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Apr 29, 2004, 1:20am

I was greeted with an upgrade window on AW. Stupid me, I clicked ok and got
3.5.
It looks crappy to say the least as compared to 3.4.
In 3.4, you could walk up to an object and it's crystal
clear and sharp. Not in 3.5....looks all blurry and pixely.
:-P
Now let's consider the worlds/contact list. In 3.5, this
is a separate entity. It floats. For me to see what's going
on, I have to keep that stupid window open.
In 3.4, it made a lot more sense. It was attatched. And
the worlds could be easily read. Not in the case with 3.5
where they have letters represented the worlds.
Was someone drunk when they designed 3.5??????
Frame rate. Quite simply, the frame rate sucks in 3.5
I can move around fast but whoop de doo. :-P
They (AW) sacrificed better graphics for blurry graphics.
The stupid pop up worlds/contact list is a pain. Frame
rate is bad.
Wow.......all these great qualities! I must rush off and
install 3.5. No thanks, I trashed 3.5 and am happily back
on 3.4. :-)
The end.

Apr 29, 2004, 3:05am

Awww another satisfied customer.


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Apr 29, 2004, 6:02am

The blurry graphics might come from the fact that "mipmaps" now turn on
again by default - they need to be de-activated manually.

For all other issues - you summed it up good enough. :-)



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Apr 29, 2004, 2:51pm

[View Quote] Yup, Options menu, Settings: take off "Use Texture Mipmaps" checkmark.

Options, Settings, Video: put a checkmark in "Hardware T&L Support" box,
if you have a sufficiently new graphics card (most do).

Worlds list: you must resize the Worlds column by dragging
the narrow vertical line between column headers to right.
This was noted during beta but unfortunately never fixed.

About the floating tab window: well you just have to resize it
and move it to the side for now, maybe they'll redesign it for 3.6.

--
Mauz
http://mauz.info

Apr 29, 2004, 3:11pm

That's inacceptable since it gives less space for the action buttons which
would then run beyond the edge of the screen.
Install 3.4 and delete the file called upgrade.exe, then you won't have to
worry anymore about accidentally pressing the OK button.

> About the floating tab window: well you just have to resize it
> and move it to the side for now, maybe they'll redesign it for 3.6.
>
> --
> Mauz
> http://mauz.info
>
>

Apr 29, 2004, 3:37pm

Mipmaps off actually looks worse.

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Apr 29, 2004, 4:18pm

Mipmaps look terrible IMO.
*digs up old picture* http://swcity.samspcservice.com/whymmsucks.jpg lol
A little Anisotropic Filtering is the better alternative.

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Apr 29, 2004, 4:53pm

Unfortunately, the tab does not remember its position anymore and turns
now up either on the main window middle left or on the main window lower
left (depending whether you closed AW with exit or X and open or closed
tabs).


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Apr 29, 2004, 4:54pm

incorrect. you may not get the upgrades, but you wont get them either
when AW makes upgrades compulsory. you keep older versions at your own
risk, because new world features will not work with older browsers:

1) terrain offset
2) water under terrain
3) special urls that send signals to bots (aworld:?)
etc...

i suggest that worlds that do use the new features place a global mode
bot that ejects on entry (with an explanatory message, of course) all
browsers that are lower than a certain build. i will provide either a
xelagot script for that, or include it in the xelagot options :)

Alex

[View Quote] >That's inacceptable since it gives less space for the action buttons which
>would then run beyond the edge of the screen.
>Install 3.4 and delete the file called upgrade.exe, then you won't have to
>worry anymore about accidentally pressing the OK button.
>
>

Apr 29, 2004, 6:25pm

It really depends on the video card, IMO.
I've been running a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 with all the nVidia anti-aliasing and
graphics settings set to incredibly high. It looks great to me. :)

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Apr 29, 2004, 6:38pm

Alex NO! That's crazy! Some people (like me) love to use older versions of
AW. I have been using 3.3 since it has come out, and if I get ejected from
another world........

Jaguar Hahn


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Apr 29, 2004, 7:06pm

On 29 Apr 2004 16:38:34 -0400, "jaguar hahn"
[View Quote] >Alex NO! That's crazy! Some people (like me) love to use older versions of
>AW. I have been using 3.3 since it has come out, and if I get ejected from
>another world........
>
>Jaguar Hahn

Jaguar, world owners also have rights. If you have, as world owner,
spent a lot of time and care building your world with certain
properties, and someone comes in and sees a mess, they may want to
decide you must come in with the right browser.

