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Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Graphics issues like: bad framerates, weird colors, OpenGL errors etc. Bad graphics ar usually the result of bad graphics cards or drivers.
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Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:15 am

I've searched the forum, but haven't found anything relevant to my challenge.

I use multiple displays on a single graphics card (nvidia p600), and it works fine with default rendering on multiple displays, and Rembrandt rendering on a single display. However, when I attempt to run with Rembrandt with three displays, the start locks up at "finalizing subsystems" and I must reboot my PC.

My question is (before I spend $450 on a new graphics card) will increasing the cores from 384 to 512 and video memory from 2GB to 4GB allow Rembrandt rendering on 3 displays? Hopefully somebody here has tried this.

I am considering buying a Nvidia K1200 to replace the P600 if this will solve my challenge. Or do I need more than that?

Thanks!

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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:22 am

I suggest you use Atmospheric Light Scattering, not Rembrandt.

Even in powerful gaming cards, Rembrandt struggles and offers only one advantage over ALS: shadows. And even that will soon be offered at barely any performance cost by the new Compositor technology.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Sun Feb 24, 2019 1:56 am

Thanks for the suggestion, but I tried ALS, and it doesn't work. I want to use Rembrandt. Will a more powerful graphics card work?
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:34 am

Why does ALS not work?

A powerful graphics card will at best provide mediocre performance with Rembrandt. It really is that badly performing. It is also old and unsupported.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:41 am

I enjoy night and IFR flying. Landing lights are a must. The ALS lights are inadequate. I tried them and they failed. They move when you pan the view, and I get three sets of "landing lights", two in each display. And they are not nearly as effective as the Rembrandt landing lights.

If you are one of the developers, and the answer is "Rembrandt is no longer supported", I guess that will have to do. Too bad though. It seemed to work ok with a single monitor.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby Thorsten » Sun Feb 24, 2019 9:20 am

Rembrandt is going to be phased out when the compositor arrives, but that will bring other light implementations to ALS in the long run.

Right now, from my experience it's usually not the graphics card that slows down Rembrandt (I had lousy Rembrandt framerates even on high-end graphics cards), it's the CPU pre-processing stage, and if that is inefficient on your system, then I'm not really optimistic that a better graphics card will help at all.


hey move when you pan the view,


That seems like a wrong implementation, they really don't do that for me.

and I get three sets of "landing lights", two in each display


At least it works and doesn't lock the computer... :o I've never thought about multiple screens and the lights, it doesn't seem unsurmountable, just a few extra parameters would need to be passed, but I can't test.

And they are not nearly as effective as the Rembrandt landing lights.


Lights are generally as effective as the aircraft developers defined them. I'm using the ALS lights to illuminate half a mile of runway for Shuttle landings, so if they're defined to illuminate a lot, they do illuminate a lot.

Same goes for Rembrandt lights, they're as bright or dim as the aircraft developer specified.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby Catalanoic » Sun Feb 24, 2019 10:29 am

so Thorsten, tell us something about compositor technology, what will do and when we can get it? Thanks
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Sun Feb 24, 2019 12:06 pm

@Thorsten: So Rembrandt is on the way out. Thanks for verifying that. No sense concentrating my efforts there.

Now for the ALS implementation. Does the shuttle have your "half mile landing lights" by default? I "stole" the Rembrandt landing lights from the B777, and they have been implemented in my other aircraft.

If the ALS lights are good in the stock shuttle, maybe I can "steal" those also.

Edit: I am also interested in this new Compositor. What advantages will it offer?
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:24 pm

ALS secondary lights do move with the view if you use the right mouse to pan the view. But the lightspots do not.


Try the light-manager.nas in the 777 for an example implementation as the shuttle lights are for illuminating a fixed position, not moving with the aircraft.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:42 pm

legoboyvdlp wrote in Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:24 pm:ALS secondary lights do move with the view if you use the right mouse to pan the view. But the lightspots do not.


Try the light-manager.nas in the 777 for an example implementation as the shuttle lights are for illuminating a fixed position, not moving with the aircraft.

I downloaded the 777 from the Flightgear download page, and there is no light-manager.nas that I can find.
Can you point me to somewhere I can get the setup for the lightspots?

Edit: Never mind. I found the nas file for the C172. I'll take a look at that.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby Thorsten » Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:20 pm

ALS secondary lights do move with the view if you use the right mouse to pan the view.


The flashlight variant does - the others should not move (much).

In any case, the Alouette-III has a rather explicit effect manager (including lights) written as a demonstration of how it might all be implemented.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby icecode » Sun Feb 24, 2019 3:29 pm

so Thorsten, tell us something about compositor technology, what will do and when we can get it?


It attempts to bring multipass rendering to FG. It doesn't produce anything "tangible" by itself, but offers the underlying tools to expand the graphic capabilities of FG, both in the low and the high bound.

About when it will be available, it already is. There is not much to see though, as it just imitates how things currently are. The next step would be to migrate both ALS and Rembrandt features to this new framework and from there we can start adding new features.

I am considering buying a Nvidia K1200 to replace the P600 if this will solve my challenge.


In general, the "gaming" cards offer much better performance per dollar than the Quadro series. They usually offer better clock speeds, more VRAM and work better in multiscreen setups. All of that with a much cheaper price tag. The Quadro series usually works better in offline rendering tasks and science-related stuff.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby legoboyvdlp » Sun Feb 24, 2019 4:10 pm

SurferTim wrote in Sun Feb 24, 2019 2:42 pm:I downloaded the 777 from the Flightgear download page, and there is no light-manager.nas that I can find.
Can you point me to somewhere I can get the setup for the lightspots?

Edit: Never mind. I found the nas file for the C172. I'll take a look at that.


Try
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/flightgear/f ... nk/777.zip

The lights are not yet in the release version but it will be next time. That link is the development version.

The c172p example is a bit complicated, I suggest the alouette-iii or the 777.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby V12 » Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:36 pm

Do not buy K1200, if You need MXM card for notebook, try to buy at least Quadro K2000. Amazon or ebay is full of that used cards with very friendly prices.
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Re: Graphics card and Rembrandt rendering

Postby SurferTim » Thu Feb 28, 2019 3:05 pm

V12 wrote in Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:36 pm:Do not buy K1200, if You need MXM card for notebook, try to buy at least Quadro K2000. Amazon or ebay is full of that used cards with very friendly prices.

Why would I want to go from a Quadro P600 2GB 384 core card to a K2000 2GB 384 core card, when the K1200 is a 4GB 512 core card? Just wondering...

Edit: Landing light challenge solved. I'm flying at night again.
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