. i can't get sky stars to work in autoexec.cfg - set from console is fine, but whats the syntax for a config? thanks!

[slacker]

bind \ "sky stars 99999999999999999999;gl_clear 1"

thats the entry in my autoexec.cfg, you have to set it eachtime you connect and play on a map.

and yeah, this is especially handy on actcity3, which is how i came across it actually. conversation went something like this:

slacker: htf are players shooting me from the other side of the map?
player: try these commands dude..

and smiff.. trust me.. eventually you'll learn to deal with the fluro pink sky. i played with it for a year or two. although im very happy that it comes out black instead under no-cheat i should probably post my autoexec.cfg in my web space somewhere heh.

edit: ok having stated those last lines, i decided to include this for your gaming pleasure, smiff:

set cl_drawping 1
set cl_drawfps 1
set cl_drawrate 1

not sure which clients support those, works under no-cheat

[Smiff]

thanks i was going to ask what they mean, then i found this page
<a href='http://www.bryceinc.com/index.php?main=NoCheat⊂=Help&type=html' target='_blank'>http://www.bryceinc.com/index.php?main=NoC...=Help&type=html</a>

interesting stuff, maybe some of that an be added to ltk? :unsure:

cl_drawfps doesn't seem to work though - where should it be displayed?


matrox G400 - i found this video hardware doesn't like the skybox changes, causes big nasty flickering triangle across the screen :/ fine with GeForce3 though.

[slacker]

yeah i think those would be some nice additions to ltktbm too.. ive already put forward some of the nice features of TNG to msparks. and since the source is available, it wouldnt be too hard to implement. things like 'stats' (statistics on accuracy) and map voting etc.

in my client, all of the information is displayed on the bottom left corner. it goes:

fps rate
download rate , upload rate
ping

all in real time.. its handy when you get lagged so you can keep checking to see when it goes back to normal

[Smiff]

info for mSparks:
ltktbm uses a 32bit zbuffer on my other computer with a matrox G400.. so it is capable of it, but for some reason chooses 16bit on the Geforce3. i know the geforce supports 24bit, which is what i'd like to be able to select, if possible. thanks for considering! hehe

edit: found this:
<a href='http://www.r1ch.net/stuff/r1gl/' target='_blank'>http://www.r1ch.net/stuff/r1gl/</a>

New Cvars:
gl_colorbits
gl_depthbits
gl_alphabits
gl_stencilbits
....
gl_zfar support, control how far you can see. Default in Quake2 was 4096, r1gl defaults to 8192. Hardly impacts performance. Only really useful on huge maps (such as mountain_2 if you play gloom). Does not require a vid_restart to take effect.

there's some really great stuff people have done in some of these mods, its just getting it all in the mod you want that's the problem!

also, while i'm here, does anyone know the equivalent of half-life's gl_polyoffset variable. i need it for the g400 machine, since using gl_ztrick causes decal flicker and i think polyoffset would fix it. but i can't find any similar cvar. a big thanks to any consideration of this aswell

slacker, now you mention it i have seen those stats, i think it must have been in a different mod.. or maybe half-life?

[Smiff]

slacker i was playing with the console & think i found a better fix for our sky problem (god why didn't i do this years ago, arg!): (whoever added the option to hit tab and list/complete matching commands should be given a beer).

r_skydistance 5000 //default 2300

seems to fix it with no downsides.. although i think the zbuffer is getting inaccurate at these distance, to bring as back to the topic eh