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Sep 2, 2003, 6:24pm

If your in directX rendering mode, you may have noticed you can only render
8 lights at any given time. If you switch to OpenGL, you can see all the
lights in the area. Anyway, if I recall, the 8 light limit wasn't always
there (the earlier versions of AW). So what's up? Is it a directX problem?
An AW problem? Is it supose to be like this for lag (in which case it
should be a client setting)? All I know is that I hate it, because any area
of town that's even slightly dense will run into this problem. If anything,
it should at least only render the closest lights. I can be in a room with
a light, and not see it, but then I lower my vis from 170 to 150 and I can
see it...It's also a vandal problem, as some clown could pop in 20 lights so
the area couldn't have anymore.

- SW Comit

Sep 2, 2003, 8:20pm

As far as I know, it's always been a RenderWare-imposed limitation.

[View Quote] > If your in directX rendering mode, you may have noticed you can only render 8 lights at any given time. If you switch to OpenGL, you can see all the lights in the area. Anyway, if I recall, the 8 light limit wasn't always there (the earlier versions of AW). So what's up? Is it a directX problem? An AW problem? Is it supose to be like this for lag (in which case it should be a client setting)? All I know is that I hate it, because any area of town that's even slightly dense will run into this problem. If anything, it should at least only render the closest lights. I can be in a room with a light, and not see it, but then I lower my vis from 170 to 150 and I can see it...It's also a vandal problem, as some clown could pop in 20 lights so the area couldn't have anymore.
>
> - SW Comit
>
>

Sep 2, 2003, 10:45pm

So I guess we should be writing letters to those folks, shouldn't we? The
light limit is frustrating to me, since I either have to sacrifice
performance and some graphics glitches in OpenGL mode or go in a light-less
AW that otherwise looks good in DirectX mode...and my system can handle way
more than 8 lights :/

-CMM

[View Quote]

Sep 7, 2003, 11:51pm

[View Quote] As I understand it (on my system at least), When rendering under DirectX7
Mode, If more than 8 lights were present, 8 lights will be lit at full
brightness and the rest will be dimmed out (but not completely switched
off).

However under DirectX8 the lights that would otherwise be dimmed out under
DirectX7 mode are completely switch off under DirectX8.

Sep 8, 2003, 2:54pm

"sw comit" <swcomit at swcity.net> wrote in
news:3f54fc67 at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> If your in directX rendering mode, you may have noticed you can only
> render 8 lights at any given time. If you switch to OpenGL, you can
> see all the lights in the area. Anyway, if I recall, the 8 light
> limit wasn't always there (the earlier versions of AW). So what's up?
> Is it a directX problem? An AW problem? Is it supose to be like this
> for lag (in which case it should be a client setting)? All I know is
> that I hate it, because any area of town that's even slightly dense
> will run into this problem. If anything, it should at least only
> render the closest lights. I can be in a room with a light, and not
> see it, but then I lower my vis from 170 to 150 and I can see
> it...It's also a vandal problem, as some clown could pop in 20 lights
> so the area couldn't have anymore.

It's got to do with hardware T&L limitations and RW being a piece of crap.

Most 3D accelerators will only render 8 lights at a time. The normal thing
would be to use software ligthing for any additional lights in the scene.
RW doesn't. That simple heh. Not sure if this is anything the AWI
programmers can deal with (probably not).


KAH

Sep 9, 2003, 6:58am

You're right, AWI said it's renderware's fault. Course, if I'm not
mistaken, AW is using an older version of renderware. Perhaps they've fixed
it, though it probably costs a fortune no doubt =P

Regardless, lights really need some kinda of priority, where the closest
lights would render first. On a related note, cells closest to you should
also download first. X_X at how it seems like the only cell you wanna see
loads last, lol.

[View Quote]

Sep 24, 2003, 7:05pm

3.0 and 3.1 used direct 3d .. correct? they all had huge numbers of
lights.. so did 3.2... i swear this support disappeared in 3.3 +

Sep 25, 2003, 3:06pm

"r i c h a r d" <richard.lazenby1 at ntlworld.com> wrote in news:3f720702$1
at server1.Activeworlds.com:

> 3.0 and 3.1 used direct 3d .. correct? they all had huge numbers of
> lights.. so did 3.2... i swear this support disappeared in 3.3 +

I don't think they used HW t&l, and didn't they upgrade their RW3 version
at some point? If Criterion decide to change something, they're stuck with
it that way.

KAH

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