stellarium

[that_guy]

I just downloaded stellarium but it is really slow and the response time is just horrible!! I'm using a Toshiba Satellite L300 with 3 gb ram and 150 gb rom still got 40 gb left... Is it the software or the laptop??

Thanks,
Tony

[mithrandir]

The answer is almost certainly the video card or drivers. Stellarium uses OpenGL for screen drawing and manufacturers have various quality in their OpeGL implementations. It works best with NVidia chipsets. ATI + Linux (eg the box I'm typing this on) might not even run at all. It runs fine on my T40 with XPpro + 512MB and T400 with XPpro + 2GB.

See if you have the latest drivers for your chipset.

[that_guy]

how do i find out what the chipset is??

[mithrandir]

Windows will tell you.
Right click the desktop.
Select "Properties".
Select "Settings"

In the box entitled "Display" it should tell you what the card is. My T40 says "ATI Mobility Radeon 7500". The T400 says "Mobile Intel 4 Series Express".

For more details click the "Advanced" button.
Select "Adapter".

[that_guy]

:confused2:using windows 7 so everything is differnet:confused2:

[mithrandir]

In my Win7 Pro VM:
Right click desktop.
Select "Screen Resolution"
It's in the "Display" box.

[supernova1965]

You can also right click on My Computer and then left click on Device Manager then click on Display Adapters to find out which one you have and then you can go to the webpage of the maker to get the latest drivers and download them that should fix the problem. Believe me the improvements are worth the effort to learn. If an old guy like me can handle it someone your age should have no problem.:rofl::P:D

[Barrykgerdes]

There will be a new release of stellarium in the next couple of weeks. It will be very much more advanced that the version 0.10.2 that you have. The target date is the last week in January.

Barry

[supernova1965]

Looking forward to that Love that program once you get your Graphics drivers sorted out it works great it is a resource hog but very nice

[richardda1st]

Yes I had same problem, was ready to unload it but at the last minute I thought that I should update the graphics driver. Solved, runs well but I can't run any thing else at all on my P111 500Mz 320MB ram. Great program but on one occasion I found that it's not as accurate as Cartes du Ciel.

[mswhin63]

Had the same problem as well, I also use CDC for locating, but I use Worldwide Telescope which provides imagery and whole lot of other things.
I am running a AMD Turion 64 x2 with an ATI Graphics. Still slow. Gave up after a while, shouldn't need to adjust graphics to make a program work, should adjust itself.

[Davros]

I love my Stellarium, the program just works well for my twisted mind. cant wait for the new version (mac please ;) ) I also put it on an old pc lappy i am setting up for pure astro work but the machine definitely needs a RAM injection.

[TrevorW]

Anyone know if Stellarium scope needs modifying I couldn't get it too work with V10.2 but worked fine with V9

[that_guy]

do you just search for the drivers update in the net??

thanks for the replies BTW.
Tony

[that_guy]

HAHA!!!! Genius!! It works perfectly!! Thanks everything for your contribution!

thanks,
Tony

[HSK]

Hi all, I also want to update my chip set but my adapter information is very brief. Chip type: Nvidia. DAC 8 bit. and VGA. Which chip set can I get that is compatible?

Thanks

Tom

[supernova1965]

It is not adjusting Graphics its just that some versions of the drivers for your graphics cards don't make full use of it's capabilities or they don't work properly so upgrading to the latest version is always the best move if you are having problems with programs not working.

[Barrykgerdes]

If the program runs slow it is because it needs the opengl drivers. This is not a stellarium problem. You must load the correct drivers for your computer. These will come with your computer installation disk but are not always installed automatically. The MS screen accelerator is Direct X. But it is proprietry. Stellalium uses OpenGl which is open source. Many ATI cards used a driver for a very early version of OpenGL. But OpenGl now includes many new features that are used by stellaruim. This problem has been largely overcome with the newest Stellarium source code and the latest OpenGL drivers for your card.

Other queies in this thread:

Stellarium already has a lot of imagery but it will have DSS images loaded (like WWT) as required when version 1.0.0 arrives (I hope that is before I die!).

A few people have noticed "Inaccuracies" when comparing Stellarium data with other programs. Most of this occurs with the solar system objects in relation to position and magnitude. Viewed position depends on Light speed and magnitude depends on phase and distances. stellarium uses the standard algorithms for calculating these events.

Stellarium is very CPU intensive because it works in real time and hogs all it can get! When multi tasking other programs often run slow or not at all. More processor time can be made available for other programs by limiting the frame rate in the config.sys file.

There will be a new Mac version but I am not sure that it will be a universal package. I know very little about the works of the Mac's but I gather they are much like Unix in their operation and the latest version of Stellarium for the Mac requires features only available on the latest Mac's. If the older versions can be updated (like Widows etc) I expect these dependancies will be included.


Barry

[Moonboy]

Well there's your problem.... You have a Toshiba:lol:

[mswhin63]

Thanks for the info, Unfortunately Stellarium decided not to support Direct X is really up to them. I have checked and no OPENGL drivers available for my ATI Radeon Mobility, ATI directs to laptop ACER. Nevermind I just use WWT.

[mithrandir]

If you supply an implementation of Direct X for all non-M$ platforms that Stellarium supports it might be worth doing.

It's ATI's fault they don't have a proper OpenGL implementation for all platforms.

[mswhin63]

It just means that Stellarium is not suited for general consumers and that is fine, we dont all have the luxury of understanding the finer detail of software. I bought the Laptop before I even knew about Stellarium.

Anyway there are other programs out there, I would have liked to try Stellarium but I know that is not going to be possible until I get another computer.

[supernova1965]

More likely the problem is that Microsoft have made Direct X so that software manufactures have to hand over the money to have access to Direct X don't forget Stellarium is provided free. In my opinion something like Direct X should be able to be available for software makers if Microsoft want their Direct X to be the standard. Or have ATI make drivers for OPENGL which is available to all for free. So I don't see how we can blame Stellarium for the greed of others.

[tlgerdes]

Just for those with "resource" constraints, you can force the frame rate down so that it doesnt hog your cpu. I have mine set a 5 fps and you cannot notice the degradation in screen performance. If i dont set, it tries to give me 40fps.

You edit the config file with a text editor and look for the maximum frame rate entry.

[mithrandir]

I set this, but it doesn't seem to believe me.

[video]
...
maximum_fps = 5
minimum_fps = 1

[Barrykgerdes]

Stellarium uses OpenGL because it is a requirement of the GPL Licence. Direct X is the Proprietory garaphics accelerated owned by MS. It can never be used by stellarium because they don't distribute source code.

ATI has been quite tardy in distributing drivers for their video system that keep up with the development of OpenGL but the situation is improving and there are drivers available now for most systems. Stellarium has also included some work arounds that let it display video quite well on chipset drivers that are not up to date.

Version 0.10.3 which is about to be released has a greatly improved video card compatability.

However Stellarium may not be everyone's "cup of tea" which is quite a pity because it has a marvelous 3D display in real time and it will always be free. Remember the old saying "never look a gift horse in the mouth"

Barry

[Barrykgerdes]

Trevor has a later version of stellarium than the distributed version 0.10.2. 0.10.2 had some bugs that were quickly rectified and one of them I believe was the frame rate adjuster not working correctly.

The patch I made for 0.10.2 to make the 0.10.2 version a lot better is still available from www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/4747.zip (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/4747.zip) (I think)

Barry

[Jen]

I love stellarium :love: