Marine Aquarium 3 Rumors and Speculation

[ESHIREY]

HEHEHEHEHE I use the Advance settings. I used the basic before but you can do a lot more in advance.

[Edgar]

AIT has not fixed the issues with the new cards yet. My Radeon 2600 still fails to render MA2.6 with out anomalies.
However, it does handle MA3 very well.

[cjmaddy]

Originally posted by ESHIREY:

HEHEHEHEHE I use the Advance settings. I used the basic before but you can do a lot more in advance.  

Yes, Ed, - but such as? ..... And what improvement is there to MA2.6, DA, etc, etc, - by doing so?

[ESHIREY]

I'm sorry buddy. I know it always seems like I'm picking on you or something like that. Trust me buddy, I'm not. There are different settings that you can set, and too me, they do make a difference. I always use the advance settings in all programs and games.

I am sooooooooooooo sorry if I come across like that. PLEASE tell me if I am doing it. Not just you. I mean everyone.

[cjmaddy]

Alright, Ed, but which advanced settings do you use? - Just tell us which ones, and what advantage or improvement there is!

It's no good telling us you use some settings, but then not saying what they are, or what they do!

[henemly]

Exactly what I'd like to know, too.

Originally posted by Jav400:

choose advanced and right click, the "whats this" will tell you what each one does. Personally I generally use TSAA alot. Wheather you want to sacrifice for the super or not is up too you. I've got the fps to spare.  

Thanks. How easy was that.

[Jav400]

choose advanced and right click, the "whats this" will tell you what each one does. Personally I generally use TSAA alot. Wheather you want to sacrifice for the super or not is up too you. I've got the fps to spare.

[ESHIREY]

Your right Cliff. My wife would agree with you. She says that I have a hell of a time explaning my self.

To make it real simple, just do what Michael said. That is how I make my choice of what I want. I think I have them all set to best quality, meaning the ones I turn on might affect the fps. But like Michael said too, I have the fps to spare too.

[johnblommers]

Originally posted by ESHIREY:

... My wife ... says that I have a hell of a time explaning my self.  

No worries Ed, just make sure you tell her every day that you love her

Originally posted by ESHIREY:

... I have the fps to spare too.  

MA2.x and MA3 appear to be well written and throw incredible frame rates. IMHO anything over 24fps is overkill. I've seen screen shots with fps in the hundreds and I call BS on that. The human eye cannot discern it and the vertical scan rate of LCDs is typically 60 Hz, so anything higher than that is unusable. But boys will be boys and higher fps are bragging rights ....
I'd be curious about Jim's reading on frame rates in excess of 60 Hz. The LCD can't go faster so what's really reported by the code?

[Jav400]

In the first place; passed 24fps is not overkill. If it was why would they waste so much film getting to 30 or 60 for tv? The only thing that is done at 24 is commercials sometimes, and thats just to save film. And in the second place; having a card that lets me get those kind of frame rates to start with, lets me turn on all the other things like AA, TSAA, AF, and so on that do make a huge difference, and still get frame rates that look incredibly smooth and make a difference at over 125fps. My monitor runs at 85.

[feldon34]

Originally posted by johnblommers:

IMHO anything over 24fps is overkill. I've seen screen shots with fps in the hundreds and I call BS on that. The human eye cannot discern it and the vertical scan rate of LCDs is typically 60 Hz  

And I call BS on what you just wrote.

Muybridge demonstrated that motion could be perceived with as few as 10-12 frames per second, but more was better. Sound synchronized film was standardized on 24fps.

Eadweard Muybridge Museum

If most people could not discern higher framerates, why on earth would TV stations spend millions of dollars upgrading to 60 frames per second output? Why would IMAX spend millions of dollars shooting their movies in 48 frames per second? I can certainly discern the difference between 60 and 75fps and I think many other forum members can as well.

I think more research is in order.

[Jim Sachs]

Technically, anything over your screen refresh rate is overkill, as the intermediate frames are just thrown away. But in the real world, other programs get in the way and steal clock cycles, so it's handy to have a frame in reserve so that it's not necessary to wait for another trip through the render loop. Thus, if your monitor is set at 60hz, a computer generating 100 fps will look slightly smoother than one which is matching the monitor at 60 fps. On MA2.6, you can see this phenomenon as very slight jerks of the bubble column.

Yes, movies are 24 fps and TV (in the U.S.) is 30 fps. So, why do they both look so smooth, and the Aquarium looks so jittery at 24 fps? It's because film and video are captured at shutter-speeds which blur moving objects from one frame to the next. The Aquarium draws each object in one clear, distinct position every frame, which gives a visual-staccato effect at slow speeds.

On very fast systems, it's possible to generate several intermediate positions of an object and blend them into one picture before the next frame gets drawn, creating an artificial motion-blur. Fish don't usually move fast enough to need this, but I may have to use the effect when I do the Butterfly Habitat.

[jleslie]

BTW film shown in Cinemas is 48Hz, they show each frame twice to reduce the flicker... or more than that for the last performance of the day. (I have a friend who used to work in a cinema, the projectionists tended to run the last performance at a slightly higher frame rate so they could go home earlier.)

TV tends to be at the mains electricity frequency of the country it's in use at (field rates of 60Hz in US, 50 in Europe) as electric lights actually pulse at this frequency, plus low-cost circuitry in early TVs could let some mains frequency ripple through and it can cause interference effects with pictures at differing frequencies. (It also allows an easy way to synchronise a bunch of CCTV cameras in a factory, just sync them to the mains.)

P.S. the good thing about stonking frame rates in MA3 is it means there's still headroom for adding lots of living corals :-)

John

[cjmaddy]

Yes, the 'What's this?', gives more details, but I wanted Ed to tell us his findings of what the 'real world' effects were.

I've experimented with Transparency antialiasing's, 'Supersampling', as I said here. - And the other Advanced setting I use is Negative LOD bias: - Set for 'Clamp', - because it says that that setting is beneficial if you use AF. (Which I do).
(But I'm uncertain of their need, or even if they improve anything very much).

Other advanced settings get changed automatically due to other setting options, ie, if set for DualView. (Which I also use).
But it's those 'Basic settings' that make the major difference, with a day-and-night improvement to the 'jaggies'.

To just say, "I always use the advance settings in all programs and games", is not helpful. - Which ones, and that they are changed to, - and what improvements are then likely to be seen. - Are the details people want to know!!!

A press of the Print/Screen key, to show some comparison screen shots, would also not go amiss! ... If the change is worth having.

[jleslie]

Hmmm, Nvidia 9600GT cards are appearing...
http://reviews.cnet.com/graphics-car...ml?tag=nl.e501
I imagine an ATi price-cut/new models will follow soon...
Good for everyone!
John

[drfish]

Bah! You can get a 512MB 8800GT for < $200... Until the 9600GT is in the $150 range they don't deserve to exist.

[Jim Sachs]

John - That's hilarious about your friend showing the last film of the day at a faster speed. What about the sound? Even a little speedup can make the actors sound like Muppets.

[MadBob]

Sheesh I go away for 3 years, visit the forum and everything is happening, I wonder if I go away for another 3 years it will have been released to the public

[Marian Nichols]

Welcome back Bob, yep, things picking up!

[JamesLA]

Not sure if this has been brought up here, but I still like M.A. 2.6 and would like to keep it when M.A. 3.0 is ready. Would we still be able to run both versions on our computer?

James