I'm adding this feature to the next xelagots: the caretaker bot can
set a minimum browser restriction, send a message about this to the
person, and can optionally eject the person for 20 seconds.

The don't need to use this feature, but they can if they think their
work requires this :)

Alex

Apr 29, 2004, 8:13pm

Please make this feature optional to use Alex, at least for now ... let the
world owner determine eject time duration, and in the bot message as to why
they are being ejected at least put in the url where they can get the update
so it shows in their log?

LNH

--

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Apr 29, 2004, 9:04pm

"The[y] don't need to use this feature, but they can if they think their
work requires this :)"


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Apr 29, 2004, 10:01pm

[View Quote] >"The[y] don't need to use this feature, but they can if they think their
>work requires this :)"

Exactly, zeofatex.

If people stop being so emotional about changes in layout and
features, and just try them out honestly, you might find out a lot of
goodies are in store, and more will come. If you don't want the
goodies, it's your choice, it's also the world and universe owner's
choice to allow what they will. Fair is fair.

But don't expect that a universe owner (let alone AW) will keep on
supporting older builds. 2.2 browsers are banned, and AW will
certainly ban browsers when security or other changes call for it.

What I do hope is that newer browsers and bot SDKs will allow backward
compatibility. That is for me essential to carry on supporting my bot
development.

Alex

Apr 29, 2004, 10:43pm

Actually it makes it look worse.

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Apr 29, 2004, 10:45pm

Ahh don't have AA on, maybe it's why my geforce fx 5900 XT looks terrible.

[View Quote] > It really depends on the video card, IMO.
> I've been running a GeForce 4 Ti 4600 with all the nVidia anti-aliasing and
> graphics settings set to incredibly high. It looks great to me. :)
>
[View Quote]

Apr 30, 2004, 3:09am

hmmm i like new browser good work ppl
[View Quote]
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Apr 30, 2004, 8:31am

i like too the new browser :))
with ati radeon 9700 pro , the browser is very good and fast
"elysium" <colinl at ihug.co.nz> a écrit dans le message de
news:4091df82 at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> hmmm i like new browser good work ppl
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Apr 30, 2004, 8:47am

yay we have same radeon 9700!!!
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Apr 30, 2004, 10:50am

yes very good card :))
i like ati radeon
"ry" <rbirkin at SPAMiinet.net.au> a écrit dans le message de
news:40922edc at server1.Activeworlds.com...
> yay we have same radeon 9700!!!
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Apr 30, 2004, 12:13pm

[View Quote] Yah I had to resize it narrower and move around before it would stick,
took quite a few browser restarts to get it right.
Have you tried setting tab_x and tab_y to 0 in aworld.ini?

--
Mauz
http://mauz.info

Apr 30, 2004, 9:48pm

OMG, with mipmaps off EVERYTHING SPARKLES LIKE GLITTER.. is this same
for everybody? why would i want aw to look like someone poured colored
glitter? it sparkes when i walk :O

[View Quote] > Mipmaps look terrible IMO.
> *digs up old picture* http://swcity.samspcservice.com/whymmsucks.jpg lol
> A little Anisotropic Filtering is the better alternative.
>
[View Quote]

Apr 30, 2004, 10:03pm

"xelag" <xelag at digitalspace.com> kirjoitti viestiss
news:lu43905t53e13iojheqf7d0jqd4dg0akmb at 4ax.com...
[View Quote] I agree to a certian point, but not quite sure how I could tell myself that
a floating tab window covering up the chat and the window is a goodie.
It makes chatting hard and one cannot even walk straight. They could
atleast have made an option to have to the left as it was before. I guess
this is the only reason why I do not use 3.5

Drac

Apr 30, 2004, 10:44pm

I used to not be able to tolerate AW's mipmapping; then I decided to try it again for a few days after I got my new system in February. I now cannot go back; I see the same glittery effect you do.

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May 1, 2004, 1:06am

How it looks depends on many things, like screen resolution, color
depth, various settings for the graphic card etc. - So the same settings
in the AW program can look very different on 2 computers. In addition,
the texture resources play a big role, too.

I have for instance antialiasing and anisotropic filtering turned off
and mipmaps turned off - and the picture looks very crisp, clear and
colorful on a 22" monitor using 1024*768 resolution at 100Hz and 32 Bit
color depth (GFti4400) - same on a LCD ( at 60Hz) with the GFmx440 or on a
notebook using ATImobility. All of the above with DirectD8 with T&L, of
course, for Dx7, opengl and software mode, I would pick other settings.

