What now GarageGames ?

#21 If you are on the current drivers, it should work.
The original vista drivers will NOT support OpenGL, no mather if AMD or NVIDIA

If you are not the current ones, it will most likely just crash.
PS: no system manufacturers don't tend to have current drivers so check your version against that one at www.nvidia.com and amd

The prefs.cs is at

torque constructor\constructor\prefs.cs
Torque ShowToolPro\tstpro\common\client\prefs.cs

Change $pref::Video::fullScreen = "0"; to $pref::Video::fullScreen = "1";


To test DX, Change
$pref::Video::displayDevice = "OpenGL"; to
$pref::Video::displayDevice = "DirectX";



and the preferOpenGL to "0"


But I just realized that Show Tool Pro will ignore the fullscreen setting.


In either case: you need to disable the windows vista bar if you want to prevent crashes ... had lot of issues with this useless performance burner

#22 @Petteri: I'm running a Dell XPS M1710 with Intel Core Duo 2.33GHz, 2GB ram, NVidia GeForce Go7900GTX with Vista Ultimate and have had no problems running TGEA / Constructor / ShowTool Pro.

The Microsoft drivers for my card have awful openGL support so I use drivers from www.laptopvideo2go.com - I see the card in your spec posted above is a shiny new 8000 series though so your drivers will be much better.

#23 Thank You guys :)

I'll get back to business as I get the Vaio tomorrow.

#24 To Petteri,
Perhaps you have seen this thread -> www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/result.thread.php?qt=60599
(enjoy the long long read)

We(the community), have been screaming about issues until we are 'blue in the face'.
- Most of us are reprimanded as if we are children, others are insulted. Either way...it is a bit unruly and uncivilized inside these "client walls".
- If you choose to stay, I kindly suggest that you use business terms, ethics and manners from this point.
If it becomes ridiculous, you could always pay a lawyer $500 to get your $300 back. [/rofl]

In fact, I wonder if I will be verbally attacked for trying to inform you of these issues. ??

Either way, please know that 100% of the TGEA license owners know EXACTLY how you feel. ;)

#25 G: I'm a man with cold nerves, but sometimes it just comes to a breaking point, and ones got to
release some steam :)
But ends well all is well, everything works just fine with my Sony Vaio.
And what comes to that 1.02 release the only thing that our team waits is that
support for baked in DTS detail meshes, everything else can be done in-house .
And here's the next bomb: We are not going to wait for those some fixes
for .e.g selfshadowing as we'll fix them by ourselves, and if everything goes we'll
start releasing them as resources :)
When they're done of course LOL.

#26 Hi,
There is something I dont get... the original post says:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
... to build a game which is based on Your engine (TGEA) which I bought couple of months ago...
... ANY other game + application which uses OpenGL (any version) as native API works just fine ...
--------------------------------------------------------------------

AFAIK, TGEA uses DX and not OpenGL. Also, I guess Constructor has some TGEA code somewhere. Try installing the February 2007 DirectX SDK and try again. My laptop has Windows Vista Ultimate and a nVidia 7600 and didn't run TGEA or constructor out of the box. I had to install new drivers for the card and the latest DX in order to run it.

In case you need OGL, the TGE should run in almost any card with more than 64Mb Ram and OGL drivers.

Luck!
Guimo

#27 I'm pretty sure Constructor uses OpenGL, by default. But it can be configured to make DirectX calls just like TGE can.

#28 Constructor is as ShowToolPro pure TGE.

But as mentioned above you can set at least Constructor into Fullscreen mode which is highly adviced as the editor will start to crawl badly quite fast (I'm on Core 2 Duo 2x3Ghz, 2GB RAM, NVidia 8800GTS OC), when you try to create a real level with it as it does not have any culling (it even renders stuff far beyond view and fog range as I had to find out and as it can't be replaced with a stock TGE 1.5.2 or TGEA 1.0.1 build due to the DRM stuff missing, it can't be fixed as it seems).

I'm right now back to Hammer until the Constructor can be used as a CSG level editor which uses CSG stuff internally already and not just after export ...
At the moment it is highly useless for more than smaller stuff like buildings and entity placement with realtime preview

#29

Quote:
At the moment it is highly useless for more than smaller stuff like buildings and entity placement with realtime preview

(light-hearted joke removed, just in case it would have been taken poorly).

I did want to point out that this was your opinion, and that others have different opinions. I will make sure your observation is passed along, but we have many artists that have switched to Constructor and never looked back, and they are quite satisfied.

#30 @marc
Have you tried looking over your computer to see if file paging, or some other memory related issue is taking place. I dont have quite the computer that you do(perhaps its the Nvidia card;)), but with my x1300 ATI, and my 2 GHz CPU with 2.5 Gig of ram i can make a HUGE level, with no LOD on any geometry and I have lost 0 FPS,.... and I make everything with constructor. I had the same type of problems once though and when i did everything and couldn't figure it out i did a re-install of my OS and it all went away, but that was a while ago. Also I find that generally with any engine that uses CSG style geometry that you should make sure your really huge structures should be modular. If you still have further problem i would be happy to explore them with you, contact my email fellow GG memeber, perhaps i can help.

PS- have you tried running a benchmark program to see if your card is running where it is supposed to, but there are other tools that can be used to make sure you card is moving data like it is supposed to im sure:)

#31 I got it fixed. Don't know which part it was but I gave my "clean, opt and check" apps have their working day and now it runs faster.
The modular would be great but there are a few problems on that end (see critics)

But I wanted to say that I'm sorry anyway.
The critic was highly unconstructive and therefor useless.

So I will sum up those points that actually make it hard to get something larger done with it.

1. Brush handling
- Groups are selected as one when clicked in the viewports, but they are not when done in the list.
Either single brushes should be replaced by the group in the list or the list should be replaced with a treeview to allow hierarchy.
I know that there are selection sets which is a nice feature especially as there is no straight VIS Group implementation. But the selection set don't make it really simpler for reason 2

2. Prefabs
Prefabs definitely need some attention.
They should get optimized on export as prefab. Exporting 50 brushes to get 50 brushes back with the problems mentioned in 1 makes it a little annoying getting something usefull in the brush list.
As posted in the request board, one thing I see seriously missing as well are referenced prefabs instead of "merge in" prefabs as they behave right now. Until prefabs are marked somehow special, I don't see even potential to solve this problem through plugins, but perhaps I'm wrong.

3. Optimations
I really like CSG editors, as they allow a lot of usefull stuff not possible or not performant otherwise.
But there is a thing in Constructor that is missing and that is an important thing missing. Thats some way to combine brushes.
As well, CSG Difference Tool can not be used as it does not get correctly registred within the Constructor.
In general there should be a way to optimize within the Constructor, right now you can only make the situation worse or recreate whole sections unless I missed something.




But just to make sure it is not taken the wrong way round:

- I definitely like the plugin part
- Great to be able to get own entities in far simpler
- Its much more "what you see is what you get" than in other editors (beside the known TGEA - TGE differences due to errors in TGEAs lighting code and DIFs)
- Able to place DTS within the DIF already etc

#32 Outstanding feedback Marc, thanks :)