Not rendering anything 3d [SOLVED]

[Akeliukas]

I'm not sure if I defined my problem correctly. I run psclient only to see (in character selection) an empty spot (green background) instead of my character. Same in new character creation (no previews of races). Also, if I choose to go further and enter game, all I can see are options, chat screen, skills etc - only windows can be seen and manipulated, everything else is plain black instead of my surroundings and npcs.
I installed Planeshift using the .run file, running 64bit gentoo, direct rendering seems to be working (radeon gpu). I installed crystalspace and cal3d separately - however, I only did it after first attempts to launch the game and it didn't help anyway. Would be very glad if someone took their time to help me, even RTFM will be accepted gladly - provided you point to the right manuals

[Aiwendil]

Using VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" or VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx" in make.conf? As far as I know PS only works with the binary fglrx drivers...though not sure as I have a nvidia card.

[Akeliukas]

Thank you very much, it worked just fine! I'm very sorry for not knowing something as simple as this

[Aiwendil]

First off...no need to be sorry for asking questions...that's what this forum is for and I'm glad I could be at least of some help ;). The OS drivers tend to have some nice advantages like better xrandr support so I think it's normal for a lot of people to install those. But for 3d graphics the binary drivers of the venders are still a lot better..especially for PlaneShift which doesn't work with the OS drivers at all (doesn't work with nvidia nouveau either as far as I know).

Just allow me a few more..hints. It's not needed at all to install dev-games/crystalspace and/or media-libs/cal3d. First the versions gentoo provides are not the versions PlaneShift needs and second the binary download version of PS comes with prebuild versions of those two libreries already. Having those packages installed shouldn't hurt either...as long as you do no crystalspace development. But as soon as you define your own CRYSTAL environment variable pointing to the gentoo packages you are bound to run into troubles. ;)

But while talking about gentoo...a general note. Seems like the gentoo ebuilds here are either dead links or completely outdated...might be a good idea to at least unsticky that forum thread. Same for the gentoo compile guide...but that's not so important I think as most gentoo users will probably able to work around the little difficulties like gentoo providing only an outdated version of the nvidia Cg toolkit.

[Gatahel]

For your information, PS can run with the radeon driver!

I would not recommend it however, as I had to reduce shaders to lowest setting since PS 0.5.9 (but 0.5.9 brought me back the display of landscape outside towns, instead of  "everything's black" since kernel ~2.6.40, which is a good trade-off ;)

So, as said before, amd/ati native driver is still better for PS (much faster, and hopefully more reliable: amongst other things, I had no all-black problem when I tried it...)

[Roled]

Using VIDEO_CARDS="radeon" or VIDEO_CARDS="fglrx" in make.conf? As far as I know PS only works with the binary fglrx drivers...though not sure as I have a nvidia card.

Hi Aiwendil and or all... So I have the same problem as the first entry, but I have windows vista not linux, and I am technically challenged. 

What exactly do you you mean "using VIDEO_CARDS=" etc?
Do you mean I should change the "make.conf" whatever that is, to this VIDEO_Card thing?
Where would I find this make.conf or is it only linux? Is there a windows equivalent? 

Would you mind, if you have time, explaining it step by step to me?
I haven't been able to get in and play since the upgrade....   
ALSO
on my new Windows 7 computer all I get is a black screen for the launch screen so I can't even launch... 
Any ideas?

thanks you guys!
Roled

[LigH]

@ Roled:

It seems that this "VIDEO_CARDS=" option is related to building the client from source code for Linux, if I am not surprisingly wrong... it has no meaning for a finally built Windows client.

Never rely on Microsoft shipped graphic drivers. Do not even rely on drivers updated via the Windows Update. Microsoft doesn't care much about OpenGL (which PlaneShift uses), it prefers Direct3D as 3D graphics interface instead. You really have to know which drivers match your specific graphic card chipset. Therefore, if you want a good recommendation which one to download and install, you really have to tell us your graphic card chipset as exact as possible (e.g. using GPU-Z).

[Aiwendil]

Aww, sorry Roled. The answer I gave here is VERY gentoo-linux specific. It probably won't even help much on any other linux distribution...so better just ignore what I said (well in fact that is usually true with almost everything I say ;)).

For windows LigH is most likely a better contact person. First of course what he said...try using the drivers from your graphic cards vendor instead of the standard microsoft ones. But it also might help to know a bit more about your new computer...for example if it is a notebook. As far as I know even on windows the nvidia optimus technology used in almost every modern notebook can cause problems with PS. I fear I'm the wrong person for giving a step to step guide on anything in windows...but I can try my best. Please be aware that I didn't test any of this (I don't have a win7 installation at all)

For getting hardware information:
- Press <windows><r> (you know...that windows key usually a the bottom left of your keyboard). Should get you a "run" dialog
- type "msinfo32" in that run-dialog and press enter.
- Should get you window with almost all system information anyone can desire. Have to look through the tree-view on the left a bit to find your graphics card infos. Feel free to post a screenshot here then to get someone help you to find the best suited drivers for your card.

Also, as you said "new computer" I expect you still have at least some manuals. Often there are some hardware spacs in them...typing those here could be a great help too. (and of course the model name of your computer..if it has one)

Oh..and hi Roled... ;)

 

[Roled]

Hi Aiwendil and LiGh... THANKS both of you for answering!
OK so with A's directions, I found the "msinfo32" and the software components and the long list of stuff under 'drivers'... If I knew how to do a screenshot I would...

Some are 'kernel' drivers and some are 'file system' drivers... there are 80-100 files there: some are manual and some are system under the "running" column.  What kinds of words am I looking for here? anxillary function? disk driver? NDIS system driver? other clues?

I have a HP dv6 notebook PC with intel core i5-2430M CPU 2.40GHz 64bit operating system
with Windows 7 Home premium Service Pack 1.
I have no idea what most of this means... but I do know the words "notebook" "PC" "intel" and "Windows 7"   

I do know other words like epistomology, factity, hermeneutics, and jouissance, but I don't imagine those words will help with my particular black computer screen problems...

[LigH]

Once again, Roled:

Live support is much easier. So drop me a PM when I can meet you via IRC. If you don't have an IRC client, try to use the FreeNode WebChat (I believe it can't be accessed from the KS forum anymore). But for now:

Screenshot: Fullscreen = [PrtScr] / Currently active window only = [Alt]+[PrtScr]; then it is remembered in the virtual "clipboard" and needs to be saved as image, e.g. paste it from the clipboard into an empty image viewer like IrfanView or XnView, then save it as PNG. Finally you have to upload this saved image into the internet, because we don't have access to your local harddisk. Good and simple image hosters are e.g. http://frupic.frubar.net or http://imgur.com

"intel Core i5" was already a useful hint, so you will have intel HD graphics; unfortunately I don't know which specific drivers are more reliable in this case...

[Pakarro]

Asking my crystal ball, I looked up the following machine, which might fit your description

HP Pavilion DV6-6159TX Entertainment Notebook PC
and this one has a  1GB AMD Radeon HD 6770M
it has  6GB DDR3 ram.
A nice machine

Maybe ... if this is the correct machine ... someone on windows knows which driver that would need.

Good luck!

[Roled]

Again thanks to each of you for answering and trying to help me. Tanner donated a couple hours in IRC trying to help me too, (Thanks again Tanner, you rock! ) we downloaded various drivers from the HP site and the Intel site but nothing seemed to work... 
I will try to catch up with people this weekend and give it another shot. Thanks for helping! LiGh maybe I will find you...
time zones are always an issue with us meeting up but I will try to get on earlier ... if I don't have to work Saturday morning.
The persistent Elf
Roled