When I turn antialiasing and/or mipmaps on, it looks more like a washed
out fuzzy picture, sort of like in there.com or in most games.
Antialisaing is, btw, not antialisaing - there are significant
differences between ATI and NVidia and also big differences between the
graphic card versions, in addition, antialiasing can be set in (at least
3) different steps as well.

However, it also depends on the resources - when most textures are
stretched from a 64*64 Pixel size, they wouldn't look too good, while
texture sources of 256*256 or 512*512 are really good (for terrain for
example I would only use 256 or 512 - 1024 do not bring enough quality
improvement anymore, while anything below 256 is quite fuzzy or has
significant block artefacts).
Of course, one has to find the right tradeoff here between texture
quality (and viewing pleasure) on one hand and the loading time on the
other, so when a world has many dialup-modem-visitors, smaller texture
resources will make more sense.

As I said in the beginning, there is a lot of things influencing the
view, and when one world looks nice/bad with specific settings, another
world might give a totally different impression. Not to speak even about
personal preferences (some people like the fuzzy view, others prefer
crisp graphics).

The "glitter" effect is, btw, caused by render
interpolation/interference of color differences between 2 pixel groups -
as such, they depend on the graphic card, the settings of the card, the
texture size (bigger sizes with high tiling frequencies will tend to
glitter from certain angles and distances, those should be used with low
tiling frequencies rather) and the color differences within the picture
(big tonal differences will tend to glitter with high tilings). Even the
actual monitor resolution (virtual and physical) will influence the
actual view.

In this regard, it is more than normal when one says "turning this or
that on or off looks good/bad" and the other says the opposite - only
when all circumstances are the same, 2 people would really see an
identical picture.



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May 1, 2004, 1:16am

It also reduces the number of action buttons on 800*600 screen
resolutions, since when you place the tab left of the main screen, you
need to reduce the width of the main screen by that amount. This is,
without a question, a worsening for some people who use those buttons
and have this or even a lower resolution.

I still do not see a technical reason why the tabs could not be placed
as a child in the main window container and the graphic window is then
resizing itself to match the width. This would not withstand stand-alone
windows, since the simple windows and elements still maintain their own
resources, the only difference then is that the container would be
completely filled (in width) by the graphic child.

As a matter of fact, the other elements still are in a container
(examine the application with a subclassing tool), only the tab control
is not.



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May 1, 2004, 5:27pm

From http://www.activeworlds.com/help/aw35/beta.html


Toolbar images can now be variable size. The button size is the height
of the toolbar image divided by 5.

....
More info on the toolbar.cfg file
The new toolbar will load the toolbar_image.bmp from the /default
directory. This image is divided into 32x32 images to be used as
toolbar buttons. The buttons are numbered horizontally starting with 0
on the left. The image file is divided into four rows as follows:

Row 1: Image of button in its normal, unpressed state.

Row 2: Image of button pressed

Row 3: Image of button in its normal, unpressed state with mouseover.

Row 4: Image of button pressed, with mouseover

Open the toolbar_image.bmp to see how this works.
....

I don't know if it would help making 1x16 pixel buttons, at least more
should fit in the toolbar.

Alex


[View Quote] >It also reduces the number of action buttons on 800*600 screen
>resolutions, since when you place the tab left of the main screen, you
>need to reduce the width of the main screen by that amount. This is,
>without a question, a worsening for some people who use those buttons
>and have this or even a lower resolution.
>
>I still do not see a technical reason why the tabs could not be placed
>as a child in the main window container and the graphic window is then
>resizing itself to match the width. This would not withstand stand-alone
>windows, since the simple windows and elements still maintain their own
>resources, the only difference then is that the container would be
>completely filled (in width) by the graphic child.
>
>As a matter of fact, the other elements still are in a container
>(examine the application with a subclassing tool), only the tab control
>is not.
>
>
>
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May 1, 2004, 6:22pm

It was not about the toolbar - the action (gesture) buttons is the
problem. :-)

Of course, one can make all actions 1 or 2 letters only, but that
wouldn't be much talkative anymore. Even with a lot of abbreviations,
the maximum action buttons was until 3.4 at 20-25, now it will shrink to
about 15-20.
What is needed is some new method of calling actions - for example a the
transformation into the possibility of pictogram style buttons combined
with a fly in/out action bar (actually, why are the toolbars rollbars
and not fly out bars that can be placed horizontally too...).


[View Quote]

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